Sorry, but rated warzones are where its at. All balancing needs to be done based on rated. Many of us never have a prayer in rateds because we're gimped.

Any decent player can pull his weight in a normal, even as a DPS.

TheNahash the Reason why they complain is because they are playing an overpowered class and only need to stack power/surge look at the %'s in the rage tree that they get bonuses towards damage. Then look at the bonus % in the lightning tree and Madness tree. 6% to main use abilities and 50% bonus to Thundering Blast/Force Lightning Crit Bonus 30% to Death Field Crit Bonus no baseline bonus only hits 3 targets not 5 basically no where near a smash bonus. Lightning tree has a stacking bonus of 1% x3 bonus damage Rage has a stacking bonus of 25% x4.....so awesome.

I believe they get a base 20% then a auto crit of obiterate and force leap plus a stacking buff of 25% stacks four times up to 100% then on top of that 30% bonus crit to round them out. This is not balanced at all. They need to have the stacking buff removed give them the same as the lightning tree a whopping 1% x3 and see how fast they quit. The auto crit ability needs to be changed to one ability Force Leap or Obiterate not both. They would then hit like normal people for likely the mid 4k range it would force them to stack crit and gimp there all power surge pipe dream.

Sorcs/Sages take the highest skill set because we are the most gimped class out there. I

f you gave me a ranged dot that stacked a buff up to 25% x4 on my next deathfield then gave me a base death field buff of 20% with a reduced cooldown , gave me shock/force slow that would make my next Death Field an Auto Crit not to mention reducing it's active cooldown along the way plus make it hit 5 targets insead of 3. I would stack power and surge no alacrity and blow people out of the water before they knew what hit them my damage would be in the million range and my largest crits would be in the 7-8k range.

This would be equal to what the Rage spec has on the damage end but would still not address the defensive problems. We would be OP as hell we would shred massive amounts of people in the warzones. We would be the new flavor of the month with 3-4 sorcs aoe bombing everything in site. I would not shed a tear for any of you I would Death Field more.

Rage is broken- there's no excuse for having a spec that can utterly ignore crit boosting stats and still reap all the benefits as if you had a super high crit rating.

Auto crit on the hardest hitting aoe in the game? That's the stupidest thing ever and anyone who can't see that is a smashmonkey (or, apparently, BW's marauder loving dev team).

One of the big issues sorcs have damagewise is we have almost no armour- meaning everyone hits us harder on almost every ability they have than anyone else... while we have almost no armour penetration, so we're hitting everyone for less than anyone else is.

Look at a pyrotech for example- mostly elemental attacks which ignore armour as is, and then rail shot which almost completely ignores armour too. They can do top end damage to tanks and non tanks. Mara and juggs don't have the same armour pen, but there's the carnage tree's gore, and most attacks are doing so much more damage the pen isn't needed- not to mention huge roots, high CC, and great defensives.

When a sorc blows a CD- there's little else behind it, most CDs are easily countered (force speed is simple to mez/root/stun, same with the KB which can also be easily juked since the nerf), we're being hit like a truck by classes with armour pen/elemental attacks, and the same for those without them.

Now look at our abilities.

Affliction- tics for what, the equiv of 150 damage/second? CT- not in most specs anyway. Death Field- the main, nice armour ignoring ability we have that has some solid damage.

Otherwise- it's not only energy damage which is mitigated by 35% by mara/ops, 40+% by juggs, and even more by tanks... but it's energy damage which has no penetration.

If CD was internal... if lightning spells were all elemental- that alone would boost our pvp damage- without making our pve damage vastly superior to other dps classes.

As it stands- we're the least armoured class in the game while at the same time bypassing the least of other class's armour.

Let's compare our class to a WoW mage- a class that's actually feared, and has a solid place in rated.

A CC break and escape that can't be countered (blink)- actual decent escapability.

The ability to chain snares- which should be a given for any kiting class.

The ability to ignore defenses- as a trade for having such low armour themselves.

A glass canon that actually hits like a canon.

The ability to reset CC in a pinch.

The ability to get off mezzes multiple times when needed- which actually makes them a CC class that is good at CC... whereas sorcs are- if you look at a comparison and forget about the stun bubble (since it'll be nerfed)- one of the worst CC classes in TOR.

High mobility- speed boosts, stealth escape.

A form- PTs, mercs, mara, juggs, sins all get a form to give them a boost of some sort- in WoW, mages had 'armours' that could give bonuses to crit, or frost armour which snared those who attacked you.

Mobility- good CC that doesn't give up all your damage, abilities you can get off quickly when needed.

Now- yes, sorcs can heal (oh boy, a 3 second heal- you'll be getting that off when you need it I'm sure)- but in dps specs that healing really doesn't offer enough to be considered an excuse for the class to blow.

If people are really concerned that much about sorcs healing while in dps form- they could make a form for us that doesn't allow it.

For example- a shadow form. You can't heal, but gain 20% mitigation, receive 4x more healing from dots, do 15% more damage with instants, when someone hits you there's a 25% chance to be rooted for 2 seconds. Replace force lightning for madness with drain life- has about the same effect as FL except it restores perhaps 25% health of the damage it does.

