Source
r/swtor•
warframework

Is there a good resource for *just the differences* between specializations within advanced classes?

Question

I've been having trouble finding resources with good comparisons for the 3 specializations within an advanced class.

Again, specialization, not "Advanced Class", for extra clarity.

I'm not looking for comparisons of e.g. Sorcerer/Assassin, but rather comparisons of Corruption/Lightning/Madness.

I'm sort of shocked by the difficulty in finding a bullet-point or spreadsheet type of listing, given that ~75% of abilities (including passives) appear to be the same between specializations. So, only a list of differences is needed.

Of course, there's...

http://dulfy.net/2014/10/13/swtor-disciplines-calculator-swtor_miner/

...which is very helpful...but it's still painful for comparison purposes. And there are a gazillion threads/links to X vs. Y (e.g. Lightning vs. Madness) comparisions...but I can't find a single good 3-way delta of the differences.

The 4-ability sample provided in-game (and mirrored in dulfy calculator) is kind of inadequate for really thinking about the differences.

But I haven't been able to find a better resource. Perhaps my google-fu is just weak, or perhaps there are simply too many Advanced Class comparison links for any signal to make it through that noise, but I've really, really tried, and came up empty.

Surely, I can't be the only person interested in this?!

All I really want is a 3-column listing of exclusive abilities. (Or maybe 6 if the author wanted to be fancy, and separate passives.)

Anybody have a useful link, here?

Posted Jan 11, 2016, 3:29 AM UTC

247
FireJadeHarbinger•

If you want exclusive active abilities, it really is just the 4 abilities per specialization. The passives are different, but they're basically ALL different, so the 3-column chart for passives would just be a full listing of the passives for each specialization.

3
warframeworkOP•

I have a little trouble believing this...not saying you're wrong, but just that I'm skeptical. Given some of those are stances/ammo-types, some are new abilities, and some are replacements/overrides of more generic abilities.

Of course, this is maybe just semantics...but I think overrides adjust total ability counts, and stances/ammo shouldn't really count as active abilities.

But thanks for trying to be helpful, instead of just telling me I'm stupid for asking (like some of the other replies here).

-2
FireJadeHarbinger•

It's true. I guess what I mean to say is that there is no other way for disciplines to get unique abilities. But I will say that the disciplines play very differently, and that's because of the passives.

Here's an example: both Balance and Telekinetics Sages have access to Weaken Mind, but they serve very different purposes. On a single target, TK will only cast WM once, because it has a passive that causes it to be refreshed naturally during the rotation. Whereas Balance will cast it more than once, but it has a passive that allows WM to be spread to multiple targets using Force in Balance. So same abilities, but used differently. And unfortunately this is just an example of one passive from each tree. There are many more, some conferring straight damage boosts to abilities, some conferring stacking buffs, etc.

3
Brotworst•

Sorry to see you are getting so much flack. As a new player, I've tried like crazy to find a basic chart that shows the differences of the three choices and also what changes happen when you select a specific one. It wasn't even clear if I'd be able to use the double-bladed saber with each option. Let me know if you find anything!

2
warframeworkOP•

Well, I made this myself, last night...

https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/40kz0m/sith_assassin_specialization_overview/

...as an example of what I'm looking for (your mileage may vary). But yeah, doesn't seem like there are many resources to help the newbie.

There are tons of end-game targeted resources, but apparently all the veterans develop amnesia about their starting state of ignorance of game mechanics. (What's "obvious" is different after studying multiple guides, and putting in 100+ hours of play-time!)

We'll see if that post does any better...but yeah, not feeling very optimistic, at this point.

1
LFM_Ilvl900req•

what could you possibly need to know that the discipline calculator doesn't tell you about discipline differences?

2
warframeworkOP•

Some examples:

  • Which class has more active abilities that I like and use?
  • Which class has passives that make (otherwise mediocre) abilities shine?
  • Which class has the easier rotation?
  • Which class has the better DPS for my preferred rotations? (The guides on Dulfy, and elsewhere are great advice, but not holy texts.)
  • Etc.

