I main a TK sage with a mix between optimized 180 and 186 gear. I'm having some problems that I've never run into until these recent updates.

For my TK rotation, I've been experimenting with FQ to proc TKW before the fight begins. Then FP > MA > TKW > MC > WM > TB > TKW > D > TT and then rinse/repeat, minus the FQ, obviously, and with FP and MA on CD. I've never had a problem with DPS. Since the last two updates, however, my TK DPS has fallen to the 2.9k range and doesn't hit over 3.2k. I also apparently fall victim to hitching, where I'll hit a proc'd TKW after a turbulence, but the TB hit (missing out on a 11k-14k hit) doesn't go through, and that's been happening to me fairly frequently.

Same thing with Balance. My Balance rotation is FP > MA > MC > FiB > SF > WM > P > TT x3 > D > TT x3 > D > TTx3 > FiB > SF > WM > MC, and then rinse/repeat ad nauseam. In this spec, however, I -cannot- seem to break over 3.6k, with mostly hovering around the 3.4k area, without adrenals.

I'm running up against shadows and other sages who are parsing in the 3.7k+ range and it's frankly extremely frustrating. I was told by my GM that my NiM group feels like they're carrying me, and if I can't seem to get this problem fixed, I'll probably lose my spot on my progression team.

Is there an obvious fix or am I just stuck at the mercy of the RNG gods?

My sage is still only level 53 (54?) so I can't help much. Have you looked at Noxxic.com?

http://www.noxxic.com/swtor/pve/jedi-consular/sage/telekinetics/rotation-and-cooldowns

http://www.noxxic.com/swtor/pve/jedi-consular/sage/balance/rotation-and-cooldowns

Have the other sages in your group actually offered to help you? Seems a bit shady of them (to me at least) that they'd claim they feel like they're carrying you but haven't actually pulled you aside to discuss your rotation and cooldown management.

I can only speak to TK.

I am not as geared as you and I recently upgraded 3 pieces to 180 and so need to rework my rotation and parses. I have had the "hitching" issue you describe with TKWave. I had this when I was flying by the seat of my pants using a priority list rather than my rotation. It happened when I was spamming TKWave after a TB. I worked on my rotation on a dummy to clean up my order and keypresses and reduce panic. Since we don't have an execute I find it easier to work on a ops dummy without setting it's HP using the droid wand.

For me it is important to know my current GCD time. I use disturbance as my benchmark since it has a cast time equal to the GCD and it easy to get the game to report the cast time. I record both standard GCD and GCD under Mental Alacrity. Then I work out how many of my modified GCDs I can fit between 9 seconds which is the Internal Cooldown of Turbulence. Since Weaken Mind has an ICD of 18 seconds, it becomes a matter of stacking GCDs up and determining what to cast when. Since both Tidal Force and Psychic Projection have a 10 seconds cooldown their use will progress later and later in your 9 second windows until it skips one. Generally the first window uses both TKW and TKT late so as to build up Tremor procs via Distrubance so the second window will have a skip. I try to think of the window as a unit and have it planned out as I am playing. This way I can recover cleaner when I make mistakes or have to bubble, move or otherwise use a GCD for non-dps purposes.

The other thing to remember is that you likely have other jobs such as cleansing dots, pulling teammates or kiting. These jobs will affect your parses but the utility of your non-dps work is quite high. It is quite possible you are performing fine in Balance spec. The hitching issue in TK is something you need to work out with some quality dummy time.

Uh, don't use noxxic…

Pre-procing TKW before the fight is actually somewhat pointless. If you're going to go to that extent, you may as well have just hard-cast it! At least that way, the proc wouldn't be on ICD. By allowing TKW to get proc'd by your first Turbulence, you're keeping it in sync with Telekinetic Throw, which improves Force Potency utilization. Also, it keeps it more in sync with ideal relic procs.

