I recently just thought out some changes I thought would be good for pvp without having major implications on the pve scene.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=692500

For lightning, anything that makes them more mobile and less required to stare at the action/buff bar.

Why isn't madness included since its dps is still terrible.

For lightning, anything that makes them more mobile and less required to stare at the action/buff bar.

 

Why isn't madness included since its dps is still terrible.

The funny part is that madness sorcs are already great 1 vs 1 duelers (one aspect of the game, I know...), but by extension, with 2.5, they'll have a larger dps output now that their DoTs cannot be cleansed. Sure this won't effect the spec much in the end, but it doesn't fix the intended problem that the madness spec had to begin with, ie. force cost issues and not enough burst. (especially for the assassin).

Madness still needs help too though, it's not like making their dots unable to be cleansed makes them complete. In fact, it gimps lightning and healing sorcs even more because madness sorcs are already somewhat popular on top teams on pot5 and bastion.

Lightning:

- Need a blink. Just like mages in wow

- A casting while on the move cooldown would also be nice. 3 mins, lasts 10 secs

Corruption:

- Need a damage reduction cooldown just like disc priests in wow. 40% DR, last 10 secs, 2 or 3 min cd. Able to be cast while cc'd

- Needs a binding heal, 1.5 sec cast base which heals a moderate amount on self and target.

I realize you said no new abilities til an xpac, but there are very few QoL changes you can make to make these two specs better than they are currently.

I personally think lightning is fine with the right comp and teammates. However, they need the two things I suggested in order to be more mobile and not totally be shutdown and rely on teammates to allow you to cast.

A healing sorcs biggest problem is running out of force and being tunneled too easily while having to hardcast. They need more tools in order to "tank" but also throw out additional help. Another instant cast such as prayer of mending would go a long way as well.

Have the devs watch mudclot's stream tonight. We will be running jugg tank, op heals, lightning sorc, arsenal merc.

You guys will be able to see how much we have to support each other in order to cast and kill against the good teams.

Having a blink and casting on the move will make perfect sense. While we're at it, add a disengage for mercs. We have a jetpack.

Great Idea! Thanks Eric

The REP feedback thread of 1000+ posts have some great sugestions already, but here are a couple I've seen that are needed speaking from a healer point of view (Sage/Sorc Healer is my main). Yes I totally understand I'm asking for buffs here and not everything would be implemented, but at least one or two should be.

CRIT issue - You mentioned a fix TBD? Seems we need to bump it some how for Sage/Sorc Heals. Right now most are running ZERO CRIT models on purpose as the DR is terrible.

Force Regen - Healing Class (Add something at the TOP of the Skill Tree for Polarity increase) - Maybe ADD 50 Points of FORCE as part of Unnatural Preservation | Force Mend

Instant Heal / Mobility / Emergency Heal. This is hard to do w/o breaking the concept of Sage/Sorc in general, but here are some ideas to make us more feasible in PVP as well handle the new content filled with constant interupts.

1) Static Barrier | Force Armor on team provides healing like we have ourselves (Maybe Tank Spec'd get % BUMP)

2) Increase the number and duration of Force Surge | Resplendence stacks we can have for AOE & NEW HEAL USE

3) Ability like OP/SCOUN for one stack of Force Surge | Resplendence to INSTANT cast >> Dark Heal | Benevolence so they have a place in healers toolbar again (That heal is pretty useless ATM and we need an instant).

4) Return the 360 knockback or at least Overload | Force Wave "HEALING" is 360 degree. (Merc has I think a 360?)

OPTIONAL Mini-Rant: I love my main (Sorc/Sage Healers), but really ticked that I can totally out heal my own stats after mastering my class for year+ on my Agent/Smuggler healer with less gear and still learning that class. It's like I have to "Work for it" on my Sage/Sorc, but can sleep walk thru DP/DF HM's with my OP healer.

Madness needs better force management. You (the developers) have stated that that is not the case. You are wrong. It needs better force management. Could be tied to pre-2.0 assassin deathmark (each consumption of a deathmark returns force). Or a free Consumption proc. Something.

Madness does not need any damage/burst buffs. Force management aside, the spec performs quite well as a sustained damage dealer.

Lightning is outclassed by Arsenal Mercs and is an absolute joke compared to Snipers. Has amazing burst (but still in line with other ranged DPS) if left alone but no good team will let that happen in PvP. Peeling can only get you so far. Lightning sorcs need to be able to cast more efficiently and not get completely shut down by a single opposing DPS, even if you're guarded. They need a fair deal of additional survivability/casting utility talents.

Lightning does not need a damage buff.

I believe force issues could be solved if Lightning Effusion was moved to the second tier of Lightning (accessible by all classes) and nerfed so that it only reduced the cost of the next force ability by 25/50% as opposed to 75%. This would make it important for Lightning Sorcs to maintain 3 stacks of Subversion (they don't need to at all atm) and would solve Madness force starvation issues while still necessitating smart resource management for all specs.

I believe that healing sorcs (and sorcs in general) would be in a much better place if healing operatives and Smash/Carnage/Marksmanship/Lethality were brought in line (read: nerfed). As is, there is just too much pressure for either Corruption/Lightning sorcs to perform at their intended level.

Agree with everything waka said and if we're talking about madness then yes, they definitely need some way to get back force more efficiently

Either a drain life spell to pair with consumption or make it so dot crits can give back force as well. We honestly don't need that piddly self healing.

