May The Force Be With You ! (managing the Sith Assassin's / Jedi Shadow's resources)

[Lackies]

I'm no expert but it seems to me developing a rotation that's Force negative is somewhat silly. I mean yes you want a max burst rotation, but ...

Wouldn't it be best to develop a rotation that's force neutral (at a minimum) and includes Saber Strike, and then have the Saber Strikes replaced with additional thrash/consuming procs/using less force efficient abilities as force regen and procs allow?

And also as part of creating a maximized rotation you need to consider the force/dmg ratio of these abilities, made more complicated by causing/benefiting from procs. Thrash in particular benefits from a ton of crap and procs a ton of crap too.

Without getting too math-y the high madness builds seem like they would benefit from thrashing more and shocking less ( i.e. UEK only even with induction talented), AND factoring the inclusion of Saber Strike into their rotation. both hit multiple times so have good odds on procing raze, and CD is both free and helps maintain uptime on exploitative strikes. Obviously effectiveness is dependent on crit rate but at least it scales with "filler attacks"... The only Deception ability that scales with saber strikes at all is static charges and that but little.

It is harder to get the exact rotation down since crit rates and RNG determine force consumption, and maybe Shock after every induction 2 is more efficient than thrash procing ES and Raze ( although I think without Volatic Slash that's unlikely, but ultimately dependent on melee crit rate).

I saw you assume Discharge will tick 30 times in 60 seconds in your 13/28 section. Are you certain its not a 3 second tick interval? Since you gain 3 seconds on its duration via talents it seems likely that you'd gain exactly 1 additional tick. If nothing else makes it a wasted talent in any 3 darkness/xx/madness build

Similarly on topic of Death mark... 10 stacks and it lasts 30 seconds... Assuming your only Dots are Lightning Charge: discharge and Raze procs ( i.e. not 31 madness).... that's maybe 8 ticks ( 5 discharge 3 CD) in a 15 second period... Seems to me you can use this ability less. Not a lot less but definitely could delay it 2-3 gcds unless you got 2 raze procs within 15 seconds... which I guess could happen more often than you'd expect. I guess the more you thrash/saber strike the more you need to be religious about death field on cd.

[Solaries]

This is a simple spreadsheet I put together using information from this to show an Assassin single target tanking rotation. There may be more advanced versions out there, but this was a good learning experience anyhow. People are welcome to take from this as they please.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?...n_US#gid=0

[LagunaD]

Dark Ward is off the GCD, just FYI.

[Solaries]

Thanks for the reminder. Didn't change much; actually makes the rotation look even more empty. A lot of space to be filled in with saber swings.

[Kaedis]

Quote:I saw you assume Discharge will tick 30 times in 60 seconds in your 13/28 section. Are you certain its not a 3 second tick interval? Since you gain 3 seconds on its duration via talents it seems likely that you'd gain exactly 1 additional tick. If nothing else makes it a wasted talent in any 3 darkness/xx/madness build

This is tricky. The base duration is 18 seconds, which generally indicates a 3 second tick interval. Howver, the talent in question grants 1/2/3 seconds to the duration, and anything less than a tick's duration generally isn't worth notating, or coding. I'm unsure about this one.

Quote:Similarly on topic of Death mark... 10 stacks and it lasts 30 seconds... Assuming your only Dots are Lightning Charge: discharge and Raze procs ( i.e. not 31 madness).... that's maybe 8 ticks ( 5 discharge 3 CD) in a 15 second period... Seems to me you can use this ability less. Not a lot less but definitely could delay it 2-3 gcds unless you got 2 raze procs within 15 seconds... which I guess could happen more often than you'd expect. I guess the more you thrash/saber strike the more you need to be religious about death field on cd.

CrD ticks once per second, 6 times over it's duration. Even assuming you only get off 1 CrD during Deathmark's duration, that's still 6/10 stacks taken right there. If Discharge is up, you're going to get at least 4 more ticks, likely 5. That's all 10 stacks right there. If you get more than one CrD off during the duration (likely, with a high enough crit chance), it's a sure bet.

[lgw]

(12-10-2011 12:17 PM)Lackies Wrote:  I'm no expert but it seems to me developing a rotation that's Force negative is somewhat silly. I mean yes you want a max burst rotation, but ...

Wouldn't it be best to develop a rotation that's force neutral (at a minimum) and includes Saber Strike, and then have the Saber Strikes replaced with additional thrash/consuming procs/using less force efficient abilities as force regen and procs allow?

Erm... that's what I'm trying to do in the first place ?!
Point is, why I'm not starting with Saber Strike

Saber Strike
Sith Inquisitor

Range: Melee (4m)
Activation time: Instant
Damage Type: Weapon

Deals [?] weapon damage spread across a flurry of 3 melee attacks.

... it deals really bad damage. It's better than doing nothing, and that's it then.
And even then - it doesn't matter if I start from top and then make cuts, or start from bottom and then add.

Quote:And also as part of creating a maximized rotation you need to consider the force/dmg ratio of these abilities, made more complicated by causing/benefiting from procs. Thrash in particular benefits from a ton of crap and procs a ton of crap too.

Did you even read my post ? That's all factored in there.

Quote:Without getting too math-y the high madness builds seem like they would benefit from thrashing more and shocking less ( i.e. UEK only even with induction talented), AND factoring the inclusion of Saber Strike into their rotation. both hit multiple times so have good odds on procing raze, and CD is both free and helps maintain uptime on exploitative strikes. Obviously effectiveness is dependent on crit rate but at least it scales with "filler attacks"... The only Deception ability that scales with saber strikes at all is static charges and that but little.

