Does anyone have a link to a Torhead or something similar with the ideal Balance spec? I think I heard something about 1 / 7 / 31 but Im not sure on which skills to spend the points exactly.

Also, a rotation would be nice.

Thanks in advance!

1/12/28

3/7/31

3/31/7

For everyone's reference

1/12/28

 

3/7/31

 

3/31/7

 

For everyone's reference

Bookmarked, the amount of times ive had to re'search sage builds !!!

Thanksss!

Balance spec i actually prefer:

7 - 3 - 31

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600hMbZcZfMbRsdkrfz.1

Where i go for either: Psychic Suffusion or Pain Bearer.

Pain Bearer lets your dots selfheal for a lot more, whereas Suffusion boosts your fib damage.

Wisdom and Immutable Force are interchangeable as well. (wisdom for higher selfhealing from dots, immutable for faster deliverance casting for backup healing, which shoudlnt really happen.)

The 500 force is a non issue, wm duration isn't overly important either, the only thing you'll lose out on is the slightly lower damage of mind crush.

Balance spec i actually prefer:

 

7 - 3 - 31

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600hMbZcZfMbRsdkrfz.1

 

Where i go for either: Psychic Suffusion or Pain Bearer.

 

Pain Bearer lets your dots selfheal for a lot more, whereas Suffusion boosts your fib damage.

Wisdom and Immutable Force are interchangeable as well. (wisdom for higher selfhealing from dots, immutable for faster deliverance casting for backup healing, which shoudlnt really happen.)

 

The 500 force is a non issue, wm duration isn't overly important either, the only thing you'll lose out on is the slightly lower damage of mind crush.

Okay I'm really sorry but this is a really bad spec. Like really really bad. Not usable in any serious raiding or pvp environment.

1. 2/2 Containment is absolutely essential in PvP, and also in PvE when you need to CC IMMEDIATELY. 1/2 is pointless.

2. Jedi Resistance is such a terrible return for 2 points. It's not going to save you in PvP and its not going to save you in PvE either. Ditch it.

3. Mind Ward is situational in PvP. Remember that you can cleanse Force dots off yourself already. I guess if you get hit with a lot of tech and physical dots then Mind Ward might be useful. But it involves taking points out of other useful skills which is the biggest knock against putting 2 points here.

4. Upheaval should be taken. Project is your only good damaging attack when you have to move at the same time. In every raid there is at least one boss fight where you are on the move. In PvP project is necessary when kiting.

5. Wisdom is a pretty bad investment for a non-Seer. You do realize that even if you have 20000 hitpoints (which requires a fully Black Hole geared Sage), your self heal only heals for 400 hitpoints, right? 2% of 400 is 8 hitpoints. You really want to spend 2 skill points for an extra 8 hitpoints of healing on a dot crit? Seriously? If you must spend points, spend it on Immutable Force. Far more useful in PvP.

6. Psychic Suffusion is useful if you really want to chase Force in Balance burst damage in PvP, I suppose. PvE not really worth the investment.

7. You should not be depending on Pain Bearer to stay alive. If you're taking so much damage that you feel like you need Pain Bearer, you're doing it wrong. Also, pain bearer gives you an extra 32 healing from Focused Insight...so now in total instead of 400 you heal for 440...by wasting 4 skill points. Not the way to go.

8. Mental Longevity (600 Force) is an absolute requirement in raids. You do know that the Balance rotation is a force negative rotation, right? Meaning if you do our full rotation we will gradually lose all of our Force. We barely have enough to complete a 5 minute boss fight - and that's without using Force Armor or emergency healing anyone. You NEED 600 Force in a raid boss fight. Also note that having 600 Force synergizes with Psychic Barrier, so now TK throw refunds 6 force instead of 5 force per tick...squeezing out every ounce of efficiency that Balance sages really need.

- Nearly 500healing, sometimes resulting in a net 1.5k healing every 2 seconds, yeah thats bad. Why spec focused insight at all?(not sure how it gets to be that high but it is), which is quite usefull in pvp (hell in pvp i have had moments where it constantly popped up for a while while kiting a marauder, keeping my health high enough for more then enough time to kill him or get help from others), and during some raids allows you to heal off the little hurts, saving the healers time so they can focus more on others, hell with that you can do the lightning rod kiting during the tank dps phases without needing any of the healers to throw a heal your way.

