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fex · 12-11-2011, 08:38 AM

(12-11-2011 08:29 AM)lgw Wrote: [*]8p Mad/Bal for Chain Shock / Upheavel is the best single boost, in particular considering we have a good chance on maintaining +9% melee crit on top.

At the cost of losing at least 3% armor pen along with either 6% VS bonus damage or 6% armor pen, and you have to take useless points in Madness in the first tier.

**Kaedis** · (This post was last modified: 12-11-2011 08:41 AM by Kaedis.)

Quote:At the cost of losing at least 3% armor pen along with either 6% VS bonus damage or 6% armor pen, and you have to take useless points in Madness in the first tier.

Most of the math I've done has shown that given weak Armor Pen is without an Armor Pen stat to boost it, and given how strong Shock is for Deception, Charge Mastery is a very weak talent to replace Chain Shock with.

**lgw** · 12-11-2011, 08:45 AM

(12-11-2011 08:38 AM)fex Wrote:
(12-11-2011 08:29 AM)lgw Wrote: [*]8p Mad/Bal for Chain Shock / Upheavel is the best single boost, in particular considering we have a good chance on maintaining +9% melee crit on top.

At the cost of losing at least 3% armor pen along with either 6% VS bonus damage or 6% armor pen, and you have to take useless points in Madness in the first tier.

I wouldn't consider 9% largely sustainable melee crit and a good amount of bonus damage on a low CD spike skill worthless.
Furthermore the only two skills that would actually benefit from amor penetration are Thr/VS and Shock. Chain Shock boosts the latter by a large amount (22.5%), while 9% penetration against 30% armor reduction will only result in a mere ~4% damage increase.

fex · 12-11-2011, 09:17 AM

(12-11-2011 08:45 AM)lgw Wrote:
(12-11-2011 08:38 AM)fex Wrote: At the cost of losing at least 3% armor pen along with either 6% VS bonus damage or 6% armor pen, and you have to take useless points in Madness in the first tier.

I wouldn't consider 9% largely sustainable melee crit and a good amount of bonus damage on a low CD spike skill worthless.
Furthermore the only two skills that would actually benefit from amor penetration are Thr/VS and Shock. Chain Shock boosts the latter by a large amount (22.5%), while 9% penetration against 30% armor reduction will only result in a mere ~4% damage increase.

Woops ... let me clarify. Smile

For a full Dec (31 pts) build, in order to get 8 Mad you'll be giving up 3 points in Dark that I feel are necessary to the build. They need to come out of one or two skills: at least one point from Charge Mastery no matter what, and two from CM or Thrashing Blades.

Armor Pen applies, I'm assuming, to every physical attack. I'm also assuming we can count Maul, Assassinate, even Saber Strike in there as physical attacks mitigated by armor, as they are "weapon damage" attacks. If you have data showing only Thrash and VS are mitigated by armor, then I retract that.

Full Dec specs wont be using Lightning Charge, so those two other points in Madness are worthless, and not helping your spec in any way whatsoever. I'd argue they may go better in Sith Defiance because at least they will help your build with survival.

Now, as a full Mad spec you'll benefit a lot more from these points, obviously, but you'll be taking them anyway.

I am just trying to point out that what you are giving up when you spend points to buff an ability that's not a strength of the particular spec tree (e.g. boosting Shock for a Dec assassin) needs to be taken into consideration.

It only makes sense, as the Madness assassin is a hybrid and their Shocks are a huge part of their damage. The Deception assassin is not, and moving points around that buff their primary abilities in order to buff a secondary ability is questionable at best.

I know you wrote this simply as a comparison of Shock boosting talents but I am hoping there isn't any confusion generated and someone tries a mix-n-match spec and misses out on key abilities. That's all I'm saying. Smile

Sorry for rambling, and sorry for empire-centric terminology.

**lgw** · (This post was last modified: 12-11-2011 09:41 AM by lgw.)

Honestly, I'm not conviced that Discharge is useless for 31 Dec (solid damage, internal, only 20 F, enhanced crit mod, works with Recklessness).
Furthermore Maul already ignores a large part of armor due Duplicity, and Saber Strike is so weak damage that 4% ain't save it (its best part is the triple chance to proc SC).

Then I don't see how a 31 Dec has not a big part of damage in Shock, considering VS buffs it by 30%, the 26-30p talent buffs its crit by 50%, and Induction makes it rather cheap to throw out.

And furthermore for PVP there are lot of other considerations as well (like SD being useful, burst being more important than pure DPS, etc).

At last, as Kor pointed out, many things point towards 8 Madness being surperior to 5 Darkness with 31 Deception. But in any case, before seeing live endgame with its particular gear, the latest coeffecients and such, there is no backup for either of the two variants to be surperior.

**LagunaD** · (This post was last modified: 12-11-2011 11:13 AM by LagunaD.)

(12-11-2011 08:45 AM)lgw Wrote: Furthermore the only two skills that would actually benefit from amor penetration are Thr/VS and Shock. Chain Shock boosts the latter by a large amount (22.5%), while 9% penetration against 30% armor reduction will only result in a mere ~4% damage increase.

