As far as deception goes, kind of what I was expecting. Not what I wanted to hear.

Everyone will be playing Madness now anyway, no sin in his right sense of mind will even bother with Deception..

Anyways, thanks for finally answering.

In response to the questions answered:

 

Question 1.

 

You had already secretly answered this with the PTS changes so there's not much of a surprise. I believe this is moving in a good direction and the changes to Madness / Balance are ranked very highly in my book.

 

Question 2.

 

Madness is getting some much needed love but you've completely neglected that Deception does not need this nonsensical buff/nerf change. I believe that is an extremely lazy fix and you are capable of better. A thread like this simulates a better change with minimal impact on PvP. I should also mention it is contradictory you'd say you don't want to give a burst class more sustained damage in PvP when you've changed the Pyro PT into exactly what you preach against.

 

Question 3.

 

The ideas for the Phase Walk are on the PTS forums. It needs to be instant cast. This cannot be beyond your capability. As others have pointed out, a simple 3% increase to damage to the caster whilst it is active will help PvE DPS variants out.

This thread should have been in the Assassin forums as it was our turn to ask questions.

As far as deception goes, kind of what I was expecting. Not what I wanted to hear.

Everyone will be playing Madness now anyway, no sin in his right sense of mind will even bother with Deception..

 

Anyways, thanks for finally answering.

I might be wrong but isnt deception better than madness on like 5/10 fights for df/dp? Even with 2.8 buffs to madness. Im thinking draxus, brontos, corruptor z, bestia, maybe tyrans. And possibly council, even if for only 30% aor dr. Just asking?

Hell no.

Balance is going to be so insane that the only time Dec is better is when you need absolute front loaded burst.

Which is basically brontes only.

My mistake than

I think the simplest way to look at it would be.

Infil/Balance perfectly fine for HMs.

In 2.8 NiM:

Balance DPS >> than Infil 30% AoE Reduction + Infil DPS.

 

Deception/Infiltration Assassins/Shadows already do quite well in PvP, even with their uncompetitive sustained damage output. Their skill tree provides them with very effective burst damage, and at this time we have no plans to boost their sustained damage for fear of creating unstoppable killing machines in PvP. In the more distant future, we might diminish some of Deception’s/Infiltration’s burst damage output in exchange for more sustained damage output, but we cannot currently provide a timeframe for any potential changes.

Ok, I get that and actually agree. Now why are you buffing the sustained damage on Pyrotech PTs again? "Their skill tree provides them with very effective burst damage" yet you have plans to boost their sustained damage with no fear of creating unstoppable killing machines in PvP for some reason?

Ok, I get that and actually agree. Now why are you buffing the sustained damage on Pyrotech PTs again? "Their skill tree provides them with very effective burst damage" yet you have plans to boost their sustained damage with no fear of creating unstoppable killing machines in PvP for some reason?

While i agree pt changes a little much. Hopefully toned down abit before live. But changes are completely counter able via cleanse/shroud/evasion. So until they make pt's dots not cleanseable. Not a huge pvp change.

Deception doesn't have dot damage they can simply increase for pve sustained damage. So i leave that theory crafting to much more qualified people.

While i agree pt changes a little much. Hopefully toned down abit before live. But changes are completely counter able via cleanse/shroud/evasion. So until they make pt's dots not cleanseable. Not a huge pvp change.

 

Deception doesn't have dot damage they can simply increase for pve sustained damage. So i leave that theory crafting to much more qualified people.

Sorc healers are still sad.

I've only ever played as a Shadow Tank, but I can most definitely understand the frustrations around Phase Walk. The ability does seem lackluster, and quite honestly, the healing buff in the Kinetic Combat (Tank) tree is miniscule, especially when healers are forced to remain in a very confined space to benefit from its effects. Anyway, I'm not much of a theorycrafter, but here are a few ideas I wanted to throw out there. I should also mention that these ideas are meant to be picked and chosen, not necessarily all rolled up into one.

Kinetic Combat Phase Walk

• Expand the radius of Shadow Shelter.
  
