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Assassin Feedback


JackieKo

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With PTS now live, you can help test the Combat Style for the Assassin.

 

Please answer the following questions:

 

  • Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing an Assassin? Why or why not?
  • If you have feedback on the different discipline, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.
  • As you’re beginning from level 1, do you feel you have enough abilities that keep gameplay interesting?
  • Are you able to defeat enemies at a reasonable rate?
  • Do all your abilities feel like they’re working together?

 

Feel free to answer in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking.

 

Thank you!

 

EDIT: Added additional feedback questions.

Edited by JackieKo
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Darkness

 

Level 20 - Energized Shock looks like a cool passive. I've always liked abilities that extend taunts and lower the cooldown of taunts to allow tanks to focus on crowd control mechanics and not have to be competing with DPS as well.

 

Level 30 - Some great choices here to augment Dark Ward, I especially like Gloom Ward for taunt cooldown reduction

 

Level 35 - I like that there are options here to choose different ways to give a self heal. This is a case where losing a standard ability (Overcharged Saber) doesn't necessarily need to make you suffer, if the encounter allows for Dark Forces to give a similar or better heal.

 

Level 70 - Rip Severing Slash and Whirlwind

 

Overall not a terrible setup, I don't feel like Darkness loses it's core feeling, and in some cases you are allowing for reduction in active abilities while allowing their benefits as a passive. I really do like the passives to improve taunting and cooldowns.

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Deception

 

Level 15 - Reaper, and at such a low level, this will really give Deception that feeling you can murder everything in a room. Nice

 

Level 20 - Losing Overload to get access to some fun morphs. For deception maybe this is a little less painful since I've always felt it was more of a single target spec, but sometimes it feels like you are forcing experienced players to make difficult and uncomfortable choices about their build, where I'd think you want us to be excited to choose from the different options at each level milestone.

 

Level 35 - I like that there are options here to choose different ways to give a self heal. This is a case where losing a standard ability (Overcharged Saber) doesn't necessarily need to make you suffer, if the encounter allows for Dark Forces to give a similar or better heal.

 

Level 70 - Rip Severing Slash and Whirlwind

 

Overall still fun to play, I don't think I would hate Deception after these changes.

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We're making Juggernaut tanks choose between Saber Reflect, Mad Dash and Intimidating Roar and Assassins have to choose between Overload, Severing Slash (which no one wanted or needed anyway) and Whirlwind?! Nuh-uh, hell no, this is insane. It's already the tank you want at least one of in every single operation, often two is even better. But we're not dealing with Shroud being bonkers broken in any way, though we are making it so Juggs have to choose between Mad Dash and Reflect?! I thought this was a sign that maybe you wanted to tone down on mechanics cheesing, but nah Sins get to keep all their cheeses, the just lose the AoE nobody wanted and have to choose between Overload and Whirlwind.

 

You gotta either give Jugg tanks the option of getting both Dash and Reflect, or have Sins choose between Shroud or Shroud on Cloak or something, because this will make Sins even more dominant in the operations tanking spot.

Edited by AdjeYo
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With PTS now live, you can help test the Combat Style for the Assassin.

 

Please answer the following questions:

 

  • Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing an Assassin? Why or why not?
  • If you have feedback on the different discipline, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.

Feel free to answer in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking.

 

Thank you!

Yes I've attempted both Hatred and Darkness, can't speak on deception but my core abilities are still there and the passives are very interesting. I'll miss some of the passives, and some abilites like overcharge saber but I can sacrifice those for the new passives. I'll explain my reasoning better in my textwall.

 

First here is the Darkness one

 

Level 15 antagonizing volts is really useful to me, I enjoy the idea of a threat generation boost as well, the other option chained volts seems to be really useful as well it can be quite handy in fights with lots of adds. Only thing I don't get is energized volts, the extra force regen boost is nice but how will the system track it after the mind trap is broken?

Level 20 choices aren't that appealing to me so I kept spike, though force magnetism can be really useful in pvp to get away from stuff. Energized shock's boost to critical for shock is useful but how is this extension of the mind trap CC going to work?

level 30 choices I LOVE THEM ALL. Though I'll go with Gloom Ward as I find it more useful, always enjoy taunt CD reducers. Dark Ward breaking and causing tamage as well as threat generation AND finishing the cooldown on wither and discharge will be extremely useful to deal with adds. Twilight Ward is also interesting due to reducing the CD on reckless which can also brings its own uses in regards to managing DCDs. Dusk as well especially in sinergy with shroud of madness.

Level 35. Dark Forces, again sounds useful but how will this work? Reckless Defense is really nice as a passive buff that helps everyone in your group. Not happy about losing overcharge saber but hopefully the extra stuff will make up for it, too early to say.

Anyway level 50. These were all baseline before, kind of, formless phantom is something I'll miss especially if I get stunned inside an AOE. Fade is nice as well as it shortens the cooldown of force cloak, however it seems to be bugged as I have the effects from it even if I don't have it. I'll pick dark stability though as I like being immune to stuns and the like.

Level 60- Force Phase,, not even a question for me I enjoy my mobility granted by this ability. The fact phantom stride is also included is really nice. The Speed Surge passive is not something I ever used in-game and not something I find myself willing to sacrifice the extra root breaks nor is the 25% damage on lacerate

Level 70, this is where it gets weird for me. I believe overloard at the very least should remain a baseline ability, its useful to have a knockback. Severing Slash is honestly an ability that I always found worthless so it being an option isn't an issue for me, as for whirlind I don't mind since I also didn't used it.

level 80, reaper's rush isn't something I ever used and I think I'll remain that way. Avoidance is really useful considering the cooldown reductions so I'll miss it. I'll take shroud of madness however, because I enjoy having the extra force shroud in case I need it.

Really enjoy the new passives, core abilities are still there and there is even better synergy among them. Tanking feels like it'll be fun with my sin in 7.0.

 

 

 

Now for Hatred

 

Level 15. Death Focus is nice, will be really useful in AOE fights to keep a good balance of Force and reducing the cooldown of reckless. Penetrating Death is also really useful, armor penetration per target though I think I'll take Deadly Field, having multiple death fields can be really useful, I enjoy the fact that killing an enemy or activating reckless generates an extra charge it'll be interesting to see how I end up incorporatin this into my rotation.

[17:08]

Level 20. Once again I think overload should remain baseline. Maul Spike isn't appealing enough for me to lose a knockback nor is Force Magnetism

Level 30. Ruin could be really useful in fights with adds increasing the perfomance of AOE damage hatred has, eradication ray reminds me of the ultra violet blast tacticals from sniper, might be an interesting way to add burst DPS to hatred for those that desire it. Befall also has its uses as the extra damage to DOTs can be useful, think I'll take this one for fights where there aren't a lot of adds.

Level 35 maliciousness is not something I ever used in the base game, think I'll take hungering Force instead of it. Will miss overloaded saber.

Level 50 passives are the same as darkness but instead of dark stability I'll pick fade so I can run away and heal then go back into the fighting.

Level 60 are the same, so I'll continue with Force Phase as I prefer mobility and the other two passives never appealed that much for me.

Level 70 I'll pick force shroud to give myself the bare minimum of survival skills as a hatred assassin, we tend to be quite squishy. Same with my level 80 choice, shroud of madness ftw.

Overall not that much ability pruning I'll miss some of the passives but it still feels like a hatred assassin I just need to figure out how to use this new death field charge thing, otherwise if I don't I'll go penetrating death.

 

 

Edited by FlameYOL
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So, VERY preliminary observations;

 

I didn't get to play or really fight anything, so I can't say if the changes made me feel any squishier or not...

  • Overcharged Saber doesn't say it adds DR, though it does buff us. Need to clarify if the tip or the effect is the bug in darkness.
  • Putting both DV and Recklessness (reck and the spec ability) on one lvl makes them look like a choice at first glance; since all others are 1 or 'pick 1 of 3', might want to make this (and other 'get 2') split to lvl 5 and 10 instead... to make it clearer.
  • Force Slow is useless in PvE and fairly low-use in PvP. WHY was it not the first cut when removing abilities? Sorcs get a lot more use of it than sins.
  • If you want, make it an option for sorcs, and let us get our phase walk back ^_~
  • I would suggest swapping it (Force Slow) with Overload, thus making the lvl 70 choice more balanced, otherwise it'll be overload 95% of the time, while Force Slow vs Severing vs whirlwind sounds like a vastly more situational decision or you can further swap it with Overcharged Saber, (OS @ 70; Force Slow @35)
  • I'd suggest either moving Reaper's rush or otherwise making both possible for deception.
  • You said the tradeoff of lost abilities would be "suped up" versions of current ones; but while that's true for Overload (bindings), Force Cloak didn't get Shroud of Madness, nor did phantom stride get reaper's rush. Furthermore, the two power ups are on the same tier, and for Deception both are very important to have in many fights. Having to pick one will be tough. Maybe let Deception at least have to make different choices, allowing both?

 

I think Overload or Overcharged Saber should be a base ability for sins; either is far more "part of the class" than Force Slow is, far more useful and far less situational. Overload also is one of the moves beginners to advanced players enjoy, so an argument could be made for it over Overcharged.

 

Otherwise, not having really fought anything sin tank feels more or less the same, with some forced decisions and some interesting new options.

 

I think picking between ways to buff an ability is far better than the move vs passives.

Many here feel like they have one clear choice (usually NOT your default BTW) and maybe a situational second, with the third simply becoming a non-option.

 

I like the DW power-ups, and hate that re-specing makes a far bigger mess now (going darkness->deception and back) than it does on live.

 

I know SOME of that will be fixed by loadouts, but I'll take this chance to AGAIN ask that you make inactive moves (i.e. Overcharged Saber, Spike and Overload, currently) still bindable while inactive. That way, turning them on/off won't mess up our bars.

Since we'll only get 4-5 Loadouts, this would be a HUGE QoL improvement, and can be made an option if you worry it'll be confusing to new players to have inactive moves on their bars (like how I have to activate cooldown text on every character >_>).

 

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Holy crap Hatred is a beast, you can make Eradicate deal all its damage in 1 sec and cast it 3 times in a row with the right utility. With Quick Escalation tactical and 2 Death Fields on top of that the damage is huuuge.... and I like it:D

Didn't try the other specs yet but this one is much better than live, that's for sure.

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Want to second the votes for Force Slow being an optional ability over either of Overload or Overcharge Saber... it's really not got any use outside of PvP. Those slow abilities in general for the other classes feel like they should be options since not all players will have a need for them, meanwhile they're being asked to opt out of abilities that ARE useful in all content. I don't really understand the philosophy in these types of choices, other than if you want to reduce the utility available to classes.

 

But anyway...