It is harder to get the exact rotation down since crit rates and RNG determine force consumption, and maybe Shock after every induction 2 is more efficient than thrash procing ES and Raze ( although I think without Volatic Slash that's unlikely, but ultimately dependent on melee crit rate).

Just because there's RNG doesn't mean we can't make predictions. That's why we have statistics.

Quote:I saw you assume Discharge will tick 30 times in 60 seconds in your 13/28 section. Are you certain its not a 3 second tick interval? Since you gain 3 seconds on its duration via talents it seems likely that you'd gain exactly 1 additional tick. If nothing else makes it a wasted talent in any 3 darkness/xx/madness build

Similarly on topic of Death mark... 10 stacks and it lasts 30 seconds... Assuming your only Dots are Lightning Charge: discharge and Raze procs ( i.e. not 31 madness).... that's maybe 8 ticks ( 5 discharge 3 CD) in a 15 second period... Seems to me you can use this ability less. Not a lot less but definitely could delay it 2-3 gcds unless you got 2 raze procs within 15 seconds... which I guess could happen more often than you'd expect. I guess the more you thrash/saber strike the more you need to be religious about death field on cd.

Death Field

Death Field
Sith Inquisitor

Force: -50
Range: 30m
Activation time: Instant
Cooldown: 15 secs
Damage Type: Internal
Mirror: The Force In Balance

Creates a death field at the target location, dealing [?] internal damage and stealing [?] health from up to 3 targets within an 8-meter radius.

deals good damage, at least in my observations noticably more than another Thrash

Thrash
Sith Inquisitor

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

Strikes the target twice. Each hit deals [?] weapon damage.

, hence it's used on CD.

[lgw]

OK, I went through the list of our abilities again, and considering we need to be below 20 F/G to even have a chance of being Force neutral, let alone Force positive, we're basically stuck with three abilities:

• 15 F/G Force Lightning
  Force Lightning
  Sith Inquisitor
  
  Force: -30
  Range: 10m
  Channel time: 3.0 secs
  Cooldown: 6 secs
  Damage Type: Energy
  Mirror: Telekinetic Throw
  
  Deals [?] energy damage to the target over the duration of the effect. Also slows the movement speed of the target by 50% and immobilizes weak and standard enemies.
  
  / Telekinetic Throw
  Telekinetic Throw
  Jedi Consular
  
  Force: -30
  Range: 10m
  Channel time: 3.0 secs
  Cooldown: 6 secs
  Damage Type: Kinetic
  Mirror: Force Lightning
  
  Hurls a volley of debris at the target, dealing [<1>] kinetic damage and slowing movement speed by 50%. Standard and weak targets are instead immobilized for the duration.
  
• 15 F/G Force Slow
  Force Slow
  Sith Inquisitor
  
  Force: -15
  Range: 10m
  Activation time: Instant
  Cooldown: 12 secs
  Damage Type: Kinetic
  Mirror: Force Slow
  
  Deals [?] kinetic damage and slows the target's movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
  
• 0 F/G Saber Strike
  Saber Strike
  Sith Inquisitor
  
  Range: Melee (4m)
  Activation time: Instant
  Damage Type: Weapon
  
  Deals [?] weapon damage spread across a flurry of 3 melee attacks.
  

Looking at the list of abilities, they range from medicore to bad in their damage output.

Now what really concerns me is that other classes can be extremely resource efficient. I'm no expert there, but SW/JK can become very efficient in generating and comsuming their Rage/Focus, and IA/Sm have some great ways to regen their Energy, in particular if running poison/bleed spec.
The most efficient spec, though, seems to be that 23 Mad / 18 Lig Sorcerer... Force Lightning

Force Lightning
Sith Inquisitor

Force: -30
Range: 10m
Channel time: 3.0 secs
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Telekinetic Throw

Deals [?] energy damage to the target over the duration of the effect. Also slows the movement speed of the target by 50% and immobilizes weak and standard enemies.

is already Force neutral, then he has lowered base costs, twice enhanced regen rate, and casts every spell at half cost. And to top that, he has a huge 600 F base pool, and even if that should ever run out he can refill it completely using that PVP consumable. Oh, and that spec still has a good deal of AOE, some useful CC and can emergency-heal. I have a hard time seeing how a SA/JS can compete against that, even if our individual abilities might hit a bit harder...

[LagunaD]

(12-10-2011 04:55 PM)Solaries Wrote:  Thanks for the reminder. Didn't change much; actually makes the rotation look even more empty. A lot of space to be filled in with saber swings.

Yep, 2-4 basic attacks per 10 GCDs corresponds pretty closely to how it actually plays in my experience.

[Pred]

Safe to assume assassin has been balanced with the fact we run out of force often and are forced to do free attack every so often dependant on our spec/rotation. Not necessarily a bad thing. Just makes our damage fluctuate somewhat over the course of a minute for example.

[lgw]

(12-11-2011 01:54 AM)Pred Wrote:  Safe to assume assassin has been balanced with the fact we run out of force often and are forced to do free attack every so often dependant on our spec/rotation. Not necessarily a bad thing. Just makes our damage fluctuate somewhat over the course of a minute for example.

From what I get, real endgame testing was rather sparse - and looking at basically any MMO there have been huge balance adjustments concerning endgame PVE performace for classes early after release.
It's probably not all doom and gloom, but I have my severe doubts if our sustained DPS lives up to that over some other, much more efficient classes...