The only good thing about sorcerer dps is that you will almost never go below 80% force.

Compared to any other dps, we are quite weak. Can't wait for combat logs so everyone can see how sad sorcery dps really is.

so wrong ^

Not wrong. Sorc dps 1v1 or in a boss raid is significantly lower than a similarly geared sniper or merc. Just to prove it, we have the 3 in near full rakata, and when raiding on bosses, the merc always holds 2nd aggro ( proven on the first droid boss in EV ) who randomly targets the 2nd on the aggro table for the railshot. The merc always takes the cake. When the merc is not with us, the sniper takes the railshot, thus the sorc follows the sniper. Mercs spam abilities allow them to do 5-6k hits every gcd, whereas a sorcs is 1.5k every gcd. The sorc can hit 8k or so in 1 gcd if they use thundering blast / chain lightning at the same time with the talent procs, but that is once every 15 seconds. A madness sorc has the highest dps, due to increased dot damage, increased dot crit damage, increased dot length, and the hardest hitting aoe's, which those aoe's are the hardest hitting spells in the sorcs arsenal in madness. As for which class you want to play... sniper. They are about 5% of the population, and theres generally only 1 per 16 man raid, so you will be geared within 2 weeks of hitting 50 like ours is.

What makes me laugh the most, is that EVERY class complains they suck compared to another.

Sorc want the sniper burst, sniper the merc tracers, merc the sorc ressource pool.

As far as I can see myself, and from a friend report about the merc:

-sorc has the best sustained DPS. They will dish out constant good damage, drawing from an advantageous ressouce pool to make time their ally.

-sniper is based off either sustained AoE, DoT, or high bursting depending on the tree they choose. I am personnaly on marsman, and the first few seconds of a fight are vey painful for whoever I'm aiming at, with a noticeable cooloff after.

-merc, if they so wish, can bring utmost pain to anyone really fast. The drawback? If they do so, they are going to be shooting their pistol for the 30 sec afterward while their heat goes down.

A friend of mine merc rotation gives him a good sustained DPS with light spikes, my sniper can bring down a strong in 3-4 attacks, but the drawback is having shots missing or being deflected. Something the sorc and part of the merc attacks don't have to worry about, being force/tech.

So seriously, they are all very good class, and people need to stop wanting a sorc with the merc missiles and the sniper ambush.

Not wrong. Sorc dps 1v1 or in a boss raid is significantly lower than a similarly geared sniper or merc. Just to prove it, we have the 3 in near full rakata, and when raiding on bosses, the merc always holds 2nd aggro ( proven on the first droid boss in EV ) who randomly targets the 2nd on the aggro table for the railshot. The merc always takes the cake. When the merc is not with us, the sniper takes the railshot, thus the sorc follows the sniper. Mercs spam abilities allow them to do 5-6k hits every gcd, whereas a sorcs is 1.5k every gcd. The sorc can hit 8k or so in 1 gcd if they use thundering blast / chain lightning at the same time with the talent procs, but that is once every 15 seconds. A madness sorc has the highest dps, due to increased dot damage, increased dot crit damage, increased dot length, and the hardest hitting aoe's, which those aoe's are the hardest hitting spells in the sorcs arsenal in madness. As for which class you want to play... sniper. They are about 5% of the population, and theres generally only 1 per 16 man raid, so you will be geared within 2 weeks of hitting 50 like ours is.

your sorcs suck

Not wrong. Sorc dps 1v1 or in a boss raid is significantly lower than a similarly geared sniper or merc. Just to prove it, we have the 3 in near full rakata, and when raiding on bosses, the merc always holds 2nd aggro ( proven on the first droid boss in EV ) who randomly targets the 2nd on the aggro table for the railshot. The merc always takes the cake. When the merc is not with us, the sniper takes the railshot, thus the sorc follows the sniper. Mercs spam abilities allow them to do 5-6k hits every gcd, whereas a sorcs is 1.5k every gcd. The sorc can hit 8k or so in 1 gcd if they use thundering blast / chain lightning at the same time with the talent procs, but that is once every 15 seconds. A madness sorc has the highest dps, due to increased dot damage, increased dot crit damage, increased dot length, and the hardest hitting aoe's, which those aoe's are the hardest hitting spells in the sorcs arsenal in madness. As for which class you want to play... sniper. They are about 5% of the population, and theres generally only 1 per 16 man raid, so you will be geared within 2 weeks of hitting 50 like ours is.

No Merc is hitting for 5k-6k every round. Tracer missle doesn't hit that hard, Heat seeking missles can hit that hard occasionally though. Not sure what you're basing anything you're saying off of though. I've been on plenty of raids where our DPS sorc (0/13/28) get second aggro over our DPS Merc (5/31/5), and it seems to fluctuate between the 2 based on how often they crit. I will lean and say our Merc does pull it about 60% of the time. I've never seen our Sniper (22/16/3) pull second aggro.

