They'd have to add in a spec-able damage increase somewhere in the lightning tree. High enough that a full healer couldn't grab it. We wouldn't want a healer of any spec with an instant 4k+ attack.

 

For reference project on my shadow (with damage increase procs) hits between 4-7k depending on upheaval (double shock). So we wouldn't want to increase that damage at all.

Very true.

Agree. People use relatively the same strategy to avoid both stun bubbles and smash.

 

The sarcastic complaints about "oh yea I'll just avoid attacking people so I stay out of range", sigh. This complaint doesn't hold water and has been used to complain about AOE mezz, force lightning back in the day, AOE knockbacks, DFA back in the day, etc. Of course you can't avoid 100% of smashes (or any AOE), asking for that is asking to dumb down the game even more than it already is. I personally don't have any problems with smash in it's current state (pvping with my jugg/AP PT/Conceal&Heal Oper/Shadow). Rightly or wrongly I see it as a L2P issue. WZs are long enough to figure out who is playing smash, mark the target(s) and drop him every time he is out of spawn.

Ahh, so you're one of the guys who marks smash monkeys instead of healers? More and more in wzs, I've seen people all trying to burn down a smash monkey, only to get smashed in the process, while the healer in the corner keeps topping off the smash monkey.

This definitely makes wzs a lot more frustrating, especially when only me and 1 other guy are trying to take down the healer and everybody else is focussing on dps/tanks or smashers who happen to be in tank stance.

The only complaint people should have is that power stacking exists. Having force/tech bonus damage over 1000 in pvp causes imbalance. I see so many complaints about 4 stacks of shockwave, yada yada, but 4 stacks of shockwave is pretty weak if your force bonus damage is below 800.

The problem is if power as a stat is nerfed, you not only nerf smash monkeys, but every other dps and healer class in the game. A lot easier to just nerf smash monkeys. Some people have pointed out that there are more mara smash monkeys than jugg smash monkeys, so just nerf the mara rage tree and leave the jugg rage tree untouched. That might work, but then the maras would probably just roll juggs and lolsmash that way.

Ahh, so you're one of the guys who marks smash monkeys instead of healers? More and more in wzs, I've seen people all trying to burn down a smash monkey, only to get smashed in the process, while the healer in the corner keeps topping off the smash monkey.

 

This definitely makes wzs a lot more frustrating, especially when only me and 1 other guy are trying to take down the healer and everybody else is focussing on dps/tanks or smashers who happen to be in tank stance.

Yes... we get it.... you're bitter and don't do very well in this game.

The name is fitting.

Yes... we get it.... you're bitter and don't do very well in this game.

 

The name is fitting.

Yes, we get it, your only toon is a smash monkey and you're afraid that bioware is going to take away your win button.

Your name is also fitting, especially with that avatar.

Yes, we get it, your only toon is a smash monkey and you're afraid that bioware is going to take away your win button.

 

Your name is also fitting, especially with that avatar.

Smash doesn't bother me on any of my 50's...

I like it but I always lean on the simple fix in order to not over do it. I like the idea of buffing shock since it's an instant ability that can quickly be thrown into a rotation and has a fairly low CD.

You are a reasonable poster, so I could see why you would think that way. I just think class balance as a whole is not in great place. Sages have to spec hybrid to be viable, this shouldn't be happening really.

Smash doesn't bother me on any of my 50's...

 

 

I'm the designated carnage marauder on our rated team because smash is boring and I avoid playing it when possible.

On its own it doesn't bother me, but when they are stacked it quickly becomes a problem IMO. Not sure how you go about balancing that either.

Bitter much?

 

And you're incorrect... they have made several statements regarding rage/focus spec, monitoring it and coming up with ways to possibly balance it.

 

I sense a recruit geared sorc that hates the world right now...

lmao, I promise you, I would never consider playing a sorc in 50 pvp the way it is now, because I hate healing and I think stunbubbles are lame. In addition, I smash top geared sorcs on my server for 6700 smashes, so why would I subject myself to that? I've pretty much stopped playing tank on my jugg because the 5.5k smashes and 0 damage output was a joke, so I min-maxed my jugg and now I smash other smashmonkeys for 5-7k and basically make their pvp experience less enjoyable. If bioware ever nerfs smash, I'll go back to playing tank, since it was fun getting 200k protection per match.

Lastly, link that Bioware said they were going to balance smash or it never happened.

You are a reasonable poster, so I could see why you would think that way. I just think class balance as a whole is not in great place. Sages have to spec hybrid to be viable, this shouldn't be happening really.

I completely agree there... top tier sorc DPS talents are trash in comparison to many other DPS classes.