 

The changes to Hatred are really nice. I'm having a blast. There's so much burst available. Although at the moment, I've only tested in story mode flashpoints, so I've yet to see whether those choices have a big enough impact in 'endgame' content. For mobbing however, and any kind of solo content, it will be great and probably preferred over Deception because of the huge AoE buff from 2 Death Field charges.

 

I've messed around with Deception and Darkness less, but they also feel okay overall. I would implore you to take on board the feedback mentioned by others in the thread about some of the baseline abilities. There really is no need for PvE players to be stuck with an ability like Force Slow, while simultaneously having to opt in or out of some buffs and defensive abilities that are relevant in all content.

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I'm primarily a Serenity Shadow player, and I was very surprised at the level of changes made to this spec!

 

I won't go over passives that I have no comments about. The passives I don't have a comment about are in my opinion perfectly fine as is.

 

The Death Field utilities are really interesting as one rewrites our whole base rotation as Serenity. One is pretty adequate, and one is overshadowed. Two charges on Force in Balance/Death Field is a good idea on paper, and might be an even better idea in practice, especially for mobbing and single-player content. Being able to reset its cooldown via a kill or using Potency/Recklessness is really fun, and allows a massive shake-up of our base rotation (DoT 1, 3 GCDs of filler, DoT2, 7 GCDs of filler, repeat) a lot. It also has potential to be used on main boss-encounters. Penetrating Death seems to be overshadowed a lot by the other two passives. Yes it's a pretty substantial damage increase, but so is two stacks of Death Field/Force in Balance. It's a good passive for aoe cleaving, but it lacks the massive burst that two Death Field/Force in Balance (especially sub 30%) has. I don't have any specific suggestions on how to make it a more-worth while choice, however it needs some adjustments to really stand on its own.

 

Before I get to Eradication Ray, I want to briefly mention Ruin. It's probably fine, but it seems a bit underwhelming in PvE. I'm sure it'll be more useful for cleaving in PvP... however.

Eradication Ray is kind of ridiculous. :D

This passive when I first read it made me think that it would be a proper trade-off to Squelch/Eradicate. Where it deals all off its damage in 2 ticks (1 initial hit, 1 DoT tick), and would only consume one Supression/Deathmark stack so it would be more burst damage, but less damage overall. However that isn't the case, and it is instead almost a direct upgrade passive that feels really out of place. The only time it directly hinders you is when A, you aren't generating bonus force over 6 seconds, and B you're always going to deal -5% less damage and healing with Serenity/Leeching Strike due to its passive. It's fun, don't get me wrong, it just feels out of place to me as someone who's spent a couple of years playing this spec. This passive should have a proper tradeoff in my opinion.

 

I don't have any issues with the level 35 passives, in fact I actually want to praise this decision. BR/Overcharged Saber was always more useful on Deception compared to Hatred, however the extra bonus hits that BR grants Hatred is pretty strong, and being able to offset that with either a recreated Death Knell set bonus or higher critical chance and removing our need to use Saber Strike every 12-14 GCDs is really nice. You're choosing now between big self heal burst, higher melee and Squelch/Eradicate damage, and stronger DoT crits and a smoother rotation. It's very well done.

 

The level 70 passive choices are fine. Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash was always the most useful on Serenity/Hatred, so it stings a bit for both PvP and PvE, however it's nothing to get upset about, and makes for some pretty interesting builds.

 

Overall yes, this still feels like the Serenity/Hatred I'm used to playing since 5.X. Yes this is a good direction for the spec in my opinion.

 

Unrelated, thank you for turning the spec-specific level 1 passives into the stance changes. It makes it easier for newer players to identify what the specs do, which is good!

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The passive called "Dusk Ward" is quite worrisome. Accuracy debuffs and defense chance already make a rather large gap between white and yellow damage. Having near indefinite uptime accuracy debuff that's this powerful isn't quite balanced at all. This could be replaced with plenty of other things that wouldn't negatively impact PvP.

 

Missing things like taunts, CC and basic abilities based purely on RNG is a pure fun killer.

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Accuracy debuffs in pvp are atrocious. Forcebound was the worse offender of this, and I really hope that this (and other accuracy debuffs in other specs, like engi sniper for example) don't make it into the game. Just change it into flat DR so that people can decide how to play around it instead of just rolling dice.
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Assassin

 

Deception Playstyle (Not a pvp player)

 

1 Complaint: Give me my whirlwind without having to choose from others. I use my whirlwind especially in solo play and group play to put the strong enemy back to kill the rest of the Npc before attacking that one. This is something I think we need to have as a base ability and not a choice.

 

2nd Complaint- Not a fan of having to chose between Maul Spike or overload. Both can be necessary depending on what you are playing. I use spike a lot when I am cloaked. (No I don't just use cloak to sneak by, I actually use it as an attack) and I lover my overload when there are a ton of enemies standing around near a bridge, etc and that way I can eliminate some easier so make one a basic and add another ability to chose from, and I would say make overload the base ability as for me I use it more. I can deal with Maul Spike being a choice.

 

Now:

I tested my assassin on Onderron and she played like she does on live (minus the bonus and tact) so for that it is okay minus the above changes I don't see a problem for me. (Again, I copied mine from live as I knew how she played)

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Deception (my favourite Assassin Spec) Feedback:

 

I like it! That is all :)

 

Okay one bit of tiny constructive feedback - having to choose between Reapers Rush and Avoidance at 80 was a little issue - I'd prefer both, however if it stays that way, I'm picking Reaper's Rush always. Also, I was happy to get rid of Overload and Severing Slash as they're 2 abilities I rarely use. I picked one of the passives instead of Overload and Force Shroud instead of Severing Slash. I did not miss Spike one bit.

 

Edit:

Note: Copied over my main Deception Assassin (play primarily solo story on her). Tried Onderon - no problems, however as per the other thread, level synch several planets is a joke. I went to Ilum, Belsavis, DK and breathed on some mobs and they died.

Edited by Sarova
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I am a PVP and PVE player

 

I play Deception.

 

Not happy about choosing between Maul Spike and Overload. I really need both in PVP for example.

 

Having to choose between Formless phantom and fade. Really not a fan of this because I need the reduction on CD for Fade in PVP just as much as I need FP.

 

Forced to choose between Eradicate and and force phase.

 

Choosing between Whirlwind and shroud ?? or take severing slash ? lol

 

Having to choose between Shroud of madness or reapers rush. Reapers rush I do find useful to use tbh.

 

Many of the abilities here are all situational and are needed in certain conditions. I cannot see anyone wanting to give up their reflect ability as much as shroud. For those other abilities which are fine but leave the Assassin open to being impaired and immobilized if those abilities are not taken over the others.

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First impressions:

 

Energized Blade for Deception is absolutely awesome and leads to many more Reaping Strikes. Big boost.

 

Eradication Ray for Hatred is a great buff for burst damage. Combine it with Maliciousness and it makes the spec very fun to play with on demand burst.

 

The new utilities centered around consumption of Dark Ward charges are great for Darkness.

 

Sad from the loss of Retaliatory Grip to reflect damage.

 

Severing Slash and Whirlwind are way less valuable than Force Shroud so the level 70 choice isn't really a choice in my mind. These abilities are basically taken away.

 

Overload is the clear choice at level 20.

 

Overall I see nice buffs for this class without much lost. Very happy with the changes so far.

 

I'm very much looking forward to playing a dark side Republic Shadow.

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Hello there! I am known as Jedi Master Siow on the Satele Shan server and I've been playing SWTOR since 2013 or 2014, a long time. Since then, I've mained the Kinetic Combat Shadow and I was very nervous after seeing the changes made to the Knight and Agent classes. Which of my abilities would get pruned? Would I be nerfed? Buffed? Well, I'll be making a LONG post with tabs that can be opened and closed for the sake of the reader. Also for their sake, I'll be listing Shadow ability names as well. Despite maining the Kinetic Combat spec, I've also spent a lot of time with the Serenity and Infiltration specs so I will be discussing these as well in my post.

 

My knowledge in Shadow combat comes from a PvP standpoint. I never did OPs that often so I can't say too much for Shadow PvE but I can break this down more easily for PvP purposes.

 

Just to ensure that people reading this know what I'm talking about with this class, feel free to check out my Kinetic Combat Shadow 6.0 PvP guide on Vulkk.

 

Kinetic Combat Shadow/Darkness Assassin

 

 

At a Glance...

 

I'm glad to see the majority of my kit remains intact. I got my CC, personal buffs, cloaks, the only things missing of note are Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash and Force Lift/Whirlwind. Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash was hot garbage to begin with, it was always useless for Tank Shadows/Assassins and I never used it to begin with when Whirling Blow/Lacerate was more efficient. As for Force Lift/Whirlwind, I did use it a good amount of times but typically for PvP scenarios. Usually when I needed to buy some time by lifting an opponent to wait for some cooldowns to finish, or to lift a target so I can capture a point. While I'm going to miss it having it in my kit by default, I can live without it as Force Wave/Overload is something I use far more often for that bit of CC or to prevent crowds from activating something in PvP as I typically act as a Point Defender.

 

Defensive Cooldowns (DCDs)

 

Everything seems to be in order here,

 

Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward still grants +18% Shield Chance.

 

Deflection still grants 50% Defense Chance with that AoE that weakens Force/Tech powers in an 8 meter radius.

 

Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber still grants the +25% Damage Reduction despite there being no passive stating that it adds that (might want to fix that and slap it into a passive or ability info).

 

Force Potency/Recklessness still grants +30% Shield Absorption,

 

‣ I'm glad to see we still have our CC breaker

 

Resilience/Force Shroud is intact with the passive where we can lower its CD by dodging.

 

Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts still has a passive that lets us gain up to +4% Damage Reduction when set up properly.

 

Overall, our Defensive Kit is relatively intact. Though stats might be an issue which I will touch upon later.

 

Offensive Cooldowns (OCDs)

Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber and Force Potency/Recklessness are the same.

 

Control Abilities

 

Shadows/Assassins retain their Stun, Force Slow, Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts Slow, and Slow Time/Wither Slow, and Force Pull. Though at level 70 you have to choose your final CC ability, Force Wave/Overload, Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash, and Force Lift/Whirlwind.

 

Stats

 

For the following stats, I'm using the 328 Purple Gear, Naval Bastion Device, Naval Bastion Package, Naval Bulwark Package, Naval Relic of Avoidance, and the Naval Relic of the Shield Matrix. I am analyzing the tank spec with a full tank setup and I will not be reviewing a Skank Tank build. I would have preferred to have the opportunity with work with Yellow ranked gear and have access to augments to fully assess the stats so the following stats might not reflect the stats in the final product.

 

MELEE

 

Damage (Pri): 5,196 - 6,308

Bonus Damage: 2,970.8

Accuracy: 110%

Critical Chance: 15.42%

Critical Multiplier: 50.00%

 

No comment, this is basically on par to our current melee output.

