Sentinels/pyro's. Now, I know some people believe every class should have a counter class that has the skills to take it down perhaps slightly easier than others, but as a pure dps sorc (madness) I really have no idea how to deal with these two classes. If either of them decide to focus on me, even if we're equal health I can't seem to beat them.

Do I really need to go stun bubbles? I dislike the lightening tree and have been topping the dps charts with madness.

Any tips?

Hard counter for sents and pt would be assassins,operatives and snipers, not sorcs.

as any advice I could give, would be apply dots, death field, and los. (and use bubble every time possible - I scrach my head why sorcs don't do that in pve and pvp... I know it's not much, but always something)

edit: plus, you should not 1 vs 1 to much any way, unless deathmatching in huttball or not calling incs while defending a node.

You're going to have to kite maras/sents between 4 and 10 meters as long as possible. Try and use your CC on Cloak of Pain, if you keep attacking then it will be 20% or whatever damage reduction for 30 seconds rather than 6 of kiting. Make sure you have a CC for Undying Rage as well if you get that far and heal up while they are CC'd. If they have Saber Ward up, it's going to hurt your damage, but let your DoTs do their job while you run around. Unless you have some terrain to aid you (Huttball mostly), it will be a difficult fight to win.

Pryos are pretty much death. Keep them at 10m if you can to avoid them easily keeping their DoTs on you from flame burst and keep them out of Rocket Punch range to reduce damage taken as well as help avoid them being able to reset Rail Shot as often. If you can stay out of 10m and avoid their initial burst when they sneak up on you then that will help. They are actually pretty squishy and only have the one DCD in their bubble, so don't be affraid to unload on them if their burst abilities are on CD.

The mara/sent problem is solved fairly easily with stun bubble for now, plus rooted KB. Keep in mind that most of your damage in Madness is fluff, so topping the charts really isn't that impressive. Spread your DoTs through their team and watch your numbers soar. Burst damage is what rules the game currently, so Pyro and Rage are going to stay the best specs unless that changes. Most importantly is to not forget your heals, so if you're in a true 1v1, gain some ground or LoS and heal up a bit to even things out.

As said: kite, LoS, hope THEIR ccs are on cd.

There are no dead angles to kite rage mara/focus sent. They have a below 10m and 10m-30m gap closer, and possibly the most powerful snare of the game. They will smash, exhaust, ravage, Vicious throw.

PT...well issue is when they did see you first and got in range, they set their TD on you, rocket punched and have one massive RL coming. Your reaction window is very small. However, they are easier to kite than good marauders.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm actually quite good at PvP and know how to play my class but the info about their defensive abilities is very useful.

I'm curious, what professions are Sorcs very good at taking down? And please don't say only other Sorcs!

Sentinel defensives and responses:

Other Sentinel tips:

Definitely check stance on their buff bar to tailor your approach and know what to expect. For instance Master Strike is always good to interrupt with a knockback, but if you're fighting a Combat Sentinel you absolutely better break that cast. Watch for other buffs too - Singularity stacks (4 = big smash damage incoming), Centering stacks (when it hits 30, you'll probably be in more pain than before), Precision/Gore (Ouch time from Combat).

You can't cleanse the overload saber/cauterize dots without speccing for it, but you can cleanse force effects. Particularly important is cleansing Force Exhaustion/Force Crush ASAP from the smash monkeys. Not only do you get rid of the annoying slow, you prevent them from building full singularity which leads to a reduced damage smash. The basic Sentinel slow might be force too? I forget.

While Stasis/Choke is a sucky damage ability, I often find myself breaking out of it anyways. A burn spec Sentinel will apply all his dots (and probably Zen) before hitting Stasis. While you can't cleanse those dots like I am in heal spec, sitting in Stasis is just letting him apply lots of free damage to you. A smash spec builds singularity off of the Stasis, so breaking out immediately will again reduce the smash damage. Since the only other CC they have is a mez, it won't last long. Of course, against a smash monkey you give up your ability to potentially dodge a smash if they mez you without a breaker. On the other hand, lot harder to dodge them nowadays.

