While I'm quite happy Death Fields damage buff is getting fixed, and the defense buff for resurgence is nice... I still feel we are one of the more useless class specs in the game. Here are some suggestions for 5.6, all based on my perspective and opinion: So feel free to poke holes in it

-Maybe make Madness/Balance fill a different role, other than just dps? Giving their dots a bigger percentage heal from each tick, then make it so this healing is applied to the entire group like old school Shadow Priest. This would make madness sorc a good asset for pvp and pve, since right now we dont have the burst or high dps numbers give us more survivability that also benefits the group by doing off healing based on dmg output with dots.

-Also make it so death field refreshes all dots while also increasing their duration, this would help streamline the rotation and increase dps; right now I feel the time it takes to reapply dots takes too long and really hurts the consistency of our numbers.

Removing the time needed to reapply dots by making death field refresh them and/or increasing the duration of the dots (maybe even a crit proc for the dots of some sort?) would def push our numbers up a bit. Added with good to decent off heals from our dots, I think we could see Balance/Madness useful in ops and wz without having them needing OP dps or burst.

Couple of ideas, most of which should increase dps slightly, though I don't know how much by, I'm not a number cruncher:

1. Improve Lightning Burns. Currently gives Force Lightning and Force Leech a 20% and 60% chance respectively to deal X amount of damage plus restore a small amount of force points. To start, I'd swap Force Leech for Lightning Strike, because I can't figure out how exactly Leech would apply a 'lightning burn' to anything (though I'm not sure how this would work for Balance, I haven't actually looked it at), so Lightning Strike makes more sense.

I'd also up the % chances from 20 and 60 to something like 50 and 100, as Lightning Burns currently contributes very little in overall dps. Would also make Lightning Strike a bit more useful, as it currently doesn't contribute a whole lot either.

2. Improve Dark Echo. 50% chance for a very small amount of extra damage on a lvl 68 passive is next to worthless, and requires a very aoe-heavy situation to be even remotely useful. Up the activation chance to something 70%, and at least double the damage it does.

3. Lightning Barrage passive, ditch the -25% damage, but keep the 33% tick rate, or maybe even increase it slightly, in the interest of trying to eliminate the Force Lightning clipping that some people's rotations suffer from.

4. Increase the number of Deathmark stacks from 15 to something like 18 or 20. Probably not strictly necessary, but having all 3 DoT's active at the same time (in my experience) leads to all 15 stacks getting consumed within the duration of Demolish's DoT, which seems a bit quick to me, so a few extra should help stretch things out a bit.

5. Increase the DoT self-heals from 10% to 15%, as the amount they currently provide is barely noticeable. Force Leech recovers a decent amount, though, so I wouldn't go much further than 15%. Alternatively, add Demolish's DoT to the passive as well, so it can self-heal too. The 10% would probably be fine in that case, as the Demo DoT is quite strong.

Last thing we need is more healing from DPS classes... We already had an era of Madness and Hatred in PvP, no need to come back to it.

Until Bioware nerfs Merc DCDs way more than what they plan to (in 5.6) then it is more than fair to buff Madness's life leech, after all the nerfs to sorc survivability(off healing,life leech ofc, corrupted barrier) DPS sorcs are one of the squishiest specs in the game, it's trivial to burn one down in pvp, barrier simply delays your death a bit. Also as many people who play sorcs know(or compare parses between the different classes) Sorc ST for both specs is near the bottom so playing one in PvP is pretty much playing on hard mode, your damage and survivability are both mediocre at best.

So either they should buff life steal for Madness(and Hatred while they're at it) or they should gut the dcds of the current classes with near tank tier dcds, Merc, Sniper and Maras(ruthless aggressor). If they do that then all of the dps specs should be close enough to each other in their ability to survive focus fire so a few specs aren't far above the others like it is currently and with their planned changes in 5.6 will continue to be.

Agree 100%

At the moment the heals from dots are so small that they are hardly noticeable. I still think the heals from dots should heal the group as well. There's no reason our spec should be as useless as it is now. Madness sorc can easily be one of the harder specs to master in the game, but now simple things like the eternal championship (which never gave me issues at all pre nerfs) is an intense challenge for certain fights. Its made a hard class spec even harder for no reason at all, we were in no way OP before the nerfs; our damage was still low, survivability was all we really had. Something more needs to be done for us...

Imagine in wz/ops, dot up a group of enemies with death field then back off and cast heals, help dps, or even run away and survive until you need to reapply dots/look for another group of enemies to dot up. (Possibly make the group heals based on a radius from the target, wheras self heals are always going off from dots reguardless of range.) This also brings up an idea for a proc on dark heal that gives large force regen or something which would allow Madness/Balance to switch between focusing on offheals to dps without completely draining their force pool too fast. Maybe even make a utility that switches force lighting to inervate, keeping the same proc as before, but with dark heal added to the insta cast list. Have that utility also inscrease the dmg of your dots so that dots become the main way of dealing dps while tossing offheals, making healing with inervate increase the amount of dps and heals you can do. Basically making it so you'd have 2 types of madness sorc: 1 that focusses more on off healing while also doing moderate dps, 2 being more focused on dps with moderate offheals. I like the idea of Madness sorc using fear and hatred to benefit the entire group - kind of like a dread master or a Jedi using battle meditation

This is pretty much how I played sorc before they simplified the spec trees and forced you down a singular path. Sorcs and Sages had decent hybrid builds that made them super valuable, not many played with the spec but it really was where the class shined the most imo. Would be a nice comeback for the class to see it return for Madness/Balance.