 

DEFENSE

 

Health: 365,241

Armor Rating: 14,563

Damage Reduction: 35.28%

Defense Chance: 30.64%

Shield Chance: 37.36%

Shield Absorption: 40.66%

 

Here is where I have some concerns.

 

First off, the Damage Reduction. I really hope we can get the chance to achieve at the very least, 38% Damage Reduction when in Yellow gear. We've already had our DR nerfed in the past. I recall at one point we had a base DR of 41-42%, which was then nerfed with an expansion to the 38% DR we have now. If you're aiming to giving us around 35-36% DR, I don't believe this is a good direction for tank shadows/assassins.

 

This would mean that we can maintain a DR of 39% in combat assuming we keep our passives up. While I understand Shadows/Sins use Light Armor, we still need something better than 35-36% DR to tank. If you're going to do this, give us something to compensate such as better scaling with Defense Chance, Shield Chance, and Shield Absorption. Alternatively, you could increase the DR we get from Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts to give us 1.5-2% DR per stack, allowing us to get a 41-43% DR when the passives are up but 35%-ish DR when it's down, rewarding us for keeping our passives up.

 

Next we have Defense Chance. I do not like these current numbers. I would like to achieve a base percentage of 38% DC or hey, maybe make it 40% with max gear so we can hit that 90% Defense Chance with Deflection on. I recall at one point before scalings were nerfed in the past, I could achieve a 40% DC. 30% is rather pathetic especially for someone in Light Armor who should be using their freedom of movement to dodge blows entirely whereas someone wielding Heavy Armor such as the Guardian/Juggernaut or Vanguard/Powertech will take the hits due to their armor being better.

 

Last we have Shield Chance and Shield Absorption. These two are often the two stats that a Full Tank Shadow main like myself will juggle. Typically these are our most important stats as we have the best shield chance of the 3 tanks due to Kinetic/Dark Ward. Without augments, I can't see how well they would scale to their full potential. At the moment on the live server, I have a Shield Chance of 52% which is increased to 70% with my Ward up with a Shield Absorption rating at around 45%+. If I can achieve these numbers in 7.0 I'll be fine but if these are the numbers you're looking at for Shadow/Sin tanks, paired with the lowered Defense Chance and Damage Reduction, you're going to reduce our ability to tank substantially.

 

FORCE

 

Bonus Damage: 3,920.9

Bonus Healing: 2,781.8

Accuracy: 110%

Critical Chance: 15.42%

Critical Multiplier: 50%

Force Regen Rate: 10.4

Alacrity: 0%

 

Ability Tree Options

 

Level 1 - Combat Technique/Dark Charge

 

Nothing new here, this gives us our ability to tank.

 

Level 10 - Force Potency/Recklessness and Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts

 

For those who haven't been to the PTS and are referring to a skill tree they see in an image or video, you get both abilities here. Good good, this lets us have our ability to get +30% Absorption and +4% DR when using these abilities properly.

 

Level 15

 

And here's where we get into our choices for passives or abilities.

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Increases the damage, critical hit chance, and threat generated by Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts by 10%

OPTION 2: Passive - Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts deals 20% more damage to targets you have Mind Controlled and restores 5 Force whenever you deal damage to them. [Damage bonus not currently working]

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts arcs to nearby targets each time it deals damage.

 

Option 1 seems like a good choice for a Skank Tank, though do keep an eye on that one. Many Shadow/Sin Skank Tanks aim for 40% Crit Chance so having 50% crit chance on Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts might be an issue in a PvP scenario. It's still overall a good choice.

 

Option 2 is something I would use as someone who prefers a full tank setup. A flat 20% damage boost to Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts while taunting an enemy is pretty good as I always do my best to maintain aggro through my taunts when the situation calls for it. I like it!

 

Option 3 is great for PvE people dealing with numerous adds, additional splash damage is a welcomed addition on top of our other 3 AoE Damage/Aggro abilities.

 

Level 20

 

OPTION 1: Spinning Kick/Spike

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Project/Shock's critical hit damage is increased by 50% and dealing damage with Project/Shock extends the duration of Mind Control by 3 seconds to targets already affected by your Mind Control.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Force Cloak increases movement speed by 50% while active and slows all enemies within 5 meters byb 75% for 2.5 seconds when activated.

 

Yeah, I'm going with option 1 to get my Spinning Kick/Spike, there's no doubt about that. This is primarily because I like to use the Efficient Termination Set to get that extra +10% DR for 6 seconds when I use this ability. As I have the lowest base DR to begin with, I need every bit of DR I can get. Also, if you plan on keeping current gear sets, Efficient Termination or our Kit will need adjusting. Efficient Termination set can cause Spinning Kick's/Spike's Stun and Slow effects to last an additional second. We currently do not have a slow with that ability in the PTS. Add the slow to our kit or fix/change that 4 piece bonus.

 

Option 2 seems like a good option for PvE, especially for maintaining aggro on a boss. Though I would still argue Spinning Kick/Spike with the Efficient Termination set is still better due to the extra DR which we need especially against the more Burst heavy bosses.

 

Option 3 looks like you combined aspects of the Motion Control and Mind Over Matter utilities. Not a bad choice to get out of dangerous scenarios. This seems more geared for PvP as you only want to cloak out from PvE if you're about to die. Even then you can't stay cloaked for long or your allies will become overwhelmed. A decent choice at best.

 

Level 25

 

Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward

 

Level 30

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Each time you consume a charge of Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward the cooldown of Force Cloak is reduced by 2 seconds. If Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward is broken by damage it reduces the accuracy of all nearby enemies by 20% for 6 seconds.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Each time you consume a charge of Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward the cooldown of Force Potency/Recklessness is decreased by 2 seconds. If Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward is broken by damage it grants 1 charge of Force Potency/Recklessness to you.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Each time you consume a charge of Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward the cooldown of Mass Mind Control is reduced by 2 seconds. If Kinetic Ward/Dark Ward is broken by damage it deals 5940 damage to nearby targets, generates a high amount of threat, and finishes the cooldowns of Force Breach/Discharge and Slow Time/Wither.

 

Option 1 seems like a decent choice if you want to have Force Cloak available more often as well as reducing accuracy. Though with all of these passives granting a bonus to your Ward being broken, this makes them activate much more often in PvE than PvP unless you're doing unranked PvP and going into a mosh pit.

 

Option 2 is good for Skank Tanks or people trying to be more offensive oriented in general.

 

Option 3 is a great choice for PvE to maintain aggro on adds while dealing damage.

 

All of these are decent for their specific scenarios though I feel we may not be able to proc their secondary effects from our Wards breaking as I rarely see them break as I need to refresh it when it's no longer suitable to keep Kinetic Bulwark up. It may be that I just have to adjust my combat style a tad to use these but I still fear we can't use them too often unless we're in a very chaotic scenario.

 

Level 35

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Each time you deal damage to a target you have mind controlled you restore 2 Force and heal for 1% of your maximum health.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Consuming a charge of Force Potency/Recklessness grants you ???/Reckless Defense, increasing damage reduction by 5% per stack. Reckless Defense stacks up to 3 times and lasts 6 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber

 

Option 1 seems like a good passive for dealing with numerous adds. Assuming I'm using Double Strike/Thrash on a single taunted target, I can get up to 6% HP restored with 3 swings. If I'm up against 8 enemies and use Whirling Blow/Lacerate to get 3 swings in on all 8 enemies, that can restore 24% of my HP. This one is definitely better used for fighting groups.

 

Option 2 is blatantly designed for Skank Tanks using the Death Knell set to get a 3rd charge of their Force Potency/Recklessness, allowing them to get up to 15% Damage Reduction for 6 seconds. This one is the weakest of the passives in this tier.

 

Option 3 is going to be the primary pick among Shadow/Sin tanks for the following reasons: It's on demand healing and damage reduction. With 25% DR for 15 seconds, it's FAR better than option 2 and would be better for PvP and PvE bosses with high burst damage. The 15% heal isn't much but it's better than nothing and can be beaten by Option 1 assuming you hit enough targets. Option 1 will likely be limited to Off Tanks dealing with adds or people running simple PvE.

 

Level 40

 

Slow Time/Whither

 

Level 50

 

OPTION 1: Passive - As Kinetic Combat/Darkness, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. As Infiltration/Deception and Serenity/Hatred, reduces the damage taken from area attacks by 30%.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Force Cloak by 30 seconds and extends its duration by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Deflection grants 6 seconds of immunity to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating.

 

All of these options were previously utilities, so it should simple that a Tank will most likely take Option 1 to take 30% less damage when stunned.

 

Level 55

 

Force Pull

 

Level 60

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Force Speed and Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Egress/Force Phase, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for 2 seconds.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Activating Project/Shock, Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning, or Squelch/Vanquish increases all your movement speed by 50% for 9 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 18 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Increases the damage dealt by Whirling Blow/Lacerate by 25%.

 

Again, former utilities. 9 times out of 10 people are going to choose the first one since it breaks slows. Don't get rid of Egress, it has always been a core utility passive for PvP shadows due to the amount of CC people will dump on a Shadow/Sin the moment they see them.

 

Level 70

 

OPTION 1: Force Wave/Overload

 

OPTION 2: Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash

 

OPTION 3: Force Lift/Whirlwind

 

So this is the tier that seems to cause the most controversy among the previous classes we've seen reworked thus far. For the tank Shadow/Sin, it's honestly not too bad. Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash was always useless as we have plenty other AoEs and Slows that work better with our rotation since they also provide defensive benefits, no one is going to choose this. Whether a Shadow/Sin chooses the AoE Push or Disable is entirely up to them. Force Wave/Overload is better for group combat scenarios or keeping people off an objective in PvP, while Force Lift/Whirlwind is geared for people trying to capture objectives or dealing with 1v1s.

 

A nice touch is that Force Lift/Whirlwind now activates instantly and stuns the target for 2 seconds when broken by damage. If it had the previous cast time, there's no way anyone would choose this but by working in that utility into the ability itself, you've made it a viable pick.

 

Level 80

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Stalker's Swiftness/Reaper's Rush, allowing your next Spinning Strike/Assassinate to be used on any target, regardless of remaining health. Reapers Rush lasts for 10 seconds. Additionally, if the target of your Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride is killed within 10 seconds of using Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride, Shadow Stride's/Phantom Stride's cooldown is reset.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Mind Snap/Jolt by 2 seconds, Force of Will/Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds, and Force Speed by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Resilience/Force Shroud.