Obviously, if I want a healing or (true) tank spec, there's only one option (per advanced class). But I'm not particularly concerned about the differences between Burst/AOE/DoT damage...I mean I do care, but it's not necessarily a lock-in, like healing or tanking is.

Also, c'mon man, there's not that much data involved! It's not like this is weeks of research. I could probably work it out myself for one advanced class in 20-60 minutes...but I'd rather not spend 4-8 hours doing work someone else has already done and linked.

0
lustandlashExemplar•

I've read this comment 3 or 4 times, and I've come to the conclusion that even you don't understand what you're asking for. You THINK you do, but your questions don't clarify anything, they just make this even more confusing.

  • Which class has more active abilities that I like and use?

Define "like."

Are you asking about personal preference? If so that's totally subjective and would be a meaningless response.

Are you asking about abilities which have have favorable interactions between abilities within your kit? They all basically the same amount. The interactions vary in style, not really quantity.

As far as more active abilities to use... again, roughly the same. All sages use the same interrupts and cooldowns. All specs have about 5 core abilities.

  • Which class has passives that make (otherwise mediocre) abilities shine?

Literally all of them, and roughly the same number.

  • Which class has the easier rotation?

Easier is subjective, and depends on context? High mobility or stationary? Single or multiple targets? PvE or PvP? Do you have an easier time tracking cooldowns and durations for an actual rotation, or do you find it easier to react to triggered abilities?

  • Which class has the better DPS for my preferred rotations? (The guides on Dulfy, and elsewhere are great advice, but not holy texts.)

Again, what do you mean by preferred, and in what context are we measuring DPS? Maximum theoretical? Sustained? Burst? Single target?

It seems like you're asking for something similar to the old Guild Wars PvX wiki, with bullet points outlining the strengths and weaknesses of a build... but your line of questions don't really dig into that matter. If that is what you're after, no, it doesn't exist in the format you're asking.

8
warframeworkOP•

I change my mind a lot. Try new things. I'm not looking for one answer today. I'm looking for a (very simple) tool to answer a bunch of different questions, tomorrow.

Specifically, I just want a list of exclusive abilities (including overrides), stances/techniques/ammo, and passives.

What I wanted: a link.

What I got: a full inquisition into and assault upon my motives for asking.

-1
lustandlashExemplar•

The people who clicked into this thread came here to A) Try and help, or B) Asking a similar question. No one "assaulted" you, don't be hyperbolic. As it turns out, your question is unclear and/or not simple as you originally believed. The people who want to help you asked for clarification, and the responses to that clarification have explained precisely why what you're asking isn't as simple as you seem to believe.

As it turns out, the question(s) you're asking are a problem with games, and the RPG genre in particular. You would struggle to find something like this for World of Warcraft, which is much more widely played, and probably the most approachable MMO. Most designers don't think about it, but the fact that you select a class at the start of a game, before you experience anything or have a clue about what you will enjoy, is terrible design. The inverse problem is if you make players wait to pick a class/role/whatever, all of the content before that choice seems like a tutorial or filler, and advanced players want to skip it entirely.

  • Exclusive abilities

You can see these in-game, when prompted to select a specialization (not the advanced class, the specialization within that class), the right-hand pane displays all of the exclusive abilities.

  • stances/techniques/ammo, and passives

For these, you're going to have to inspect and review each specialization's tree. Every class has something like 20 passives, which are learned automatically as you level up. For the most part these passives define your classes interactions, such as "crits from X reset the cooldown of Y," or "casting X makes Y instant." If they are not exclusive you can see them by speaking to a trainer. They will appear in the ability list if you filter appropriately.

There is no website that tries to condense that into bite-sized bullets, because it's not simple.

