Posted this on the Sorc forums, but thought I'd throw it up here also. In case some of my Republic counter-parts didn't have a chance to see it.

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

for tk sage

effective counters to leap/interupts:

for starters hard stuns on bubble and our knock back root, too many times my stun is broken from random dmg from other players or my dots.

give us back our AOE knockback and make it bigger so we are out of leap back range melee have to do more they just press a button to negate us completely. you gave us a AOE from the beginning for a reason.

I know your are not going to give this to us but phase walk so we can have an effective escape.

immunity to stuns and interrupts when mental alacrity is up. I would like to cast some time this year.

new idea: make our barrier explode and knock people back and down or something all they do is wait us out.

justify our 2 second cast on turburlance it should be the hardest hitting ability in game!

when i think of more stuff i will post them

For PVE TK sages need to be more on par with other dps classes like adding an armor debuff on our dots and totally removing the pushback we suffer on our long casts from AOE of many boss encounters.

Also force barrier and force mend are good for our survivability but unfortunately they cost too much in term of loss of dps.

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.

Redesign force armor

at the moment in arenas I don't even have a chance to think. U fight smashers, cloakers, carnage marauder, big jug, snipers all different ways the burst we are taking is so intense from just one of these specs alone.

When I walk in to an arena as tk I feel like I have no defenses. Force armor gets destroyed the bubble stun is broken by people trying to kill the people on me, same thing goes for me knock back, which doesn't stop leap backs. All u can do is TRY and run TRY and heal or turtle up in barrier only to have the same thing happen to u again.

Give us some defenses and nerf our healing into the ground if we have to give something to get something. Give us back that AOE whirlwind. U have it to us for a reason.

Egress should be a baseline talent for Sages. Probably moved to Tier 1 for Seer.

Force Barrier needs to heal about 25-50% over the duration.

SEER Specific

Rejuvenate - As the only mobile heal, this needs a lower cool down (ie none) or it needs to be much more potent.

Wish list - I would love to see one of the heals converted to the warding mechanism that Force Armor uses. Healing in this game is very bland and it would be great if healers had different ways to protect the group.

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 Force Armor, would add a lot to our ability to kite (where currently there are too many cards stacked against us).

Speaking to PvE here…

The primary area where I think DPS Sages are weak is in that of survivability. Obviously, sages do have heals, and those heals help a lot under certain instances, but they don't really affect the steady-state survivability of the sage due to the fact that a DPS must at all costs devote every GCD to doing damage. A DPS is better off running the risk that their healers won't be able to catch them in time rather than pausing to heal themselves in any boss that has a meaningful damage check. This makes heals a nearly-meaningless survivability tool, very much unlike traditional defensive CDs which are off the GCD (note: similar arguments apply to Force Barrier).

I would suggest that the best way to resolve this would be to talent Force Mend in the Damage trees to be off the GCD. This gives a Sage the equivalent of a reactive Defense Screen / Shield Probe: a moderate heal on a long-ish cooldown that can only be applied to themselves, off the GCD. A refinement of this idea would be to give this talent only to the TK tree, and give Balance a talent which puts Force Armor off the GCD when applied to yourself. Balance is reasonably force-constrained, so it would be highly impractical to maintain 100% uptime on Force Armor. Thus, it would function similarly to a traditional defensive cooldown, except resource constrained rather than time constrained. Needless to say, these talents would have to be very, very high in the tree. At least high enough to prevent anyone from taking them together with Healing Trance.

Overall, I really feel that the survivability issue is what prevents top-tier groups from considering DPS Sages for current content. The damage output is fine, and the utility levels are strong enough to compete with most classes, it's really just a question of the passive survivability (which is the worst of any damage-dealing class in the game). While heals arguably tip the scale in PvP, where (despite the memes making fun of this idea) it is possible to kite and heal, they do absolutely nothing in PvE.

On another random side note, pushback is a very serious problem for TK in PvE. It's a problem for balance too, but to a far lesser extent. TK is more dependent on casts and channels than Balance is, and unlike Balance, it lacks pushback protection for one of its strongest casts (Mind Crush). Pushback in general has become much, much more of a problem post-2.0 than it ever was pre-2.0, and it's not clear entirely why that is, but it's to the point where any fight that includes a moderate amount of consistent raid damage (i.e. most fights) is going to represent a serious handicap for a TK sage.