Won't comment on the main points, since I don't have experience with DPS specs.

In case there's any confusion, Armor Pen boosts any attack that does Kinetic/Energy damage, since any attack that does Kinetic/Energy damage is mitigated by armor. Attacks which do Internal/Elemental damage would not benefit (since they already ignore armor).

The "going rate" for generic damage bonuses on the skill trees seems to be about +1% per skill point, for bonuses that affect all or most abilities. So +3-4% to most abilities for 3 skill points seems pretty much on par.

jmac · 12-11-2011, 11:13 PM

(12-11-2011 09:33 AM)lgw Wrote: Honestly, I'm not conviced that Discharge is useless for 31 Dec (solid damage, internal, only 20 F, enhanced crit mod, works with Recklessness).

I really hope that is not true. Even if that is true at the moment, that would seem like something that would be fixed. It seems like too much work and talents are geared into discharge for that to be a worthless mechanic.

Scele · (This post was last modified: 12-12-2011 07:06 AM by Scele.)

(12-11-2011 09:17 AM)fex Wrote:
(12-11-2011 08:45 AM)lgw Wrote:
(12-11-2011 08:38 AM)fex Wrote: At the cost of losing at least 3% armor pen along with either 6% VS bonus damage or 6% armor pen, and you have to take useless points in Madness in the first tier.

I wouldn't consider 9% largely sustainable melee crit and a good amount of bonus damage on a low CD spike skill worthless.
Furthermore the only two skills that would actually benefit from amor penetration are Thr/VS and Shock. Chain Shock boosts the latter by a large amount (22.5%), while 9% penetration against 30% armor reduction will only result in a mere ~4% damage increase.

Woops ... let me clarify.

For a full Dec (31 pts) build, in order to get 8 Mad you'll be giving up 3 points in Dark that I feel are necessary to the build. They need to come out of one or two skills: at least one point from Charge Mastery no matter what, and two from CM or Thrashing Blades.

Armor Pen applies, I'm assuming, to every physical attack. I'm also assuming we can count Maul, Assassinate, even Saber Strike in there as physical attacks mitigated by armor, as they are "weapon damage" attacks. If you have data showing only Thrash and VS are mitigated by armor, then I retract that.

Full Dec specs wont be using Lightning Charge, so those two other points in Madness are worthless, and not helping your spec in any way whatsoever. I'd argue they may go better in Sith Defiance because at least they will help your build with survival.

Now, as a full Mad spec you'll benefit a lot more from these points, obviously, but you'll be taking them anyway.

I am just trying to point out that what you are giving up when you spend points to buff an ability that's not a strength of the particular spec tree (e.g. boosting Shock for a Dec assassin) needs to be taken into consideration.

It only makes sense, as the Madness assassin is a hybrid and their Shocks are a huge part of their damage. The Deception assassin is not, and moving points around that buff their primary abilities in order to buff a secondary ability is questionable at best.

I know you wrote this simply as a comparison of Shock boosting talents but I am hoping there isn't any confusion generated and someone tries a mix-n-match spec and misses out on key abilities. That's all I'm saying.

Sorry for rambling, and sorry for empire-centric terminology.

Given that the deception spec with Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

has 2 great talents for it, one that reduces cost and one that increases damage, Shock

Sith Inquisitor

Force: -45
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Project

Shocks the target for [?] energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

should be used every time you have the buffs up from 2 x Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

. Shock

Sith Inquisitor

Force: -45
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Project

Shocks the target for [?] energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

is a highly central ability for a Deception Assassin, so far my spreadsheet (work in progress) shows that the highest dps is gained from:

Discharge

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -20
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Mirror: Force Breach

Unleashes your current lightsaber charge upon the target, applying an effect based on your current charge. Only usable with a charged lightsaber. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber.Lightning Charge: Deals [<2>] periodic energy damage over 18 seconds.Dark Charge: Strikes up to 5 nearby enemies, dealing [<5>] internal damage and decreasing the targets' accuracy by 5% for the next 18 seconds.Surging Charge: Deals [<1>] internal damage.

- IF you have up Maul

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -50
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Shadow Strike

Deals [<1>] weapon damage to a single target. Only usable from behind the target. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber.

, if you have 2 x Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

buffs up Shock

Sith Inquisitor

Force: -45
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Project

Shocks the target for [?] energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

, if neither is true Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

.

The challenge is:

Does: 9% armor penetration for Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

and Maul

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -50
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Shadow Strike

Deals [<1>] weapon damage to a single target. Only usable from behind the target. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber.

, 6% damage increase to Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

and 9% damage increase on surging charge outmatch 9% critical strike chance for Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

and Maul

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -50
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Shadow Strike

Deals [<1>] weapon damage to a single target. Only usable from behind the target. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber.

and a 45% chance to cast a second Shock

Sith Inquisitor

Force: -45
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Project

Shocks the target for [?] energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

dealing 50% damage.