From the perspective of a tank, I agree that sorcs are are on the low end of the three listed classes when it comes to damage output. I tend to notice much faster kill times with a mercenary or sniper in the group than with a sorceror.

What the sorc lacks in damage is more than made up for in utility, however. Better crowd control options, the ability to shield himself or others with static barrier to soak up damage during burst phases, and the ability to heal himself when needed (though, admittedly, mercs have this too).

The difference isnt as large as some here seem to stress, though. Yes, an equivalently geared merc or sniper will outdamage a sorceror, but not by so great an amount that it will make or break the group unless you're running with all sorcerors or have others in the group that cannot pull their own weight.

From the perspective of a tank, I agree that sorcs are are on the low end of the three listed classes when it comes to damage output. I tend to notice much faster kill times with a mercenary or sniper in the group than with a sorceror.

 

What the sorc lacks in damage is more than made up for in utility, however. Better crowd control options, the ability to shield himself or others with static barrier to soak up damage during burst phases, and the ability to heal himself when needed (though, admittedly, mercs have this too).

 

The difference isnt as large as some here seem to stress, though. Yes, an equivalently geared merc or sniper will outdamage a sorceror, but not by so great an amount that it will make or break the group unless you're running with all sorcerors or have others in the group that cannot pull their own weight.

It depends really. A madness sorc will outdmg both on a fight where they have to move alot, or gets interrupted alot.

From rotation analysis in Simulations, Video Parsing, and Spreadsheets I've seen a Sniper has a lot more burst DPS then a Sorcerer but once running a Sorcerer has more sustained DPS. These may or may not be accurate, but Sniper's report numbers around 1150 and Sorcerer's report numbers around 1300 on a simple tank and spank fight.

After playing the two classes, I feel this is likely to be true. Once a Sniper has to weave in Rifle Shots, their DPS goes down significantly.

I honestly have no clue about where Mercenaries would fit in other then guessing. I feel they would fit somewhere in between the two, but I have no numerical basis for that assumption.

Ive only played sniper and sorc. It sounds like were talking two kinds of dps. Single shot dps vs. endurance dps. Im still below lvl 30 and have minimal raid gear on both toons, so my experience is a bit limitted.

I'm going off memory here but the 2.5 cool down on a ambush and the 2.5 activation on lightning are the same. My level 28 sniper can do 1k+ in an Ambush shot, My 28 Sorc can do a 100 pd Affliction (3 of those during the time limit) as well as 250-300 pd lightning strikes (3 of those during the time limit).

the amount of damage (at least at this level) seems to be the same. The difference is the FORM it comes in; all at once (single shot) or does it stay low enough to NOT draw agro (Sorc) -- a very useful function when you consider Light Armor and Heals/Buffs you may need to throw.

I'm not even sure you can call it dps because the dps for a sniper needs to take into account the cooldowns and the switching to other attack types and the basis of those damage types some with angry crit % and others with spreads (how do you rate the dps of the snipers Cover Fire ability?).

In the end you NEED the little bit from everybody and everybody needs to strive for the max output that their playstyle allows. It is an MMO after all.

your sorcs suck

Correct.

Last night I was #2 threat on annihilation driod in EV, I pulled threat off a full rakata powertech (who is not bad) on karagga once and on forman crusher twice yesterday. Your sorcs are bad.

From the perspective of a tank, I agree that sorcs are are on the low end of the three listed classes when it comes to damage output. I tend to notice much faster kill times with a mercenary or sniper in the group than with a sorceror.

 

What the sorc lacks in damage is more than made up for in utility, however. Better crowd control options, the ability to shield himself or others with static barrier to soak up damage during burst phases, and the ability to heal himself when needed (though, admittedly, mercs have this too).

 

The difference isnt as large as some here seem to stress, though. Yes, an equivalently geared merc or sniper will outdamage a sorceror, but not by so great an amount that it will make or break the group unless you're running with all sorcerors or have others in the group that cannot pull their own weight.

Kill time on what?

If you are talking about a HM flashpoint, then that's burst DPS. Sorc Burst DPS sucks.

If you are talking about a raid, then that's very very fluid....even assuming you have the exact same group except changing a sorc for a sniper, or a sorc for a merc.

i.e. on annihilation droid, maybe the sorc gets unlucky and has to run away due to the red dot on their character (forget the name of the ability) all the time, and the other ranged dps didn't.

In most fights there is a random mechanic that if a ranged dps is targeted, they have to move for...it is completely possible that that mechanic targets one person more than another, which leads to more movement, which leads to less dps.

It's also possible that your sorc DPS sucks....bad players do less DPS than good players...

According to sims, Sorc has the best sustained DPS of the three ranged classes. And I believe Sorc also has the best DPS during movement (though I could be wrong, lethality sniper is pretty mobile, and I've never seen a sim of a full movement fight for them).

Anecdotal evidence is useless.

This entire thread is useless. Until we get damage meters. Nothing anyone says on a forum means jack squat.

/thread

Anecdotal evidence is useless.

