Stun on sorc bubble break must be changed

Umm, the two most powerful AoE CCs (Flashbang/Flash Grenade and Awe/Intimidating Roar) both break on damage so no, my complaint against opening a burst phase with a stun doesn't apply to them.

Yes, I know you have to spec into the bubble. What's your point? Rage Juggernauts have to spec 31 points into the Rage tree to get the overpowered Smashes, doesn't mean it's not overpowered.

Well all I can say is you are trying to tell someone who plays a sage in bis gear and has alot of experience in rateds how to play balance/madness (your not even close to how to play it effectively btw, its effectiveness comes from dots and 10 ticks of fob not just proccing mindcrush, and spamming tele throw) because you have a lower level sorc and can top the dps charts. Forgive me in saying this but you have a very limited perspective, sages are at 50 end game are a different ball game completley. You are confusing healing specced sages with dps ones for starters. Dps sages do not get immunity from roots, that is called egress and sits high up in the healing tree.. Similarly hybrid sages do not get a benefit from a 20 second force speed, because they already had this pre 1.4, which is one of the main reasons you didnt spec balance/madness and you went hybrid..

I have played since early access, I have seen what has become of this class dps wise. Dps is what im discussing here not heals, I think the changes to heals are mostly positive. Prior to 1.4 sages were speccing dps hybrid balance/tele for a number of reasons:-

Balance/tele hybrid (typical)

Pros

-better survivability - bubble mezz
- Support for team mates in with shielding, stronger shield supported by the next point.
- Increased force resources
-root on an aoe knockback
-reduced cooldown on forcespeed
- Some sages would forgo a little crit in the healing tree for a proc on telewave from disturbance but this is situational and not always the case

Cons

Lower dps output overall, loss of criticals on periodic damage, loss of single target root.

Balance/madness - was the weaker spec (though it had higher dps output) comparted to hybrid.

Pros

Better damage from dots, and stronger criticals from fob
A decent single target root
Instant lift, though most hybrids specced for this anyway.
Decent damage mitigation from periodic damage ( I would spec this over project), project is too costly on force resources.

Cons

-Crap survivability - easily focused/shutdown
- terrible force resource issues i.e you run out quickly
-30 seconds on force speed

The changes made to sages and how they directly affect the dps specs are as follows:-

We lost 180 degrees on a knockback though it is now instant (very buggy thought i gather alot of classes have bug issues) and has a little range and frontal cone(better tool in one sense, loss of survival on the other), reduced to 10m our range on hard stun, gained a self instant heal which is useful but not 6-8k in dps spec, never have i seen those numbers, more like 2-4k in bis gear. Bubble mezz is no longer a mezz, its a stun, but then we have lost 180 degrees of protection from the knockback and we need some way of dealing with melee focus trains, which we are often a target of. Balance also gets 10 seconds knocked off of force speed, which was needed.

So how does that play out for Sages dps/wise?

Hybrid/balance/tele

Bubble mezz is now a stun - better change for survivability, though the fact it can be appliled on other classes has called for a nerf which will hit the sage survivability hard if it does happen.
Knockback is still talented to root though its changed into a 180 cone (no rear protection as such but cant really call it a flat out nerf since it can be used in positive ways to create distance with slight range, thought it does compound the issue with lack of range on the hard stun)
20 seconds force speed no longer needs to be specced into but its irrelevant because it shared that with better force resources
Still has better force resources than full balance
Bubbling team mates is not a prob because of decent force resources
now has an instant self heal, for moderate amount (the closest we get to a defensive cooldown, but its a heal)
reduced range on hard stun (nerf)

Balance

10 second reduction on force speed was a much needed change (buff).
Force resources still poor.
Better dps output than hybriid on dots, though you soon run out of force.
Still collapses under focus fire more quickly than hybrid.
Shielding team mates a waste of force resources
Lack of range on hard stun (nerf).
Single target root - a big plus for the spec.
Self-heal - useful for regaining a little force when needd as well as a top up when needed

Full tele?

Im not even going there, suffice to say its absolute garbarge for pvp and can be shutdown easily imo, its just a great big beacon that screams nuke me. It lacks any meaningful tools to kite, and hybrid trumps it because you can dip in both trees and get decent utility that it offers and procs from balance but there is a lack of overall dps. Still you will live longer in hybrid than in tele, any day of the week. .

