I'm going to be blunt and right to the point: even as the Lightning Sorcerer was at the bottom of the DPS chain, and was in dire need of heavy buffs, it still got nerfed. It is now dealing much less damage, it's survivability has gone down, and so forth. While new players might think the concept of the Lightning Sorcerer is cool, as soon as they hit mid and end game, ops, etc, they're going to be like, "Man, I'm not doing anything at all!" and they'll soon resort to other toons. All in all, the Lightning Sorcerer NEEDS a buff. If this gets enough attention, it might even happen!

It needs buff in defensives and specifically the ability to deal dps under pressure for a short time - something marksman and arsenal can do but lightning cannot, in terms of dps output it is where it is supposed to be. It actually does more dps than marksman or arsenal on average if you use force speed in the rotation, but that is a situational PvE rotation and should not be considered "standard" - the other classes in its damage grouping. There are a few specs that are over-performing though which skews the overall picture but the burst ranged dps classes are balanced fine now .

Lightning is still the best ranged burst spec for PvE.

 

Let's get one thing straight: on a single target, lightning is parsing about 250 less than it used to. That's a 3 percent nerf at most. In PvP, this might be slightly more due to the extra hits of (a nerfed) chain lightning. It's still not more than a 5 percent nerf. Hell it might be even LESS of a nerf in PvP if you're force storming for filler.

 

Please keep in mind that Lightning has an aoe component AND dot refresh built into its regular rotation. For this reason, Lightning's dps is actually quite good in a multi-target setting compared to the other two ranged burst specs. And when push comes to shove, its single target damage is still about 50-100 dps higher than the other ranged burst specs.

 

Read my other thread for sample parses. Lightning was able to clear all content before, and it still is now, unless you're stacking all ranged burst or something. I don't agree with how they balanced the game, but you can still clear content once you're in full 248's. Master the rotation, get your alacrity to 1557 and your APM to 56-57, and bang out those parses. Trust me, it's not a doomsday scenario.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Hoppinswtor

If they ever buff Lightning's DPS for whatever reason, marksman and arsenal need buffs too. They are tied together from now on as 3 ranged burst specs.

 

Lightning is actually the better one at the moment (in PvE).

I'm going to be blunt and right to the point: even as the Lightning Sorcerer was at the bottom of the DPS chain, and was in dire need of heavy buffs, it still got nerfed. It is now dealing much less damage, it's survivability has gone down, and so forth. While new players might think the concept of the Lightning Sorcerer is cool, as soon as they hit mid and end game, ops, etc, they're going to be like, "Man, I'm not doing anything at all!" and they'll soon resort to other toons. All in all, the Lightning Sorcerer NEEDS a buff. If this gets enough attention, it might even happen!

 

#buffsorcs2017 share the hashtag everywhere.

#buffsorc2019

I agree but also madness is needs buff as well.

Give it up. There won't be any sorc buffs or class changes until the new class meta... which is probably in 6.0. So 2-6 months to go. Good luck.

I need Lightning Storm rework. "Cannot occure more than once every ten seconds" is bulls**t. Either make it 4-5 secs or make the effect last longer. Right now I need to tear apart my *** every time I'm going through trash mobs, from one pack to another to be in time for instacast chain lightning - my rotation execution is almost automatic except for many moments when I discover that my chain lightning tries to hardcast itself instead of instant activation, because I couldn't make it in time to the next pack of mobs. Especially freaks me when this occurs right in the middle of my rotation itself, when I pump my alacrity high and use all my instaprocs in a very short time. What's the point in a burst-AOE class if his BOTH burst and AOE potential is crippled by this idiotic restriction of his very first talent in the talent tree? Edited January 29, 2019 by TGaP_Andrey

snip

 

tbh it sounds like a l2p issue to me, the rotation flows so that this is not a issue at all.

tbh it sounds like a l2p issue to me, the rotation flows so that this is not a issue at all.

But wouldn't you agree that 10 seconds-lock on Lightning Storm is kinda overkill?

If we are talking about buffing lings damage output, Lightning Storm rework could be of use anyway: you'll be able to cast Chain a little more in a fight, a little more often. It will do good and kill two targets at once - it will buff simultaneously AOE and Burst capabilities of lings, making them unique and useful even without all of the utility and ***** that have got all other ranged DD like armor debuff.

Edited January 30, 2019 by TGaP_Andrey

But wouldn't you agree that 10 seconds-lock on Lightning Storm is kinda overkill?

If we are talking about buffing lings damage output, Lightning Storm rework could be of use anyway: you'll be able to cast Chain a little more in a fight, a little more often. It will do good and kill two targets at once - it will buff simultaneously AOE and Burst capabilities of lings, making them unique and useful even without all of the utility and ***** that have got all other ranged DD like armor debuff.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the proc every 4ish seconds?

....

I don't understand.... can't you just use force speed to proc LB which then procs CL?

 

Alternately, if you're having that much trouble with mobs, you could take Galvanizing Cleanse legendary utility to insta-cast any ability on your way to the next trash mob.

 

Anyway, when in doubt, play Madness. It's EZ mode.

Edited January 30, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

I don't understand.... can't you just use force speed to proc LB which then procs CL?

