I am going to start this entire Sorcerer fight over again from the very beginning because this conversation has devolved into a spree of hypotheticals following from hypotheticals. In some respects this was my fault (e.g. I did not mean to imply that Sneak+Sneaky stacked, but rather that they both worked together over the course of a fight to help you gap close). So for now, I am going to just work through the different scenarios from the start of a fight, taking everything that has been said into mind.

Again, we will assume the Sorc does NOT have a CC Break. If he does not, you should get so far ahead in the first 5.5 seconds of damage that he just can't recover. We all can agree on that.

Let's start with a lightning spec, some variation of a 0+/17+/17+ guy who has access to Instant Whirlwind, Electric Bindings, and Backlash (Bubble Stun). This is probably the scariest target you can encounter, so we will start here. I will also try and give him his optimal abilities in the fight to worsen our position as much as possible.

0-1.5: Open with SF+FR. Bubble Stun pops.

1.5-3.0: Sorcerer speeds away. Bubble Stun in effect.

3.0-4.5: Sneak + Thermal Grenade. Sorcerer uses Force Slow and continues to sidestep back.

4.5-6: Flurry of Bolts while charging. Sorc uses Death Field and continues to sidestep back.

6-7.5: Vital Shot. Sorc continues to sidestep back and re-bubbles.

7.5-9: Charged Burst. Sorc fires Affliction while moving back.

9-10.5: Thermal Grenade stacked with the previous Burst + VS pops Bubble, excess damage goes through. Immediately Evasion/Restealth. Sorc tries to lay down an AOE to get you out of stealth. Be smart and dodge it.

12-13.5: Gap close smart and fast. SF+FR. NO BUBBLE STUN!! Sorc knocked down.

13.5-15: Backblast+FR (inefficient, but we need the 65%+ BB Crit damage). Sorc Overloads and knocks back while moving away.

15-16.5: Sabotage Charge. FR+VS cracks Charge. Sorcerer Speeds away.

16.5-18: Thermal Grenade and Sneak. Sorcerer fires Shock or rebubbles

At this point, you have endured a few ticks of Death Field, 1 Force Slow, a tick of Affliction, and maybe 1 Shock. You are basically at full HP!

The Sorcerer, however, has eaten 2 Thermal Grenades (at 3.0 and 16.5), 10s of Vital Shot, a full SF (at 12), 2 full FRs (from 1.5-6 and 12-18), a Backblast, and a Sabotage Charge. Assuming no mitigation or expertise bonuses from damage and just adding up those numbers, and also assuming ZERO crits, that's 16k damage: 2800 (2 TGs), 1600 (10s VS), 2700 (SF), 4420 (2 FRs), 2300 (BB), and 2600 (SC). And that ignores all of the stuff that got mitigated by the Bubbles , some of which will definitely go through (1 SF, some of an FR DOT, a Charged Burst, a Thermal Grenade, and some of a VS DOT), all of your Expertise, and any chance of critting on any of those abilities.

Let's make it more complicated by reducing the Sorc damage to basically 0 but adding in even more CC.

4.5-6: Flurry of Bolts while charging. Sorc uses Electrocute or Whirlwind.

6-7.5: You CC break whatever he cast and immediately DA. Sorc tries to find you but you aren't an idiot so he can't.

7.5-9: You close gap. Sorc re-bubbles.

9-10.5: Now comes something clever. Instead of SF+FR and popping the bubble, you are going to Sleep Dart. Sorc will have almost full resolve, but not quite full. Notice how you did not VS in 4.5-6 here, so no DOT will break the Dart. If Sorc escapes the first dart, immediately re-dart (10.5-12). Pop out of Stealth but DO NOT SF. You now have 8 seconds to work. Drop Sabotage Charge (12-13.5). Drop Freighter Flyby (13.5-16.5). Fire VS (16.5-18). Walk up and finish with BB+FR (18-19.5). SC alone won't break the Dart mezz. Flyby doesn't proc its first damage for 3 seconds. VS won't tick until after you BB. So when the Sorc wakes up, they take a Flyby tick, an SC, a VS tick, a BB, and an FR tick all at once. Sure, the Bubble will then stun you, but the Sorc still ate a ton of burst that went entirely unanswered.

9-10.5: Let's say that you Dart the Sorc and he realizes what you are doing. He doesn't crack just yet. He waits for the opportune moment.

10.5-12: You drop SC. No need for Sorc to break because he isn't in danger.

12-13.5: You start to channel Flyby. At this point, he sees you are going to stack damage and he cracks CC. You are standing with your back facing the nearest wall/solid object. Sorc spams Overload and gets it off.

13.5-15: You get knocked back into the wall no more than 10m away. Throw Flasbang. His resolve is now full. Re-channel Flyby (15-16.5), fire VS (16.5-18), walk up and BB+FR. Boom. We are back where we were even if he didn't crack the Dart.

Both scenarios end with a bad situation for the Sorc. At this point, you have been hit by 1 Electrocute and 1 Force Slow. Your enemy has taken damage from 1 SF, 1 FR, 1 TG, 1 Flurry, 1 SC, 1 tick of Flyby, 1 BB, and 1 tick from VS+FR. All together that's about 15k damage: 2700 SF, 2200 FR, 1400 TG, 1000 Flurry, 2600 SC, 2400 BB, and 1 tick each of Flyby (1900), FR (350), and VS (150). The Sorc got two bubble absorptions in there, but all the rest went through. And again, that assumes no help from Expertise or Crits. You are now thousands of HP ahead in the fight.

(As a note, I have tried that SC + FLYBY + VS + BB/FR combo, and it works without cracking the CC until the very, very end. Lag would mess it up, but barring a bad connection, you WILL get all that damage off.

I can keep going like this, but I think it is pretty clear that EVEN WITH THE SORC CC BREAKER, Scrappers should be coming out on top of almost every engagement. There are still 2 big danger zones. The first is the restealth. If the Sorc can find you preemptively, then you are in trouble. If you can avoid the Sorc AOEs and tactically close the gap, then you will be fine. This just comes down to player vs. player skill.

