One of the alts I've been toying around with is a Sith Assassin. I'm planning on playing him as a tank and have been reading up on tanking builds. The majority opinion seems to be that 3 points in Shroud of Darkness is a no brainer. I understand the value of endurance (health) for a tank since a dead tank holds no aggro. What I'm struggling with is that you only get 3% more endurance for 3 skill points. So if you have 1500 endurance (pre-skill) and you take three points in Shroud of Darkness you end up with 1545 endurance (post-skill). 45 extra endurance is only 450 extra health. I'm no tanking expert but that just doesn't seem like a great investment to me. Could any experienced tanks help me understand the value of Shroud of Darkness?
1. It scales. So as you get more and more Endurance, the talent points become a greater and greater benefit.
2. Like you said, Health=Win, so even if it isn't -that- much it still helps.
3. No where else worth putting them in. If there were other talents worth it, then maybe you could argue the point. But than again, I could still see other places you'd take them out from instead of from Shroud.
I was thinking of putting points in Thrashing Blades and Electric Execution. Neither is essential for tanking but I was thinking more DPS would be more threated generation.
After the recent changes to Dark Charge (the 4.5s CD on the damage/heal effect), I've reconsidered my stance on talents like Swelling Darkness (SD) & Electric Execution (EE).
SD : Since the base chance of activating Dark Charge (DC) is 50%, going to 65% isn't going to change much, since I'll probably be capped more by the 4.5s cooldown than DC not activating.
EE : The base damage is 229, so 9% more damage is a generous 21 more damage. For 3 talent points. That only activates every 4.5s. This gives 4.6 more dps. For 3 talent points. So not worth it. (And yes I know it scales a little with power, but would you rather have ~600hp more or 4.6+ dps more for 3 talent pts)
I forego the 5 points in talents to increase the proc chance/damage of Dark Charge, but gain 3% endurance and 6% more damage/threat on some of the bread&butter tanking abilities. Especially Lacerate doing a little bit more aoe damage/threat is nice in trash/HM FP situations while you wait for Wither to get off CD again.
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Posted 1/4/2012 1:35:21 PMOne of the alts I've been toying around with is a Sith Assassin. I'm planning on playing him as a tank and have been reading up on tanking builds. The majority opinion seems to be that 3 points in Shroud of Darkness is a no brainer. I understand the value of endurance (health) for a tank since a dead tank holds no aggro. What I'm struggling with is that you only get 3% more endurance for 3 skill points. So if you have 1500 endurance (pre-skill) and you take three points in Shroud of Darkness you end up with 1545 endurance (post-skill). 45 extra endurance is only 450 extra health. I'm no tanking expert but that just doesn't seem like a great investment to me. Could any experienced tanks help me understand the value of Shroud of Darkness?
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Posted 1/5/2012 11:23:54 AM3 main reasons.
1. It scales. So as you get more and more Endurance, the talent points become a greater and greater benefit.
2. Like you said, Health=Win, so even if it isn't -that- much it still helps.
3. No where else worth putting them in. If there were other talents worth it, then maybe you could argue the point. But than again, I could still see other places you'd take them out from instead of from Shroud.
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Posted 1/6/2012 7:54:17 AMThanks, that helps. Your first two reasons make sense. The third reason could be debated, but still has merit.
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Posted 1/6/2012 9:06:57 AMWhere else would you put them? Honestly curious because I can't see any that I'd swap them out for personally.
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Posted 1/9/2012 10:08:52 AMI was thinking of putting points in Thrashing Blades and Electric Execution. Neither is essential for tanking but I was thinking more DPS would be more threated generation.
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Posted 1/31/2012 3:54:07 PMAfter the recent changes to Dark Charge (the 4.5s CD on the damage/heal effect), I've reconsidered my stance on talents like Swelling Darkness (SD) & Electric Execution (EE).
SD : Since the base chance of activating Dark Charge (DC) is 50%, going to 65% isn't going to change much, since I'll probably be capped more by the 4.5s cooldown than DC not activating.
EE : The base damage is 229, so 9% more damage is a generous 21 more damage. For 3 talent points. That only activates every 4.5s. This gives 4.6 more dps. For 3 talent points. So not worth it. (And yes I know it scales a little with power, but would you rather have ~600hp more or 4.6+ dps more for 3 talent pts)
I chose my current spec as this : http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_inquisitor/assassin/#::ef4efef6ef4e5fefe10fef19:
I forego the 5 points in talents to increase the proc chance/damage of Dark Charge, but gain 3% endurance and 6% more damage/threat on some of the bread&butter tanking abilities. Especially Lacerate doing a little bit more aoe damage/threat is nice in trash/HM FP situations while you wait for Wither to get off CD again.