From my point of view, 95% of the players I go against are poor players

And therein lies the problem. The majority of players in this game are poor players.

The problem is CC counters every class and Sorcs have every flavor of CC imaginable on excessively short cooldowns. They also have the best escapes in the game and no class has the burst to kill them before they start their ridiculous CC chains. Operatives used to be able to do it pre-nerf. This surge nerf will make this problem even worse. A sorcerer that has time to react and use CCs and escapes to his advantage will always end up either winning a fight or end up keeping people at bay long enough to secure an enormous advantage for his team.

The bubble pop + knockback combo uses two 20s cooldown and chain CCs for 8 seconds. A sorcerer can basically lock people down 40% of the time using just two CCs. By the time the 12 seconds of not being CC'd are up the resolve bar is basically reset and he can do it again. That's not balanced.

The problem is CC counters every class and Sorcs have every flavor of CC imaginable on excessively short cooldowns. They also have the best escapes in the game and no class has the burst to kill them before they start their ridiculous CC chains. Operatives used to be able to do it pre-nerf. This surge nerf will make this problem even worse. A sorcerer that has time to react and use CCs and escapes to his advantage will always end up either winning a fight or end up keeping people at bay long enough to secure an enormous advantage for his team.

 

The bubble pop + knockback combo uses two 20s cooldown and chain CCs for 8 seconds. A sorcerer can basically lock people down 40% of the time using just two CCs. By the time the 12 seconds of not being CC'd are up the resolve bar is basically reset and he can do it again. That's not balanced.

-Damage to backlash breaks CC

-Damage to whirlwind breaks CC

-Damage to stunned overloard reduces CC to 2 seconds but is only immobility

Only thing you have to complain about is electrocute.

And therein lies the problem. The majority of players in this game are poor players.

I think this is also true.

Unfortunately, the lack of a combat log is not really helping anyone to learn what abilities are killing them, and how to counter them.

The learning curve for pvp is unintuitive at best, w/out having any idea what just happened to you.

The problem is CC counters every class and Sorcs have every flavor of CC imaginable on excessively short cooldowns. They also have the best escapes in the game and no class has the burst to kill them before they start their ridiculous CC chains.

Only two CC's have short CD's, and one of them severely gimps your dps if you take it. The other two are on much longer CD's.

I'd also say vanish is a much better escape.

Are you really saying MARAUDERS are OP? Not sorcs? Do you want to see where the last thread claiming marauders are OP? It consisted of 3 pages of people laughing at the guy for claiming the absolute worst PvP class needed a nerf.

 

My guildies can do the same thing I do when they queue. A bounty hunter guildie of mine regularly dominates the every warzone with minimal effort.

Saying that Marauders/Sentinels are the "absolutely worst pvp class" just proves you are a troll and the rest of your post, regardless of validity is going to be cast in that light.

Anyone who bothers to take the time to learn Marauder/Sentinel is a powerhouse.

You ruined any credibility you might have had duder.

No, definitely not.

This, exactly.

You'd be a free kill for at least half the classes in this game, and that's what I'm getting from this thread.

That's what they want you to be.

Why is there no LoS in your equation? Every single environment provides ample LoS which is a direct counter to ranged classes.

 

Huttball? LoS and run up to him.

 

Voidstar? LoS around a pillar and run around the ranged line to him.

 

Alderaan? Go around the fray and get him from the side.

 

I run up to them all the time; I don't have Jet Charge or a leap ability, and my 1 gap closer is my Grapple, which I save for Force Charge. It's a kamikaze tactic, since I am also usually running past the melee fray AND the ranged line who might all turn and target me. That's fine; taking out an enemy sage/sorc is generally a win for a straight dps.

 

It's like taking out a queen w/ a pawn.

 

I know exactly what it feels like to wade through the pebble/lightning storm at times, and if I'm caught at range w/out LoS, I know that I'm at a disadvantage. I still don't feel this makes them OP, because if I catch them in melee range, they are the ones at a disadvantage.

