For those of you who don't frequent the Smuggler/Scoundrel sections of the forums, the underwhelming responses to the Scoundrel Community questions have come out. They are:

Below you will find the returned answers to your submitted top 3!

 

Question 1. Scrapper (PVE / PVP):

For all areas of play, there seems to be a huge reliance on Shoot First for Scrapper, moreso than Dirty Fighting. However, there are few ways to reliably go into stealth and no proc that allows its use out of stealth (even without the knockdown).

In PvP encounters, Shoot First can often be the difference between winning and losing a fight, and because of this, Scrapper still plays like a 'lone wolf' class, contributing much less in prolonged fights out of stealth compared to quick in-and-out battles where Shoot First can be used effectively.

Many PvE encounters start with AOE attacks or have advanced stealth detection, making it nearly impossible to start with Shoot First.

 

Scrapper also suffers from rotation concerns. While the energy return with Turn the Tables was a great addition, it can sometimes trigger at or near full energy, effectively wasting the return. The sustained damage rotation can also feel clunky at times due to the lack of suitable filler attacks; Quick Shot seems like it is intended to fulfill this role, given that there are talents within each dps tree that boost its damage. However, many feel that it fails to do so. Due to its energy cost, short range, and small damage increase over Flurry Bolts, many Scrappers generally prefer to use Flurry of Bolts when nothing else is available.

 

The above two issues can cause problems with energy management: an energy return mechanic that is unreliable and using our basic attack as a rotational filler rather than simply as a way to conserve energy.

 

How do the players's perceptions of Scrapper's role in PvP as a lone wolf class, the extra difficulties it faces in PvE encounters, the confusion surrounding rotation mechanics, and your own metrics of class performance match up with the combat team's expectations for Scrappers? Can you shed some light on any current internal discussions that are aimed at alleviating these issues?

 

Many a stealth class or specialization has struggled with the feeling of being a “Lone Wolf” in PvP in many different games over the past decade (and maybe even longer). We do not believe this has ever necessarily been each and every designer’s intention for stealth classes, but rather, a byproduct of the stealth ability itself – often times, a stealther is able to go places where his allies can only dream of going. While designers may be able to take some steps here and there to give players some tools which reduce that “Lone Wolf” feeling (see the answer to Question 2 for more on this), the greatest power for eliminating this feeling actually lies with the stealther and the stealther’s allies. There may be more we can do to alleviate these concerns, so please feel free to point us at specific skills or abilities that you feel take away from your ability to play as part of a team. We will not be removing stealth itself, but we are open to making stealthers as “team friendly” as possible (within reason, of course).

 

Shoot First/Hidden Strike does great damage because it requires you to be stealthed behind your target. If it did not require stealth, it would do considerably less damage. Our metrics assume that Shoot First/Hidden Strike is only used once per encounter, so if you are using Disappearing Act/Cloaking Screen to perform additional Shoot First/Hidden Strike attacks in a single encounter, then you are probably performing above our expectations. We understand the difficulties in using a positional attack from stealth, and we do not wish to require players to use an escape mechanic to produce competitive, sustained damage. That said, we have to be careful to keep the burst damage at a reasonable level when the mechanic is used. We might consider giving Scrapper/Concealment Scoundrels/Operatives a way to use Shoot First/Hidden Strike outside of stealth, since they already have many skills that improve it, but such a drastic change to gameplay would be more likely to come along in an expansion pack than a balance update.

 

Rotationally speaking, we could have Turn the Tables/Culling return your energy over time rather than immediately, though we are not sure all Scoundrels/Operatives would be happy with that change (especially when you are not anywhere close to full energy). That would resolve the issue with it triggering at or near full energy, but is it something that Scoundrels/Operatives would actually want? Quick Shot/Overload Shot is admittedly a poor filler ability. A scoring check reveals that, for its energy cost, it should deal more damage than it does, and we can fix that in a patch by properly rebalancing the ability. Hopefully, rebalancing Quick Shot/Overload Shot will make it into the competent filler attack that it was meant to be.

 

Question 2. Survivability (PVP):

With the most recent round of questions, it was revealed that Advanced Classes who can heal have their basic heals included within their survivability profiles for damage specs. There are many concerns with how this applies to Scoundrels in that, although we do have some 30m abilities, we are primarily a melee damage class, unlike the other two healing classes. Therefore, we cannot easily line of sight an enemy to heal, and these heals are also very costly in both energy and Upper Hand.

