Last time we discussed talent placement for the Deception tree. For now, that will be my main focus and perhaps my main “spec”, as it were, simply because the Madness tree looks awfully PvP-centric. Note that 0/31/0 is the base build I’m going off of, and that the main motivation behind my spec choices are squeaking out as much damage as possible. Anyway, let’s see what the other trees have to offer for those last ten points.

Darkness, Tier 1

Thrashing Blades – Increases the damage dealt by Thrash, Lacerate and Voltaic Slash by 3/6%.

Charge Mastery – Improves the effect of your lightsaber charges while they’re active – Surging Charge: Your attacks ignore 3/6/9% of your target’s armor.

Lightning Reflexes is obviously a no-go; if you’re getting hit at all, you’re doing it wrong. Charge Mastery will naturally be stronger against high armor targets, while Thrashing Blades is good all day, everyday.

Darkness, Tier 2

Electric Execution – Increases the damage dealt by your lightsaber charges by 3/6/9%.

Nothing else on this tier is applicable to our DPS. Access to Electric Execution requires five points committed to Darkness… this will be important later.

Madness, Tier 1

Exploitive Strikes – Critical hits with Force attacks increase your melee critical chance by 3/6/9% for 10 seconds.

Crackling Charge is made moot by Surging Charge, so if you want to spec into Sith Defiance to get a little extra damage protection (wooooo, light armor ), go right ahead. Exploitive Strikes is a nice boost, but I really don’t like how it stacks crit on crit. Regardless, the real treasure is in the next tier.

Madness, Tier 2

Chain Shock – When you activate Shock, you have a 15% chance to activate a second Shock, dealing 50% of normal damage.

Shock is one of our bread-and-butter spells. As such, this is essentially just a buff… with a few quirks. The second Shock has its own chance to crit and it has the chance to consume a charge of Recklessness. Therefore, it is good practice when popping Recklessness is to use Discharge first, then Shock.

Now to decide which of these talents to take. Basically it boils down to a choice between Chain Shock and Charge Mastery. I know Electric Execution is technically the tier 2 option for Darkness and should logically be the “real” prize (hey, 9% more damage to charges is nice, I’ll grant you that), but what seems to dictate which build comes out ahead of the other is the amount of armor on the target creature. That said, the DPS difference between the two builds is apparently very small, so going either route should give you similar results.

Here is your Charge Mastery build: 7/31/3

And here is your Chain Shock build: 2/31/8

My recommendation? Try them both out! There aren’t big gameplay differences between the two (aside from the Recklessness thing mentioned previously) so, at this point, you really can’t go wrong.

The rotation for Bounty Hunter is pretty straightforward for single-target, while a degree more hectic for AoE situations. In either case, it’s fairly dynamic, and requires forethought when it comes to position and choosing the proper ability to use and when. As you know, one of the main responsibilities of a tank is holding threat (especially in a game where threat still matters — thankfully!). And so, when you’re executing your rotation correctly, that can make all the difference in the world when it comes to grabbing and keeping the boss’ attention.

Single-target rotation

1. Rocket Punch - Thanks to our talents, this is our heaviest-hitting single-target ability. Every time the ability is available, be it from normal cooldown or an early proc from shielding an attack, you want to use it immediately.

2. Rail Shot - Similar to Rocket Punch, our talents make this a powerhouse, so use it whenever it’s available and the target is vulnerable (which should be always thanks to Ion Gas Cylinder).

3. Explosive Dart - While really powerful in AoE, it also does a great deal of damage for a single-target. Don’t overlook this!

4. Heat Blast - Make sure you have at least 8 heat when you fire this off. Use on cooldown, heat permitting, to maximize your dissipation. Not much damage, relatively, but the heat dissipation is worth it, for freeing up resources.

Single-target fillers

A. Flame Burst - If you have spare heat, use this over Rapid Shots. It’s more damage. You’ll want to keep the Combust debuff up anyway.

B. Rapid Shots - Our best way of keeping heat down, by basically not generating any. Sprinkle this between your attacks to slow down how quickly you ratchet up your heat levels.

