Sith Assassin Visual Cues in Patch 2.2

Sith Assassins Get New Visuals in SWTOR Patch 2.2

Sith Assassins get some new visual cues for important buff tracking in the upcoming SWTOR Patch 2.2. Both look great and address some quality of life issues Darkness and Deception had.

Deception

Deception Assassins get a visual storm blast around them when reaching 3 stacks of Static Charges, letting you watch your buff bars less often.

Darkness

A sweet new animation for Dark Ward lets Darkness Assassins know exactly when their primary defensive buff is up or down. It's a cool combo of holocrons that seem to rearrange into shield icons that surround you until the ward is removed.

Assassin Scheme for May

May has been an incredibly rough month for me. Multiple family members are ill and I lost my mom to cancer on Mother's Day. I hope that explains why the site may seem neglected. I'm nearly prepared to get back into it.

The Scheme

1. Footage for five SM Scum & Villainy bosses is ready for editing. With any luck we'll finish this week.

2. Continuous reevaluation of suggested Assassin stat recommendations.

3. Gut the site's sidebar and put more useful links there.

4. Cover Hard and Nightmare mode operations ASAP.

5/29/2013: My grandpa is heading downhill now too. I don't have the mental or emotional capacity to push out quality videos. I've averaged 4 hours of sleep a night for the month and just logging in to do something is a struggle.

At this point I won't be able to keep up with videos for new content so my focus will be on the state of Assassin gameplay.

Thanks for your patience, SWTOR fans.

Hard Mode Hammer Station Boss Guide

Hard Mode Hammer Station

Hard Mode Hammer Station bosses are most challenging for a healer. DPS needs some positional awareness, but tank control of enemies is the second most important factor for success.

Boss Guide

DN-314 Tunneler

If your tank gets annihilated on this fight, they probably didn't get cleansed. The tunneling beam does increased damage for each stack of a debuff it applies to the tank. Have a healer cleanse this partway through the cast to reset the damage multiplier.

Avoiding the demolition droids is the same as story mode: strafe around and use knockback skills to get them out of the way while you fight the Tunneler

Vorgan the Volcano (and friends)

The tank has three bosses to hold threat on here. Take out the Sawbones first, the droid next, and finally Vorgan himself. The weaker bosses can use a protective shield to reduce their damage taken. As a DoT spec, I don't believe it lasts long enough to warrant setting up a DPS switch, but you can consider it in your strategy.

The droid has a flamethrower that should be pointed away from the group. You can interrupt it once you're fighting it. No new abilities are gained as each boss dies, so the fight gets easier as it goes on.

Hard Mode Athiss Boss Guide

Hard Mode Athiss

If you're familiar with the leveling version of Athiss, hard mode won't throw you any surprises.

Bosses

Professor Ley'arsha

Ley'arsha has a few waves of additional enemies that like to trouble your healer. They die quickly, so just intercept them.

A purple circle will appear on a player. This shows that a corrupted area will soon spawn where that person is standing. You should move it away from other players and far enough from Ley'arsha to give melee a safe spot to stand and continue fighting. Shroud does provide temporary protection from this.

Beast of Vodal Kressh

The Beast may drag your tank around some, so you might need to reposition. You'll want to stay away from the side where the plateau drops off or you could get knocked off and either killed outright or aggro extra enemies.

Adds will spawn from the doorway behind the Beast's starting position. Keep an eye on them spawning and take them out before they swarm the healer. You may be delayed in doing this by a close-range stun.