[sAGE] Elidhu's 2.0 PTS Review Aimed at Devs and Players!

 

Hello all!

I'd like to review the sage changes and give an overview of how well each of the more common specs are performing from a PVE point of view.

 

Accuracy:

Firstly i'd like to briefly cover the implementation of the accuracy/resist system for sages/sorcs. I believe that this is a good change for the gearing system for force users as this system has been present in other previous MMORPG's as hit/spell hit. From what I have researched doing parses on the PTS, the resist mechanic occupies part of the combat table and I think it equates to 10% before talents/skills/gear. Therefore sages will need to acquire 6% accuracy from gear which is roughly 435 Accuracy rating. This is because we already get 3% from the “Inner Strength” talent at the bottom of the telekinetics tree and 1% from companions. Once you reach this accuracy level your abilities have a 0% chance to be resisted. However, if you do not reach that level, your abilities have a chance to be completely mitigate and not affect the target at all. This means that if I cast Force in Balance on the target and it is resisted, then the target does not suffer any damage and is not effected by the Force Suppression debuff stacks.

This is exactly why I believe that hitting the 10% mark is the most important secondary stat for sages as of 2.0.

With abilities like Telekinetic Throw the chance to resist is rolled on each of the 4 ticks, so even if you resist the first you may well hit with all others. This occurrence isn't a big deal because all you lose is the damage from 1 TT tick, the chance to proc POM and some force regen. However, having your Force in Balance resisted with it's 15sec cooldown would mean losing out on the full damage from both the initial hit and the increased DoT damage from force suppression stacks. This IS a big deal!

I did a 30min parse on the lvl 55 Ops dummy on fleet and only spammed TT for the full duration(yes my hand hurts). I had removed all of my accuracy gear leaving me with 104% accuracy from talents and companion. The results: http://www.torparse.com/a/140582/6/0/Damage+Dealt

The results show that over a period of 30mins and 2499 ticks of TT that 6.2% of those ticks “missed” or were “resisted” and did not land on the target. Allowing for a few outlying iterations, I believe the resist chance to be 6%, thus confirming my initial theory.

 

So I do fully believe that sages should be aiming for 110% accuracy.

 

Force Armor:

I believe that removing the cooldown enables a dps sage to be much more usefull in a group situation through giving us more utility.

 

DoTs:

Increase to DoT damage was a must to be honest and I am in complete agreement about the change.

 

Mental Alacrity:

Having this cooldown available for all specs was a brilliant idea! With the reworking of alacrity in the expansion, this cooldown really enables sages to utilise the new system, be it for damage increase, burst healing or merely increased regen!

 

Disturbance:

I believe that the increased cost and damage for disturbance was an important change to make. Telekinetics was far too force positive and I hope that this change willmake force management more of an issue with that spec. However, I do believe that the crit damage boost from the “Reverberation” talent at the top of the TK tree is the only thing that makes the ability a viable option over TT. In both the hybrid and full balance specs, I can only see it being used as a way to refresh “Telekinetic Focal Point” when on the move or in danger of the buff falling off. Using it on POM procs is still a dps loss, not to mention that it makes you force negative.

 

TK abilities:

The damage increase to turbulence, telekinetic wave and disturbance in the TK tree was a much needed change to bring the telekinetics spec closer to other advanced classes in terms of dps. The additional burst allows for a nice change of pace and strategy from playing low-burst specs like full balance or hybrid.

 

Healing Trance:

I always felt that this ability, no matter what utility it brought to a sage healing was slightly weak for an ability with a 9sec cooldown(no 4-set). So the increase was a welcome one. It eliminates the feeling of having to use the ability to maintain force even in a situation where you would much rather use a deliverance or benevolence.

 

Seer Talents:

Good job BW! I was very happy with the “resplendence” change to enable to choice between a faster cast AoE or a number of NS force taps without force regen debuff. Giving the class the ability to choose was a great move. The increased channel time on Healing Trance makes the ability viable in low-health situations where the next hit may kill, and casting a full benevolence or deliverance would be too slow. Life Ward was a talent that on paper did not excite me all that much from a PVE stand point, however using the healing from force armor to negate the health loss through noble sacrifice was smooth and very efficient. Psychic Suffusion at the bottom of the seer tree was a nice surprise and not a change that I expected at all! I made good use of this ability yesterday and was very impressed. Although the numbers were only hitting 2.5k on a crit, the ability does not have a maximum amount of targets making it viable for 16-man healing and also is so low in the healing tree, that it may even be a utility spell that I take to assist the raid while running as a dps.