 

The wonderful bubble takes all of 2 hits to get through from even my mediocre dps, and they are not doing any damage to me while I break it.

 

I could see a case for a Sorc on the bridges for Huttball, as the knockback is very tough to deal w/ for a lot of melee classes, but even this can be countered with good positional awareness most of the time.

 

I don't mean to make it sound like a fight w/ a Sorc is absolutely trivial; it's not. A good Sorc will be LoS'ing you w/ Affliction up and trying to gain distance to get at least a tick or 2 of Force Lightning off for the Wrath proc. If they proc it, they WILL drop Crushing Darkness on you to continue doing damage on the move. If you let them get even more range, they will steadily eat your health bar.

 

What I am saying is that most classes have the tools to deal w/ this methodology, and it feels like most people have simply altogether given up on even trying to figure out how to beat their opponent, and instead come here to whine for nerfs instead.

 

If I felt they were OP, I'd prolly bandwagon w/ the rest of you.

 

But I don't.

Telling a Melee to "LoS and run up to them" is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Do you think that I could hide behind something and simultaneously close the gap? Do you think going out of line of sight lets us do damage?

LoS nullifies damage from both players. LoS also gives the Sorcerer the advantage since hiding lets a Sorc free cast dark infusion since he's basically not even in combat at that point. LoS is not something melee can do without gimping themselves.

----

Sorcerers wouldn't be a free kill without backlash/electric bindings. Those are just things that push them way over the top. CC as powerful as an immobilize shouldn't be on a 20 second cooldown. AoE CC nonetheless. Backlash is overpowered because it's basically a passive immunity to being bursted down as long as you bother to maintain a Static Barrier, which is stupidly simple and easy. The immobilize on knockback makes even the least skillful Sorcerers able to get extremely good milage out of the shortest CD AoE knockback in the game.

If you absolutely NEED these two talents to survive then you're not good.

Telling a Melee to "LoS and run up to them" is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Do you think that I could hide behind something and simultaneously close the gap? Do you think going out of line of sight lets us do damage?

 

LoS nullifies damage from both players. LoS also gives the Sorcerer the advantage since hiding lets a Sorc free cast dark infusion since he's basically not even in combat at that point. LoS is not something melee can do without gimping themselves.

man this thread is still going?

sorry for picking on you but ij jumped to the last post to avoid pages upon pages of misinformed qq from bad players

but, AHEM

you're a marauder..

spec annihilation and if u still cant 1v1 ANY CLASS in this game then maybe pvp isnt for you

that is all

man this thread is still going?

 

sorry for picking on you but ij jumped to the last post to avoid pages upon pages of misinformed qq from bad players

 

 

but, AHEM

 

you're a marauder..

 

spec annihilation and if u still cant 1v1 ANY CLASS in this game then maybe pvp isnt for you

 

 

that is all

Seems like you haven't only skipped a few pages but the entire thread including the original post. Nowhere has the OP complained about not being able to handle a Sorc 1v1.

The OP is even playing a Sorc himself and just had a few suggestions about how to rebalance the skilltree.

but, AHEM

I just have to read your sig to see your motive...

 

Sorcerers wouldn't be a free kill without backlash/electric bindings. Those are just things that push them way over the top. CC as powerful as an immobilize shouldn't be on a 20 second cooldown. AoE CC nonetheless. Backlash is overpowered because it's basically a passive immunity to being bursted down as long as you bother to maintain a Static Barrier, which is stupidly simple and easy. The immobilize on knockback makes even the least skillful Sorcerers able to get extremely good milage out of the shortest CD AoE knockback in the game.

So you want them to nerf the hybrid root. But what about the root on Creeping Terror/Sever Force? That's also a 2 second root, and its CD is 9 seconds...

Seems like you haven't only skipped a few pages but the entire thread including the original post. Nowhere has the OP complained about not being able to handle a Sorc 1v1.

