Having hard time testing, few reasons why, first off takes forever to get set up would recommend having all items bought instant 306 (instead of buying 270's equiping them, then seeing 288, rebuy re-equip repeat till 306) took quite a bit of time just to get a basic gear set so could do any testing, no augments and getting credits to get some basic amplifiers set up is tedious (set a discipline to get 1 million credits, had to talk to the droid well over 100 times to get enough credits), no augments, no stims/medpacks/adrenals (unless there's another vendor hiding somewhere) 2nd off the speeder is actually a slower, you walk faster than the speeder on test server, hard to get around planets to actually get to the enemies to test things 3rd level 1 companion limited effectiveness, would help if ya had vendor for quick companion compendium, or heck free dark projects and I'll walk over to stronghold section fleet get the compendiums 4th not entirely sure what supposed to be testing other than a reduced ability guardian, hard to 1:1 it with so many missing stat points, bad companion, animations seem to be about the same for the limited testing in combat was able to do, effectiveness wise almost got my butt handed to me be the birds under the bridge on Onderron, didn't feel like walking any further on the planet (as speeder is slower than walking currently) Recommendations: Vendor with specific mods/enhancements 306'd so 1 click buy exactly what you want, same w/ armoring hilts w/ various amplifiers pre-installed gold quality, droid that gives ya instant 1 billion credits 1 click, augment vendor (286 purple be fine) purple stims/adrenal/med pack vendor w/ current 75 consumables (so don't have to level a biochem on test server) compendium to level companion up to 50 quickly, fix the speeder going slower than walking. This should be a good starting point to get Jedi Guardian's closer 1:1 what folks have on live servers atm for easier comparison live vs test help them give the feedback you're requesting while not wasting their time with excessive character set up time.

ya weren't stomping them already?

Doesn't resolve the issue of material prices on the market at 500 million per 300 iRating augment, think attaching the materials to ranked pvp terrible idea, but those augments gonna go up even more now, possibly make them a rare drop in unranked warzones? Most folks I know hate ranked due to the toxic nature of the players in it, and other than hardcore pvper's no one likes the 4v4 arenas

Noticed a huge drop in quality of players queueing for wz's as well as sheer number of afkers, but thinking adding un-assembled component drops to flash points, uprising and operations would help this out some, probably at slightly less than the amount obtained from pvp. This would help in two ways: First off, an afker in pvp eventually hits 242 gear, long as they exit the start area and no one votes to kick em, if they do get a vote, go take damage and vote gets cancelled. By providing other sources, should help encourage less players to feel forced to queue pvp to obtain the components to reliably get 242 gear, and as we've seen with DvL and companion quests which force players to pvp, they tend to throw the match and dislike the whole experience. Second, pve side of the house, its currently clear nightmares or no 242 gear, and average player isn't clearing alot of nightmares, essentially forces the pve focused player to have to pvp to reliably get 242 gear unless they're playing at a nightmare level, where as the lowest quality of player willing to semi afk in pvp will eventually and reliably get enough components to obtain full sets of 242 gear. I know from a dev standpoint its but you still get crates, thus if the force is with you you'll eventually get your gear... but that feeds back into the fundamental flaw of a RNG based system... someone somewhere will open 14 tier 3 crates and go full 242 yay, someone else will have opened 1400 crates and only seen greens, most of us will get somewhere between these two extremes but the reality is very few I suspect are getting full 242's from the crates, occasional 1-2 pieces of top tier a week with this bonus cxp event going on significantly more likely and that's including duplicates. Number wise, if unassembled components were to drop in pve as well, the numbers should always slightly favor pvp, due to extra variables in game length/difficulty in pvp, would think something like for veteran flash point 2 final boss, master flash point 1 per boss, 2 per final/bonus boss, SM ops 3 per boss 5 for final, HM ops 5 per boss 8 for final, Nightmare ops 8 per boss 12 for final. Tbh just spit balling numbers here, probably better amounts that could be applied if this change were to be considered and depending on increase of unassembled components on the 28th might have to adjust, but once again in favor of pvp being slightly faster.