Gets rid of our healing- but makes madness a scary, fully dps oriented tree on par with other dps classes- add to that WW not breaking on dots being part of the tree, CT having dot protection, and CD being off cooldown, stacking so wrath procs are useful all the time- you'd see madness sorcs being no less common than other dps classes in RWZ- as it should be, there shouldn't be any class that is all but shunned- mercs/ops need boosts too.

Then- huge overhaul of lightning tree- there's just too much that would need to change with it to make it worthwhile that I don't even know where to start.

Corruption needs it too- consumption needs a big rework, and top talents need to be made worthwhile- because even before the bubble stun people were going half lightning simply because an aoe heal is not worth losing the better regen of the lightning tree- nevermind the bubble stun and root on KB.

Here's how I see it: If a good player is getting ganged up by more than 2 other good players, he should die. No matter what class or armor they're wearing, he should die. If they don't, then somewhere there's a problem. You're not supposed to live through the damage of 3 other people. Sure you should be able to kite them for a while until friendlies come and help you take them down and tanks should of course survive a bit longer than the rest, but all in all If a good player is ganged up by equally skilled players, he should go down.

.

Except, we're not talking ganged up on- we're talking two players being able to kill you in 1.5 seconds using two instant attacks. Not enough time to mount a defense, not enough time to kite or counter- you're rooted for the time to top it off since it'll be off a leap, no matter the distance- again, KB or stun- second leap when available, game over.

Two juggs/mara on a sorc- dead in a global.

Guess how long it'd take to kill a mara with 2 sorcs? That's where what you're saying fails- because even 2v1 a mara won't be taking as much damage- two sorcs cannot put out 10k+ damage each in two instants, especially without any build up procs- good luck getting that on a death field and shock- you might do 6k with alot of luck. Then- mitigated, defensives, defensives, stealth escape, gap closer, superior instant CC spam- etc....

The skill cap for mara/juggs is getting lower, and lower, and with rage it hit rock bottom- it is so painfully easy to shred other classes with that spec anyone can do it without needing to know anything beyond how to smash- and when you add in defensives, CC, mobility, etc... you turn an easy mode class any noob can be pro with into something any pro is an untouchable god with.

Meanwhile- sorcs have an ever rising skill cap- not on beating other players, no, on surviving. That's right- people want to compare a class that can double team kill someone in less time than it takes to sneeze to sorcs who might be able to kill someone if they can kite them for half a minute, and have a decent chance, if they're really good, to survive.

Oh yipee- I wonder why this class has no spot in RWZ beyond a bubble stun gimmick that is about to be removed?

I am on the other side- I play a healer. Half the time I'm 31 in corruption, the other half I go 21/20/0. In no situation, ever, have I died one on one to a dps sorc. I can't even fathom how I would be able to make such a bad mess up that I could die in such a situation. I can purge CD every time along with affliction most of the time, and at most a burst combo will pop my bubble and do enough damage to make me use my self heal and maybe innervate myself.

 

I'd love to see some videos showing off this healer killing burst though.

no such video is out there because it is not possible. I am full lighting, I was trying to take out a jedi sage healer, the best I could do is keep him busy 1v1. On civil war we both went to middle, for some reason his team never pulled me off of him (read as smash me into the ground), and my team was focusing on dropping the DPS(I marked and called out in ops chat many times to drop the healers). We went toe to toe for more than 2 mins neither one of us really hurting each other. My burst would come off CD and I would break his bubble and take 1/3 of his health is the best I could hope full. If a second healer did not show up to off heal him I guess I could of killed him if he made a mistake somewhere (after 5-10 mins).

i think another big thing they need to do is buff the crud outta conduction. 3% force bonus damage isn't neccessarily a wow factor for me. esp. when it takes 3-4 attacks to get it at that 3%. maybe at three max it 100% ignores armor, but its 20% chance to proc, or 60-70%.

do something with madness too, but i conduction really needs to not suck:(.

Forgot to mention that apart from all these problems there is something else that bothers me.

As long as we have to push so much to do discent dps,we have to optimize our gear as much as possible.

At least dps wise this isn't easy for this class.Although there are classes that know they have to aim for 1-2 basic stats (apart from the basic stat ofc ),we seem to have to solve a puzzle to have a balance between 4 stats in order to add a bit more power.I would like to invite those maras that qq and have them play with my stats a bit.

Personally I am at WH gear with 4 EWH parts,full willpower augments and only at this lvl of gear managed to have a bit of balance.

Can't afford to drop lower than 1200 expertise,can't run with lower than 1950-2000 willpower,need around 30% crit unbuffed (the only stat i am missing atm to hardcap as I am at around 29%),don t feel safe running with less than 77-78% surge despite its diminishing returns and with all these I have to be at around 940-950 bonus dmg by stucking as much power and buffs as possible.

All in all it doesn't seem to me that this class atm can sacrifice something easily in favor of another stat that optimizes its dps.

I like your post Fungi all valid points I feel we were supposed to be a cross between a Arcane/Lightning spec for pve and Shadow/Madness type spec but we just don't have what we need. I could care less about healing in dps spec most of the time I use my unatural preservation and Rakata Stim as my heals to fend off burst but even that is very short lived.

We need a a Shadow Type spec that hits much harder gets a bonus stance or self buff that increase % of Damage and Healing from Damage done. A self buff would be the easiest fix without changing a lot of abilites.