The OP is even playing a Sorc himself and just had a few suggestions about how to rebalance the skilltree.

 

but, AHEM

 

I just have to read your sig to see your motive...

the person i quoted. his sig says marauder.. so u can ****

the person i quoted. his sig says marauder.. so u can ****

As I told you, read his entire post and not just the thread title and his sig to draw your conclusions

Telling a Melee to "LoS and run up to them" is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Do you think that I could hide behind something and simultaneously close the gap? Do you think going out of line of sight lets us do damage?

 

LoS nullifies damage from both players. LoS also gives the Sorcerer the advantage since hiding lets a Sorc free cast dark infusion since he's basically not even in combat at that point. LoS is not something melee can do without gimping themselves.

 

----

 

Sorcerers wouldn't be a free kill without backlash/electric bindings. Those are just things that push them way over the top. CC as powerful as an immobilize shouldn't be on a 20 second cooldown. AoE CC nonetheless. Backlash is overpowered because it's basically a passive immunity to being bursted down as long as you bother to maintain a Static Barrier, which is stupidly simple and easy. The immobilize on knockback makes even the least skillful Sorcerers able to get extremely good milage out of the shortest CD AoE knockback in the game.

 

If you absolutely NEED these two talents to survive then you're not good.

You were talking about the initial approach, in which case, how much damage you've done to eachother is completely moot.

In approaching them, yes, staying out of LoS and ambushing them w/ a surprise attack is a perfectly viable method to start the fight. No, this isn't always possible, but since Sorcs are usually focused on the "big picture" of a battlefield, or busy dealing w/ another opponent at range, this can be done more often than not.

Once you're on him, all the other stuff you mentioned becomes moot, because you're no longer trying to LoS him. You should have more than enough tools to stick to him at that point and send him into survival mode.

Why does starting a fight in any manner other than running directly at your opponent in the most blatantly obvious fashion seem so absurd to you? <.<

Plus you've shown screenshot after screenshot of you beating them in single target damage while they are doing AE damage. It is easy to get big AE damage numbers in warzones when people are grouped up and players use AE.

Warzone screenshots are always worthless to go off of anyways, why not find those stud sorcs that you are comparing yourself to and duel them to see how you do 1v1.

Keep in mind you have one of the best burst DPS classes in the game and can easily use the vanish/shockfrozen water bug which means you should never lose to a sorc/sage 1v1.

Look if it was as simple as you say to counter sorcerers post like these would barely exist. People do complain a lot, but there is an OVERWHELMING outcry about this issue. Also there would be a lot less of them in the game dominating the pvp boards. And matches would not come down to who brought the most sorcs/sages = win.

Your advice of telling melee forgo the initial closer and to just hide behind something...atrocious. That does nothing but render said melee useless (something which the OP already explained to you). And telling us we all just need to get the jump on them is just as lame.

BTW that bubble that goes down so easily? Yah it can withstand the full brunt of an operative's opener and you take very little to no dmg. Then he his out of dps for a lil while. In the meantime you are free to go to town on him.

Here is a newsflash for you Var and everyone with your mindset, most of the players on SWTOR are not "bad". This is a video game designed for ease of use and enjoyment so it's pretty hard to be bad at it. They simply play classes that appeal to them while you stick to classes that have obvious advantages, exploit them to their fullest abilities, and claim everything is hunky dory because everyone else just sucks.

Look i don't expect to change your mind, because obviously your skill is so legendary that you can somehow change developer built in game mechanics with it. But stop belitting the thousands of players out there by insisting they all suck and acting like their concerns are because of it. That's called emotional manipulation. It's the same thing men do to women when she says something feels wrong and he constantly dismisses her and says that no such problem exists.

Great post Tumri and keep up the good fight. Don't let guys like these get to you. You have brought up a very valid game play issue that needs addressing. I hope your request does not go unanswered.