 

Although Scamper is a great new skill that can create some space, it similarly comes with a high energy cost, and it does not create enough space in most scenarios (not that it should).

 

Disappearing Act also seems to be a good escape tool, but it double purposes as an offensive cooldown and additionally nullifies all incoming healing without the Fight or Flight talent.

 

Scoundrels lack some PvP defensive talents that are common in other classes, such as ones that trigger while being stunned or talents that provide AOE damage reduction. Scrapper also lost a bit of its passive survivability in 2.0 with the change to Pugnacity. Surprise Comeback originally healed a constant, moderate amount over time; it now only ticks 4 times, for a total of 16% of max health every two minutes.

 

Can the devs explain the design philosophy for Scoundrel survivability and how it is different compared to other classes and offer some insight into future changes that will address these issues?

 

Scoundrels/Operatives are meant to be shady, slippery characters that survive by escaping rather than sticking around to face the brunt of a foe’s attack. For Scoundrels/Operatives, both their ability to heal and their ability to stealth count toward their ability to survive. We do not give every single class an area-of-effect damage reduction skill because we want there to be differences and play-style variances among the classes. That is also why not every class can wear heavy armor, enter stealth mode, or heal. That is not to say that Scoundrels/Operatives will never gain access to such a skill, but they also should not expect a skill like that any time soon.

 

As for upcoming survivability changes, we are planning to make a change to Disappearing Act/Cloaking Screen (and also to Force Cloak, for any Jedi Shadows or Sith Assassins that may be reading this) so that it no longer decreases all healing received by 100%. It will still decrease all healing done by 100%, so Scoundrel/Operative healers will not be able to continue healing themselves or their allies with their heal-over-time abilities from the hidden safety of stealth mode. But this change will allow Scoundrels/Operatives to be healed by other allies immediately after using Disappearing Act/Cloaking Screen, which should help to address both Scoundrel/Operative survivability in group situations and, to some extent, the “Lone Wolf” issue you mentioned in the first question.

 

We are concerned that Sawbones/Medicine survivability is probably a little bit too good, which means any survivability we give to Scoundrels/Operatives cannot be made available to the Sawbones/Medicine specialization. To address this, we may consider moving some Sawbones/Medicine survivability skills over to the Scrapper/Concealment and Dirty Fighting/Lethality specializations (as part of a skill trade), but we do not currently have any details to share about what these exact changes may be.

 

Question 3. Set Bonuses (PVP / PVE):

Many players find the current set bonuses lacking for many specs, in both PvE and PvP. The current 4pc set bonus, +5 max energy is somewhat of an enigma to many players. Firstly, it only adds +5% energy--so 2 energy at max-tier regen, 2 and mid, and 1 for low (meaning it is less valuable than the similar "Bravado" talent for Gunslingers). Secondly, many players are confused as to what it adds to the Scoundrel rotation. In practice, the additional energy really isn't noticeable.

 

In PvP, the 2pc bonuses for each role seem to be lacking. The increase to Kolto Cloud was moved to the PvE set and was replaced with a boost to Defense Screen, which doesn't seem like a fair tradeoff since many Sawbones in PvP don't feel that they have survivability issues (quite the opposite). The DPS set bonus is equally underused. In fact, many DPS Scoundrels, in PvP and PvE, prefer to use the Gunslinger 2pc PvP bonus over other Scoundrel bonuses. Many players have shown that the extra tick for XS Freighter Flyby adds the highest DPS gain, even on a single-target encounter and even in PvE situations, factoring in the loss of mainstat.

 

Can you explain the intent behind the 4pc bonuses and comment on the way that players are currently stacking their set bonuses (e.g. picking up the Gunslinger PvP 2pc)?

 

Like all of the other PvE set bonuses in the game, the intent behind the 4-piece Scoundrel/Operative PvE set bonus is to provide a small boost to sustained damage. It could very well be the case that the sustained damage gained by adding five energy to the Scoundrel’s/Operative’s resource pool is too small. We will look into this further, and we may at some point make a change to this particular set bonus if we find that we are not completely satisfied with its performance.

