Jump to content

How to gear Balance/Madness and Healing Sage/Sorc? Ranked


JourrnoRush

Recommended Posts

I'm struggling this season in ranked, which is okay it is week one. I noticed a plethora of different setups and I'm lost on what to do. I would stack some crit, alac, then push power, but I see these gold mastery augments too.

 

What should I be doing because the gearing thread is over a year old.

 

Looking for specifically madness/balance sorc/sage gearing and sorc/sage heals gearing.

 

Thanks wonderful community.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm struggling this season in ranked, which is okay it is week one. I noticed a plethora of different setups and I'm lost on what to do. I would stack some crit, alac, then push power, but I see these gold mastery augments too.

 

What should I be doing because the gearing thread is over a year old.

 

Looking for specifically madness/balance sorc/sage gearing and sorc/sage heals gearing.

 

Thanks wonderful community.

 

for heals run 1860 alacrity 1900 -2000 crit, the rest in mastery.

madness you can mimic the heal build or do 704 alacrity 2000 crit and the rest into mastery, Sorc dps is tough atm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm struggling this season in ranked, which is okay it is week one. I noticed a plethora of different setups and I'm lost on what to do. I would stack some crit, alac, then push power, but I see these gold mastery augments too.

 

What should I be doing because the gearing thread is over a year old.

 

Looking for specifically madness/balance sorc/sage gearing and sorc/sage heals gearing.

 

Thanks wonderful community.

 

I can't speak specifically to PvP stats, but the ideal PvE stats are 1633 crit/1881 alac (at 248/240 augged). That's accounting for needing 110% accuracy though, You can drop that for extra crit/mastery.

 

So basically you can go ~2k crit/1881 alac/a little mastery or 1633 crit/1881 alac/rest mastery. Personally I'd go the crit route, but it wouldn't be a big difference.

Edited by RiChess
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I run alacrity leftside, 6 alacrity and 6 crit augs, that will leave you with 2 open augs and 2 enh (accuracy doesnt matter to sorc and op gear gives 2 acc enh) so I swap in 2 246/248 crit enh to replace the acc and I leave the 2 augs for iether crit or mastery. I use this build because I hate diminshing returns and this build gives you 40-72 crit and 15% alacrity (there may be some "decimal" off but it wont be 14% and it wont be 16% ala. also use crit crystals with this build
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorc dps is tough atm

 

It certainly is. Especially Lightning.

I’ve had matches where I’m focusing a Sorc healer and they just ignore me because I cant put any pressure on them.

I had one guarding a node solo and he just stood on the one spot healing himself while I pumped my full rotation into him, over and over. His health didn’t even drop below 5%.

That is absolutely ridiculous because Lightning is supposed to be burst... lmao... 16-18k is not burst and provides zero pressure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It certainly is. Especially Lightning.

I’ve had matches where I’m focusing a Sorc healer and they just ignore me because I cant put any pressure on them.

I had one guarding a node solo and he just stood on the one spot healing himself while I pumped my full rotation into him, over and over. His health didn’t even drop below 5%.

That is absolutely ridiculous because Lightning is supposed to be burst... lmao... 16-18k is not burst and provides zero pressure.

 

Granted nobody can solo a good & geared sorc healer. But that sucks. I remember back in the day when lightning was OP in WZs, before heals/mobility/DCDs were out of control. Could chunk someone for ~30% of their HP with a TB crit. Even FL was a danger, you did NOT want to take a full channel of it. I distinctly remember saving mobility cooldowns just to LoS FL casts lmao.

 

RIP

Edited by RiChess
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Granted nobody can solo a good & geared sorc healer. But that sucks. I remember back in the day when lightning was OP in WZs, before heals/mobility/DCDs were out of control. Could chunk someone for ~30% of their HP with a TB crit. Even FL was a danger, you did NOT want to take a full channel of it. I distinctly remember saving mobility cooldowns just to LoS FL casts lmao.

 

RIP

 

At least on my Jugg, Mara, sniper, Merc and Sin, I can pressure the Sorc healer to panic and call for help or I can neutralise the healer enough that they can’t do their job properly.

