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Darkness Assassin/Kinetic Combat Shadow Set Bonus Discussion


EricMusco

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Hey everyone,

 

We wanted to take a moment to reach out to the community to collect ideas on set bonuses. We are looking for opinions on current and previous set bonuses as well as concepts for future. This thread will cover Darkness Assassins/Kinetic Combat Shadows.

 

Note: Our intent is to have set bonuses not increase survivability by more than 5%. Please keep this in mind when posting your suggestions.

 

Current Level 60 Set Bonuses (for reference)

  • 2-Piece: Wither or Slow Time increases damage reduction by 2% for 3 seconds.
  • 4-Piece: Wither or Slow Time reduces the cooldown of Mind Control and Mass Mind Control by 2 seconds per activation.
  • 6-Piece: Dark Ward's or Kinetic Ward's duration is increased by 3 seconds and charges are increased by 3.

Cheers, all!

The SWTOR Combat Team

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I think it's much more fun if the set bonus don't provide flat stat increases but something that translates into something extra and fun.

Just new concepts, not specific numbers or required pieces for activations.

 

Activating Dark Charge will heal you for 35% of the next damage taken (in effect 65% reduction for the first attack or spell but still lethal)

 

Using Lacerate increases your evasion by 10% for 8 seconds, can only be triggered once every 25 seconds

 

Force Pull pulls up to 5-8 enemies to your location,

 

Spike increases your physical damage output by 25% for 4 seconds.

 

While these are all fairly different from previous concepts where stat bonuses provide more or less just a flat defensive stat bonuses I think you should branch out and find out that stat bonuses can be ways to include new spells in the rotations and make them more fun and/or viable.

 

I think this game kind of misses a system like glyphs in wow, especially since some classes are very similar and share multiple core spells.

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I like the current 2-piece, and indifferent with the 4-piece. I never made it a priority to get the 6-piece, as it made such a small change. I also believe set bonus related to tanks shouldn't mix with increasing damage, but should apply to tanking abilities and damage resistance instead.

 

I would certainly be motivated to get the 6-piece if it were closer to increasing the duration of Deflection, or reducing the cool down of Deflection.

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The two piece set bonus I feel is fine.

 

The four piece one I'm indifferent to. It helps very slightly on some fights but generally doesn't feel like something that's incredibly needed. With the exception of the first 30 seconds of the fight I'll never use my taunts generally unless there's a swap mechanic or an aggro dump, but the fights are designed already where the standard cooldown for my taunts is plenty of time for me.

 

The six piece I'm not a fan of. The increased duration and charges really just means that's 3 extra seconds that I don't have to refresh Dark/Kinetic Ward. I'd much prefer something that benefited defensive cooldowns, like decreasing Deflection's cooldown or giving a straight boost to some other skill. Or a critical hit chance. Or maybe making the next Wither/Slow Time do double the threat or some other utility for the fight.

 

The four piece and six piece could stand to be changed. At the minimum six piece. While some people may like it (and I'm sure it has very practical purpose) I'm just not a fan of it.

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I have never been satisfied with the 6piece. Reasons:

 

3 extra stacks

These extra stacks are only useful against bosses with a high number of hits per second. This means it's only good for some of the current tier bosses and is nigh useless for the previous tier. This problem becomes even more relevant in 4.0 when all the old ops will be boosted to lvl 65 and drop the same tier of loot.

 

3 second duration increase

The increased duration is only useful to certain people based purely on playstyle:

  • Low skill level assassins: People who usually refresh Dark Ward too late anyway get an extra 3 seconds to compensate for their negligence. Good for them.
  • High skill level assassins: People who watch their buff bar like a hawk to only refresh Dark Ward right when it is about to fall off get a potential extra 3 seconds of Dark Bulwark, assuming that the stacks aren't depleting before the time is up. Icing on the cake for good players.

 

This leaves the group of mid skill level assassins who just refresh Dark Ward on cooldown. They get nothing from this duration increase.

 

 

I want to contrast this with the 6 piece of the other two tanking classes which improves their main defensive cooldowns in a way that is always useful regardless of playstyle/varying skill level. The 2 piece and 4 piece bonuses are almost perfect mirrors, but when it comes to the 6 piece, Assassins clearly get the short end of the stick.

 

My suggestion:

Change the 6 piece so that it augments an existing defensive utility. Maybe a duration increase on Deflection? A boost to the healing procs during Overcharge Saber? Or maybe an increased duration or Shield Chance for the Recklessness buff?

Edited by Gardimuer
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Remove the current 6 piece and use the old 4 piece in its place (damage reduction 2% plus the 5 extra shield rating from the 2 set bonus). Problem solved.

 

What real shadow/assassins are doing now is running the old 186 set bonus + 192 or 198 chest piece for the extra little bit of armor, and Belt/ Bracers too of course. So we end up with 3 198 or 192 pieces, 1 "new" set bonus, and 2 "old" set bonuses.

 

We're really squishy as we are. I'm not saying we can't clear content, but I tank with my shadow, vanguard, guardian and jugg on progression. I'm 8/10, and I've also killed monolith on HM. Shadow is my main -and favorite character- but I must say it's a pain to survive compared to guardians and (specially) vanguards.

 

Like this we'll have extra charges and duration on kinetic ward, extra shield rating, quicker taunt (really important for the newer operations), a tiny bit (2%) of damage reduction, and also the other 2% from slow time.

 

Over all I believe survivability would go higher than 5%, yes, but only because the other tank's survivabilities are already quite a bit higher than the shadow's. Fixing the set bonuses and putting shadows at where the other tanks are right now as far as viability goes.