• Increase Shadow Shelter's healing buff.
  
• Add a defense buff (at least to mitigate AoE damage) to players standing in Shadow Shelter's Phase Walk.
  
• Clense/Purge all hostile effects/debuffs at set intervals to players who are standing in Shadow Shelter's Phase Walk.
  
• Increase the Shadow's defense/shield/absorb ratings for every player standing in Shadow Shelter's Phase Walk.
  

Infiltrate/Balance Phase Walk

• Eliminate CD upon use (to increase mobility).
  
• Activation of Phase Walk Purges and Exits combat (Force Cloak and Resilience wrapped up into one ability).
  
• Expand radius to Slow, DoT, or Stun Targets who pass through Phase Walk.
  
• Expand radius to apply a debuff for receiving increased X amount of damage to Targets who pass through. Could be restricted to Targets who remain within Phase Walk's radius, or applies a Y amount of time debuff for simply passing through.
  
• Activation of Phase Walk gives Shadow a damage and/or defense buff.
  
• Shadow can place two Phase Walks, where a Target(s) are instantly teleported from a Sender to a Receiver (I imagine it as a dynamic Force Pull). Offensively, could be used to teleport Targets to less-than-strategic positions, like fire pits. Defensively, it can be used to teleport teammates to strategic positions or used as an instant escape. In this case, Phase Walk would have 3 charges, where every player and/or use eliminates a charge. Meaning, a group of three players can be teleported at once, or a single player can teleport up to three times.
   
   
  All food for thought.
  

They didn't touch on the bonus thoughts this time around. Though I hope they were acknowledged (at least internally). :3

That being said, the answers were pretty much what I expected, and I do hope that deception can be fixed, and still be competitive in pvp. At this point though, it pretty much looks like that pve = madness, pvp = deception.

Also, if the PTs do end up parsing higher than madness, I can't see people still wanting a madness assassin in their raid group. That is to say "hydraulic override" and heavy armour, among other things, would be the better choice in having more uptime as a dps dotter.

I don't understand why you won't fix Infiltration / Deception. You manage to fix the Scoundrel / operative with good burst and awesome substained dps - you should be abel to fix it for the Shadow / Assassin as well.

I love the new changes with Balance / Madness, but I want to play Infil. / Decep. which I find 10 times more fun

I don't understand why you won't fix Infiltration / Deception. You manage to fix the Scoundrel / operative with good burst and awesome substained dps - you should be abel to fix it for the Shadow / Assassin as well.

 

I love the new changes with Balance / Madness, but I want to play Infil. / Decep. which I find 10 times more fun

I have to agree the changes to madness are good and i love them, but i would still prefer to play deception, but atleast i can play my sin in all aspects of the game now and be efficient. I think something simple like a minor bleed dot, from maul (cleansable) and maybe a minor dot from discharge also cleansable would go along way and not hurt PVP overly much.

With all of these continuous damage buffs, is no one else concerned about the role of the Shadow Tank, and tanks in general for that matter? I'm seeing a lot of people, dedicated raid and PvP Tanks, drift back to hybrid builds because the added damage is just that good with only a negligible change in survivability. I'm noticing it a lot on the shadow, but I'm hearing it from Guardians and Vanguards as well.

I've always enjoyed the darkness playstyle, and I've played around with pvp tanking gear, the damage vs. survivability is so useless that it's much easier and better to go with full power/surge. I end up getting 10% less survivability, with 3x the amount of damage (thereabouts).

I might be wrong but isnt deception better than madness on like 5/10 fights for df/dp? Even with 2.8 buffs to madness. Im thinking draxus, brontos, corruptor z, bestia, maybe tyrans. And possibly council, even if for only 30% aor dr. Just asking?

So in my experience, Balance will be perfect for every fight in DP. As of right now I use Infiltration more in DF (4/5) but with these changes I would most likely make that only 1/5, that fight being Draxus. So yes, overall, Infiltration is losing it's appeal, but it by no means is completely useless.