But on my Lightning Sorc, I may as well be whispering sweet nothings in their ears and spinkling fairy dust around their feet.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
Link to comment
Share on other sites

uptime and rotational perfection in solo ranked is so bad (doesn't matter how good you are) that running 1860 alacrity as madness is gonna be a dps loss

 

don't bother unless you're into blowing more than a thousand of your stat pool for like 4 extra seconds off your stuns

 

and madness is decent in solo ranked if you're good enough at running away and dying slowly, people will simply stop focusing you first for the most part (unless they're forced to by the class comps)

 

p.s. speed surge is a seriously underrated utility for solo ranked as sorc dps

Edited by yellow_
Link to comment
Share on other sites

uptime and rotational perfection in solo ranked is so bad (doesn't matter how good you are) that running 1860 alacrity as madness is gonna be a dps loss.

 

This is something I think about often regarding gearing for PVP.

 

I keep reading over and over how you need to have high alacrity for maximum dps but I can't help but wonder if you are constantly interrupted and cannot get your rotations off, how does high alacrity help?

 

If you have more mastery, power, or even crit wouldn't damage be maximized better due to the fact your damage would hit harder when you manage to get it off?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Group ranked is an exception, potentially anyway, as there's much less *********** around - the teams just kind of smash into each other usually and you can actually sort of do things "on cooldown." And hardswap is about timely mezzes, hardstuns, and big hitters - not raw dps.

 

Solo ranked on the other hand...

 

I keep reading over and over how you need to have high alacrity for maximum dps but I can't help but wonder if you are constantly interrupted and cannot get your rotations off, how does high alacrity help?
With raw dps? It almost certainly doesn't. Most pvp, most of the time is just too much of a cluster**** to get value out of it.

 

If you have more mastery, power, or even crit wouldn't damage be maximized better due to the fact your damage would hit harder when you manage to get it off?
Yes

 

Also, remember that the more alacrity you run the more stat you waste in those suboptimal periods. If you're running 1860 you are throwing away a *lot* of damage

Edited by yellow_
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is something I think about often regarding gearing for PVP.

 

I keep reading over and over how you need to have high alacrity for maximum dps but I can't help but wonder if you are constantly interrupted and cannot get your rotations off, how does high alacrity help?

 

If you have more mastery, power, or even crit wouldn't damage be maximized better due to the fact your damage would hit harder when you manage to get it off?

 

The manage benefit to running alacrity is the decrease of your GCD. This lets you get more abilities out in in a certain time frame in ideal situations therefore increasing your overall dps. If you spend majority of the fight in solo ranked being controlled, cced, and running away without using all your gcds stringed together, you lose a big chuck of dps that alacrity provides. That’s where dropping some for more crit or Mastery makes more sense, just a static increase to dps that you can get out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well yes, it is hard to use the uptime granted by second tier, but if you're running madness in ranked you need to be good.

 

Be good enough at kiting, and teams will stop going you.

Be good enough at positioning, and you make it harder to get mezzed out.

Be good enough with your rotation and quick enough with your reaction, and the uptime becomes worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well yes, it is hard to use the uptime granted by second tier, but if you're running madness in ranked you need to be good.

 

Be good enough at kiting, and teams will stop going you.

Be good enough at positioning, and you make it harder to get mezzed out.

Be good enough with your rotation and quick enough with your reaction, and the uptime becomes worth it.

 

I think these attributes weigh heavier than running high alacrity.

You almost need to have 3 other dps who play with you in mind.

You can offer support by either delaying and kiting the entire enemy team while your team gets a kill, or by offhealing and bubbling while doing “fluff” damage.

Edited by Going
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well yes, it is hard to use the uptime granted by second tier, but if you're running madness in ranked you need to be good.

 

Be good enough at kiting, and teams will stop going you.

Be good enough at positioning, and you make it harder to get mezzed out.

Be good enough with your rotation and quick enough with your reaction, and the uptime becomes worth it.

it's not even a matter of being good, solo ranked is such a cluster most of the time that you'll never manage it

 

if you don't believe me, do dummy parses on various specs with t1 vs t2 alacrity - the difference is very small. the second you step away from a dummy or a boss the latter is going to do less damage.