 

Just give us what we want and it'll all be fixed.

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Remove the current 6 piece and use the old 4 piece in its place (damage reduction 2% plus the 5 extra shield rating from the 2 set bonus). Problem solved.

 

What real shadow/assassins are doing now is running the old 186 set bonus + 192 or 198 chest piece for the extra little bit of armor, and Belt/ Bracers too of course. So we end up with 3 198 or 192 pieces, 1 "new" set bonus, and 2 "old" set bonuses.

 

We're really squishy as we are. I'm not saying we can't clear content, but I tank with my shadow, vanguard, guardian and jugg on progression. I'm 8/10, and I've also killed monolith on HM. Shadow is my main -and favorite character- but I must say it's a pain to survive compared to guardians and (specially) vanguards.

 

Like this we'll have extra charges and duration on kinetic ward, extra shield rating, quicker taunt (really important for the newer operations), a tiny bit (2%) of damage reduction, and also the other 2% from slow time.

 

Over all I believe survivability would go higher than 5%, yes, but only because the other tank's survivabilities are already quite a bit higher than the shadow's. Fixing the set bonuses and putting shadows at where the other tanks are right now as far as viability goes.

 

Just give us what we want and it'll all be fixed.

 

Throwing the whole old set bonus into the new 6 piece is a bit too powerful compared to the other tanks. I think it would be a lot more balanced to, say, reduce the cooldown of Overcharge Saber slightly. Real Assassins/Shadows, though? If you want to talk about the best tanks, they're going to be using both set bonuses and swapping. Or just sticking to one and not even caring, because their skill makes up for the difference, but if you want to just laugh at the math showing that the old 4 piece isn't strictly better, be my guest. If you're struggling to survive as an Assassin in these operations, then you're doing mechanics wrong or using cooldowns poorly. My Republic co-tank is pretty hardy in the 192 set bonus gear, and he ends up tanking both Sword Squadron units and has little trouble with it.

 

On to my own opinions...

 

I'm okay with the 2 piece, but it needs to be made equivalent to the other two tanks. PTs have a vastly stronger set bonus (higher magnitude, roughly equal duration if you're being attacked), while Juggs have it balanced about to where I think they intended. PTs just benefit too much from it being tied to Heat Blast, while Assassins have it tied to Wither, which has a longer cooldown than the magnitude of the buff would suggest it should to balance it against the tanks. I think that if they tied the PT 2 piece to Rail Shot and decreased the magnitude accordingly, then adjusted the magnitude of the Assassin set bonus, it would be a solid, balanced 2 piece.

 

Our 4 piece is interesting. It allows an 18 second opener with no taunt gaps, which makes it nearly impossible to lose aggro to a dps, assuming you can pop all your taunts in a row like that. With that in mind, I despise the idea of making taunts necessary to hold aggro. While this set bonus is rather nice in PvP, I think I would rather see some kind of threat boost tied to Force Pull that also taunts nearby enemies. I think that would be cool, but that's just my opinion.

 

The 6 piece is underwhelming. Period. I'd rather see a reduction in the cooldown of Overcharge Saber, or maybe even Shroud, but that might be a little too much. That, or an extra mini-cooldown would be cool. As much as I loved the old set bonus, I think it's too strong compared to what's around now. Also, as for losing the current 6 piece, I don't see why the extra stacks aren't made baseline: 1.7 to 2.0 saw a jump in stacks, why not a slight jump in 2.10 to 3.0, or 4.0 now that it's on the horizon?

Edited by Aelanis
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2 Piece: I think this is perfectly fine. Leave this as it is.

4 Piece: I'm not so sure about this one... I know there are a lot of aggro drops in this tier of operations, however, Taunts are not used "rotationally" ideally. So, this can be fixed, I personally would like to see the old 2 piece back.

6 Piece: I think this is underwhelming, but combined with our old 2 Piece (or new 4 piece, if by some miracle my suggestion happens), I don't think it would be so underwhelming.

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This will be a long post, Sin-tank is basically my main and my pride and joy at this stage. So since Mr. Musco is asking for feedback, I am going to provide a lot of feedback.

 

Alright time for more than my 2 cents on the matter of the Sin set bonus for Darkness. I will precede this by saying the following about myself (as I know I'm a semi-unknown on the forums, I lurk a lot);

I have been tanking on a Sin since a few months before 2.0 went live. I have tanked the Dread Ops in their Nightmare release state and I have been tanking the current content through Revan (to floor 3 of Revan, have not killed). So I do consider myself somewhat of a knowledgeable Sin tank player, I may not be the best but I am average if not above average in my opinion.

 

Alright onto my takes;

 

Current Two piece;

2% DR on Wither that lasts for 3 seconds on an ability that has roughly a 9 second CD, you spend roughly a third of a boss fight with this up. Personally, its fine. As a Sin I know that if I’m expecting a big hit, for example Mega Blast for Sword One, I can delay Wither for a second or two and cast it as I see Mega Blast charging up, and take 2% less damage. Same with like the cross on Underlurker, I can get an extra 2% DR for that hit from the cross. I could list a lot of other situations where this would also be doable, without causing issues with keeping Protection stacks up. This is also mirrored by the other tanks, so it should be left alone or changed for all 3.

 

Current Four piece;

I’ll be honest. I don’t use it. Flat out. I see no reason in any of these operations to actually need a faster taunt. Only reason is taunt fluffing for insane threat numbers, which between two tanks and how often the tank swaps have to happen in these bosses. It makes taunt fluffing nearly useless as you need your taunt for something coming up in a few seconds. Plus there is another issue with this that I will address in a moment. But keep this where it is as the other two tanks have a mirror of this, meaning if it gets changed for 1 it needs to be changed for all three.

