I really like the idea of the Sith Sorcerer and I think there are some cool ideas in the skill tree, but I also think it could have been done better. Functionally the Sorcerer performs fine in PvE (though it's DPS is a bit behind), but in PvP it lacks burst and survivability. I have some ideas for how I would change the sorc class:

Madness:

The theme of this skill tree should be mental force powers. Less reliance on force lightning and more focus on dots and control to make it more of a support/kiting class. I would probably also pull death field as it seems more physical than mental.

Lightning:

The theme of this skill tree would be "unlimited power" (burst and aoe). Force lightning and lightning strike are your bread and butter with force storm and chain lightning as your aoe's. You could give up some dps for survability in the form of buffs to lightning shield.

Corruption:

The theme of this skill tree would be life stealing. I feel that the current sorc heals is pretty boring and standard, so it would be fun to add a different mechanism. For the sage mirror you could call it something else like, inspiration, but have the same mechanics.

Afterthought: It would also be nice if our melee attacks worked off willpower...

The sorcerer/sage already has some life leeching abilities:

• Parasitism - Focused Insight
  
• Deathfield - Force in Balance
  
• Devour - Psychic Absorption
  

I would just be moving the life leeching out of madness/balance and making it more central to their healing mechanic...

As an aside, what exactly do you mean melee attacks working off of willpower? If you're talking about the basic striking skill and such, they do use Willpower just like they do for Assassins.

Actually sorc and sage melee attacks don't benefit from willpower at all. They get a small bonus from strength to melee crit and damage, but no willpower bonus like they should.

Here's an example of what I had in mind to make the Lightning tree more bursty:

1. Move madness and wrath to lightning tree (replacing suppression and backlash maybe).
   
2. Increase the damage on Lightning Strike (possibly just when wrath procs) so that it's at least a dps increase on just casting force lightning again.
   
3. Lightning Storm could additionally reset the cooldown on Thundering Blast and make it insta-cast (may need to spec for this).
   

Your ideal rotation would then look like this:

Affliction (procs Barrage) > Force Lightning (procs Wrath) > Lightning Strike (procs Lightning Storm) > Thundering Blast (insta-crit)

I really like the idea of the Sith Sorcerer and I think there are some cool ideas in the skill tree, but I also think it could have been done better. Functionally the Sorcerer performs fine in PvE (though it's DPS is a bit behind), but in PvP it lacks burst and survivability. I have some ideas for how I would change the sorc class:

 

Madness:

The theme of this skill tree should be mental force powers. Less reliance on force lightning and more focus on dots and control to make it more of a support/kiting class. I would probably also pull death field as it seems more physical than mental.

 

Lightning:

The theme of this skill tree would be "unlimited power" (burst and aoe). Force lightning and lightning strike are your bread and butter with force storm and chain lightning as your aoe's. You could give up some dps for survability in the form of buffs to lightning shield.

 

Corruption:

The theme of this skill tree would be life stealing. I feel that the current sorc heals is pretty boring and standard, so it would be fun to add a different mechanism. For the sage mirror you could call it something else like, inspiration, but have the same mechanics.

 

Afterthought: It would also be nice if our melee attacks worked off willpower...

So, in a nutshell, you are asking them to

a. make Madness rely more on dots (of which we have just 3) without actually proposing an increase in damage (as if we aren't already relying on dots and low on DPS)

b. make Madness have no burst ability at all, by removing Deathfield, the one and only ability that does more than 3k instant damage

c. make Madness sorcerers, a light-armor wearing class, (even more) kiting-dependent and easy to kill, esp. for PVP.

And my question is:

Why don't you just ask them to get rid of the Madness tree altogether?

The sorcerer/sage already has some life leeching abilities:

 

• Parasitism - Focused Insight
  
• Deathfield - Force in Balance
  
• Devour - Psychic Absorption
  

 

I would just be moving the life leeching out of madness/balance and making it more central to their healing mechanic...

Okay, I see what you're saying now. Moving abilities from a different tree isn't how I understood it from the first post, what I gathered from the first post originally (which may have been my fault from lack of sleep) was wanting different healing abilities. As for moving abilities around, like someone else said that's not really as viable either because then it detracts from that other tree. Changing other abilities to use this mechanic more for Sorcerers would be a better idea, but that would require a lot more work and fall into the issue I brought up before since it would make things less of a mirror. It is a good idea I think though to find some way to do it.

Actually sorc and sage melee attacks don't benefit from willpower at all. They get a small bonus from strength to melee crit and damage, but no willpower bonus like they should.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that since I haven't started my Sorc/Sage yet like I said before. That really doesn't make much sense then.

So, in a nutshell, you are asking them to

a. make Madness rely more on dots (of which we have just 3) without actually proposing an increase in damage (as if we aren't already relying on dots and low on DPS)

b. make Madness have no burst ability at all, by removing Deathfield, the one and only ability that does more than 3k instant damage

c. make Madness sorcerers, a light-armor wearing class, (even more) kiting-dependent and easy to kill, esp. for PVP.

 

And my question is:

Why don't you just ask them to get rid of the Madness tree altogether?

You might have noticed that my original post was not particularly in depth. That is because it was only intended as an overview. I don't want to gimp the Madness tree, I just want its purpose to be clarified.