 

Telekinetic Talents:

I was very happy to see the change to Tidal Force, increasing the cooldown but also the chance to proc from disturbance and the addition of turbulence. I believe this has reduced the “proc-watching” feel to this spec, based on RNG. Being able to almost know when the proc will occur allows you to better time your burst for specific parts of an encounter at a desired time. I was not however happy with the implementation of more talents like “upheaval”. This means that there are now 3 talents in a single tree that enable the change to proc a second attack on an ability(4 total). This means that there is massive room for RNG and a large diversity in damage output for the spec over short durations.

 

Balance Talents:

I am partially happy with the increase of the stack count from 10 to 15 on force suppression, as this does allow the full durations of WM and MC to full tick out and all be effected by the stacks. However, I can't help but feel that the change has lowered the skill cap by removing a timing requirement to really squeeze as much out of sages as possible. But I also believe that a simpler “rotation” will lead to better raid awareness and am therefore happy I am happy with the straight increase to DoT damage through drain thoughts as this puts more emphasis on the portion of damage which makes the tree what it is. Having TT spam do nearly 70% of our damage was way too high, so I am very glad to see that begin to change. The addition of “Rippling Force” however, contradicts that thought. The “Telekinetic Focal Point” talent was another great addition to the tree. Having the extra job of maintaining stacks increased the skill cap of the class as well as promotes the use of disturbance in certain situations. I believe the utility talents “Metaphysical Alacrity” and “Mental Defense” near the top of the tree are aimed more towards PvP but I believe that they may have their uses in certain situations, but altogether not a change that I believe was particularly necessary from a PVE POV. The change to containment falls under the same header. Having the ability not instant cast any more will not have a significant effect like it may have in PvP.

 

Thoughts on Healing Sage:

Overall this is the spec that I have actually had the most time to test as I ran through SM Scum & Villainy last night predominantly as a healer. I have to admit it has made me even more eager to play dps and healer equally. The changes both in talents and through abilities have increased the diversity of the spec with the implementation of choices in situations where you would normally have to follow a rather regimented healing path. For a role that is based partially upon feeling and trying to pre-empt incoming damage the changes have unlocked new ways to manipulate situations and the skill cap has been raised as a bi-product.

 

Thoughts on full Telekinetics dps:

The spec has gained some much-needed burst control, but has also taken a back step with the addition of even more RNG based damage increases. One thing that did concern me was that the rotation really hasn't changed all that much. Unlike the other dps specs, telekinetics has not gained the mental alacrity cooldown and therefore has not altered at all.

 

Through testing on the lvl 55 dummy on the fleet running a gear set with 109.97 accuracy and a mix of other stats with the limited starter gear available, I have managed to maintain roughly 2350dps with no armor debuff. This is however the spec that I am least proficient in and the results may be bettered by a more experienced TK sage.

 

Thoughts on full Balance:

The spec has had very little changes to the playstyle other than the additon of a stack that needs to be tracked and the alacrity cooldown, but the dps output of the spec has made leaps and bounds towards becoming competitive against some of the higher parsing classes like sentinels and vanguards.

 

Through testing I have managed to maintain 2400dps with no armor debuff, but this is also not the spec that I play most frequently so I fully expect people to parse higher in the same level of gear.

 

Thoughts on Tele/Bala Hybrid: My thoughts on this spec are exactly the same as with full Balance. The gameplay has not changed but the dps output has become more competative.

 

Through testing I managed to maintain 2500dps with no armor debuff. Hybrid is the spec that i play most and I believe that I can rival most with it.

 

The results I have found are obviously very preliminary and until the content goes live and I can redo the testing with more complimentary gear sets, the results must be taken with a pinch of salt and are in no way stated by me as fact!

 

I do however feel confident enough to say that all 3 dps specs are viable for the content currently out on the PTS and it would be beneficial for people to become schooled and efficient in playing all 3 and change spec according to whatever boss or game mechanics you come up against.

 

I hope this hasn't been too boring and that game developers and players alike gained something from reading this.

 

/Elidhu

 

Embrace the Rage!!!