 

Current Six piece;

Again, I’ll be honest. I don’t use this at all. To me it is absolutely garbage and when you take 2 things into account, it feels like Sin’s got the short end of the stick. Personally, I have a habit of pressing my Dark Ward button, even when I’m not tanking. It is like a tick I developed from tanking for so long on a Sin. I always seem to press it just as it falls off, or within a second of it falling off. And with this set I feel like, it is not needed. I can honestly count on my hands how many bosses have caused me to lose my dark ward stacks (the default amount of them). And most of them are very rapid fire or add heavy fights.

 

I also feel like the six piece is the short end of the stick. I would like to bring your attention to the following Bioware & Mr. Musco. Mind you, these are quotes from your current topics going up in every section;

Current Level 60 Set Bonuses (for reference)

  • 2-Piece: Heat Blast or Energy Blast increases damage reduction by 2% for 5 seconds.
  • 4-Piece: While Ion Gas Cylinder or Ion Cell is active, Rocket Punch or Stockstrike reduce the cooldowns of Neural Dart and Sonic Missile or Neural Jolt and Sonic Round by 2 seconds.
  • 6-Piece: Increases the duration of Oil Slick or Riot Gas by 3 seconds and the duration of Energy Shield or Reactive Shield by 4 seconds.

Current Level 60 Set Bonuses (for reference)

  • 2-Piece: Crushing Blow or Guardian Slash increases damage reduction by 2% for 4 seconds.
  • 4-Piece: Aegis Assault or Warding Strike reduces the cooldown of Taunt and Challenging Call or Threatening Scream by 2 seconds per activation.
  • 6-Piece: Increases the duration of Blade Turning by 1.5 second, and the duration of Invincible or Warding Call by 3 seconds.
  • Cheers, all!

 

Alright, every tank and even non-tanks should be well familiar with these set bonuses. I have to ask this, and I seriously hope I can get an answer as this has been bugging me since it was mentioned.

Why was the 6 piece Sin tanking set not something from the lvl 55 tanking set?

 

The Jugg tank 6-piece is not only a word for word copy of their 180/186 tier 2 piece, but an improved version of it (.5 seconds on Blade Turning and a full second to Invincible).

The PT tank 6-piece is an increase of their old 2 piece as well, adding 1 second to both Oil slick and shield.

 

Yet the Sin 6-piece is totally off the rails, it affects dark ward in a totally different way than before. It gives it stacks and duration to dark ward. Yet both Jugg & PT sets are a mirror of their old set and improved versions of it. I would like to see the 6-piece redesigned to be worth it, as it stands now it is really not worth it. I will say, I have a full 6-piece set just encase I needed to run the reduced CD on taunts because of mechanics. But I never put a premium on getting it for the 6 piece.

 

One way I see to fix the 6-piece is to make it a combination of the old 2 piece and the old 4 piece as that is what a majority of Sin tanks that I know of run. I personally run it because it means I get 41.89% DR & 64% shield chance w/ dark ward (mind you it’s a 20% boost for me). When I go to full 198 armoring w/ new set bonus I get 40.73% DR and 59% shield chance. Sin tanks are already on the lower end for flat damage reduction (Juggs get baseline ~47% and PTs get ~50%) which means in theory without any shield involved we take more damage than the other tanks. So giving my Sin the 2% DR bonus from the old set bonus with the flat base DR of 198 it would give me a 0.84% DR increase over what I have now. Given that my Sin is in min/maxed gear at this stage (full 198s and 204 MH) I am defiantly at the top end of the spectrum for DR values, I do not think that this would majorly impact the “We don’t want the tank set bonuses to increase tank survivability by more than 5%” philosophy that you guys and gals are aiming for.

 

If the idea of continuing with the trend set by PT and Jugg tank sets, then increasing each of the numbers by 1% would be 3% DR and 6% shield chance, bringing the DR value increase to 1.84% and at least 1% more shield chance (65% for my example above). Again, I’m not sure how much this goes against your intended statement. As I personally am not very sure how much the current Sin tank set affects the survivability value of Sin’s according to the desired 5% number. So any proposed change is hard to say, but I defiantly think the first idea of just replacing the current 6-piece with the old set-bonuses (both 5% to dark ward and 2% Damage reduction) is a very favorable idea. It is a minimal increase of damage reduction and to many an unnoticed change of shield chance.

 

I hope that we can get a response to this, and I am looking forward to seeing if anything comes of this.

~Zen

 

 

 

For those that may want the tl;dr version;

2 & 4 piece are fine, ether change them for all 3 tanks or leave them. The 6 piece needs a major rework, I propose to remove it and replace it with the old 2 piece AND 4 piece. It will on a min/max 198 armoring Sin cause a 0.84% increase of DR presuming said Sin is already running old 4 w/ 186s and a 198 head, chest, or legs armoring along with 198 belt/bracer.

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For pvp I have kept the original 2 peice bonus 10 sec off Spike...for pvp its a must...we can barely heal we have the worse self heals in game Drr is trash for pvp so being able to cc more often with 5% extra damage is nice with Our rotation since it is clunky so a spike I can use more often makes it much more smooth and epic feeling. Edited by Jiminison
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Maybe I'm alone on this, but I'm not a fan of the taunt reduction.