The second is positioning. After you Dart, you have a chance to get your back to a wall to avoid a 10m+ knockback. But if you can't find that wall, this was a stupid fight to pick anyway. Never, ever fight things in the open as a Scrapper. Doing so raises the difficulty of all our fights by 1 level because you can't heal, can't LOS, and can't kite to let DOTs work.

If the Sorc doesn't have Bubble, he is well and truly screwed because then you can TB as he tries to run away every time. I can go through that contingency as well, but I think the point is clear.

And remember, everything above only applies if their breaker is up!! So only once every 2 minutes. If it isn't up, you just auto-murder them in the first few seconds of the engagement and there is nothing they can do to answer it. Hence, why this fight remains "Easy".

Finally, if it isn't clear, I'm definitely not trying to argue with you personally. I am just trying to work through the hypothetical DPS Sorcerer puzzle.

Fine piece of work, plenty of great information in there.

Probably the best class guide I've seen.

A few points I'd like to offer:

ARMORINGS

As you have all probably noticed, PvP set bonuses are awful for Scrappers. The Field Tech 2 piece bonus is decent, but the 4 piece bonus is actually not intended for our class. The Enforcer 4 piece bonus is alright, but the 2 piece bonus is utterly worthless. To maximize your WZ performance, you need to think outside of the box and turn towards PvE set bonuses.

The Enforcer 4-piece bonus is terrrible. We need to stay above 60% energy to keep our energy regenerating at optimum rate. Sure, we can burn our energy to try and kill someone, but then we're in a Flurry-of-Bolts-shaped hole. And if it doesn't come off we're boned.

The Enforcer 4-piece bonus gives you five extra energy - but because the regen bands go by percentages this means your optimum energy band moves from 60-100 energy to 63-105. The set bonus gives us a massive 2 energy extra in our top regen band. Woo and a big old hoo.

The Enforcer PvP 2-piece bonus - an extra second of white damage immunity, useful when getting shot, leapt at or Ravaged - is actually better, in my opinion. But the Enforcer PvE 2-piece (+15% crit on Back Blast) plus the Field Tech PvP 2-piece (3secs = 1 tick extra on Flyby) are probably the optimum choice.

34% BUFFED CRITICAL CHANCE

• [*]Your crit diminishing returns actually start a bit higher than this, but 34% is the magic number because of your talents.

There is no magic number. There's no reason 34.0% is magically better than 33.9%, other than a 0.1% chance to crit. The text makes it sound like there's a sharply defined limit where none exists. The general point about not stacking crit at the expense of power is fair (though you shouldn't ignore crit and just go power either of course, but I think you cover this in the general talk about how scrappers can't just stack one thing).

Secondly, there isn't a single diminshing returns curve on crit chance. There is one DR curve on the crit chance you get from Cunning, and another DR curve on the crit chance you get from Crit stat. These two figures, plus base 5% and any buff boosts add up to your total crit chance, the 34% or whatever that people talk about.

Cunning can give you a big chunk of it. This means that once you start stacking enough Power, it reaches a point where Crit becomes a more powerful stat - you will do more damage with Crit than Power. This is because the crit chance you get from Crit isn't reduced by all the extra crit chance you get from Cunning, etc. Mouse over the crit chance stat in the Tech tab of your character sheet to see the breakdown.

CUNNING, SURGE, AND POWER

• [*]1800+ Cunning

Cunning is your best stat because it contributes to bonus damage, bonus healing, and critical chance. Its diminishing returns curve is also very generous. Most importantly, your 9% bonus cunning talent makes cunning even better for Scrappers than for other DPS classes that don’t have that percentage bonus skill. Between stims, gear, and buffs, you want to be at least pushing 1800 cunning (I am at 2000).

Not totally clear - the bonus damage from Cunning has no diminshing returns, it's flat increase like that from power. The crit chance elenet DOES have diminishing returns (though calculated separately to those on Crit stat).

[*]78% Surge Bonus

Surge hits diminishing returns at around 75% bonus damage,

Diminshing returns don't start at 75%. They start at zero Surge (as for all stats with DR in SWTOR). Surge does have a steep DR curve though, with lots of benefit at low levels and correspondingly little at high levels. This may be what you meant, but misinformed posts on this forum make me allergic to anything that might encourage people to think stats become suddenly useless or "dimishing returns start at value X". "Soft caps" arg arg arg.

THE AWFUL, TERRIBLE OVERLOAD SHOT

*cough* Quick Shot scrappers *cough*

Also, on the Glass Cannon scrapper, an option I go for is 2 points in Shifty -eyed for stealth detection isntead of Dirty Escape's Dirty Kick cd reduction. This is to help catch other stealthers first when circling around nodes, as getting Shoot First in first is so important. The kick cd reduction is very useful though, so I can't criticise the majority who go for Dirty Escape. Possibly just me being stubborn.

The Enforcer 4-piece bonus is terrrible. We need to stay above 60% energy to keep our energy regenerating at optimum rate. Sure, we can burn our energy to try and kill someone, but then we're in a Flurry-of-Bolts-shaped hole. And if it doesn't come off we're boned.

 

The Enforcer 4-piece bonus gives you five extra energy - but because the regen bands go by percentages this means your optimum energy band moves from 60-100 energy to 63-105. The set bonus gives us a massive 2 energy extra in our top regen band. Woo and a big old hoo.

I tested it out in game and, unless the game is misconveying information, my optimal energy band stays at 60-105, not 63-105. The 4 arrows on the Energy bar to the right stay at 4 arrows when I am at 60 energy (as opposed to dropping to 3 bars, as your post suggests If the TOR client is lying to me, that's obviously a separate problem (it doesn't look it though).

Why does that extra 2 energy matter? It means I can SF, Dirty Kick, SC, FR+BB without dropping below 60 energy. If I try that without the extra 5 energy, I drop below 60 energy and have trouble getting out of the hole. Of course, that all assumes that TOR isn't lying to me in the client, with my max energy regen staying at 60+ instead of 63+.

