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Topic: Shadow Changes on the PTS with theorycrafting

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Cheetah Defender
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Shadow Changes on the PTS with theorycrafting

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Well first off, I'll link my guide that I never linked to this site for some reason even though I posted it a month ago.  http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=591260

 

Now that I've done that, I will talk about my take on these changes for Shadow.  I am aware the state these skills/talents are in may not be permanent.

 

PTS changes

 

Below is my take on the abilities and talents that we gain/lose on the PTS

(Really Good)Phase Walk: Basically this is like a Warlock Teleport Gate from WoW.  You place a mark on a spot that is 60 meters or less away from you.  This can only be placed while you are in stealth.  You can teleport to it at anytime of your choosing.  This has its uses.  The primary one I can think of is for node guarding.  Now you don't have to be even remotely close to the node you are guarding to actually guard it successfully.  Good luck CC capping on a Shadow or even finding him when your search radius is 60 meters around the node.  Another use would be to escape a battle and survive.  About to die in a Voidstar?  No worries, if you had placed a phase walk marking near the medpac, just phase walk over there and take the medpac.  Or you can place a mark somewhere else away from the battle and just Force Cloak and heal up.  The enemy will have no idea where you went.  Also, if you are a tank, there is a talent called Shadow's Shelter, which if you phase walk to your healers, they can heal for 5% more for the duration.

 

 

(Good)Shield/Absorb is now more useful in PvP: Shields now block energy and kinetic damage for however much your absorb rating is.  Not just Melee and Ranged attacks.  The only attacks that now ignore shields are internal and elemental damage.

 

 

Kinetic

 

 

(Good)(Kinetic)Shadow's Shelter:  If you are tanking 2% increased healing received is very nice.  As far as the 5% increased healing done if you phase walk on a target.  I'm not sure how long that effect would last for, and how powerful that is yet.  However, the main reason I'd take this is for the 2% increased healing received, the other part of this talent is a bonus.

 

 

(Meh)(Kinetic)Shadow Wrap: Well... to put it bluntly, this allows you to Shadow Strike from the front of an enemy.  The proc can only happen once every 10 seconds.  Honestly, I feel this talent is too high up in the kinetic tree to be that useful.  It would synergize well with Shadow's Mark and Infiltration Tactics.  However, since it is on the second to last tier of kinetic, and Infiltration Tactics is on the fourth tier of infiltration, this does not really work out too well.  The best you can do is having Shadow Wrap and Shadow's Mark, but then you have no chance at getting Force in Balance or Slow Time... so what is really the point?  Idk maybe I'm wrong about this skill.

 

 

(Really Bad)(Kinetic)Spinning Kick/Armor Rating Reduction: The talent that made spinning kick usable out of stealth is now at the second to last talent tier.  This means it is no longer viable in kinetic hybrids, only full kinetic.  Also, the 20% armor increase that kinetic spec had when specced into that talent(Stasis) is now gone.  This means that our armor in kinetic spec has effectively been reduced by 20%. 

 

 

Infiltration

 

 

(Good)(Infil)Impose Weakness: With this you now have a 100% chance to trigger your Infiltration Tactics on a separate, 10 second limit from your normal Infil Tactics procs.  This means if you got an Infil Tactics proc from a Double Strike and used it, you could low slash the enemy right after and have yet another consecutive Infil Tactics proc that is available for use.  It does not affect the Infil Tactics proc timer you have for Double Strike etc.  However, unless you're running full infiltration or near it, you won't have access to this talent.

 

 

(Good)(Infil)Shadow's Mark: Increases Shadow Strike damage by 6%.  It is also in the second tier, so it's accessible to most specs.

 

 

(Good)(Infil)Upheaval: Moved from the second tier of the balance tree to the first tier of the infil tree.

 

 

(Meh)(Infil)Judgement: Increases the damage dealt to targets below 30% hp by 6%.  It's not bad, I suppose if I had to reach the top tier I would take this over Nerve Wracking.

 

 

(Bad)(Infil)Nerve Wracking:  The talent itself is not bad, it is the placement.  It was fine where it was.  In the kinetic tree, where spinning kicks could be used out of stealth every 20 seconds.  Now it's only usable every 1 minute 30 seconds because it's at the 2nd to last tier of the infil tree, meaning kinetic hybrids have no access to it.  Horrible placement, and this does not really help infil shadows.