 

You're not. The taunt reduction only matters with the current tier of content because mechanics make it useful. It will not matter when we are playing pre-3.0 raids for progression again.

 

There are fights where a fast taunt is great (i.e. fights with a lot of adds, thinking specifically of Revanite Commanders) where you literally cannot taunt every group of adds with an AoE. In the pre-3.0 fights, fights were tuned to where adds and switches happened at times where taunts would be up if you played well and planned in advance (the tightest fight was probably Draxus). There are never times where you need to taunt but cant unless you or a teammate made a mistake If you are tanking the old fights with this set bonus, all this is give you a chance to pad your threat per second. This is a waste of a set bonus unless they re-tune the old operations; this needs to go with Fallen Empire.

 

The pre-3.0 set bonus was great, but perhaps overpowered at current gear levels (I'll let a theory crafter talk about that). Perhaps leaving the Slow Time buff and adding the old Kinetic Ward buff (increasing shield chance by 5% while KW is up) would be nice.

 

That said, the other classes get buffs to their cooldowns in their set bonus (KW doesnt count as a cooldown for us). It might be nice if it reduced the cooldown or increased the duration of Battle Readiness or Force Potency.

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Also, as for losing the current 6 piece, I don't see why the extra stacks aren't made baseline: 1.7 to 2.0 saw a jump in stacks, why not a slight jump in 2.10 to 3.0, or 4.0 now that it's on the horizon?

 

I agree with this. The additional stacks/duration in the 6 piece should be baseline, and here's why:

 

To my knowledge, KBN's calculations of tank survivability include all the buffs from the set bonuses, but do not include defensive cooldown usage. This means that with the 6 piece Assassins/Shadows have the same survivability as Juggernauts/Powertechs without a 6 piece.

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The 2-piece is fine imo. The 4 and 6-piece are a little weird to me. the taunt cooldown time is only really useful in pvp and a few certain fights in pve (though I guess it entirely depends on how each group's tanks handle the mechanics). I think 6-piece would be fine if it also increased the shield chance similar to the old 2-piece, though I could see how that might be a little OP. Personally I would prefer the old 4-piece over the new 6-piece.

 

Whatever the changes happen to be, the set bonuses need to be equally useful in both pvp and pve considering the homogenization of the set-bonuses we saw in 3.0

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Remove the current 6 piece and use the old 4 piece in its place (damage reduction 2% plus the 5 extra shield rating from the 2 set bonus). Problem solved.

 

What real shadow/assassins are doing now is running the old 186 set bonus + 192 or 198 chest piece for the extra little bit of armor, and Belt/ Bracers too of course. So we end up with 3 198 or 192 pieces, 1 "new" set bonus, and 2 "old" set bonuses.

 

We're really squishy as we are. I'm not saying we can't clear content, but I tank with my shadow, vanguard, guardian and jugg on progression. I'm 8/10, and I've also killed monolith on HM. Shadow is my main -and favorite character- but I must say it's a pain to survive compared to guardians and (specially) vanguards.

 

Like this we'll have extra charges and duration on kinetic ward, extra shield rating, quicker taunt (really important for the newer operations), a tiny bit (2%) of damage reduction, and also the other 2% from slow time.

 

Over all I believe survivability would go higher than 5%, yes, but only because the other tank's survivabilities are already quite a bit higher than the shadow's. Fixing the set bonuses and putting shadows at where the other tanks are right now as far as viability goes.

 

Just give us what we want and it'll all be fixed.

Agree with that post.

The new 2-piece is fine.

The new 4-piece bonus like other tanks.

The new 6-piece in not fine. The old 2-piece is better becouse increase survivability (+5% shield shance). Kinetic/Dark Ward active on me all time and only occasionally falls earlier CD.

I play with guardian and shadow/assassin tanks and can say that the Guardian survivability more than the Shadow. Also, the Guardian and the Vanguard have more option. The Vanguard and the Guardian can leap on target (for example, Quartermaster Bulo change position), shadow need use Forse Speed and run through all battlefield (both other tanks can increase own speed too). Further, in contrast to other tanks, shadow/assassin does not have the protective ability at mass agro and haven't mass stun at all. This is especially noticeable in PvP. On PvE Shadow's Shelter from Phase Walk can be used very little because healers are often not visible underneath circles AOE or difficult for them to stand in one place for mechanics.

I like play shadow tank - this is my favorite character - but in operation or group PvP i'll take guardian or vanguard. This is sorrowfully.

Edited by TaRs_WoLk
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I agree with this. The additional stacks/duration in the 6 piece should be baseline, and here's why:

 

To my knowledge, KBN's calculations of tank survivability include all the buffs from the set bonuses, but do not include defensive cooldown usage. This means that with the 6 piece Assassins/Shadows have the same survivability as Juggernauts/Powertechs without a 6 piece.

 

I also agree with this. Against a single opponent, you're gaining at most 0.2% Absorption on average—that's pretty much an order of magnitude too small to be noticed. Against multiple opponents (basically anything that isn't a boss fight) three extra stacks make the bonus more noticeable, but they don't remove the problem that your stacks can be depleted in the first place—often either 15 stacks would be enough or 18 are still too few. Frankly, the Dark Ward mechanic could use a rework anyway, but if it's being kept the current 6-piece bonus might as well become baseline, and in any case, the 6-piece should be something that players will desire and try to obtain. Right now, the Darkness 6-piece just doesn't fit that bill.