C. Death From Above - Perhaps our most fun ability, though it has drawbacks to prevent us from enjoying it too much. One minute cooldown and can’t be used within a few meters. However, it’s totally useful for enemies with gigantic hitboxes. You can usually target behind them and still hit them.

D. Flame Thrower - This ability gives a ton of heat, so be careful with how you use it. Combine with Thermal Sensor Override for guilt-free torching. Very powerful single-target ability.

AoE rotation

1. Death From Above – You can only safely use this at the start of an AoE pull, obviously. Good luck getting a pack of mobs to stand still and far enough away!

2. Explosive Dart – Our heaviest-hitting AoE ability with reasonable availability. Use whenever possible, and try to stick it on the mob closest to the middle of the pile.

3. Flame Thrower – First use Carbonize to freeze the mobs in place, then jump to the side, and quickly line up and fire off Flame Thrower. Otherwise you’ll have mobs dancing in and out of it. This guarantees you a few ticks that nothing will escape. (Don’t forget to mind your heat with this.)

4. Flame Sweep - Weak AoE ability, but important for Combust. Don’t spam this, it’ll send your heat off the charts.

Don’t forget about heat!

This goes without saying, but you need to be very, very careful with your heat levels when tanking. Pace yourself so you have a reasonable level of heat dissipation at all times. Use Rapid Shots to punctuate your attacks as a staccato effect on your heat generation, and always try to pair Thermal Sensor Override with Flame Thrower. Also, make use of Vent Heat whenever your heat ramps up far too high.

There’s nothing worse when tanking than being locked out most of your abilities because you played fast and loose with heat, then have to wait for what feels like an eternity for it to dissipate.

So you decided that you want to play an Assassin? Excellent, you have made a good decision. Being in the thick of things, slashing and stabbing with a double-bladed lightsaber, all the while sneaking through the shadows to pick and choose your battles; these are the things that define our advanced class.

Anyway, a good place to start when discussing the fundamentals is the very thing that makes an advanced class unique: your skill tree.  As a DPS, we really have two trees to choose from, Deception and Madness. This article will focus on Deception.

Note: for the purposes of this post and most others like it, remember that the Jedi Shadow is a near mirror of the Sith Assassin. Ability and skill names are different, but most of the mechanics are the same (with a few exceptions).

Tier 1

Insulation – Increases armor rating by 15/30% while Surging Charge or Lightning Charge is active.

Duplicity – Direct damage attacks have a 10/20/30% chance to grant Exploit Weakness, causing your next Maul to ignore 50% of the target’s armor and cost 50% less Force. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.

Dark Embrace – While in stealth mode and for 6 seconds after leaving stealth mode, Force regen is increased by 25/50%.

Insulation may be somewhat useful while leveling, but if you’re getting hit a lot… well, that’s what you have Khem for, or your friendly neighborhood Powertech. Duplicity and Dark Embrace are the notable grabs here, with Dark Embrace making a comeback later on in the form of Blackout, one of our first cooldowns.

Tier 2

Obfuscation – Increases your effective stealth level by 1/2/3 and movement speed by 5/10/15%.

Recirculation – Reduces the cooldown of Discharge by 1.5/3 seconds.

Avoidance – Lowers the cooldown of Jolt by 1/2 seconds and Unbreakable Will by 15/30 seconds.

Recirculation is an obvious choice, but you may be asking yourself, why are you taking Obfuscation, Dan? Well… it’s a quality-of-life choice, really. I have always been a huge fan of movement speed increases. Out of combat, of course, we all have some sort of constant sprint. In combat, however, we lose this boost. Increasing in-combat speed to 115% (or in-stealth speed to 97.75%) would help tremendously with survival and DPS uptime.

All that being said, however, another viable alternative would be to go 2/2 in Avoidance (shaving 2 seconds off Jolt would be the main purpose here, but maybe we’ll be using UW in encounters too?) and 1/3 in Obfuscation. Or, if you like seeing all possible combinations, 1/2 in Avoidance and 2/3 in Obfuscation… but 2/2 in Avoidance seems like the better option.