Giving sages more burst is tricky without making them OP. I dont care what they do, but smash and bubble stunning has made pvp very very boring.

Adjust PoM/Wra to Buff FiB/DF by 30%.

6K crits, and even more simplified than Rage spec (as it should be since the lack of a real DFCD gives Sages very little room for error).

oh and turn bubble back to a mezz...

Ahh, so you're one of the guys who marks smash monkeys instead of healers? More and more in wzs, I've seen people all trying to burn down a smash monkey, only to get smashed in the process, while the healer in the corner keeps topping off the smash monkey.

 

This definitely makes wzs a lot more frustrating, especially when only me and 1 other guy are trying to take down the healer and everybody else is focussing on dps/tanks or smashers who happen to be in tank stance.

 

 

 

 

The problem is if power as a stat is nerfed, you not only nerf smash monkeys, but every other dps and healer class in the game. A lot easier to just nerf smash monkeys. Some people have pointed out that there are more mara smash monkeys than jugg smash monkeys, so just nerf the mara rage tree and leave the jugg rage tree untouched. That might work, but then the maras would probably just roll juggs and lolsmash that way.

It would be difficult to respond to what you have said above but I'll take a stab at it.

Focus fire is one of the best ways (aside from CC chaining) to remove smash (or any high burst dps) from the fight. You seem to be under the impression that all dps should be on the healer. This is a problem and a poor strategy in any organized WZ. That may work if you have 2 or 3 DPS CC'ing the other DPS in the WZ, but that can be difficult since they can also stall you. Usually FF is the way to go. Pressure the healer without over committing, kill him if he messes up, but keeping him healing himself is enough to take him out of the fight. Killing DPS is typically the way to go. A dead healer will be back in the WZ quickly, back to healing and likely with his defensive cooldowns back. You get more relief by taking out a burst dps target.

Your understanding of power stacking kind of makes sense. But. Both my PT and Shadow are power stacked. My PT puts our more damage than my power stacked rage jugg.

Lastly I agree with the mara comment. Most of the complaints about Rage is from the mara/sent side of things. They can be incredibly difficult to kill if one is skilled. Having among the best defensive abilities in game, paired with one of the top burst specs. It's a bad combination. No one was really complaining much about us rage juggs when maras were playing their other trees. Juggs are in a fine spot.

Adjust PoM/Wra to Buff FiB/DF by 30%.

 

6K crits, and even more simplified than Rage spec (as it should be since the lack of a real DFCD gives Sages very little room for error).

 

 

oh and turn bubble back to a mezz...

That would be a fair trade off, make the bubble mezz self cast only, and baseline for all trees and is be happy.

Smash doesn't bother me on any of my 50's...

 

I'm the designated carnage marauder on our rated team because smash is boring and I avoid playing it when possible.

ah, carnage mara, with your nice aoe damage reduction. I can see why other smash monkeys wouldn't bother you, even when you're spec'd as a smash monkey yourself. lol, I'm sure you avoid that spec as much as possible. But yeah, if bioware takes away your win button, sucks for you.

lmao, I promise you, I would never consider playing a sorc in 50 pvp the way it is now, because I hate healing and I think stunbubbles are lame. In addition, I smash top geared sorcs on my server for 6700 smashes, so why would I subject myself to that? I've pretty much stopped playing tank on my jugg because the 5.5k smashes and 0 damage output was a joke, so I min-maxed my jugg and now I smash other smashmonkeys for 5-7k and basically make their pvp experience less enjoyable. If bioware ever nerfs smash, I'll go back to playing tank, since it was fun getting 200k protection per match.

 

Lastly, link that Bioware said they were going to balance smash or it never happened.

I have a marauder, PT and a sorc. In regs my sorc is by far the most fun to play even with the smash epidemic. I also don't heal nor do I spec into bubbles. I run a 0/13/28 and I do quite well and if not doing top DPS, I'm damn close to it.

Now don't get me wrong... I would never bring the sorc into rated but that's clearly not what we're talking about here. I do think DPS sorcs could use some love. Like Plo said, a DPS sorc is only viabe for it's heals and/or bubbles and even then I would rather have a healing hybrid with bubbles vs a DPS hybrid with bubbles. Sorcs definitely need some love... but back to the topic at hand...

Smash... doesn't bother me a bit. I stay away from large groups which become smash magnets and a solo jugg will normally get maybe a smash or two on me in a solo fight before I burn them down. My bubble will eat most of the first smash and in a 1v1 fight sorcs have plenty of tools to survive. They should never simply try to out DPS any class.... they have to be annoying... drag it out... heal and kite like crazy. Which is why I enjoy my sorc the most... in comparison to 2 melee class that I spend my time chasing people with.