 

The 4-piece is supposedly good for PvE but I don't see it, really: you never need it to deal with a mechanic (which is as it should be, requiring a set bonus to progress past a fight would be really dumb), and taunt fluffing is so strong anyway you pretty rapidly stop caring about how fast you can generate aggro (pretty much after the first taunt cycle, really). I mean, technically, it does increase error margins, especially on the taunt mechanics, but when those error margins aren't small in the first place I don't see the point. Obviously it does matter quite a bit in PvP so any new 4-piece needs to be similarly strong so 'Sin tanks aren't screwed over in PvP.

Edited by MiaowZedong
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Something for the devs to think about in these discussions surrounding the tank set bonuses is the ubiquitous "get 2% more damage reduction from your rotational core ability" set bonus. To summarize:

 

  • Assasins: Slow Time/Wither gives 2% for 3 seconds
  • Juggernauts: Guardian Slash/Crushing Blow gives 2% for 4 seconds
  • Powertechs: Energy Blast/Heat Blast gives 2% for 5 seconds

 

This is kind of a cool idea, in general, but unfortunately it rapidly runs afoul of certain imperatives in each spec. Assassins use Wither once every 10.5 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a 28.57% uptime. Juggernauts use Crushing Blow once every 12 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a 33.33% uptime. Powertechs use Heat Blast once every 9 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a whopping 55.56% uptime!!!!

 

The core of the problem here is that the DR uptime calculations (3s for assassins, 4s for juggs, 5s for powertechs) were performed using the pre-proc cooldowns of each ability, and not only that, but also the pre-3.0 cooldowns! Pre-3.0, Wither had a 9 second cooldown, which would give a 3 second buff window a precisely 33.33% uptime, exactly the same as Juggernauts. In 3.0 though, Wither's CD was increased, and it appears that the set bonus was not recalibrated.

 

Heat Blast is an even more egregious example of this, since it appears that the buff duration (5 seconds) was calculated with respect to the vanilla 15 second cooldown on Heat Blast, which would also give the buff a precisely 33.33% uptime. The set bonus calculation completely fails to take into account the fact that Powertechs massively reduce the CD on Heat Blast with nearly half of the actions in their rotation, resulting in an effective 9-10 second CD and a significantly inflated set bonus value.

 

This is insanely imbalanced. The assassin set bonuses are already quite underwhelming, but the fact that we get the least value out of our DR is annoying to say the least. At the very least, this should be corrected, not only for assassins but also for powertechs.

 

----

 

As for the set bonuses themselves, I have the following more specific thoughts:

 

  • 2pc set bonus - See above, but more importantly: YAWN. When I first saw this set bonus, I thought that I would alter my rotation to more heavily prioritize Wither, in order to maximize the buff. In practice, I literally don't care. This set bonus is completely unnoticeable, and due to its mere 28.6% uptime, it is also an incredibly marginal increase in survivability (specifically, 0.572%). Even in the math, it's barely noticeable. It's certainly not anything that makes an impact in the game.
  • 4pc set bonus - This set bonus is only valuable because the mechanics of the current tier make it valuable. Its only value in previous tiers (which will be current tiers in 4.0!) is in achieving the 18 second debuff window in the opener. Unlike the other two set bonuses, it does make an impact on how I plan out fights at times, so in that sense it is probably the best of the three set bonus effects, but it's still sort of dumb. Taunts are already the most boring part of tanking (they're the moral equivalent of a healer getting a "reset one friendly target to full health" button). Making taunts only marginally less boring is an improvement, but still not great.
  • 6pc set bonus - Pros: helps to address a long-standing issue with the Dark Ward mechanic in high swing-timer fights (or fights with adds/trash). More pros: increases the skill cap on Dark Ward by extending the gap between the natural CD and the proper use timing. Massive con: provides an absolutely marginal increase to survivability. It does increase the value of Dark Bulwark through the aforementioned skill cap bump, but not by all that much. The main benefit of this set bonus is in propping up an arguably broken mechanic (the Dark Ward stacks mechanism), which seems like a red flag.

 

Regarding the target 5% survivability increase from set bonuses… Uh, lol? I can break out the math if it would be helpful, but off the top of my head, the full set of set bonuses provides substantially less than 2% additional survivability (especially if we discount the situations where 3 extra Dark Ward stacks saves the buff and assume that Dark Ward is just constantly up). In fact, I'm relatively certain that the net gain is actually less than 1%. Again, I have precise numbers here if you want them, I'm just being lazy about firing up Mathematica right now.

 

The old set bonuses were far, far superior. The old 2pc set bonus (5% more shield on Dark Ward) was probably the best set bonus in the game leading up to 3.0. The old 4pc was even better from a numerical standpoint, though it was less interesting to me simply because it was a passive "make everything better" sort of thing.

 

If you really want the set bonuses to achieve a 5% survivability increase, you need to massively buff them from their current form. Rebalance the proc duration on the 2pc, or at least acknowledge in your math that it is the weakest of the three versions of that set bonus. Take the Dread Master 2pc set bonus effect (5% more shield chance from Dark Ward) and add it to the 6pc. Also, consider adjusting the 6pc to more directly address the failings of Dark Ward:

 

  • Any time you lose a stack of Dark Ward, you have a 20% chance to re-gain the stack and increase the buff duration by 1 second. This effect does not have an internal cooldown.