Thundering Blast seems like it should be a low tier Madness spec talent as it's top end damage even with a 6% bonus and 50% crit bonus is lack luster. It's more of a filler when crushing darkness is on CD and should also proc off of Wrath and get the 20% bonus as well as the base 6% from the lightning tree. Also have Death Field gain the 20% from Wrath.

Lightning should have a new 31 point talent that doesn't suck such as a hard hitting Chain Lightning on a 9 second cooldown with a 1 second cast and increase Lightning strikes damage to be on par with shocks and give the chance for a second strike low in the tree. Also have it where Lightning striek will put a stacking debuff that lowers a targets armor by 10-20 and 30% stacks up to 3 times. Lightning Strikes to set up the Chain Lightning/Shock combo while being mana effective perfect for pve.

I think that would most likely solve a lot of Damage woe's for Defense increase the effectiveness of our shield or increase healing % again a buff high in the madness tree that gives a bonus to armor or damage reduction would solve this. Lightning is fine as this would be more of a pve build but could be a glass cannon in pvp.

Finally our Speed ability should be a baseline remove snare effects and be immune to CC while under it's effect but ca not be used if already under CC only if rooted or snared. Give the healing tree a talent that gives the healer a self healing effect when crit heals land for a 2% of the amount healed.

Hi guys, old sorc here that has actually quit due to the chain of balance changes in the past. I don't post much, bbut felt I had something to add here.

First off I remember this :

Corruption

Force Bending no longer unintentionally allows its buff to be applied to more than one healing ability. Its effects have been slightly redesigned. It now increases the critical chance of Dark Heal by 60% and reduces the Force cost of Dark Infusion by 30%.

This is actually false, it's still broken and the real reason I think this got changed to the way it is now to "fix" it was because of this.

The buff has to be applied and stay applied for the buff to affect innervate for the entire duration of the channel; therfore, to code this, the effect would have to be coded to listen for the last heal tick to fire before removing the buff, but the healing effect boost is applied on cast for a "cast time reduction" effect. The reason we could spam a 2 shot of 1 second Dark Infusion was because the delay between us casting DI and the time it took for the little purple ball to fly over and hit our target was long enough to start another cast with the buff still applied before the buff faded after the heal hit the target.

basically it was easier to remove a cast time reduction than to actually fix it, ever notice that right after you cast a dark heal, and then innervate directly following the first tick of innervate will always crit, and if you watch really close you will notice your innervate heal hits right before the buff fades.

So what I propose is that Bioware put it back the way it was, but this time have it create two seperate buffs one that only affects innervate and one that only effects DI,DH, the AoE heal. Then just see if that is enough, I agree the 2 shot 1 second cast was overpowered and needed fixed, but the mechanic of it was wonderful. If I wasn't a total fool, I could get to my friends before being slaughtered while CCed in 3 or 4 GCD's as a full healing sorc.

The second bad decision was the nerf to convergance, and how now you had to take the health deficit to regain force. Just make these two changes to the healing tree and, I would actually consider playing again.

The one thing I want to say here is that somewhere along the line of changes here people forgot one important thing.

In general mages are really squishier than anyone else, its a trade off "or supposed to be" we wear a robe and cant melee at all; because, we do more dammage; we have range attacks because odviously we can't survive taking hits.

To "counter" this you gave other melee classes "gap closers" with 1/2 the cooldown or our "knockback"

So, in reality it works like this. If your so bad that you let me hit you with 4 "auto attack cast ability" like channelinng force lightning 3 times that you are at 1/2 health and just now decide to leap to me , where then I hit my cooldown abilities and you die then pay attention.

Just like if I just stand there and take 3 or 4 strikes from a jugg or maurader before I say "ohh I better run" I would deserive to just die. "They should have used their gap closer by the time I hit you twice and stopped the third."

What really broke be was patch 1.4 where you intoduced full aumented items, awesome idea and it was a good one; although, as a healer looing and saying to myself. Healing is already nerfed 40% in a warfront, and now powe scales almost 2 to 1 dammage over healing. Basically what your telling me is that I work just as hard maxiing my items as that warrior over there, but I only get 1/2 the boost, gee thanks.

Enough of my rant, I love this game and the PvP was some of the best I have had, but Bioware needs to mmake changes for me to return to my Sorc, so I am not basically a punching bag.

I have (thanks to server merges) 2 lvl 50 sorcs. 1 specced as heal, 1 specced dps. Both of them have at least full war hero gear and i've been playing them quite a lot. So i guess i know what i'm talking about sorc-wise.

But last 2 weeks i've leveled a Powertech twink to lvl 50 and spent most of my time equipping him. He is now 60% war hero, 10% elite war hero and rest recruit mk2. So still a lot of potential unused.

The difference to my dps sorc is absolutely astonishing. It is - even with the subpar gear - so big I can't even find the words to really describe it. I can actually KILL people 1on1 - fast! I still have some utility to offer (heck, with some tankgear and respecc it's even better). I have about the same survivability. I can actually turn the tides in a close fight. Amazing. In one of my first lvl 50 warzones (full mk2 recruit gear) i did 450k dmg.