 

If there's one tier for Shadow Tanks that feels too limiting, it's this one. Shadow Tanks are going to choose option 2 or 3. I've had to utilize both of these former utilities in PvP heavily as there's always going to be a crazy amount of CC to deal with and AoE Force/Tech abilities to deal with. What hurts me the most is that 5 second CD reduction on Force Speed as I use Force Speed a lot. I'll go into further details on how this hurts our identities as Tank Shadows/Assassins in the next portion. Though I feel a way to make this more balanced is to make Force Speed's cooldown be 15 seconds by default for all Shadows/Sins. This would allow the player to choose between more CC breakers or to ensure their cloak isn't broken the moment they enter.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Overall I'm glad we retain the majority of our kit and core passives that tie in to our rotation. Overall I'm relieved that there weren't any blatant drastic changes. However... I feel we're losing a bit of our identity as Tank Shadows/Assassins with the way things are now. Allow me to explain by comparing the 3 Tanks available in SWTOR.

 

From left to right shows which tanks are best for dealing with Kinetic/Energy damage to Force/Tech damage respectively. I will be discussing their defensive niches, offensive niches, cooperative niches, and identities that have been made for them the past 10 years.

 

Vanguard/Powertech ----- Guardian/Juggernaut ----- Shadow/Assassin

 

Vanguard/Powertech Tanks

 

Defensive Niche - Vanguards/Powertechs always have had the highest Armor Count, therefore the best Damage Reduction to deal with Kinetic/Energy, especially with their personal shield that greatly increases their DR even further. Though to balance that, they've been more susceptible to Force/Tech. They are the best tank for dealing with burst damage from white damage sources by far, especially with that self heal that works when they're below 35% HP that rapidly heals them in dangerous scenarios.

 

Offensive Niche - For offense, they have a good mixture of AoE and Single Target abilities to maintain aggro. It never felt like a lot of damage to me but it's enough to maintain aggro.

 

Cooperative Niche - Vanguards/Powertechs bring a lot of utility for their group. They have a charge, a pull, an AoE stun, single target stun, Gas/Oil Slick that reduces Accuracy in an area, AoE Stealth Reveal, the ability to swap positions with an ally to get them out of a bad situation. They provide the most utility for the 3 tanks and they're quite good for any scenario.

 

Identity - If there are any Vanguard/Powertech tank mains, please feel free to correct me. Here's how I always saw the identity of these tanks. These are the tanks that you can depend on for a wide variety of scenarios and excel with fighting against weapon damage. Though they were weak against Force/Tech attacks which can especially be a problem in PvP which is why you don't see them that often there. A good all around tank for fighting white damage with the best passive stats, making them very beginner friendly.

 

Guardian/Juggernaut Tanks

 

Defensive Niche: Guardians/Juggernauts have had a good balance with how they deal with both Kinetic/Energy and Force/Tech. Their Saber Ward increases their defense chance by 50% and reduces Force/Tech damage by 25%. Assuming the reflect a single target ability, Saber Reflect can negate damage from both Kinetic/Energy and Force/Tech sources of damage, and they have their ability that greatly reduces all incoming damage for a bit. Along with this, they have their Temporary HP boost and their self heal. They are strong, independent tanks with good defensive abilities at the cost of having some lengthy cooldowns on said defensive abilities.

 

Offensive Niche: Guardians/Juggernauts appear to have the weakest AoE attacks of the three tanks, but they have excellent single target damage which I'm quite envious of. Who doesn't want to hit hard with a single lightsaber?

 

Cooperative Niche: Guardian/Juggernaut tanks are by far the best tank for protecting their allies when compared to the other 2 tanks. They can jump to an ally to reduce damage and lower their aggro on said ally and this has been a very annoying ability when paired with Sage/Sorcerer healers who can reduce the damage taken by these tanks with their own Force Pull for allies making the two nearly unkillable in PvP combat. The fact that Sages/Sorcerers now have to choose between their Ally Pull or their NOPE bubble really helps combat that particular issue in PvP, but I’m not sure to what extent it’ll affect PvE.

 

Identity: Guardians/Juggernauts have that classic feel of being the iconic Jedi Knight/Sith Lord that wields a single lightsaber. The way they fight is that they'll come to you and make you fight on their terms through heavy damage and strong control abilities. They're very independent with their balanced DCDs that block white and yellow damage in relatively equal amounts and their self heal makes them persevere despite the odds. Also, let them keep their Saber Reflect by default, they need it for both defensive and thematic purposes (preferably for all Guardian/Juggernaut specs).

 

Shadow/Assassin Tanks

 

Defensive Niche: The other 2 tanks get away with heavy armor granting them good base Damage Reduction, due to us having Light Armor, we get the least damage reduction of the 3 tanks. We make up for this by having a high shield chance, good shield absorption, good base defense chance, and have (or in PTS, had) the best tools for dealing with Force/Tech thanks to Resilience/Force Shroud paired with utilities available in 6.0.

 

One utility I utilized heavily as a Tank Shadow in 6.0 was Mind Over Matter which granted me an extra 2 seconds of Resilience. This would give me a total of 9.5 seconds of resilience in life or death scenarios as PvP is full of Force/Tech damage. This was done using Resilience for 5 seconds and 2 utilities on Force Cloak to get 4.5 seconds.The Guardian/Juggernaut can reduce all damage types for a good amount of time with their DR ability, the Vanguard/Powertech could reduce white damage for a good amount of time with their shield, to me being able to defend against Force/Tech for a long time compared to the other tanks is what defined the specialty of the Shadow Tank, to being the best tank suited for Force/Tech damage.

 

In the 7.0 PTS, we're losing Mind Over Matter and are losing a good chunk of our special defenses and are becoming weaker. In turn, losing a bit of our identity as being the Anti-Force/Tech tank. Perhaps add 2 seconds to Resilience/Force Shroud for Tank Shadows/Assassins and maybe perhaps on the Force Cloak Resilience/Force Shroud specifically for tank spec Shadows/Assassins?

 

Offensive Niche: Out of all the tanks, Shadows/Assassins have the easiest time dealing damage to and maintaining aggro on groups of enemies. As this is often the case with numerous weak enemies, our high shield chance helps us reduce a lot of that incoming damage while proccing our other passives. We also have a good mix of Kinetic/Energy[/b] and Force/Tech in our offensive rotations allowing us to deal with most enemies we encounter, and good burst damage every so often with Force Potency/Recklessness mixed with Project/Shock and Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts.

 

Cooperative Niche: Simply put, the Shadow/Assassin tanks are by far the worst tanks for defending their allies. Vanguards/Powertechs have the ability to swap places or taunt a group of enemies from afar, Guardian/Juggernauts can jump to an ally to reduce their incoming damage and can grant them a shield with their AoE taunt, all Shadows can really do is Guard a single ally and use their deflection to weaken Force/Tech damage in an 8 meter radius.

 

While we're the worst tank for defending others, we're the best at defending ourselves as have have an answer to deal with numerous threats. Am I being ganged up on? Kinetic/Dark Ward paired with the +30% Shield Absorption from Force Potency/Recklessness. Am I dealing against burst damage? Use Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber to get +25% Damage Reduction for 15 seconds. Lots of incoming Weapon damage? Deflection. Lots of incoming Force/Tech damage? Resilience.

 

It can seem like a lot and some might see this as being overkitted, but here's the thing between Shadow/Assassin Tanks and other tanks. The Shadow/Assassin has to time everything well and use the right ability to mitigate the damage properly. This requires them to know their abilities really well and to know their opponents well whether it's PvE or PvP. Vanguard/Powertech Tanks and Guardian/Juggernaut tanks are very Reactive tanks, they use their DCDs to react to a scenario. Shadow/Assassin tanks have to be Proactive, they need to anticipate what they need to use next. Due to this, Shadow/Assassin tanks have a higher skill cap than the other 2 tanks and are seen as the hardest tank to learn here. You can be great with defenses but you need to know your kit and opponents very well to make the most effective use of it.

 

Despite all that, we are still the most susceptible to burst damage and have the worst self healing of the 3 tanks.

 

Identity: We have always been the Anti-Force/Tech tanks in SWTOR and with the loss of utilities, we're losing our identity in the 7.0 PTS. Without that, the other two tanks just become inherently better by comparison due to having a wide kit full of utilities, or being able to protect others with having massive self heals to back it up. I'm aware there's a Tactical that consumes ward charges for extra Resilience/Force Shroud duration but you're asking us to take away our Core tanking ability to get any extra time with Resilience/Force Shroud in the 7.0 PTS.

 

Pairing this with the lowered base stats of all our defensive stats (Damage Reduction, Defense Chance, Shield Chance/Absorption), we won't be able to keep up with the other tanks who have much more solid defensive abilities. Let us keep our niche for being the tanks with the best Defense Chance due to light armor, best Anti Force/Tech tanks, and good shield chance/absorption.

 

 

tl;dr version

 

Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing an Assassin? Why or why not?

 

Yes and no. On one hand, yes because we keep all our important and core passives and active abilities. No because we're losing some of our identity as anti Force-Tech tanks due to the loss of the Mind Over Matter utility. Pairing that with overall nerfed base stats around the board in terms of defense, I fear we're just going to be overlooked in favor of other tanks.

 

Infiltration Shadow/Deception Assassin

 

 

At a Glance...

 

So I can foresee some people having issues for "losing" abilities here such as choosing between Force Wave/Overload or one of two passive effects at level 20, but these are actually pretty good tradeoffs I'll get into later. The level 70 tier is likely to be the biggest point of contention when choosing between Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash, Force Lift/Whirlwind, and Resilience/Force Shroud. For the most part, important/necessary parts of the kit is maintained and we can some really fun options like having lightning strike a target whenever we critically hit with a melee attack. It looks more fun and energetic at a glance.

 

Defensive Cooldowns (DCDs)

 

We're missing Resilience/Force Shroud by default and that is going to hurt both PvE and PvP. I could see why you would make it a choice because it's a short yet powerful DCD but in PvP, it's going to be a pain to not have it because some PvP maps people will spam Force/Tech AoEs in an area and having that activated while stealthed allowed us to bypass this. I would like to see it have it returned to all Shadows/Sins by default but I'm not sure what ability could be traded for it that's of equal value to the other level 70 options.

 

Aside from that, we retain our Force Cloak and Deflection.

 

Offensive Cooldowns (OCDs)

 

Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber is no longer granted by default. You now have to choose between it and one of two passives at level 35.

 

We still retain Force Potency/Recklessness, Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride, and Force Cloak.

 

Control Abilities

 

We have lost the following abilities by default, you now have to choose between them or other Passive/Active abilities.

 

Force Wave/Overload

Force Lift/Whirlwind

 

Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash (Oh no, whatever shall we do...)

 

That being said, we have the following control abilities by default...

 

Force Slow

 

Low Slash

 

Force Stun/Electrocute

 

Stats

 

For the following stats, I'm using the following purple 328 gear...

 

Naval Force Lord Headgear, Jacket, Bracers, Saberstaff, Focus, Belt and Leggings.