 

The above almost precisely replicates the functionality of the current 6pc set bonus on current-tier single-target bosses (assuming an 0.75 hit/sec timer), in that it gives you an average of 3 extra stacks and 3 extra seconds every 20 seconds. Where it steps ahead of the existing 6pc is in two areas. First, on trash packs and bosses with adds, it becomes dramatically more valuable due to the rapid loss of stacks. Effectively, the faster you exhaust Dark Ward, the more stacks you get and the longer it lasts. Second, it increases the skill cap on Dark Ward management significantly, since you now have a randomly variable time threshold at which you need to refresh the buff. Even better, it keeps the primary co-indicators of this threshold (i.e. swing timer) the same, and so if you're in a situation where you just don't have the mental attention to read your buff bar, you can estimate the buff duration using the same technique used today: guessing the number of lost stacks based on incoming hit rate.

 

Incidentally, one way that you can inject more survivability into the set bonuses – particularly the 6pc, and particularly in light of my "random stack regen" suggestion – is to add an effect that increases the maximum stacking of Dark Bulwark. Unlike the Dark Ward effect, it doesn't need to be a random regeneration effect, since Dark Ward is already random. My suggestion would be to just add an effect to the 6pc set bonus which increases the stack limit on Dark Bulwark from 8 to 12. Taken together with the random Dark Ward stack regen mechanic, this would provide a very potent survivability increase for assassin tanks and an extremely attractive set bonus, particularly on trash packs or fights with adds (i.e. where assassin tanks are enormously underpowered right now).

 

----

 

tl;dr: The 2pc set bonus is imbalanced across the three classes, with assassins getting by far the worst version of it. The 4pc set bonus is boring, but justifiable. The 6pc set bonus is paper mache on a somewhat broken class mechanic (Dark Ward) and can be made significantly more interesting (and more effective!) with my proposal. The set bonuses in 3.0, taken as a whole, provide vastly and hilariously less than a 5% survivability buff, and in fact are much closer to a mere 1%.

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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Also, consider adjusting the 6pc to more directly address the failings of Dark Ward:

 

  • Any time you lose a stack of Dark Ward, you have a 20% chance to re-gain the stack and increase the buff duration by 1 second. This effect does not have an internal cooldown.

 

The above almost precisely replicates the functionality of the current 6pc set bonus on current-tier single-target bosses (assuming an 0.75 hit/sec timer), in that it gives you an average of 3 extra stacks and 3 extra seconds every 20 seconds. Where it steps ahead of the existing 6pc is in two areas. First, on trash packs and bosses with adds, it becomes dramatically more valuable due to the rapid loss of stacks. Effectively, the faster you exhaust Dark Ward, the more stacks you get and the longer it lasts. Second, it increases the skill cap on Dark Ward management significantly, since you now have a randomly variable time threshold at which you need to refresh the buff. Even better, it keeps the primary co-indicators of this threshold (i.e. swing timer) the same, and so if you're in a situation where you just don't have the mental attention to read your buff bar, you can estimate the buff duration using the same technique used today: guessing the number of lost stacks based on incoming hit rate.

 

Incidentally, one way that you can inject more survivability into the set bonuses – particularly the 6pc, and particularly in light of my "random stack regen" suggestion – is to add an effect that increases the maximum stacking of Dark Bulwark. Unlike the Dark Ward effect, it doesn't need to be a random regeneration effect, since Dark Ward is already random. My suggestion would be to just add an effect to the 6pc set bonus which increases the stack limit on Dark Bulwark from 8 to 12. Taken together with the random Dark Ward stack regen mechanic, this would provide a very potent survivability increase for assassin tanks and an extremely attractive set bonus, particularly on trash packs or fights with adds (i.e. where assassin tanks are enormously underpowered right now).

 

I can get behind this, especially the idea for increased Dark Bulwark stacks. That would go a long ways towards making the 6 piece desirable. I don't agree that a set bonus should increase the skill cap for a class, but your proposal would nicely counteract the current weaknesses against fast hitting targets and large groups of enemies.

 

But then again, is it right for Assassins to be at a large disadvantage against groups of enemies to the extent that the 6 piece bonus is required to even match survivability of the other tank classes without set bonus? I don't think set bonuses are the right avenue to correct class balance issues, so if Assassins really are less viable against groups, this change to Dark Ward stacks should be standard, not part of the set.

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Something for the devs to think about in these discussions surrounding the tank set bonuses is the ubiquitous "get 2% more damage reduction from your rotational core ability" set bonus. To summarize:

 

  • Assasins: Slow Time/Wither gives 2% for 3 seconds
  • Juggernauts: Guardian Slash/Crushing Blow gives 2% for 4 seconds
  • Powertechs: Energy Blast/Heat Blast gives 2% for 5 seconds

 

This is kind of a cool idea, in general, but unfortunately it rapidly runs afoul of certain imperatives in each spec. Assassins use Wither once every 10.5 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a 28.57% uptime. Juggernauts use Crushing Blow once every 12 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a 33.33% uptime. Powertechs use Heat Blast once every 9 seconds, which gives their 2% DR a whopping 55.56% uptime!!!!

 

The core of the problem here is that the DR uptime calculations (3s for assassins, 4s for juggs, 5s for powertechs) were performed using the pre-proc cooldowns of each ability, and not only that, but also the pre-3.0 cooldowns! Pre-3.0, Wither had a 9 second cooldown, which would give a 3 second buff window a precisely 33.33% uptime, exactly the same as Juggernauts. In 3.0 though, Wither's CD was increased, and it appears that the set bonus was not recalibrated.

 

Heat Blast is an even more egregious example of this, since it appears that the buff duration (5 seconds) was calculated with respect to the vanilla 15 second cooldown on Heat Blast, which would also give the buff a precisely 33.33% uptime. The set bonus calculation completely fails to take into account the fact that Powertechs massively reduce the CD on Heat Blast with nearly half of the actions in their rotation, resulting in an effective 9-10 second CD and a significantly inflated set bonus value.