I wonder about just making Thundering blast immune to interrupts.

It has a long cast time and is easy as hell to shut down. Once it's been interrupted, it's another 9 seconds before it can be used again and by then, plenty of classes have their interrupts off CD. Without thundering blast, it's near impossible to catch up on damage when being attacked by another player.

It's also a lightning sorcerers highest damaging ability and no other DPS spec has their major damage dealing ability shut down so easily.

And yea, madness does need better force management.

I wonder about just making Thundering blast immune to interrupts.

 

It has a long cast time and is easy as hell to shut down. Once it's been interrupted, it's another 9 seconds before it can be used again and by then, plenty of classes have their interrupts off CD. Without thundering blast, it's near impossible to catch up on damage when being attacked by another player.

 

It's also a lightning sorcerers highest damaging ability and no other DPS spec has their major damage dealing ability shut down so easily.

 

 

 

And yea, madness does need better force management.

nah it only goes on 9 sec cooldown if it does damage. otherwise it's whatever the interrupt is for, usually 4 secs. being immune to interrupts would make lightning way too op

I don't heal much, and so I will be focusing my discussion purely on the lightning tree in pvp, which is horrible in arenas, so much so that I am forced to play only madness in pvp. It is my understanding that the developers want sorcerers to survive, not with passive mitigation, but through LoS, CC, and healing. Therefore, I will not suggest adding more passive damage reduction, but instead I will suggest ways to improve sorcerer's survivability via talents in the talent trees.

My first suggestion is to fix backlash so that it doesn't break on damage and stuns enemies when the bubble you apply to yourself breaks. This won't be as overpowered as before 2.0, when you could stun the entire team by placing bubbles on other people. In order to avoid abuse from other hybrid specs, this talent should switched with Force Haste, the talent on the 2nd highest tier on the lightning tree.

If the above change seems TOO overpowered for you there is another solution! Make it so your own affliction does not cause the mez from the Backlash bubble (that only works when applied to yourself) doesn't break! If I am dpsing a target, I have to put affliction on him so Thundering Blast can crit, and by doing so, I am screwing over my ability to use my Backlash Bubble to escape when he jumps on me because 1-2 seconds after he does, affliction will just break the mez. I am also screwing myself over when I need to use Electric Bindings to knockback also, as affliction breaks this effect before you can make good use of the root time. Which brings me to my next suggestion...

Modify the suppression talent so that affliction doesn't cause Whirlwind to end early! In an oh crap moment if you need to CC a target or escape from a target that you have been dpsing, you can't do it because your affliction, which again you must apply for Thundering Blast to crit, will cause it to end early. I understand that lightning is supposed to survive via CC instead of passive damage reduction, however, it is counter-intuitive to require us to place dots on our targets which will cause all of our CC to end early.

Next issue. It is impossible for Lightning Sorcerers to kite melee classes. For example, Focus Sentinels, have 5 slows. Force Leap, Zealous Leap, Twin Saber Throw, Leg Slash, and Force Exhaustion. Lightning Sorcerers have only 2 slows, one of which is proc based on Chain Lightning, and is unreliable in a pinch. It is near impossible for a lightning sorcerer to kite a focus/rage tree, which is one of the most popular dps trees in arenas at the moment. We can't LoS and heal to full as you have intended when we are stuck running at 50% movement speed, while the melee beats on us and almost all of our CC escape tools breaks early (see above discussion.) I understand that melee classes need this many slows and gap-closers so that they can stay on target, but Lightning Sorcerers should have at least ONE effective escape.

Replace Fadeout with Force Suffusion in the Corruption Tree. This will allow the Lightning (and Madness, but Lightning needs it more) to escape every 15-20 seconds. This change will not be game breaking as Melee still would have more slows and leaps to catch up (Force Leap is on a shorter cooldown than Force Speed) but it would at least give the Lightning Sorcerer the chance to LoS and heal before they do. This change is especially needed since force leap and zealous leap can root during force speed, which negates the use of force speed entirely.

I sincerely believe that the above changes would more or less fix Lightning's survivability in arenas, however there is one more issue that Lightning (and corruption) have in common. This issue is one of the main reasons most sorcerers in pvp use madness or a hybrid spec with madness for dps. This issue is that the spec is EASILY shutdown by interrupts. Every class has one interrupt move, which on paper may not seem like much of an issue, however you have to also consider the fact that stuns, knockbacks, and leaps interrupt targets too. When you take this into consideration, classes end up having like 5 or 6 interrupts.

Consider this scenario:

In the Lightning Tree I start casting Thundering Blast on a Focus Guardian. He sees this and so his response is Force Leap me (1 Interrupt). I start casting it again immediately since Force Leap doesn't have a lockout timer on the move that it interrupted, his response is to Force Kick me (2nd Interrupt). With my unused Thundering Blast Now on a lockout, I have no choice but to start running, lest I get eaten alive. I use Force Speed, the Guardian's response is to Zealous Leap me. When this is done I start casting Thundering Blast again, the Guardian responds with force push (3rd Interrupt). I Get back up and start casting Thundering Blast for the 4th time, the Guardian's Force Leap cooldown is now refreshed and he leaps me again (4th Interrupt). As there is no lockout from getting interrupted by Force Leap, I start casting Thundering Blast again, the Guardian Uses Force Stasis stunning me (5th Interrupt). When force stasis expires I immediately begin casting Thundering Blast again, but by this time the guardian's Force Kick is off cooldown (6th interrupt). I run and/or cast something else, when my lockout from Force Kick expires, I cast Thundering Blast for the 7th time, and the Guardian uses Awe (7th Interrupt). After Awe expires, I run I try casting Thundering Blast again but by this time his force leap is off cooldown and I am interrupted for the 8th time..... etc, etc, etc.