Judging from tooltips Shock

Sith Inquisitor

Force: -45
Range: 10m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Project

Shocks the target for [?] energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

does about 3900 damage on average and Voltaic Slash

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -25
Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Clairvoyant Strike

Strikes the target twice, dealing [<1>] weapon damage with each hit. Each use of this ability increases the damage dealt by your next Shock by 15%. Stacks up to 2 times.

does about 720, add to it that 2 x voltaic slash will boost shock damage by 30% and reduce its cost by 50% and that crackling blasts increases the critical strike damage of both discharge effects and shock, I think its shortsighted not state that shock/discharge effects are not central to deception. When you add in recirculation, meaning that a deception assassin should have a 12 second CD on Discharge and a 6 sec CD on shocks, you will have 15 abilities every minute that can trigger exploitive strikes for the increased critical strike chance, thats roughly 3 abilities each 10 second cycle, so given a crit chance of 33% or above for shock and discharge you should have this buff up very often.

If Chain Shock procs can crit and trigger the buff that adds about 4 (4.5 to be exact) attacks per minute, plus it would do 1950 damage non-crit to the target. So given that you have 4.5 of those attacks per minute, that's a total of 8775 damage or 146,25 dps before armor. It could potentially be quite a bit more if it can crit and benefits from the crackling blasts buff.

If we calculate 9% armor penetration as a flat 9% damage increase, even though that can be inaccurate in both directions, that means 9% more damage on Maul, Voltaic and Saber strike and is roughly equal to Exploitive strikes, even though exploitive strikes is probably more bursty.

A 6% damage increase to voltaic Slash, would add 65 damage per hit, assuming then that you use a total of 20 Voltaic Slash per minute (two every 6 seconds to sync with the shock CD) for a total of 1300 damage or 21,66 dps.

A 9% increase to saber charges (Electric Execution) given surging charge's proc rate of 25% for 229 damage, given 20 voltaic slash, 10 shocks, 5 discharges and 5 other melee attacks, would mean a total of 30 attacks that can trigger surging charge, meaning that you'll get roughly 7,5 procs per minute (Hey same as Vanilla Seal of Command!) if we take into account that Voltaic Slash strikes twice, so it has 40 and add in some saber strikes because I honestly don't think the regen can handle ability use like it was outlined above, we can estimate 60 attacks that can trigger surging charge to estimate really on the high side for a total of 15 procs. This translates into 229 * 15 = 3435 damage per minute or 57,25 dps.

So the points in madness do look a lot stronger than the points in darkness. I was conflicted for a time because I really wanted Lightning Recovery, but unless my math is wrong or the information I used was incorrect Exploitive Strikes, Sith Defiance and Chain Shock come out quite a bit ahead of Charge Mastery, Thrashing Blades and Electric Execution.

I don't know enough about armor penetration to know how it stacks up against crit to do accurate calculations with it, plus armor pen may vary in effectiveness depending on the target's armor value.

The value of crit can also go down if you have a ton of it, however given the 30% increased critical strike chance for Maul from Induction in addition to the 50% armor ignore from Duplicity the 9% crit it sets up for some nice burst in combination with shock and discharge.

For Deception Assassins the best rotation would include Maul, Shock, Voltaic Slash, Discharge and Saber Strike. With the hardest hitters as of now being Maul, Shock and Discharge depending on conditions.

**Pred** · 12-12-2011, 07:11 AM

Scele, I am not arguing about any of the points you've made (pretty valid imo) but I will add that the 9% arp also affects Lacerate, which looks to me to be a Deception's only AOE attack? In flashpoints/Operations with potentially multiple targets, that can potentially be a big buff to our total damage done.

Scele · 12-12-2011, 07:44 AM

(12-12-2011 07:11 AM)Pred Wrote: Scele, I am not arguing about any of the points you've made (pretty valid imo) but I will add that the 9% arp also affects Lacerate, which looks to me to be a Deception's only AOE attack? In flashpoints/Operations with potentially multiple targets, that can potentially be a big buff to our total damage done.

9% crit would affect lacerate as well, the question is whether or not there would be enough spell abilities used to trigger it. The average Lacerate

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -40
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Whirling Blow

Deals [<1>] weapon damage to all nearby targets.

comes out to about 990 damage per target pre armor, which is about 660 dps per target pre armor, so there is no question that Lacerate

Sith Inquisitor (Assassin)

Force: -40
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon
Mirror: Whirling Blow

Deals [<1>] weapon damage to all nearby targets.

will be valuable for AOE.

It comes down to what encounter you're facing, given that you're fighting multiple enemies a majority of the time, the arp could pull ahead over the crit provided that the buff isn't up, since spells won't be used much. If you find yourself in a lot of AOE based encounters, I would spec Madness though.

With a spec something akin to this from my point of view, Deception is our primarily single-target damage spec. The talents are mostly centered around single-target abilities, Voltaic Slash, Shock, Discharge and Maul. The only buff to AOE is resourcefulness which reduces the cost of Lacerate by 10 for 2 points.