Speaking to PvE here…

 

The primary area where I think DPS Sages are weak is in that of survivability. Obviously, sages do have heals, and those heals help a lot under certain instances, but they don't really affect the steady-state survivability of the sage due to the fact that a DPS must at all costs devote every GCD to doing damage. A DPS is better off running the risk that their healers won't be able to catch them in time rather than pausing to heal themselves in any boss that has a meaningful damage check. This makes heals a nearly-meaningless survivability tool, very much unlike traditional defensive CDs which are off the GCD (note: similar arguments apply to Force Barrier).

 

I would suggest that the best way to resolve this would be to talent Force Mend in the Damage trees to be off the GCD. This gives a Sage the equivalent of a reactive Defense Screen / Shield Probe: a moderate heal on a long-ish cooldown that can only be applied to themselves, off the GCD. A refinement of this idea would be to give this talent only to the TK tree, and give Balance a talent which puts Force Armor off the GCD when applied to yourself. Balance is reasonably force-constrained, so it would be highly impractical to maintain 100% uptime on Force Armor. Thus, it would function similarly to a traditional defensive cooldown, except resource constrained rather than time constrained. Needless to say, these talents would have to be very, very high in the tree. At least high enough to prevent anyone from taking them together with Healing Trance.

 

Overall, I really feel that the survivability issue is what prevents top-tier groups from considering DPS Sages for current content. The damage output is fine, and the utility levels are strong enough to compete with most classes, it's really just a question of the passive survivability (which is the worst of any damage-dealing class in the game). While heals arguably tip the scale in PvP, where (despite the memes making fun of this idea) it is possible to kite and heal, they do absolutely nothing in PvE.

 

On another random side note, pushback is a very serious problem for TK in PvE. It's a problem for balance too, but to a far lesser extent. TK is more dependent on casts and channels than Balance is, and unlike Balance, it lacks pushback protection for one of its strongest casts (Mind Crush). Pushback in general has become much, much more of a problem post-2.0 than it ever was pre-2.0, and it's not clear entirely why that is, but it's to the point where any fight that includes a moderate amount of consistent raid damage (i.e. most fights) is going to represent a serious handicap for a TK sage.

Great post. Whole heartedly agree on the pushback for both pvp and pve. I think an execute move as Nibbon has suggested in the past might be good too.

 

immunity to stuns and interrupts when mental alacrity is up. I would like to cast some time this year.

 

new idea: make our barrier explode and knock people back and down or something all they do is wait us out.

 

justify our 2 second cast on turburlance it should be the hardest hitting ability in game!

 

this ^

Remove ability pushback completely. The only effective ranged class at the moment is the gunslinger/sniper and only because

a.) they cannot be intterupted in cover

b.) they do not suffer pushback in cover.

c.) They canont be lept to while in cover.

While ill admit a free casting sage/commando can destroy people while not focused or left to free cast, and dps class can do this if left alone. Smash currently hits scoundrels, sages, and commando's the hardest of all the classes. I know cos i play smash. I hate the smash spec, but its so damn effective and these classes are the quick easy kills, especially in arena's and especially because they take the most damage from smash.

The survivability of these classes is only a problem because they take so much damage from melee classes, if you were to reduce the damage of smash, then you would remove most of the survivability problems. Isn't it funny that the three classes that take the most damage from smash, are the three classes most hurt in arena's and the three you have posted special forum topics on.

Pretty much most of your pvp balancing is coming from you ignoring the massive aoe damage from smash. if it were only 5-6k it would be fine, but its not, it 8-9k on these classes, i have hit people on Orocon for 13k with smash, and the highest i have had in a warzone was 10.5k, on a sorc no less.

Now, the above damage in its self as a rule is fine, i think its actually something the scoundrel class lacks. While shoot first hits rather hard, its not in the 10k arena, where commando's knights, and shadows can hit. I have no problem with dps hitting hard or having that burst crit.

Knights on the other hand, its unbrideled. Its an auto crit, and its basically on demand. build centering, pop zen, boom crit, need another one? next smash you have another crit waiting. I can have an auto crit every single smash. Its the consistancy and sustainability of the massive aoe damage the class can sustain, that makes it overpowered, especially for the three classes your having problems with, the classes without aoe damage recduction.

This isn't a witch hunt on sentinels, my main is a sentinel as shown by my signature. i refused to play smash for as long as i can remember because it is a lol spec. Sure its gameplay style may have a place, but i dont think warzones/arena's should be decided by how many smashes you have.

you dont even need to be the sentinels target you just have to be a bystander. I would much prefer the juyo form hard to kill watchmen of the past as opposed to the wrecking balls they are now.

