Any ETA on when I will be able to play my lightning sorc or telekinetic sage in pvp at a competitive level. Everyone knows the spec is broken and has been broken, and over looked by development for whatever reason. I don't personally care what that reason is just want to hear a official word positive change is coming.

Our role is to justify that smash exists, with our moronic bubble stun. We're not supposed to DPS, to heal or to tank.

Any ETA on when I will be able to play my lightning sorc or telekinetic sage in pvp at a competitive level. Everyone knows the spec is broken and has been broken, and over looked by development for whatever reason. I don't personally care what that reason is just want to hear a official word positive change is coming.

Actually the far right tree of (balance) sage/sorc is FAR from broken. You can crush the dps charts with that build in warzones. Its just.....not bursty. Which is what rated warzones require. But its far from broken. Its just not optimal.

Telekinetics......now that is F#$%&ing broken

Actually the far right tree of (balance) sage/sorc is FAR from broken. You can crush the dps charts with that build in warzones. Its just.....not bursty. Which is what rated warzones require. But its far from broken. Its just not optimal.

 

Telekinetics......now that is F#$%&ing broken

Exactly this. Madness/Balance is pretty good 'out in the field' so to speak.

Okay, I just don't get this... Why is it so important to make lightning/tk viable for pvp? In That Other MMO everyone knows you don't take a Holy priest or Fire mage (*) into PVP and you don't hear complaints about that, if people want to pvp they respec their priests into Discipline and mages into Frost, while keeping Holy and Fire specs for pve... Why can't we just accept that tk spec is for pve, and madness is for pvp?

What I *DO* have an issue with is how much does the PVP DPS (madness or hybrid) spec suck. Yes, I know, there are gurus who can do 500k in a long warzone with tons of luck and a pocket healer, but decent (nonguru but decent) players in average circumstances do 200-300k. Meanwhile a keyboard-turning smashmonkey with 3 keybinds can easily do 500k in good gear, and heavens help you if you ever meet a skilled one.

We were promised to be the "glass cannons". All I can say that Bioware definitely got the "glass" part right (too right!), but the "cannon" part seems to have gone to smashers for some reason.

(*) Okay, I quit WoW quite a while ago, that might not be up-to-date

Any ETA on when I will be able to play my lightning sorc or telekinetic sage in pvp at a competitive level. Everyone knows the spec is broken and has been broken, and over looked by development for whatever reason. I don't personally care what that reason is just want to hear a official word when positive change is coming.

Your god mode won't be back anytime soon, for now you just have to decide tank, healer or DPS, you can't have all.

What I *DO* have an issue with is how much does the PVP DPS (madness or hybrid) spec suck. Yes, I know, there are gurus who can do 500k in a long warzone with tons of luck and a pocket healer, but decent but nonguru players in average circumstances do 200-300k. Meanwhile a keyboard-turning smashmonkey with 3 keybinds can easily do 500k in good gear, and heavens help you if you ever meet a skilled one.

 

We were promised to be the "glass cannons". All I can say that Bioware definitely got the "glass" part right (too right!), but the "cannon" part seems to have gone to smashers for some reason.

There's two issues that you are talking about here. The first is about Smashers being overpowered. That's probably true, but not to the extent that some people think. Just lowering their damage by 25-33% would probably be enough to calm them down, and by every indication, the balance changes in RotHC are going to do that.

Then there is the second issue about Madness Sorcs being underpowered. You claim that the only circumstances under which Madness can put up good numbers are when they have luck and pocket healers. I totally disagree. Madness is really nasty at back line artillery and at overworking healers. They have awesome range, strong DOTs, and good force management. But they really shine in the 1v1, 1v2, or 2v2 where they are the king of kiting.

Some classes just can't beat a Madness sorc in a 1v1. For instance, Madness is probably the only spec that has a consistently awesome matchup against Pyrotech. They also shred Snipers, Mercs/Vans, and Juggs. They have a decent, but not spectacular, matchup against Mars. Sins and Ops are of course terrifying, but everyone needs their weaknesses. Even leaving the pure 1v1 situation, their big-melee WZ abilities are substantial. They are very hard to kill, can cause a lot of damage even while not focusing single targets, are extremely mobile, and can but out major burst if they need to focus a target.

Now, Lightning is another matter; that spec is terrible past 17 points (which get you Electric Bindings and Bubble Stun). But Madness is really just fine.

