The reason Sorcerers/Sages are OP in PvP

Hey there all, just wanted comment on here real quick to address a very important issue that has to deal with the original poster's findings. You see it's not just this mmo but ALL recent mmos in the last couple of years have taken to the disturbing trend of gimping melee severely while completely overpowering casters. Now I have a few theories as to why this is, but that's for a different topic
For now though I would like you to take note of the mechanics that are currently stacked against melee classes.

1.Boss Aoes:

SWTOR seems to have taken a page right out of other MMOs and decided that it would be a great idea to give bosses and mobs a TON of aoe dmg that destroys melee. The biggest problem with this is that a melee toon has to stop any and all attacks in order to vacate the aoe and not die. There is no such mechanic that stops ranged classes to that effect. No matter what, unless there is some giant map wide stun (which does not exist) they can keep on dpsing/healing with little to no incident, while melee is busy running around doing nothing except lose health rapidly. I would be the equivalent of a Boss firing off an aoe that only affected casters, doing 1k points of dmg every time they tried to attack/cast and silenced them as well. I have yet to see such a spell exist. Frankly I hope I never do because it would be complete overkill. So why then must melee suffer similar effects on an almost daily basis?

2.Little to no self healing:

Another disturbing trend is the belief that giving melee classes (especially tanks) a way to recover health during a fight would lead to complete unbalance. So in response most developers have given said classes extremely weak/situational healing abilities or nothing at all. Now there would be no problem with this line of thinking if melee classes had such phenomenal defenses or dps that enemies dies quickly enough so no real heals are required save for being outnumbered or chaining more too many mobs. But sadly such balance does not exist. Often times the most high damaging attacks COMPLETELY ignore melee's armor and shreds the poor defender to pieces. In essence it turns melee classes into an armorless attacker with no sustainable/reliable way to mitigate damage.

3.Very small mitigation chances/ "Heavy Armor, High AC"

Now just like healing, since melee classes are perceived to be just too tough with their higher armor (that in reality doesn't stop the most common types of high dmg) developers have given melee character a very small percentage/proc based mitigation mechanic. This would be a great idea if the dmg that came through was mitigated properly. But sadly, such is not the case. Even the damage that makes it through the procs, often times are high enough to put serious dents in a would be melee character's health. So what you are left with is a character with "Heavy armor / AC" that doesn't stop most incoming dmg, with poor proc based mitigation that barely chisels down any of the unmolested incoming DPS.

4. Long cool downs:

Basically refer to points 2-4. For the same reasons developers have made CDs for melee classes entirely too long. CD's that should be on a one minute timer are on three. I'm looking at you Saber Ward

5.CC, CC,CC / Physical location (proximity of attack):

In a game filled with heavy ranged DPS, it is hard enough just REACHING your objective as melee and applying constant dmg, so the thing I find most infuriating is the constant slows and stuns. They are completely unnecessary and I would go as far to say that melee classes should be all but immune to them, except for the odd stun or two. The reason being is that stun locking/perma slowing melee is DOUBLE PUNISHMENT. Unlike ranged characters, melee has to actually get to its target and CONTINUE to stay on their target within a very short distance in order to do any kind of dmg. So they already start off with a major disadvantage. Making it so atrociously easy to just get out of a melee characters range or stop them cold while continuing to DPS them with high dmg. This inexcusable and bad game design, has been copied from mmo to mmo. Gap closers loose all their worth, when someone can just stun/kite you right after you use it, especially in a pvp environment.

Now take a look at everything I listed above. Ranged classes face no such obstacles. In most cases ranged classed have enough healing, dmg, cc, and mitigation to exotic dmg that their realistic armor class is MUCH higher than that of melee classes. Their perceived weakness of "light armor / light AC" is easily overcome with a few talents and base powers, creating dominating force with very few weaknesses and little risk vs. gain. The Hybrid Sorc Spec that the OP speaks of is the epitome of this idea. Hence why he is asking for a change to be made. I'd like to thank you all very much for taking the time to read this post, and wish you wonderful day.

-Drega

No problem man, I just see posts like this all the time and they get belittled so quickly. I love melee classes and hate the fact that they have been so blatantly neutered. I'm posting the same thing in the Sith Warrior forums in hopes that others will see that their not just imagining things. The situation has truly become just THAT bad. Keep up the good work man

ALERT: Read this -ENTIRE- first post before posting ANYTHING on this thread. Do not post vague generalizations. Respond to the points I actually made in this post. Do not join the long list of painfully stupid posts that had nothing to do with the actual content of the thread and everything to do with the title of the read.