IF even one of the PT's spec as a tank their damage output would be terribly low that they cant even take out a bubble with 3 hits. now assuming the fight would be 2 hybrids vs 1 pt tank and 1 pyro dps they can just CC the pyro dps since it has no protection whatsoever from CC and just proceed to kill the tank PT in which they can just slow him down then dps him while the other PT is mercilessly CCed before he can do anything, now you would say that he can just trinket it up but that way he would be vulnerable to another CC which would **** him up now after all those CC the tank PT would be almost dead and before he can join the fight the tank PT would have died already.

Now instead of just assuming sorc first hit, you're assuming they can tell at a glance which spec the PTs are. Regardless, you're still assuming the tank is going to be blown up in 8 seconds even though he has a bubble of his own, a heal, and Jet Charge to stop one of them from casting their bread and butter. Why do the sorcs have to play at the top of their game and the PTs have to be ones that have never PVP'd before? You take the 8 seconds of WW and break the next CC, if you break the first you stand a good chance of getting another 8 seconds.

I'm still not seeing how 2v2 changes the outcome as opposed to 1v1. Now granted, I am taking whoever's(don't remember the initial poster of this) word for it that a 1v1 would go to the PT all other things equal. I don't know enough about the class, I do know that when a melee is coming after me I'm either doing little damage or they're gaining a lot of ground. I know Guard doesn't synergize at all, but that's the extent of my knowledge of PTs. I know my bubble doesn't synergize, and dual WW only works if nobody hits the target (damage to the target on the first one results in that 2 second stun and a full resolve bar) and his CC breaker is on cooldown.

end hybrid and i might as well play wow!

this is getting old that casters need to be a bag you can hit and always kill

that is what you want

take my cc and Outs

make all my spells have a 4 sec cast time

30% buff on dmg taken

30% Debuff on Dmg given

other classes do **** load of dmg and has cc and outs stop this whine Crap

its getting so old it hurts

ps Melee can stick like a damn Clam on you if they time there moves right so Shhhhh

It SHOULD count towards healing. I don't have a problem with that. But they can also get medals for "preventing damage to allies", which should be something only tanks with guard and taunts can do.

It doesn't count towards protection. You sure you're not getting sorc confused with assassins on the scoreboard because they have the same icon? I've never gotten any protection points and I use my bubble as much as possible.

2 seconds stuck in place is eternity for a melee class. It can be the difference between getting a kill or not, or stopping that heal from going off. It's OP.

Which melee class exactly? Marauders and Juggernauts that have two leaps? Pyrotechs that have a leap and a pull? Assassins that have a pull, a sprint, and a vanish? Or an Operatives that have a vanish and a cleanse? It's far from OP, but by all means keep complaining about that one though. If I get nerfed to lose that it won't bother me in the slightest. =P

The actual Sorcerer talents do not need to be nerfed at all. The only thing Bioware needs to do is rearrange the talent trees to disallow overpowered hybrid specs from making the class far more powerful than the devs intended. Lightning/Madness hybrids cause far too much imbalance.

 

The main problem is Sorcs have hybrid specs that are far too effective and they get far too many perks from all trees.

 

"Lightning Barrier" - Gives 20% increased absorption to Static Barrier. Tier 2 talent. Lightning Sorcs need this talent because of their need to stand still and leave themselves more vulnerable to damage. Healers use this talent for survival and PvE purposes.

This talent, however, is pretty useful for healers, and taking it away from them would surely cause much QQ. Also, it's not really that much of a difference. It's honestly a filler talent in most hybrid builds. We're talking about the difference between a 2K shield and a 2.4k shield. At high gear levels, *maybe* 3-3.6k tops. A shield will eat one good hit, and that's about it. BFD.

"Electric Bindings" - Adds a 5 second immobilize to their 20 second knockback "Overload". Tier 3 talent. Again this talent is needed for a 31 point Lightning PvP build to be effective but for all other specs it's just a ridiculous amount of utility that they don't need. This needs to be moved up the tree.