The Enforcer PvP 2-piece bonus - an extra second of white damage immunity, useful when getting shot, leapt at or Ravaged - is actually better, in my opinion. But the Enforcer PvE 2-piece (+15% crit on Back Blast) plus the Field Tech PvP 2-piece (3secs = 1 tick extra on Flyby) are probably the optimum choice.

I used the FT 2-piece bonus for a long time and really liked it. It is definitely the second option.

The Enforcer 2-piece, however, is pretty bad unless you are fighting a lot of Snipers and Carnage marauders. I would much rather have the extra energy burst on my upfront combo.

There is no magic number. There's no reason 34.0% is magically better than 33.9%, other than a 0.1% chance to crit. The text makes it sound like there's a sharply defined limit where none exists. The general point about not stacking crit at the expense of power is fair (though you shouldn't ignore crit and just go power either of course, but I think you cover this in the general talk about how scrappers can't just stack one thing).

Noted. I am going to rewrite that part to make it clearer.

Secondly, there isn't a single diminshing returns curve on crit chance. There is one DR curve on the crit chance you get from Cunning, and another DR curve on the crit chance you get from Crit stat. These two figures, plus base 5% and any buff boosts add up to your total crit chance, the 34% or whatever that people talk about.

Also an important distinction that I don't make. I will add it.

ning, etc. Mouse over the crit chance stat in the Tech tab of your character sheet to see the breakdown.

Diminshing returns don't start at 75%. They start at zero Surge (as for all stats with DR in SWTOR). Surge does have a steep DR curve though, with lots of benefit at low levels and correspondingly little at high levels. This may be what you meant, but misinformed posts on this forum make me allergic to anything that might encourage people to think stats become suddenly useless or "dimishing returns start at value X". "Soft caps" arg arg arg.

Yeah, I definitely meant to suggest that the big dropoff starts at around 75%. I was trying to get at the fact that because of the way WH mods/enhancements are designed, we push well beyond those steep returns when configuring gear; my surge is at 530, which is decidedly unoptimal, but just happens because of the mods.

*cough* Quick Shot scrappers *cough*

Whoop! Fixed.

Also, on the Glass Cannon scrapper, an option I go for is 2 points in Shifty -eyed for stealth detection isntead of Dirty Escape's Dirty Kick cd reduction. This is to help catch other stealthers first when circling around nodes, as getting Shoot First in first is so important. The kick cd reduction is very useful though, so I can't criticise the majority who go for Dirty Escape. Possibly just me being stubborn.

I really like Shifty-Eyed, but would never take it at the expense of Dirty Escape. That ability is just too good. 30s CD kick is what makes this class, at least in my opinion. To squeeze in Shifty Eyed, I ditch one point in Flee the Scene (DA CD reduction) and one point in Round Two (DPS drop, but I prefer the utility). I am still feeling out that build, because there are times where I would definitely want Round Two at 100% (e.g. against healers). But in other matches, I love the stealth detection.

Thanks again for the thoughtful comments.

Replying from tablet. I calculated in 40% of our dot critting. I also assumed the first SF critted as well as the only BB. The first SF has to crit to do the 4000 dmg neccisary to break a bubble. That seemed like a reasonable number of crits, I dont think it fair to assume both SFs crit or that SC crits. Assuming 75% surge that puts our damage that isn't absorbed by bubbles at about 19500 which is perfect for an optimized sorc.

Now for potential issues. I'm not convinced charged burt + TG is enough to break the second bubble but that is because I can't remember charged bursts dmg. If its close we just fill with 1 more flury of bolts. A bigger issue is that we haven't accounted for the near auto crit free self heal when they pop recklessness. That is another 4k life. This means we are about 4k dmg from killing them and we will not get any more melee attacks for the rest of the fight in your first scenario. If they get in trouble there force speed is litterally seconds from being availablrle again, they still have a stun and an insta mez, and after minimal aditional kitting they will have either another bubble (4k) life or another insta self heal ( non crit this time so roughly 2.5k). Oh, they also have slow back to assist with those crucial moments. Thrownin a los tool and 4 k from range without sc is a dream if we get close, say TG crits at the end they can lift and cast a regular heal, 2 seconds of mez before dot breaks it, auto 2 second stun for mez breaking early automatically follows for their spec.

As for scenario 2 dmg advantage becomes 7k with 2 bubbles factored in and 3k with critted self heal. So 3k of their life gone in exchange for DA and full resolve, no thank you. (Though I do love using the flyby combo I'd never thought to add VS to it myself). Obviously really its a bit more than 3k dmg because of crits, but it still comes out worse than the first example which I think I've illustrated isn't enough either.

If we add medpacks and adrenals to either situation they just flat out become a nightmare. We still only get 3-4 melee attacks, and the fight length drags on. Once they get another bubble, speed, or self heal its over. I'm also not meaning to get into an argument with you just seeing if the best scrapper minds can solve the dps sorc puzzle and this is a place they will all drop by. I appreciate your thoughts on this topic. I do however think that you are writting off a sorc as dead just because it is low health and that is a mistake. If we can't gap close, they can take as long as they want to finish us. If the sorc isn't dead after our DA open, they win. getting close doens't cut it, unless it is so close that we can finish them with ranged before bubble or self heal comes back up. With medpacks on both sides I flat out don't see how that is possible unless the sorc messes up or doesn't have a cc breaker.

As I see it the magic amount of damage factoring in bubbles and a single crit insta cast self heal is 28k to kill them if we can do it in less than 16 seconds. 32k in less than 30 seconds or 36k+ if longer than 30 seconds. This is assuming we never let them get off a casted heal and they don't use a medpack or adrenal. I'm not sure ignoring the medpack is reasonable (its another 7k life in all time brackets), but lets solve the easier fight before we add that. If we can't do the appropriate amount of damage in one of those time brackets, I think we lose. And the way I see it, the kings of kitting have enough ways to get and stay out of our range to win this fight. Thoughts?

Replied for subscription => future reference.

Great Guide!