Thanks for the hard work and awesome input. I was talking to you on the fleet today about some stuff. I made a new toon since mine wouldn't copy and was playing around today. We discussed the inclusion/exclusion of disturbance in the hybrid build. You say that it is a dps loss to fish for Telekinetic Wave with it, so maybe I'm missing something. Using POM to cast disturbance looks like a 25% damage increase vs two ticks of TK throw. Couple that with a 60% chance to proc an instant TK Wave which is probably at least 30% more damage than two more ticks of TK throw (they have different crit % and I didn't do the exact math). So 60% of the time you are going to do close to 30% more damage than one channel of TK throw. The other 40%, you are going to do 25% more damage over ~1.4 seconds. Am I missing something here or is my math wrong?

Thanks for the hard work and awesome input. I was talking to you on the fleet today about some stuff. I made a new toon since mine wouldn't copy and was playing around today. We discussed the inclusion/exclusion of disturbance in the hybrid build. You say that it is a dps loss to fish for Telekinetic Wave with it, so maybe I'm missing something. Using POM to cast disturbance looks like a 25% damage increase vs two ticks of TK throw. Couple that with a 60% chance to proc an instant TK Wave which is probably at least 30% more damage than two more ticks of TK throw (they have different crit % and I didn't do the exact math). So 60% of the time you are going to do close to 30% more damage than one channel of TK throw. The other 40%, you are going to do 25% more damage over ~1.4 seconds. Am I missing something here or is my math wrong?

 

Nono you math is probably right. There is also the problem with force regen. I beleive using Disturbance on the spare POM procs makes you force negative. I'll take a look at the spec tomorrow

Thank you for this wonderful review.

 

I can add a couple of things as a telekinetics sage.

 

I also had a chance to observe the skill tree, with the new project talent coming in, Project can take the place of Mind Crush within our rotation.

 

I always believed that Mind Crush has a too long casting time and project might have a better dps/casttime ratio ( Cast time for project is the GCD. ) value unless the player goes for high alacrity. Now its clear that Bioware doesn't want telekinetic sages to use Mind Crush, GCD decreasing with alacrity and upheavel amongst our talents.

 

I feel a little offended actually, our skill tree cooldown ( Mental Alacrity ) is now used by all other sage skill trees which is good for others. However, telekinetics sage required something new, something to make the RDPS more interesting in its current state. It could be the only skill tree amongst classes with only "two" new skills to use.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Hakkology

Thank you for this wonderful review.

 

I can add a couple of things as a telekinetics sage.

 

I also had a chance to observe the skill tree, with the new project talent coming in, Project can take the place of Mind Crush within our rotation.

 

I always believed that Mind Crush has a too long casting time and project might have a better dps/casttime ratio ( Cast time for project is the GCD. ) value unless the player goes for high alacrity. Now its clear that Bioware doesn't want telekinetic sages to use Mind Crush, GCD decreasing with alacrity and upheavel amongst our talents.

 

I feel a little offended actually, our skill tree cooldown ( Mental Alacrity ) is now used by all other sage skill trees which is good for others. However, telekinetics sage required something new, something to make the RDPS more interesting in its current state. It could be the only skill tree amongst classes with only "two" new skills to use.

 

Hmm that is a very interesting idea. I've not tried substituting out mind crush completely. I'll have to try it myself. My only qualm with that is thst there are still talents like Mental Momentum in the TK tree which directly benefits mind crush.

Hmm that is a very interesting idea. I've not tried substituting out mind crush completely. I'll have to try it myself. My only qualm with that is thst there are still talents like Mental Momentum in the TK tree which directly benefits mind crush.

 

You are absolutely right, i should have read Mental Momentum more carefully. So does this mean we also implement Project in our rotation ? That's a good addition. Mind Crush does have a long cooldown and Project would be a great filler compared to disturbance, with Upheavel and lower GCD times.

 

I'm also not sure if project can cope with the new improved disturbance. Would be great if this could be tested with the telekinetics tree.

 

Again thank you for all the reviews you wrote, they have been very helpful.

Great review. Thanks for writing this up.

 

Question: As a seer sage now, what secondary statistics do you foresee being paramount?

 

I was thinking something like:

 

Alacrity: ~10%

Crit: 35-40%

Surge: 65-70%

Power: dump the rest

 

Goal: Make sure to proc Resplendence on HT to give instant cast Salvation, and quicker deliverance. Alacrity assists with force management (as does the high crit for Resplendence and using those stacks for Force management).

 

P.S. I'm sure this makes sense for PVE, but I'm mostly talking about PVP.

 

Thanks & thoughts?

Great review. Thanks for writing this up.