As you can see from the above scenario, Lightning is so easily shut down by interrupts, so much so that Sorcerer's are Forced to play specs that allow them to do damage on the move, i.e. Madness or Hybrid. Which brings me to my next suggestion. Either make Thundering Blast Immune to interrupts, OR (preferably) Increase the Cooldown of Thundering Blast from 9 to 12 seconds and Make it Instant cast! Mercenary's Heatseeker's are instant cast, and snipers are immune to interrupts, so I don't see how giving an instant, or uninterruptible Thundering Blast to Sorcerer's would ruin game balance, if other ranged classes can already do one of the above.

This ends my suggestions for Lightning Sorcerers in pvp changes. I do play Lightning in pve, and the only change we need there is for Subversion to reduce the pushback on Crushing Darkness. The only other obvious change for pve/pvp is to fix the Force Regen Bug on Forceweaver, which grants 1% or 2% Alacrity but doesn't increase the force regen rate.

Hello,

It is great that you guys are looking for ideas from the community. Pretty awesome.

Corruption:

Corruption in my humble opinion are the most balanced healer in terms of output and mechanics. The have the highest burst among healers, but are the easiest to kill, can easily run out resources and are highly prone to interrupt. The have pros and cons unlike operative healers that have no cons. My suggestions are:

- Barrier is on such a long CD and lasts too long for no reason. If its barrier is lowered from 180 sec to 120 sec and duration is reduced from 10 sec to 5 sec that would be far more effective.

- Base mitigation needs improvement. I suggest that resurgence add 20% increased armor to the user up from 10% (stays 10% on allies). This will net around 2% additional armor (much needed).

- Sorc needs better utilities. The pull just does not cut it. My suggestion is to remove the 20% slow from affliction, as no one uses it anyway, and make shock reduces damage done by enemy target by 20% for the next 6 secs. This can be used as utility to protect allies or to protect yourself. Operation bosses are immune to this effect. Can be tied to something else if needed to be put on longer CD.

TBH if you do not plan to make serious changes into operative healer mechanics and effectiveness of DCDs, unless all sorc abilities become instant cast or 50% stronger, the above won't help much, as they still won't have a place in competitive PvP.

I think corruption sorc are in a great place in PvE and thus their output does not need to change.

Lightning:

I call lightning sorc poor man's arsenal mercenary. They deliver less burst, deal over all less damage, have much weaker DCDs, much weaker escapes and much weaker damage mitigation, yet almost identical damage delivery mechanics. You spam lightning shock (TM for merc) and use chain lightning when proc is available for 100% faster casting (unload) and blast, shock and chain as they are available (HSM & RS for merc). My suggestions:

- This also involves madness. Make fade out base for force speed. You have no way to escape roots, but cast barrier on 180 sec CD or CC breaker on 120 sec CD. For a class that is so squishy, and for lightning also, with heavy reliance on casts, you are screwed. Again, arsenal merc, which operates close to lightning sorc, have HO, which protects you from roots, slows and cheese off some CCs and grapple, and lasts 10secs on 30 sec CD. It is not even close.

- The burst is "ok." But, the overall damage is weak. While lightning sorc is not far behind snipers, marauders and mercs, they offer no utility or competitive advantage over these classes in PvE. Same goes for PvP, aside from the occasional bubble you can throw on an ally your damage is not all that great considering the risk (squishy, weak escapes, weak DCD and highly reliant on casts). Blast delivers good damage, but everything else is mediocre for the most part. Shock can be buffed to fill in that gap. Also, I do not see why lightning shock damage can't be increased to around tracer missile base damage (around 4K at 1,300 bonus damage). Feel free to increase the cost below 50, as lightning sorc is the only spec that uses it anyway. An additional possibility is to lower CD on recklessness by 15 sec.

- Again, needs base mitigation. Simple idea, we can borrow from deception sins, critical hits increase base armor by 2% and stacks 3 times. If 2% is too much (I do not think so) make it 1.5%.

Lightning can be pretty squishy, making the following abilities accessible to mid tree sorcs (by either moving them down the healing tree or moving them to the telekinetics tree) would help considerably:

-Life Surge (2% damage reduction, 2% force crit chance), maybe combine it with Seeping Darkness (so 5% crit chance + 2% damage reduction)

-Fadeout (immunity from movement impairing effects), would help survivability of all sorc specs.

-switching Dark Resilience with Force Suffusion or at least making Dark Resilience on the second tier would help a lot with survivability for lightning sorcs.

-Sith Efficacy, having this talent or a redesigned similar talent afforded to the corruption tree would immensely help with energy management without having to sacrifice health (and thus survivability, which is the main problem in arenas) in the process.

#1 change I'd like to see:

-Corrupted Barrier, make available to all specs/moved to first tier of lightning tree. Making this a first tier talent, much like the sniper heal in cover would greatly increase the survivability of lightning sorcs and madness as well. It is a really good amount of mitigation for so long as it's up, at least.