No hybrid should ever spec this unless they are a dedicated CC person in a premade. It's a dps loss over other talents. That said, it's pretty decent in Huttball, and not really that big of a deal, considering other clasess (Vanguard? Sentinel?) have similar mechanics.

"Wrath" - Force Lightning damage has a 30% chance to make your next cast instant and do +20% damage. This is the talent that allows hybrid Sorcerers to surpass the 31-point specs. This makes it insanely effective to build hybrid and use the proc for instant cast "Chain Lightning".

This talent is a staple of any Balance Sage build. The only difference you would see between a hybrid/31 build is that a 31 build would use this on Mind Crush (I dunno the sith version) for similar damage, albeit on a single target.

"Lightning Barrage" - Affliction critical hits have a 100% chance to cause your next "Force Lightning" to channel and tick twice as fast(10s CD). This talent gives further incentive to the hybrid Lightning/Madness build. In PvP it causes Sorcerers to have a surprising amount of burst. While this talent isn't a problem on it's own it does further the gap between hybrid specs and proper 31-point specs. It's nonsense to have this talent in the Lightning Tree when you consider that "Force Lightning" is Madness's main filler. Lightning spec is supposed to use Lightning Strike.

This is the one talent I could perhaps see being moved up the tree. It's uptime isn't high enough that I think it's terribly OP, but it essentially amounts to a way to reproc Presence of Mind ASAP. It isn't OP in one sense - it doesn't change the damage per force cost of the ability,

"Backlash" - Causes "Static Barrier" to apply a 3 second CC to surrounding targets upon breaking. Shouldn't be in the hands of hybrids. Period. This is only balanced in the hands of an incredibly immobile caster.

Again, no dps sage should ever spec this. It's entirely useless in pvp unless you are a dedicated cc'er and know EXACTLY what you are doing. The only thing this accomplishes is to let you live a bit longer by needlessly filling resolve bars of everyone around you.

"Lightning Storm" - 30% chance on "Lightning Strike" to reset the CD of Chain Lightning and cause it to be instant-cast the next time you use it(10s CD). Essentially a second Wrath. Combine the two and you have a spec that can use instant-cast Chain Lightning with disgusting frequency.

I think this is the equivalent of Disturbance... Forgetting for the moment that the 13/28 spec can't take this talent, it's usefulness only comes by sacrificing the next-to-last talent in the Balance tree.

Furthermore, Disturbance is a 1.5 sec cast time, meaning that at best, in the same amount of time it would take to cast Telekinetic Wave, you have a 60% chance of proccing one that would do 20% less damage than if you just used presence of mind on it in the first place. Long story short, this is a useless talent for hybrid builds UNLESS you are one of those people that likes to play with the Concentration skill.

--------------------------------------

 

Here is an example of a hybrid spec.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZfcMMdRbZcrcRsMk.1

 

The obvious issue here is the fact that a Sorcerer using a spec such as this gets all the utility of both Lightning and Madness without sacrificing much.

 

A Madness Sorcerer is supposed to have some CC and a lot of Mobility due to a reliance on instant casts and DoT effects.

 

A Lightning Sorcer is supposed to have a lot of defensive CC and very limited Mobility due to reliance on hard casts.

 

The problem is that the hybrid spec has both the Mobility of Madness and the defensive CC of Lightning at the same time while also having greater damage than either spec.

This is incorrect. The "without sacrificing much" is "only" a 30% crit boost to your main nuke and all of your dots. Also, the additional talents picked up in the do nothing to increase your dps (in fact, they gimp it by taking Exsanguinate over Force Horrors).

Sorcerers in hybrid CC heavy specs have the following CCs and defensive abilities...

 

1. 4 second 30yrd range stun with a 60s CD.

 

2. Force Slow.

 

3. A slow build into their main filler attack(Force Lightning).

 

5. Force Sprint, a 20(30 untalented) second cooldown 150% speed boost that is the best of it's kind.

 

6. A 20 second CD(shortest in the game) knockback.

 

7. A 5 second root attached to the above knockback.

 

8. A bubble that provides between 3.5-6.5k absorption. Since average health pools are on average about 16k this can be looked at as an instant 20% health gain on a 20 second cooldown. They have light armor but this skill makes them far tankier than most DPS specced players in any situation where the players aren't receiving external heals.

