I'm sending a call-out to all the closet deception assassins in this game, those of us who are dissatisfied with being forced into the Darkness and Madness trees, and want to return home to deception, where we belong.

Deception is currently one of the worst Operation dps in the game. It is COMPLETELY useless as far as raid utility, and therefore should have something to balance that. I.e., reasonable dps. The real challenge here is to try and fix deception without completely overpowering it for pvp. Deception's strength is its burst, but how can the burst be adjusted so that it allows us to have sustained dps in a raid environment without the world crying "nerf nerf nerf!"

To those who think that deception is solely a pvp tree:

The reason that deception should be a pve dps tree is because it has more pve talents (i.e. to increase damage done on X and Y abilities) than it has pvp abilities, while madness, the current dps tree for assassins, has more pvp utility talents than deception, yet it does almost twice as much damage. (deception and madness in equal gear and skill. Deception parses ~800-900 from what I've read, and madness almost 1400). The game is dominated by the DoT classes, which makes the players who don't enjoy managing 3 dots and 4 procs screwed.

So, I am not proposing a fix, but rather, explaining why I think we need to start making our own solution. What skills should be buffed, what ones moved to different trees, etc. Please do not post here if you are going to be unconstructive. Not only does it make YOU look like a fool, but you are contributing nothing and wasting your own time.

A couple of ideas off of the top of my head

Increase the proc chance of Surging Charge. Even if that means nerfing the damage to compensate, it allows us to build Static Charges = increased dps over time, as we have to build Static Charges.

Reduce Static Charges to 3 stacks, as opposed to 5. With a 25% every 1.5 seconds, thats a full 30 seconds ( 1.5/.25 = 6 X 5=30) to build a 5 stack of surging charge. Discharge could have cooled down twice in that duration, and gone with it are the 2 or maybe 3 stacks that you have. Reducing it to 3 stacks with a 50% chance to proc would fix this dramatically, even if surging charge's damage was nerfed.

I have a feeling that induction could also be fixed.

But we need to work together to find a solution, because it is clear that bioware isn't. The more outcry we make here, the more likely that something will be done.

Again, constructive comments only please.

I can get my deception assassin up to around a 1200dps with rakata/blackhole nothing compared to some of the damage that snipers and marauders can do.

The problem to me seems that assassin is more of a solo build/jack of all trades because we have stealh and raising our dps will make us much to powerfull in PVP because if we have both stealth and high sustained dps its gonna be a little to much i fear.

Deception is like the glass cannon with out the cannon.

EXACTLY!!!! I used to raid a lot on my deception sin because it was supposed to be a viable melee spec. I have awful armor fine, but why do I do LESS DPS THAN JUST ABOUT ANY CLASS AND HAVE 0 RAID UTILITY? Darth Maul is the hero this class is based on and you would think he would do a ******** of damage. It's sad because obviously I chose the wrong class to roll. There is absolutely no point in choosing this class because every other tank is now better and every other DPS has always been better. How the hell do you give marauders all these buffs and then not touch them at all? Why would they buff sniper and merc dps but continue to kill the assassin?

Like I said, there is no reason to choose an assassin over ANY other class right now. Wouldn't it make more sense for them to nerf darkness sins damage instead of their survivability? You cannot solely balance a game based on *********** pvp because it ruins **** for all PVE'ers. They either need to have completely separate balancing for pve and pvp and make SOMETHING about the assassin good.

I can get my deception assassin up to around a 1200dps with rakata/blackhole nothing compared to some of the damage that snipers and marauders can do.

 

The problem to me seems that assassin is more of a solo build/jack of all trades because we have stealh and raising our dps will make us much to powerfull in PVP because if we have both stealth and high sustained dps its gonna be a little to much i fear.

If they continue to only balance the game based on pvp assassin will be dead as a class. Take away my stupid stealth and make deception actually viable and i will be a-okay with that.

If they continue to only balance the game based on pvp assassin will be dead as a class. Take away my stupid stealth and make deception actually viable and i will be a-okay with that.

I agree stealth does seem to be rather pointless once you reach 50 and start raiding, only reason to use it as a deception is to get the force boost, but with all the bugs and issues it might cause problems make SOA disappear lol.