Re: DPS Sorcerer Matchup

Been working through this matchup over the past few days. Instead of just talking through the problem (although there is a place for, and value of, that), I tried to jump and fight as many Sorcs as possible over the past dozen plus WZs. Some of them were healers, some of them were guarded, some of them turned from a 1v1 into 3v3s, and some of them felt like they weren't even wearing Recruit gear. But in the end, I did manage to get in some good testing on the matchup against a few decently geared, decently skilled, 1v1 sorcs.

1. No breaker? Dead. No Bubble? Extra dead.

A lot of my matchup advice assumed that all enemy cooldowns were up, but as we know, that just don't happen in WZs. Even at the side node, away from the chaos of a main fight, you often will have at least one combatant with some important CDs down. In big fights, you can catch targets even more unprepared with even fewer resources at the disposal.

Sorcs are just not equipped to handle being caught off guard. If you open on one who just had bubble popped, you are going to shred him before he can stand up. SF+FR+SC+BB+FR is just so much unanswered, armor penetrating damage. It is very difficult to recover from this without popping literally everything in the Sorc arsenal (Speed, Bubble, Recklessness--> Heal, Electrocute/Whirlwind). Even with those pieces up, you can always keep up the pressure and bring them down.

For us to kill the Sorc, we just need to 1) Open on them from stealth, 2) Have Kick up, and 3) Have SC up. Both those last two abilities have 30s CDs, and they tend to be used together, so if one is up the other is almost necessarily up.

For the Sorc to have a chance, he needs to 1) Be bubbled (only 5s CD), 2) Have points in Backlash (can't be Madness), 3) have CC break (120s CD), 4) Have Force Speed (20s CD), 5) Have either Electrocute/Whirlwind (50 and 45s CDs). Given that chaotic WZs demand the frequent use of abilities, probability is strongly on our side that we will have what we need to win and the Sorc will not.

2. Sorcs can only kite us if they have a perfectly straight line behind them and they don't use a single channeled ability

The most common Sorc kite is a Force Speed after getting Bubble Stunned. If they run in a perfect, 100% straight line for the next 6 seconds, they will clear almost exactly 60 meters (1.5s of Force Speed plus 4.5 seconds of regular movement). We can then take off after them with Sneak on. If they Force Slow us, we can clear 35 meters of distance in 4.5 seconds (remember, we lost that first 1.5 seconds of movement because we were stunned.

So we are now 25 meters away from our target. We need to be <10 meters away.

If the Sorc channels ONE SINGLE ability at this point or at any time thereafter, we close that distance. We can then toss our TB or FB. Or we can DA and be within SF distance in less than 1-2 GCDs. They can cast Death Field, Affliction, and Shock, but of their channeled spells are off limits.

Similarly, if the Sorc has to make any deviation from their straight line, you close the distance even faster (think of triangles and hypotenuses). On some maps, this is impossible (Voidstar and mid Hypergate). On other maps, it just leaves nodes undefended.

3. Sorcs must choose to kite or kill us. They can't do both

In order to effectively kite us, two things need to happen. First, they need to be rebubbling every 5s, using Force Slow, using as many CCs as possible, and not using any channeled abilities. This is a major drop to their DPS no matter what tree they are in.

Second, and more importantly, we would have to be idiots to chase after a Sorc in a straight line with no cover. If a Sorc runs across the map to get away from us, who cares? Go kill someone else and let him run. On maps like Civil War, his fleeing will actually enable you to contest the node and force him to return.

4. Don't fight Sorcs in Huttball

I was going to add this (along with Snipers) to my Huttball part of the guide that I am writing, but I will just say it now. Huttball on its own is a bad map for us. Don't make it worse by fighting Sorcs and Snipers. You are going to lose 100% of 1v1s against a decently geared and skilled Sorc/Sniper in Huttball. The knockback, the ramps, and the ranged damage are just too much for us to handle. If you absolutely must kill them, wait until they are engaging someone else or until they have used their knockback.

So far, my conclusions on Sorc are this: If they just focus on escaping, you realistically might not be able to kill them. They can just run and CC, bubble up, heal, and run some more. Solution: Don't chase them across the whole WZ minimap! If they actually want to fight you for a node, you are going to win every time. You need only 2 CDs to win the fight. Sorcs need about 5-6.

Re: DPS Sorcerer Matchup

 

 

2. Sorcs can only kite us if they have a perfectly straight line behind them and they don't use a single channeled ability

The most common Sorc kite is a Force Speed after getting Bubble Stunned. If they run in a perfect, 100% straight line for the next 6 seconds, they will clear almost exactly 60 meters (1.5s of Force Speed plus 4.5 seconds of regular movement). We can then take off after them with Sneak on. If they Force Slow us, we can clear 35 meters of distance in 4.5 seconds (remember, we lost that first 1.5 seconds of movement because we were stunned.

So we are now 25 meters away from our target. We need to be <10 meters away.

If the Sorc channels ONE SINGLE ability at this point or at any time thereafter, we close that distance. We can then toss our TB or FB. Or we can DA and be within SF distance in less than 1-2 GCDs. They can cast Death Field, Affliction, and Shock, but of their channeled spells are off limits.

Similarly, if the Sorc has to make any deviation from their straight line, you close the distance even faster (think of triangles and hypotenuses). On some maps, this is impossible (Voidstar and mid Hypergate). On other maps, it just leaves nodes undefended.

 

3. Sorcs must choose to kite or kill us. They can't do both

In order to effectively kite us, two things need to happen. First, they need to be rebubbling every 5s, using Force Slow, using as many CCs as possible, and not using any channeled abilities. This is a major drop to their DPS no matter what tree they are in.

Second, and more importantly, we would have to be idiots to chase after a Sorc in a straight line with no cover. If a Sorc runs across the map to get away from us, who cares? Go kill someone else and let him run. On maps like Civil War, his fleeing will actually enable you to contest the node and force him to return.

