Same issue as above. Had previously obtained all achievements. Then lost them. Today, I received all of them back (though with a May 14, 2015 date) except for Jackpot! which is listed as not completed even though I won multiple rancors. Also having a similar issue with some Ziost Achievements. I submitted a bug report for this already, but since it also involves completed achievements not recording correctly, thought I would post here since it may be related (and similar fix): Have the "Defeated Aegis Squadron ZX-4" achievement, but the Defeated Aegis Squadron "meta" achievement lists it as missing. Similarly, have the "Evacuation Expert" achievement completed, but the "Ziost Competist" achievement shows it as missing.

Sounds interesting, but I hope this will come with some informative posts about the class and issues facing it. I think many are wondering about Balance/Madness and where the Devs see the class as a whole fitting in in operations since Balance/Madness is not very viable in progression right now and with the light armor and large number of AOE damages sources, survivability can be a bit rough at times compared to other classes.

I am fairly confident this is intended. Just like the Nightmare Pilgrim buff continues running while logged out. Also, this buff lasts 5 hours, that is plenty of time to either use the buff or go get it again. The fact that the buff can be obtained as long as you are close enough to the kill is also important to prevent griefing. If this wasn't the case, we would go back to early Nightmare Pilgrim days where groups who didn't have the "lock" for credit would taunt Worldbreaker to reset it. Yes, kill credit is still needed to complete the weekly, but at least groups can get the buff and move on to the instance boss (which is what I believe most people care about).

I have had no problems using Force Barrier to block the damage (and knockback) from the deck guns in hard-mode. The only issue is if you use it because you are in the blue, you will be stuck there for the duration of Force Barrier. I have not found a way to break Barrier in that case.

Some good advice above. The fight is a little harsh on Sages/Sorcs, but not that bad. As noted, the DOTs in this fight aren't actually DOTs. They count as AOE, so don't waste the utility point. In the Coratanni phase, survival is imperative. The DPS check isn't too bad, so prioritize survival over absolute maximum DPS if you need to. The DOTs do a lot of damage, so make sure to cleanse yourself of the fire quickly (but be careful of deck guns). If you get both DOTs you should probably use Cloud Mind (with the damage reduction utility) until you can cleanse the fire DOT. Be aware that if you use Force Barrier while in the blue circles, you cannot break it. When you get to Pearl, some groups like to stack up, we prefer to spread out so that pearl has to travel to her target when she roams. For Ruggar, the main issue is the mouse droids. Try to run/position so they don't hit at the same time. Use Cloud Mind to reduce the damage. If you don't have a sage/sorc healer, bubble yourself before they hit to further reduce damage. Make sure you don't have the DOT at the same time because you really need to be at full health to survive this. Be careful with Barrier as the droids will simply target someone else, you don't want to use it just to have them kill whoever they turn to because they were unprepared. It can be used if needed, but you probably should call it out so others can react. Also, if you have Barrier up towards the end and he chooses you for hostage, you can Barrier and it will end hostage. That can buy you a couple extra seconds of DPS, which can be important on your first kills as this is a DPS check. Good luck. It is a fun fight (though it has quite a few bugs still).

This. The change was unquestionably a nerf, maybe even a little more than absolutely needed, but Force Storm is still a lot better than many other AOEs in the game. For example, Force Storm is still very usable on fights like Underlurker where you can hit 2 adds plus the boss with it. Can't do that with many other AOEs because they don't have a large enough diameter to reach both adds.