The problem is that "demanding fixes" is what has nerfed the assassin class in the first place. Instead of offering viable solutions, people just whined and complained, and with the tanking nerf (which I really wanted to avoid bringing up) assassins are now purely a pvp class. They have no use for pve anymore. Madness pulls dps, but having a madness assassin almost requires that Guard be on them because we pull extra aggro with one incredibly long aggro dump (Force Cloak).

Now, I understand that you want to "demand" that BW do something, but the fact is, we need to start ping-ponging ideas that are actually viable. I would be willing to trade a nerf to burst for a buff to sustained any day. Does anyone have an idea of how to do that? I've thrown around ideas in my original post, but I want some input, not complaining about how its broken and can't be played. We know that. Thank you for being redundant.

Please, contribute. I'll send in a ticket asking for BW's justification behind it. I doubt they will read it.

The problem is that "demanding fixes" is what has nerfed the assassin class in the first place. Instead of offering viable solutions, people just whined and complained, and with the tanking nerf (which I really wanted to avoid bringing up) assassins are now purely a pvp class. They have no use for pve anymore. Madness pulls dps, but having a madness assassin almost requires that Guard be on them because we pull extra aggro with one incredibly long aggro dump (Force Cloak).

 

Now, I understand that you want to "demand" that BW do something, but the fact is, we need to start ping-ponging ideas that are actually viable. I would be willing to trade a nerf to burst for a buff to sustained any day. Does anyone have an idea of how to do that? I've thrown around ideas in my original post, but I want some input, not complaining about how its broken and can't be played. We know that. Thank you for being redundant.

 

Please, contribute. I'll send in a ticket asking for BW's justification behind it. I doubt they will read it.

To be honest my main tank assassin is just as viable on PTS as on live, true healers will have to work a little harder and in big trash pulls i might get in trouble but as a main tank they are very much still viable

So we need a fix for assassins on pve but not pvp?

New Talent

Static Discharge

Vs players: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that reduces target damage by x%

Vs Npcs: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that increases damage taken from assassin abilities by x%

Thoughts? could increase our damage potential in pve and reduce the glass canon idea.

percentages can be adjusted and shouldn't be huge buffs.

The problem is that "demanding fixes" is what has nerfed the assassin class in the first place. Instead of offering viable solutions, people just whined and complained, and with the tanking nerf (which I really wanted to avoid bringing up) assassins are now purely a pvp class. They have no use for pve anymore. Madness pulls dps, but having a madness assassin almost requires that Guard be on them because we pull extra aggro with one incredibly long aggro dump (Force Cloak).

 

Now, I understand that you want to "demand" that BW do something, but the fact is, we need to start ping-ponging ideas that are actually viable. I would be willing to trade a nerf to burst for a buff to sustained any day. Does anyone have an idea of how to do that? I've thrown around ideas in my original post, but I want some input, not complaining about how its broken and can't be played. We know that. Thank you for being redundant.

 

Please, contribute. I'll send in a ticket asking for BW's justification behind it. I doubt they will read it.

As i am paying to play this game, for me is the same as i am paying to eat in a restaurant. If i find the food horrible then i'll demand to fix it and not "contributing" helping the cooker with his recipe. That's that.

Personally, I think the best way to boost sustained DPS for Deception would be to give us some sort of mechanic to boost force regen.

I'd like to see Blood of the Sith or a similar skill made available to Deception, either by moving it down to the second tier of the darkness tree, or tweaking a deception talent to have a similar effect. Or maybe make saber conduit refund 20 or 25 force instead of 10, though that's still reliant on RNG...

So we need a fix for assassins on pve but not pvp?

New Talent

 

Static Discharge

Vs players: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that reduces target damage by x%

Vs Npcs: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that increases damage taken from assassin abilities by x%

 

Thoughts? could increase our damage potential in pve and reduce the glass canon idea.

 

percentages can be adjusted and shouldn't be huge buffs.

I like this idea. Guys, this is what we need to be looking at.

Talked to a BW rep. This summarizes what I got out of our conversation:

Rep: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Me: "Still wondering why deception is the worst dps."

Rep: "is there anything else I can help you with?"

The only thing he really did say that was of any use was that anything we came up with could be put in the "suggestion box."