 

Naval Med-Tech Gloves and Boots

 

Naval Adept and Package (x2)

 

Naval Relic of Devastating Vengeance

 

Naval Relic of Serendipitous Assault.

 

MELEE

 

Damage (Pri): 7,121 - 8,233

Bonus Damage: 4,896.3

Accuracy: 100%

Critical Chance: 30.32%

Critical Multiplier: 65.48%

 

Since I main the Tank Spec, my expertise lies in there but I've also played the DPS shadow specs a good deal. I feel if we can get up to 40% Critical Chance in the final product after yellow gear and augments, then we're good to go. Squeezing in 5% accuracy to deal with debuffs will also be a must for PvP, more for PvE. Though I've only built DPS Shadow gear for PvP so I never relied on Accuracy too much.

 

DEFENSE

 

Health: 363,199

Armor Rating: 5,825

Damage Reduction: 15.40%

Defense Chance: 10%

Shield Chance: 0%

Shield Absorption: 0%

 

Basically what we have now, you just increase your defenses through DCDs when needed or use passives to gain extra Damage Reduction from our abilities. Burst DPS Shadows should be squishy to counteract their high crit chance and raw Internal damage.

 

FORCE

 

Bonus Damage: 6,796.5

Bonus Healing: 4,916.7

Accuracy: 100%

Critical Chance: 30.32%

Critical Multiplier: 65.48%[

Force Regen Rate: 8.3

Alacrity: 4.02%

 

Yeah I can't add too much other than that we should have better stats than this endgame.

 

Ability Tree Options

 

Level 1 - Shadow Technique/Surging Charge

 

Level 10 - Force Potency/Recklessness and Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike

 

You get both abilities and the next tier affects your Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike.

 

Level 15

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Increases the armor penetration and critical hit chance of Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike by 50%.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Killing an enemy within 3 seconds of dealing damage with Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike resets the cooldown of all damaging abilities and increases your critical hit chance by 40% for 6 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Critically hitting with force attacks resets the cooldown of Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike. Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike costs 10 additional Force.

 

These are all great options to choose from to augment your Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike. Option 1 is great for dealing with heavily armored targets (looking at you Guardians/Juggernauts and Vanguards/Powertechs). Option 2 would be great for PvE when dealing with numerous weak enemies. Option 3 just seems fun to proc your Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike far more often. Though it would require better Force management. It also makes the Chant of Regeneration tactical actually useful for Shadows/Sins.

 

Level 20

 

OPTION 1: Force Wave/Overload

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Dealing Damage with Shadow Strike/Maul from stealth stuns the target for 2 seconds. Standard and weak enemies are knocked down.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Force Cloak increases movement speed by 50% while active and slows all enemies within 5 meters by 75% for 2.5 seconds when activated.

 

So Option 1 is good if you either want to keep your old handy-dandy AoE push or need to deal with groups of enemies often. Though some of the other passives would make good trade-offs. Option 2 is a free stun which is nice. Option 3 is great for getting out of sticky scenarios in either PvE or PvP.

 

Level 25 - Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash

 

Level 30

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Dealing damage with Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash reduces the cooldown of Force Potency/Recklessness by 2 seconds.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Clairvoyance/Voltage stacks by Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash increases your critical hit chance by 10% per stack,

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Clairvoyance/Voltage stacks by Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash increases your damage reduction by 5% per stack. In addition, Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash slows its target by 30% for 6 seconds.

 

Level 35

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Critically hitting with Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash or a direct Force attack generates 10 Force and heals you by 1% of your max health. This effect cannot occor more than once per second. (You misspelled "occur")

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Force spending melee attacks now benefit from Force Potency/Recklessness and consume its stacks. You deal additional elemental damage to targets critically hit with melee attacks. This effect cannot happen more than once every 3 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: - Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber

 

Option 1 seems nice and all and offers a more safe playstyle, but it's greatly outshone by options 2 and 3. When it comes to options 2 and 3, it's a choice between getting a high chance of damage that can be mitigated vs increased chance of getting stacks to get a HUGE burst of internal damage that can't be mitigated.

 

Option 2 is a really fun one because now both our Force and Melee attacks can gain the critical chance benefits of Force Potency/Recklessness. To top it all off, we get a great visual indicator of when we crit with lightning striking the target from the sky with the Assassin. I'm curious to see the animation for the elemental damage procced by the Shadow.

 

Option 3 is a favorite of many because it allows us to more likely gain Breaching Shadow/Static Charge stacks quickly and allowing us to use our most powerful damaging ability, the empowered Force Breach/Discharge.

When it comes between choosing Option 2 and 3, it's a pretty balanced choice and comes down to personal preference with how someone wants to output their damage.

 

Level 40

 

Low Slash

 

Level 50

 

OPTION 1: Passive - As Kinetic Combat/Darkness, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. As Infiltration/Deception and Serenity/Hatred, reduces the damage taken from area attacks by 30%.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Force Cloak by 30 seconds and extends its duration by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Deflection grants 6 seconds of immunity to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating.

 

Yeah, Option 2 is the best option for Infiltration/Deception since Force Cloak also reduces the CD of Force Potency/Recklessness.

 

Level 55

 

Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning

 

Level 60

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Force Speed and Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Egress/Force Phase, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for 2 seconds.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Activating Project/Shock, Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning, or Squelch/Vanquish increases all your movement speed by 50% for 9 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 18 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Increases the damage dealt by Whirling Blow/Lacerate by 25%.

 

I still believe Option 1 is still the best here due to it's ability to cleanse slows. Come to think of it, I mentioned earlier how I think Force Speed should have a 15 second CD by default. This tier seems to also have a powerful speed ability. Perhaps the 5 second CD reduction should instead be on Egress/Force Phase.

 

Level 70

 

OPTION 1: Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash

 

OPTION 2: Force Lift/Whirlwind

 

OPTION 3: Resilience/Force Shroud

 

This is a tier I have an issue with. No one is going to take option 1 so let's ignore that. What irks me here is option 3, Resilience/Force Shroud. I feel Shadows/Sins should have this by default. I've mentioned in PvP scenarios, people will spam Force/Tech AoEs to decloak us and Resilience/Force Shroud helps us do that. It allows the Infiltrators to actually Infiltrate. It allows the Deception Assassins to deceive their opponents to think nothing is there.

 

So I thought about it... What could we replace Resilience/Force Shroud with? Well, I think we should grant Resilience/Force Shroud to Infiltration Shadows and Deception Assassins by default and replace this option with Force Stun/Electrocute. Chances are I've made someone cringe at this notion but hear me out. This tier seems to be based around movement control. Option 1 is an AoE Slow, Option 2 is a single target disable, so Force Stun/Electrocute would fit the "pick your CC ability" theme going on with this tier.

 

To be quite frank, this spec doesn't need Stun that much because we have Low Slash and Option 2 from level 20 to get a free 2 second stun with our backstab. NPCs in PvE can be a pain to backstab because they'll always face you, which is why Force Stun is often used so you can reposition. You can achieve the exact same affects with Low Slash with a greater range and 1/4 the cooldown of Force Stun/Electrocute. I feel this would fix the tier as it allows Infiltration Shadows/Deception Assassins to perform their jobs in PvP, allowing them to choose between Force Lift/Whirlwind to capture objectives or Force Stun/Electrocute to single out targets who take priority in being killed or CC more often (like the healer).

 

Level 80

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Stalker's Swiftness/Reaper's Rush, allowing your next Spinning Strike/Assassinate to be used on any target, regardless of remaining health. Reapers Rush lasts for 10 seconds. Additionally, if the target of your Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride is killed within 10 seconds of using Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride, Shadow Stride's/Phantom Stride's cooldown is reset.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Mind Snap/Jolt by 2 seconds, Force of Will/Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds, and Force Speed by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Resilience/Force Shroud.

 

Option 3 is likely the best one here for this spec.

 

 

tl;dr version

 

Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing an Assassin? Why or why not?

 

Yes, very much yes with a tinge of no. I am loving these new options like getting internal damage + an animation on critical melee hits, being able to proc Vaulting Slash/Reaping Strike more often, and the majority of my kit is retained. Just replace Resilience/Force Shroud with Force Stun/Electrocute as the level 70 choice because we need the ability to avoid Force/Tech damage while cloaked FAR more than we need that stun.

 

Serenity/Hatred will be made in another reply on this thread.

Edited by Ruchalus
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Deception Assassin - running Onderon daily/weekly missions.

 

Yes it feels like an assassin to me (so far). In the content I played it feels very much like my similar toons on live (where I mostly play solo these days, with some light PvP and group content when the mood strikes me or LARGE conquest points are to be had). Actually this played smoother than live for me with the slightly smaller "rotation". Of course the content I played is not challenging at all so I can't say anything about performance in any stress situations.

 

I picked the following from the tree, thinking mostly of solo play and not trying to maximize the toon for anything specific;

15; Penetrating

20; Maul spike

30; Reckless

35; Overcharge

50; Formless

60; Lambaste

70; Shroud

80; Avoidance

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My Sin main is Hatred, so these changes are great.

 

The triple Eradicate boosts the damage by a lot, making Quick Escalation not the only way to add burst. I love the double Death Field spam. In ops, that would be very useful, especially if the bosses are spread out (ToS Commanders/Walkers for example). In pvp, it would give a safety net if others leave the first Field.

 

Only problem is Whirlwind. In pvp, its useful. In pve, its not as useful. Same for Overcharge.

 

As for Darkness, I like the fact there is more aoe on it. It changes up how I play my Sin tank, by not using Dark Ward on CD.

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Hatred and Deception look very interesting and balanced. But the Darkness lacks of real choice. If you ask old players about the most memorable skill of the Assassin, many will call the Phase Walk in tank spec with the healing bonus. It was very helpful and had one of the most beautiful animations in the game.

I like ABC slot of sniper at level 70, where I have to choose between AOE, defense and mobility. It was interesting to see something similar in Darkness, where you would have to choose between Overload, Phase Walk and Force Shroud (or Phantom Stride instead of it for another kind of mobility). Not every battle requires all 3 skills at the same time, but many battles will become more varied with the opportunity to choose one of these

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Deception

 

Don't care for the Avoidance and Reaper's Rush being a choice. :/

 

Couldn't replace Ball Lightning with Shock? You're redoing the abilities and you can just as easily have Shock do all Ball Lighting does with the better animation. I am thinking of Project for Infiltration as the same time for this.

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If you ask old players about the most memorable skill of the Assassin, many will call the Phase Walk in tank spec with the healing bonus. It was very helpful and had one of the most beautiful animations in the game.

 

I remember that, I miss Phase Walk on my Shadow so much. I can really see why people would have an issue with all the ability pruning going on. I lost Phase Walk years ago and I still miss it.