 

We agree on point 1 (though your 5 second bubble cd confuses me). Point 4 could be contested since there isn't really anything better for us to do in hutball than shut down the classes we are supposed to counter (snipers and sorcs both of which are very powerful in hutball and need to be stopped) but I understand your reasoning.

Its point 2 and 3 where we once again run into issues. After they have handled our vanish reopen it doesn't matter how often we come close to catching them, they just have to kite us long enough for either force speed or overload to come back off of CD. After that we can start to close distance slowly again, but unless we can get to them before either one is available again their insta cast dot + the occasional force in balance will eventually kill us. This means they can loop a little bit to protect the objective even though it means we will gain a bit of distance on them because they are doing so. Yes they will be doing so with 30% health, but who cares, they aren't dead and we are never going to out dmg their bubble and self heal CD with just ranged attacks. If they do get enough of a distance advantage on us they can even squander if by channeling lighting which self roots them, but slows us.

On a related note, I don't think los is to our advantage in this scenario, it is instead to theirs. LOS means a longer fight, a longer fight unless it hits the point at which we get vanish back means more bubbles, more self heals, and more force speeds and knockbacks for them. We in exchange get perhaps a second SC, and the ability to use a second Dirty Kick, if we could ever get close enough.

A 1v1 isn't about who can get who to 30% first, or 10% first or even 1% first, its about who can kill the other. We can't finish the sorc who has all of his cds up and is guarding an objective.

I think part of the reason we tend to think of sorcs as easy is because they either a) don't have all of their CDs, or b) give up once they are at the huge damage deficit you described and decide to save their reamaining CDs for after they respawn. If they didn't give up / mess up there is no reason for us to kill them.

edit: you may have helped me explore this issue enough to find the answer. If we are subspec heals (7/31/3 or some variant) maybe we open with FR/SF and dirty kick, they CC break, we los and heal through dots just accepting that we will eat dot dmg until Dirty Kick is off cd (45 seconds yuck) then once we have it back vanish reopen and dirty kick again. It should work, or at least come down to our skill vs there in terms of minimizing incoming dmg for the 45 seconds. but it means taking almost a full minute to win, would never take a node. Still I'll have to try it and report back. Thanks for exploring this with me, if we can find a faster way to kill them than wait for DC to come off of CD that would still be preferable.

We agree on point 1 (though your 5 second bubble cd confuses me). Point 4 could be contested since there isn't really anything better for us to do in hutball than shut down the classes we are supposed to counter (snipers and sorcs both of which are very powerful in hutball and need to be stopped) but I understand your reasoning.

Sorry, let me clarify on Bubble.

Barrier either has a 4.5s CD, a 3s CD, or a 1.5s CD. Only healers or one very particular spec of Lightning (12+/17+/0+) gain access to the CDR on Barrier, but even then at the expense of the insta cast Whirlwind.

As to point 4, although Snipers are still an easy kill, a good sniper will beat you almost every single time with that knockback. They literally just need to use that one ability to beat us, and they can set it up with a stun, a legshot, or just by moving their position. Same with sorcs. My plan in HB is also pretty different from my plan in other WZs (I'll get to that in my OP soon) because that map is so uniquely objective oriented. But that's all just nitpicking because we are probably in agreement on these first two points.

Again, I can't emphasize enough that for a Sorc to win he needs literally all of his CDs up. That means even if we are just fighting each other, we should be winning 3 battles for every 1 battle that is a close call. This is a totally acceptable win ratio, especially if you can just break off the fight and restart.

edit: you may have helped me explore this issue enough to find the answer. If we are subspec heals (7/31/3 or some variant) maybe we open with FR/SF and dirty kick, they CC break, we los and heal through dots just accepting that we will eat dot dmg until Dirty Kick is off cd (45 seconds yuck) then once we have it back vanish reopen and dirty kick again. It should work, or at least come down to our skill vs there in terms of minimizing incoming dmg for the 45 seconds. but it means taking almost a full minute to win, would never take a node. Still I'll have to try it and report back. Thanks for exploring this with me, if we can find a faster way to kill them than wait for DC to come off of CD that would still be preferable.

That might work, but it wouldn’t work any better than a 3/31/7 build. The Dirty Kick CDR is just too important. We can’t just prolong a fight for an extra 15 seconds against a class with so many self-heals. We would just be in a perpetual draw. Also, it seems necessarily contradictory of your earlier observation:

On a related note, I don't think los is to our advantage in this scenario, it is instead to theirs. LOS means a longer fight, a longer fight unless it hits the point at which we get vanish back means more bubbles, more self heals, and more force speeds and knockbacks for them. We in exchange get perhaps a second SC, and the ability to use a second Dirty Kick, if we could ever get close enough.

The only reason to go into the healing tree is to get the quick cast UM and the UH stacks. Unless you want to cast that in the open with pushback while eating lightning and crushing darkness, that means we have to LOS. But as you said, LOSing also prolongs the fight because we aren’t damaging them. So by your own logic, having a 7/31/3 healer spec would just prolong the fight into their favor where they have more bubbles, more self heals, and more speed/knockback. I do not think the answer is in that tree, especially because that tree leaves us worse off in the WZ generally.

Still testing solutions to the CC break. Again, with no CC break, the fight is just a win. I consider that one totally solved, especially against Madness sorcs. It's the CC Break + Bubble Stun that is apparently giving trouble, so that's what I will focus on.

EDIT: There is another assumption that we made and it isn't necessarily a good one. The Sorc knockback actually needs to hit us. If you are running around, especially crossing through their base, it is very difficult for even a good gamer with a good mouse to execute that precision turn at a very tight angle under high pressure with no warning. If they miss that knockback, they are extremely screwed.

That might work, but it wouldn’t work any better than a 3/31/7 build. The Dirty Kick CDR is just too important. We can’t just prolong a fight for an extra 15 seconds against a class with so many self-heals. We would just be in a perpetual draw. Also, it seems necessarily contradictory of your earlier observation:

 

The only reason to go into the healing tree is to get the quick cast UM and the UH stacks. Unless you want to cast that in the open with pushback while eating lightning and crushing darkness, that means we have to LOS. But as you said, LOSing also prolongs the fight because we aren’t damaging them. So by your own logic, having a 7/31/3 healer spec would just prolong the fight into their favor where they have more bubbles, more self heals, and more speed/knockback. I do not think the answer is in that tree, especially because that tree leaves us worse off in the WZ generally.