As for your suggestion? I reccomend doing1/3/5% DR ( so it matches with Wither) and 15/10/15% but only to the assassin's attacks. Either that, or whenever the target is hit by a melee attack, it restores 4/8/10 force. Have this talent replace Saber Conduit. That will help significantly with our force regen.

The other proposed fix for Saber Conduit (making it give 25 force back) or moving BotS down to 2nd tier darkness would also help immensely.

This is what we're working towards guys. Figuring out whats wrong and fixing it. Keep up the good work.

So we need a fix for assassins on pve but not pvp?

New Talent

 

Static Discharge

Vs players: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that reduces target damage by x%

Vs Npcs: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that increases damage taken from assassin abilities by x%

 

Thoughts? could increase our damage potential in pve and reduce the glass canon idea.

 

percentages can be adjusted and shouldn't be huge buffs.

I like this, doesnt have to be a DoT or anything but marauders and mercs have armor debuffs and such, we dont have anything like that.

Once upon a time in an unnamed MMO, there was a class that too much burst and only semi-decent sustained damage. So what they did was give them ramp-up time on their main damage, and reduced the cd on their heavy hitters while reducing their damage. Fixes for both PvP and PvE. Over time, their damage was excellent, but on burst, they were lower, and it required more skill rather than throwing your hands on the keyboard randomly.

I propose this:

With Exploit Weakness, reduce the Armor Pen, but also reduce the GCD. Similarly, decrease Surging Charge's initial damage and increase its proc chancewhile giving a stacking buff similar to Juyo Form, where each hit restores 3/5/8 Force. This is not for only surging charge procs, but ALL hits. Including Force attacks (shock, and lightning ticks).

Saber strike and Voltaic Strike would apply a stacking damage buff for ONLY the assassin's abilities.

a 50% uptime with an internal cooldown means that for this to take effect, it requires at least 5 seconds, and ALOT of things can happen in 5 seconds in pvp. Burst wil still be an option for deception in PvP, but it will not be as rediculously high. The biggest problem with sustained damage for deception as it is right now is that it is almost impossible to manage force properly. Sure, we get plenty of burst every 45 seconds thanks to Blackout, but those 45 seconds of downtime really kill our dps, because we're saber striking all the freaking time.

I came up with this idea based on the ideas you gave me. But I would still like your input.

I like this idea. Guys, this is what we need to be looking at.

 

Talked to a BW rep. This summarizes what I got out of our conversation:

 

Rep: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Me: "Still wondering why deception is the worst dps."

Rep: "is there anything else I can help you with?"

 

The only thing he really did say that was of any use was that anything we came up with could be put in the "suggestion box."

 

As for your suggestion? I reccomend doing1/3/5% DR ( so it matches with Wither) and 15/10/15% but only to the assassin's attacks. Either that, or whenever the target is hit by a melee attack, it restores 4/8/10 force. Have this talent replace Saber Conduit. That will help significantly with our force regen.

 

The other proposed fix for Saber Conduit (making it give 25 force back) or moving BotS down to 2nd tier darkness wuld also help immensely.

 

This is what we're working towards guys. Figuring out whats wrong and fixing it. Keep up the good work.

The only thing I forgot to mention was to have it far enough up the tree so that other specs like madness won't Bene

This other idea I have was a mechanic I always thought was interesting and us only powerful against players that don't pay attention.

(replacing or modify the current slow ability)

Lightning shackles

Lightning shackles begins with five or ten stacks, Reduces target movement speed by x% per stack. Stacks are removed by moving; however, moving deals x% damage per step.

Adjust numbers as needed, smart players will know not to move lol. Doesn't really help pve though.

How about we look at changing how tramault works... It looks cool and we never use it. At least I don't it needs to stay a force free ability. Maybe if we can reclass it to be usable after every maul strike? Maybe reduce the cooldown timer.

Should allow for a small increase to Dps need to maintain the only useable in pve part., take out the incapacitated part.

First I think there's a serious question over how much deception really needs done to it, versus how much some portions of the community think needs done to it based off their not winning overall meters. I do think there's some call for a sustained DPS boost, but I think people currently underrate deception. There is very much a place for a character capable of great burst on a raid team, even if that comes with inferior sustained or aoe.

