Who beats the other in a duel? Can't choose which spec is pvp preferred

Deception.

 

You can 1v1 with both darkness and deception, but deception is much more valid for solo play, because you can kill faster, and might avoid the zerg incoming so you have time to cap something etc...

I agree. I tried darkness when 2.0 hit because it's what I was speccd. Pvpd a little at 55 as darkness and then tried deception. No I don't have much pvp gear but my results were much better as deception (let alone it was tons more fun.)

 

Just my 2cents.

Strictly 1v1? Darkness. Unless you're going up against a healer the cc/self-healing/survivability will win pretty much every time.

I just have a ton more fun as deception. The big maul crits get me everytime.

It depends not only of the skill of the player but the crit chance as well. I play darkness in dps gear an while I don't have the burst, I can tend to outlive deception if I'm lucky on my CDs. Low slash for deception is vastly important against darkness as force shroud is not affected by it. As darkness, deflection is very important against them.

 

In my duels, I've both won an lost against deception

 

I choose to play darkness in dps gear because of its utility and because force pull is too important for me not to have.

 

But yeah, it depends on your preferred play style.

That's an interesting fight. I think full deception will win against full darkness simply, because deception survivability with black out will match if not triumph over darkness in short fight phases, especially that darkness lost significant amount of damage reduction in 2.0. The damage output is not in favor of deception. The unfortunate part is much of the fight will be RNG dependent, especially for shielding for darkness. Edited April 26, 2013 by Ottoattack

Darkness with the phase walk port at your feet your healing for a bonus 7% on Dark Charge plus energized shock crits lets say even 5k with a second proc is hitting nearlly as hard as a maul and will be used more then mauls in a 1v1. Debuff of accuracy and 5% less damage. Overload saber healing with your portal at your feet is pretty big not to mention the next 10 seconds worth aftward.

 

My Darkness build runs full power/surge gear so it s shocks are hitting over 6k on the initial hit not including the follow up for 45% .

 

In a longer fight Darkness will regen force better spike vs low slash is a wash both have electrocute howvever the Deception build has to get side position or the back where as Darkness can skip in and out with shocks/withers then spike/electrocute wreck force lighting. That portal 7% bonus healing makes the heal force lightning work A lot better.

 

Darkness is always going to have crits due to energize which will always give the 9% bonus crit which improves thrash without the need to have a lot of crit if any. Your going to have the crit just through willpower and that 9%.Deception needs a good amount of crit to make sure when they get their maul procs they get crits in without that they really suffer. Deception Is very good and bursty I just think with a more tanky self preservation build with basically the same tools the Darkness build should win most of the time.

A Darkness assassin who knows the Deception rotation and how to time his stun break and cooldowns will absolutely maul the Deception assassin (no pun intended). Deception is an unbelievably squishy spec, and a lot of its damage reduction is irrelevant to the damage that Darkness does (e.g. Wither is not considered AoE damage). If a Deception assassin isn't able to burst down the target fast, they're really in a heap of trouble. Correctly timing its CDs, Darkness can escape the first 10-15 seconds of a fight with a Deception assassin with well over 80% of their HP intact. That's basically game over for Deception at that point.

If Deception (or anyone else) can beat Darkness 1on1 reliably, Darkness wouldn't be forced to shackle to a node in any competitive gameplay.

 

That said Maul hits hard enough that there's enough uncertainty in the outcome if the Darkness Assassin isn't willing to commit all his CDs. The matchup for this is not something most people would be familiar with (as Darkness) because this fight is unlike any other 1on1 in the game. For the Darkness you basically either Phase Walk out of his Force Shroud or Low Slash, and if you do one of those two correctly you won the fight because you get rid of one of those two moves, Blackout (it'd wear off long before they find you again), and likely a proced Maul. I often forget to use Phase Walk because it's still a new ability. Without Phase Walk it's closer, but you can simply run away with Force Speed when they Force Shroud. The Deception Assassin can't do anything to stop you and you just wait until it runs out (and likely killing Blackout in the process) and same result. You won't be able to escape Low Slash without Phase Walk though.

 

Note that Phase Walk used by a Deception Assassin is useless against Darkness. If you put extra distance between you and the Darkness Assassin he's going to just laugh at you.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Astarica

infiltration ftw to level up