Greetings, Ran Scum and Villainy Last night in a 16m grp SM, first boss only dropped CXP tokens for 6 of the 16 members present. At the time we ran it we had 12 70's and 4 players between 65-69. Remaining bosses dropped 1 CXP token for each of the 70's in the group. Thanks for looking into this in advance

Can't say I blame Jerba either, he found a good spot and I think he did the right thing, Bioware's response here is what is messed up and you should direct rage at them. If you found a good open world spot with limited number of spawns where you could hit the cap very quickly, you wouldn't say anything either, otherwise by announcing it on the forums general chat would make 100 players show up and then ruin your spot, not to mention if it was ruled an exploit you just broke terms of service announcing to the world, "here's how you exploit" Soon as I saw this post, I went hunting for good spots where could hopefully match the cxp gain, couldn't find any where else close, granted only looked for a few hours, I suspect there aren't too many other areas like the one Jerba was farming, and the appropriate response from bioware would be to make those packs have 1 elite and 4 silvers, instead of 5 elites and or increase the spawn timer. Instead they ruined the cxp gain from planetary missions and flash points in a quick reaction to their over sight, which is also ruining pvp because there's a ton of players joining matches who don't wanna be there, looking for ways to throw the match for a quick loss. I wouldn't be surprised to see players join GSF and fly into an asteroid 50 times rq to lose quickly either. Hopefully seeing that they don't react again negatively and nerf loss cxp gain, but instead revisit cxp gain from other activities to compensate, because ultimately what it comes down to is "where's the best cxp/hour spot or activity?"

so pvp only for CXP now with golds only counting for 1? half of cxp gain from ops/hm fps was from kills, but kill credit going down from 10 to 1 means no point

nerf japan

think you're failing to take into account on live, to get its full dps as a pyro powertech you need ppl to stand in flame thrower, which most players won't? VS AP powertech of everything is instant cast on the move 10m though anything casted or channeled is being removed from melee and replaced with instant cast abilities instead, as well as AP has a lot of survival tools built into the tree instead of being utilities The formulas are designed for target dummy dps for sustained standing in front a target dummy, but will reflect conditions in pvp where you need to drop a healer that is guarded or fighting mid field on a civil war vs a team with 2 sage heals, if you pvp much, you know what I'm talking about it. As for the other classes you mentioned there's a reason why each of those classes picks the spec they pick. Madness due to increased self heals with stolen life, concealment for invulnerable roll, arsenal for the better chaff flare and heat management allowing them to use their self heals (IO uses self heal more than a few times and they're out of the fight due to heat issues). Not super experienced with mara's, but from being on the receiving end of good mara's in pvp, I can say carnage is more painful than fury in pvp. Deception dps vs hatred dps in a wz are no where near equal, though haven't seen alot of hatred sins that can pull off the dot spread needed to pull those insane numbers. PvP aside, when the dps differences become too large then certain classes won't be welcome in high end PvE just from a pragmatic view, why bring a class that does 800 less dps at their peak vs a top class played by a mediocre player who can pull 500 more dps over a fight? Bringing the mediocre player on the better class will kill the boss, bringing the best of their class player on the lowest dps class results in a wipe to enrage. In the 4.0 Iteration every class had at least 1 spec that did reasonably well damage wise that they were able to pull proper dps numbers to bring to most content, hoping that continues into 5.0 content.