Anyways, my point... sorcs can be a very fun class to play in 50's. Avoid fighting like a school of fish and smash becomes much less effective. In rated matches smashers are often getting out DPS'd by PT's, because single target burst is what reigns supreme in competitive play. Not always.... but often. Maps like VS are a different story of course. It is NOT the best single target DPS in the game and if the smasher is hitting 3-4 people per smash... those people deserve it.

As far as the link... I never said they announced a fix... I said I read somewhere that they were monitoring its performance. I'm also not going to take the time to find the link... I have no clue where I read it... I just know I read it. I read far too many interviews and articles to even try to remember where I saw it.

I have a marauder, PT and a sorc. In regs my sorc is by far the most fun to play even with the smash epidemic. I also don't heal nor do I spec into bubbles. I run a 0/13/28 and I do quite well and if not doing top DPS, I'm damn close to it.

 

Now don't get me wrong... I would never bring the sorc into rated but that's clearly not what we're talking about here. I do think DPS sorcs could use some love. Like Plo said, a DPS sorc is only viabe for it's bubbles and even then I would rather have a healing hybrid with bubbles vs a DPS hybrid with bubbles. Sorcs definitely need some love... but back to the topic at hand...

 

Smash... doesn't bother me a bit. I stay away from large groups which become smash magnets and a solo jugg will normally get maybe a smash or two on me in a solo fight before I burn them down. My bubble will eat most of the firs smash and in a 1v1 fight sorcs have plenty of tools to survive. They should never simply try to out DPS any class.... they have to be annoying... drag it out... heal and kite like crazy.

 

Anyways, my point... sorcs can be a very fun class to play in 50's. Avoid fighting like a school of fish and smash becomes much less effective. It is NOT the best single target DPS in the game and if the smasher is hitting 3-4 people per smash... those people deserve it.

 

As far as the link... I never said they announced a fix... I said I read somewhere that they were monitoring its performance. I'm also not going to take the time to find the link... I have no clue where I read it... I just know I read it. I read far too many interviews and articles to even try to remember where I saw it.

BW was "monitoring it". It was a Mods response after the initial shock of 1.4...

BW was "monitoring it". It was a Mods response after the initial shock of 1.4...

Thank you... I knew I wasn't the only one that read that.

It would be difficult to respond to what you have said above but I'll take a stab at it.

 

Focus fire is one of the best ways (aside from CC chaining) to remove smash (or any high burst dps) from the fight. You seem to be under the impression that all dps should be on the healer. This is a problem and a poor strategy in any organized WZ. That may work if you have 2 or 3 DPS CC'ing the other DPS in the WZ, but that can be difficult since they can also stall you. Usually FF is the way to go. Pressure the healer without over committing, kill him if he messes up, but keeping him healing himself is enough to take him out of the fight. Killing DPS is typically the way to go. A dead healer will be back in the WZ quickly, back to healing and likely with his defensive cooldowns back. You get more relief by taking out a burst dps target.

 

Your understanding of power stacking kind of makes sense. But. Both my PT and Shadow are power stacked. My PT puts our more damage than my power stacked rage jugg.

 

Lastly I agree with the mara comment. Most of the complaints about Rage is from the mara/sent side of things. They can be incredibly difficult to kill if one is skilled. Having among the best defensive abilities in game, paired with one of the top burst specs. It's a bad combination. No one was really complaining much about us rage juggs when maras were playing their other trees. Juggs are in a fine spot.

no, I totally get what you mean by taking out dps, but I gather you're either referring to ranked or premades with buddies in normal wzs. In those cases, yeah, you know the capabilities of your teammates and can easily burn down smash monkeys quickly, then healers, etc.

But if you're in a full pug with only 1 or 2 other geared/competent players, marking DPS isn't a good idea, because what inevitably ends up happening is a bunch of mediocre dps output guys focussing a smash monkey that's being topped off constantly by his healer, so you and maybe if you're lucky 1 other guy focus the healer, who then gets healed by another healer. So then you basically have 4 people trying to burn down a smash monkey (and failing), 1 guy trying to burn down a healer, then another guy trying to burn down another healer.

This is usually what leads to pugs failing against premades (and even rare full pug v full pug), because the guys will try to burn down dps, ignore the 2-3 healers, and nothing ends up getting done, they all die, node is capped, never recapped, gg. As a rule of thumb, I always mark the highest output healers immediately, then type in chat for people to focus them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Other times I see people marking dps and I ask why and either get no response or somebody says they're high dps. The problem with that is if you're in a match against 6 geared smash monkeys and 2 healers (well, it's probably an automatic loss at that point, at least in my experience), you can't really effectively mark and focus fire 6 different smashers exclusively whily ignoring the healers.