Yesterday i logged on my dps sorc again. Spamming affliction, deathfield and shield while running from that Marauder and/or Powertechs, sometimes being able to stand still and "burst". It felt so awkward. Just because i now know how it could be if a class is not gimped by its design and how a class not able to change the tides doesn't matter how good it is played. But what actually made me laugh at the end of the warzones: My total dmg and healing numbers where very good (and always have been). And since the developers probably analyze this data I'm very worried, that they won't redesign the class in the way it really needs it.

In my opinion the outlook for sorcs is not very good: I guess there will be "adjustments" with the Makeb Patch. If they do it right, sorcs will come out a little less gimped than they are now. But i don't think they are willing to change the mechanics in a way we need it to be competitive in pvp (as the data says sorcs are fine). So pvp-wise better roll a heal sorc. As a dps sorc go PVE or /reroll. I did.

I have (thanks to server merges) 2 lvl 50 sorcs. 1 specced as heal, 1 specced dps. Both of them have at least full war hero gear and i've been playing them quite a lot. So i guess i know what i'm talking about sorc-wise.

 

But last 2 weeks i've leveled a Powertech twink to lvl 50 and spent most of my time equipping him. He is now 60% war hero, 10% elite war hero and rest recruit mk2. So still a lot of potential unused.

 

The difference to my dps sorc is absolutely astonishing. It is - even with the subpar gear - so big I can't even find the words to really describe it. I can actually KILL people 1on1 - fast! I still have some utility to offer (heck, with some tankgear and respecc it's even better). I have about the same survivability. I can actually turn the tides in a close fight. Amazing. In one of my first lvl 50 warzones (full mk2 recruit gear) i did 450k dmg.

 

Yesterday i logged on my dps sorc again. Spamming affliction, deathfield and shield while running from that Marauder and/or Powertechs, sometimes being able to stand still and "burst". It felt so awkward. Just because i now know how it could be if a class is not gimped by its design and how a class not able to change the tides doesn't matter how good it is played. But what actually made me laugh at the end of the warzones: My total dmg and healing numbers where very good (and always have been). And since the developers probably analyze this data I'm very worried, that they won't redesign the class in the way it really needs it.

 

In my opinion the outlook for sorcs is not very good: I guess there will be "adjustments" with the Makeb Patch. If they do it right, sorcs will come out a little less gimped than they are now. But i don't think they are willing to change the mechanics in a way we need it to be competitive in pvp (as the data says sorcs are fine). So pvp-wise better roll a heal sorc. As a dps sorc go PVE or /reroll. I did.

I too have a sorc 50 and a 50 PT. And yes the difference is astonishing. The sorcerers have been broken since 1.2. It is amazing that Bioware have let them be broken for almost 1 year now! Amazing!

The problem is that they have had a balance team that has relied heavely on data from the warzones. I hope Bioware now or soon will realize that this is a poor way to balance classes. The only reason why sorcs are doing ok on the damage done boards in WZ is because we can spam affliction. Thats it! We can do alot of damage passively by just spreading it.

The problem, however, is not how much damage we can do over the time of one warzone (there we are fine) but how much we can do if we engage someone in 1v1 or a similar circumstance. There we are terrible!

To get the real damge done numbers they should remove the affliction damage done from their data and then they will see how horrific it really is! I am full WH min/maxed and I struggle to kill anything in 1v1. ofcourse I can duke and run around corners and in 5 min time maybe I can kill a sniper.. You get the point. I should be able to destroy subgeared players ( like the rest of the classes do). My force lightning feels weak.. Seriously around 1.1 k crits?

So, what is my solution and why do I think it should be implemented?

We need to be able to do some direct damage, and to it faster than what we do now. How to fix this without making us too OP?

Up the damage from force lightning. Why? Becasue it prevents us from doing too much damage while on the move but still, when played right, gives us the ability to kill. We have to take a risk while standing still, but if done right we reap the rewards. I dont see any other way.

Now to my plead. Please fellow sorcs, stand by me and demand an aknowledgement from BW. It is about time that they give us a solution to this problem or atleast some form of reply!

Please Bioware, I have been a loyal subscriber for over a year, give us some peace of mind and bring back the fun for sorcerers!

Best wishes!

Dratten

I have (thanks to server merges) 2 lvl 50 sorcs. 1 specced as heal, 1 specced dps. Both of them have at least full war hero gear and i've been playing them quite a lot. So i guess i know what i'm talking about sorc-wise.

 

But last 2 weeks i've leveled a Powertech twink to lvl 50 and spent most of my time equipping him. He is now 60% war hero, 10% elite war hero and rest recruit mk2. So still a lot of potential unused.

 

The difference to my dps sorc is absolutely astonishing. It is - even with the subpar gear - so big I can't even find the words to really describe it. I can actually KILL people 1on1 - fast! I still have some utility to offer (heck, with some tankgear and respecc it's even better). I have about the same survivability. I can actually turn the tides in a close fight. Amazing. In one of my first lvl 50 warzones (full mk2 recruit gear) i did 450k dmg.

 

Yesterday i logged on my dps sorc again. Spamming affliction, deathfield and shield while running from that Marauder and/or Powertechs, sometimes being able to stand still and "burst". It felt so awkward. Just because i now know how it could be if a class is not gimped by its design and how a class not able to change the tides doesn't matter how good it is played. But what actually made me laugh at the end of the warzones: My total dmg and healing numbers where very good (and always have been). And since the developers probably analyze this data I'm very worried, that they won't redesign the class in the way it really needs it.

