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Forced to Go Sorcerer Hybrid


Ghost_Spectre

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First let me say, I loathe using a hybrid spec characters, just a personal preference and choice. I’m a purist when it comes to running my characters skills and associated specs. I’ve always been that way. This is how I ran my Lightning Sorcerer. I put five points into madness for ‘Will of the Sith,’ and ‘Calcify’ and the rest (36 points) into Lightning. I played this way from the beginning with my sorcerer leveling through PvE and until a couple of days ago, PvP. I was derided by a number of people for spec’ing pure Lightning. All saying ‘Lightning Sorcerers are useless in PvP because of this, that, and the other.’ That’s okay; I accepted it, worked around the short comings of casting with strategies and tactics that allowed me to fill the role of supporting the team. The one thing I didn’t do is spam my ‘Static Barrier’ on anyone simply because of the long cool down; however, if I stood defending a node in NC or CW, I’d place one on the teammate defending it with me. It’s a defensive measure in my opinion and should be used as such and not in the manner its being used by hybrid Healers do.

 

However, because of these damned LOLSmash Monkeys, it’s now impossible to do anything, period. Before, using ‘Polarity Shift’ in conjunction with ‘Recklessness’ allowed me to get off many of my casting abilities quickly allowing me to help burn down targets my teammates are focused on. Sadly, with every swinging richard cranium using the FOTM LOLSmash Monkeys, my chance of surviving long enough to get off ‘Thundering Blast, Lightning Strike, or Force Lightning,’ even with ‘Polarity Shift’ up, is now impossible. Before anyone says, ‘get geared,’ I’m in fully augmented WH gear with EWH bracers and a modable belt filled with WH armor and mod. I still didn’t last long enough to complete a cast of the aforementioned powers.

 

This is a damning testament about the sorcerer and its ability to survive to be of any use thanks to these massive OP 7k hits from people that look for easy kills or lack the ability to play anything that requires a cognizant thought process. No defensive cool downs, no damage mitigation, or more than 2 instant cast abilities puts the sorcerer in a truly untenable situation. However, instead of retiring my Sorcerer as I did my Marauder, I decided to do what I loathe the most, go hybrid. I started this Sorcerer out as a DPS character, not a healer; therefore, I decided going both Lightning and Madness. I found a number of specs listed by various players and from sites like Noxxic.

 

However, none of them allowed me to increase my DPS or increase my survivability; it was one or the other. Then I read on the forum a post from a Hybrid Sorcerer that claimed 750k damage, proving it with a video. They put their spec build up and I thought I would try that. However, instead of doing what he did, I still wanted to keep certain abilities like ‘Chain Lightning’ with ‘Lightning Storm’ and ‘Polarity Shift.’ After playing with the Lightning and Madness skill trees, and numerous trail and effort, I settled with a 21/20 build that I use in both PvE and PvP.

 

With this build, I increased my damage output, more importantly, my survivability increased along with it. Unlike the person who posted their build, I completely augmented out my WH gear with Advanced Resolve Augments in my Force Master gear. I didn’t need to use Corruption’s ‘Seeping Darkness’ since my crit chance and ability for force use is 35%/74% respectfully with my gear and buffs.

 

The results spec for themselves. I average 320k DPS and 120k healing now spending less time respawning, and consistently earn 10+ medals. That’s not to say I don’t have matches where I’m lucking to hit 150k DPS, I do. However, those are 1 in 5 games. My last 3 matches yesterday, Voidstar, Civil War, and Huttball, I average 347.6K DPS. My largest DPS score was in Voidstar where I had 369k and 189k healing and earned 17 medals plus 3 MPV votes. What makes me sick is I should be able to do this spec’d as Lightning, not a hybrid IF the Sorcerer’s Lightning abilities had not been nerfed into the grave by the Devs.

 

With this spec, I now can ‘shoot & scoot’ without fear of playing a turret unless I am in a position where I can spam Force Lightning. The combination of ‘Sith Defiance’ and ‘Corrupted Flesh’ increased my survivability and damage mitigation. With Wrath I can instant cast Crushing Darkness on the run along with ‘Affliction,’ ‘Shock,’ and ‘Chain Lightning,’ I can hit fast and hard while on the move. I wish ‘Death Field’ had a fast cool down so I could use that more. The one thing for sure with this build, I do not worry about exhausting my force. I never run out or below 90%.