Massive damage, and the cooldowns to support them. I was supprised to see you nerfing survivability and not damage. your problem bioware is smash. There is no other class that gives these classes in your focus threads any trouble like smash.

As far as other problems go, cast timers are the big problem. Any class with cast timers at the moment that are interuptable or have push back makes them easy to shutdown.

The cast timers are a balancing mechanism to keep ranged undercontrol. Well, good job. they are undercontrol. you have done such a job that they now are not effective at all. Your melee easily overpowers them, and that is the main problem. I deally scoundrels and shadows should play the role of keeping your ranged safe by jumping out of the sdadows to kill them, but with smash, they cant get close to open before they lose the stealth advantage and then get torn apart by a sentinel that isnt even trying to kill them.

 

new idea: make our barrier explode and knock people back and down or something all they do is wait us out.

 

Love this. Feel like a douche when i pop it as a last man standing - only delaying the inevitable

Reposted from another thread entitled 'Proposed Change to Force Barrier: Remove the aggro drop.'

Force Barrier, as it is, is of limited utility within PvE due to how it handles aggro.

 

Here's an example...

1. Sage gets 10k threat, gets aggro.
    
    
   
2. Sage uses Force Barrier, his threat is suspended. Target doesn't attack him, and goes to the next person down the list, a healer with ~500 threat.
    
    
   
3. Tank uses taunt. Gains ~500 threat, plus another ~5k threat with threat building abilities.
    
    
   
4. Force barrier is removed. Sage's 10k threat gets him targeted again. Tank's taunt is now on cooldown.
    
   

 

Another example...

 

1. Healing Sage gets aggro from many sources, that converge on the healer.
    
    
   
2. Sage uses Force Barrier and temporarily, attackers scatter, making it difficult to pick up or cement aggro without the use of an Area Taunt.
    
    
   
3. Tank manages to pick up several, starts taking damage. Sage exits the Force Barrier to start healing. The sage has little idea if the tank was highly effective in gaining total aggro on all targets.
    
    
   
4. This results in the sage taking aggro once again, possibly further shuffling enemies on the field of battle in a ping-pong maneuver.
    
   

 

 

And then there are raid mechanics that will react poorly (ie: break) if the target loses aggro. Two examples right off the top of my head being the Lightning Balls that Soa (of Eternity Vault) and HM Brontes (Dread Fortress) employ. It is very distressing to have a ranged DPS with low armor, and no defensive cooldowns to have to blow up those lightning balls in Dread Fortress. When a Sage attempts to use Force Barrier, the ball will not detonate on that Sage, but will reacquire aggro to someone else until the Force Barrier is down.

 

As it stands, there are only a few narrow scenarios in which this defensive cooldown can be effectively applied as a Sage in PvE.

 

• VERY careful threat dropping. If you pull aggro on the boss, you need to be CAREFUL on how you use your bubble, and make sure you've given the tank more than enough time to exceed your threat. If you haven't used your threat-reduction ability, use it at the end of your Force Barrier.
   
  
• AoE damage mechanics. Anything that isn't specifically targeting you, but targeting an area you're in (note, not an AoE that's centered on you, Force Barrier interacts poorly with those).
   
  
• edit: One last thing that Force Barrier is useful for is purging debuffs on the sage. IE: Doom, Color Deletion, high damage uncleansable DoTs, etc.
  

 

I think this ability could be designed better.

 

It's very obvious that Force Barrier was lifted with some minor modifications from WoW, with their Paladin immunity bubble. It's works the same way, with a key difference being that taunts in that game will give the tank highest threat, no matter if the highest threat is temporarily tabled or not. But I don't think there's any reason why it should temporarily remove the sage's threat while it's up in SWTOR.

 

The way it works in that game is quite necessary, because tanks can use the ability. Granting a tanking class full aggro without tabling their threat would give them a horrific advantage in burn phases or moments of high damage. But, Sages don't tank.

 

The proposed change

 

Alter the ability to not temporarily table the threat, but retains the immunity to CCs/knockbacks/damage. Failing that, redesign the ability to grant 100% damage reduction against all damage-types, and retain the CC/knockback immunity.

 

Why this is good

 

• In raiding, you never want aggro to behave inconsistently. This would remove threat issues listed above.
   
  
• On threat-based damage mechanics. Those lightning balls, or any other time an enemy is singling out a random raid member for massive damage? This ability will allow you to use Force Barrier as an effective damage mitigating/avoid cooldown 100% of the time. Not just after you've learned the nuances of the mechanics that are attempting to kill you.
   