I think that nuance escapes the player discussion too frequently, but I don't think it's escaped the discussion at Bioware. Infact they've emphasised they look at that sort of thing multiple times.

So lets work off the assumption that our PVE burst is appropriate but our PVE sustained isn't, and we'd strongly prefer to leave PVP damage profile largely unchanged.

- That immediately puts dual effect tooltip games off the table (e.g. effect in PVE is X, effect in PVP is Y) because they'd boost our PVE burst damage

- It means we can't do something that increases energy during our burst windows, again because that increases our PVE burst damage

- We can marginally increase our number of burst windows. When you need burst is encounter specific in PVE & quasi-random in PVP, so if we're using burst selectively the (dis)advantages will average out but if it's a sustained DPS only fight then we're improved. Simply lowering the CD of blackout would work, if it weren't for the PVP implications (and might be the best option even with them).

- Adding a maintenance intensive DoT is the obvious braindead way out. Even better, make it too expensive to want to cast regularly but have it refreshed by Maul.

- Anything that involves a 20-30s ramp up time is also likely work. Our static charges are open there IMO.. the random fire approach we're currently using to it isn't very interesting. I also kinda liked the idea of working Tumult in personally... every 2x exploit weakness'd mauls we get a free Tumult (with fries)? Something like that.

First I think there's a serious question over how much deception really needs done to it, versus how much some portions of the community think needs done to it based off their not winning overall meters. I do think there's some call for a sustained DPS boost, but I think people currently underrate deception. There is very much a place for a character capable of great burst on a raid team, even if that comes with inferior sustained or aoe.

 

I think that nuance escapes the player discussion too frequently, but I don't think it's escaped the discussion at Bioware. Infact they've emphasised they look at that sort of thing multiple times.

 

So lets work off the assumption that our PVE burst is appropriate but our PVE sustained isn't, and we'd strongly prefer to leave PVP damage profile largely unchanged.

 

- That immediately puts dual effect tooltip games off the table (e.g. effect in PVE is X, effect in PVP is Y) because they'd boost our PVE burst damage

- It means we can't do something that increases energy during our burst windows, again because that increases our PVE burst damage

- We can marginally increase our number of burst windows. When you need burst is encounter specific in PVE & quasi-random in PVP, so if we're using burst selectively the (dis)advantages will average out but if it's a sustained DPS only fight then we're improved. Simply lowering the CD of blackout would work, if it weren't for the PVP implications (and might be the best option even with them).

- Adding a maintenance intensive DoT is the obvious braindead way out. Even better, make it too expensive to want to cast regularly but have it refreshed by Maul.

- Anything that involves a 20-30s ramp up time is also likely work. Our static charges are open there IMO.. the random fire approach we're currently using to it isn't very interesting. I also kinda liked the idea of working Tumult in personally... every 2x exploit weakness'd mauls we get a free Tumult (with fries)? Something like that.

You bring up some good points. The consensus is that Static Charge needs to be changed in order to ramp-up our energy regen, so that the time our increased energy regen runs out, it is mostly up. Perhaps a damage increase to surging charge? The problem with this theory is that BW has to re-design a completely new debuff, if this were to come into effect. Alternatively, we could re-design Saber Conduit AND Static Charge, both of which are really poorly designed talents that people primarily take for PvE purposes.

Let's take our focus away from the many things that are wrong, and focus on both of these.

Also, to the person who said that madness and darkness don't benefit from these changes, my response is that they don't have to. Darkness is fine as is right now (ignoring the upcoming changes in hopes that someone slaps sense into BW- no one comment on this) and Madness pulls significantly higher dps. Sure it doesnt beat a Sniper/Marauder, but among hybrid classes, we are right there with... oh wait, madness sorcs. Both of those toons fall right under snipers and marauders.

Back to Static Charge and Saber Conduit

Switch these two talents. Reduce Static Charge to 3 stacks (and fix surging charge's proc chance and damage so that ramp-up-time is about 10 seconds). At 3 stacks, Static Charge, in addition to buffing Discharge, is not consumed (damage buff for discharge can remain at 15%, since we don't have to ramp it up every time) buffs the damage of our surging charge by 5/10/15%. This way, our damage remains good, but our ramp up time is also great for sustained. Now, Saber Conduit (which atm restores force) would now play off of Static Charge (which if these changes were implemented, static would be a prereq to conduit) where stacks of static charge would make your melee or force attacks restore 5 or 10 force.