 

It is interesting that so many Smugglers/Imperial Agents have taken such a liking to the 2-piece Gunslinger/Sniper PvP set bonus. Due to the DPS gain, it is understandable why this is the case, but the results of this design are unintentional. We touched a little bit on this in the Gunslinger/Sniper questions, and we can go into a bit more depth since you have specifically asked about it.

 

Because of how our ability damage is scored, XS Freighter Flyby/Orbital Strike puts out some of the best DPS in the game – assuming all of its damage ticks hit a target – and this is without the set bonus. While we do intend for XS Freighter Flyby/Orbital Strike to be an excellent choice against three or more enemy targets in an area, the single-target effectiveness of the ability is not intended to be so good, with a possible exception for the Saboteur/Engineering Gunslinger/Sniper. But the other five Smuggler/Imperial Agent specializations are not meant to be using the ability against a single target. To address this issue, we plan to make a few changes.

 

First, we will be lowering the effectiveness of XS Freighter Flyby/Orbital Strike by reducing some combination of its cooldown, activation time, and energy cost. Then we will rescore the damage it does. This will allow it to be used more easily and more often, but it will deal less damage per use. We will also be swapping the 2-piece and 4-piece Gunslinger/Sniper PvP set bonuses, so that the extra tick of XS Freighter Flyby/Orbital Strike damage will be tied to four pieces, and the increased range for Distraction and Quickdraw/Takedown will be tied to two pieces. These changes should combine to bring XS Freighter Flyby/Orbital Strike closer to its intended purpose: being a marvelous multi-target ability and a less than optimal single-target ability.

Essentially the gems we got from this round of answers were:

1.) - It's your fault you're a Lone Wolf

- If you were smart enough to use Disappearing Act and Shoot First, you're better than we thought you'd be.

2.) - You're the real slim shady, now run from tough fights like a true man

- Heal to full: melee style

3.) - If you like a set bonus for another AC, we may just take it away from you

Those were far better answers this week then the last set.

Yes. They included no "perceprtion problem" and no "heal to full".

The Juggernaught answers are even much, much better ! Thoughtful and most polite !

What a shame that Vanguards/Sorcerors didn't get thoughtful and polite answers ... But at least Vanguards got an "direct/instant patch reaction" ...

Now your just crying for no reason. Those were far better answers this week then the last set. The problem to sustained scoundrel dps is with the lack of a "good" filler, which by the way they admit to and are looking into a way of fixing. Quit crying for no reason.

I entirely don't care about sustained dps for a scoundrel, so far no scrapper has come out saying that our sustained dps is our biggest issue. What is just stupid is that Bioware (a) expects us to cast long, costly heals while performing as a melee dps and (b) has no intention of giving us better general survivability (Vanguards already have better), essentially relegating us to either being a Lone Wolf or Inner Spawn Guarder if we want to see some dps action. No competitive ranked team brought Scrappers into ranked because they are so squishy that they are a liability. Now that Scoundrel dps won't be able to occupy their time with objectives in the new arenas, the problem will only become more apparent.

The problem to sustained scoundrel dps is with the lack of a "good" filler....

There's a poster doesn't play scrapper or concealment ops.

The answer to our problems is a cheaper Quick Shot. Silly me.

I am happy they are aware our set bonus is ****, that our defensive cooldowns are ****, and that our sustained is ****.

But

Their reply to our set bonus is to remove the only viable set bonus we have and making it a 4pc set. They may adjust the Enforcer set bonus but it is "coming soon".

Their reply to our defensive cooldowns is that they will take some of the Medicine abilities (nerf Op heals) and transfer over to the DPS specs. Most likely Med Shield and Evasive Imperative.

Finally, their answer to our sustained DPS is to make Overload shot a good filler. In order for it to be effective, a) increase its damage by at least 25% and b) reduce its energy drastically.

P.S: Hidden Strike (7k avg min/maxed) hits hard because it is a positional/stealth required ability. If it wasn't stealth dependent it would hit for much less. Bioware logic???

Maul, Heat Seeker, Smash, Dispatch, Assassinate, Ravage, must I go on?

We have good reason to cry/shout. The answers left me with some hope for our class. I'll be happy with any buff really. Even if it is irrelevant from our main concerns.

Nobody asked any questions about lethality?

They were initially tied into the first two questions, but were eventually phased out during the multiple rounds of drafting between Oceen and KeyboardNinja so that the questions didn't seem to rambling and were more likely to get a more complete response.