Tier 3

Induction – Increases the critical strike damage dealt by Maul by 15/30%. In addition, Thrash and Voltaic Slash have a 50/100% chance to grant Induction, reducing the Force cost of your next Shock by 25%. Stacks up to 2 times.

Surging Charge – Charges your lightsaber with raw surging Force, giving your attacks a 25% chance to deal 229 internal damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber. Does not break Stealth.

Darkswell – Blackout can now be used out of stealth mode, granting 6 seconds of Dark Embrace and restoring 10 Force. In addition, Force Cloak no longer reduces healing done and received.

Deceptive Power – Increases your total Force by 10.

Surging Charge should be the first talent you take in this tier, though you’ll be grabbing them all anyway. Induction is a direct increase to our damage potential, Deceptive Power gives us more Force to play with, Surging Charge becomes an amazing DPS charge (modified through later talents), and Darkswell turns Blackout into an out-of-stealth Force generator. All of these talents are winners, and you should not regret picking all of them up.

Tier 4

Entropic Field – Reduces damage taken from area effects by 15/30%.

Saber Conduit – Your Surging Charge has a 33/66/100% chance to restore 10 Force when it deals damage to an enemy. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.

Fade – Lowers the cooldown of Blackout by 7.5/15 seconds and Force Cloak by 30/60 seconds.

Static Cling – Increases the duration of Force Slow and reduces the cooldown of Force Slow by 3/6 seconds.

Remember when I said Surging Charge would become our superior DPS charge after modified by later talents? Well, here’s Saber Conduit, the first of such talents. Also worthwhile is Fade, which lowers the cooldown on Blackout by 15 seconds. Entropic Field could find some use in heavy area damage encounters, but generally this smells like Static Cling and the rest of the PvP talents.

Tier 5

Resourcefulness – Reduces the Force cost of Lacerate by 5/10, and reduces the cooldown of Overcharge Saber by 15/30 seconds.

Static Charges – When your Surging Charge deals damage, you have a 50/100% chance to build a Static Charge, increasing the damage dealt by your next Surging Charge by 6%. Stacks up to 5 times.

Low Slash – Slashes the target low, dealing 1129-1259 weapon damage and incapacitating the target for 4 seconds. Damage causes this effect to end prematurely. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber.

Resourcefulness is a must, as OS is a huge DPS cooldown. Static Charges, the second of the Surging Charge-boosting talents, is another great pick. Lastly, Low Slash is more of a PvP ability, but we need to pick it up because it is the precursor to a much more powerful ability.

Tier 6

Crackling Blasts – Increases the critical strike damage dealt by your Discharge effects and Shock by 10/20/30/40/50%.

More crit on Discharge and Shock, what should be two of our biggest damaging abilities? Sure thing.

Tier 7

Voltaic Slash – Strikes the target twice, dealing 685-764 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.

Take Thrash off your bars and put this baby in its place. While the damage isn’t exceedingly awesome, the Shock buff it provides buffs damage directly, rather than the seemingly typical critical chance buffs that permeate this skill tree.

And that about wraps it up for the Deception tree. As you can see, there are a lot of options that are pretty straightforward DPS vs. survivability choices, and naturally you should feel free to choose what you think would suit your playstyle the best. For endgame DPS concerns, of course, the survivability options most likely won’t be of much use. Therefore, here are two builds I’m recommending:

Standard build: 0/31/0 with 3/3 Obfuscation

Interrupt build: 0/31/0 with 1/3 Obfuscation and 2/2 Avoidance

Next up, where to place those last ten points!

Okay, granted, this has nothing to do with TOR. On the other hand, it’s a Bioware game in a science fiction setting, so Mass Effect is about as close as one can get to TOR while actually  not being TOR, yes?

Now that we have that flimsy pretense out of the way… I’m really excited about the multiplayer mode of Mass Effect 3, and I must share my impressions of it.

While the single-player portion of the Mass Effect 3 demo was pretty run of the mill, on Friday the multiplayer portion of the demo was unlocked for the general public, and hot damn is it amazing. I was one of the people who groaned loudly when Bioware announced that ME3 would have a multiplayer mode, as the whole idea seemed ludicrous. However, having played the multiplayer multiple times with both friend and stranger, I can honestly tell you that Bioware absolutely nailed it with this.