3
Brotworst•

Pretty clear to me, a chart with a few columns explaining each advanced class, making it easy to understand. THEN YOU USE THE CHART TO FIND OUT WHAT YOU LIKE! Maybe you're so salty you know enough to make your decisions, but for a first time level 10, I have no idea what the hell I'm choosing, and when I do choose, I have 10? new abilities and the guides I find for 4.0 are for max level players!

-1
lustandlashExemplar•

I'm not sure you read my post, or if you know what salty means.

The character flow in SWtOR is pretty streamlined: Pick your base class, which really boils down to an archetype, or basically "what kind of weapon do you want to use?" Pick an advanced class, which boils down to role (Tank/Healer/DPS) and advanced weapon type (Single saber, dual wield saber, saberstaff, etc...). These two are permanent.

Then you pick a specialization, which you can swap between, and these are purely for role. Learning how to use these skills and succeed is just improved through practice.

If you're this overwhelmed by picking an advanced class and specialization, I have really good news: Leveling up takes no time! You can literally reach level 20 in 2-3 hours, and by that time you will have a solid understanding of what makes your character tick. If you don't like it, just make a new character and try something else.

2
LFM_Ilvl900req•

http://parsely.io/parser/leaderboard

raw data.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8558158

simm crafted DPS potential.

there is no variance on rotations - in this game you are either right or wrong. The limited variance you saw in rotations near the start of tier were because of player laziness - IE 2 vs 3 cull rotations despite 3 cull being definitively superior.

ease of rotation? All rotations are easy, some require better awareness and time management.

All classes have the same/similar number of active abilities, you can see the differences if you just read your discipline tree.

you will also see passive enhancements if you read the discipline trees.

the rotations you claim are not "holy texts" are the direct result of proper analysis of the data you're looking for - it is a theoretical breakdown of the absolute best use of each global cooldown in a manner that appropriately balances procs with cooldowns with resources.

If you're looking for justification for being the operative who runs his operations in cover spamming snipe, it doesn't exist - that player is definitively wrong and inferior even to players who just carbon copy the guide rotations.

5
warframeworkOP•

OK, you misunderstand me.

I 100% agree for a given Operation, there's an optimal spec (and optimal utilities) and optimal rotation, that can be considered The One True Way^TM .

However, I submit to you that:

One, that doesn't necessarily help me choose which spec I'd prefer to play.

And two, there's a lot more ways to play...not meaning crap-choices causing your Ops team to wipe, but rather meaning e.g. PvP, soloing Heroics, or any number of other ways of dicking around in SWTOR, that don't require going by your exact playbook, here.

I'm sorry if you had a bad PUG experience recently...but that's not really relevant to my question here.

-2
LFM_Ilvl900req•

I'm saying all you need is your discipline tree and basic critical thinking skills, you have all the information you need.

5
Rivas87•

Try it by yourself.... If you already know what Advance Class you want to play (because you ask to compare specs...) then just try 3 specs and you will see. It's really not that hard question and it's not necessary to compare data in some spreadsheets... For example Focus Guardian looks cool on paper - mobility, burst, ability to AoE but I could not play it longer than 2 days becasue of odd animations and some odd subjective feeling. Besides - if you want to play PvE Guardian DPS there is really no other choice than Viligance. It's similar for other classes. You will not see Sentinel Concentration in progresion guilds etc. etc.

1
warframeworkOP•

I have played a lot of these. And I change my mind a lot. Try new things. I'm not looking for one answer today. I'm looking for a tool to answer a bunch of different questions, tomorrow.

But thanks for trying to be helpful.

1
SirUrzaThe Shadowlands•

I'm sort of shocked by the difficulty in finding a bullet-point or spreadsheet type of listing, given that ~75% of abilities (including passives) appear to be the same between specializations. So, only a list of differences is needed.

That's because they share the same base class.

Your original example... Corruption/Lightning/Madness... healing/burst/dot... there isn't much more to it then that. I'm going to generalize here... lightning uses all the lightning spells, madness uses at the dots spells.

It's a design problem because of shared abilities between both disciplines.