Finally, their answer to our sustained DPS is to make Overload shot a good filler. In order for it to be effective, a) increase its damage by at least 25% and b) reduce its energy drastically.

I'd be surprised to see anything more than a 10% buff to it's damage with more than a 2 energy cost reduction.

There's a poster doesn't play scrapper or concealment ops.

 

The answer to our problems is a cheaper Quick Shot. Silly me.

They didnt say cheaper quick shot......they said it should be doing MORE dmg for its current cost. And that they will look at rebalancing. They also stated that Scrapper was weak in defensives and was looking at pulling a defensive from the heal tree to scrapper tree.

So isnt that the 2 big concerns? Sustained dmg and defensives? Or would you just like God Mode and wont be happy with anything less than that? We should be looking for small changes that wont get nerfed 2 weeks later. See how the changes stack and then go from there.

They didnt say cheaper quick shot......they said it should be doing MORE dmg for its current cost. And that they will look at rebalancing. They also stated that Scrapper was weak in defensives and was looking at pulling a defensive from the heal tree to scrapper tree.

 

So isnt that the 2 big concerns? Sustained dmg and defensives? Or would you just like God Mode and wont be happy with anything less than that? We should be looking for small changes that wont get nerfed 2 weeks later. See how the changes stack and then go from there.

They want the god mode. As if being invisible all the time and able to pick their fights isn't enough, they want to pop out of stealth, stun, kill someone before the CC wears off, and hide again. Then they'll be 'balanced'.

Seriously, I'm tired of the crying stealthers in this game. Invisibility is a big enough advantage, nobody can stun or stop you before reaching an objective to prevent a cap (VoidStar door or a side node on alderaan). You can go anywhere you want, and be where the team needs you. Giving you any more damage or defense is absolutely absurd.

They didnt say cheaper quick shot......they said it should be doing MORE dmg for its current cost. And that they will look at rebalancing. They also stated that Scrapper was weak in defensives and was looking at pulling a defensive from the heal tree to scrapper tree.

 

So isnt that the 2 big concerns? Sustained dmg and defensives? Or would you just like God Mode and wont be happy with anything less than that? We should be looking for small changes that wont get nerfed 2 weeks later. See how the changes stack and then go from there.

They said:

To address this, we may consider moving some Sawbones/Medicine survivability skills over to the Scrapper/Concealment and Dirty Fighting/Lethality specializations (as part of a skill trade), but we do not currently have any details to share about what these exact changes may be.

They never said that Scrapper had weak defenses, the only thing they said was that they were going to make Scoundrels heal-able after using an in-combat stealth, which Scrapper already has because of Fight or Flight. They said that at some point in time they may move over some defensive trait from Sawbones to either Dirty Fighting or Lethality, which also is a pretty bad solution. The only defensive trait that is worth anything in Sawbones is Scurry (lowerable cooldown of Dodge) and that is worth a lot. Essentially, if Scurry isn't brought into a Scoundrel Dps tree then that tree is a little less survivable than a Balance Shadow (Deflection > Defense Screen). If Scurry isn't the trait that is brought over, then both trees haven't made any headway in survivability.

They want the god mode. As if being invisible all the time and able to pick their fights isn't enough, they want to pop out of stealth, stun, kill someone before the CC wears off, and hide again. Then they'll be 'balanced'.

 

Seriously, I'm tired of the crying stealthers in this game. Invisibility is a big enough advantage, nobody can stun or stop you before reaching an objective to prevent a cap (VoidStar door or a side node on alderaan). You can go anywhere you want, and be where the team needs you. Giving you any more damage or defense is absolutely absurd.

I can't fight while invisible. I can afk while invisible, but Scoundrel dps should be terrified of going into large conflicts just because they lack the general survivability that every other melee dps (save-ish Balance Shadow) has. The fact that Scrapper wasn't ever a viable choice for ranked should easily display the disparity between it and every other melee dps. I didn't put out enough damage (that can be worked around) and didn't have any good cooldowns that let it fight (not run away and hide while doing nothing) while being hit by any kind of team.

A scoundrel dps' choice in a warzone when 'choosing' their encounters shouldn't be: Pick off a roadwarrior or Afk until the big fighting settles down.

