Sorcerer Changes Brainstorming

Make the Parasitism talent in madness tree restore 1% force instead of health. It's not like madness self heals are useful.

It's fine, never overly great at interpreting sarcasm in text form, though a problem I am begining to notice is that the pvers don't agree with potential pvp changes and vise versa, I don't know if it is a lack of understanding between the players or if the class is really at the point where if one side changes it would negatively affect the other, probably a combination of both.

I wrote something about the Sage here : http://www.swtor.com/community/showp...0&postcount=45
Please keep in mind that this is my personal, subjective view of things.

Just a lack of understanding really, also a bit biased. I raided in Wow as well as arenas so I understand how one change can completely change the outcome of raids and vice versa with arenas. The reason why I say this game's raid is dumbed down is simply because I don't like the mechanics of the fight and how healing works, I feel like operatives are buffed too strong while other healing classes are there more just for support. This doesn't mean that some comps in arenas aren't dumbed down. I strongly believe comps such as caveman cleave(double sent/mara) are completely dumbed down. Also every comp gets dumbed down when everyone runs the same class for healing(now tanks as well). This is why I'm voicing an opinion for change/balance. The thing I liked about Wow, is there was usually a variety of healers who performed better than others on certain fights. So it was a good thing to bring a balanced all around comp for every raid rather than stacking specific over powered class. This applies to arenas as well. The main thing this game lacks is the incentive to play a certain class over a period of time. Once nerfed, like commando/sorc healing there is no hope for months to be able to perform better than other classes on certain fights or in my situation, certain comps in arenas. People like to play classes because of their uniqueness about them, if they can't feel like have a specific role nobody else can bring to the table...then why play the class other than the fact that it's more "challenging". What keeps the majority of competitive players playing a specific class is the rewards, whether that means shiny things or simply winning. This concept applies to arenas as well. The hard part isn't necessarily recognizing the problems and providing solutions, but rather making a change understanding one class strengths and more importantly counters to other classes while keeping in mind how it would affect raiding. This is where pve clashes with pvp : / Of course you'll have other classes being more biased than others. But take it from a player who isn't biased and actually played every class in ranked with the history of server first in raiding on WoW(wrath and cata)+arena experience.

The thing is they don't have to contradict each other. It's easy to create changes that have positive effects on pvp and no effects on pve. Even so there are some basic concepts that people seem to agree on.

As DPS the class suffers because you spend so many globals maintaining your defense (static barrier, purge, unnatrual preservation). It also is agreed upon as a whole that balancing dps survivability on "offhealing" simply does not work in pve or pvp. Dark Heal simply costs too much force for that and harms pve damage output too much. Overall there seems to be an agreement that we need either better passive survivability or a good defensive cooldown. Many of the complaints I hear about pve from a sorc perspective (mind you I am a pvper so I can't personally confirm this) is that they often are one shot from raid mechanics other classes can live through. Our only real defensive cooldown removes us from the game further harming our ability to contribute.

We are here to discuss both aspects of the class to improve it. Honestly we should be trying to work together

well yea you could do that, we have seen that with the uncleanseable dot thing, that is something that has no affect on pve what so ever, I guess some people (including myself) are worried that any update we do get will be mainly geared towards pvp, leaving us as a second rate dps in raids getting passed over for Snipers, just like some melee classes would get passed over for marauders.

I feel I should mention that anything that can one shot someone in a raid is generally designed to one shot everyone except maybe tanks. main problem we face is that through a combination of generally lower dps and no raid utility, which as I mention earlier is something both a marauder and a sniper have in abundance (though I am hesitant to say they need a nerf, lest I bring the wrath of god down upon me.) so an increase in our overall damage with some utility would be nice, or alternatively if they want to keep our damage output the same it could be interesting to see sorcs maybe take a heavier support roll and give them several utility abilities that buffs everyone in their team, if they did that then it could be possible to change what buffs team members receive depending on which tree you are in. of course with that last part i probably rambled a bit too much there.

Here are some generalized ideas I came up with to bolster sorcs pvp capabilities and hopefully address some pve problems.