 

9. The above bubble has a 3 second AoE immobilize attached to it. This can be Pre-Cast and kept up 100% of the time as a preventive CC that activates when you need it(when your bubble breaks). This can also be pre-cast and Static Barrier can be clicked off manually for a 3 second on-demand AoE immobilize and then the Sorcerer may immediately recast it if timed well.

 

10. A 60s CD single target immobilize(whirlwind/force lift).

 

11. A 2s duration stun if the above immobilize is broken by damage.

Many of these are in fact talents that should never be taken, or at least not until there are 8-man premades. That aside, there's a pretty good argument to be made that many of these are talents that are needed to keep melee off of sorc/sage. Knockbacks, roots, and slows don't "apply" to ranged classes because they don't need to get into the range of the knockback or move to target the enemy. Melee classes (especially mara/sent it seems) just destroy a sage when they get into range.

The long and short of it is that yes, they have lots of cc capability. The more they take, the less dps they do. And much of it is legitimately needed to keep melee at bay. Sorc/Sage is (one of, if not the most )the squishiest class in the game. And if there's nothing they can get done offensively if there is a good marauder on them (curse you, zoid!).

Burst:

 

There is also the constant whining that "Sorcerers have no Burst".

Yes, this amazes me - anyone who says Sage/Sorc has no burst has clearly not played one, or is doing something VERY, VERY wrong.

A Wrath Proc Chain Lightning can do up to 5k damage with just a relic popped. This can be followed up by Death Field and Shock for almost 10k damage in 3 GCDs. This is more burst damage(not to mention it's AoE) than most non-gimmick specced classes can output.

 

What I'm trying to emphasize is how stupidly well the bottom halves of the two trees synergize. It's obviously not intended and needs to be changed without breaking the full 31 point specs. Bioware needs to move the incredibly good talents further up the tree and move some of the weaker talents down to the lower tiers.

Yes and no... Force in Balance and Telekinetic wave are very much synergistic in terms of damage output, as are TK Throw/Presence of Mind and Psychic Suffusion. BUT. Were the class really THAT overpowered, I would expect to see Sage/Sorc doing something like 1.5-2x the damage of other dedicated dps classes. And that's just not the case. Smugglers and Troopers routinely dish out damage on par with Sage/Sorc. In fact, there's a smuggler on our server who, try as I might, I can't out-dps, not even on Voidstar (I think he's DF).

DISCLAIMER:

I don't care if hybrid specs exist.

 

I care when those hybrid specs break the game by making a class disgustingly overpowered.

 

I'm not asking for an end to Sorcerer hybrids.

 

I just want the hybrids to not have access to the utility talents in Lightning so they're not so incredibly powerful compared to the 31-point specs.

 

In their current state they're overpowered in every way.

 

With this change people wouldn't feel stupid for NOT using a hybrid spec because right now anyone using a 31-point build is gimping themselves as Sorcerers.

 

With this change people would still have the option to spec hybrid and do the same damage, they just wouldn't have disgustingly overpowered utility from BOTH trees.

 

It's incredibly stupid for hybrids to be like some ultimate fusion of two specs that's far more overpowered than either 31-point build. This isn't Dragonball Z.

I disagree that a hybrid is "far more overpowered" than a 31 build. I used to run a 31 balance build, and in general, the damage was about the same. It depended a lot on how the warzone went. There's really no way to do good comparisons without a combat log.

That said calculations show the dps difference between 3/7/31 and 0/13/28 to be only about 30 dps give or take under ideal circumstances. A full lightning build falls in the middle - I think it's about 20-25 dps behind hybrid.

Long story short, the hybrid specs are not vastly overpowered as many claim.