Most of the sets for this class only lend themselves well to Deception in any niche of the game, or Darkness for PvE purposes. I guess Sabermaster is OK for Hatred in PvE? But It's still kind of meh.

 

Hatred either needs a set that gives some sort of across-the-board damage boost, the same way Descent of the Fearless does for warriors, or something that can give it any semblance of survivability.

A defensive set bonus could do a few things. 1) decrease the cooldown time of force shroud by a certain amount, and increase its active duration by one second per enemy affected by your DoTs. 2) Make enemies affected by DoT's or death field deal a certain percentage less damage to the player 3) Self-heals for a certain percentage of damage inflicted by DoT's (I know, copying the mechanic from Annhi, but it's something).

 

A generic damage increase set bonus could inflict a debuff on enemies damaged by cleaving cut, then all targets affected by said debuff take 30% more damage from periodic effects. That way, the jank ability our class got in 6.0 will actually have some use.

 

Give us one of the above Bioware. Restore this spec from Meme-tier to viable.

I guess I don’t really understand what you are asking. Cooldown reduction and an extra charge to recklessness would certainly benefit Hatred since Recklessness boosts force attacks and all your dots are force attacks. And you will always be in melee range so you will always be able to follow up with the melee damage bonus. I mean I agree Death Knell isn’t quite as good as the set bonus used to be pre 6.0 but why do you say it doesn’t help Hatred?

I guess I don’t really understand what you are asking. Cooldown reduction and an extra charge to recklessness would certainly benefit Hatred since Recklessness boosts force attacks and all your dots are force attacks. And you will always be in melee range so you will always be able to follow up with the melee damage bonus. I mean I agree Death Knell isn’t quite as good as the set bonus used to be pre 6.0 but why do you say it doesn’t help Hatred?

 

Even for a DoT spec, hatred has low Single-Target damage. Getting a Death field or spike to crit, or dealing a smidgen extra damage with leaching strike/lacerate/assassinate, it's underwhelming. Also, recklessness doesn't effect the initial casting of discharge or creeping terror.

 

I just want a set bonus that gives me the option to play the discipline as a full-blown cleave spec instead of trying to increase a facet where it doesn't shine at all.

Not a set issue. its a class issue. sure they could make something for Death field or a aoe set. or even a set based off eradication. But in general the class is weak. Hands down my favorite class due to over lapping damage. but the class is so far behind, Operative its a joke. Even if assassins took some basic abilities from the inquisitor like the operative has. Static shield. heal over time or even a heal. and get phase walk back, but Bioware hates assassins.

hatreds single target is completely fine and he will one of the top parsing specs if the chnges from pts come live

What assassins actually need is better or more defensives. or even another cc. warriors have what choke, backhand, and the aoe cc, with what 4 defensives. Sorcs have a cc immob with their aoe push back. I could go on but the survivability of assassins compared to others is a joke. DONT even want to get started on Operatives vs. Assassins.

With classes losing defensive power in 7.0, I wouldn't be surprised if assassins are barely touched in this department considering they already have one of the weakest sets of defensives and a relatively small ability list overall. Hatred is by no means a bad spec, but deception definitely benefits more from the set bonus than hatred and is easier to parse higher with. Hatred's lifesteal is also offset by the fact that deception gets enough of a damage reduction boost that it nearly reaches tank levels.

 

I prefer using hatred when I solo mm red reaper and the lifesteal has even carried me on the final fight when I accidentally got my companion killed. Quick escalation can be funny in pvp when you get lucky and heal to full with it, but deception is so much easier to get results with.