 

I am pleased with the results so far and they are improving; however, I am not pleased I had to make this move in respeccing my character. I guess though, one has to do what one has to do to move from being in an untenable position. The only other option available to me is to retire my Sorcerer, something I’m not inclined to do.

 

Anyway, having said all that, here’s my build: Lightning/Madness Hybrid 0/21/20 build. Some may question way I chose certain abilities in this tree. I settled on this as it best fits my play style and my play ability. I’m an average to above average PvP player. I’ve always strived to improve on my playing and skills. I’m satisfied with this build as it allows me to kill off LOLSmash Monkeys one on one and survive against two on one, sometimes three on one, long enough to get clear and help from teammates.

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I'll admit I didn't read your whole post (damn man, you had A LOT to say :D), but I agree.

 

Being forced to use a hybrid as a healer in PvP just to be able to survive annoys me like hell, because I'm losing one of the reasons I leveled a healer sorc - the awesome Aoe heal. (yes, I'm weird).

 

They should put more effort into making pure builds the most viable options. People will still run with hybrid builds but at least those of us that like having pure builds, wouldn't feel like we're just gimping ourselves.

 

I do not get why abilities cannot be optimized to work slightly different in PVP than they do in PVE. It would solve a lot of problems and now that respec is free for subs, it wouldn't cost anyone anything to go from one build to another, depending on what they want to do (PVE/PVP).

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Try madness. It is more mobile and relies less on casted abilities, which is why lightning sucks so hard in PvP.

 

I've read enough about Madness to know that it becomes a Force management nightmare. However, I'm toying with the idea of taking a point from 'Polarity Shift' and putting in 'Deathmark.' According to the information on ‘Deathmark’; "Death Field places a deathmark on affected targets, increasing the amount of damage the targets suffer from your next 10 periodic damaging abilities by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds," I could increase the output damage from 'Affliction,' 'Deathfield,' and 'Crushing Darkness.' Though I would lose a 20% increase in Alacrity, I already have 12% decreased cast time so I think this would be a good trade off. I'll have to give it a try first before I know for sure.

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I use the 1/31/9 full lightning build in pvp and consistently pull around 450k damage in a average paced match. You can have success as full madness, and with a good team full lightning can work. Keep in mind though I have my gear min/max for full lightning effectiveness and that full lightning is not a viable spec. Full madness isn't' viable either but the kiting aspect is very fun and the spec is low execution overall for good results.

 

Sadly the hybrid variations are still your best option

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You can still be good as a full madness spec but it takes way more effort and PvP intelligence to be viable to your team and your own survivability. ((Meaning, knowing when to run/stun - root-slow and who to save that insta-Whirlwind for)).

 

It's a joke that the Hybrid-heal spec is the only -real- viable spec for Rated team play though. Bringing any other DPS class over a hybrid-dps bubble spec would be more beneficial. This has been pointed out time and time again and the only dev post we've seen -since 1.2- in regards to our class is that the Bubble needs to be nerfed so it only effects the caster because it's "too strong".

 

No, Bioware, Sorcs having to resort to a hybrid build (As the OP pointed out) to stay alive for more then a full respawn door is actually where the issue is. If they followed our Class Feedback thread, they would understand that.

 

I'm terrified to see the "balance" and "adjustments" that comes with the Makeb patch.

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full lightning needs a complete overhaul. Chain lightning currently pointless to use without instacast proc, what sort of mechanics is that were you are forced wait for a proc because normal casting is so prohibitively long?

 

All this lightning strike spamming in order to proc a crapload of stuff is driving me crazy. It's stupid and ridiculous.

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Its not that hard. Keep track of how many seconds from your last lightning storm proc. Use cooldowns in between the internal cooldown and keep affliction up on several targets. Use force storm to get the proc if 3+ are in a small area and only use lightning strike as a last resort filler.
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It's a joke that the Hybrid-heal spec is the only -real- viable spec for Rated team play though. Bringing any other DPS class over a hybrid-dps bubble spec would be more beneficial. This has been pointed out time and time again and the only dev post we've seen -since 1.2- in regards to our class is that the Bubble needs to be nerfed so it only effects the caster because it's "too strong".