Pyros:

Basically you're screwed

But the good news is that Pyros are actually pretty squishy without their one and only 25% damage reduction cooldown, and grapple is on a long cooldown compared to leap. A madness spec can wreck a Pyro that is focused on someone else. If it's a duel the Pyro can burn you down before you can burn him though.

Try to stay outside 10m range if you can, and also try to get far enough away without using sprint that you bait the Pyro into using grapple. Average Pyros see someone far away and grapple, good Pyros will watch you sprint away and laugh while they grapple you right as Sprint is ending. Be prepared for both - if you know you're going to be grappled as soon as you finish sprinting, you'll be prepared to stun or whirlwind as soon as you're back in the killzone. Best is to use terrain to apply all your dots and root/slow while you LOS. Then repeat.

Given a Pyro's massive burst potential, you really don't want to sit in his stuns. The AOE stun is super short (though you still might take an unanswered 5k damage in that time), but absolutely break out of Cryo Grenade/Electro Dart. You can easily lose more than half your health during that stun's 4 seconds.

i play hyrbid, probably different for full madness, dont bother with full lightning

setninel/mara - the problem is carnage/rage are complete different builds, u should have an easy time beating carnage, its rage which is difficult seeing as they need very little uptime to do their burst

-rotate your cc, dont blow it all at once.. mara is near, knockback + dmg, ktie while using instant casts, mar close again then stun + dmg, mara close again then use sprint etc, by that time knockback is uMoose: I love having goals that 98% of the people I meet will never understand. again

-my fav trick, when ur low, let ur dots fall off and hit them up witht he instant whirlwind, recklessness double dark infusion + force mending will heal about 13-16k hp while theyre whirlwinded, taking u from near dead to back on top.

-dont wait to long to do the whirlwind + heal, remember once ur executable they have a chance for 5k+ vicious throws which are hard to recover from

VS RAGE its VERY imporant to:

-spam overload on their opening charge, with any luck the smash will miss due to range but not always, often dependant on ur ping

-CLEANSE FORCE CRUSH IMMEDIATELY, this will un-snare u and stop them from a four stack of shockwave

-i personally save my trinket for force choke, again stopping them from a four stack of shockwave

this all being said, u will win half ur 1v1s generally, the biggest difference maker is their undying rage usually will win them a close fight/duel

also, this advice really on works in a legit 1v1 situation, ur fked if theres is any outside cc or dmg to u, or the least bit of heals on the mara

PT pyro is my biggest gripe in this game

esp vs a sorc, we cant cleanse their flame affects, everything they have is instant, the grapple + 2x stuns garauntees getting their opening rotation off, and if they pop explosive fuel (makes almost everything crit) ur fked as they can do about 20k dmg to u in a few global cooldowns

- best advice is to keep max range, use ur los+heal tricks, never try to win a dmg race with a pt, u will lose

my typical DUEL build

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201rZrs0RbMrZcMcRsMz.2

PT pyro is my biggest gripe in this game

 

esp vs a sorc, we cant cleanse their flame affects, everything they have is instant, the grapple + 2x stuns garauntees getting their opening rotation off, and if they pop explosive fuel (makes almost everything crit) ur fked as they can do about 20k dmg to u in a few global cooldowns

 

- best advice is to keep max range, use ur los+heal tricks, never try to win a dmg race with a pt, u will lose

 

 

my typical DUEL build

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201rZrs0RbMrZcMcRsMz.2

Good duel build. Full madness also does well in duels

Good duel build. Full madness also does well in duels

absolutely, i dont liek full madness however it is very affective, especially for duels where force efficiency isnt as important,

my gripes with dueling as full madness is more dots to wait to fall off to do my ww+heal rotation, u lose lightning barage, root on overload (which on a NON dotted melee can serve to get off a heal or two) and bubble stun.