 

In my opinion the outlook for sorcs is not very good: I guess there will be "adjustments" with the Makeb Patch. If they do it right, sorcs will come out a little less gimped than they are now. But i don't think they are willing to change the mechanics in a way we need it to be competitive in pvp (as the data says sorcs are fine). So pvp-wise better roll a heal sorc. As a dps sorc go PVE or /reroll. I did.

This man pretty much summarizes whats been going on since 1.2.

Any scumbag sorc who thinks hes a god of PvP or something call roll into the thread and post millions of damage.

Dude, scorebard in the end of the match can mean a lot of things, but it doesnt correspond to game balance. It may correspond to game balance in PvE actually.

Sage, both DPS and Heals, can put extremely high numbers in WZ, dps by affliction spam, a DoT that adds up a lot but has no real pressure on PvP, a WH sage affliction ticks for what? 300-400 tops? Somewhere around that no? Sage heals cam spam AoE heals, which wil keep healing any 90% hp fool that keeps standing in there, but it will hardly have a serious impact on counter bursting in general.

I have put 1 million heals on a voidstar, thats pre 1.2, i didnt even screenshot it, you know why? Because im smart and i know that it didnt mean crap, most of my gazillion heals were taken after a fight when like 6 players had 50-70% HP left and kept standing in the AoE defending a door instead of using their recuperating skills.

When you switch out of the sage to any heal / dps class (even our UP cousins the mandos) you are BAFFLED by the difference. The other classes have stopping power, they have on demand burst, they can heal with instants and almost never go out of resources.

Its amazing what theyve done to our class, and even more amazing is the fact that they completely refuse to fix us, every plead we make falls on deaf ears, we ARE the weakest AC in the game and james ohlen told us to L2P after the 1.2 fiasco. Devs never talk about us, they never make comments on how to fix us, EVEN THE SLIGHT BUFF THEY GAVE US WAS UNWARRANTED FOR.

And then, when a marauder cries on the forums because we can actually do something cool and meaningful when we go HYBRID (thus giving away a big chunk of our already pathetic DPS / HEALS) a dev shows up and "promises" the community, its going to go.

Then he shows up here, saying out loud just HOW hes going to screw us up (friendly bubble burst is gone so we arent allowed in RWZs anymore) but not giving us a single clue on how hes going to fix us.

Because..... hes not going to. I guess everyone already realised that hes not going to.

They will probably give us slight buffs here and there that dont adress the CORE of our problems and he will actually take away the SINGLE CORE MECHANIC that makes us meaningful, that makes us be noticed after all.

Bioware "devs" should write a manual on how to destroy a class and lose players.

My Sorc gets played about 3-4 WZ's a night, just enough to finish my daily, and sometimes a few extra on Sunday if it was a had week of PUG's and I haven't finished my weekly yet. My Sniper is now my main, not because he does so much more damage in WZ's (they finish with similar DPS and total damage numbers) and definitely not because he is more fun (my sorc is still fun to play) but because when my Sorc gets attacked by two players or tries to solo a node with 2 guards, I can maybe get one of them to 75%. If I'm lucky, have all my CD's blow all my CD's on a fight I am going to lose, have near full resolve already so I don't have to suffer through 3-4 stuns, and am a much better player than both of them. For the most part if I am attacked by two players I do maybe 10-15% damage to one of them. If my Sniper gets attacked by two players and I have entrench available, I kill one of the two almost 90% of the time. I still lose the fight, and don't really have a chance 1 vs 2 (have won 1 vs 2 one OT two times ever so far) but at least I feel like I have done something in that situation. With no entrench up, I say it's about 50-50 whether I kill one or leave him under 20%. Although against two good players with no entrench, it's not unusual to get beat worse than that. If any Sorc can do that well in those situations, they are so much better than me that I cannot comprehend them.

But about 3 days ago I switched to hybrid healer with bubble stun. My normal playstyle as Madness was to focus one one person until they were dead, and triple dot them. My deathfield was priority #1 and used that on CD, but turreted and channeled Force Lightning enough to consider myself more a turret than a mobile spec. Usually finished a WZ with around 150k damage and 75k healing, which on my server usually put me at around 3rd in DPS and 3rd in healing. Playing with bubble stun is so much more fun. I was easy putting out 400k healing and felt like.I made a difference for once. Just for fun and without telling my teammates, I decided to play a WZ last night where I did not stop running the whole time. CC made this hard, but a second CD break on force speed came in handy. I used force speed on CD. Ran around and did not do one chain lightning, not one force lightning, didn't cast crushing darkness, not even a dark infusion or innervate. I did not cast one thing, it was all instant, so mostly running around casting bubbles, with a bunch of self instant heals, a whole bunch of those instant HOT's, and a lot of shocks and afflictions.