 

No, Bioware, Sorcs having to resort to a hybrid build (As the OP pointed out) to stay alive for more then a full respawn door is actually where the issue is. If they followed our Class Feedback thread, they would understand that.

 

I'm terrified to see the "balance" and "adjustments" that comes with the Makeb patch.

 

You are spot on. I too, am very concerned what they intend to do with the Sorcerer with their upcoming "balancing act" for all classes.

 

We're currently undergoing a lot of class rebalance for a future major patch, so it's an understatement to say that things aren't locked down yet. However, the problem with Backlash (Lightning's incapacitate on Static Barrier) is mostly that it can be applied to any target, making an entire team of allies stun-bubbled. Since this is such great utility for the Lightning Sorcerer, we don't want to change the effect of Backlash, but we are considering making the Backlash effect only apply to the original caster - so you only get a Backlash when you put your Static Barrier on yourself.

 

That's just the current idea. We don't have any plans on making Static Barrier or Backlash worse than it currently is for the Sorcerer that uses it.

 

We're aware that even this change lowers the amount of group support Lightning offers, so that's something we have to figure out before we can pull the trigger on Backlash.

 

In the bolded part of APeckenpaugh's statement concerns me the most. We already know how ineffective the single specced Sorcerer is and the hybrid barely makes it a viable option in a WZ. Should they makes these changes without giving a major boost to the combat capabilities of the Sorcerer, I dare say that we, as a class, will become a footnote in the annuals of WZ history.

 

Case in point, last night I was involved in two consecutive WZs where we had 5 Sorcerers, 2 Assassins, and 1 Merc. Both times we were mauled. The last one, Voidstar, we could not make a dent whatsoever. When it came time to defend, we just stood on the platform outside the door and let them open the door. It was fruitless to attempt any type of defense. I believe all the Sorcerers were hybrid specced. There was no question how useless we were without having any Marauders, Juggs, Sniper/Operatives, or Powertechs in the match. The results of these two matches quantify just how inept and useless the Sorcerer is in a WZ. I'm sure those on the Pub side wet themselves when they saw all of us and laughed with glee. They knew they had each match in the bag.

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I have one point to make here. Even though I also think the smashmonkeys are OP I think the whole concept that you feel you should be able to stand still in a light armor class and free cast as equally absurd.

 

As Lighting you have a Stun, Bubble Stun and Knockback with a snare. Use them to your advantage and don't "expect" to free cast in ANY mmo as a light armor class with a melee on you.

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I've read enough about Madness to know that it becomes a Force management nightmare. However, I'm toying with the idea of taking a point from 'Polarity Shift' and putting in 'Deathmark.' According to the information on ‘Deathmark’; "Death Field places a deathmark on affected targets, increasing the amount of damage the targets suffer from your next 10 periodic damaging abilities by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds," I could increase the output damage from 'Affliction,' 'Deathfield,' and 'Crushing Darkness.' Though I would lose a 20% increase in Alacrity, I already have 12% decreased cast time so I think this would be a good trade off. I'll have to give it a try first before I know for sure.

 

I don't have problems with force management running madness.

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I have one point to make here. Even though I also think the smashmonkeys are OP I think the whole concept that you feel you should be able to stand still in a light armor class and free cast as equally absurd.

 

As Lighting you have a Stun, Bubble Stun and Knockback with a snare. Use them to your advantage and don't "expect" to free cast in ANY mmo as a light armor class with a melee on you.

 

Wait...what? I never said anything about "being able to free cast." Please, stop reading into or misrepresenting what I said. What I said was I could not get off casts even with the proper procs because of the lack of survivability due to the LOL Smash Monkeys. Not to mention that everything under the sun can interrupt me regardless if I have Polarity Shift up or not.

 

Yes, I have a stun, its range is 10 meters (was 30 before all the QQers complained about being stunned at 30 meters.) It has a tremendously long CD. Bubble Stun last 3 seconds and that is NOT enough time to clear an area where a LOLSmash Monkey can Force Leap to be rooting me in place no matter what I do or they through their saber at me that more than likely kills me off because of the horrific damage I received after they Smashed me into the dirt before my bubble went off if it was even up.