The gameplay is frenetic and and tense, with waves of enemies coming at you as the difficulty of each successive wave quickly ramps up. Cannon fodder is punctuated by enemies that can absolutely get the heart racing, like hearing the slow stomp of an Atlas mech methodically marching its way towards your location, or the shrill screech of a teammate fearfully announcing they just spotted a Phantom.

(Preemptive confession: As Dan will tell you, that screechy teammate was often me. In my defense, Phantoms can be urine-inducingly terrifying.)

Randomized objectives happen every third wave, to get you out and away from any attempted turtling, accompanied with a short timer to force the team to act quickly and spontaneously to hack a computer, disable some MacGuffin, or just eliminate key targets, all before the clock runs out.

As you play games you earn experience, allowing you to level up your character and equip it with new powers. Completed objectives award credits, which can be used to buy packs from the store. Each pack is like a TCG pack of cards, containing a smattering of one-time use items along with the chance for new race/class unlocks or new weapons (as well as upgrades to characterization of both). This randomized loot compels you to continue playing, as the drive to possible unlock your desired character template or get the rare version of your favorite weapon is insatiable.

With each game I stuck with my favorite ME class, the Adept. Initially I was pretty weak, but after about level 8, I was able to start doing some incredible things with my powers. Having a 190% recharge time with on a submachine gun, I was slinging out Singularities and popping them with Warps like nobody’s business. Every time the faceless hordes of fodder would group up at a choke point,  I’d line up a biotic explosion to rip right through the lot of them like a bowling strike — y’know, if bowling was played with balls of C4.

I didn’t play the demo an obscene amount — probably close to five hours total over the entire weekend — but what I saw has convinced that Mass Effect 3 is going to be a game that I am going to sink a sickening number of hours into. I can’t wait.

Before I go any further, please do note that there are spoilers for Mako’s storyline contained in this post.

As a bounty hunter, I am both blessed and cursed to have been given Mako as my first companion. Leveling as a tank, her heals were a welcome addition to my gameplay, and the two of us completed many quests and challenges that were well above our intended difficulty level. So, major point in her column there — she’s fairly useful.

She also warmed my heart with her strong sense of justice and commitment to the job. As well as the aura of vulnerability she projected in the wake of Braden’s death. She seemed like a bright kid, just trying to do the right thing, and wanting to help my bounty hunter make his way in the universe.

However, where my opinion of Mako breaks down is around when, as her affection levels ratcheted higher and higher, she began to give me various quests to explore her back story. First she was trying to find out about her past. Then through her “leet” slicing skills (the way she bragged about her slicing skills reminded me of a script kiddie) she learned that she had a sister, named Coral, and began to track her down. As we soon learned, Coral wasn’t just a sister — she was Mako’s identical twin, from the looks of it.

This attracted the attention of the Republic’s Strategic Information Service, who were also looking for Coral for reasons Mako didn’t understand (this is a recurring theme, you’ll discover). So we go through the motions of hunting the hunters, trying to get information out of them; the usual song and dance. Finally we catch a break and follow a lead to Dromund Kaas, where we are confronted by two more of Mako’s identical sisters. Who then attempt to kill Mako and yours truly.

Well that’s odd, Mako observes. I’m a quadruplet from a seemingly ever-growing litter of identical sisters. Who just tried to kill me. Clearly nothing is amiss here.

At this point I’m yelling at the computer screen, isn’t it obvious?! I mean, Boomer picked up what was going on far more quickly after being confronted by multiple identical copies of herself. And that was Boomer! She can’t even land a goddamn Raptor without scraping the flight deck!

But, I digress. I had assumed that maybe — just maybe — as I approached level 50 and we closed out Mako’s storyline, she would have finally caught the gist of what was going on. I was wrong. Even when we finally caught Coral and she screamed at Mako that my faithful, clueless companion “wasn’t even a real person” no dots were connected.