Thanks for this list and info, looking forward to 5.0 version

Apologies, misinterpreted your original post as hate/troll post, dissenting opinions are welcome just wanted to keep it constructive, thanks for the 2nd post You are correct that most sorcs are really high up on the total damage dealt in pvp, but don't forget to consider how much of that lands on the intended target vs dot spread damage (especially when trying to burst a healer) Maybe i'm not the best pvper, but seen the occasional dps merc/powertech consistently compete number wise and produce all that dps in burst form towards a single target (though in the mercs i've seen do that usually relies on the dogpile leaving them alone). Not calling for a buff in damage department, just trying to point out fluff damage, which assuming both sides have heals, that fluff damage typically healed up next wandering mend/progressive scan/op hots as for the 15 gcds, easy enough to test if you're skeptical, get into combat w/ something, drain your force with dark heal/benevolance, and count the consuming darkness/vindicates it takes to get back to a full bar, duel with a healer who saber strikes ya once every 5-10 seconds or so probably be best test, or feel free to use any other strats you can think of to regen a full bar and time it, if you find something I missed let me know, love to learn something new . In terms of the nerf, I'd argue that it was 2 parts, one to attempt to balance dot sage/sorc another to balance heal sage/sorc, and the issues i'm describing are spillover from the healing sorc nerf I concur that there should be some penalty to off healing in terms of dps loss, however the simple act of stopping dps to spend a gcd or 3 on heals is already a dps loss in itself, in short i feel the penality for offhealing as dot sage/sorc is too severe. In the scenario where offheals were needed, yes does suck that the healer couldn't handle it on their own and should not happen, but unless you always play with veteran players, there will be scenarios with newer or lower performance players that can sometimes use a hand. In the same scenario the solution ended up being respec to lightning/TK off heal as needed then resume dps, as lightning/TK insanely force positive by comparison You are correct, most PvE encounters either have breaks in them or are short enough that as long as you follow the rotation right, force management not an issue, might be low on force. Few encounters however not the case, HM/NiM Styrak (last boss SnV) not fun to resource manage due to length of fight and breaks between his phases are very very short (about 1-2 gcd's worth at best). Depending on who your fellow dps are HM KP as well as first 2 in EV also can be longer fights where force management is a concern as well as HM/NiM EC In terms of survivibility linked to sustainability, I can see your point that once you're out of force you're incredibly vulnerable, however the point I wished to make is until your resources are drained then the only nerfs you're dealing with are the dot heals/dot spread ones (i get those I do, I don't like them, but i get it), the issue would like to point out is how the healer nerf is causing secondary concerns with how long I can keep the kite/dps/bubble/heal repeat thing going after in my experience 2 minutes or so in pvp (really depends on the game, how much i'm getting focused, whether or not they have heals etc) In terms of specifics, I apologize didn't wanna give too many of those as would prefer the dev's discover those for their own. Things that I see that might resolve the issue without unbalancing the class horribly would be an increase in level 16 passive from 1% to 2% force regenerated, as well as force from level 60 passive from 2 to 4 probably. Another possibility would be to adjust damage on rippling force/lightning burns and up the chance it occurs (more procs for regen w/out increasing dps), but not a fan of rng based regen. Combined with possible reduced cost of force lightning/telekinetic throw and to the pts for testing. Apologies missed the whole 3.0 madness resource talked to death on forums thingy, perhaps w/ most recent changes maybe a chance to bring it back up, everyone likes poking the dead horse with a stick right? In terms of how it is, not sure if its the dev's want it this way, or just are unaware. Few other disciplines for other classes come to mind that could also use some loving, but won't get into that. Thanks for the reply