 

Overload is crap now. Since it isn't 360 anymore, I have to be facing the opponent to use it against them. That means, in order to run away, I have to face them, use it, rooting them roughly 15 meters back, turn around, hit force speed and hope I can clear their jump radius. That doesn't happen often and is a rare occasion for me to do so. I normally end up being ROOTED by their Leap and then promptly murdered. This wouldn't be a problem if I could have instant cast on most of the powers without worrying about a proc that allows me to do so. I'd have superior mobility allowing me to actually kite and do something worth while. As it is now, without a hybrid build, kiting with the Sorcerer is next to impossible with a 31 point build and expects to hurt anyone, remain mobile, and survive.

 

So don't presume to tell me I should "...use them to your advantage and don't "expect" to free cast in ANY mmo as a light armor class with a melee on you." I am intimately aware of my Sorcerer's abilities and weaknesses. This is why I was forced to respec to a hybrid Lightning/Madness.

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Snip

 

Except you did imply exactly that...

 

However, because of these damned LOLSmash Monkeys, it’s now impossible to do anything, period. Before, using ‘Polarity Shift’ in conjunction with ‘Recklessness’ allowed me to get off many of my casting abilities quickly allowing me to help burn down targets my teammates are focused on. Sadly, with every swinging richard cranium using the FOTM LOLSmash Monkeys, my chance of surviving long enough to get off ‘Thundering Blast, Lightning Strike, or Force Lightning,’ even with ‘Polarity Shift’ up, is now impossible.
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My experience in WZs with the sorceress as a sorceress player and watch what others do is as follows:

 

Sorceress corruption, meh, can heal but not much otherwise. Easy kill.

Sorceress lightning, GL landing a cast.

Sorceress madness, death field is cool, otherwise not much. Easy kill.

Sorceress corruption/lightning hybrid, in PUG game changer. If you know what you are doing, you can turn a misfit team into a big time winner. Well geared marauders, sins and dps juggernauts extremely benefit from barrier (major defense upgrade), back lash (3 seconds on disabled opponents to free attack) and healing.

 

You wanna play dps sorceress? As it stands right now it is not good. It might improve in future patches, but sorceress dps will never be within 5% range of marauders dps. I think the class need some burst damage in the lighting tree, with much less cast time. Madness needs redesign. Does sorceress really need two ranged dps trees that are very similar?

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It's true- no combination of abilities will take you from max to zero force in less time than it'll take a marauder to take you from max to zero health.

 

That has nothing to do with it. The reality is, you almost never have fights that last long enough to deplete your force. No single melee of any number of people is going to drain your force. Either your group or the opposing group will overpower the opponents before your force gets too low. Either you are going to get killed and re-spawn before your force runs low, or you are going to clear out the opponents and have a few seconds to meditate.

 

The only time force can become an issue is if you are allowed to freecast while defending a node and the opponents keep charging into the fight headlong. If that happens, you are going to end up with ridiculous damage numbers. I've done this now and again especially on Alderaan if you can stand up on the second level of the middle node and they just leave you alone up there. But again, you can stand back for a few seconds and meditate. If they are that oblivious to you, you could also noble sacrifice and heal.

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I put up solid damage with a madness spec. People who complain that sorcerers are "easy kills" don't know how to play. It's that simple. Are you going to roll into rated warzones and dominate as a DPS sorcerer? No. But you can do quite well in regular warzones.
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I put up solid damage with a madness spec. People who complain that sorcerers are "easy kills" don't know how to play. It's that simple. Are you going to roll into rated warzones and dominate as a DPS sorcerer? No. But you can do quite well in regular warzones.

 

My problem isn't with madness's overall damage or nessesarily its force (although it is bad in long fights), its with the fact you can't burst targets on good teams. I have pulled many games against good pvp guilds and when they have a healer up I can't drop anyone. The full madness burst is very predictable and many classes have the ability to remove our dots. Pulling 800k in a voidstar and feeling like you didn't kill a single person isn't fun in the least.

 

I dislike the hybrid although it is much better than full madness for burst. Honestly lethality sniper is a lot closer to what madness really should be, a dot spec with burst. Sadly all of that spec's burst is loaded into deathfeild and while deathfeild is good only having one hard hitting ability on 20 second cooldown is a little underwhelming against good teams.