200k damage from all of those afflictions, and 250k healing. #1 on my team in both. If the devs look at that game, or numbers from a lot of players like that, Sorcs will end up getting nerfed not buffed. I felt like a very solid 1/8th of my team, and can see why they are wanted and maybe needed on a RWZ team. But my bubble was maybe absorbing 4-5k damage tops, and my hots and self heals probably only did 100k combined, mostly top ups, definitely not enough focus to keep people alive. I didn't play it like a healer at all, but as healing support. I probably threw out 50 shocks at around 1k each (awful damage even compared just to other classes instants) and probably 100 afflictions at 2k per, although many people probably died before the full damage, or maybe purged it in order to get to 200k. I didn't feelqq1 like I did any damage at all, and I guarantee nobody on the other team was sitting there thinking they had a chance to win if only that sorc would atop throwing an affliction on them and ticking for 400 damage every 3 seconds.

In a balanced team with real damage dealers, a couple shocks and afflictions can only help them. In a real team with real healers, a bubble can only help them, and those bubble stuns are great pealers. In PUG's I found myself once in a team with 4 sorcs, and although I was the only one with bubble stuns, none.of the three read chat at all, and were throwing their own bubbles around, even on me. So I was less than useless. Another time we faced a team with 3 snipers and I died just as fast as I always do. I got two other teams where I was the only healer, but ended up solo guarding nodes because none of the lemmings wanted to sit still and guard anything and they kept leaving stuff completely unguarded and then calling people idiots for leaving it unguarded. So in PUG's bubble stun is very hit or miss, but playing with good players, it is extremely effective.

My Sorc gets played about 3-4 WZ's a night, just enough to finish my daily, and sometimes a few extra on Sunday if it was a had week of PUG's and I haven't finished my weekly yet. My Sniper is now my main, not because he does so much more damage in WZ's (they finish with similar DPS and total damage numbers) and definitely not because he is more fun (my sorc is still fun to play) but because when my Sorc gets attacked by two players or tries to solo a node with 2 guards, I can maybe get one of them to 75%. If I'm lucky, have all my CD's blow all my CD's on a fight I am going to lose, have near full resolve already so I don't have to suffer through 3-4 stuns, and am a much better player than both of them. For the most part if I am attacked by two players I do maybe 10-15% damage to one of them. If my Sniper gets attacked by two players and I have entrench available, I kill one of the two almost 90% of the time. I still lose the fight, and don't really have a chance 1 vs 2 (have won 1 vs 2 one OT two times ever so far) but at least I feel like I have done something in that situation. With no entrench up, I say it's about 50-50 whether I kill one or leave him under 20%. Although against two good players with no entrench, it's not unusual to get beat worse than that. If any Sorc can do that well in those situations, they are so much better than me that I cannot comprehend them.

 

But about 3 days ago I switched to hybrid healer with bubble stun. My normal playstyle as Madness was to focus one one person until they were dead, and triple dot them. My deathfield was priority #1 and used that on CD, but turreted and channeled Force Lightning enough to consider myself more a turret than a mobile spec. Usually finished a WZ with around 150k damage and 75k healing, which on my server usually put me at around 3rd in DPS and 3rd in healing. Playing with bubble stun is so much more fun. I was easy putting out 400k healing and felt like.I made a difference for once. Just for fun and without telling my teammates, I decided to play a WZ last night where I did not stop running the whole time. CC made this hard, but a second CD break on force speed came in handy. I used force speed on CD. Ran around and did not do one chain lightning, not one force lightning, didn't cast crushing darkness, not even a dark infusion or innervate. I did not cast one thing, it was all instant, so mostly running around casting bubbles, with a bunch of self instant heals, a whole bunch of those instant HOT's, and a lot of shocks and afflictions.

 

200k damage from all of those afflictions, and 250k healing. #1 on my team in both. If the devs look at that game, or numbers from a lot of players like that, Sorcs will end up getting nerfed not buffed. I felt like a very solid 1/8th of my team, and can see why they are wanted and maybe needed on a RWZ team. But my bubble was maybe absorbing 4-5k damage tops, and my hots and self heals probably only did 100k combined, mostly top ups, definitely not enough focus to keep people alive. I didn't play it like a healer at all, but as healing support. I probably threw out 50 shocks at around 1k each (awful damage even compared just to other classes instants) and probably 100 afflictions at 2k per, although many people probably died before the full damage, or maybe purged it in order to get to 200k. I didn't feelqq1 like I did any damage at all, and I guarantee nobody on the other team was sitting there thinking they had a chance to win if only that sorc would atop throwing an affliction on them and ticking for 400 damage every 3 seconds.

 

In a balanced team with real damage dealers, a couple shocks and afflictions can only help them. In a real team with real healers, a bubble can only help them, and those bubble stuns are great pealers. In PUG's I found myself once in a team with 4 sorcs, and although I was the only one with bubble stuns, none.of the three read chat at all, and were throwing their own bubbles around, even on me. So I was less than useless. Another time we faced a team with 3 snipers and I died just as fast as I always do. I got two other teams where I was the only healer, but ended up solo guarding nodes because none of the lemmings wanted to sit still and guard anything and they kept leaving stuff completely unguarded and then calling people idiots for leaving it unguarded. So in PUG's bubble stun is very hit or miss, but playing with good players, it is extremely effective.

This is ok if you play unrated and you support your unorganized team. The specc you are describing has no place in a well organized rated warzone team. Sorry to say. Your affliction spam and schocks acomplish absolutely nothing. Your bubblestuns should have been put out by the healer.