 

 

(Really Bad)(Infil)Infiltration Tactics:  The talent itself is still amazing, don't get me wrong.  The reason I say this change is really bad is because of where it has been moved to in the talent tree.  It is now in the fourth tier.  With this, they have probably killed kinetic/balance hybrids.

 

 

(Really Bad)(Clairvoyant Strike):  Instead of increasing your project damage by 30% with 2 stacks of this, it now triggers your Shadow Technique on a seperate rate limit.  This kind of ruins the synergy with Infil, and I don't see why this change was needed at all.  This will hurt full Infil specs.

 

Balance

 

(Good)(Balance)Mental Defense: Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%.  Yeah, probably very good considering how squishy Balance Shadows are.  I'm a fan.

 

 

(Meh)(Balance)Lambaste: Whirling Blow now triggers your Force Technique on a seperate rate limit.  Whirling Blow is still an awful ability.  Putting this talent won't change my viewpoint on that.

 

 

(Meh)(Balance)Rippling Force: It has a 100% chance to apply your current weapon damage as kinetic after 1?  I am actually a bit confused about this skill, do they mean after 1 tick of your DoT?  If so, that is nice and all, but I'd rather they just put Sharpened Mind back.

 

 

(Meh)(Balance)Crush Spirit: Your Death Field does 15% more damage on targets below 30%.  I say this is meh because it is so situational.  A lot of the times when your target is under 30% health that means he's going to die in 1-2 seconds.  Force in Balance is usually used as soon as it's off cooldown, so....

 

 

(Bad)(Balance)Twin Disciplines removed: This will decrease your single target burst, along with the fact that infil tactics has also been moved up to the 4th tier in the infil tree.

 

 

(Bad)(Balance)Containment is no longer an instant Force Lift:  Now it only reduces the cast time by 25% at most.

 

(Really Bad)(Balance)Sharpened Mind no longer exists: So for any Shadows running balance, things just became worse for you.  Your force regen has now just been crippled heavily.

 

 

Summary

 

So the final verdict?  Kinetic remained strong and relatively unchanged.  The main question with Kinetic will be whether shields now being improved in PvP will make up for the loss of 20% armor rating.  Infiltration in my opinion got worse because of what happened to Clairvoyant Strike and the fact that Infil Tactics was moved up to the fourth tier.  Balance didn't just get nerfed, they got wrecked.  They did so many things to hurt the Kinetic/Balance hybrid as well.  They made the second tier of balance have all skills that are utterly useless to take as a kinetic/balance hybrid.  They moved Infil Tactics to the 4th tier so that anyone running a kinetic/balance hybrid would no longer have access to Infilitration Tactics.  They destroyed their Force Regen and took their Twin Disciplines buff away.  In turn, Kinetic/Balance hybrids will probably no longer be as viable.  Kinetic/Infil hybrids look to be strong, especially 23/21/2.  If it turns out that the new shield system won't make up for the 20% armor rating loss, then Shadows will have gotten nerfed all around.

 

 

 

 

PTS specs

 

 

My new tank specs will probably be 27/17/2 and 36/3/7 if all the skills are like when the level cap is raised officially.  [B]Keep in mind that this section is mostly theorycrafting at the moment, and I am by no means saying these specs are set in stone.[/B]

 

 

27/17/2 http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=020332001121023002120200000000000322230001112000000000000000000000200000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

 

-You have [B]Harnessed shadows[/B] for a self-heal.

-You gain [B]Kinetic Bulwark[/B], which will increase your shield absorption by 1% for every stack consumed, lasts 20 seconds or until you reapply Kinetic Ward.

-Your projects will deal more damage thanks to [B]Bombardment[/B] and [B]Upheaval.[/B]

-You lose [B]Infiltration Tactics[/B]

-You lose [B]Martial Prowess[/B]

 

 

Summary

 

Your dps rotation in this spec will now rely more on projects rather than shadow strikes.  However, this spec was always pure tank and not dps, so losing infil tactics is not a big deal.  The biggest loss probably comes from not having Martial Prowess, which would normally allow you to use Spinning Kick out of stealth.  However, to make up for this, you get Harnessed Shadows, so you have the self-heal along with all the former survivability tools of 22/17/2.  You get Kinetic Bulwark as well.

 

 

36/3/7 http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022332001121023002120203100200100300000000000000000000000000000003220000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

 

-You gain [B]Kinetic Bulwark[/B], which will increase your shield absorption by 1% for every stack consumed, lasts 20 seconds or until you reapply Kinetic Ward.