As for power stacking, yeah, it's more or less like mainstat, so if suddenly power gets nerfed and does 75% less damage than mainstat, then pretty much all of the abilities of every class are going to get nerfed. So there's really no point in doing that. Yeah, it would obviously nerf smashes so that they did say 3k damage instead of 8k, but it would basically break pve and pvp.

If you meant power stacking as in the fact that juggs can stack power exclusively while ignoring accuracy/crit since they get a talent for an auto crit of an ability that never misses, then yeah, you could get rid of the auto crit, that would help a bit and be a lot more reasonable than nerfing the power stat as a whole. Though, even without the autocrit, I still smash for 4-5k with 4 stacks of shockwave, and I have 0 crit on my gear. The autocrit and shockwave stacks both need to be nerfed to actually "balance" pvp.

Alternatively, they could just make it single target and remove the autocrit, buff the ravage damage/make it root like the mara carnage talent. Or maybe if one of the new abilities in the expansion is decent, redesign the rage tree completely for juggs.

And yeah, the mara rage tree itself should be nerfed, since the other 2 are still perfectly viable.

I wish my cover pulse also knocked back my team mates as well. Too often some sorc acts as jumping beacon for jedis

Ha ha ha, that is my favorite trick. Thank you pugs!

I have a marauder, PT and a sorc. In regs my sorc is by far the most fun to play even with the smash epidemic. I also don't heal nor do I spec into bubbles. I run a 0/13/28 and I do quite well and if not doing top DPS, I'm damn close to it.

 

Now don't get me wrong... I would never bring the sorc into rated but that's clearly not what we're talking about here. I do think DPS sorcs could use some love. Like Plo said, a DPS sorc is only viabe for it's heals and/or bubbles and even then I would rather have a healing hybrid with bubbles vs a DPS hybrid with bubbles. Sorcs definitely need some love... but back to the topic at hand...

 

Smash... doesn't bother me a bit. I stay away from large groups which become smash magnets and a solo jugg will normally get maybe a smash or two on me in a solo fight before I burn them down. My bubble will eat most of the first smash and in a 1v1 fight sorcs have plenty of tools to survive. They should never simply try to out DPS any class.... they have to be annoying... drag it out... heal and kite like crazy. Which is why I enjoy my sorc the most... in comparison to 2 melee class that I spend my time chasing people with.

 

Anyways, my point... sorcs can be a very fun class to play in 50's. Avoid fighting like a school of fish and smash becomes much less effective. In rated matches smashers are often getting out DPS'd by PT's, because single target burst is what reigns supreme in competitive play. Not always.... but often. Maps like VS are a different story of course. It is NOT the best single target DPS in the game and if the smasher is hitting 3-4 people per smash... those people deserve it.

 

As far as the link... I never said they announced a fix... I said I read somewhere that they were monitoring its performance. I'm also not going to take the time to find the link... I have no clue where I read it... I just know I read it. I read far too many interviews and articles to even try to remember where I saw it.

I have a lowbie sorc running a similar spec as you, mostly just madness due to limited tree abilities (don't play it that often, still low level, use it for crafting mainly) and I have pvped on it and had fun, even managed to solo every class at least once. Though, that doesn't mean that I can solo every class, that simply means that I happened to solo bad players of every class at least once. I don't like running away to heal myself, don't like getting focussed for just being a sorc, even if I'm dps spec'd, so I don't often pvp on my sorc, but with things as they are now, I would never bother pvping on that toon in 50 pvp.

And yeah, I agree, sorcs could use some buffs, give them a "force armor" buff to increase their armor rating similar to the deception armor buff for sins, that alone would increase the survivability quite a bit. Damage seems fine, at least based on my lowbie pvp experiences. I'd prefer buffs to survivability than buffs to damage, that alone would make the class a lot stronger.

As for the monitoring announcement.......okay, so a moderator posted months ago that smash was going to be monitored? And now 4 months later and countless threads about it being OP later it's still being only "monitored" (assuming they've even been monitoring it for the past 4 months) without a word of input from any of the devs about a nerf? Again, I'm going to take that as "working as intended" with no intention of a nerf/redesign/balance/etc.

People complained about stunbubbles a lot less and that almost immediately got a response from the devs. It seems as though if anything is related to a jugg/mara, the devs will only give buffs and ignore ALL qqing on the forums, but if it's ANY other class, nerf away! mercs/sorcs/sins/operatives/etc.