Give use Force lightning on the move.

Exactly. Core ability shouldn't suffer from constant interrupts. Force Leech is not THAT important for Madness. Of course it's a good damage ability but... Being able to cast Force Lightning on the move is much more important for Madness sorc. I don't think it's hard for devs to change utilities from Leech to Lightning. Assassins in Darkness have it. Why Madness can't?

It will be HUGE improvement.

Give use Force lightning on the move.

Sure just make it so madness only ever has to stand still to cast force leech, that makes total sense compared to other ranged specs. I can see adding some sort of proc for a force lightning on the move once in a while maybe, but making it always usable on the move is way too much

Sure just make it so madness only ever has to stand still to cast force leech, that makes total sense compared to other ranged specs. I can see adding some sort of proc for a force lightning on the move once in a while maybe, but making it always usable on the move is way too much

Like: When Death Field damaging target - you gain 3 stacks of something (???) that allow your next 3 Force Lightning to be casted on the move. Stacks will last only for ??? seconds (need some discussion here).

I dont think madness/balance need more mobility, but as I was saying in my previous comments: it needs a more streamlined rotation, along with more survivability. I think making it a possible dps hybrid offheals would be a good direction for the class spec, but that's just my perspective:P

rotation is already mind-numbingly streamlined and simple: mental alactrity block with 2x force lightning->lightning strike iterations while all others force lightning->force lightning->lightning strike in between the usual priorities (death field, demolish, force leech and the two secondary dot abilities reapplication).

It needs a slight buff to demolish/ lightning strike hits off of 4 stacks of wrath to improve single target dps, and a slightly larger death field aoe radius. that would bring it on par with the other ranged sustained specs in PvE and give it more bite in PvP to make it a bigger threat in Arenas - ie not the best defensives still is fragile if you don't kite and get focused but at least you are a real cannon and can dish out some hurt on enemy players especially with better dot spread from increased death field radius.

I dont think madness/balance need more mobility, but as I was saying in my previous comments: it needs a more streamlined rotation, along with more survivability. I think making it a possible dps hybrid offheals would be a good direction for the class spec, but that's just my perspective:P

No mate. Madness NEEDS more mobility. Thats a fact.

Force lightning "forcing" (lol) players to sit in one place like complete idiots with targets on their backs becouse of their rotation.

Of course you can say that snipers have to sit in one place too, but... Snipers have a LOT more chances to survive than Madness. So as mercs.

So...

Does Madness needs more mobility?

HECK YEAH! IT DOES!

I think Madness is fine rotationally, DoT's just don't do enough damage for a DoT spec. Right now Creeping Terror and Affliction are doing a mere 11.5-13% of our total damage each (#3 and #5 respectively) while Force Lightning sits at the top at around 20%, and Crushed(Demolish) at #2 around 15%. This is a terrible spread of damage for the class design IMO. I think the TOP 2 damage abilities should be Affliction and Creeping Terror. As a DoT class it is (or should be) the most important thing to keep DoT's on the target, so we should be rewarded for doing so. Force Lightning should be the lowest % of damage as a filler, not top.

It could look something like this:

1. Creeping Terror: 20-22%

2. Affliction : 18-20%

3. Crushed(Demolish) : 12-16%

4. Force Leech: 12-13%

5. Death Field: 10-12%

6. Force Lightning: 8-10%

The other ~16-20% Coming from Lightning Strike, Demolish, Lightning Burns, Dark Echo

The way that DoT's function in this game means that you spend way more globals on the reapplication of DoTs if applied initially under high Alacrity buffs. They just need to do more damage for the extra effort / skillcap of keeping Polarity Shifted/Alacrity buffed DoT's from falling off, OR, make the reapplication a non-factor by a passive that refreshes them for us. Either shift the % of our damage from other abilities to the DoTs, or give us something that refreshes the DoT's at the current damage values so we aren't spending so many globals on wet noodle DoTs.

*Edit: This would also increase mobility of the class for those who thought we need more mobility

Thats why I was saying streamline the rotation. Making death field reapply dots. Also increase the duration of the dots, 15-18 sec is far too short and forces us to reapply dots more often than should be required. With death field reapplying dots, the actual rotation would become 10x smoother.

I do agree with more dmg and healing from our dots.

Mobility might help us pvp wise, but does jack all for us in pve. Our survivability and dps in pve would overall stay the same. Changes like I suggested would help both instances.