 

Question: As a seer sage now, what secondary statistics do you foresee being paramount?

 

I was thinking something like:

 

Alacrity: ~10%

Crit: 35-40%

Surge: 65-70%

Power: dump the rest

 

Goal: Make sure to proc Resplendence on HT to give instant cast Salvation, and quicker deliverance. Alacrity assists with force management (as does the high crit for Resplendence and using those stacks for Force management).

 

P.S. I'm sure this makes sense for PVE, but I'm mostly talking about PVP.

 

Thanks & thoughts?

 

Yeah that looks about right to me. In theory when we're hitting the DR curves the stat ratios should be pretty similar to what we run in 1.7

Great review. Thanks for writing this up.

 

Question: As a seer sage now, what secondary statistics do you foresee being paramount?

 

I was thinking something like:

 

Alacrity: ~10%

Crit: 35-40%

Surge: 65-70%

Power: dump the rest

 

Goal: Make sure to proc Resplendence on HT to give instant cast Salvation, and quicker deliverance. Alacrity assists with force management (as does the high crit for Resplendence and using those stacks for Force management).

 

P.S. I'm sure this makes sense for PVE, but I'm mostly talking about PVP.

 

Thanks & thoughts?

 

You should head to PTS before trying to get those stats ;D

 

You can not get nowhere near those stats. Crit and surge got lowered alot along with alacrity.

 

To get even 35% crit is not possible unless full 72 gear in pve. Let alone with alacrity 10% same time. Things will change alot in 2.0

I've played it.

 

Yes, they got nerfed. I'm only a couple of pieces into the pvp grind with my old 50 stuff, and I'm already to 5% alacrity.

 

It's also hard to tell what the augment strategy will be, but therein lies a lot of potential to buffer some stats outside of the gear itself to increase these values.

 

Also, skill point investments make a difference here too. Lots of options to backfill surge outside of the gear itself (6% increase talented, I think).

 

It's all new, but basically the mentality would be to:

 

(1) Max alacrity, then

(2) Shoot for the highest crit value, then

(3) Backfill surge to max heal burst, and then

(4) Settle for power.

 

Right? I mean, Resplendence proc on healing trance is going to make our break you as an effective healer in 2.0, I would think. When you're laying down heals off cool downs, then it means your regen is critically important now.

 

In 1.7, the approach has been basically to shoot for ~30% (buffed) crit %, then to minimize alacrity & stack power/surge, with WP augments + PVE armorings to supplement HP / crit / healing power.

Edited February 23, 2013 by adiwantinova

Idk how the pvp gear works for stats, but in the pve gear this is what I found

 

The crit is possible for seer. I'm at 34ish with roughly 850 rating and 2500 WP.

 

With the 2% talent increase I'm at like 6.8% alacrity (like around 360 rating) and my surge with the same rating also just hits 70%. My power is at like 6XX but I also got 2 pvp relics to boost that

 

So I think the 35% crit is possible, but the 10 alacrity and 65-70% surge is not

idk if it was mentioned but the changes in the dot time of weaken mind in my opinion have altered my rotation more than i would like for my hybrid and even full balance specs. ik its 3 sec from 21 to 18 sec but just playing around with it I find the time my dots are expiring im having to spend more gcd's in a row reapplying dots and force in balance (15sec cd) then spamming tele throw .

 

I believe its possible i need to mess around with it more to get my timing better so im wasting less consecutive gcds reapplying dots but im still getting around 2350 dps in a 5 min window using 109% acc. I also seem to have similar issues that I did on live (in particular with tk throw) where i use a gcd and the ability is not cast. although that only happens in the parses i have done about 5 times in a 5 min fight it does hurt my dps a little bit.

 

basically my question is to elidhu and anyone else on the pts is with the new time on weaken mind and suppression having 15 stacks now is it smart to save using your force in balance like on live so that weaken mind gets more stacks of suppression or do you use it on cd and with the changes to the times on the dots do you find yourself using more gcds (particularly consecutivly) to keep them up?

Good looking out, Ceeej!

 

You think the priorities are right, though? Never mind the values, more about the priority? Sorry for thread jacking...

Good looking out, Ceeej!

 

You think the priorities are right, though? Never mind the values, more about the priority? Sorry for thread jacking...