The above changes aren't anything major and wouldn't require radically redesigning the class, but it would significantly increase survivability for lightning sorcs. Their damage is fine, just need better survivability and the above changes would make significant progress towards that end.

Force Speed Root/Slow Break - Please make this class-wide, rather than limited to the healing tree. SInce slows and roots are so abundant, and since we can't cleanse most of them, this is easily our biggest killer in PvP - especially in arenas where we're more contained, and can't shake aggro as we otherwise can in warzones.

Failing that, some sort of anti-leap/pull, maybe as an enhancement of Static Barrier, would add a lot to our ability to kite (where currently there are too many cards stacked against us).

Hey Eric,

I'm glad that you're reaching out to the players for some suggestions. I have been playing a sorc since launch and it has always been my favorite class despite its ups and more frequently downs. I exclusively PvP and have a number of ideas that I feel would make the sorcerer a more formidable class in 8v8 and 4v4 play.

Sorcerers in general - I feel as though EVERY sorcerer should have fadeout (force speed breaks roots and snares and makes the sorcerer immune for the duration) The lackluster escape abilities for sorcerers are apparent when force speed is shut down so easily by leg shot, force charge, or any of the other root abilities. Having a rooted knockback would also be well within reason due to the fact that snipers and mercenaries have AoE knockbacks which are far more powerful, knockback a full 360 degrees, and have either a root or slow attached without spending talent points. A sorcerer's knockback is essentially an extra interrupt and nothing more. My main point being that sorcerers have to spend valuable talent points for skills that should be baseline when compared with other ranged classes. I also feel as though force barrier should have a shorter cooldown. A sorcerer who uses this ability is effectively ccing themselves for a long duration and I feel as though a shorter cooldown for this ability could help a great deal with survivability in sustained fights. Given that the current sorcerer defensive cooldowns (static barrier and unnatural preservation) are essentially just exchanging a global with an attacker I feel that this is within reason to ask for.

Madness - I know you weren't asking about this spec but I still feel as though it needs some attention to help with force management issues. One good idea I heard was allowing deathmark to return some force to the sorcerer when it is consumed. I feel like this is in line with lethality for agents in that it rewards players for being aggressive with their damage over time effects. Madness sorcerers should also still have the option to get an instant whirlwind ability. I recognize the reason for this removal was assassins easily "sap-capping" objectives but madness sorcerers need to have some more control abilities for pure survivability reasons. Mercenaries and snipers both have the ability to cast an instant 30 meter 8 second mez and the sniper's is even AoE (keep in mind that these abilities require no talent point investment from either the sniper or mercenary)! This choice was clearly for assassins and has vastly diminished the ability of a sorcerer to offer some extra utility to the team and survive in general.

Lightning - A full lightning sorcerer is fairly easy to shut down in a PvP environment. The difference between being allowed to sit back and free-cast and having even one person attacking you is night and day with regard to actual damage output. Having a cooldown or ability that allows for casting while moving would be helpful as a previous poster said. Once again I will say that every sorcerer should have the fadeout ability for force speed as standard, this could allow a lightning sorcerer to create some separation and use their range better to avoid interrupts.

Corruption - In a PvP environment a corruption sorcerer faces a number of problems. I feel as though the most obvious one is force management. If the opposing team is putting out significant damage a corruption sorcerer will very quickly run out of force. An operative, if played correctly, can heal at nearly full efficiency indefinitely. A sorcerer will eventually have to spend valuable globals consuming and not healing themselves or their team. It is in this respect that I feel sorcerers are less than ideal in 8v8 or 4v4 situations. If corruption sorcerers had a talent which made consumption have a shorter global cooldown or ignore the global cooldown entirely this would be very helpful.

Thanks for reading for those who did, I don't think anything I mentioned was too drastic or unreasonable. I have already unsubbed at this point due primarily to the lack of support for the PvP community in this game and class balancing issues, if I could play my sorcerer competitively I might be inclined to come back to the game more seriously.

I don't heal much, and so I will be focusing my discussion purely on the lightning tree in pvp, which is horrible in arenas, so much so that I am forced to play only madness in pvp. It is my understanding that the developers want sorcerers to survive, not with passive mitigation, but through LoS, CC, and healing. Therefore, I will not suggest adding more passive damage reduction, but instead I will suggest ways to improve sorcerer's survivability via talents in the talent trees.

 

My first suggestion is to fix backlash so that it doesn't break on damage and stuns enemies when the bubble you apply to yourself breaks. This won't be as overpowered as before 2.0, when you could stun the entire team by placing bubbles on other people. In order to avoid abuse from other hybrid specs, this talent should switched with Force Haste, the talent on the 2nd highest tier on the lightning tree.

 

If the above change seems TOO overpowered for you there is another solution! Make it so your own affliction does not cause the mez from the Backlash bubble (that only works when applied to yourself) doesn't break! If I am dpsing a target, I have to put affliction on him so Thundering Blast can crit, and by doing so, I am screwing over my ability to use my Backlash Bubble to escape when he jumps on me because 1-2 seconds after he does, affliction will just break the mez. I am also screwing myself over when I need to use Electric Bindings to knockback also, as affliction breaks this effect before you can make good use of the root time. Which brings me to my next suggestion...