Ignoring Mind Crush and alacrity, the optimal rotation for TK is precisely as follows (with no variation):

Weaken Mind

Turbulence

Disturbance

Telekinetic Throw

Telekinetic Wave

Disturbance x3

Turbulence

Disturbance

Telekinetic Throw

Telekinetic Wave

Disturbance x2

repeat

The only variation in the above comes from alacrity (either due to the set bonus proc'ing, or Mental Alacrity), and from Mind Crush. When Mind Crush comes off CD, it takes priority over everything except for the Turbulence block. Which is to say, you never want to inject a Mind Crush in either of the following blocks:

• Weaken Mind > Turbulence > Disturbance
  
• Turbulence > Disturbance
  

Or, more intuitively, you must always use one Disturbance immediately after Turbulence, you must always use Turbulence on cooldown, and you must always reapply Weaken Mind immediately prior to Turbulence if it isn't already on the target.

All other abilities can and should be delayed for Mind Crush. A good example of this is the opener:

Mind Crush

Weaken Mind + Adrenal + Mental Alacrity

Turbulence

Disturbance

Force Potency + Telekinetic Throw

Telekinetic Wave

Disturbance x4

Turbulence

Disturbance

Mind Crush

Telekinetic Throw

Telekinetic Wave

Disturbance x2

Weaken Mind

Turbulence

Disturbance

etc…

(note that the second Disturbance immediately prior to the third Turbulence is only due to the fact that the Force Master set bonus will proc somewhere in that block, slightly accelerating the timing)

Anyway, that's basically everything you need to know about TK. Use Mental Alacrity on cooldown (never delay it!). Use your adrenal always and only with Mental Alacrity (delay the adrenal for MA). Force Potency as close to on CD as possible, but always with TkT > TkW. Never stand still waiting for anything (your APM should be upwards of 41). Never delay Turbulence. Only delay Mind Crush for the Turbulence > Disturbance pair (possibly including Weaken Mind before Turb).

If you execute on all of the above, with full 180s, you shouldn't have any trouble breaking a 3.6k on the 1 mil dummy with armor debuff. 3.7k should be achievable with some practice. 3.8k would be a lucky parse, but not unreachable.

Thank you so much for your responses!

Good lord, I really appreciate your very detailed rotation, KBN. You actually give me hope that I won't have to completely give up TK. 'I've been parsing with this new rotation you gave me; there are some hitches as I'm relearning this rotation, but already on the third time of trying it, I've hit 3.3k. I'm hoping to reach that 3.6k mark and be NiM viable again.

But thank you all for your time and I'll be sure to post some before and after parses!

KeyboardNinja, I've been working on TK for a while now and my rotation comes out looking very close to yours, but the difference is significant enough to make me wonder what your reasoning is.

My "Turbulence Block" looks somewhat more like this:

Disturb -> Turb -> TKT -> TKW

or

Disturb -> Turb -> MC -> TKT -> TKW

I'm also using Weaken Mind a bit less than you seem to be. (i.e. only when it is necessary to get TKT and TKW procs)

I've found that my rotation seems to follow that of the majority of top TK parsers, so my curiosity is what reasoning is behind this difference? I've seen your work in the past and it is really good, so I trust there is good math or experience behind the change.

KeyboardNinja, I've been working on TK for a while now and my rotation comes out looking very close to yours, but the difference is significant enough to make me wonder what your reasoning is.

 

My "Turbulence Block" looks somewhat more like this:

 

Disturb -> Turb -> TKT -> TKW

or

Disturb -> Turb -> MC -> TKT -> TKW

 

I'm also using Weaken Mind a bit less than you seem to be. (i.e. only when it is necessary to get TKT and TKW procs)

If Weaken Mind isn't on the target when you use Turbulence, then it's a wasted Turbulence. However, Weaken Mind is much lower DPS than pretty much anything else you can activate in a GCD, so you do want to use it as little as possible. Hence, you use it once every other Turb timed such that you can get two Turbulences per Weaken Mind. The reason for using Disturbance immediately after Turbulence is to keep the TkT and TkW procs sync'd on that timer, always falling in the same place in your rotation.

You can do this by putting Disturbance before Turbulence rather than after, but there are a number of problems with this. First, it weakens your opener tremendously by backloading your burst and delaying Turbulence. Second, due to the delay on Turb, it means that in a raid situation when things get screwed up and/or delayed, Turbulence is likely to fall off the end of the Weaken Mind duration, losing the auto-crit. Losing out on the auto-crit is a dramatically greater DPS loss than losing a TkT proc. Hence, Disturbance should come second.