 

Not sure to be honest, each spec benefits from crit in different ways

 

On the seer side, only ways we benefit from more crit are from HT procs(which conveyance covers) and getting the nice big heals, which even though they are nice, requires some surge to make pretty. I think it may be completely reasonable to shave off crit/surge to go for more power/alacrity, but same thing with healer's preference as to where you wan your stats to go. Ill keep the 35% crit chance I built up because I like it

 

Now im not that big into dpsing on my sage but here is my guestimation on how stats should look, partially based on the 1.3 BiS found from the lovely people of MMO mechanics. The dps specs things vary alittle because you also got accuracy to deal with, and as elidhu pointed out that's going to take roughly 435 rating to reach 110% force accuracy. In each of the specs crit has some benefits too, not exactly helpful bonuses but bonuses nonetheless.

 

TK we get better force management with each crit we get(autocrit TB helps here), and some huge surge bonuses as well to our moves. I would say you want the 100% accuracy because most of your moves here get some nice big hits that nobody wants resisted. Same as always alacrity is huge for the spec, cast times FTW. Personally for the spec I would like to try acc to 100%, then alacrity then surge

 

Balance and hybrid I would put less into alacrity/power and go more the crit/surge route. I feel because most of the moves in the spec have some "over time" function it's safe to be less in accuracy and hope you don't get a FiB or MC initial hit resisted.

 

What do you think elidhu?

If i'm completely honest, any dps sage would be crazy not to get completely accuracy capped.

 

With regards to stat distribution, i reccomend what you were doing by checking out the BiS lists on MMO-Mechanics from 1.3 and 1.6. For example in both these patches the TK spec was very alacrit reliant due to it's many casts and the gameplay has not changed at all so you will still see that relationship. Balance always saw a higher surge and hybrid always saw an exact 50/50 split.

 

If i'm completely honest this is the best i have right now, but it is a very safe place to start.

 

The situation i'm in now is that due to the discontinuation of Simulationcraft and the introduction of new sage talents etc, i have 3 options:

 

1. Limit my theorycraft to "in-game" trial and error

2. Learn how to update the simulationcraft programme (i've never done anything like that)

3. Create a new spreadsheet as best i can to determine BiS lists for 2.0

Do you have parses for those 2300-2500?

 

Here are some preliminary indicative Sage parses I cobbled together. As I was only comparing builds and rotations they are all 3m long (DPS value taken at 180s), were done on the level 50 dummy with stock Arkanian Force Master's gear, with Prototype Hyper-Battle Resolve Stim, all class buffs, all companion buffs and no armour debuffs and no cds were used.

 

THESE ARE NOT REPRESENTING ENDGAME DPS VALUES!!!!! They are merely comparing each other.

 

Balance 3/7/36

 

Without Disturbance - 2248 at 180s. Force not an issue.

With Disturbance - 2355 at 180s. Force a bit of an issue, ended up with 60% at the 3 minute mark.

 

Balance 5/5/36

 

Without Disturbance - 2223 at 180s. Force not an issue.

With Disturbance - 2284 at 180s. Force not an issue but I messed up a bit.

 

Telekinetics 3/36/7

 

2163 Force not an issue. Was a bit rusty and missed one or two cds. Also forgot that Disturbance got and is now better than Project.

 

Hybrid 5/13/28

 

2300 at 180s. Force not an issue.

 

Hybrid 2/16/28

 

With Disturbance on Proc only - 2279 at 180s. Force not an issue.

I have also tried using disturbance every 10s but my stim run out and I made too many mistakes. will play with this more later was just an idea I had (you should see what I did to VG trees =D)

Edited February 24, 2013 by Darth_Dreselus

Do you have parses for those 2300-2500?

 

I don't have them to hand but if i get some free time after the raid tonight i'll make a point of doing them

Do you have parses for those 2300-2500?

 

Here are some preliminary indicative Sage parses I cobbled together. As I was only comparing builds and rotations they are all 3m long (DPS value taken at 180s), were done on the level 50 dummy with stock Arkanian Force Master's gear, with Prototype Hyper-Battle Resolve Stim, all class buffs, all companion buffs and no armour debuffs and no cds were used.

 

THESE ARE NOT REPRESENTING ENDGAME DPS VALUES!!!!! They are merely comparing each other.

 

Balance 3/7/36

 

Without Disturbance - 2248 at 180s. Force not an issue.

With Disturbance - 2355 at 180s. Force a bit of an issue, ended up with 60% at the 3 minute mark.

 

Balance 5/5/36

 

Without Disturbance - 2223 at 180s. Force not an issue.