I use a madness/lightning spe and can pull anything from 300-600k depending on the wz really but yeah theres no burst to it but in truth Ive not done ranked yet with her.

My guildies can steadily put up 400k in a bad warzone to a mil in a solid warzone. Averaging probably 600k on a normal warzone. It has a LOT of dps flashy numbers potential. Its just all DoTs and damage that can be easily healed through in rated warzones. Which is why sage/sorc isn't ideal for rateds.

But open world, or 1v1s, that spec will demolish people.

People who think madness/balance is in a good place belong to one of the following categories:

*People who confuse stat padding with being successful

*People who never are facing good players from other classes or only play in enviroments where the opponents are so stupid that they allow you to kite around one of their team mates for 30 secs.

*People who die often enough to never realize how piss poor the force management is on madness/balance

Okay, I just don't get this... Why is it so important to make lightning/tk viable for pvp? In That Other MMO everyone knows you don't take a Holy priest or Fire mage (*) into PVP and you don't hear complaints about that, if people want to pvp they respec their priests into Discipline and mages into Frost, while keeping Holy and Fire specs for pve... Why can't we just accept that tk spec is for pve, and madness is for pvp?

 

What I *DO* have an issue with is how much does the PVP DPS (madness or hybrid) spec suck. Yes, I know, there are gurus who can do 500k in a long warzone with tons of luck and a pocket healer, but decent (nonguru but decent) players in average circumstances do 200-300k. Meanwhile a keyboard-turning smashmonkey with 3 keybinds can easily do 500k in good gear, and heavens help you if you ever meet a skilled one.

 

We were promised to be the "glass cannons". All I can say that Bioware definitely got the "glass" part right (too right!), but the "cannon" part seems to have gone to smashers for some reason.

 

 

(*) Okay, I quit WoW quite a while ago, that might not be up-to-date

I agree, buff madness for pvp and buff lighting for pve. Atm Madness / hybrid are the best spec for BOTH scenarios.

The same for arsenal merc. Let it be a pve spec, and buff pyro to pvp , it only needs a insta dmg dealer that applies the cylinder effect, a move with 2s cd maybe and a on demand root .

People who think madness/balance is in a good place belong to one of the following categories:

 

*People who confuse stat padding with being successful

You are totally right. We definitely don't just want to look at total damage as a measure of success. By that logic, Lethality would probably be the "best" DPS class in the whole game, and we all know that isn't true by a long shot. In evaluating this spec (or any spec), we are looking purely at WZ impact as a function of winning/defending objectives.

As a DPS spec, Madness can succeed at that role by efficiently killing defenders and attackers, capping objectives on their own, defending objectives, etc.

*People who never are facing good players from other classes or only play in enviroments where the opponents are so stupid that they allow you to kite around one of their team mates for 30 secs.

Whenever determining a class's potential, I always try and assume that both the class in question and any of its opponents are roughly equal in terms of skill and totally equal in terms of gear.

With that in mind, good Madness players will always have an edge over a number of enemy classes, regardless of player skill. This both assumes that all CDs are up for both side and also that there is a CD imbalance on one. Madness should be pretty consistently beating Snipers, Mercs, Vans, and Juggs; the Sorc just has too much mobility and CC (stuns, snares, slows), not to mention self-healing from both DOTs and actual healing abilities, not to mention synergy between that mobility and the DOTs eating away at an enemy. Enemy Madness Sorcs and Mars will be harder, but still winnable. Ops and Sins are bad matchups, especially if they open on you, but every class needs its weaknesses.

Now, the question still remains as to why 1v1s matter in WZs. As we all know, WZs aren't about 1v1 performance. They are abut playing of an objective which can occasionally take the form of a 1v1 but often happens in larger battles (2v2s, 3v3s, and of course, the giant main-objective-melee). So it seems silly to talk about "matchups" in what is very much a team game.

But that's not entirely true. Madness is a spec that is uniquely designed to take advantage of both 1v1s, 1v2s, and 2v2s, but also the larger 5v5 and 6v6 melees you see around main objectives. A lot of players talk about how you need to play with a "hit and run" kiting mentality, but their classes lack the abilities to do so. Not Madness sorcs. Madness sorcs are the kings of kiting. In order to effectively pin down a Madness guy and kill him, you really need 2-3 players on him; if the opponent is willing to commit 3 or even just 2 of their DPS to taking down this one guy, then that is a big advantage for your team. A kiting Madness player can force overextensions, tie down enemy DPS, and solo guard objectives, all the while dealing damage and healing up.