 

Personally after getting used to it, full lightning is my favorite spec by far now in warzones. Although I'm still not sure I would play it in rated over the hybrid (the hybrid still has better force and utility) the Full lightning spec has the burst potential to actually kill targets, it just takes alot of attention to maximize its potential.

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I put up solid damage with a madness spec. People who complain that sorcerers are "easy kills" don't know how to play. It's that simple. Are you going to roll into rated warzones and dominate as a DPS sorcerer? No. But you can do quite well in regular warzones.

 

Yep, cos lolrauders dominate whichever wz they are in.... now why is that?

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You wanna play dps sorceress? As it stands right now it is not good. It might improve in future patches, but sorceress dps will never be within 5% range of marauders dps. I think the class need some burst damage in the lighting tree, with much less cast time. Madness needs redesign. Does sorceress really need two ranged dps trees that are very similar?

 

You are correct, the Sorcerer/Sage should not be within 5% of a Marauder/Sentinel for DPS damage, and they should be doing 10% more damage! With no defenses or defensive cool downs as the Marauder/Sentinels have, a Sorcerer/Sage should have the highest burst damage in the game. They should hit as hard with their best ranged attacks (single and AOE) as Smash/Sweep do. That will make them viable and something to fear, a worthy target, not some 'farming target' that Marauders/Sentinels/Operatives/Scoundrels/Shadows/Assassins/Snipers/Gunslingers go after to pad their numbers and medals count. If BW does not give the Sorcerer/Sage the ability to hit like a freight train, then they must give them at least 2 defensive cool downs in order to survive long enough in a WZ to get off some massive damage. They too should be glass cannons, not glass paint guns.

 

Frankly, I'd love them to fundamentally change Thundering Blast from a single target to a conical area affect attack where the main target receives the full damage (critical damage if used with affliction) and those in the area up to 5 receive half the damage. Conversely, since it is the highest tier attack in the Lightning tree, there should be an automatic knockback and knockdown in the same manner a sniper has with Ambush (used against a target within 10 meters) and the knockdown attack the Scoundrels/Operatives have, that knocks the affected out (stunning) the target(s) for two seconds. It’s supposed to be a blast, meaning it explodes on and around the target effecting everything and one around the detonation. Make their attacks mean something, not just an annoyance. They want to take away our ability to cast an exploding Static Barrier on our teammates because all the whining, then they need to make changes so we Sorcerers/Sages can put a hurt on anyone or group in combat.

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I play the sage counterpart to this spec telekinetic, I think there is a problem when inorder to get a cast off you have to stun your opponent well there is mechanic called resolve and we don't do enough dmg to kill before that resolve bar fills. Maybe if the abilities were channel instead of casted? I don't know but like the op said the spec is broken.
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Yep, cos lolrauders dominate whichever wz they are in.... now why is that?

 

Derpsmash spec is overpowered, but there are counters to it. I have no problem handling Marauders in regular warzones. The issues in rated have more to do with the makeup of the group and the coordination of the players involved. We don't get enough burst for rated warzones.

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You are correct, the Sorcerer/Sage should not be within 5% of a Marauder/Sentinel for DPS damage, and they should be doing 10% more damage! With no defenses or defensive cool downs as the Marauder/Sentinels have, a Sorcerer/Sage should have the highest burst damage in the game. They should hit as hard with their best ranged attacks (single and AOE) as Smash/Sweep do. That will make them viable and something to fear, a worthy target, not some 'farming target' that Marauders/Sentinels/Operatives/Scoundrels/Shadows/Assassins/Snipers/Gunslingers go after to pad their numbers and medals count. If BW does not give the Sorcerer/Sage the ability to hit like a freight train, then they must give them at least 2 defensive cool downs in order to survive long enough in a WZ to get off some massive damage. They too should be glass cannons, not glass paint guns.

 

No, a ranged caster class should not do 10 percent more damange than a melee class. Otherwise, every warzone would be eight sorcerers. We need more burst. We could use a defensive cooldown. But we aren't that far off. A 15 percent damage buff would make us ridiculously overpowered.

 

And we aren't a "farming target" once you learn to play.

 

I personally quite enjoy when a derpsmasher tries to leap at me 1-on-1 and is then shocked when I use all the skills at my disposal to own him.

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