The actual Sorcerer talents do not need to be nerfed at all. The only thing Bioware needs to do is rearrange the talent trees to disallow overpowered hybrid specs from making the class far more powerful than the devs intended. Lightning/Madness hybrids cause far too much imbalance.

The main problem is Sorcs have hybrid specs that are far too effective and they get far too many perks from all trees.

"Lightning Barrier" - Gives 20% increased absorption to Static Barrier. Tier 2 talent. Lightning Sorcs need this talent because of their need to stand still and leave themselves more vulnerable to damage. Healers use this talent for survival and PvE purposes.

"Electric Bindings" - Adds a 5 second immobilize to their 20 second knockback "Overload". Tier 3 talent. Again this talent is needed for a 31 point Lightning PvP build to be effective but for all other specs it's just a ridiculous amount of utility that they don't need. This needs to be moved up the tree.

"Wrath" - Force Lightning damage has a 30% chance to make your next cast instant and do +20% damage. This is the talent that allows hybrid Sorcerers to surpass the 31-point specs. This makes it insanely effective to build hybrid and use the proc for instant cast "Chain Lightning".

"Lightning Barrage" - Affliction critical hits have a 100% chance to cause your next "Force Lightning" to channel and tick twice as fast(10s CD). This talent gives further incentive to the hybrid Lightning/Madness build. In PvP it causes Sorcerers to have a surprising amount of burst. While this talent isn't a problem on it's own it does further the gap between hybrid specs and proper 31-point specs. It's nonsense to have this talent in the Lightning Tree when you consider that "Force Lightning" is Madness's main filler. Lightning spec is supposed to use Lightning Strike.

"Backlash" - Causes "Static Barrier" to apply a 3 second CC to surrounding targets upon breaking. Shouldn't be in the hands of hybrids. Period. This is only balanced in the hands of an incredibly immobile caster.

"Lightning Storm" - 30% chance on "Lightning Strike" to reset the CD of Chain Lightning and cause it to be instant-cast the next time you use it(10s CD). Essentially a second Wrath. Combine the two and you have a spec that can use instant-cast Chain Lightning with disgusting frequency.

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Here is an example of a hybrid spec.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZfcMMdRbZcrcRsMk.1

The obvious issue here is the fact that a Sorcerer using a spec such as this gets all the utility of both Lightning and Madness without sacrificing much.

A Madness Sorcerer is supposed to have some CC and a lot of Mobility due to a reliance on instant casts and DoT effects.

A Lightning Sorcer is supposed to have a lot of defensive CC and very limited Mobility due to reliance on hard casts.

The problem is that the hybrid spec has both the Mobility of Madness and the defensive CC of Lightning at the same time while also having greater damage than either spec.

This is the amount of utility a hybrid has:

Strong Bubble
5s Immobilize attached to a 20s Knockback
Unlimited Regen through the combined talents of both specs.
Spammable Instant-Cast Chain Lightning(This spell hits VERY hard and is an AoE)
3s Immobilize attached to the end of Bubble
Abnormal mobility through DoTs and a 20s Dash
Incredible Burst that surpasses the burst that either of the full 31pt specs can come close to outputting.
The best PvP AoE damage in the entire game through DoT spam, Death Field, and Chain Lightning.
Instant Cast Whirlwind and a 2-second stun attached to breaking Whirlwind.
Self-Healing


What I'm trying to emphasize is how stupidly well the bottom halves of the two trees synergize. It's obviously not intended and needs to be changed without breaking the full 31 point specs. Bioware needs to move the incredibly good talents further up the tree and move some of the weaker talents down to the lower tiers.



DISCLAIMER:
I don't care if hybrid specs exist.

I care when those hybrid specs break the game by making a class disgustingly overpowered.

I'm not asking for an end to Sorcerer hybrids.

I just want the hybrids to not have access to the utility talents in Lightning so they're not so incredibly powerful compared to the 31-point specs.

In their current state they're overpowered in every way.

With this change people wouldn't feel stupid for NOT using a hybrid spec because right now anyone using a 31-point build is gimping themselves as Sorcerers.

With this change people would still have the option to spec hybrid and do the same damage, they just wouldn't have disgustingly overpowered utility from BOTH trees.

It's incredibly stupid for hybrids to be like some ultimate fusion of two specs that's far more overpowered than either 31-point build. This isn't Dragonball Z.

They already moved the extra CC bits and the shield collapses as far up the tree as they can.

And your complaint should they require single tree specs would be, hey they do too much damage. Still.

So, um learn to fight them better.