problem with my duel build is u must be able to (and if u cant maybe u shouldnt play a asorc) outlast and put out pressure waiting for a resolve bar to diminish, because generally, when ur opened on, ur bubbl stun + overload + electrocute stun will fill their resolve.. at that point abuse force slow and sprint to create optimal distances to do dmg. when that resolve bar is out check ur HP, if ur below 50% id ww and heal immediately.. esp vs rage seeing as 50% hp on my sorc is 10k, minus a 6k smash (or 7k with adrenal in a duel) thats 3-4k, which is vicious throw time... it is fking sad that at 50% hp a smash monkey ca kill u in 2 gcds

Sentinels/pyro's. Now, I know some people believe every class should have a counter class that has the skills to take it down perhaps slightly easier than others, but as a pure dps sorc (madness) I really have no idea how to deal with these two classes. If either of them decide to focus on me, even if we're equal health I can't seem to beat them.

 

Do I really need to go stun bubbles? I dislike the lightening tree and have been topping the dps charts with madness.

 

Any tips?

Well, both mostly go for my favor. With some exceptions of course, fyi i'm fully min/maxed.

Pyro:

This one is actually one of the easiest for sorc with the following conditions:

- you have enough space to kite

- you notice your opponent before he is in melee range

Second condition is not vital, but breaking it gives pyro a shade of hope.

1. Kite them at range more then 10m. Never let them come closer

2. For kiting use your slow on cd, creeping terror, and as last resort before they enter 10m radius - overload at range about 12m (if you don't have force slow ready).

3. Save your force speed and stun to use right after he grapples you. DO NOT speed run away right after the grapple because reasonable pyro's gonna stun you right after the grapple. Stun him and then get away.

4. If he stuns you don't waste you breaker on short aoe stun (2s - gcd = gives them only 1 attack while you're stunned), save breaker for dart/cryo grenade (4s stun). If stun was used after the grapple then keep #3 in mind, otherwise you can use overload to gain distance.

5. to damage use your instants - deathfield, shock, affliction (creeping terror use on cd as in #2), also you will be mostly increasing distance easily, so you can force lightning them a bit from distance of 15m+

PS: pyros do very small damage from 10m+ distance since they can't use flame burst and can't proc rail shot. So the only damage they can do is dart and railshot every 15s. Damage can be big, but rare.

Also don't forget to bubble yourself and selfheal.

If you kite them well and don't fail escaping after the grapple they don't have a chance to win you. Period.

Marauders;

Approach is different for all specs, but there are common things. They have a lot of dcds and better gap closing capabilities. Anyway i had problems only with decent maras and problems here means: "they had ~50% success rate against me". So the fights mostly are close to equal against annihilation and carnage

I prefer to kite them at maximum range, and everytime escape after they close distance with either leap of force camo. Kiting at 4-10m distance only can theoretically work against annihilation i presume, since carnage has a 10m range root and rage 10m gap closer.

Some general tips:

They all have the following gap closers: leap, force camo, predation. Most likely they will be used in the following order - leap -> camo -> leap -> predation. If you survive this sequence with reasonable amount of hp you most likely have an upper hand in duel. Well, one of you will be dead in 70% cases when predation ends

You have the following options to negate their melee burst: overload, force speed, 2 stuns and creeping terror and slow as kiting tools. Bubble on cd and selfheal yourself once you hp drops to 80% or below

Since i'm already bored of typing the following is gonna be very short...

Carnage

Save your trinket for ravage/leap root when you don't have a knockback but have force speed ready. Always at all cost try to negate their burst (gore actually doesn't make big difference for sorcs, but still it's about 20% dmg increase), don't fill their resolve with stuns, save stuns for the end.

They have 1 additional 10m root + root on ravage, which makes kiting them more difficult comparing to other specs.

Rage

The easiest to counter. Use breaker on choke and interrupt them, cleanse force crush asap. Also against rage it's even more important to overload right after you see them leaping to you, so that they would be pushed back before the landed and had chance to smash.

Annihilation

Has more stable burst comparing to carnage, but its a bit easier to kite against it. Escape them asap since their bleeds will finish you even faster then carnage would (well not really but their bleeds rock)