First off remove the extra 5% defense rating sorcs get and give us actual, reliable defenses. I assume this is why we have such a low armor rating as this stat is "supposed to" make us more tanky while still being a cloth target. Simply I do not feel that this really works at all. It is an RNG mechanic that provides us with no consistent defense whatsoever. Instead increase our armor rating or provide us with some real damage mitigation talents like the other classes can spec into. The fact is in both pve and pvp our class takes entirely too much damage and thanks to spell pushback "cloth squishyness" actually lowers our damage further.
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Redesign overload. This ability being changed was something nobody asked for. Yes the change to make the ability instant was nice but it didn't change the fact that the ability is very lackluster. As overload is currently it is only useful for knocking people off ledges in pve and pvp. The knockback effect is very weak, melee target that are on a sorc in pvp will only be pushed back around 8 - 10 meters which every class has at least one 10 meter CC or mobility option to get right back on you. Then when you consider abilities like obliterate that has a 10 meter range, roots targets and breaks roots even the lightning spec overload isn't that defensively useful. The fact is overload is only a good kiting tool if you are already a distance away from the opponent.

Personally if you want to keep the current overload design, change how it works. Targets that are nearer to the sorc (closer to the impact of overload) should be knocked back considerably further. The farther the target is from the sorceror the less distance they are knocked back. Adding at least a small root or slow would also help define this as a keep-away ability on par with the sniper and merc knockback.
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Force speed needs root immunity for it's duration. No debate here, I'm not even going to discuss it. The quality of life on force speed for dps sorcs is terrible, this move is countered by every type of CC except slows and most of the time people don't even mean to do it.
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Improve our CC capabilities. It makes no sense that assassins have every bit of CC a sorceror has then some. Assassins have mind trap, electrocute, low slash, spike, whirlwind and overload. Every patch our CC has become worse with time and for a class that is based off kiting and CC, that is not a good thing. Currently our kiting abilities are barely on par to handle a single quality player and in some cases (like smash) it is almost impossible. So if we can barely handle kiting a single decent player in a sterile environment, how are you supposed to handle being focused by more than one person? In some cases you can't even really fight back as you have to kite and run, but you can't produce any worthwhile damage while kiting. Our class is so dependent in pvp on other classes baby sitting us that without a great team in arena, a sorcerer is a free kill. Giving us the ability to get an instant whirlwind would be a good start. (why exactly AOE mezs are instant cast and a single target mez has a 2 second cast is beyond me)
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Improve our ability to get casts off in pvp Polarity shift simply does not cut it. While it is a decent ability having to rely on a 2 min just to get some casts off is pretty pathetic. Currently in arenas it takes an incredible amount of team work and coordination just so a sorc can function. Other than mercs I don't know of any class that has use such a high level of teamwork just in order to function. Specs like full madness need full casts just in order to maintain their force which can't be done due to the nature of pvp. It costs a melee spec nothing to use an interrupt just as it costs a tank type class nothing to taunt someone (no global, no cost). Yet on the opposite side our damage is mostly casted and our utility (whirlwind, dark heal) are casted. I am not suggesting something like dark heal should be instant cast with no global, but the fact is our functionality is already lower at a base level.

I'm aware we parse lower than sniper/mara. Even worse when you consider all the globals we spend on static barrier. However due to my lack of experience in pve I don't want to suggest damage changes that might be out of line. But if I had to suggest something....

Buff full lightning's affliction damage or non crit lightning strike damage. This spec already does great burst in pvp but lacks sustained on par with the top teir classes. This would address both while not making it too out of line in pvp.

Buff full madness's regeneration. If madness could maintain it's force better then shock would be a better option on the move. Focal lightning should have a longer buff duration and should decrease the cost of lightning strike while increasing the damage of wrath lightning strikes.

Wrong trust me your healers like it and when needed like kitting Raptus it helps alot.

Honestly beyond what has been stated that force management issues need to be addressed with maddness, I would love to see a mass aff. ability. It would be fun way to spice up maddness and even hybrids (possibly).