 

This entire thread is useless. Until we get damage meters. Nothing anyone says on a forum means jack squat.

 

/thread

Exactly. Thank you. Skills that hit hard have a comparatively long cast time. Channeled skills use less resources or return them. All in all, we won't know anything until we get combat logs, which may never come.

Enjoy your class, learn your class, learn your fights and stay out of the bad stuff, then these questions become meaningless.

One way to test it is council in EV (to a degree).

An arsenal merc always seems to kill his marauder 2-5 seconds faster then I kill mine (hybrid sorc).

If mercs have the right stats - plenty of crit and such to vent heat they can heavily outperform us given they don't get terrible RnG.

And for the record, whoever states sorcs have terrible burst have no clue.

2x force lightning with barrage proc followed by wrath proc'd CL and a deathfield both under the effect of recklessness.. Yeah go do the maths. Thats easily 13kdmg in 4GcD's.

Obviosly its proc and cooldown dependant.

Skills that hit hard have a comparatively long cast time. Channeled skills use less resources or return them. All in all, we won't know anything until we get combat logs, which may never come.

 

Death Field hits fairly hard, and its an instant ability with a very significant debuff assuming the sorc in question has Death Mark. Maybe you meant to include a cooldown in your limiting factors for hard hitting abilities....

One way to test it is council in EV (to a degree).

 

An arsenal merc always seems to kill his marauder 2-5 seconds faster then I kill mine (hybrid sorc).

If mercs have the right stats - plenty of crit and such to vent heat they can heavily outperform us given they don't get terrible RnG.

 

And for the record, whoever states sorcs have terrible burst have no clue.

2x force lightning with barrage proc followed by wrath proc'd CL and a deathfield both under the effect of recklessness.. Yeah go do the maths. Thats easily 13kdmg in 4GcD's.

Obviosly its proc and cooldown dependant.

Sorcs have good burst...if they get procs. Starting cold, with zero procs sorc's have very low burst.

You are bragging about 13kdmg in Gcd's...snipers can do that in less than 2.

Sorcs have good burst...if they get procs. Starting cold, with zero procs sorc's have very low burst.

 

You are bragging about 13kdmg in Gcd's...snipers can do that in less than 2.

That's horribly wrong. The sniper in my guild is MM and he can't do 13k dmg in 2 gcds and he has full rakata.

Sorcs have good burst...if they get procs. Starting cold, with zero procs sorc's have very low burst.

 

You are bragging about 13kdmg in Gcd's...snipers can do that in less than 2.

In less then 2. So thats in 1 GcD 13k dmg.

Dude just go away.

In less then 2. So thats in 1 GcD 13k dmg.

Dude just go away.

Ambush + explosive probe at end of cast. It's less than 3 seconds (ambush is 2.5 second cast + instant cast at the end...so it's a total time of 2.5 seconds) & with adrenal + trinket if they both crit together can do over 13k.

At least that's what I'm told by snipers (without combat log, I have no way of knowing if they are telling the truth).

If I remember right, I think ambush + takedown is supposed to be even more damage if the target is <30%

That's horribly wrong. The sniper in my guild is MM and he can't do 13k dmg in 2 gcds and he has full rakata.

Different spec maybe? There are three specs, from what I understand one spec is sustained, one spec is aoe, one spec is burst.

Ambush + explosive probe at end of cast. It's less than 3 seconds (ambush is 2.5 second cast + instant cast at the end...so it's a total time of 2.5 seconds) & with adrenal + trinket if they both crit together can do over 13k.

 

At least that's what I'm told by snipers (without combat log, I have no way of knowing if they are telling the truth).

 

If I remember right, I think ambush + takedown is supposed to be even more damage if the target is <30%

 

 

 

Different spec maybe? There are three specs, from what I understand one spec is sustained, one spec is aoe, one spec is burst.

You know that using your trinkets and using your adrenals = more time cause of the cool down? which means 1 sec for trink and 1 sec for adrenal means 4.5 second cast total.

not to mention you have to be lucky as hell for both moves to crit. What you're referring to if pretty unrealistic considering it's based alot on luck lol I mean maybe it could happen but chances are slim and you have to use adrenal and trinket.

No Merc is hitting for 5k-6k every round. Tracer missle doesn't hit that hard, Heat seeking missles can hit that hard occasionally though. Not sure what you're basing anything you're saying off of though. I've been on plenty of raids where our DPS sorc (0/13/28) get second aggro over our DPS Merc (5/31/5), and it seems to fluctuate between the 2 based on how often they crit. I will lean and say our Merc does pull it about 60% of the time. I've never seen our Sniper (22/16/3) pull second aggro.

Yes, the mercs do crit for 5-6k every shot. I believe you are right though that was heat seekers, and i checked and double checked last night when we ran EV again. Yup, same exact order. Noone pulls aggro off the tanks, but the one dps who is 2nd on the aggro list always gets blasted by that first boss every 30 seconds or so.