 

Still testing solutions to the CC break. Again, with no CC break, the fight is just a win. I consider that one totally solved, especially against Madness sorcs. It's the CC Break + Bubble Stun that is apparently giving trouble, so that's what I will focus on.

 

EDIT: There is another assumption that we made and it isn't necessarily a good one. The Sorc knockback actually needs to hit us. If you are running around, especially crossing through their base, it is very difficult for even a good gamer with a good mouse to execute that precision turn at a very tight angle under high pressure with no warning. If they miss that knockback, they are extremely screwed.

You are absolutely right I contradicted myself. I was aware of it but didn't have time to correct it and post the edit, I deemed the edit more important. I think in general LOSing is to their advantage, but if we are doing before we have used Disappearing act waiting on the DK CD I see it being worthwhile.

As for them getting back all of the CDs, bubbles, self heal, speed, knockback, I'm aware that we are basically starting the fight over by stalling for 30-45 seconds. I don't think that is a problem because we can essentially kill them on the second open with SF follwoed by DC. We have both admitted multiple times that there is no comming back from that. It means we can't finish them with a vanish but I don't think we need it with 5.5 seconds of melee dmg. I suppose we could just as easily DA the second they CC break our first DK, but its unneccisary against the vast majority of sorcs, so might as well not waste it until we have determined it necessary. By that reasoning you are absolutely right a 30 second DK cd and no heals (no need since we can just be vanished for the whole 30 seconds) is not only viable its better. Vanishing immediately after they CC break is less likely to get them to cal for help / more likely to get the help to leave before 2 minutes have passed and they have a CC breakier back. Once again your insight in theorycrafing this match up is helpful so thank you.

As for the assumption that the sorc is good enough to mouse turn catch us with an overload while moving I'm comfortable making it even though most of the time it won't be true. After all the question was whether a we could beat a sorc if they did EVERYTHING right, or if that meant we lost. It looks like there is a way for us to win without them messing up.

 

That might work, but it wouldn’t work any better than a 3/31/7 build. The Dirty Kick CDR is just too important. We can’t just prolong a fight for an extra 15 seconds against a class with so many self-heals. We would just be in a perpetual draw. Also, it seems necessarily contradictory of your earlier observation:

 

The only reason to go into the healing tree is to get the quick cast UM and the UH stacks. Unless you want to cast that in the open with pushback while eating lightning and crushing darkness, that means we have to LOS. But as you said, LOSing also prolongs the fight because we aren’t damaging them. So by your own logic, having a 7/31/3 healer spec would just prolong the fight into their favor where they have more bubbles, more self heals, and more speed/knockback. I do not think the answer is in that tree, especially because that tree leaves us worse off in the WZ generally.

.

I disagree with the bolded part, and so does your OP.

In all honesty, this balanced Scrapper build is probably better, pound for pound, than the Dirty Fighting tree version.

But for the sorc specific match up in a WZ setting I agree that 30second cd is better now as I said in my last post.

Really nice guide, I can't wait for huttball and hypergates tips.

But I'm surprised that there isn't a huge bold blinking text about always crouching before capping (also, anyone else having problems with camera rotation when doing so?).

I went back through the fight and ran some more tests, and I found a major oversight we had been making in both our calculations and at least in my testing.

The Tendon Blast 50% slow lasts 12 (!!!!) seconds (2 root + 10 slow).

This COMPLETELY changes the fight because without Fadeout, the Sorc has absolutely no way to remove that speed debuff. To make matters worse for the Sorc, Force Slow (their TB counter) only lasts 6 seconds, identical to that of our Sneak. Once Sneak/Slow wear off, we get our +15% move speed bonus from Sneaky, giving us 115% in combat move speed while the Sorc is stuck with 50% move speed.

I tested this with awesome results. The results are a nightmare for the poor Sorc. Mind you, this only applies if we resolve Tendon Blast before the Sorcerer runs away. To do so, we are going to use our Sleep Dart/SC/Flyby/VS/TB combo. This prevents us from getting Bubble Stunned and ensures that the Sorc eats as much of the Flyby

0-1.5: We fire TB and Snare, cracking SC along with the Flyby/VS DOTs. Sorc is snared. After we fire off TB we close the gap so we are right in his face. Sorc probably CCs us with Electrocute or Whirlwind. If it’s Whirlwind, we break. If it’s Electrocute, we suck it up.

1.5-3: Sorc snare wears off and they run away with Force Speed, clearing about 20 meters. Let’s say they were smart and Electrocuted us so we can’t immediately chase.

3-4.5: We are stunned. Sorc rebubbles and sidesteps back clearing a pitiful 5-7 meters (25m total).

4.5-6. We technically woke up at the tail end of that last GCD (3-4.5), which gives us time to pop Sneak and charge ahead tossing TG. Sorc fires Force slow and sidesteps back, bringing his total distance to 32 meters or so. In those 2 seconds (4.0-6) we clear roughly 15 meters.

6-7.5: We fire Flurry and clear another 10 meters (25 total). Sorc fires Death Field and clears another 6 or so (38 meters)

7.5-9: With 1 DOT and 1 Slow on us, we pop Evasion and fire Flurry again, now clearing another 15 meters (40 total). Sorc fires Affliction and sidesteps back 6 (42).

9-10.5: We fire TB and stay about 10 meters out, ready to pop bubble at range with a TG next GCD. Sorc can’t move.

Now the Sorc is in deep, serious trouble. We can pop Bubble at range with another TG before closing to melee range. Sorc is snared and has no CC break (He used it on our earlier sleep dart). He is also down 1 CC. Force Speed is on CD for 10 more seconds.

If he threw DOTs on us he can't Whirlwind.