It s great that you have found a way to enjoy playing the sorceror in PUGs and social games. So, I think, have the whole active sorc community. However, we lack the damage output on singletargets to be at all usefull in rated warzones. The following saying is a cliche but it summerizes everything:

We are a glasscannon without a cannon..

The problem is- I doubt the devs actually play the game- they seem to be the same as those people that look at end of match damage and go 'big numbers, that means good!'. After a year- their pvp team hasn't struck me as anything but utterly and completely clueless- they've done a million terrible things to pvp since launch- and the only really good thing is reducing the stat difference between EWH and WH... though- if you looked at champ-BH gear (before BH was buffed that is) that's more or less changing it back to how it was before.

After a year- BW still hasn't admitted that their metrics are wrong- either the numbers aren't telling the story, or they aren't reading it- but the fact of the matter is, you have marauders having been godmode for over eight months straight- no FOTM should ever last that long without a rebalance, but the worst part is- they've actually vastly improved mara in that time- taking gore and other abilities off the GCD, ravage uninterruptable, removing rage costs from several abilities- and of course giving a monumental buff to the Rage tree that they still haven't admitted is broken or given any hint they intend to change it.

At the same time- ops, mercs and sorc dps have all been garbage, we've all been asking for something for 8 months now, we've all been shunned from RWZ while some groups are taking 2 or even 3 marauders- and I don't think when we were told we could be a stealthy, rogue type we were counting on being forced into nothing but the healing role, or when we rolled the class that was like Palpatine, all scary and shooting lightning- we'd be bubble bots.

8 months without even a hint, and with most changes making things even worse- question is, how long do we give BW? If there was some sort of hope of balancing changes being made that would be one thing- but 8 months and they still haven't bothered to engage in conversation; and the only promise is a catastrophic nerf to the one ability- yes, the ONE ability- keeping us in RWZ right now.

Eight months of this- and it still feels like we're talking to a brick wall. At one point does one just give up and realize BW doesn't care in the slightest about pvp balance?

The problem is- I doubt the devs actually play the game- they seem to be the same as those people that look at end of match damage and go 'big numbers, that means good!'. After a year- their pvp team hasn't struck me as anything but utterly and completely clueless- they've done a million terrible things to pvp since launch- and the only really good thing is reducing the stat difference between EWH and WH... though- if you looked at champ-BH gear (before BH was buffed that is) that's more or less changing it back to how it was before.

 

After a year- BW still hasn't admitted that their metrics are wrong- either the numbers aren't telling the story, or they aren't reading it- but the fact of the matter is, you have marauders having been godmode for over eight months straight- no FOTM should ever last that long without a rebalance, but the worst part is- they've actually vastly improved mara in that time- taking gore and other abilities off the GCD, ravage uninterruptable, removing rage costs from several abilities- and of course giving a monumental buff to the Rage tree that they still haven't admitted is broken or given any hint they intend to change it.

 

At the same time- ops, mercs and sorc dps have all been garbage, we've all been asking for something for 8 months now, we've all been shunned from RWZ while some groups are taking 2 or even 3 marauders- and I don't think when we were told we could be a stealthy, rogue type we were counting on being forced into nothing but the healing role, or when we rolled the class that was like Palpatine, all scary and shooting lightning- we'd be bubble bots.

 

8 months without even a hint, and with most changes making things even worse- question is, how long do we give BW? If there was some sort of hope of balancing changes being made that would be one thing- but 8 months and they still haven't bothered to engage in conversation; and the only promise is a catastrophic nerf to the one ability- yes, the ONE ability- keeping us in RWZ right now.

 

Eight months of this- and it still feels like we're talking to a brick wall. At one point does one just give up and realize BW doesn't care in the slightest about pvp balance?

What I think it boils down to is the utter disaster the drop of subscribers have been and what toll the developing team had to pay for this. They simply do not have the manpower to manage a team for PvP-balancing, which is required if you want to be a competitive pvp-game. By not aknowledging this in 8 months they have clearly told us that they do not care. And that they do not have, either the competence or the the strenght to fix it. My guesse is sadly: both!

What I think it boils down to is the utter disaster the drop of subscribers have been and what toll the developing team had to pay for this. They simply do not have the manpower to manage a team for PvP-balancing, which is required if you want to be a competitive pvp-game. By not aknowledging this in 8 months they have clearly told us that they do not care. And that they do not have, either the competence or the the strenght to fix it. My guesse is sadly: both!

While your acessment IS true, one of the reasons of the massive sub drops (not the only one, but a strong reason none the less) was the 1.2 PvP balance fiasco.

I personally know like 20 players who were very excited about PvP and almost instaquit after 1.2, 90% of them played sage / merc / dps operative.

Almost all the problem we have in PvP today have its root deep in the 1.2 patch, and the 1.2 patch was made by the same team who developed TOR in the first place (james ohlen, gabe, daniel, all the cool faces).

All of the people who contributed to the 1.2 fiasco are long gone, and unfortunately, people like Austin who seems to run the show ATM arent sensible enough to realise that he needs to review the balance philosofy that was introduced in 1.2.

If you think hard about pre 1.2 you will notice that, while 1.2 had its problems, it was more balanced than it was today, in all aspects.

I dunno, I get tired of playing bubble stun healer. I really do. It gets old doing nothing but being a pinata for basically anyone else melee or ranged.