They reduced the heals from dots to 10% from 25% the same patch as well as reduced the dot spread radius to 5m from 8m, so no we don't heal 1/3 of everything we do as you describe, survivability of dot sorcs/sages was nerfed in this manner with that patch. If refering to the heals done on score board, not all of that are related to heals from being a dot sorc/sage, a lot of it is from base class heals (unnatural preservation/bubble heals/resurgence etc) which you could relate to defensive cool downs other classes benefit from. This is a sustainability issue I'm trying to address, guessing you're referring to pvp in your post. I'm attempting to address both pve and pvp. In pvp atm as a sorc doing my normal rotation, self bubble, self HoT and kiting to survive I typically run out of force every 2 minutes or so, once again due to rotation being resource negative. What i'm asking for is a better option in pvp besides mashing vindicate/consuming darkness for 15 gcds, getting out of combat (not gonna happen most of the time), or if in pvp dying. In pve if i see a situation where the healer isn't keeping up and I decide to put 1-2 benevolences/dark heals on the tank to help out, I deplete 20% of my total resources and reduce my time i can dps by 60 seconds. DoT Sorc/Sages if they do not bubble and do not heal have about 5 minutes of dps time before being out of force. Taking out disturbance/lightning strike from the rotation and getting really lucky w/ a rng proc we have that regens 2 force can sometimes push this to 6 minutes. And please read the original post, I stated I require about 30 seconds of not dpsing to regen my force via vindicate/consuming darkness spam. I suppose telekinetic throw/force lightning spam would also regen it, but that would take even longer (about 2 minutes of spamming force lightning/telekinetic throw to regen a full bar) If you feel the survivibility of sorcs/sages is too high, please start your own post and happy to debate with you there, I would however like to keep this post regarding sustainability and resource issues related to DoT sorcs/Sages Thanks

Greetings! Following the most recent change to healing sorc/sage, noticed a loss of utility to Dot Sorc/Sage due to base class heal cost increase. As many know, DoT Sorc/Sage are naturally resource negative builds, meaning their force depletes eventually even w/ the perfect rotation. Combined with the new heal cost increases for healer class balance, this makes off healing and self healing difficult now, as the dot sage/sorc is forced to choose between offhealing at the cost of not being able to dps for the next at least 30 seconds following in order to regen. Currently regen options for DoT sage sorc are to either exit combat or hit consuming darkness/vindicate for 15 gcd's or so, and even then this will land them around half force as the debuff linked to vindicate/consuming darkness suppresses natural regen for 15 seconds following the last use of the ability (up to 100% reduced regen after 4 uses). If possible in upcoming expansion, would love to see better regen options for DoT sage/sorc, either increased force return in the rotation to the point where following the dps rotation gains more force than it uses, possibly add a passive that makes consuming darkness/vindicate less penalizing for dot Sage/Sorc (as we don't get the cool passives healers do to be able to really use those). Though to be completely honest I'd prefer the better regen of normal dps rotation, so could cast 2-3 quick offheals, go back to dpsing and have my force slowly regen while dpsing, vs the current state of it draining and eventually having to sit out of the fight. Thanks for your time!

ya first off, in pve after 5-6 minutes of constant casting, you will be out of force for single target, my opener is typically hard cast demolish ~> dots ~> Polarity shift/recklessness death field ~> force leech ~> force lightning spam, then after that matter of keeping dots up and death field, force leech, and demolish on cd, spam force lightning, only use shock or lightning strike if i'm forced to move good guide for exact rotation http://dulfy.net/2015/11/12/swtor-4-0-balance-sage-pve-guide-by-splizza/#Single_Target_Rotation (sorry they didn't do a sorc variant, but its the same, just abilities have different names) other tricks are to know when fights have breaks in them (like in palace after making all 4 dread masters return to the throne, there's a few second break where they mono log, hit consuming darkness then) other trick is in any fight with multiple targets, make sure to aim your death field to dot spread to multiple targets, each target you dot spread to is 30 force returned

to a certain degree, In PVE if you were to follow the rotation perfectly without using self heals or static barrier/force armor you still run out of force in 5 minutes can push this to 6-7 minutes or so by removing lightning strike/disturbence from your rotation, its a normal problem with the rotation, particularly when you're talking older bosses that take 10+ minutes to kill in PvP sorcs/sages need to regularly use their self heals as well as static barrier/force armor to stay alive, which is running down the force bar at a very alarming rate and makes any form of off-healing impossible due to the increased costs of heals available to all sorcs need to get some more games in to test only done about 2 dozen wz's since the change, but depending on how clumped the other team is, having severe force issues every 2 to 2.5 minutes of normal game play where ya get stuck spamming consuming darkness for the next 10 to 15 gcd's to regen your force and the fun no natural regen for 15 seconds debuff that comes with that