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You're not changing anything really, just like with all the other classes You remove maybe 2 or 3 abilities and add some fluff and that's it. This is just incompetent game design. You make us level up more and farm entirely new gear and sets to play exactly the same thing we have been playing since virtually forever. All you've done is consolidate the cookie cutter talent choices into the standard abilities (like recklessness getting 3 charges) and that's really good, that makes sense. But you haven't addressed the individual issues of the classes / specs in end game PVE and PVP at all and your solution seems to be to simply allow any class to play a spec that isn't comparatively much weaker. This entire level cap increase and these changes are very uninspired. It's really just about making players do the same old content with the almost exact same skill set and the exact same stats only we'll be lv 80 instead of 75 and you'll make some classes totally useless with idiotic set bonuses and tacticals. I'll be playing my Deception Sin the same exact way after this patch, no changes whatsoever.
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This will be part 2 of my 7.0 PTS Assassin feedback. I ran out of space in my last post hence the need to continue this here. That's the problem with being an info dumper, sometimes the world isn't ready for your massive dumps. Anyway lets finish off this feedback with the Serenity Shadow/Hatred Assassin and my overall thoughts on the direction of SWTOR in general.

 

Serenity/Hatred

 

 

At a Glance...

 

Yeah, there are some tough choices between choosing abilities at various tears. I can't offer super precise input since I'm a tank main but I will do what I can. Despite the tough choices, there are some REALLY nice passives in here that can make the Serenity Shadow/Hatred Assassin feel more powerful and more energetic. Core components of the kit are here though some may argue the abilities offered as choices were part of said core kit, I'll get into those in the next portion where I cover abilities.

 

Defensive Cooldowns (DCDs)

 

Like the Infiltration Shadow/Deception Assassin, we're losing access to having Resilience/Force Shroud by default and have to choose between it and two other abilities at level 70. Other than that, you still have your +30% Damage Reduction for 6 seconds when you use your Mass Mind Control, Deflection, and Force Cloak.

 

Offensive Cooldowns (OCDs)

 

Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber is no longer granted by default. You now have to choose between it and one of two passives at level 35.

 

We still retain Force Potency/Recklessness and Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride.

 

Control Abilities

 

We have lost the following abilities by default, you now have to choose between them or other Passive/Active abilities.

 

Force Wave/Overload

Force Lift/Whirlwind

 

Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash (Ripperoni)

 

That being said, we have the following control abilities by default...

 

Force Slow

 

Force Stun/Electrocute

 

Stats

 

For the following stats, I'm using the following purple 328 gear...

 

Naval Force Lord Headgear, Jacket, Bracers, Saberstaff, Focus, Belt and Leggings.

 

Naval Med-Tech Gloves and Boots

 

Naval Adept and Package (x2)

 

Naval Relic of Devastating Vengeance

 

Naval Relic of Serendipitous Assault.

 

MELEE

 

Damage (Pri): 7,121 - 8,233

Bonus Damage: 4,896.3

Accuracy: 100%

Critical Chance: 30.32%

Critical Multiplier: 65.48%

 

Second verse same as the first.

 

Since I main the Tank Spec, my expertise lies in there but I've also played the DPS shadow specs a good deal. I feel if we can get up to 40% Critical Chance in the final product after yellow gear and augments, then we're good to go. Squeezing in 5% accuracy to deal with debuffs will also be a must for PvP, more for PvE. Though I've only built DPS Shadow gear for PvP so I never relied on Accuracy too much.

 

DEFENSE

 

Health: 363,199

Armor Rating: 5,825

Damage Reduction: 15.40%

Defense Chance: 10%

Shield Chance: 0%

Shield Absorption: 0%

 

I would like to see a passive in the tree somewhere that adds +5% Damage Reduction so that way when we use our Mass Mind Control, we get a solid 50% DR for a few seconds. I just like rounded numbers is all.

 

FORCE

 

Bonus Damage: 6,796.5

Bonus Healing: 4,916.7

Accuracy: 100%

Critical Chance: 30.32%

Critical Multiplier: 65.48%[

Force Regen Rate: 8.3

Alacrity: 4.02%

 

Alacrity will become FAR more useful for the Serenity Shadow/Hatred Assassin with that passive that makes Squelch/Eradicate apply all its downs in 1 second. With my current alacrity rating, it now applies all the DoTs of Squelch/Eradicate in 0.6 seconds which is... oof... so beautiful.

 

Ability Tree Options

 

Level 1

 

Mind and Body/Nefarious Methods

 

This is your passive that reduces damage taken from periodic effects by 15% and makes your Mass Mind Control add +30% Damage Reduction for 6 seconds. It also increases the critical hit chance of your Force Technique/Lightning Charge by 50%.

 

Level 10

 

Force Potency/Recklessness and Force in Balance/Death Field

 

You get both, you don't have to choose here.

 

Level 15

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Force in Balance/Death Field restores 5 Force for each enemy hit and reduces the cooldown of Force Potency/Recklessness by 5 seconds for each enemy hit.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Force in Balance/Death Field deals 10% more damage and increases your armor penetration by 10% for each target it hits for 10 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Force in Balance/Death Field gains an additional ability charge allowing it to be used again before going on cooldown. Killing an enemy or activating Force Potency/Recklessness generates one charge.

 

These are all great options, Option 1 can reduce your cooldown of Force Potency/Recklessness between 5-40 seconds so it is very nice to keep Force Potency up when fighting groups. Option 2 can grant between 10-80% armor penetration for 10 seconds depending on the amount of targets it hits, VERY powerful in the right conditions but might be a tad OP. Option 3 is great to get the bonus damage on your DoTs from your AoE, very solid. These are all so good.

 

Level 20

 

OPTION 1: Force Wave/Overload

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Dealing damage with Shadow Strike/Maul or Serenity Strike/Leeching Strike from stealth stuns the target for 2 seconds. Standard and weak enemies are knocked down.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Force Cloak increases movement speed by 50% while active and slows all enemies within 5 meters by 75% for 2.5 seconds when activated.

 

Option 1 will typically be the best choice here especially since it has a 5 second root tied into it by default. This has always been useful on enemies that have DoTs applied on them as the DoTs won't break the root and they just have to stand there and take the damage. It's good for defensive purposes since your enemies can't touch you for a bit unless they're ranged. Options 2 and 3 are situational picks but OPTION 3: Passive - Force Wave/Overload is far better here.

 

Level 25

 

Squelch/Eradicate

 

Level 30

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Whenever a target affected by your Squelch/Eradicate dies, it bounces to the nearest target, instantly dealing its initial damage and priming the target for being Squelched/Eradicated, causing Squelch/Eradicate to deal an additional 25% damage on initial hit.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Squelch/Eradicate now deals all its periodic damage over 1 second.

 

OPTION 3: Passive [in Development] - Dealing damage with Squelch/Eradicate applies ???/Befall to the target, increasing the critical hit chance of your periodic effects by 10%. Lasts for 10 seconds.

 

There may be some confusion on how Option 1 works so let me clarify. Squelch/Eradicate deals direct damage at first and then applies periodic damage afterwards. When a target with Squelch/Eradicate dies, only that initial direct damage ticks and makes the next initial direct damage from the next Squelch/Eradicate deal additional damage. It's okay but outshone by Option 2. If you wanted to make this more useful, just make it skip the initial damage and only apply the periodic damage when jumping to a target and have it continue to jump from target to target. It would make it useful for dealing with weak enemies surrounding you but not against stronger enemies that can eat the damage.

 

Option 2 is likely going to be the most popular choice since it can make Squelch/Eradicate deal all its damage within 1 second, less if you have enough alacrity.

 

Option 3 is good if you want to try to have every DoT crit and you already have a high crit chance, but I still believe Option 2 will beat this.

 

Level 35

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Killing an enemy and activating Force Potency/Recklessness resets the cooldown of all melee attacks and Squelch/Eradicate and increases their damage by 10% for 20 seconds. Stacks up to 2 times.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - The critical hit chance of your periodic effects is increased by 5%. Whenever you are healed by a Serenity/Hatred class effect, you generate 1 Force.

 

OPTION 3: Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber

 

Option 1 is a good option for people wanting to get a temporary 10-20% damage buff to their melee attacks, it's alright.

 

Option 2 is good for people more concerned with passive stats and maintaining Force.

 

Though I see people picking Option 3 because many will want to retain all their original abilities that they can, and it can do what both Options 1 and 2 can do though not as strong.

 

Level 40

 

Sever Force/Creeping Terror

 

Its your long range DoT.

 

Level 50

 

Level 50

 

OPTION 1: Passive - As Kinetic Combat/Darkness, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. As Infiltration/Deception and Serenity/Hatred, reduces the damage taken from area attacks by 30%.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Force Cloak by 30 seconds and extends its duration by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Deflection grants 6 seconds of immunity to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating.

 

These are all equally good options for the Serenity Shadow/Hatred Assassin to take, this is a personal preference choice.

 

Level 55

 

Serenity Strike/Leeching Strike

 

Melee attack that heals you which replaces your backstab.

 

Level 60

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Force Speed and Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Egress/Force Phase, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for 2 seconds.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Activating Project/Shock, Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning, or Squelch/Vanquish increases all your movement speed by 50% for 9 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 18 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Increases the damage dealt by Whirling Blow/Lacerate by 25%.

 

Former utilities, I still believe Option 1 is the best of the 3 but for mild PvE, Option 3 is good for this spec since they use Whirling Blow/Lacerate a lot.

 

Level 70

 

OPTION 1: Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash

 

OPTION 2: Force Lift/Whirlwind

 

OPTION 3: Resilience/Force Shroud

 

Since writing about the level 70 choices for Infiltration/Deception, I've had time to think on this one as there's been about a day between these posts. If you're going to force a choice here, I think this is a decent setup. This is about the only spec that can even somewhat use Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash. It's a choice between offense, control, or defense here. In PvP, since they take longer to kill things than Infiltration/Deception, they're less likely to be trying to capture an objective so they may not need Force Shroud as much. But it's still going to hurt many players by forcing us to decide between these abilities.

 

Level 80

 

OPTION 1: Passive - Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride grants Stalker's Swiftness/Reaper's Rush, allowing your next Spinning Strike/Assassinate to be used on any target, regardless of remaining health. Reapers Rush lasts for 10 seconds. Additionally, if the target of your Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride is killed within 10 seconds of using Shadow Stride/Phantom Stride, Shadow Stride's/Phantom Stride's cooldown is reset.

 

OPTION 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Mind Snap/Jolt by 2 seconds, Force of Will/Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds, and Force Speed by 5 seconds.

 

OPTION 3: Passive - Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Resilience/Force Shroud.

 

The level 80 options are the same for all specs and I still believe Option 3 is the best one here.

 

 

tl:dr version

 

Does the current combat rotation make this experience feel like you are playing an Assassin? Why or why not?