-You gain [B]Shadow's Shelter[/B], which increases your healing received by 2%.  Also, when you activate phase walk within 5 meters of healers, it increases their healing done by 5% for the duration.

 

 

Summary

 

The rotation is pretty much the same.  Working to get 3 stacks of harnessed shadows to use TK throw for a self-heal.  Using Slow Time every time it is up.  Only difference will be the addition of phase walk, you will want to try to phase walk next to a healer if possible so they can benefit form Shadow's Shelter.

 

 

27/5/14  http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022332001121023002100200000000000302000000000000000000000000000003222100012100000000000000000000&ver=20

 

-You gain 1 point in [B]Containment.[/B] You can put the 1 point in [B]Celerity[/B] if you feel it will be more useful than [B]Containment, or you can take 1 point out of Adjudication and 1 point out of Containment and put 2 into Celerity for 27/5/14[/B]

-Force Stun cooldown will be reduced by 10 seconds with [B]Pinning Resolve[/B].  I mainly did this to have enough in talents to move up to the next tier.  In combat technique we don't really have any periodic damaging abilities, so the other 3 talents on this tier are even more useless.

 

 

Summary

 

Rotation is the same.  Work up to 3 stacks of Harnessed Shadows and use TK throw at 3 stacks.  Not much has changed with this spec from 27/0/14, honestly.

 

 

23/18/5 http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022332001120013002100000000000000322230001110030000000000000000003020000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

-The main point of this spec is to keep [B]Infiltration Tactics[/B], even though it was moved up many talent tiers.

-[B]Shadow's Mark[/B] will increase your Shadow Strike damage even more.

 

 

Summary

 

The priority for this would be [B]Shadow Strike[/B] above all else if you have the Infiltration Tactics proc.  If not, project is next on the priority if you have a Particle Acceleration proc.  If you have neither of these procs, use Double Strike until you can get one of these procs.  Note that it might be better to put even 2 more points into Circling Shadows for 15% increased critical damage on Shadow Strike.  However, to do that I would probably take 2 points out of Psychokinesis, and I do not know if force management would still be ok after taking points out of that.

 

23/21/2 http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022322001120023002100000000000000322030021112030001000000000000000020000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

-Infiltration Tactics will cause your Shadow Strikes to do 30% more damage and cost 75% less force.

-Shadow's Mark will increase your Shadow Strike damage by 6%

-Increases your Shadow Strike damage by 30%.

 

So let's do the math here... your Shadow Strikes will hit 66% harder than normal, and with Infil Tactics procs they will cost 75% less force.  So if your Shadow Strike hits for 4000 without any of these skills, it would hit the same person for 6640 with these talents.

 

-Upheaval gives you a 45% chance to chuck a second piece of debris at the target which deals 50% of what your first chunk of debris hit for.

-Particle Acceleration allows the cooldown of Project to be reset and it automatically does critical damage.  If used with Force Potency your Project does 50% more critical damage.

-Bombardment increases Damage Dealt by Project by 15%.

 

More math... we'll assume your project crits on someone for 4000.  With Force Potency that would be 6000, and with Bombardment it would be 6900.  The second chunk of debris would hit for 3450, making it 10350 damage in total.  Projects never hit for this hard, but this will normally allowed you to get projects of about 7500-8000 damage on undergeared players.  Combine that with the 6640 shadow strike above, and that is a lot of burst in just two GCDs.

 

-Fade gives you 30% passive defense against AoEs which is desirable considering how this game is still smash heavy.

-Shadow's Respite from Blackout gives you 25% more damage reduction on demand, and lasts 6 seconds with a 45 second cooldown.

-You have Force Pull for utility

-Celerity reduces your Force Speed cooldown by 5 seconds and gives you a 1 minute 30 second CC breaker.

 

 

Summary

 

You may have noticed I wrote a lot for this spec.  This is because it most of these other specs were built off a previous spec, except for 23/18/5.  This spec is completely new because the way the talent trees were changed.  It is also, in my opinion a pretty powerful all around spec.  It's not really a pure tank spec, but on paper, it looks great for 1v1s and dpsing as well.  Your rotation would be that if you get your Infil Tactics proc, Shadow Strike gets the HIGHEST priority, do it before anything else.  This is because your Shadow Strikes will hit like a truck.  Next up is Project if you have the Particle Acceleration proc.  If you have neither if these procs, use double strike until you get one of these two procs.  Rinse and repeat.



-- Edited by Zabuza on Monday 25th of February 2013 12:29:57 AM

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