If you meant power stacking as in the fact that juggs can stack power exclusively while ignoring accuracy/crit since they get a talent for an auto crit of an ability that never misses, then yeah, you could get rid of the auto crit, that would help a bit and be a lot more reasonable than nerfing the power stat as a whole. Though, even without the autocrit, I still smash for 4-5k with 4 stacks of shockwave, and I have 0 crit on my gear. The autocrit and shockwave stacks both need to be nerfed to actually "balance" pvp. .

I don't know of any DPS class that should not be stacking power. If you are not, you are doing it wrong. Most specs have built in secondary stat allocation or skills to increase crit ratings. I carry 0 Crit on my DPS Sage. Why? Spec/FP

You can equate Smash Autocrit to Force Potency(albeit FP requires NO setup, and 1 additional autocrit). That is 100% balanced.

Sing/Shoc- Sure, I'll conceed no other spec can generate 100% bonus on an attack, but that is the "real" problem... Fix other Specs

Unless you want boring, no-objective achieving, warzones...

Sages have to spec hybrid to be viable...

Tangent: for each class/roll, how many viable PvP specs are there? I guess you could refine (complicate) the question further by discussing viable specs for each {class, role, warzone} combination.

I know that for healers, a bubblestun hybrid is considered far superior to a 31pt healer. How about DPS?

... this shouldn't be happening really

Why not? the set of viable PvP specs is going to be smaller than the set of possible specs. What is the ideal number of viable specs per class/role?

TANGENT: what sage specs do the top rated WZ teams run?

I have a lowbie sorc running a similar spec as you, mostly just madness due to limited tree abilities (don't play it that often, still low level, use it for crafting mainly) and I have pvped on it and had fun, even managed to solo every class at least once. Though, that doesn't mean that I can solo every class, that simply means that I happened to solo bad players of every class at least once. I don't like running away to heal myself, don't like getting focussed for just being a sorc, even if I'm dps spec'd, so I don't often pvp on my sorc, but with things as they are now, I would never bother pvping on that toon in 50 pvp.

 

And yeah, I agree, sorcs could use some buffs, give them a "force armor" buff to increase their armor rating similar to the deception armor buff for sins, that alone would increase the survivability quite a bit. Damage seems fine, at least based on my lowbie pvp experiences. I'd prefer buffs to survivability than buffs to damage, that alone would make the class a lot stronger.

 

 

As for the monitoring announcement.......okay, so a moderator posted months ago that smash was going to be monitored? And now 4 months later and countless threads about it being OP later it's still being only "monitored" (assuming they've even been monitoring it for the past 4 months) without a word of input from any of the devs about a nerf? Again, I'm going to take that as "working as intended" with no intention of a nerf/redesign/balance/etc.

 

People complained about stunbubbles a lot less and that almost immediately got a response from the devs. It seems as though if anything is related to a jugg/mara, the devs will only give buffs and ignore ALL qqing on the forums, but if it's ANY other class, nerf away! mercs/sorcs/sins/operatives/etc.

Did this somehow become a civil conversation?

IDK... I find bubbles to be the bigger problem here... no one was ever asking for more CC.

And the smash buff came in on the Dec 5th patch if I'm not mistaken. Hardly 4 months.

If you think your sorc is getting focused a lot now... wait until 50. Which is why I run that spec... need all the defense you can get at 50 and with that spec you can still put up some nice DPS.

Giving sages more burst is tricky without making them OP. I dont care what they do, but smash and bubble stunning has made pvp very very boring.

Not if you buff project/shock. Shock's got a 9(?) second cooldown and costs a $*%^ ton of force, so it's unlikely that it would be used indiscriminately as soon as it comes off cooldown and mess up sustained damage. Sorc would run out of force (at least, madness and madness heavy hybrids would, who are the ones who both need burst the most and have the best talents for shock). Only thing I use shock for now is for mobile damage while kiting and sometimes as an execute. If shock got a 50% damage increase...I'm not so certain that would change what I use shock for. Would certainly make duels go quicker though.

That would be a fair trade off, make the bubble mezz self cast only, and baseline for all trees and is be happy.

It also would provide reason to interrupt TKT/FL (adding complexity to the game dynamics). And punish enemies for allowing the class to free cast (Do anyone really care if a DPS Sage is free casting unless they are interfering with taking a node?)

It also would provide reason to interrupt TKT/FL (adding complexity to the game dynamics). And punish enemies for allowing the class to free cast (Do anyone really care if a DPS Sage is free casting unless they are interfering with taking a node?)

I interrupt it all the time... not because it's effective.... but just to be annoying.

*lightning spam... lightning spam.... light... wait... w t f... does it have a cool down?*