 

Generally, yes. It's weird having to choose some abilities often used for survival such as Force Wave/Overload, Battle Readiness/Overcharge Saber, and Resilience/Force Shroud. Despite these numerous setbacks, some of these passives are super nice but I'm not entirely sure they make up for what we're losing.

 

Missing Abilities and Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash

 

 

So, one thing I want to point out is that I just noticed about the DPS specs, they have lost the ability to use Spinning Kick/Spike. This is kinda really dumb, while the tank spec uses it far more often, this ability was commonly use as an opener and would allow a second to have the Shadow/Sin apply their DoT or armor debuff with Shadow Strike/Maul.

 

While I'm talking about abilities, I want to talk about Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash before I get into my overall thoughts of the Shadow/Assassin reworks. Simply put, NO ONE is going to pick this over other abilities unless it's for personal flair. While it deals more damage than Whirling Blow/Lacerate, it's AoE is harder to hit and it's just easier to use Whirling Blow/Lacerate to strike more enemies. Just scrap it entirely and replace it with a new ability that people will actually want. I'm not going to say "Make a new ability" without offering a suggestion.

 

I'm going to suggest giving Shadows/Assassins a Saber Throw ability using the Saberstaff, let's call it Saber Saw. I imagine it would be a targeted ability that deals X weapon damage with a 30 meter range and about the same CD as the Knight's Saber Throw. As we've seen in Star Wars, a thrown saberstaff will hit numerous targets in the path of the saber, so I imagine it would function a lot like the Sentinel's Twin Saber Throw but without the 50% slow to not step on their toes. But unlike their Saber Throw, it deals damage on its way back as it would still be spinning.

 

Though a way to make it enviable with any spec is to somehow augment it for each spec. Here's some examples...

 

Kinetic Combat/Darkness - Enemies that Saber Saw hits are slowed by 25% (or 30%) for 6 seconds and generates a Moderate (or High) amount of threat.

 

Infiltration/Deception - Saber Saw critically hits enemies that are below 15% health.

 

Serenity/Hatred - Saber Saw spreads your Periodic Force Breach/Discharge and Sever Force/Corrupting Madness to the targets it damages, as long as it damages targets already affected by your Force Breach/Discharge and Sever Force/Corrupting Madness.

 

People are going to want this for several reasons...

 

  • It'll look REALLY cool.
     
  • It's a ranged AoE weapon attack.
     
  • These additional effects provide good utility for the Shadows/Assassins that fits the theme of their specs.

 

Now I understand that Shadows/Assassins lost their Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning and their bonus range on Cascading Debris/Depredating Volts after using Force Potency/Recklessness because the Devs wanted melee classes to be more melee based and ranged classes to be more ranged based. But Infiltration Shadows/Deception Assassins have Low Slash, an ability similar to what I'm mentioning but is a single target primarily used to hold something still. That and the Jedi Knights and Sith Warriors get a Saber Throw so I don't think it's too much to give Shadows a Saber Throw. A Saberstaff Throw seems more iconic to the Saberstaff combat style more than a small AoE Cone. Here are some examples!

 

 

 

I think I've made my point that the Saberstaff throw is more iconic than a tiny cone slash. Anyway let's move on.

 

 

My overall thoughts on the direction SWTOR is going...

 

 

So one change mentioned that got everyone excited was the introduction of Combat Styles. I love the thought of being able to swap to a Guardian style, Sentinel Style, or Sage style at will as it helps reduces my need for alts and vastly improves my personal gameplay and roleplaying experiences with the ability to do so. I often taught classes to my guild about the various lightsabers and swapping alts was a tad annoying. Being able to do this on the fly will be great!

 

Though many had expected that the current Passive and Utility System would remain the same, many were shocked, surprised, maybe even angry by seeing this new system you're introducing in the PTS. I understand that many online games will change things up every expansion to keep things fresh, players will always complain about changes because most people don't like change, and a new (and simpler) system can be inviting for newer players. Before I get into skill tree changes, I want to discuss combat styles.

 

So the Devs mentioned how we'd be able to have numerous loadouts for our Combat Styles. I hope this isn't something like Outfit Designer where you have to click a number to load a preexisting loadout. Rather, I would prefer to see it have its own tab under the Skill Tree page. To make it organized, it could be divided by Combat Styles (Guardian/Juggernaut, Sentinel/Marauder, Shadow/Assassin, and Sage/Sorcerer for the Force classes), then numerous loadouts under those specific styles with a picture to indicate if it's burst, DoT, Tank, or heal spec with a custom name so I can be sure this one is my "Full Tank Shadow" spec, or my "DoT Guardian Spec", my "Ataru Duelist" spec, etc. Organization and the ability to name our loadouts will be super useful.

 

Now back to the changes to the skill tree. I want to ask, Why? Why did you feel the need to change it? Are you trying to keep things fresh? Are you trying to make it simpler to play as you're combining preexisting passives and utilities? Is it to attract new players, retain old players, or both? I'm not saying it's a bad thing but transparency with changes is always welcomed in any video game community. For an example, let's use Riot Games and League of Legends.

 

Riot is known for having a spaghetti code with LoL, overloading new champions, and being incompetent with balancing in general. But here's the thing, if they change the mechanics of a Champion or an Item in League, they will always provide a reason. "This item granted Juggernauts too much mobility so we removed the Dash feature on it", "This champion has too much lifesteal early and makes it hard for their lane opponents to keep up early game", "This Undead Centaur is too beefy with the damage and speed he has so we're nerfing his beef", things of that nature. If you're pruning abilities, tell us why you think X class needs to lose that ability altogether or force them to make a choice between that ability or other Active/Passive abilities.

 

Shadows/Assassins seem to retain much of their kit and feel compared to the previous classes tested in the PTS. I can't say much for the Sage/Sorcerer since that's the Force class I have played the least because I prefer melee combat. While not related to assassins, I want to look over the Knight and Agent classes to see what they've been dealing with. Some of the information about them may be subject to change as their testing phase has passed so I will be using information currently available that was drawn from their testing phases.

 

I'll talk about Sentinels first. At a glance, I can see some thematic elements being made through their passives to give them a more definitive niche. For example, there are several passives that increase damage with their movement speed, so it seems like you're trying to define them as swift damage dealers both with their damage output and movement speed. But this seems countered by the lack of a passive to negate the Centering Cost of Transcendence which was a really nice utility in 6.0, I've certainly used that a lot on my Sentinel because I loved being able to run around my opponents.

 

Why was Pacify removed? I always got the impression that Classes only able to use DPS specs offered Utility to make up for their lack of Defenses and Heals. Pacify seemed like an important one for Sentinel mains and this is definitely something that requires transparency on the developer's end. Same with Leg Slash, Awe, and forcing them to choose between Blade Storm and Saber Throw. Like Saber Reflect for Guardians, Saber Throw seems like a thematic necessity for all lightsaber wielders. Since I don't main Sentinels, I'll leave further breakdowns for their mains on more relevant threads.

 

Then let's discuss the JedI Guardian. Let me make this as clear as I can, give Saber Reflect and Saber Throw back to all Guardian/Juggernaut specs because it's a thematic and mechanical necessity for them. A Jedi/Sith that can't throw or reflect with a lightsaber is like a Hutt without Twi'lek slave girls, it's like Han without his Chewbacca, it's like Kylo Ren without his angst, it feels horrendously wrong to have one without the other. I can understand making DPS specs choose between Enure and other abilities while granting the Tank spec automatically have it, though while I think them having low mobility due to the damage and CC they output, I'm curious to see how the lack of Blade Blitz by default will affect them but I feel that may not have been the wisest decision. I can't say much as I'm a Shadow main so I'll leave that to Guardian/Juggernaut mains.

 

Now I'm going to look at Operatives. There has been a lot of complaints here for good reason because many abilities Operatives commonly used in combat are being made into choices. For example, at level 20 they have to choose between their Noxious Knives dealing more damage and slowing targets, their Hard Stun, and a passive that lowers their Evasion and makes them drop threat. Those are some tough choices to make, even moreso at level 70 where they choose their group stealth, AoE incapacitate, and Dash.

 

Truth be told, I think these are balanced choices because in the PvP scene, Operatives/Scoundrels have been notoriously overpowered and overkitted despite being a DPS class. They can always negate damage with their shield, dodge, double dashes, blink ability, constant self heals that can increase Damage Reduction while active, and I've seen Operatives kite and tank 4 people too many times to make me believe they're balanced as they currently are.

 

Operatives/Scoundrels have always had their own separate category in PvP tournaments because they can win just about any 1v1 due to their overkitted class. The fact that they prevent you from turning just now allows you to play your class, why do they get that feature and now burst Shadows/Assassins? They were just overall not that fun to play against with all the DCDs and CC they had for what should be a DPS spec. I will admit I have a personal bias against Operatives/Scoundrels so I feel no pity for them with these changes, this was a long time coming to deal with their annoying nature in PvP.

 

I'm not going to cover Sniper since I don't know too much about them.

 

Change is hard, but we've always had to deal with changes not just in SWTOR but in many other online games. This doesn't mean to embrace change without question, you need to provide feedback so the Devs can continue to make a product that we want to continue to use. Please, be transparent with us with how and why you make changes to so many of our kits. The more you can be honest with us, the more we can be honest with you.

 

We all want to continue playing this game and having fun with it as we've built numerous memories and relationships with SWTOR and want to continue to make more. In order for that to happen, you have to ensure that we're having fun and you're not just making big changes for the sake of making big changes because you can.

 

I got scared by all the hype and panic going around the forums, reddit, youtube, and discord about the changes in SWTOR. I want to say that it's overblown but as a Shadow main, our kits weren't as greatly affected as the Guardian, Sentinel, Operator, and Sniper. Please be more clear with how/why changes are being made to future classes that are going to be on the PTS and offer end game yellow gear and an augment vendor so we can get a true idea of end-game stats.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my rants, I hope it helps you Devs to make an informed decision with how to deal with Shadow/Assassin changes. If you're a player reading this and don't quite agree with some of my Shadow/Assassin assessments, please share your thoughts! The more feedback we can provide the Devs, the better we can iron out these issues. Goodbye and may the Force be with you.

 

Extra Notes for the Developers

 

 

If you're a Dev reading this right now and I have your attention, please here me out about this one particular thing not related to the PTS. Please, add a Temple Guardian Pike and a Temple Guardian Lightsaber. Please, I have been wanting one for so long and it would look great with the Temple Guardian outfit.

 

If you're writing a note to pass this on to other developers, please note the dimensions of the lightsaber pike. People often draw the pike as being as long as a standard saberstaff, it is not, it is longer. It is about 36" inches in length so maybe about half the length of a Player Character in game with blades of equal length. It would be cool to see the Pike because A) I love temple guards and B) you get some different looking sabers in there as most saberstaffs have a short hilt with long blades but you never see one with blades and hilts of equal length like the temple guard pike.