 

Modify the suppression talent so that affliction doesn't cause Whirlwind to end early! In an oh crap moment if you need to CC a target or escape from a target that you have been dpsing, you can't do it because your affliction, which again you must apply for Thundering Blast to crit, will cause it to end early. I understand that lightning is supposed to survive via CC instead of passive damage reduction, however, it is counter-intuitive to require us to place dots on our targets which will cause all of our CC to end early.

 

Next issue. It is impossible for Lightning Sorcerers to kite melee classes. For example, Focus Sentinels, have 5 slows. Force Leap, Zealous Leap, Twin Saber Throw, Leg Slash, and Force Exhaustion. Lightning Sorcerers have only 2 slows, one of which is proc based on Chain Lightning, and is unreliable in a pinch. It is near impossible for a lightning sorcerer to kite a focus/rage tree, which is one of the most popular dps trees in arenas at the moment. We can't LoS and heal to full as you have intended when we are stuck running at 50% movement speed, while the melee beats on us and almost all of our CC escape tools breaks early (see above discussion.) I understand that melee classes need this many slows and gap-closers so that they can stay on target, but Lightning Sorcerers should have at least ONE effective escape.

 

Replace Fadeout with Force Suffusion in the Corruption Tree. This will allow the Lightning (and Madness, but Lightning needs it more) to escape every 15-20 seconds. This change will not be game breaking as Melee still would have more slows and leaps to catch up (Force Leap is on a shorter cooldown than Force Speed) but it would at least give the Lightning Sorcerer the chance to LoS and heal before they do. This change is especially needed since force leap and zealous leap can root during force speed, which negates the use of force speed entirely.

 

I sincerely believe that the above changes would more or less fix Lightning's survivability in arenas, however there is one more issue that Lightning (and corruption) have in common. This issue is one of the main reasons most sorcerers in pvp use madness or a hybrid spec with madness for dps. This issue is that the spec is EASILY shutdown by interrupts. Every class has one interrupt move, which on paper may not seem like much of an issue, however you have to also consider the fact that stuns, knockbacks, and leaps interrupt targets too. When you take this into consideration, classes end up having like 5 or 6 interrupts.

 

Consider this scenario:

In the Lightning Tree I start casting Thundering Blast on a Focus Guardian. He sees this and so his response is Force Leap me (1 Interrupt). I start casting it again immediately since Force Leap doesn't have a lockout timer on the move that it interrupted, his response is to Force Kick me (2nd Interrupt). With my unused Thundering Blast Now on a lockout, I have no choice but to start running, lest I get eaten alive. I use Force Speed, the Guardian's response is to Zealous Leap me. When this is done I start casting Thundering Blast again, the Guardian responds with force push (3rd Interrupt). I Get back up and start casting Thundering Blast for the 4th time, the Guardian's Force Leap cooldown is now refreshed and he leaps me again (4th Interrupt). As there is no lockout from getting interrupted by Force Leap, I start casting Thundering Blast again, the Guardian Uses Force Stasis stunning me (5th Interrupt). When force stasis expires I immediately begin casting Thundering Blast again, but by this time the guardian's Force Kick is off cooldown (6th interrupt). I run and/or cast something else, when my lockout from Force Kick expires, I cast Thundering Blast for the 7th time, and the Guardian uses Awe (7th Interrupt). After Awe expires, I run I try casting Thundering Blast again but by this time his force leap is off cooldown and I am interrupted for the 8th time..... etc, etc, etc.

 

As you can see from the above scenario, Lightning is so easily shut down by interrupts, so much so that Sorcerer's are Forced to play specs that allow them to do damage on the move, i.e. Madness or Hybrid. Which brings me to my next suggestion. Either make Thundering Blast Immune to interrupts, OR (preferably) Increase the Cooldown of Thundering Blast from 9 to 12 seconds and Make it Instant cast! Mercenary's Heatseeker's are instant cast, and snipers are immune to interrupts, so I don't see how giving an instant, or uninterruptible Thundering Blast to Sorcerer's would ruin game balance, if other ranged classes can already do one of the above.

 

This ends my suggestions for Lightning Sorcerers in pvp changes. I do play Lightning in pve, and the only change we need there is for Subversion to reduce the pushback on Crushing Darkness. The only other obvious change for pve/pvp is to fix the Force Regen Bug on Forceweaver, which grants 1% or 2% Alacrity but doesn't increase the force regen rate.

counter intuitive great word I hope they are reading this I said similar things on the sage forums but with more not so nice words

I like the idea about this thread, however, I hope it doesn't turn out to be like the Class Feedback thread that was posted way back in 1.4 and then 0 changes happened until the Makeb Expansion. WHen those changes were on test there was a lot of theory crafting going on (specially with PVP) and the same issues were still spoken out about but had nothing done about them on the development end. I do hope that the developers start class balancing WAY MORE OFTEN then they have been.

From a PVE DPS perspective: Sorcs are still behind. There should not be a "hybrid tax" because we can offheal // shield. Right now, I feel sorc's are a worthless support class while Marauders (who are supposed to be a pure dps class) have better group support with bloodthirst-predation.

-- Both Lightning and Madness builds are lacking something that almost every other class has in some variation: An Execute range ability. This should either be a baseline ability that is accessible for the class or it should be a low tier talent that can be snagged. I just simply don't understand why there isn't one yet. The other healer/dps classes have sub 30% damage increase talents (and it's incredibly strong for operatives)... Sorcs should as well.