Scoundrels don't need god mode buttons, that would just be boring. When discussing flat mitigation cooldowns that are meant to be useful for more than 3 seconds: Shadows have Deflection, Guardians and Sentinels have Saber Ward, Vanguards have Reactive Shield, and Scoundrels have Defense Screen(?) I'm sorry that I don't have the 30% aoe damage reduction, 30% damage reduction while stunned, powerful -30% selfhealing, and a Reactive Shield that can have as low as a 40 second cooldown that your powertech has, but I'd totally like to run into a group and not get ganked as well. When it comes to survivability, I'd totally be willing to trade my stealth for your Reactive Shield + Reflexive Shield.

The problem with concealment is that it is built for gutting people 1v1. If they give silly defensive cool downs to survive zerg fests, it's burst will have to be canned. You can't have your cake and eat it.

To be frank, I like concealment operatives. It is my all time favorite spec. I don't want it turned into an I win class. Give me back my passive heal that stim boost used to give. Decrease overload shots energy and give me 3 second nades so I can lol nade spam. Bump up nade surge and damage as well thanks

They want the god mode. As if being invisible all the time and able to pick their fights isn't enough, they want to pop out of stealth, stun, kill someone before the CC wears off, and hide again. Then they'll be 'balanced'.

 

Seriously, I'm tired of the crying stealthers in this game. Invisibility is a big enough advantage, nobody can stun or stop you before reaching an objective to prevent a cap (VoidStar door or a side node on alderaan). You can go anywhere you want, and be where the team needs you. Giving you any more damage or defense is absolutely absurd.

What we want is to be viable in a group fight and we are currently far from it. We are decent in 1v1s (nowhere near god mode), but we are cannon fodder in any kind of node contention. PvP here is not about 1v1s.

The scrapper/concealment spec only excels at trolling new/poor players.

To all the people who are saying scoundrel scrapper is fine, tell me: what reason is there to bring a scrapper over an infiltration shadow?

Infil Shadows (which are also somewhat considered to be underpowered) have resilience, deflection, blackout, taunts, and AOE damage reduction. Scoundrels have defense screen and Dodge lol. If you all haven't noticed, all of the dps specs that are considered viable for arenas have considerable AOE damage reduction ability(s), which are necessary to combat the strongest and most used ability, Smash.

Giving Scoundrels dodge on a shorter cooldown and overload shot slightly more damage or less energy will *not* make them viable. They will still be eating 8k smashes every few seconds, which makes them useless and unwanted for arenas. Every time a team brings a class such as scoundrel DPS, the other team is going to tunnel and focus them down first because they are a free kill. There will be no healing themselves, either (melee heal to full lol).

Bioware decided to release Arenas, so they have to balance ALL classes for Arenas. Being able to stealth out and hide and go heal yourself to full or solo an enemy node is USELESS in Arenas. The moment you stealth out and hide in an Arena your team is ****ED because your team will be putting less pressure on the enemy team, which means their DPS will be free to do whatever they want and not have to worry about peels and survivability. As long as a class is going to be taking full 8-9k smashes, pulse cannons, etc, it instantly makes the class less viable and not sought out for Arenas, which is no good.

I hope BW realizes this and balances accordingly.

The problem with concealment is that it is built for gutting people 1v1. If they give it silly defensive cool downs to survive zerg fests, it's burst will have to be canned. You can't have your cake and eat it.

 

To be frank, I like concealment operatives. It is my all time favorite spec. I don't want it turned into an I win class. Give me back my passive heal that stim boost used to give. Decrease overload shots energy and give me 3 second nades so I can lol nade spam.

Infiltration Shadow is built for gutting people 1v1 better and is much more viable in large-scale conflict, which is why so many Scrappers just rerolled Shadow. And it's burst is already canned the moment they lose the ability to quickly restealth (which is the moment they engage a group). Just try to show how a Combat Sentinel's burst, especially after a minute of fighting, is in any way inferior to a Scrappers.

To all the people who are saying scoundrel scrapper is fine, tell me: what reason is there to bring a scrapper over an infiltration shadow?

 

Infil Shadows (which are also somewhat considered to be underpowered) have resilience, deflection, blackout, taunts, and AOE damage reduction. Scoundrels have defense screen and Dodge lol. If you all haven't noticed, all of the dps specs that are considered viable for arenas have considerable AOE damage reduction ability(s), which are necessary to combat the strongest and most used ability, Smash.