Yes, you can make a difference, but man, it sucks. Something about being in PvP and being unable to really hurt a fly just grates at me. I tend to solo PUG with madness /innervate hybrid, so at least I can kill someone a bit less geared then me. Plus some DPSers are just really, really bad at their jobs.

If you're in a 4/8 man with a personal guard then I mean its okay, I guess I just really hate the inability to even make a dent in an assailant. You have to sit in one place to heal 24/7 while OP melee classes abuse you.

It's just not enjoyable. I may be somewhat less useful in my pug madness hybrid, but I at least enjoy myself more doing it. I can still heal and bubble primary, but DPS when it makes sense to (when opponents numbers are dwindling, and time is of the essence to flip that node/door).

Yeah PvP is effectively dead in this game, nothing more than a diversion from the PvE aspect.

And it just makes me ask what stuff those guys are smoking when they do stuff like take chain lightning wrath proc away, but let smashtards auto-crit on their AoE, AND make it the hardest hitting move in the game.

You then have to wonder why they go and make master strike/ravage uninterruptable, when poor mercs and sorcs don't get any protection at all on their casts. Just look at mezzes. The instant AoE mezzes versus the single target mez we have to put up with, that has a long cast. It's just a bad joke, it really is. Look at the madness talent for extra targets, why isn't that working on extra players? Never mind they stick instant whirlwind on a DoT spec. Yeah... good thinking.

They remove the quick double dip heal, but allow scoundrels and ops to not only heal on the move but literally spam a big heal on anyone under 30% health.

Just look at the big hitter dps in this game like marauders and pyro powertechs, practically everything they do is instant and it's all big burst and good sustained damage. Then couple this with the marauder defensive CDs, and group utility like Predation.

And kiting is alright with bubble stuns and overload roots and whatever, but where are the proper tools to keep people at range like snipers? We need something to make melee think twice about jumping to us. Bubble damage reflection (cf Cloak of Pain) or whatever.

Even in PvE dps now we're falling behind as our abilities are just not scaling. Healing we're fine, but I didn't roll a sorc to heal.

But I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have another nerf coming with the expansion, so for you fellow sorcs left out there I hope Santa brought you all a big tube of lube, because we all know which orifice that nerf bat is going to be rammed in. The only thing we have is a friendly pull and a bubble stun, which will get a nerf. Everything else, another class (save mercs) can do better and bring more utility.

The balance is heavily in melee favour and they have no intention of changing it or more likely even aware there's any issues that need addressing.

I agree- when we first saw the beta for 1.2, even before it was out- I was calling it this game's NGE, I was saying that if this went through we'd see a drop of half our subs, and pvp would be all but finished in the game.

Two months later we've lost well over half our subs, pvp is almost gone, and the game's going f2p soon.

We were at 1.7 million subs steady for the first four months, there were dozens and dozens of servers, yet I still could get pvp queues faster than I can now with less than a quarter than number.

There were no metrics for them to base their nerfs off- that's the worst part of them trying to defend this with metrics- they didn't have any pre-season data, RWZ hadn't started- so they made massive, game changing nerfs wtihout anything but the whines of marauders on the forum and bad data gotten from normals and, from the looks of it, poorly interpreted.

Even before 1.2 marauders was showing up as one of the best classes- but it was a challenge to play so well and other classes hadn't been gutted enough to be simple fodder for them yet, same with sins- TM mercs were so easy to shut down, the only way they got big numbers is when people completely ignored them- which they should die if they do that. Ops weren't super OP, that BW thought teams of stunlocking ops was going to make people unsub if they didn't nerf them hard was rediculous- I knew one, one single operative on my server who scared me- ya, he beat me good when he was on me, but, he was a rogue class and I was a mage class, I expected to be thrashed because that felt like a counter to me- and even then with good play I could still beat him once every five engagements.

Sorcs with CL DF combo... I could get 6k damage in a small aoe with two abilities back to back- ya, it was a strong combo at the time, that was a third of someone's health- but we're a glass canon, of course we should have had some good damage output.

Now, what do we have? Some sorc earlier was trying to say we have a great burst combo because we can have crushing darkness cast and cast affliction right after it- that's the sad state of our 'burst', it's entirely purgable, slow damage... so not really burst at all.

I am giving it until Makeb lands and the 5 extra levels and see if they shock the hell out of me and actually fix this cluster **** of game balance. If not then I will see about some other game. Warzones are populated almost exclusively with smashfreaks and maruaders ttk is so low that you mine as well stay in spawn and talk **** to the other team.

Yeah I am in the same boat. I have played this game for far too long waiting constantly for some hope of buff to our class. The best advice I ever got in this game?

REROLL

I will quit any game before rerolling is the only option to being viable

I am giving it until Makeb lands and the 5 extra levels and see if they shock the hell out of me and actually fix this cluster **** of game balance. If not then I will see about some other game. Warzones are populated almost exclusively with smashfreaks and maruaders ttk is so low that you mine as well stay in spawn and talk **** to the other team.

Im not buying this expansion on my 2 accounts (i have 3 50 sorc) if i dont see a real preview of our skills and notice a BIG improvement.

Im not talking about numbers improvements, i want physolofy improvement.

Unfortunately i dont think that will happen but im a try hard, what can i do.