Conclusion

I've played rateds as a dps sage, since their inception, I have watched this class be hit with the nerf bat while other classes are gifted strong defences, powerful burst, utility and seemingly left alone or further buffed. I see no reason why balance is a more beneficial spec since the recent changes to sage than hybrid in that environment. I still see no reason to bring a balance sage or even a hybrid dps sage when you can just stack fotm comps and players that can bring better utility and burst to the team because they scale better with bis gear, and have better defensive cooldowns. Dps still needs work on sage/sorc - and the loss of bubble stun will not help us, it will hinder us and give those fotm classes their free kills once more, and I feel most of the qq about bubble stun stems from this.

Dps sages are one of the weaker ac's, a loss of bubble stun or moving it up higher in the tele tree will make it even weaker. Therefore if we lose it, then we need something in return, either a buff to dps, a hard defensive cooldown, a single bursty proc (aoe or single target damage) that is decent, an in combat force regen skill such as evocate (wow mages) on a long cooldown, a drain energy/force mechanic, or force deflect skill that pushes back missiles sabers back at their attackers. Any one of those skills would be useful for us. The only alternative you would not like if we take another hit to survivabilty - maras, jugs, shadows, pts need to be be hit with the nerf bat like we were. Its that simple, so be careful what you ask for - you might not like what you get instead.

I said you were complaining about stunning itself; and you still are.

'Overpowered' is not the same as 'abused'. And I say that only to help you clarify your own arguments, not as a suggestion that bubblestun is overpowered or abusable.

I think you're looking at my responses but not double-checking it against what you originally wrote.

Jesus, you're like a squid, slippery and weird. You're just carefully avoiding responding to the actual points people make.

1) it's rubbish that Sorcerers can bubble an entire team, effectively giving an extra 3 sec stun for 8 people which they can use at will

2) my biggest problem with CC in this game, as I carefully explained to you, is that people use stuns to open up and unload their burst on you. There's no strategic use of CC. Those that break on damage ARE used strategically or as escape tools so I have little problem with those.

Clear enough now? The bubble stun makes the situation worse. Awe/Flashbang/Whirlwind are fine.

No No No and No.

I've seen good Madness Sorcs destroy in WZs and do bigger and more consistent numbers in 50 WZs, even rateds. You're complaining about being squishy, ugh yeah if you get 2 on 1 you'll probably die because of it. Seen some sick *** Sorcs absolutely destroy through kiting and their team utility from range is unbelieveable. They'll root melee classes and ranged nukes from a distance. I know some sick Sorc players, people just ain't playing the spec right.

Why do you not see any Madness Assassins in WZs, they have ridiculous potential. But it's hard to do it so people prefer to stick with a utility hybrid tank, although Madness DPS can be through the roof.

You speak of nerf bats but my Annihilation Mara has been getting nothing but nerf bats since day 1. BW gave people EZ buttons in 1.4 (yet again after they did it in 1.2) so now even half-retarded monkeys can spam smash.

It is a L2P issue because I have yet to see a good Sorc kite. Instead they just stand there and try to out-dps melee classes.

Oh and the nerf that Sorcs got, yeah that was the same **** that we're talking about. Bioware never intended for Hybrid specs to be viable or as viable. So chain lightning spamming proc monkeys weren't designed to do what they did. Neither was the bug ridden healing double dips that would heal a toon back to full in 2 seconds. But people used them anyways and it was a serious issue in WZs. I'm sure as a healer you may want to have easy runs of Voidstar with 4 healers, but as you know such teams are not viable now for a reason and that is because healing was not balanced before. Nowadays there are some sick healers even though everyone has 'gotten the nerf bat' as you call it.

And you want to nerf Maras? Dude, the majority of them are hooooorrible. Absolutely bad. When I see a Mara on my team I want to quit because they suck so bad. Very few people are as good on Maras as those who run PTs.

I know plenty about 50 WZs and ranked and Balance/Madness has it's place, especially to focus down hybrid healers with ranged nukes and roots. Sorry if you think that playing a Sorceror DPS means that you'll get to spam force lightning without people noticing. First targets are always healers and nuke spammers (Tracer Missiles & Force Lightning) and good elites.

I have taken the time to go through all the posts and there seems to be this apocalyptic approach if the bubble problems are being sorted. What is happening now with these sages/sorcs is an unintended side effect. The resolve system has been poorly tested by BioWare and people are abusing this loophole. Pre 1.4 the amount of stunlocking was insignificant compared to what is happening now. Everywhere you turn you get stunned. People pop the bubbles on purpose just to stun you because they know it will do minimum change to your resolve. If this stun would add more to the resolve of the player that gets stunned people will not be as trigger happy.


The developers need to address this and not view it as a survivability issue on the sorc/sage. Any ability that eliminates the opponent repeatedly without consequence, knowing there is a resolve system in place to counter this, is a major flaw in PVP.