- Pain bearer is an option but i prefer suffusion, but with no pain bearer i still get numbers closer to 500 then the 400 you list with 19k'ish hp.

- Cc is crap in this game most of the time, 2 or 3 and you trigger full resolve, yeah that'll save you. While its fun to see kinetic collapse go off its not really usefull when it puts an enemy into full resolve.

- Damage reduction while arguably not overly usefull, seems to be the more usefull of all the possible other

options at that point.

- 500 force, never run out of force unless i'm herp derp spamming project, or have a bad run where i have to cancel a lot of my telekinetic throws before anything happens (its the main reason i started to not take that extra 100 force as at 600 it didnt seem to do much either). 9% reduction in all force costs is quite a bit more usefull then a static 100 more force that doesn't really increase your force regen anyway.

- Insta cast cc vs 0.9 second cc, when pve cc'ing fast enough, when pvp cc'ing only used as an interrupt anyway, and since its faster then gcd or most major skills its still good enough, will i not be able to stop someone from first grab in huttball? i've got sever force for that anyway.

- Wisdom is arguable, but its that or immutable force so i just went with the slight healing boost.

- Main reason you run out of force as balance? Spamming project. It was the problem i used to have till i just cauterized that out of my rotation and only started using it for moments where a little more 'burst' is needed.

Its still on my main skillbar but only used when i have a relic popped and am bursting stuff.

- Also, fib is your main on move damage attack, my fib does way more damage then a double tick project does.

I'll let you guys argue it out on PvP,

but on PvE the specs I have posted are simulated to be the best... Good luck...

1/12/28

 

3/7/31

 

3/31/7

 

For everyone's reference

The 3/7/31 is the balance PvE and PvP dps spec. It sort of has variations and putting the 7 into inner strength and clamoring force can work out better than having 100 extra force at the start as force regeneration over long encounters makes efficiency better than a slightly higher total at start.

Actually, for PvP it also is probably worth pointing out that for a hyrbid healer you need at least 11 and preferably 13 points in the key Sage tree talents to heal better than a dps spec. That still leaves plenty of room to spec into TK or Balance trees with the remainder, though bear in mind this isn't really viable in end-game PvE at all.

- Nearly 500healing, sometimes resulting in a net 1.5k healing every 2 seconds, yeah thats bad. Why spec focused insight at all?(not sure how it gets to be that high but it is), which is quite usefull in pvp (hell in pvp i have had moments where it constantly popped up for a while while kiting a marauder, keeping my health high enough for more then enough time to kill him or get help from others), and during some raids allows you to heal off the little hurts, saving the healers time so they can focus more on others, hell with that you can do the lightning rod kiting during the tank dps phases without needing any of the healers to throw a heal your way.

I'll spell it out for you. Assuming again that you have 20,000 health (odds are you have less than that however), 2 pts in Focused Insight results in 200 healing per dot crit. This is a good return for 2 points. On the same token, Psychic Absorption increases healing from dot crits by another 200 pts. This is a good return. Spending 2 points in Wisdom to increase your self healing from dots will result in 8 extra pts of healing. EIGHT POINTS. 200 vs 200 vs 8. Does something seem a bit wrong to you here? Wisdom is a mistake. Get Immutable Force if you're going to pick between the two. Also note that your healing output will increase far more from Immutable Force than it ever will from Wisdom. Consider this: let's say my Deliverance heals for 1000. With Immutable Force its 2.5sec to heal 1000. With Wisdom its 3 sec to heal 1020. Now in a span of 15 seconds:

Immutable Force: 6 heals x 1000 = 6000 healing

Wisdom: 5 heals x 1020 = 5100 healing.

Get it?

Also, you will never get 1,500 self healing from dot crits every 2 seconds. Mind Crush dot ticks every second, but Weaken Mind and Sever Force tick only once every THREE seconds. So in lets say 6 seconds, we get 6 dot ticks from Mind Crush, and two dot ticks from Weaken Mind, 2 dot ticks from Sever Force. 10 dot ticks total. Even if you have a 40% chance to crit (which is very high already and actually too high, you're losing DPS), that's only 4 dot CRITS on average in 6 seconds. Divide that by 3 and you get...1.3 dot crits every 2 seconds. As I said before, the most self-healing you can possibly hope for 440 per dot crit. So thats...572 healing every 2 seconds. NOT 1500 self-healing, lol. Stop pulling numbers out of thin air, thanks.