-Thundering blast hits for too little for the length of its cast time. This should be shortened as a top tier talent. There's something wrong in basic game design when Orbital strike for snipers and operatives crits for 6.5k+ x3 while other "big hitting abilities" are nowhere near this damage at top Tier Talent abilities.

--Force Management. Someone already stated this that you guys think it's fine. It's not. Madness sorcs are out of force in long fights while other dps do not have to worry about this issue. To throw GCD's into an ability that kills us for miniscule force feedback is not only dangerous in High end raids, but a loss of dps. To counter this, the force regen talents in the Madness tree either need to be boosted or there should be an ability that acts like adrenaline probe // vent heat with force regen. (this also goes well with helping healing force managment in high damage/output needing fights)

PVE Healing Perspective: It really is pretty solid but it needs another HoT. The only major issue is the higher end content, sorc healers do not have the defensive CD's to use and can be one shot by a lot of things. (or nearly killed)

Again: Force management- While operatives and mercs can use an ability that regens energy (diag scan) // can heal with a basic gcd until heat is manageable (rapid shots ), Sorcs are putting themselves (and essentially the raids liveliness) in danger with consumption. The other two healing classes are still putting out healing in a GCD while Sorcs are forcing healing to be done -to- them. This is not class balance at all. Not to mention the fact that both of the other healing AC's have an ability to regen resources.

More of an issue for pvp, but in PVE it can also occur that on the move healing and sorcs do not go hand in hand. I would increase the healing done talent while static barrier is up and this should help out. Or when the bubble is broken by damage it then leaves the HoT.

Dark infusions cast is still too long. I know this is because of innervate, but it should be a 2.5 second baseline cast - down to 2.0 seconds talented.

BASELINE ABILITIES // TALENTS THAT SORCS NEED:

- Blink. They need an instant 20 meter teleport because Force Speed is just pathetically horrible in nearly every circumstance comparitively. A 20 meter blink allows the Healing // Lightning Sorc to get to a spot to continue healing // dps'ing with no downtime where as force speed you're stuck to using a few instants that are gigantic dps/HPS losses.

- The 2% damage reduction in Madness tree should be changed to : Detaunt-- WHen using Cloud mind on an enemy player // target, it decreases damage done by the target to you by 30-40% for 6 seconds. The 45 second cooldown is long enough to make it viable for PVP and it would become an essential PVE talent to use as well during those fore-mentioned instances of being one shot // nearly killed.

PVP Healing Perspective: Like I stated earlier: The lack of defensives in arena's make sorc healers the immediate target. Force them into the bubble, switch targets until they come out, kill them when out of bubble. It's the same story in every match of someone bringing a sorc healer. The mentioned changes above should help.

PVP DPS Perspective: I think the above changes would make Sorcs very viable on their own and not have to depend on teammates to keep them alive in order for them to do what they were brought to do. DPS. Having a blink // Force regen fix for madness // execute range talent/ability and a defensive CD that's worth a damn would bring the sorc to where it should be..

Right now: Lightning is too easily shutdown and needs interrupt protection outside of polarity shift (If we have bubble up, it should make us immune to interrupts). Sorc's are melee candy no matter what spec they're up against because of no real escapes. Force Barrier SHOWS the cast time so it's easily locked down by any player who is paying attention to cast bars (and PVPers 100% do.... well most of them). I'd also like to mention that MOST of the defensive talents that are needed against melee are in the lightning tree. (Cl root // bubble blind // knockback root)

Force speed is a joke in pvp. Period. Root/snare/stun...absolutely no protection to it. There needs to be a Blink

Madness is not going to get better with dot protection because they have no protection aside from the 30% dmg reduction talent. The sorc will always be the first target in any arena match because once you're down a player, the odds are much better in your favor.

I am by no means the best PvPer but i have a strong PvP background and i have my own ideas about Corruption.

Corruption ultimately doesnt work. Its simple as that. I dont say it because i want to venture into the beaten path that says "the devs are incompetent" (althought they surely are) but to adress a bigger point. The combat team lacks vision, and this lack of vision hurts sorc healers more than any other spec in the game.

We all know how World of Warcraft combat influenced SWTOR ("WoW with lightsabers" cataphrase comes to mind). I, for one, dont think its a bad thing. WoW is the most sucessfully MMO of all time and its the only MMO that actually became a competitve e-sport. WoW has its own share of mistakes but it has achieved things that no other game could achieve. We have to respect WoW.

Within the concepts that SWTOR's original combat team took from WoW, we look at corruption and we immediately see a Discipline Priest. Power Word Shield, Penance. Its safe to assume that the original idea for developing corruption drank from the same well that of discipline priests.

This is the point where is safe to say the combat team of swtor lacks competence or, at least, vision.

Why discipline priests are good at PvP and corruption sorcs are not?

The casual observer will say that discipline priests are good at PvP in WoW because power word shield and penance are good spells. This couldnt be farther from the truth. While Shield and Penance are indeed signature spells for disc (and corruption), a specs success in PvP is more deteremined by how well they fit into the metagame than actually how strong their spells are.