I've found that my rotation seems to follow that of the majority of top TK parsers, so my curiosity is what reasoning is behind this difference? I've seen your work in the past and it is really good, so I trust there is good math or experience behind the change.

I would take a closer look at the top parsers. To the best of my knowledge, they all follow the pattern I laid out until procs get delayed due to boss mechanics, at which point things drift a little bit. My own personal rationale for it is detailed above.

Your balance rotation seems a little off. FiB and MC are on 15 second timers and should be used on cooldown, SF and WM are on 18s "timers" and should float through the rotation. Using a static rotation will lower your DPS, but not by a whole lot. You need to have 110% force accuracy, and put the rest of your tertiary stats in surge for balance. Crit should be 200ish, but more stats are better than less stats so keep the 186 pieces over the 180 pieces even if you get more crit than "ideal". Most people find it easiest to keep pieces of the rotation as blocks. FiB and MC are usually kept together so they are always cast consecutively. SF and WM are cast together for most people as well. So you would do something like this: Notice how the dots (blue) move one spot down each time through.

MC/FIB

SF/WM

TKT->Dist

TKT->Dist

TKT

MC/FIB

TKT->Dist

SF/WM

TKT->Dist

TKT

MC/FIB

TKT->Dist

TKT->Dist

SF/WM

TKT

MC/FIB

TKT->Dist

TKT->Dist

TKT

SF/WM

MC/FIB

TKT->Dist

TKT->Dist

TKT->Dist

TKT

MC/FIB <--- start

Also. Potency is technically best used on a TKT->FiB instead of two TKT. The reasons are its slightly more damage, and using all 4 ticks of TKT messes with the timing of the rotation a little. Just make sure you do TKT first since if FiB hits more than one target, it will consume both charges. I usually hit MA right away, adrenal as soon as the last dot is applied, and potency on the last TKT before the second FiB. The reapply each as they come up only delaying Potency if needed to put it in a good place. This may not be ideal, but I get 3775 on average on my parses in similar gear and 3850 has been where Ive topped out

I'm not much of a PvE'er, but the best way I utilize TK is the following. With using mental alacrity and force potency when available (obviously) Mind crush, weaken mind, force wave, turbulence, Force wave, disturbance, telekinetic throw, project, repeat. If my timing is off i spam a few more disturbances.

In PvP, only in the 30-54 because the beginners don't know how to interrupt yet, I can easily burst out any class before they even realize its time to use defense cooldowns.

I don't know exactly how this goes on a DPS timer, but the strong point in this rotation is utilizing Force wave's reset on cool down and not conserving it for AoE situations, but utilizing it as a high damage attack right after an immediate crit - turbulence.

Balance is my all time favorite spec and it is the highest DPS class in PvE for single target damage. Of course, always pop Mental alacrity and Force potency.

Without Force Potency: I always open up with sever force, weaken mind, t-throw, Force in balance, Mind crush, T throw, disturbance, repeat (or spam a few more t throw/disturbances until DoT's need refresh or Mind crush is off cooldown).

With Force Potency: Sever force, Weaken mind, t-throw X2, Force in balance, Mind crush, T throw, disturbance, repeat (without FP).

The strong points with my rotation is utilizing Sever force's 2 second stun time to cast another DoT, and immediately using the 25% damage increase from Sever Force. I also use Force in balance before Mind crush because mind crush ticks faster and doesn't last as long so the higher damage from Force imbalance is completely utilized.

On a side note, NEVER use project while using balance. It uses way to much force for the little damage it does. I also pick up, when building skill tree with extra points, 100 force points, the 9% force cost reductions, and above that, the ability for disturbance to increase force restoration by 10% that stacks 3 times. This way I hardly run out of force just like telekinetics.

I choose Balance over Telekinetics, obviously because I'm a pvper, but its a lot better for single target damage. The telekinetic throws can hit anywhere from 2k to 4.7k (highest I've ever hit with it in PvP gear), On 3 top of Dots that hit 1k-2ks,

POT5- Republic: Peacefully (Sage)