 

Giving Scoundrels dodge on a shorter cooldown and overload shot slightly more damage or less energy will *not* make them viable. They will still be eating 8k smashes every few seconds, which makes them useless and unwanted for arenas. Every time a team brings a class such as scoundrel DPS, the other team is going to tunnel and focus them down first because they are a free kill. There will be no healing themselves, either (melee heal to full lol).

 

Bioware decided to release Arenas, so they have to balance ALL classes for Arenas. Being able to stealth out and hide and go heal yourself to full or solo an enemy node is USELESS in Arenas. The moment you stealth out and hide in an Arena your team is ****ED because your team will be putting less pressure on the enemy team, which means their DPS will be free to do whatever they want and not have to worry about peels and survivability. As long as a class is going to be taking full 8-9k smashes, pulse cannons, etc, it instantly makes the class less viable and not sought out for Arenas, which is no good.

 

I hope BW realizes this and balances accordingly.

Well-$%#&ing-said man.

My favorite response to the answers:

Here's a little song I wrote.

You might want to stab it note for note

Don't worry. Be shady.

 

In every fight we have some trouble

But in arenas it will be double

 

Don't worry. Be shady.

Don't worry. Be shady now.

 

Don't worry ... be shady.

Don't worry be slip'ry

 

Don't worry ... be shady.

Don't worry be slip'ry.

 

Ain't got no bonus on our set

Just usin' snipers' now. It's not nerfed yet.

 

Don't worry. Be shady.

 

You may say we're nerfed a lot

But we'll be saved by overload shot

 

Don't worry. Be shady.

Don't worry. Be shady.

 

Don't worry ... be shady.

Don't worry be slip'ry.

 

Don't worry ... you can heal too.

But then again

"Shoot First/Hidden Strike does great damage because it requires you to be stealthed behind your target. If it did not require stealth, it would do considerably less damage."

Bioware's *********** logic. Because out of stealth abilities used MORE frequently don't do more damage than Shoot First/Hidden Strike. /sarcasm

Maul - Has a positional and a proc requirement

Heat Seeker - Very crit dependent. Has no increase to crit chance in tree/set bonus only to crit damage. Also requires an interruptable cast to set up.

Smash - I agree

Dispatch - Execute, requires >30% HP, white damage can miss.

Assassinate - Execute, requires >30% HP, white damage can miss.

Ravage - Easily avoided via stun, KB or moving.

 

must I go on?

/5char

Maul - Has a positional and a recommended proc. No cooldown and hits harder..

Heat Seeker - Very crit dependent. Has no increase to crit chance in tree/set bonus only to crit damage. Also requires an interruptable cast to set up. If you don't have the 1.5 seconds require to use a single Tracer Missle, I pity you.

Smash - I agree. Yep.

Dispatch - Execute, requires >30% HP unless you have a proc for it, white damage can miss but almost never does.

Assassinate - Execute, requires >30% HP, white damage can miss but almost never does.

Ravage - Easily avoided via stun, KB or moving.

Shoot First- Stealth dependent. Very crit dependent. Can be prevented by stealth detection abilities or splash aoe. Applies a decent knockdown and does okay damage.

One ability is a bit worse than the others

/5char

You may go on.

If we look at it objectively in that manner, than people need to realize that Hidden Strike ONLY hits as hard as it does (yet less than out of stealth hits) because of 2 things:

A) people forget that it is also CRIT dependent, regardless of crit increasing abilities. It still has a chance to not crit, and a spec focusing around Hidden Strike is useless if it doesn't crit. Also, only usable 1 time per fight, as EM said, metrics show some Operatives wasting a defensive cd to use it again. lol

B) Acid Blade. (Not passive, a separate ability that has an energy cost) Can be dispelled.

HOWEVER, the debate was on EM's logic, and not so much how to counteract an ability.

Shoot First- Stealth dependent. Very crit dependent. Can be prevented by stealth detection abilities or splash aoe. Applies a decent knockdown and does okay damage.

 

One ability is a bit worse than the others

Also positional dependent. MUST be behind the target. Your points sum everything out nicely. It shows how easily effective other abilities can be used as opposed to Hidden Strike with its many obstacles.

hidden strike is not the issue, dps-wise. The issue is that there is a lull in our dps 'rotation' (for a lack of a better term).

This could be resolved by having a skill decrease the cooldown on backstab back to what it was a few patches ago.