Sorcerers use the same DoT spells that Assassins use. It's a stupid design that's had balance issues since day 1 and why we should have 8 base classes, not 4.

When you flip to assassin they're not using the lightning at all anymore, but they're borrowing the dots.

2
warframeworkOP•

But there is a tiny bit more. And it's so tiny, someone must have documented it, right? That's precisely my frustration here.

"What color is your shirt?" "Dark."/"Light."/"Striped."

And maybe that's enough detail for most. But I can't believe I'm the only person with a little more curiosity than that.

-1
lustandlashExemplar•

We still can't figure out what "tiny bit more" you're looking for.

2
warframeworkOP•

Here's exactly what I wanted (for one class):

https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/40kz0m/sith_assassin_specialization_overview/

...not that I was expecting to find exactly that, done by someone else, but I was hoping for something approximately similar.

1
lustandlashExemplar•

I'm glad you were able to compile the information in a way that's useful for you, but I'm not entirely sure what can be gleaned from these. I thought you wanted something to help a new player understand the choice they were making per specialization?

A new player isn't going to have any concept of what Depredating Volts or Harnessed Darkness are, or the interactions between them. They're still going to have to read the tooltips to find out that Harnessed Darkness stacks 3 times to improve Depredating Volts.

I'm not knocking your work, I'm just not sure how to use this information.

1
erdevs•

I wanted the same thing, but it's hard to find. :/ I feel your pain. Sorry I can't help more directly.

2
warframeworkOP•

Thanks, I appreciate the sympathy anyway. It's a glass of cool water in the desert of hostility that this thread became.

0
JungleJimlySing.•

The responses here are hardly hostile.

3
warframeworkOP•

Asked for: a link.

Received (paraphrased):

  • "Why do you want to know?"
    • "You'll abuse the knowledge."
  • "Just take a couple hours and work it out for yourself."
  • "The (inadequate 4-ability sampler) listing is as complete as anyone needs."

And while, yeah, "hostile" is probably overstating the case, I wouldn't call the above sympathetic.

I was hoping my only reply in this thread would be, "thanks for the link!", with sincere gratitude. Instead I feel defensive and frustrated. (And apparently stuck with compiling my own list.)

0
JungleJimlySing.•

That's the thing, you keep making it a point to emphasize your frustration. I get that not finding something is frustrating, but you don't have to keep letting us know how frustrated you are, and how annoyed you are that you'll have to compile the data yourself.

Also, people are legitimately confused about what you want. You've given a few sort-of-examples, but you weren't happy with their responses and it's probably because those examples aren't clear. If they were, people would be able to definitively say yes it exists or no it doesn't.

Also, it's not about us being less curious than you, stop saying that. Just because you're looking for some obscure piece of data doesn't mean we lack curiosity. It could be that you want to see comparisons presented in a certain way that other people apparently don't find useful (otherwise finding such a list would be easier).

4
DorjeeVajraThe Harbinger: Pub - Delusions of Grandeur, Imp - Wampa Stompers•

Try:

SWTORCGR ~ Class - Guide Links 4.0

Has links to a lot of Class Guides, tools and resources from various websites all in one place.

Here are different versions of the famous GoblinLacky Optimal Stats Guide.

Optimal Stats For All 24 Disciplines, KOTFE Edition (Post)

Post version good cause you can read comments.

Optimal Stats For All 24 Disciplines, KOTFE Edition (PDF)

PDF version easier to read than the post but doesnt have comments

Optimal Stats For All 24 Disciplines, KOTFE Edition (Sheet)

The raw data spreadsheets with parsed info GoblinLacky used to make his guide.

4.0 Class Guide to all 24 Disciplines, Stats and Gearing

Is a easy to follow chart of the info GoblinLacky provides in his Optimal Stats guideabove.

Odds are you will find what you want in one or more of the links above.

2
warframeworkOP•

Well, no. Everything there is way more than just the differences compiled. I still will have a fair amount of work to mine that out of those resources.