Of course, big spells help any class to progress in PvP but they arent the end of all things. This is where PvP differs from PvE. And even thought, corruption signature spells are incredibly weak if compared to what the other classes are capable of doing in this game. Static Barrier roughly protects people from 5k damage while Smashers will hit sages form 10k smashes followed by 6k screams and 7k executes. Innervate wont heal for 2.5k per tick after trauma and is easily interrupted, on top of having a 9 second CD. How much damage a warrior can dish out in 9 seconds?

Even with small spells you can still make a spec that can make its mark in PvP, but thats not the case for corruption. Think about team bubble stun for a while. Everyone knew that bubble hybrids were lousy healers but the fact that they could make the whole team into a walking stun bomb was just too good to be passed and bubble hybrids enjoyed a place in PvP even while being lousy healers. Im not saying team bubble stun was balanced, im saying it gave corruption hybrids a place in the metagame. A place that they lost.

Corruption sorcs are ultimately bad at PvP not because their spells are strong or weak (althought they do are weak) but because they dont fit anywhere in the metagame. Think about it, in what situation you would take a sorc healer to your arena squad instead of a Operative healer? You wouldnt. That is called being the black sheep of the meta game.

Discipline priests were never good in WoW arena because Penance or Power Word Shield are good spells. They were good because they fit into the metagame and they bring assets (not liability) to the team.

WoW arena have various incarnations (PvP seasons) and as much OPed and UPed classes come and go, i will try and list the reasons why disc priest is good in the WoW metagame and compare to what corruption currently has in SWTOR's metagame.

Reason 1 - Disc is an offensive/support healer and the nature of discipline's toolkit gave momentum to the team and helped his squad to remain offensive for a long time.

Reason 2 - Disc has never been a tank but has enough survivability to relocate. Disc is switchable but not zergable.

Reason 3 - Disc had superior positioning tools.

Reason 4 - Disc had high risk / reward CC tools.

Reason 1

During the early days of Arena PvP, disc playstile was the most offensive of the healers. Disc was designed to provide preventive healing (shields) and go pound the offensive of the team. Penance is a double nature spell. It heals your allies but damages your enemies. Based on this, disc priests could shield their team from harm and go all out on the enemy team. Disc healed for less than the other healers but provided more punch. A fair trade. Coupled with spells like the now removed Mana Burn, the offensive capacity of disc made sure that were healing their allies and terrorizing their enemies.

Corruption has nothing of this. Corruption can barely prevent any damage since our shield does not provide the adequade momentum for a counter offensive when it breaks with one single attack from any dps (or even healing) specs in the game. Corruption does not have a good offensive kit. All the other healers in the game have at least equal (if not better) offensive tools (explosive probe im looking at you). Horrible force management makes constant offensive plays a dream that corruption sorc will never achieve. As a final touch, corruption doesnt have survivability to create pressure or stay in the offensive since the devs made sure that we have to imediately run for our lives everytime a melee even looks at us.

For all my experience in PvP playing as a disc priest in WoW and as a corruption sorc in SWTOR i would say that while in WoW i create momentum for my team in SWTOR i completely BREAK the momentum of my team because corruption needs constant babysitting. Overall, i feel like a liablity and not an asset.

Reason 2

Discipline is a cloth user and certainly not a tank. Discipline priests are fragile and require good positioning to be effective. While the same can be said about corruption, the difference lies in the fact that discipline has the effective tools to relocate from pillar to pillar when chased, a perk that corruption does not have. While discipline does have some kiting tools, discipline survivability in WoW arena NEVER was based SOLELY around kiting. Shamans have earthgrab and ghostwolf. Druids have travel form and entrangling roots. Paladins have freedom. Disc priest has pillars.

The devs vision of basing corruption sorcs survivability SOLELY on kiting is utterly and absolutely insane if you look at our toolkit. Static Barrier is weak if compared to what the dps the classes in SWTOR can ditch. Resurgence is a joke and the rest of our (weak) healing toolkit is self rooting. Saying corruption only means of survivability is kiting is not only a cruel joke but also a bulletproof statement of the lack of vision of the so called combat team.

Disc priests are switchable but not zergable. Corruption sorcs are not only zergable but zerging them is casually easy even for the worst talented players in this game.

A switch is a PvP faint. You pretend you are going hard on an enemy team member but you are just waiting for another team member (the switch) to put himself in a poor position. Once your switch is in a poor position you cc his team and kills the switch in a quick burst because he is in a bad position and possibly has burned his important cooldowns.

A zerg is a PvE tunnel mode. Once the gates open you mark your zerg with a nice symbol on his head (a flame, because you want to put him on fire YOLO) and you just tunnel him the whole game until you win.

Disc priests are switchable, they will die in fast switches if they position themselves badly and / or use their CDs unwisely. But they arent zergable. If your team just marks a discipline priest and decides to tunnel him until the arena game is over your team is going to lose.

Corruption sorcs are not only easily switchable but they are highly zergable. On almost any circunstance, the better strategy to defeat a team healed by corruption is just tunnel mode him until the end. Dump all cc on him as soon as its avaliable and just tunnel him because he doesnt have the tools to weather the zerg. Corruption is a kiting class with self rooting tools. Its not viable. You cant give us weak kiting tools and tell us to kite while every melee class in the game has a superior anti kiting arsenal.

On top of everything, since the bulk of our healing comes from long self rooting casts, corruption sorcs are left with the choice of trying to heal and dieing or trying to kite and letting his team die. That is why we are not viable in the arenas and will never be while the combat team doesnt give us tools to resist zergs (but not switches).