In my opinion, every fight should have a hard enrage, to avoid things like taking all tanks and heals, using some exploit on the fight that lets you drag the fight on for an extended period or simply standing around waiting for cooldowns to come back (like between Coratanni and Ruggar). However, I believe that in most cases, these hard enrages should not been seen by players doing the fight correctly/without excess delay. Basically, they should be longer than the fight should reasonably take. I don't have a problem with an occasional hard-enrage to require a dps check, but this really shouldn't be more than once an instance. Fights aren't fun when they are a fight against an artificial clock. Having said that, I much prefer soft enrages where the mechanics of the fight basically create an enrage that will wipe the group if it isn't quick enough. This method is much preferred because it makes more sense in a fight than the boss simply enraging and wiping the group instantly. This type of mechanic also can often mean that a sloppy group will face the "enrage" well before a group that has perfected the mechanics. By way of example, the Dread Guards in NiM TFB had a hard enrage. After a certain time, they simply enraged, and the boss ran around at super speed killing people. However, a soft enrage could have accomplished the same thing (though some timing/health type changes may have been needed). In the final phase, red circles spawned and they basically meant death if someone stood in them. For some reason, the fight was designed with a cap on the number of those circles that could exist. A soft-enrage could have been based on an unlimited number of circles (i.e. they keep spawning) that never disappear (and perhaps even continuing growing in size indefinitely). This would mean that the players slowly lose space to work with in the room. If they are sloppy with placement, they basically create their own death sooner. The better a group is at this mechanic, the more time they buy for themselves. Both a hard-enrage and soft-enrage result in the same thing, an effective limit on time to kill the boss, but one feels very arbitrary where as the other feels like its part of the fight. In short, hard enrages should exist, but shouldn't be seen often as they should be in place to prevent exploits or really bad group compositions. Soft enrages can accomplish the same thing, but don't feel like an arbitrary end point (even though the time may be the same).

You may want to look at some guides and make sure you are using the correct rotation. Except to some extent for HM OPs, the nerf had virtually no impact on the viability (or ability) of a Sage/Sorc to do other PvE content. It did make the rotation a little clunky though.

Now I'm confused. With the smart casting, you can either activate and click target where you want to cast it exactly where you want it or you can double activate it and it will auto target on whatever you have targetted. You have the choice with every single cast of the ability how you want to do it. You don't have to change settings at all, so there is no nerf to it by using smart casting.

First part I agree with (since it is from a post I had in the PTS forums). I think there was already a post on this point in this forum by someone else. With respect to the Force Storm/Force Quake, while I would have preferred a different resolution to the problem, I haven't found any real issues with using the new shorter version. You just have to cast it twice instead of once and then doing something else for 5-6 seconds. As noted, you can simply double "click" it and have it cast on the location of your current target, so I don't see a big problem. Then again, maybe I'm just used to this type of thing from playing Madness/Balance and various hybrids for a long time and manually placing Deathfield/Force In Balance as part of the rotation.

When your group only gets together twice a week at most for 3 hours each time, it has everything to do with lacking time to do both.

There are a number of problems with Sorcs/Sages right now in engame PvE. But there is a lot in this post that just doesn't seem to make sense: What? The only thing that received even a 25% nerf was Force Storm/Force Quake. While that may have been a little harsher than needed, it certainly doesn't render the class unplayable. The lightning/tk rotation did become a bit clunky and probably needs a Quality of Life Improvement. Madness/Balance needs a number of improvements, including with the rotation. But neither spec has "gaps of whole seconds" where everything is on cooldown. If you are finding that to be the case, you are not playing the class properly because both specs have core abilities that can be spammed. Posts full of these types of errors are unlikely to help the class get changes it needs.

Completely agreed. The rotation is very clunky. With the way alacrity is with cooldowns, particularly with the old set bonus that provides a frequent, but random to an extent alacrity boost, keeping these abilities timed together is difficult without delaying something that should be cast at a high priority for something with a lower priority. I made a similar post in the PTS forums.

I think the idea of this competition is very good. I wonder if part of the problem may be the timing. The current HMs are unquestionably the hardest HMs that have been put out. Relatively few guilds have completed them. Most guilds are still working on those. Combined with the fact that the content (particularly end-bosses) is somewhat biased toward certain classes and the recent class changes, many people are also switching mains. I suspect that this contest, while very interesting, simply is of secondary interest compared to progression. It may be worth considering doing this once content has been cleared by a large amount of guilds and those guilds are tiring of the content and looking for something new or different. I know personally there are quite a few people in my pub-side guild that are interested in this, but with only 2 nights a week for OPs, we need to spend the time on progression. Just something to consider.

Madness/Balance is very sub-par for single-target dps. However, it does very well were you can spread your DOTs (which also results in very good self-healing). It is very bad for PvE, but doing pretty well in PvP (though I haven't done any ranked).