Change Saber Conduit to read: "Your next Discharge has a 100% chance to refund 10 force per stack of Static Charge."

Alternatively, just lower the internal cooldown of saber conduit to 3 or 5 seconds?

Personally, I think the best way to boost sustained DPS for Deception would be to give us some sort of mechanic to boost force regen.

We have several (Dark Embrace) Lead-In with Stealth, 6 seconds later hit Blackout, 6 seconds later Cloak. Thats 18 seconds of 50% regen increase and blackout will be up again in 40 seconds. Anything more than this would come close to even having to manage force resource

I kick *** on a Deception in PvP and PvE, it is not an easy class to master and play effectively in PvP however PvE is much simpler since you will pretty much be using VSx2 Shock, Discharge, Maul when duplicity procs all day. That being said I downed Eternity Vault and KP Hardmodes the other night with no DPS problems and did it in Battlemaster Gear.

I wasnt running DPS meters so I dont know what my numbers are, but I do know we had no wipes on EV and only 1 on KP on final boss. Some encounters are harder for melee dps because of boss mechanics. The biggest challenge for deception in PvE is not DPS its survivability and I overcome that with a 41+ Endurance crystal in my saber and a Hyperbattle Fortitude Stim + having the "Exceptional" (3,000 - 3,650 HP) Medpacks available.

So what if my sustained DPS is lower on the meter (its supposed to be your playing a burst class) it hasn't stopped me or my raid from efficiently downing content and getting gear *SHRUG*

You may think you are doing well, but honestly, what other class has to sacrifice dps for survivability with actual stim and itemization. This isn't meant to be offensive, so please don't take it that way. Your dps will be significantly lower. I suggest you run meters next time, just to see the disparity.

We are incredibly squishy. Ergo, we should be high dps. Its the glass cannon rule. But, as someone earlier stated... Deception is the glass cannon without the cannon.

We have several (Dark Embrace) Lead-In with Stealth, 6 seconds later hit Blackout, 6 seconds later Cloak. Thats 18 seconds of 50% regen increase and blackout will be up again in 40 seconds. Anything more than this would come close to even having to manage force resource

Yeah, so at the beginning of usually a 5+ minute boss fight, you can open with 18 seconds of double regen. After that, however, you're looking at 6 every 45 and 6 more every minute and a half, at best. Now, I dunno about anyone else, but the Dark Embrace buff barely lets me break even force-wise, so I still find myself force-starved at almost all other times in the fight. We need some kind of mechanic to reduce the strain on our force pool outside of Dark Embrace (and no, spamming saber strike every other DPS rotation doesn't count).

And that's assuming you're using force cloak on every cooldown. I generally prefer to save mine in case somebody dies, it's basically a second battle rez.

Static Discharge

Vs players: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that reduces target damage by x%

Vs Npcs: discharge now adds a stacking debuff that increases damage taken from assassin abilities by x%

all classes' abilities should be like this. one function for PvP and one for PvE. CC's for example... since this is the SI forum, lets use mind trap:

PvE:

"Traps the target's mind, leaving it bewildered and unable to act for 60 seconds. Damage will break the effect prematurely. This ability is only usable in stealth mode and cannot be used against a target in combat. Only one target can be incapacitated at any given time"

PvP:

"Traps the target's mind, leaving it bewildered and unable to act for 15 seconds. Damage will break the effect prematurely. This ability is only usable in stealth mode and cannot be used against a target in combat. Only one target can be incapacitated at any given time"

a nerf of 45 seconds, if people feel it lasts too long. This is just an example and it would, fused together look something like this:

"Traps the target's mind, leaving it bewildered and unable to act for 60 seconds on mobs and 15 seconds on players. Damage will break the effect prematurely. This ability is only usable in stealth mode and cannot be used against a target in combat. Only one target can be incapacitated at any given time"

all abilities can be remade to work like this if you really want to. This way, a nerf in PvP does not affect PvE at all.