If he avoided DOTs and then Whirlwinds, we just break. We will be at full resolve and the fight will be over. The poor Sorc will be stuck at melee range with no stun or knockback protection, and our melee damage output is more than enough to mash through his defenses.

If he Overloads and binds, that only buys him 2 seconds; his DOT will crack bindings after that (we DELIBERATELY left a DOT on us with Evasion). If we are worried about not getting DOTted, we can pop Evasion right away when Slowed. This means we will have 2 DOTs ticking on us (which hurts), but gives us a better gap closer and a guarantee that bindings get cracked. If the Sorc didn't toss a DOT on us at any point in the fight so far, then we have only taken damage from a single Shock.

The only thing the Sorc can do is not DOT us at all, bind us as we gap close, and then keep running away while we sit there for 5 seconds (during which we will use Charged Burst, VS, and TG). But he will STILL be TBd that whole time, and we will still be causing damage. We will reclose that gap within no more than 6 seconds, well before his Speed/Overload come off of CD.

And if ever the Sorc uses DOTs, he can no longer bind us for longer than 2 seconds and we will always close to melee range in even less time.

Barring a huge error that I made (and overlooked) in testing this tactic, I am calling this problem solved.

He can still WW, when speced into insta WW if dmg breaks the WW early we get stunned for an additonal 2 seconds. Meaning probably a second or 2 before the dot ticks for dmg, and another 2 seconds for the stun. But you haven't used a CC breaker yet in this scenario so no problem.

You cast tendon blast to start the your timer in the post. Then you cast it again 10 seconds later. It has a 12 second CD. Again not necessarily a problem, it just means we have to hover outside of 10ms for a couple seconds longer that your simulation implies.

Overload, I'm with you in that he'll only get 2 (maximum of 3 depending on when the dot happens to tick) seconds out of it. But if he's smart, he can overload us from the same range that we TB him from. Meaning we were 10ms out when we used TB, he knocked us back an additional 10 leaving us at 20m. We're both rooted for 2 seconds, then we start to close the gap since he's slowed and we move at 115% speed. He will get his 6 second duration slow back before we get within 4m. We don't have sneak to counter this time, though we will still gain distance. The question then becomes do we get to 4m before force speed comes back up? If yes I think we've got it (with 1 major stipulation that I"ll get to) If no, I think we are back into he can kite us all day long territory, even with our passive speed boost.

The stipulation is that TB and Overload both can hit a target 10ms away. This means that if they ever get us with the overload before we get the TB off, we simply won't get to slow them again. On the other hand if they are a second slow with overload and don't hit us until we've already rooted them and are 9m from them rather than 10ms it doesn't really change things from if they had casted it a meter earlier and still been TBed. Just something to watch for, if they kite kite kite kite, and then juke towards us at the last instant before 10ms and we are in the middle of a global, they can punish us.

First of all, my thanks to the op for this thread.

On what expertise level are you sitting? is there a number where DR is kicking in badly?

Is 1300 too much?

First of all, my thanks to the op for this thread.

 

On what expertise level are you sitting? is there a number where DR is kicking in badly?

 

Is 1300 too much?

Glad it has been helpful!

I am using 1250 Expertise right now, but I feel I could go a bit lower without any serious drop in survivability. That last 50 Expertise barely gives you a full percentage point increase in dmg/DR. By contrast, putting some of that into cunning and endurance can give you a slightly better return in your overall damage and HP. My advice is to keep expertise between roughly 1190 and 1250.

There are some mathematical analyses of this on the PvP forums, but all are highly contentious.

Overload, I'm with you in that he'll only get 2 (maximum of 3 depending on when the dot happens to tick) seconds out of it. But if he's smart, he can overload us from the same range that we TB him from. Meaning we were 10ms out when we used TB, he knocked us back an additional 10 leaving us at 20m. We're both rooted for 2 seconds, then we start to close the gap since he's slowed and we move at 115% speed. He will get his 6 second duration slow back before we get within 4m. We don't have sneak to counter this time, though we will still gain distance. The question then becomes do we get to 4m before force speed comes back up? If yes I think we've got it (with 1 major stipulation that I"ll get to) If no, I think we are back into he can kite us all day long territory, even with our passive speed boost.

He overloads at 10.5-12, right when we fire our TB. We then get snared for 2 seconds (the chances of it being 3 are miniscule given the way the DOT ticks). So does he. We are now 20 meters apart. At 12-13.5, we then take off at 115% move speed. He doesn't have slow this time so he can't Slow us, he doesn't have CC that we just can't break, and his Force Speed is still on CD until 21.5. In the first GCD (12-13.5) we clear about 10 meters. Sorc clears about 5 (difference at 15m). From 13.5-15, we clear 10 more and Sorc clears about 5 (10m distance). Finally at 15-16.5, we get within 4-5 meters. And mind you, these are conservative estimates of speed. Realistically, we close it slightly before 15-16.5 (probably at around 14.5-15.5). Now we have 5 seconds with our breaker up, the Sorcs breakers down, and our Dirty Kick ready to go.

The stipulation is that TB and Overload both can hit a target 10ms away. This means that if they ever get us with the overload before we get the TB off, we simply won't get to slow them again. On the other hand if they are a second slow with overload and don't hit us until we've already rooted them and are 9m from them rather than 10ms it doesn't really change things from if they had casted it a meter earlier and still been TBed. Just something to watch for, if they kite kite kite kite, and then juke towards us at the last instant before 10ms and we are in the middle of a global, they can punish us.

I am totally willing to let that last few meters come down to timing, luck, lag, skill, etc, especially given that by almost every other indicator, the fight is in our favor. Even in this outrageou kiting scenario with all CDs up, one that I have encountered maybe once or twice in my entire WZ career, we STILL prevail with our powerful slows. WE HAVEN'T EVEN USED DA YET! And once we use DA, we will get yet another Sneak.

As said earlier, I am calling this Sorcerer dead. But I do want to give you a lot of thanks for working through this with me. I am going to add a "credit" section to the OP, and you will certainly get a big shoutout for your work on this issue.

Glad it has been helpful!

