Darth Hater

Hello guys, this is my first post here on Darth Hater! I didn't find a specific section for classes, so I decided to post this here.

I think I might need some help to define my build. Some skills appear to be useless yet a lot of people chose them over the ones I'd prefer.
My chosen build is as follows:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200McrskbskZ0MZfbckr.1

At first I was excited about the deception tree, but after reading the skill descriptions I realised the character would get too fragile for playing alone. I expect to play alone much of the time and don't want to keep using stealth to attack one enemy at a time. It would get too boring to fast... I tried making this build to achieve a higher variety on my gameplay, like being able to jump to the middle of a group of enemies just because it's cool without having to worry too much about dying. Still, I would like to use stealth effectively sometimes, because some times it's cool to do so. Also, an important amount of my skill points went to the "madness" tree, as I would love to have Death Field. It heals me, it's range is 30 meters and the force consumption can be reduced to only 25 force points.
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I'm confused about some of them in particular:
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Darkness Tree:

Lightning Reflexes - Is it worth it to get only 4% defense for 2 skill points? I won't even feel the difference when I increse 1% on my force either, that's just 1 point!

Swelling Shadows - Again, 2 skill points can be invested here. There are 2 kinds of percentage. The 10% + 15% = 25% and the 10% + 50% = 15%. Don't know which is applied here, and don't know if it is useful, since you can only apply the dark charge effects once every 10 seconds, am I right?

Premonition - Increase 2 stealth detection and 2% defense? Is it worth it for 2 skill points? Blackout increases your stealth level a lot (10 or something), so a minor 2 increase wouldn't make a difference?

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Deception Tree:

Duplicity - Pretty usefull since Maul is expensive forcewise, but again: Only active once every 10 seconds? I can invest up to 3 points here, so maybe it's not worth it do invest all of them.

Dark Embrace - So cool effect of increasing your force regen by 50%. That means you can break out of stealth and wreak havoc with high cost skills, but is it worth it to spend 2 points here? It would definetely be fun to break out of stealth and "explode" like a BAM to your enemies... haha

Insulation - I'm not sure if i'm going to use dark charge all the time. If that is the case, I could edit my whole build to spend more points on Madness and Deception. 30% armor increase seems to be a lot of defense, but I'll have to use either electric charge or surging charge. Is Dark Charge worth it damage-wise? Are the effects like healing or so fun to play with? I was thinking seriously on abandoning dark charge and go for electric or surging...

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Madness Tree:

Torment - Two points here reduces the force cost of Thrash by 2 and Shock by 6. Is it worth it? You would have to use Thrash 10 times before using your new, "free" thrash. The benefits would be more like 4 shocks -> one free thrash. Combats don't appear to take so long to these points make a difference... I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Claws of Decay - Are critical hits that often? What % of crits can I get on the game? 50% Is a lot of damage, but if the criticals are not that often, it might not be the best option. As my damage will be spread across Force powers and melee, Critical Thrashes would not happen that often. Is it worth it? 2 points that could be well spent elsewhere...

Haunted Dreams - For 2 points here I can reduce the casting time of Whirlwind to zero. It appears magical when you read it, but is it usefull when you are playing? I remember in the beta that it took some time to charge it, but I read it somewhere that it was only 2 seconds. As I already have Opressing Force, I could wait for the last second to use Whirlwind and hide if I'm not able to kill the "monsters". It would be like maximising the Whirwind skill. The problem is Whirwind has a 60 second cooldown and I didn't remember using it much on the beta. Maybe it was because of the cooldown. This made me think on putting maybe 1 point here. It would make things go faster and still give me 1 point to spend elsewhere.
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I don't really like the idea of respeccing all the time... I wanna get used to my skills and use them when I want. I hate that feeling when you are using a skill, had some effect in the past but now you don't have it anymore, even if you got some other good skills to use.


Thanks guys for the help! I expect this site to have so much content after the game launches!

I like it.  I think for leveling I will use a build similar, although I will probably drop the 2 points in deception and claws of decay in order to get harnessed darkness.  I wish it were possible to get Wither and Death Field, but I guess that would be kind of OP.  I might go full madness, but in beta I found that while leveling I liked to use Dark Charge and having some more survivability is nice; without it the Assassin felt kind of squishy at low levels.

There is a Skil Calculator on the Darthhater DB too. I think it's quite better

The skill calculator on this site is pretty nice looking, but the tree order doesn't match up with the game which can lead to some confusion when discussing builds. 31-0-10 assassin build would be 10-31-0 here? Hopefully they can get that switched around. 

Regarding which charge you should use:

I'd say Dark Charge for soloing.  Surging Charge is only worth if it you are full Deception because without all of the bonus talents it isn't worth it.

Lightning Charge is nice, but doesn't do -that- much more damage while soloing.

Dark Charge, however, does semi-decent damage, heals you, and gives you a -lot- more Survivability.

I can comment on the Darkness-related questions

"Lightning Reflexes - Is it worth it to get only 4% defense for 2 skill points? I won't even feel the difference when I increse 1% on my force either, that's just 1 point!"

The talent is poorly worded. This 4% buff applies to your Avoidance Percentage after all calculations, not your defense stat! This means if you have a 20% chance to evade/dodge you'll have a 24% chance after you get the talent. So yes, it's definitely worth 2 points.

Swelling Shadows - Again, 2 skill points can be invested here. There are 2 kinds of percentage. The 10% + 15% = 25% and the 10% + 50% = 15%. Don't know which is applied here, and don't know if it is useful, since you can only apply the dark charge effects once every 10 seconds, am I right?

Dark Charge effects can be applied every 1.5 seconds, and it heals you. Definitely worth it even if the heals aren't 'noticeable'. Consider the heals as having slightly more HP since its a passive effect.

Premonition - Increase 2 stealth detection and 2% defense? Is it worth it for 2 skill points? Blackout increases your stealth level a lot (10 or something), so a minor 2 increase wouldn't make a difference?

This increases stealth DETECTION, not stealth level. It'll be easier to see others that are stealthed. The defense bonus is the same as with Lightning Reflexes.