 

This is insanely imbalanced. The assassin set bonuses are already quite underwhelming, but the fact that we get the least value out of our DR is annoying to say the least. At the very least, this should be corrected, not only for assassins but also for powertechs.

 

----

 

As for the set bonuses themselves, I have the following more specific thoughts:

 

  • 2pc set bonus - See above, but more importantly: YAWN. When I first saw this set bonus, I thought that I would alter my rotation to more heavily prioritize Wither, in order to maximize the buff. In practice, I literally don't care. This set bonus is completely unnoticeable, and due to its mere 28.6% uptime, it is also an incredibly marginal increase in survivability (specifically, 0.572%). Even in the math, it's barely noticeable. It's certainly not anything that makes an impact in the game.
  • 4pc set bonus - This set bonus is only valuable because the mechanics of the current tier make it valuable. Its only value in previous tiers (which will be current tiers in 4.0!) is in achieving the 18 second debuff window in the opener. Unlike the other two set bonuses, it does make an impact on how I plan out fights at times, so in that sense it is probably the best of the three set bonus effects, but it's still sort of dumb. Taunts are already the most boring part of tanking (they're the moral equivalent of a healer getting a "reset one friendly target to full health" button). Making taunts only marginally less boring is an improvement, but still not great.
  • 6pc set bonus - Pros: helps to address a long-standing issue with the Dark Ward mechanic in high swing-timer fights (or fights with adds/trash). More pros: increases the skill cap on Dark Ward by extending the gap between the natural CD and the proper use timing. Massive con: provides an absolutely marginal increase to survivability. It does increase the value of Dark Bulwark through the aforementioned skill cap bump, but not by all that much. The main benefit of this set bonus is in propping up an arguably broken mechanic (the Dark Ward stacks mechanism), which seems like a red flag.

 

Regarding the target 5% survivability increase from set bonuses… Uh, lol? I can break out the math if it would be helpful, but off the top of my head, the full set of set bonuses provides substantially less than 2% additional survivability (especially if we discount the situations where 3 extra Dark Ward stacks saves the buff and assume that Dark Ward is just constantly up). In fact, I'm relatively certain that the net gain is actually less than 1%. Again, I have precise numbers here if you want them, I'm just being lazy about firing up Mathematica right now.

 

The old set bonuses were far, far superior. The old 2pc set bonus (5% more shield on Dark Ward) was probably the best set bonus in the game leading up to 3.0. The old 4pc was even better from a numerical standpoint, though it was less interesting to me simply because it was a passive "make everything better" sort of thing.

 

If you really want the set bonuses to achieve a 5% survivability increase, you need to massively buff them from their current form. Rebalance the proc duration on the 2pc, or at least acknowledge in your math that it is the weakest of the three versions of that set bonus. Take the Dread Master 2pc set bonus effect (5% more shield chance from Dark Ward) and add it to the 6pc. Also, consider adjusting the 6pc to more directly address the failings of Dark Ward:

 

  • Any time you lose a stack of Dark Ward, you have a 20% chance to re-gain the stack and increase the buff duration by 1 second. This effect does not have an internal cooldown.

 

The above almost precisely replicates the functionality of the current 6pc set bonus on current-tier single-target bosses (assuming an 0.75 hit/sec timer), in that it gives you an average of 3 extra stacks and 3 extra seconds every 20 seconds. Where it steps ahead of the existing 6pc is in two areas. First, on trash packs and bosses with adds, it becomes dramatically more valuable due to the rapid loss of stacks. Effectively, the faster you exhaust Dark Ward, the more stacks you get and the longer it lasts. Second, it increases the skill cap on Dark Ward management significantly, since you now have a randomly variable time threshold at which you need to refresh the buff. Even better, it keeps the primary co-indicators of this threshold (i.e. swing timer) the same, and so if you're in a situation where you just don't have the mental attention to read your buff bar, you can estimate the buff duration using the same technique used today: guessing the number of lost stacks based on incoming hit rate.

 

Incidentally, one way that you can inject more survivability into the set bonuses – particularly the 6pc, and particularly in light of my "random stack regen" suggestion – is to add an effect that increases the maximum stacking of Dark Bulwark. Unlike the Dark Ward effect, it doesn't need to be a random regeneration effect, since Dark Ward is already random. My suggestion would be to just add an effect to the 6pc set bonus which increases the stack limit on Dark Bulwark from 8 to 12. Taken together with the random Dark Ward stack regen mechanic, this would provide a very potent survivability increase for assassin tanks and an extremely attractive set bonus, particularly on trash packs or fights with adds (i.e. where assassin tanks are enormously underpowered right now).

 

----

 

tl;dr: The 2pc set bonus is imbalanced across the three classes, with assassins getting by far the worst version of it. The 4pc set bonus is boring, but justifiable. The 6pc set bonus is paper mache on a somewhat broken class mechanic (Dark Ward) and can be made significantly more interesting (and more effective!) with my proposal. The set bonuses in 3.0, taken as a whole, provide vastly and hilariously less than a 5% survivability buff, and in fact are much closer to a mere 1%.

 

So, a few thoughts about what you said.

 

First, I'm glad someone else mentioned the egregious imbalance between Assassin and Powertech 2 piece tank bonuses: it's bad. On top of this, you're right: it's kinda boring. I like that it's steady, but it's not very noticeable, and I'd like something I can notice.