 

Alternately, if you're having that much trouble with mobs, you could take Galvanizing Cleanse legendary utility to insta-cast any ability on your way to the next trash mob.

 

Anyway, when in doubt, play Madness. It's EZ mode.

I always use Force Speed in my rotation to get procs for instacasting my LBs, but it's often not enough to activate Lightning Storm, because the lockdown usually is not over YET, so no, it doesn't work that way. 10 seconds lock is ridiculous, it's just that stupid, when you have nothing to do except for throwing LBs with hardcast like 2 times in a row. I have all Force Speed respective talents, I never forget about Polarity Shift, but again it's not enough to maintain fluidity of the rotation at high APM and I feel myself pressed to hardcast my s*it which is moronic if we are talking about burst class.

 

I dunno, is that such a big and controversal thing to correct one stupid talent to make lings more comfortable to play, so we even need to discuss it?

 

And also madness is a boring af slow DoT-orientied crap I wouldn't bother to play even if lings were nerfed even harder. I picked Sorc for UNLIMITED POWAH not for "leeching the life essence" like stupid vampire or something.

Edited January 31, 2019 by TGaP_Andrey

The big aoe ability with the cooldown is Chain Lightning. If your procs are not up (force speed=>LB=>CL), you can spam Lightning Storm AOE. Lightning Storm will also proc your Chain Lightning (if possible). I often pre-cast Lightning Storm before a trash pull to proc CL so that it I can use it immediately. But this same thing can be done with Galvanizing Cleanse utility (insta-cast any ability).

 

Why do you need to cast Chain Lightning so much against trash mobs? Use Lightning Storm too. Also, if you haven't pulled the mob, you can hard-cast Chain Lightning as you pull. Are you pulling and then trying to hard cast CL?

Edited January 31, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

The big aoe ability with the cooldown is Chain Lightning. If your procs are not up (force speed=>LB=>CL), you can spam Lightning Storm AOE. Lightning Storm will also proc your Chain Lightning (if possible). I often pre-cast Lightning Storm before a trash pull to proc CL so that it I can use it immediately. But this same thing can be done with Galvanizing Cleanse utility (insta-cast any ability).

 

Why do you need to cast Chain Lightning so much against trash mobs? Use Lightning Storm too. Also, if you haven't pulled the mob, you can hard-cast Chain Lightning as you pull. Are you pulling and then trying to hard cast CL?

Sorry, but I need to correct you: Lightning Storm is a talent which makes your Chain instacastable. What are you talking about is Force Storm. Yes, I do use it to open fight, just like you. For thrash pack it's Storm -> instaChain -> Storm ->... A-a-ah! Nope, no Chain Lightning again, because that **** is locked - proceed to spam Force Storm!

 

Aaaaand here is the thing: Force Storm doesn't do jack s*it because it was ridiculously nerfed to the ground long ago. To spam 3 SECONDS LONG channeled AOE that does the overall damage of 25%cut-Force Lightning is just a sick joke if we are consider that now even thrash mobs averagely have something like 30k hitpoints, not to mention their resists and defenses. It's just a very slow and uneasy experience on Ossus when sometimes it's fuc**ing faster for you to deal with each mob individually than to use your AOEs, which is also a sick joke, because the main fu**ing point of your class, which often used to justify its underperformance in terms of burst and singletarget, is his "AOE capabilities" as it's called. Which is ********, if your only available strategy and move is just to spam more Force Storms. Or you can try to kill every single mob one by one, which... Which also can do every other DD-class but with more efficiency, with more simple rotations, with more comfort.

 

Chain Lightning can be cast immediately and with its devastating crits it's really something that can clear thrash fast and make the class comfortable and enjoyable, more USEFUL and potent to everyone including himself, if you say so - that's why lockdown on Lightning Storm should NOT be 10 SECONDS, but should be FOUR. So I could cast the second Chain after my second Storm - that would be enough for my quality of life.

Edited January 31, 2019 by TGaP_Andrey

I guess I don't understand why you are trying to spam an AoE. Lightning spec is about more than just Chain Lightning spam. Edited January 31, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

When I'm running my lightning on Ossus I hard cast chain lighting-force storm-chain lightning. That almost always kills everything. If a strong is still alive maybe affliction then thundering blast.

[quote=TGaP_Andrey;9698704

 

And also madness is a boring af slow DoT-orientied crap I wouldn't bother to play even if lings were nerfed even harder. I picked Sorc for UNLIMITED POWAH not for "leeching the life essence" like stupid vampire or something.

 

 

You dont know what you are talking about, yea Madness has DOT's but it also has a some very hard hitting attacks that in combination do some very serious damage to hp. Madness is faster casting and higher DPS than Lightning and it has always been that way. Madness has always been the go to for PVP, any Lightning against any good Madness Sorc would be chewed up and spit out.

 

Also on the buffs topic Bioware always nerfs every class before a level increase to make it seem like your character is more powerful for the new expansion. They have done this every time so we can be grateful for increased damage when you get the new level and new armor they add. The people at Bioware just dont get it every time they do this it upsets players for the class damage being nerfed and making game play unenjoyable. Like we need another armor grind after i just got my full 248 pvp gear on 5 toons no less.

 

It gets old having to constantly grind for armor I already spent too much time grinding for before the expansions.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Fallensouls