 

I am using 1250 Expertise right now, but I feel I could go a bit lower without any serious drop in survivability. That last 50 Expertise barely gives you a full percentage point increase in dmg/DR. By contrast, putting some of that into cunning and endurance can give you a slightly better return in your overall damage and HP. My advice is to keep expertise between roughly 1190 and 1250.

 

There are some mathematical analyses of this on the PvP forums, but all are highly contentious.

 

He overloads at 10.5-12, right when we fire our TB. We then get snared for 2 seconds (the chances of it being 3 are miniscule given the way the DOT ticks). So does he. We are now 20 meters apart. At 12-13.5, we then take off at 115% move speed. He doesn't have slow this time so he can't Slow us, he doesn't have CC that we just can't break, and his Force Speed is still on CD until 21.5. In the first GCD (12-13.5) we clear about 10 meters. Sorc clears about 5 (difference at 15m). From 13.5-15, we clear 10 more and Sorc clears about 5 (10m distance). Finally at 15-16.5, we get within 4-5 meters. And mind you, these are conservative estimates of speed. Realistically, we close it slightly before 15-16.5 (probably at around 14.5-15.5). Now we have 5 seconds with our breaker up, the Sorcs breakers down, and our Dirty Kick ready to go.

 

I am totally willing to let that last few meters come down to timing, luck, lag, skill, etc, especially given that by almost every other indicator, the fight is in our favor. Even in this outrageou kiting scenario with all CDs up, one that I have encountered maybe once or twice in my entire WZ career, we STILL prevail with our powerful slows. WE HAVEN'T EVEN USED DA YET! And once we use DA, we will get yet another Sneak.

 

As said earlier, I am calling this Sorcerer dead. But I do want to give you a lot of thanks for working through this with me. I am going to add a "credit" section to the OP, and you will certainly get a big shoutout for your work on this issue.

Hallow runs at 1214 expertise and about 991 bonus dmg. You can lower the expertise and I would gain some power if you could. There was a whole argument way at the beginning when the expertise changes were made.

On the sorcerer bit: gentlemen if you are running straight at the opponent you are asking to be overloaded. Angles and sides are you friend. if you off center yourself in relation to their toon, you can get close enough that when they overload you are behind their cone of effect. Just a few thoughts on positioning. This thread is relevant but tactics often trump abilities. speed boost will help them misjudge our position because our speed boost effects are very subtle.

On the sorcerer bit: gentlemen if you are running straight at the opponent you are asking to be overloaded. Angles and sides are you friend. if you off center yourself in relation to their toon, you can get close enough that when they overload you are behind their cone of effect. Just a few thoughts on positioning. This thread is relevant but tactics often trump abilities. speed boost will help them misjudge our position because our speed boost effects are very subtle.

Oh don't get me wrong. I totally, 100% agree with you, and I am sure that Asunasan also agrees with you.

For this particular scenario, however, one of our working assumptions was that the Sorc is skilled enough to mouse turn no matter where we go. That means angling our approach and coming in from the side won't matter. The instant we get in Overload range, we are just assuming he is going to land it and knock us back.

I know that this is unrealistic; I almost always get the Sorc to screw up their Overload by being mobile and keeping on the angles. Besides, as we all know, WZs and PvP are stressful and chaotic. People mess up. Mouse turns are hard when your health is dropping, your opponent is closing, shotguns are going off everywhere, etc.

But we wanted to look at the perfect opponent and see if we could still win. Without TB at a 12 second 50% slow, for instance, I would have had to agree with Asunasan that this fight was looking pretty hard, especially against a Sorc in the 0+/17+/17+ spec. The TB slow is what makes this winnable no matter what, so long as we use the correct abilities when they are called for.

Oh don't get me wrong. I totally, 100% agree with you, and I am sure that Asunasan also agrees with you.

 

For this particular scenario, however, one of our working assumptions was that the Sorc is skilled enough to mouse turn no matter where we go. That means angling our approach and coming in from the side won't matter. The instant we get in Overload range, we are just assuming he is going to land it and knock us back.

 

I know that this is unrealistic; I almost always get the Sorc to screw up their Overload by being mobile and keeping on the angles. Besides, as we all know, WZs and PvP are stressful and chaotic. People mess up. Mouse turns are hard!

 

But we wanted to look at the perfect opponent and see if we could still win. Without TB at a 12 second 50% slow, for instance, I would have had to agree with Asunasan that this fight was looking pretty hard, especially against a Sorc in the 0+/17+/17+ spec. The TB slow is what makes this winnable no matter what, so long as we use the correct abilities when they are called for.

I figured, But I also wanted it stated, tactics trump abilities. I was reading all the crafting and not once did you state a way getting around the overload, you just assumed a perfect opponent, when in reality are playing other players. I did love reading the scenario's and wanted to chime in but you guys covered all the possibility, so my only two cents was out think the opponent once you know their abilities and how they should use them

Forgive the noob question, but what is the easiest way to get the 2 pieces of PVE gear for the backblast bonus. Is that only from Operations?

But I'm surprised that there isn't a huge bold blinking text about always crouching before capping (also, anyone else having problems with camera rotation when doing so?).

Yep. Camera is stuck on direction you were facing for a couple secs, every time. Max zoom helps a lttle to see things around/behind, but is not ideal.

Or you can get full set of tionese gear once you hit lvl 50, then get 2 pieces of EWH belt/bracers (no set bonus on armoring), rip out the armorings and put those in any 2 tionese shells (where bonus is tied to shell)

This. It's essentially free and zero effort. Though the boots look embarrasing, stupid shells.

One useful tip I saw was to use the free Tionese shells for head and chest, as these are the most expensive in terms of the comms you have to earn. You can then spend the comms on the cheaper parts of the item set for the bonus you want and gear up quicker.

Oh, and expertise 1314 here. Swapping the weapon crystals from expertise to power is a straight 1-to1 trade, stat for stat, do this at least. I don't swap in PvE mods, I do swap in lots of PvP mods over the set you get with the piece to balance my stats better.