.

 

Though in some instances, like this art by Ryan Valle, the blades appear shorter than the pike hilt. This would be cool too, please, I NEEEEEEEEEEEED it, I would say I'm the biggest Jedi Temple Guard fan in the entire Star Wars Fanbase and

!

 

If you're wondering where that Single bladed Jedi Temple Guard Lightsaber image came from, it's from

. I just think this design is better than the Temple Guard lightsaber sold by Galaxy's Edge or the one Luke Skywalker is using in some of the comics.

 

Thats about it, also if you do add the Pike, please make the animation when it's activated be like the ones in the Clone Wars TV series,

and give it its unique high pitched hum and proper glowy bits on the hilt. Thank you for taking the time to not only listen to me, but everyone else in the forums!

 

Edited by Ruchalus
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It's really hard to properly test things with only open-world and story-mode fp available to test, still I tested deception sin just to get a feel for the changes.

 

Open-world and story mode is faceroll easy on LIVE, and still faceroll easy on PTS. Not much else to say, you really don't need to use proper rotations or strategy for the easy stuff so things feel pretty much the same on PTS as on LIVE.

 

I'm still annoyied to have lost abilities for what seems to be no reason at all, at least Sin got easy choices to choose from ... take the best dcd in the game (shroud) or take the worst aoe in the game (severing slash).

 

Overall I'm not sure what the goal is here. If it's too many dcds, then just changing the utilities would have been enough, losing abilities we are used to having access to all the time in LIVE just seems like change for the sake of it, with no real reasoning behind it.

 

Threat drop, for example, assassin dps got to keep it, warrior dps lost it, operatives lost it ... it makes no sense to me why some classes kept their threat drops and others didn't. Dps classes either need their threat drops or they don't. (Stealth classes need them the least, due to combat stealth being a 100% threat drop). That's an example of what I see as changes being made that make no sense.

 

It would help if we had some idea of the logic behind what abilities are being turned into choices, or lost, and what abilities we get to keep. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be testing, just that my quickbar has blank spots compared to LIVE.

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Hello everyone,

 

briefly about me: I have been playing Deception Assassin for almost 10 years now and mostly in PvP.

 

My feedback will be mainly about Deception Assassin. The passive abilities all seem to have been merged into the nine remaining passive abilities. The 20% surge of Discharge and Ball Lightning for example is not listed in the tooltips, but should be there due to the damage difference of non critical hits and critical hits, which would be smaller for both abilities without the additional 20% surge.

 

Let us look into the new Skill tree:

 

Level 15

 

Options for Reaping Strike:

 

Option 1: Passive - Increases the armor penetration and critical hit chance of Reaping Strike by 20%.

 

Option 2: Passive - Killing an enemy within 3 seconds of dealing damage with Reaping Strike resets the cooldown of all damaging abilities and increases your critical hit chance by 40% for 6 seconds.

 

Option 3: Passive - Critically hitting with force attacks resets the cooldown of Reaping Strike. Reaping Strike costs 10 additional Force.

 

Option 2 seems pretty useless for PvP. While we don't know what the time to kill will be in 7.0, I think even with all the reductions in Defensive Cooldowns, Stuns, Crowd Control, Movement, the time to kill will be too high to make this option worthwhile. Option 1 and 3 are both a good damage boost. Since the reset to Repeating Strike occurs very often (it should be changed that only critically direct force attacks can reset the cooldown of Reaping Strike instead off all critically force attacks), I would rate option 3 higher in potential than option 1, even if the force management will be more demanding due to the increased consumption by 10 per use.

 

Level 20

 

Option 1: Overload

 

Option 2: Passive - Dealing Damage with Shadow Strike/Maul from stealth stuns the target for 2 seconds. Standard and weak enemies are knocked down.

 

Option 3: Passive - Force Cloak increases movement speed by 50% while active and slows all enemies within 5 meters by 75% for 2.5 seconds when activated.

 

Option 3 seems not useful compared to Option 1 and Option 2. Option 1 (Overload) is very useful in Regs especially if you want to clear the Enzone in Huttball from enemies, to avoid passes, for knocking people down, to hind people to support team mates that they can take a node, cap someting or get less pressure. I can understand spike is pruned for the dd specs, because the ability is not very useful in some PvE content and only usable as an opener from stealth. To merge it too an ability like Maul is a good choice in my opinion. But to let us choose between Overload and Maul Spike is really hard for PvP especially if you had both skills nearly 10 years. I would more like if you replace Overload with Force Slow. Sure it's also an ability since 1.0 but with far less use for me in PvP. If I need a slow I could also pick Severing Slash or Voltaic Slash with the passive.

 

Level 30

 

Options for Voltaic Slash

 

Option 1: Passive - Dealing damage with Voltaic Slash reduces the cooldown of Recklessness by 2 seconds.

 

Option 2: Passive - Voltage stacks by Voltaic Slash increases your critical hit chance by 10% per stack,

 

Option 3: Passive - Voltage stacks by Voltaic Slash increases your damage reduction by 5% per stack. In addition, Voltaic Slash slows its target by 30% for 6 seconds.

 

All three options are not bad. But in PvP Voltaic Slash will not be used so much often that option 1 would be good. Option 2 is really strong with the 20% critical chance increase for all abilities. If you need a slow or better damage reduction Option 3 would be the choice.

 

Level 35

 

Option 1: Passive - Critically hitting with Voltaic Slash or a direct Force attack generates 10 Force and heals you by 1% of your max health. This effect cannot occur more than once per second.

 

Option 2: Passive - Force spending melee attacks now benefit from Recklessness and consume its stacks. You deal additional elemental damage to targets critically hit with melee attacks. This effect cannot happen more than once every 3 seconds.

 

Option 3: - Overcharge Saber

 

Option 1 seems really good especially if you choose Energized Blade for Reaping Strike to compensate the higher force costs and Voltaic Engine for the overall 20% crit increase. You will also get 1% health quite often. Option 2 makes our high damage melee abilities like Reaping Strike or Maul to hit harder for better burst and also buff the sustain damage through the additional elemental damage. Because of the long cooldown of Overcharge Saber I would say that Option 1 and 2 will outperform it.

 

Level 50

 

Option 1: Passive - As Darkness, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. As Deception and Hatred, reduces the damage taken from area attacks by 30%.

 

Option 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Force Cloak by 30 seconds and extends its duration by 5 seconds.

 

Option 3: Passive - Activating Deflection grants 6 seconds of immunity to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating.

 

Option 1 is only good when you want to cleave in PvP. Option 2 and 3 are pretty good and what you choose will matter on your own personal preference.

 

Level 60

 

Option 1: Passive - Force Speed and Phantom Stride grants Force Phase, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for 2 seconds.

 

Option 2: Passive - Activating Shock, Ball Lightning, or Eradicate increases all your movement speed by 50% for 9 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 18 seconds.

 

Option 3: Passive - Increases the damage dealt by Lacerate by 25%.

 

Option 3 is only useful for cleave situations. Option 1 and 2 will give you a lot more mobilty. But removing movement-impairing effects and granting a two seconds imunity will be more useful.

 

Level 70

 

Option 1: Severing Slash

 

Option2: Whirlwind

 

Option 3: Force Shroud

 

I don't know what the idea was to implement Severing Slash a the new ability for Assassins in 6.0. That ability is only really useful for Deception in the combination with the Tactical if you want to farm numbers in PvP. To choose between Whirldwind and Force Shroud is really hard. Force Shroud is our Defensive Cooldown against tech and force damage and our imunity to avoid to get a for example a stun, a cc, knock or to get pulled. Whirldwind is really good for playing objectives in regs to take a node, to the cc someone in the endzone of huttball to avoid the pass, to cc the healer to get a kill, to cc the tank if not in guard range and for a lot more things. It would be better when we get a similar choice as operatives on Level 70. Let us choose between Severing Slash, Whirldwind and Phantom Stride. Phantom Stride is useful as a gap closer and to get 3 charges of Discharge, but I would more prefer to get Whirldwind and Force Shroud instead of to choose between Whirldwind and Force Shroud objectivly wise. The best solution for us Assassin players would be if you give us Phasewalk back as a choice. Phasewalk was removed from us in 5.0, because we had too much mobility us a stealth class. But you didn't ask us, the players, which ability we would prefer more to keep. Now with the new skill tree it would be the chance for you to let us choose which one we would prefer. Let us choose then between Severing Slash, Phantom Stride and Phasewalk.

 

Level 80

 

Option 1: Passive - Phantom Stride grants Reaper's Rush, allowing your next Assassinate to be used on any target, regardless of remaining health. Reapers Rush lasts for 10 seconds. Additionally, if the target of your Phantom Stride is killed within 10 seconds of using Phantom Stride, Phantom Stride's cooldown is reset.

 

Option 2: Passive - Reduces the cooldown of Jolt by 2 seconds, Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds, and Force Speed by 5 seconds.

 

Option 3: Passive - Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Force Shroud.

 

Option 1 is not really usefull in PvP if you don't get enough fast kills. Option 2 and 3 are must picks int the current disciplines for PvP. The problem what I am see here is that Force Cloak is not really useful in PvP without Shroud of Madness. You have to choose Shroud on Level 70 so that you can use it in combination with Force Cloak or you have to choose Shroud of Madness on Level 80, because many Disciplines have at least one ability that deals damage over time and if you don't have Shroud or Shroud of Madness the damage over time will hit you out of stealth when you Force Cloak. It would be better when Shroud of Madness get merged into Force Cloak. Same for Operatives with Evasion and Cloaking Screen. You could replace Shroud of Madness then with Obfuscation for example that increases our movement speed by 15% and our effective stealth level by 10.

 

I would like to see more changes for the abilities we get through the Discipline we choose. Each class only gets three passives for the first two abilities we get from our Discipline. So why no passives for Low Slash to make it more useful in PvE like Operations and for Ball Lightning? Since 5.0 I have the feeling that for Deception Assassin the melee abilities get more and more important while the key abilities like Discharge and Ball Lightning do less damage. Some years ago Discharge was a really high damage ability and now you hit round about 20k non crit on the Live Servers and the soft autocrit with Discharge also doens’t hit really hard. It’s a bad feeling when you build 3 stacks and then it hits so less. The identity of the spec should be to get 3 stacks so fast as you can that you can use an ability that hits hard. For that, Discharge should be an autocrit or getting more buffed through passives. And also Reaping Strike as a filler has not the best synergy to the spec. It would work better if Reaping Strike has no cooldown and you can use it only from stealth or within 18 seconds after a critically hit and that the effect can occur only 18 seconds. So that you can decide when you want to use Reaping Strike within the 18 seconds and that would mean a better synergy to the spec like Maul has.

 

 

Cheers

Edited by Schwarzherz
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