  
• Ever have a moment in PvE where you, the Sage, can stare down a hoard of enemies that want you dead, warding them off with your powerful ally, the Force?
   
  No you don't, you have moments where you wave your hands and every enemy instantly knows you're a waste of time to attack, and you're sitting there like an idiot. You don't see 'Immune' pop up dozens of times as their attacks are rebuffed by your epic defiance. Every bad guy from the most mindless animal or rudimentary droid, to the most tactically sophisticated enemies know what's up and look for easier targets.
  

 

In the end I just want this game to stand apart and be better. By lifting mechanics wholesale from another game, with little consideration towards changing those mechanics to benefit specific challenges or nuances of this game, cheapens the ability. At the moment it's a liability to bring a Sage DPS over any class that has % based damage reduction cooldown, because their Immunity Bubble is as often useless and a liability as it is a boon. This change would make Force Barrier 100% effective in all instances of incoming damage, while changing nothing for PvP.

 

Thank you all for reading, please let me know your thoughts.

Healer Energy Management

Mix + Match fixes for these problems:

* Health loss too high - Reduce health loss from Noble Sacrifice

* Force regen too low - Increase regen rates or increase Force restored from Noble Sacrifice

* Time spent on energy management too high - Increase force gains per GCD spent on energy management or decrease all force costs (drastic!)

* Time spent regaining health from energy management too high - Increased healing for self heals (force armor or force mend) or reduced cooldown on force mend

I'm pretty sure I will repeat some things, take that as me agreeing with them.

Sage:

-First of all remove pushback, this mechanic currently does nothing but hinder the classes, while not offering a huge advantage to melee attackers, who are better of interrupting.

-Execute, this should in fact be given to all classes. For Sages this could be tied to Project (i.e a passive buff which increases the damage dealt by Project on targets below 50% or make Upheaval 100% when used on targets below 30%)

Seer:

In PvE this spec is fine, apart from Energy management issues and the fact that Noble Sacrifice takes away health. Honestly I do not know if any of this should be changed.

In PvP the fact that they have to take away health is very annoying, as well as interrupts and pushback and general ability to completely shutdown the Sage.

The ability: Benevolence is currently underwhelming and as a result the Sage is a class which has a heal which is not needed (same as Kolto Pack pre-2.0).

Ideas

With all that in mind I propose the following changes:

- Remove the health requirement from Noble Sacrifice (perhaps tied to the need to use a Resplendence stack and maybe limited to only once every few second not to be too OP)

-Improve the viability of Benevolence by either making it a HoT (same cost+heals+cast time) or better yet give Seer the following talent:

XYZ: When taking damage you have a x% chance to make your next Benevolence an instant cast (and maybe costing no Force). Can only occur every x seconds.

This would be a great talent for PvP and somewhat useful for PvE (if the proc lasts cca 15s)

-Currently the best fix for Energy Management is fixing Crit Rating. Other option is to make Benevolence act as Disturbance acts with Concentration. This will not only make the ability actually useful but will also give the Sage an active way to manage force regen which would make the class more interesting.

TK:

In PvE their damage output is absolutely fine, as long as they do not have to move or are not pushbacked/interrupted too heavily.

In PvP the inability to kite effectively is a major issue. When positioned well they can unleash horrendous burst.

Ideas

-Egress as a passive skill or moved to the low rungs of the Seer tree so all specs have access to it, just as all GS can use Dodge+Hightail It and all Commandos can use Hold the Line to avoid snares.

-Limited ability to cast on the move, either making Saber Strike a ranged ability (The Sage uses the saber to propel air at the enemy [think week Blade Storm] and the Sorc uses the saber to conduct electricity toward the opponent. The ability would also need to benefit from Willpower and Force Power) OR Mental Alacrity allows on the move casts (perhaps limited to Disturbance)

Force Barrier could also use tweaks (shorter cd and duration) but if it stays as it is currently I won't mind too much.

Just some guesses on possible changes. I would say more, but others have already covered everything pretty well.

Benevolence - This is pretty costly and an underwhelming healing ability. I'd like to see it being worked into a mechanic of the tree to reduce cost/cast time, or changed to be a preventive measure (think of a weaker Force Armor). Not sure what to do with this and keep it balanced, but it's definitely worth looking at.

Seer:

Egress - I think this talent should be moved down to the second row of the tree so other specs can grab it. It's a pretty huge utility and survivability boost and I feel a core for Sages. I'm not sure what you'd shift upward to compensate, but I feel Egress is a bigger bonus than talents like Foresight for all specs.