All the while I’m eagerly scanning the dialogue options for Bioware to throw me a bone and let me vigorously shake Mako and, through creative insults, convey how obvious the situation was. Yer a clone, Mako. When someone has no memory of their past, no familial connections, and has an unusually high number of identical siblings running around, chances are that they were grown in a vat. It’s just Occam’s Razor at that point.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of all: why I then allowed my bounty hunter to marry her. Their kids (assuming Cylon rules don’t apply) will be so very, very dumb.

Let’s say you rolled an Inquisitor because you wanted to shoot lightning from your fingertips. Okay, that’s a pretty good reason so I’ll allow it. However, you get to your trainer at the fleet and you are perusing through your advanced class choices. You notice that going Sorcerer involves standing at range throwing awkwardly-phrased insults at your foes, all the while sipping tea and discussing the weather with your grandmother via holocom. I don’t know about you, but I can’t maintain a conversation with my grandmother for more than 5 minutes, and I’m not the world’s biggest fan of tea, so… maybe Sorcerer isn’t for me.

Anyway, in order to make a knowledgeable choice, you probably want to know what playing an Assassin is all about, yes? The following is a quick rundown of what to expect.

1. Stealth

While not the defining characteristic of the Assassin (as Operatives have the ability to stealth as well), blending into the shadows to sneak around undetected is pretty sweet. Useful for sneaking through difficult areas or getting the drop on an unsuspecting Pub.

2. Limited crowd-control abilities

Mind Trap, our token 1 minute CC, is only usable in stealth. Also, it is only usable on targets not already in combat. Electrocute is nice against lower level creatures and can save your skin if Khem Val dies randomly (as he is wont to do) , but it is understandably ineffectual against boss types. And no, Whirlwind is not a viable substitute either.

3. A healthy mix of force and physical attacks

The Assassin is decidedly melee-centric, but there are a few heavy hitters that have a bit of a range component. Shock and Discharge
are both usable up to 10 meters away, which is nice for those mobs just out of melee range (say, the turrets at the beginning of Eternity Vault). Jolt, our interrupt, also has a 10 meter range. While these things don’t necessarily mean that you have to play the spec differently, they are very handy if you’re running around trying to avoid something but still want to hit it or interrupt a cast. Definitely of more value in warzones, though this little nuance comes into its own in some PvE content.

4. Paper-thin defenses

Deception and Madness are not tanking specs if you didn’t notice, so the only thing standing between you and that angry elite are Deflection and… robes. This is why you should learn to love Khem Val, or learn to hate him and use him as fodder. Either way, use him as a meat shield.

5. Constantly regenerating secondary resource

An Assassin’s base regen is set at 8 force/second. Dark Embrace, gained through either stealthing or using Blackout, increases this regen by 50% for their respective durations. What this means for you, however, is that when you use an ability, you will need to plan out what to use next based on how much force you have at the time, how much force the ability you want to use costs, and so on and so on. This seems to paint a dizzying picture, but it really isn’t that bad — you can always use Saber Strike if you’re waiting for more force.

We’re not in Kansas anymore, friends. World of Warcraft is its own game, with its own rules set; and while some mechanics in TOR are clearly derived from the genre-leading MMORPG, others are very different. Especially with regards to tanking, there are four major differences between the two games and their mechanics that will have a direct effect on your tanking. They are as follows:

1. Combat is run via a “two-roll” system

Perhaps the biggest difference from WoW, TOR’s combat system is unique in how it determines how an attack turns out. In WoW, the single-roll combat table randomizes a number between 1-100, which then is checked against a “table” of results, with percents of the whole based on your various avoidance and mitigation numbers. This means that as you increase the pile you’ve built of stats at the lower end of the table, you can effectively remove those stats at the higher end by “pushing” them off the table. For example, with enough block chance, you could push even normal hits off the combat table in WoW.

However, in SWTOR, the way combat is decided is:

First is a hit roll, accuracy versus defense, and if the attacker misses then no damage occurs. If the attacker rolled poorly enough to miss even discounting the target’s defense then a “Miss” result occurs. If he misses because of the defense then the result varies based on the attack type, the cover state of the target, and the target’s equipped weapons. All the possible results – Dodge, Parry, Deflect, Resist, Cover – are mathematically the same, but they can trigger different effects and are visualized in different ways.