 

Second, I have a small issue with the 4 piece on principle (and the recently brought up fact that it's nigh useless on previous content). I really do feel like it should be possible to hold aggro without taunts unless mechanics require it.

 

Third, that's a beautiful idea for Dark Ward. I feel like they should alter Dark Ward to just not have stacks any more, which would make us less painful in trash pulls without significantly altering the playstyle, but your solution is more elegant. I think, if they want it to be noticeable, that they might need to up that 20% chance, or make it on incoming attacks, rather than on successfully shielded attacks. That in addition to upping the max stacks on Dark Bulwark, to further reinforce the idea that you should be delaying Dark Ward until you can't any more. Maybe even adding an extra 2 stacks if you refresh the buff in a 1 second window around its previous end time (basically, use it +/- 1 second of its final duration).

 

I hope they respond here so we can work with them to come up with some well thought out ideas.

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The other two tanks' 6pc set bonus increases the duration of two of their abilities, while ours increases the stacks and duration of our kinetic/dark ward. I would like to see our set bonus affect our Shadow Protection, making it last 3 seconds longer and build an additional 2 or 3 stacks for a total of 6 or 7. This would be a welcome addition imo. We could get an extra 6%-7% increase in DR from Shadow Protection that lasts 3 seconds longer. What do you think? Edited by blackthunder
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Maybe I'm alone on this, but I'm not a fan of the taunt reduction.

 

 

Honestly I was not a fan pre 3.0. However I am a pve player and with the new damage caps the reduction in taunt and the fact that you have to tank swap very often on some bosses its amazing and you are able to sustain threat.

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If you really want the set bonuses to achieve a 5% survivability increase, you need to...

 

The set bonuses in 3.0, taken as a whole, provide vastly and hilariously less than a 5% survivability buff, and in fact are much closer to a mere 1%.

 

Not to call anyone out specifically, because this has been brought up by several posters... 5% survivability (or DPS or healing) increase is not necessarily their to goal, but a bar they dont want to go above, allowing that ~1% to be acceptable. That, anyway, is how I read BWs intention from their first posts. So while I certainly agree the set bonuses are currently-- to borrow a quote-- "a nothing burger." I am concerned that the suggestions given, to certainly improve by 5%, are maybe more radical than will be given a serious consideration. That being said: I hope Im wrong.

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Posting solely from a PvP perspective:

 

2-Piece: Wither or Slow Time increases damage reduction by 2% for 3 seconds.

The two piece bonus is ok but needs to be brought in line with the other tank set bonuses. Because you do not use Wither on CD if a Shock procc-ed (otherwise you delay building the charges for Depredating Volts) the uptime for this drops under the 30% expected from the 10 sec CD for Wither. Even if we would use Wither on CD it would still make for a less uptime than the other tank bonuses, if I understand correctly, so perhaps that is something it should be looked at.

 

4-Piece: Wither or Slow Time reduces the cooldown of Mind Control and Mass Mind Control by 2 seconds per activation. This is helpful about 50% of the time in PvP, when you are fighting in a big group and have other folks around you to protect. As we are the preferred node guards, we do encounter a lot of 1v1 or 1v2-3 situations in which this bonus is useless. I would rather take a bonus that is useful all the time and not in select situations.

 

6-Piece: Dark Ward's or Kinetic Ward's duration is increased by 3 seconds and charges are increased by 3. It is very difficult to keep track of Dark Ward in PvP and I believe that most of assassins use it in PvP as soon the Cd is up to compensate for all the CCs that can hit you and the chance that it would drop. As a result, this bonus is practically useless in PvP. Perhaps we can change this 6 piece bonus to a 5 sec CD decrease for Spike and bring Spike to a 15 sec CD in PvP. Just a thought.

 

I currently use the old PvP set armoring for the old 2 and 4 piece bonuses (reduced Spike Cd and 5% damage boost if guarding) and the new 2 piece set (belt/bracers) . Without this reduced CD Spike is the poor cousin of Low Slash, to the point that when this set bonus will be removed or the armorings get completely outdated I will probably be forced to switch to dps. While Spike was fine on a 20 sec Cd back at lvl 50-55, this is certainly not the case anymore at 60.

 

As a general view on the current state of the assassin PvP tanking, I believe that we are the victim of the success of the assassin PvE tanking. Not saying this is the result of totally unremarkable set bonuses for PvP, there is more at play than that. Best way to see how well are we doing in PvP is to look around in a Warzone and see how many of us are around compared to other tank classes. If you dont see us most of the time it means we might have problems.

 

In closing, I am not sure how the set bonuses work for PvE, and I would certainly not want to ruin the fun of those of us who enjoy that aspect of the game. I am very happy that we have one area where we shine. Perhaps we should consider having PvP and PvE set bonuses as separate so each can address issues in their own areas.

Edited by LShaaDe
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In closing, I am not sure how the set bonuses work for PvE, and I would certainly not want to ruin the fun of those of us who enjoy that aspect of the game. I am very happy that we have one area where we shine. Perhaps we should consider having PvP and PvE set bonuses as separate so each can address issues in their own areas.

 

As I recall, the devs switched to having identical PvP & PvE set bonuses after 3.0 because of the balance issues with unequal set bonuses before. For instance, PvE Snipers used to get the 2 piece PvE + 2 piece PvP set bonus for the extra tick of damage on Orbital Strike pre nerf. Now, instead of having to balance 2 sets for each class the devs only have to focus on one. So in that way the change was a good thing.

 

But I agree, the things that are needed for PvP are vastly different from the things needed for PvE, so having a single set bonus for both will always give the short end of the stick to one or the other.

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