Madness = allow Wrath to stack to 8 or 12 (allowing for 2 or 3 instant casts).

Lightning = Remove mind crush from the rotation. Lightning flash makes your next force lightning channel twice as fast (I think this was the old lightning barrage mechanic - used to proc off a crit I think).

I would love it if we got a 'disc priest' spec (maybe 'stance' for madness we could activate that lowers damage) that would allow us to heal through dps.

 

-Maybe make Madness/Balance fill a different role, other than just dps? Giving their dots a bigger percentage heal from each tick, then make it so this healing is applied to the entire group like old school Shadow Priest. This would make madness sorc a good asset for pvp and pve, since right now we dont have the burst or high dps numbers give us more survivability that also benefits the group by doing off healing based on dmg output with dots.

-Also make it so death field refreshes all dots while also increasing their duration, this would help streamline the rotation and increase dps; right now I feel the time it takes to reapply dots takes too long and really hurts the consistency of our numbers.

Both of these ideas are great. Dots healing more/the whole Ops group. And Death Field refreshing dots. It's kind of annoying when you death field again on a group of players and the dots from the previous death field are still on them and expire in a tick and don't get refreshed. So to get a useful spread off again, you have to wait another GCD or two before you Death Field again.

While I'm quite happy Death Fields damage buff is getting fixed, and the defense buff for resurgence is nice... I still feel we are one of the more useless class specs in the game. Here are some suggestions for 5.6, all based on my perspective and opinion: So feel free to poke holes in it

 

 

-Maybe make Madness/Balance fill a different role, other than just dps? Giving their dots a bigger percentage heal from each tick, then make it so this healing is applied to the entire group like old school Shadow Priest. This would make madness sorc a good asset for pvp and pve, since right now we dont have the burst or high dps numbers give us more survivability that also benefits the group by doing off healing based on dmg output with dots.

-Also make it so death field refreshes all dots while also increasing their duration, this would help streamline the rotation and increase dps; right now I feel the time it takes to reapply dots takes too long and really hurts the consistency of our numbers.

The heal will either be so inglegible to be useful or high enough to make it a broken spec. Either way people will complain. +there is no room for hybrid in pve when there are dps checks...

Removing the time needed to reapply dots by making death field refresh them and/or increasing the duration of the dots (maybe even a crit proc for the dots of some sort?) would def push our numbers up a bit. Added with good to decent off heals from our dots, I think we could see Balance/Madness useful in ops and wz without having them needing OP dps or burst.

Will the spec too high in DPS, not too mention idiotic and very boring. From a PVP perspective is not good either cause it will make cc uterly impossible.

I think Madness is fine rotationally, DoT's just don't do enough damage for a DoT spec. Right now Creeping Terror and Affliction are doing a mere 11.5-13% of our total damage each (#3 and #5 respectively) while Force Lightning sits at the top at around 20%, and Crushed(Demolish) at #2 around 15%. This is a terrible spread of damage for the class design IMO. I think the TOP 2 damage abilities should be Affliction and Creeping Terror. As a DoT class it is (or should be) the most important thing to keep DoT's on the target, so we should be rewarded for doing so. Force Lightning should be the lowest % of damage as a filler, not top.

 

It could look something like this:

1. Creeping Terror: 20-22%

2. Affliction : 18-20%

3. Crushed(Demolish) : 12-16%

4. Force Leech: 12-13%

5. Death Field: 10-12%

6. Force Lightning: 8-10%

The other ~16-20% Coming from Lightning Strike, Demolish, Lightning Burns, Dark Echo

 

The way that DoT's function in this game means that you spend way more globals on the reapplication of DoTs if applied initially under high Alacrity buffs. They just need to do more damage for the extra effort / skillcap of keeping Polarity Shifted/Alacrity buffed DoT's from falling off, OR, make the reapplication a non-factor by a passive that refreshes them for us. Either shift the % of our damage from other abilities to the DoTs, or give us something that refreshes the DoT's at the current damage values so we aren't spending so many globals on wet noodle DoTs.

 

*Edit: This would also increase mobility of the class for those who thought we need more mobility

As long as there is dot spread you cant do much or will make the spec insanely OP in PVP... they used to be like this before the dot spread mechanic.

rotation is already mind-numbingly streamlined and simple: mental alactrity block with 2x force lightning->lightning strike iterations while all others force lightning->force lightning->lightning strike in between the usual priorities (death field, demolish, force leech and the two secondary dot abilities reapplication).

 

It needs a slight buff to demolish/ lightning strike hits off of 4 stacks of wrath to improve single target dps, and a slightly larger death field aoe radius. that would bring it on par with the other ranged sustained specs in PvE and give it more bite in PvP to make it a bigger threat in Arenas - ie not the best defensives still is fragile if you don't kite and get focused but at least you are a real cannon and can dish out some hurt on enemy players especially with better dot spread from increased death field radius.

my thoughts also for the easiest and quicker of fixes, especially on mind crush, even add 3 more ticks will increase their dps without increasing their burst.