- Pain bearer is an option but i prefer suffusion, but with no pain bearer i still get numbers closer to 500 then the 400 you list with 19k'ish hp.

If I had to choose between the two (but I shouldn't, neither are particularly worth it for Balance DPS), I too would choose Suffusion. Also, as I mathematically proved before, it is impossible for you to get closer to 500 healing with 19k HP without Pain Bearer. The best you can possibly hope for is 440. You're either lying, or you've gotten a healing buff from someone else.

- Cc is crap in this game most of the time,

I dare you to say "CC is crap" in the PvP forum. Go ahead, I'll wait.

2 or 3 and you trigger full resolve, yeah that'll save you.

I don't know what point you're trying to make about triggering full resolve. But here's a real point: If your target is cc'ed 2 or 3 times in a fight, THAT WILL save you. That gives you more than enough time to kill. Have you ever PvPed at all, seriously? Have you ever CCed to protect yourself? Or you'd rather just stand still and die, let me guess? I'll tell you something: If you don't CC when fighting a marauder, assassin, pyrotech, or when trying to kill a healer, you're doing it ALL WRONG. You will DIE. It's REQUIRED TO CC in PvP.

While its fun to see kinetic collapse go off its not really usefull when it puts an enemy into full resolve

Kinetic Collapse has nothing to do with Balance DPS. Irrelevant. Also, one burst of KC does not completely fill up resolve.

- Damage reduction while arguably not overly usefull, seems to be the more usefull of all the possible other options at that point.

No, your other option is to spend 7 points in Telekinetics like what everyone else does and get Telekinetic Defense. Let's assume that I take 20,000 damage in a single fight and die. My bubble absorbs 3,000 damage without TK Defense. An extra 20% of that is 600 damage. And that's just one bubble - often in a single fight I'll get at least two bubbles on myself. That's an extra 1200 damage blocked. On the other hand, 2% of 20,000 damage is 400 damage. You tell me which one blocks more damage?

- 500 force, never run out of force unless i'm herp derp spamming project, or have a bad run where i have to cancel a lot of my telekinetic throws before anything happens (its the main reason i started to not take that extra 100 force as at 600 it didnt seem to do much either). 9% reduction in all force costs is quite a bit more usefull then a static 100 more force that doesn't really increase your force regen anyway.

You don't need to derp spam project to run out of force in any challenging raid fight that requires you to move and cancel TK throw. It's mathematically proven and accepted by every good sage in the game that Balance is force negative and is extremely taxing in long boss fights. Go to mmo-mechanics.com and browse their sorcerer forums if you don't believe me.

An extra 100 force is a godsend. And remember, having 600 force means your TK Throw refunds 6 force instead of 5 per tick. 24 force vs 20. It is a bonus to force regen.

- Insta cast cc vs 0.9 second cc, when pve cc'ing fast enough, and since its faster then gcd or most major skills its still good enough,

Good players in pvp can easily interrupt a 1 second cast. I know I can.

when pvp cc'ing only used as an interrupt anyway,

No. It's also a key defensive tool for us. It allows us to make distance between us and melee. Standing still for a second to maybe get a CC off is bad.

will i not be able to stop someone from first grab in huttball? i've got sever force for that anyway.

I never said to use Force Lift to stop a first grab in huttball, I don't know what you're talking about.

- Wisdom is arguable, but its that or immutable force so i just went with the slight healing boost.

I addressed which skill was more useful for healing boost above.

- Main reason you run out of force as balance? Spamming project. It was the problem i used to have till i just cauterized that out of my rotation and only started using it for moments where a little more 'burst' is needed.

Its still on my main skillbar but only used when i have a relic popped and am bursting stuff.

Spamming project is not the reason why I run out of Force, but it is one of them. Using Project even once results in a permanent loss in Force that I'll never get back. Using Force Armor even once is a permanent loss in Force that I'll never get back. There are many fights in the game that require using Project more than once - Annihilator Droid in EV, Toth and Zorn in EC, Bonethrasher in KP, etc. If you're not gradually running out of Force doing your full rotation in raids while keeping up DPS while on the move, then your DPS is lower than what it should be. Plain and simple.

- Also, fib is your main on move damage attack, my fib does way more damage then a double tick project does.

There is no way to ensure that FIB is off cooldown whenever you need to move in PvE or PvP. Unless you meant to say that you save FIB for only when you move - in that case, I shake my head at you in disappointment. Very slowly.