(And the http://swtor.wikia.com/wiki/Abilities link provided by u/pretty_meta in this thread is, I think, a better starting point, for that.)

However, I do appreciate the genuinely helpful effort here.

And the links you provided (especially the first!) are Killer Resources for more in-depth examination of more specific choices!

Much appreciated! (Even if it's not the thing I'm looking for, here.)

0
DorjeeVajraThe Harbinger: Pub - Delusions of Grandeur, Imp - Wampa Stompers•

I could probably make what you are looking for tho unfortunately not for a while pretty busy with RL, but yeah something like what your asking for would be helpful and I haven't come across anything like it yet.

That isn't to say it doesn't exist but I did do quite a exhaustive search for guides and resources when I started playing. Everything was so scattered and hard to find which is why I started SWTORCGR and for the things that didn't exist I made and decided to share with the community.

Basically what you want is a spreadsheet that can quickly show the differences and similarities between the 3 specializations for a specific Advanced Class.

EXP: Sith Sorcerer - Corruption, Lightning Madness.

Most of my guides have been towards Crew Skills and Companions. I was planning on making some class tools. So I'll put this one as the first on my list to do for a Class Guide. Keep in mind it will take a while before I can make it, I'll send you a PM when it's done.

Simple version would be a list of types of abilities using sort filters to isolate and organised the info. Wouldn't take as long.

Comprehensive version with abilities and stats using sort filters to isolate and organize the info. Very extensive and would take a very long time to make.

Which type were you looking for?

I did a comparative table to figure out which 8 class combination was best for which craft skills for max crit and Efficiency back when the game was 3.0.

Crew Skill - Best Class for max Crit - Efficiency 3.0

I've been slowly bringing over sheets and info from the SWTOR Community Guides - SWTORCG 3.0 once I verified the info is still relevant or after I have converted it. But you may find some cool stuff there as well.

2
warframeworkOP•

Here's exactly what I wanted (for one class):

https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/40kz0m/sith_assassin_specialization_overview/

Not that I expected to find exactly that...or have any expectations about you providing something similar for the other 7 classes. Just sharing what I was looking for.

It's pretty simple stuff, really...but it did take me an hour to extract the info (and another to format it for reddit, not that that should count)...which is about 59 minutes longer than I was expecting a web search for that information to take.

Or apparently (from this horrible horrible thread...no fault of yours), for me to describe. Which I failed at, so had to create the concrete example, you see in the link above.

Anyway, thanks for the kind offer of help, but don't do anything you weren't going to do anyway, on my account.

I've got my needs for the moment (Assassin) taken care of, anyway.

Though I'm sure I'll be visiting another class before too long.

1
misterchi•

dude...you could have put forth the same "effort" you are in arguing in this thread by reading and figuring out what you're asking someone else to do for you. sheesh!

1
Brotworst•

dude...it is not wrong to think that there is an informational chart out there explaining the differences. You act like we should create our own guide instead of reading guides from veteran players that have much more knowledge then we do.

1
misterchi•

lol...but you've asked, been answered, didn't like the answer and asked again, got another answer, rinsed and repeated so many times that you could have the information by now if you'd just have read the guides that are already out there and done a little deductive reasoning. if you didn't find it with google or in the search of this subredit, perhaps you just might be the one to create what you're looking for?

2
lustandlashExemplar•

We're trying to help, but can't even get a list of things they want documented in this mythical chart they want. The list of questions he's asked for specifically have all been demonstrably impossible to answer without significant context.

Brotworst seems to be asking for a chart with weapon type and role, both of which are clearly explained in the game UI. If he needs more than that we need to know what.

Warframe's questions are all over the place, and I legitimately do not know what he's asking for. They keep acting like we're trying not to help them or something, it's bizarre.

shrug

2
misterchi•

lol...that's how i see it and you guys are being awfully patient as some of his questions are completely subjective. i've been getting a chuckle out of the thread, actually.

1