If the attacker hits, then a second roll is made with the crit chance of the attacker versus the shield chance of the target. If a Crit or a Shield occurs then the damage is adjusted up or down (based on Surge/Absorb), and then it goes through to the armor and damage resistance. A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table. It shouldn’t be possible to get your passive crit chance high enough to start pushing off the target’s shield chance, but there are short-duration buffs that push these chances high enough to come into conflict.

(Source: Georg Zoeller)

Most important points bolded, but I think Georg does a fantastic job outlining the mechanics, negating any need for a summary.

The most important consequence of the two-roll system to keep in mind is that there won’t be any pushing of stats off the table. Quite the contrary, it seems impossible to stack any tanking stats to the point where you can negate mechanics, only the other way around.

2. You can’t become crit immune

There is no “6% crit immunity talent”, nor does the defense stat somehow push crits out of the realm of possibility (thanks to point #1). Tanks will be crit, it is a fact of life in this game. Thankfully, the pace of damage while tanking is slow enough that you won’t be nearly killed if you eat a crit. So don’t sweat one those giant, angry red numbers on your screen.

3. Flamethrower won’t neuter your avoidance

I played a paladin tank in WoW, and one of the iron-clad rules was to never, ever hard-cast Exorcism while tanking, because you couldn’t avoid any damage while actively casting a spell. In TOR, however, you can sit in front of the boss and channel Flamethrower and still be able to shield attacks as well as dodge them. The act of channeling, thankfully, has no negative affect on your survivability.

(Which is good, because our AoE toolbox is limited enough as it is.)

4. Avoidance doesn’t depend on positioning

Perhaps my favorite difference from WoW. In that game, as a tank you need to be facing an enemy directly as you can only block or avoid shields within a very strict arc (180 degrees) centering around the front of your character. You can block or avoid any melee attacks directed at your front or either side. If your back is turned though, you’ll easily eat some hits that might have otherwise been missed.

In TOR, the tables are turned, so speak. An enemy can attack you from any direction — your front, your back, either side, wherever — and you’ll still dodge and weave or that lovely blue light will flash, signaling a blocked attack. So, feel free to turn around and run away from an enemy with the peace of mind that you’re not shooting yourself in the foot.

Welcome to Nerf-Herders! You might know me from the World of Warcraft/paladin tank blog I ran for three years, Righteous Defense. I took an extended break from WoW in December after suffering a serious case of burnout after having played the game since the beginning of the Burning Crusade expansion.

I picked up TOR in the same time period, and immediately fell in love with both the setting (long-time Star Wars nerd here) and the game at-large. It’s been an absolute blast to play these past two-ish months.

I (and Dan along with me) find the blogging bug biting again, so we’ve combined our blogging powers to bring you Nerf-Herders. I’m excited to be writing about TOR in this space, as the game continues to take its baby steps to one day hopefully bring some real competition to the MMO market.

I’ll be writing about my experiences in game, helpful tips for my favorite class and role (Bounty Hunter tanking), and other minutiae that will share my love for this amazing game.

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And now that Matt has laid out the welcome mat, I suppose it’s time to introduce myself. My name is Dan, author of the (dormant)  blog Haz Mace, Will Raid and WoW Insider’s retribution paladin edition of The Light and How to Swing It.

So far, TOR has proven itself to be a great game, but the fact that it is an MMO means it has to butt heads with the titan of all MMOs,  World of Warcraft. WoW has shattered a lot of records and set some pretty high standards, but personally I am looking forward to how Bioware competes with such an elephant and how the resulting battle for market dominance will (hopefully) cause Bioware to produce and maintain a high quality gaming experience.

As for the site, while Matt will be writing the tanking bits from a Powertech’s perspective, I find myself once again in the role of aggro-loving DPS, this time through the eyes of an Assassin… though I have been known to play an alt or seven.

I hope you join us on our journey through the game and the wonders that future patches and uncleared content hold in store!