 

for example, you can do 10K in carnage on a dummy with like 400 alacrity. the highest parses are 10.2K (they will be running at least ~1400). that higher alac value WILL be a dps loss in pvp in almost every circumstance. high alacrity can have value, like in hard swap, but better dps is not a reality

Edited by yellow_
Link to comment
Share on other sites

it's not even a matter of being good, solo ranked is such a cluster most of the time that you'll never manage it

 

if you don't believe me, do dummy parses on various specs with t1 vs t2 alacrity - the difference is very small. the second you step away from a dummy or a boss the latter is going to do less damage.

 

for example, you can do 10K in carnage on a dummy with like 400 alacrity. the highest parses are 10.2K (they will be running at least ~1400). that higher alac value WILL be a dps loss in pvp in almost every circumstance. high alacrity can have value, like in hard swap, but better dps is not a reality

 

Yeah, actually what I decided about 2 weeks ago was to ditch alacrity. I don't do competitive group ranked, and so my experience probably won't be reflective of what it would be if I was doing G-ranked. No idea if it would work, running with zero alacrity in such a meta.

 

I plan to stick all crit/power stuffs in, and use mastery augs across the board to try to give myself a more punch-and-crit combination. I am trying this on my healer right now actually, I just need to dump a few enhancements now, thanks to the gears coming pre-set with alacrity enhancements etc.

 

When I stand and cast I tend to get interrupted by stuns/interrupts anyway, so I might as well push for bigger heals when they do get off compared to having smaller faster heals, that's my theory atm anyway. It would probably work much better on a class that had more instant cast abilities, but I think even with my merc healer there's enough instant casts and times when I am immune to interrupt where this will work fine.

 

I suppose having faster cooldown wait times would be nice but I don't see it worth the stat loss by adding a bunch of alacrity.

 

It would be nice to have two sets of gears to test this: one with tons of alacrity and then one with nothing but mastery/crit/power then see how the stats compare in PVP.

 

Sadly we never have anyone capable of testing in this fashion and the way gearing is such a slog, it makes it even harder just because most people don't have entire suits of totally different build sets, at least I don't seeing I just started back a couple months ago.

 

Maybe in a year I will have enough pieces of mods, armor sets I could test it out. Nah, nm that I don't have the attention span or ability to manage the technical facets to do this rofl. Maybe someone else will, someday. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Healers all should be going high alacrity / crit. Mastery is bad for hps, scales worse using it as a tersiary stat.

 

I have seen where you said that before and it's probably true. I am going to run alternative builds though, for ***** and giggles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Healers all should be going high alacrity / crit. Mastery is bad for hps, scales worse using it as a tersiary stat.

 

Basically anyone going for the 1.3 Alac threshold (which all healers absolutely should be) might as well gear the rest for Crit. If you're at 1860+ Alac the highest Crit you're going to get to is ~2000 which is right in the sweet spot of DR.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The closest I can get to the alacrity 1.3 cap is 1881 rating and 15.53% (all 248/240), which leaves 2029 in crit which ends up being 47.48% crit.

 

Also, people saying go crit after alacrity are right, but doubly so for Sorc healers, since our HPS sustainability stems from consistent crits off innervate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The closest I can get to the alacrity 1.3 cap is 1881 rating and 15.53% (all 248/240), which leaves 2029 in crit which ends up being 47.48% crit.

 

Also, people saying go crit after alacrity are right, but doubly so for Sorc healers, since our HPS sustainability stems from consistent crits off innervate.

 

That's a good point, when I gear my sorc one day (or year from now) I will keep that part in mind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't speak specifically to PvP stats, but the ideal PvE stats are 1633 crit/1881 alac (at 248/240 augged). That's accounting for needing 110% accuracy though, You can drop that for extra crit/mastery.

 

So basically you can go ~2k crit/1881 alac/a little mastery or 1633 crit/1881 alac/rest mastery. Personally I'd go the crit route, but it wouldn't be a big difference.

 

Dont ever use accuracy on concealment, sorc or ofc any healer at all in pvp... Seriously. Dont.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...