Immutable Force - This could be swapped places with Psychic Suffusion as every advanced class except Sage has the decreased cast and resource cost in the bottom of their healer tree. Just makes sense to me.

On another random side note, pushback is a very serious problem for TK in PvE. It's a problem for balance too, but to a far lesser extent. TK is more dependent on casts and channels than Balance is, and unlike Balance, it lacks pushback protection for one of its strongest casts (Mind Crush). Pushback in general has become much, much more of a problem post-2.0 than it ever was pre-2.0, and it's not clear entirely why that is, but it's to the point where any fight that includes a moderate amount of consistent raid damage (i.e. most fights) is going to represent a serious handicap for a TK sage.

Please keep harping on this. Like our force regen bug, it really cannot be said often enough.

Also to note, it's a huge problem for gunnery commandos too, and is a big reason my slinger is my main for DPS, with both my sage and commando demoted to "alt" in the last few months.

Some thoughts I've had about the Telekinetics tree are to rework the Tremors talent so that it causes each Disturbance cast to increase the damage and force cost of the next disturbance and turbulence by X% stacking up to 3. Casting turbulance would cause the stacks to reset.

If not a damage increase you could make it lower the cast time per stack, at the cost of lower dmg per cast, leading up to an instant Turbulence at 3 stacks.

1 disturbance-->+1%dmg/+1%forcecost --> 2 dist+2%dmg/+2%forcecost --> 3 dist--> +3%dmg/+3forcecost --> turb with 6% increased dmg/forcecost --> repeat

1 dist -1%cast/-1%dmg --> etc etc

Remove the rng element of Telekinetic Momentum and make it a 100% chance with a lower dmg,

or have it cause the -cast/-dmg stacks.

With both changed to the +/- stacks there would need to be a way to choose between +dmg or -cast in order to do this, change Mind's Eye so that it removes the cooldown from mind crush and increases its duration to equal weaken mind. That way you apply weaken mind for +dmg+force cost, or mind crush for -cast/-dmg stacks

Change Psychic Projection so that it turns your next Telekinetic Throw into Project Storm, the ability some NPCs have.

Remove the "Hybrid Tax" to me the hybrid tax is, "I have bad damage abilities becuase I have bad healing abilities." and that should'nt be the case. In order to resolve this, you could lower the base heal of the healing abilities that dps sages have. Then make a talent in the Seer tree restore it so it does'nt effect healers.

With the hybrid tax removed were able to get into better defense, some options on that;

You could make Force Armor function like Cover when cast on yourself

Allow casting at reduced damage while Force Barrier is active

Make Force Barrier restore a percentage of health and force while channeled

Increase the range of Force Stun back to 30/35 yrd, I cant remember now what it use to be.

Make targets in Force Lift immune to AoE damage

A lot of people seem to want to turn sage healing into another force armour. Am I misreading this, or is this something you really haven't thought out?

Force Armour does not stack. When the lockout expires, and you use force armour again, it doesn't double the amount of health that they can take before going down, it simply refreshes the time before it expires naturally, and restores the barrier to normal.

It would take a massive rehaul to make this change without harshly nerfing Sage healing.

This is also from a PvE perspective, but I suspect would help in PvP too:

Seer:

Unlike some other posters, I would like to see some small changes here, but nothing class breaking. The biggest issue I have as seer is in time management, which is related to energy management. As I burn through my force bar, at some point, I'm going to want to pop a chain of 2-3 NS with a FA and FM in there too. This takes me out of the fight for several seconds, during which time I am relying on the other healer to cover for me. In many cases, this ends up with someone a bit low on health, and me in the middle of a ~2.5s cast hoping it lands before they get hit again. And in every case, it provides a nice window of opportunity for a random raid attack with some significant spike damage to kill me where it would not have killed another healer.

So I'd like to see 2 small things: in addition to not degenerating force, I'd like to see resplendance also grant a buff that takes the next NS off the GCD. I'd be tempted to say resplendance itself should take NS off the GCD, but allowing us to use 3x NS instantly might be too much regen. I'd also like to see the use of NS grant seer sages a significant damage reduction for a very short period after using it, like 20-30% damage reduction for 3s, which is mostly to help us avoid being one-shot because we are using our energy regen mechanic.

TK+Balance:

Some form of execute would be nice to see. Also eliminating pushback would probably go a long way to leveling the playing field with the highest DPS specs.