Just trying to get some ideas to pull better numbers...

Madness Sorcerer

My rotation...

Creeping Terror --- Affliction --- Releckness ---Deathfield --- Polarity Shift --- Force Lightning --- (Wrath Proc)

Crushing Darkness --- Force Lightning x 4 (Because of Polarity Shift)

Creeping Terror --- Affliction --- Deathfield --- Force Lightning --- (Wrath Proc) Crushing Darkness --- Force Lightning x 3

Sometimes I throw in lightning strike... I'm still on the fence about it. It does decent damage (especially with a crit) but I can't help but think it'd be better to stay on Force Lightning... I'd guess one L.S (GCD) is the equivalent (time wise) to one tick of Force Lightning... Force Lightning and Lightning Strike both share the disintegration buff but Force Lightning has the potential to proc Lightning Burns.

Do you think Lightning Strike / Shock have a place in the rotation?

I use Shock (or LS depending on CD for Crushing Darkness) as a filler if I need a second or so before one of my dots is done casting.

Clipping dots would be a bad thing? I've heard conflicting opinions.

Overall rotation looks good, though i'm not a big fan of using Recklessness on Death Field. But that's a personal preference.

In your sustained rotation you should save up your last Wrath proc around ~6s before you reapply your dots, so you can apply CD directly after DF.

e.g.: FL (Wrath proc) -> FL -> CT -> Aff -> DF -> CD -> FL

Regarding Lightning Strike: It IS a big DPS increase. The more often you use it, the higher your dps. You shouldn't forget about the 30% dmg increase from wrath proc. It has also a higher proc chance on Lightning Burns than Force Lightning.

However, the downside of using Lightning Strike too often, is the much higher force consumption.

And yes, clipping dots IS bad. Always! No discussion about this!

What said above. Ling strike on wrath proc when crush dark on cd. No dot clipping. Let fl run its full duration. I assume this for pve, right. Check nibbon's guide. He has made a nice and accurate contribution.

Edit: avoid using shock other than only when need to move. Both force and dps loss.

Very sound advice above me.

LS for madness is to be used but carefully. Its worth about 3/4th of a force lightning with wrath damage bonus, and the extra crit chance affects both LS and FL (re read the talent .

The posters above me pin pointed one of the main consideration : ressource.

Madness is easy to get force starved, however LS is worth that extra force when you can, and many fight offer downtime for you to hit consumption, if its a big enough downtime sometimes more than once (debuff running out)

Your other consideration is Crushing Darkness. You want to cast it on cooldown. So you want to keep whatever Wrath proc you have when its ~5s or so from coming off cooldown.

Some people have asked for Wrath procs to be able to stack, and to me it would be a nice QoL to Madness having to worry less about that, other people feel it lessen skill requirement for the spec.

Other like risking their wrath proc up until they can only squeeze 1 FL before CD comes off cooldown. Thats up to you, and how much you feel the RNG Gods like you on that day