In the vast majority of cases, the resources needed to stop the Madness guy are greater than the impact he is having. If the enemy invests those resources, they come out disadvantaged in the WZ.

This addresses both the issue of kiting and player skill.

*People who die often enough to never realize how piss poor the force management is on madness/balance

As a Balance player with a roommate/friend who has played Madness since release (not to mention my guildmates and all the Madness/Balance opponents encountered in that time), I will say that Madness has good enough energy management for PvP. It isn't as awesome as Warriors, and it isn't as awful as Scrappers, which makes it manageable for WZs.

People who think madness/balance is in a good place belong to one of the following categories:

 

*People who confuse stat padding with being successful

*People who never are facing good players from other classes or only play in enviroments where the opponents are so stupid that they allow you to kite around one of their team mates for 30 secs.

*People who die often enough to never realize how piss poor the force management is on madness/balance

Well I think madness rocks, at least when I play it on my assassin and I know sorcs do it better...they are the kings of kiting.

When you are using phrases such as "king of kiting", are you putting some emphasis on how powerful it is, or is not, or are you only establishing that it's indeed a class with focus on kiting? It kites, yes, but that's as far as I will stretch it, in terms of agreeing with you. It's not even "king" in fair 1 vs 1'es, which can be seen in the results from the many server "1 vs 1" tournaments.

Hell, I'm not even sure if it's the best kite AC. I'm leaning toward giving that title to powertech.

Some classes just can't beat a Madness sorc in a 1v1. For instance, Madness is probably the only spec that has a consistently awesome matchup against Pyrotech. They also shred Snipers, Mercs/Vans, and Juggs. They have a decent, but not spectacular, matchup against Mars. Sins and Ops are of course terrifying, but everyone needs their weaknesses.

Okay, I play a healer sage, so I guess I can believe they can kill PTs as I can do so as well. Snipers: that's only true if the sage has terrain advantage (obstacles to break LOS with) which isn't always the case (example: huttball). Merc/Van - please, we all know they need buff. But smashers? Even I have trouble surviving them, with stunbubble, heals, egress and so on. Granted, I'm possibly missing something, but I'd imagine a duel would go something like this:

1. Start at distance, both have all cooldowns up, sage is bubbled

2. Dot the smasher, smasher leaps (force charge) to sage

3. Sage knockbacks smasher

4. Smasher forcechokes sage, bubble is gone

5. Smasher leaps back at sage with Obliterate

6. Sage can't force speed away with no egress as smasher's leaps root - for a short time, but long isn't needed for:

7. Sage gets his face smashed in for the first time

8. Root clears, sage tries to force speed away

9. Smasher counters with dreadful roar (or whatever that aoe mezz they have is called), sage helplessly watches as force speed expires while he's cowering in fear at most 5 meters from smasher, smasher closes distance

10. Smasher puts Force Crush on sage, Sage puts Force Slow on smasher

11. Sage dispels Force Crush (can they even do that without Mend Wounds?), smasher uses defensive cooldown

12. Sage strafe-runs away while lobbing Project at smasher and eating saber throws, force screams and whatnot

13. Sage gets to spam some pebbles at smasher, who shrugs it off with Cloak of Pain or Saber ward or whatever

14. Cooldown on force charge is back up while knockback has 5 secs to go, force speed even more. Force charge, smash, sage becomes a wet smear on the floor while smasher has suffered like what... 6k damage? from the ticking dot, 1 project and let's say 2 telekinetic throws through Cloak of Pain.

Stick a "X. Sage stuns smasher, smasher uses cc breaker" in there somewhere if you feel like it

Now, sure, you don't meet a smasher with the skills to pull this scenario off every day (95% of them don't learn more than their basic rotation, and why should they if it's more than enough to own almost everyone), but they do exist. What happens then?

When you are using phrases such as "king of kiting", are you putting some emphasis on how powerful it is, or is not, or are you only establishing that it's indeed a class with focus on kiting? It kites, yes, but that's as far as I will stretch it, in terms of agreeing with you. It's not even "king" in fair 1 vs 1'es, which can be seen in the results from the many server "1 vs 1" tournaments.

 

Hell, I'm not even sure if it's the best kite AC. I'm leaning toward giving that title to powertech.

eh, its not even worth it.