With Disturbance - 2284 at 180s. Force not an issue but I messed up a bit.

 

Telekinetics 3/36/7

 

2163 Force not an issue. Was a bit rusty and missed one or two cds. Also forgot that Disturbance got and is now better than Project.

 

Hybrid 5/13/28

 

2300 at 180s. Force not an issue.

 

Hybrid 2/16/28

 

With Disturbance on Proc only - 2279 at 180s. Force not an issue.

I have also tried using disturbance every 10s but my stim run out and I made too many mistakes. will play with this more later was just an idea I had (you should see what I did to VG trees =D)

 

I jsut tried around a 2/16/28 spec jsut for kicks and I can accurately parse around 2350-2450 (RNG and lag mermitting) for a 3 min fight I did in the fleet (lag permitting with how many people are parsing on the dummy). this spec revolves around gambling with how quickly u can get presence of mind up because to get use of tidal force u need to use presence on a disturbance after you have mind crush on cd. i was wondering if anyone else has played around with this spec or something similar and I could compare and contrast numbers to the traditional specs elidhu tested? here is the link to what i specced as exactly

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-sage/224/?build=200000000000000000000000000000000323120002110010000000000000000003022302013120010122030000000000&ver=20

I jsut tried around a 2/16/28 spec jsut for kicks and I can accurately parse around 2350-2450 (RNG and lag mermitting) for a 3 min fight I did in the fleet (lag permitting with how many people are parsing on the dummy). this spec revolves around gambling with how quickly u can get presence of mind up because to get use of tidal force u need to use presence on a disturbance after you have mind crush on cd. i was wondering if anyone else has played around with this spec or something similar and I could compare and contrast numbers to the traditional specs elidhu tested? here is the link to what i specced as exactly

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-sage/224/?build=200000000000000000000000000000000323120002110010000000000000000003022302013120010122030000000000&ver=20

 

I would say it is an idea definitely worth playing with even if it ultimately fails. If anything it is a good AoE build.

 

I also realised that Telekinetic Focal Point is worth more than Force Gift. Unfortunately to get it 2 additional points in balance tree are needed leaving the following options:

 

4% alacrity cap, 20% on TT, 100% on Disturb 2/12/32

5% alacrity cap, 10% on TT, 50% on Disturb3/12/31

There are more options with getting 3% crit from Seer instead as well. Depending on how worthwhile alacrity from trees becomes (i.e if the stat scaling gets adjusted) you can also take an Energy saving build 4/14/28

 

BTW I am not taking upheaval as I found I just don't have time to throw in projects into the rotations but that does not mean it cannot be utilised with some tweaking. Either way 12 Pts in TK is probably the max. Containment, Pinning Resolve, Jedi resistance and Focused Insight are also generally interchangeable. I feel that Damage decrease and self healing are the most worthwhile for Ops.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Darth_Dreselus

I think I could add a few things to the theorycraft.

 

1) Disturbance should be a net positive for procs and might also be worthwhile in the beginning of the fight when popping cooldowns. A disturbance hit (~2200) is greater than 2 TK throw hits and a crit (~3500) is greater than 2 TK throw crits (same cast time). This also builds up your alacrity stacks instantly and has a higher chance to proc your free dot (extra damage). I think disturbance might also have a role as a filler when weaken mind has 1.5 seconds left in order to maximize DoT uptime, replacing project's role.

 

2) TK buffs are huge. Force management was never an issue. The rotation is slightly easier because of not needing to limit when to use tk wave. Stat priorities might value a little more crit and surge because alacrity hits such a quick cap. Accuracy cap is probably most important here. TK can put out an obscene amount of damage in a short amount of time now, which i can see as more of a PVP focused buff rather than PVE.

 

3) While force management issues in balance were not really fixed, the spec seems to play better. Surge should still be a priority because of the amount of damage that relys on DoTs. 15 ticks instead of also helps in the long run.

 

Overall there are some really nice buffs and I wouldn't be surprised to see sages topping meters. Sages scale the best with alacrity because we were the only ones that really benefited from the stat before. Obviously the accuracy cap is annoying but it will probably end up balancing out.

 

I will get a parse of TK up later.

-Onomoro

[sAGE] Elidhu's 2.0 PTS Review Aimed at Devs and Players!

 

 

 

I do however feel confident enough to say that all 3 dps specs are viable for the content currently out on the PTS and it would be beneficial for people to become schooled and efficient in playing all 3 and change spec according to whatever boss or game mechanics you come up against.