I'd like to kindly ask the devs to read even just the OP in this thread, which does an amazing job of simulating a fight for an Infiltration Shadow, and goes on to make some very, very good suggestions that, in the end, hardly affect pvp, and provide a sizable increase to sustained damage in pve. There are multiple sets of very good suggestions that have been proposed, and a lot of time and discussion has gone into refining the proposed changes. The amount of work the OP and the community put into it isn't trivial, and I feel like it deserves at least a read.

Didn't you read eric's wonderful answers? We can give juggs the most OP move in the game, we can increase the dps on the PTs burstiest tree, but god forbid we lower the cost of voltic slash (aka a double slash with procs-great brainstorming for a top tier ability btw guys) by 2; no that would make them unstoppable PvP killing machines. They have to nerf our burst first. Yeah, they have to stop us from being PvP killing machines, because PvP is always the first thing on their mind when they make these changes. Like the time they nerfed madness into the ground in 2.0. Madness assassins were the BIGGEST PvP killing machine ever then. I remember everyone on fleet desperately searching for madness assassins to join their ranked team on fleet. Thank god they caught that though. Or the time they removed 8v8 ranked. Yeah because that's what everyone in ever chat and forum was begging for. Oh and the time they buffed PTs in 2.4 making the AP ion the new black. And recently buffing and re-nerfing concealment. And of course we can't forget that wonder ED buff that juggs got.

It's like PvP is the only thing on their minds when they make these changes.

Didn't you read eric's wonderful answers? We can give juggs the most OP move in the game, we can increase the dps on the PTs burstiest tree, but god forbid we lower the cost of voltic slash (aka a double slash with procs-great brainstorming for a top tier moves btw guys) by 2; no that would make them unstoppable PvP killing machines. They have to nerf our burst first.

The Voltaic Slash changes are not even in the final suggestion in the thread. And I'm not bringing their past work into question, just asking that they look at this before they dismiss working on Infiltration until 3.0. These changes could probably fairly easily be added and verified by 2.9, and I hope they consider doing so, as it would please a large portion of the Shadow/Assassin community.

Didn't you read eric's wonderful answers? We can give juggs the most OP move in the game, we can increase the dps on the PTs burstiest tree, but god forbid we lower the cost of voltic slash (aka a double slash with procs-great brainstorming for a top tier ability btw guys) by 2; no that would make them unstoppable PvP killing machines. They have to nerf our burst first. Yeah, they have to stop us from being PvP killing machines, because PvP is always the first thing on their mind when they make these changes. Like the time they nerfed madness into the ground in 2.0. Madness assassins were the BIGGEST PvP killing machine ever then. I remember everyone on fleet desperately searching for madness assassins to join their ranked team on fleet. Thank god they caught that though. Or the time they removed 8v8 ranked. Yeah because that's what everyone in ever chat and forum was begging for. Oh and the time they buffed PTs in 2.4 making the AP ion the new black. And recently buffing and re-nerfing concealment. And of course we can't forget that wonder ED buff that juggs got.

 

It's like PvP is the only thing on their minds when they make these changes.

This is cute.

I'd like to kindly ask the devs to read even just the OP in this thread, which does an amazing job of simulating a fight for an Infiltration Shadow, and goes on to make some very, very good suggestions that, in the end, hardly affect pvp, and provide a sizable increase to sustained damage in pve. There are multiple sets of very good suggestions that have been proposed, and a lot of time and discussion has gone into refining the proposed changes. The amount of work the OP and the community put into it isn't trivial, and I feel like it deserves at least a read.

I second this.

And with all the experience that I have in PvP I very much doubt a 100% proc chance on maul would make us that much more threatening to the point where we just need a big nerf.

No, what the OP in that thread suggests are GOOD changes. They will not affect the core of PvP, or at least not by an amount that would end up alarming. The OP intentionally swayed away from affecting burst and has done a wonderful job at that. Creating more stability and reliability in a spec that it so desparately needed.

I sure hope it'll be picked up, but I have my sincere doubts given Biowares history of making changes.

Please prove me wrong.

//Evo