On this point i want to call the devs attention to the tool that WoW developed to make discipline non zergable. Its called Focused Will. Focused Will is a damage reduction buff that stacks over time if you are taking heavy damage. Focused Will is the most important mechanic of discipline to arena and they arent viable once you remove it. Blizzard tried to remove Focused Will during the launch of MoP and the result was disastrous. They quickly reinserted the buff in the next patch.

Introducing a small damage reduction mechanic that stacks over time would give corruption what we need and elevate our surviability to playable levels so we can do our job with our self rooting long casted heals. The key of the buff is to keep corruption squishy (we are not tanks and we dont want to be) but disencourage 24/7 tunneling (which makes PvP disgusting).

Im not a math savant but something like 5% damage reduction on non periodical critical hits stacking up to 25% with 30 second duration would make us non zergable while keeping us killable. A skill like this would be ultimately incarnation of the "make them pay phenomenon" that the combat team talked about in the Q&A for our class.

Reason 3

This is actually the only aspect that corruption can at least scratch the toes of discipline priests. In WoW arena, discipline has several tools that further their positional play. Disc has access to a passive speed buff, short term sprints and short term invisibility. All these tools helps them to position themselves with guile and outplay the enemy team. Skills like friendly grip (lifegrip) and life swap make it so that a well positioned disc priest is a very annoying foe to take on.

Corruption has the greatest relocating tool in the game (force speed) and we also have life grip. This aspect of our class is totally fine and creates an engaging playstile that makes our spec extremely rewarding and fun.

But we lack on another aspect. During years, discipline priests had access to a CHANNELED heal that would heal his team mates out of LoS. Divine Hymn created an interesting playing mechanic where the priest could heal his team without totally exposing himself. It was another positional crutch that rewarded great players.

Corruption has access to nothing like this and suffers from overexposure when having to heal. Intense pillar dancing and kiting are surefire ways for a healer to get behind on healing and the overexposure caused by the lack of tools we have to exploit and reward good positioning (like healing out of LoS) makes healing with corruption a death trap. You either run and stay alive for a briefly period of time while dragging your team to defence (and thus to a defeat) or you heal your team and you die. Even if you manage to outplay the other team with LoS, dont forget that your are LoSing your team too. When you pop out of LoS the other team will just resume zerging you. Its a vicious circle and corruption has no way out of it no matter how good the player is. Shame on you devs.

To actually enter the metagame, corruption should be allowed to use LoS as a true TACTICAL tool and not only as in DONT HIT ME PLEASE IM COMPLETELY DEFENSELESS way we are actually forced to.

Reason 4

Two words: Mind Control. Mind Control is one of the most engaging PvP mechanics ever created in a MMO. Mind Control is hard casted CC skill that actually takes control of the enemy character's movements with the downside of losing control of the caster's character. Mind Control is a game changer and the ultimate test of skill to a player. Good MCs will destroy the enemy team, bad MCs will destroy your team. I know that for a fact because i have won and lost games due to a good or bad MC.

Mind Control has high risk (you stop healing and lose control of your character) but high reward (you can put your enemy in a bad position so he becomes your switch). Force Whirlwind has high risk (its hard casted, you stop healing, root and expose yourself) and lacks high rewards (its a regular mez).

In a game with an unruly amount of instant AoE ccs, force whirl is completely and utterly underwhelming, especially for a class that is obliterated with only a few hits from any dps spec in the game.

While warriors boast instant AoE mezzes in 45 sec CDs and scoundrel healers can AoE stun a whole zerg every minute, corruption is forced to hardcast a long CC (2 secs, mage polymorph has 1.7 sec base cast) and still waiting a whole minute to do it again. This makes corruption cc completely underwhelming when confronted to a operative medic's cc, for instance.

In a game dominated by instant (and often AoE) stuns in short cooldowns, landing force whirl is a monumental task. At least make it worth the effort. I would love to have mind control in swtor (and it fits the lore btw) but the devs could at least put force whirl in a 15 second CD, this would give corruption an edge in the cc game and make us wanted in groups for actually bringing something that will help the team.

I have already written too much, especially because im sure no one (or at least no one of importance) at Austin will read it, and even if they do, they wont understand it since our Q&A has revealed that our regular devs have the average intelligence of a 12 year old kid that brags over a dungeons and dragons table about how he pwns noobs when hes playing his warrior. Sight.

To try and illustrate my long winded post i would ask that our man Eric would at least try and make the combat team watch two videos that, IMO, are the epythome of how a class that relies on shields and channeled heals (discipline, corruption) should be developed to be usable in PvP.

The first one is Hydra X. Hydra is arguably the best discipline priest that ever played WoW and one of the best players of all time. Hydra X shows games from season 8 to cataclysm and the viewer can actually grasp the evolution of the spec. The video isnt only a lesson on how to play discipline but also a lesson on how to develop a functional class and illustrates my points on switchability vs zergability, risk / reward on cc, rewarding superior positioning and how support play on healers can be used to shine if the devs give the class the right tools.

The second one is less famous but an old favorite of mine, its SK gaming priest Realz taking on melee cleaves. This video is very instructive to a developers point of view because its the ultimate "make them pay" video. This video shows how discipline priests can actually "make people pay for trying to kill them", something that corruption (even with all the bravado from our clueless devs) completely lacks.