 

I hope this hasn't been too boring and that game developers and players alike gained something from reading this.

 

/Elidhu

 

Embrace the Rage!!!

 

Thanks for a great run down of the Sage Class on PTS atm.

 

/Conji

Appologies for not getting my parses sorted last night but i've been busy crafting etc and doing Sv on 16 HM. Lots of people including devs have asked me about the "TF hybrid" spec. I honestly didn't take the time to test it on PTS as i ran it through simulations on live about 2 months ago and found it wanting. However, wuth the talent changes and the success people are having i will make sure to parse that spec also. Maybe before the raid tonight if the fleet dummy isn't too busy Edited February 25, 2013 by Garell

I really would like to hear some good news about Telekinetic Sages, some good dps values. Currently it looks way weaker compared to other specs. Anyone already familiar with the class able to test it ? Edited February 25, 2013 by Hakkology

Appologies for not getting my parses sorted last night but i've been busy crafting etc and doing Sv on 16 HM. Lots of people including devs have asked me about the "TF hybrid" spec. I honestly didn't take the time to test it on PTS as i ran it through simulations on live about 2 months ago and found it wanting. However, wuth the talent changes and the success people are having i will make sure to parse that spec also. Maybe before the raid tonight if the fleet dummy isn't too busy

 

I ran a test on it on the ship dummy and found it to do ~2300 DPS (no chance to resist, though i had 216 accuracy). It runs into force issues very quickly because of disturbance. That could change if you are smart about alternating tk throw and disturbance. TK wave also seems like its not worth it because it is not buffed by some talents further up in the TK tree.

 

For a reference, I was getting ~2600-2700 on the same dummy with TK and ~2500-2600 with balance and hybrid. Again, this is a lvl 50 dummy with a lower armor value and a no resists, meaning that these numbers are inflated.

 

EDIT: TK Log - ~2400, with armor debuff, screwed up a little bit near the end, otherwise it was holding up at about 2500. Stats: 1230 Bonus Damage, 106.15% accuracy, 22.58% crit chance, ~69 crit multiplier, 5% Alacrity. Server Lag: 23 ms. No augments.

 

TK Log 2 ~2400 Armor Debuff for beginning and end. Stats: 1218.7 Bonus Damage, 108.06 Accuracy, 23.30% crit, 66.92% crit mult, 4.06% Alacrity.

 

TK Log 3 - taking miss out of the equation ~2600. This test was with 0% added accuracy. Stats were: 1217.5 bonus damage, 23.37% crit, 69.49% Multiplier, 7.76% Alacrity. Done on the lvl 50 ship operations dummy. The purpose of this test was to test how the spec will scale with alacrity. I don't know if this distrubution is attainable, but if it is, the spec can easily push 2700.

 

I think it will scale alot better once we can get more alacrity in the mix.

 

One concern with the spec: The initial burst with cooldowns is really really high. I am afraid sages can rip aggro off of tanks even if they give the tanks a head start.

Edited February 25, 2013 by fearrious

Ill just copypaste what I posted on MMO Mechanics

 

Ok so I did a 2200 Balance parse

http://www.torparse.com/a/144114

 

My stats are

 

WP: 2555

Power: 995

Force power: 1874

Accuracy: 108.13

Crit chance: 26.20 (338 rating)

Crit Multi: 70.06 (360 rating)

Alac: 72 rating

 

No stims, all buffs and no on-use relic (forgot to pop it in the beginning so I didnt bother)

My build: http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calc...100&ver=20

 

Note that there are 2 points in the Balance tree I couldnt place so I put them in Containment. This is of course optional since there are other skills to put them in but none of them affect DPS

Oh and there was a TK Sage parsing next to me so he took a few of my DoT's

 

I thnk in an ideal environment the Balance spec should hit around 2400~

 

 

EDIT: did a 2nd try, this time with more accuracy (109.06 - 360)) and crit (27.71 - 436) and less power (897) and Surge (67.61% - 288)

http://www.torparse.com/a/144131

I also forgot to put the new stuff in my augged belt+bracers so I switched that and this round I did use my relic. Also this time there was no Sage around to steal my Balance ticks

Its also a bit shorter since my phone acted up and the app crashed.

 

The spikes are around 2600 but all in all I dont think Surge/Power should be sacrifced for Acc/Crit. Missing 1% with my previous setup was acceptable imo