Some of the ways I can think of to make Madness a more successful kiting spec include:

1. Increase Survivability - Add a Defensive Cooldown
   
2. Access to more CC - Move Backlash and/or Electric Bindings to Madness
   
3. Increase the DPS of DoTs - Increase damage, reduce duration, immune to purge, add another DoT
   
4. Boost Shock - Make it an execute ability
   

As for deathfield, if it was removed completely it would obviously need to be replaced with something else, but another option is to drop the life steal and then rename it something more appropriate for a mental power e.g. Cloud of Darkness.

EDIT:

Okay, I see what you're saying now. Moving abilities from a different tree isn't how I understood it from the first post, what I gathered from the first post originally (which may have been my fault from lack of sleep) was wanting different healing abilities. As for moving abilities around, like someone else said that's not really as viable either because then it detracts from that other tree. Changing other abilities to use this mechanic more for Sorcerers would be a better idea, but that would require a lot more work and fall into the issue I brought up before since it would make things less of a mirror. It is a good idea I think though to find some way to do it..

I'm sorry to have confused the issue so much

I have talked about moving abilities around between the madness and lightning tree a bit, as well as adding some new abilities in the mix. But for corruption I would pretty much like to revamp the whole skill tree to make it life-drain themed. The "trickle-healing" abilities in madness really aren't that helpful so I'm suggesting they be removed altogether. Although an alternative would be to make the trickle-healing more substantial and leave it where it is.

It would be nice if spamming lightning stike procced by wrath in madness would increase the damage of your DoT's with a self buff. Also the parasitism really needs to heal more and unnatural preservation getting high tier talent where when used you get a damage reduction for 12 seconds.

Lightning, well obviously Thundering blast should flat out be instant and it have those crit talent procs get affected by the spell. Unnatural preservation could consume some of your buffs to give you more health healed. To me it seems like the more I stand there casting my lightning spells the more faster and deadlier I should be until I run out of force or am forced to keep mobile to keep me from dying.

Also more basis sorcerer abilities like force crushing a person with a 1.5 second stun on 12 sec CD to do damage would be nice. I mean Sages and Sorcerors are pure force casters, we really need more basic force like abilities.

Hell it would be nice with willpower affecting our sabres damage output, tie that with force speed so we do like 12 strikes in that instant would be fun and have tumalt affect players with a shorter CD for sorcerors.

Those are just some ideas I am shooting out there.

Actually why not go the other way with madness?

You look at the TP thats allready there and you see numerous drain life and absorb it into yourself type skills, It was the reason i originally picked the class. It reminded me alot of my soul stealing warlock from my WoW days.

So keep the DoTs and keep death field those do "fit" the spec nicely.

Now what you do is give Sorcs a new skill and call it somthing like Devour Soul.. Make it a channled skill same length and damage output as force lightning (un talented). Now remove all talents from madness that involve force lightning and place in new talents that improve "Devour Soul", for example talents could be "absorb a percentage of targets health" and somthing similer "to skill has no CD".... The idea behind this is now this skill becomes madnesses replacement for force lightning... thus giving it more of a uniqueness as opposed to cast DoTs and spam lightning.. draining health should up survivability some more and it keeps its ethos as a life leaching, soul destroying warrior

In general Sorcs need some love in terms of survivability and damage anyway... but this could be a step in the right direction... It isnt even that complex of a change could infact make the animation similer to when you absorb ghosts from force walking.

Plus its way easier for devs to do somthing like this than re-write two whole specs. Which is what your proposing.

They could infact be really lazy and make this skill a re-skin of force lightning and just copy paste the talents over.....just as long as it has some health drain benifit

To me the only skill tree that really canes especially in PVP is the Madness skill tree. Unless you want to be a healer I tried the Lightning skill tree and found the push back on Lightning Strike too dire. The Madness tree will utilize dot abilities as well as constant Force Lightning. This in it self makes the target constantly tic with damage so in situations of PVP you will often get the killing blow, where Lightning strike will often miss the kill shot.

I like the graphics of the Force Lightning as its similar to the Emperor. Their CC is decent with Electrocute and Whirlwind. As well as Force Slow and knock back ability. Although only Light Armor the static barrier comes in handy and from a ranged striking distance Madness Sorcerers can unlessh carnage.

People who complain about Sorcerer in PVP don't utilize their CC, defences,dot and Force Lightning abilities and get a decent ranged position where you can pick off enemies. From level 15 to 30 I got between 1st and 3rd highest kills every time and often very high medals. Although level 35 now in with 54s getting ability/item/skill tree disadvantage I am not doing so well I still do decent in PVP.

I have read people really knock Sith Sorcerer but they do lots of DPS. Maybe a Sniper has a higher DPS but the constant ticing damage is an advantage where a Snipe can miss the kill shot wasting time. At times the Madness Sorcerer has been unstoppable!

People who complain about Sorcerer in PVP don't utilize their CC, defences,dot and Force Lightning abilities and get a decent ranged position where you can pick off enemies. From level 15 to 30 I got between 1st and 3rd highest kills every time and often very high medals. Although level 35 now in with 54s getting ability/item/skill tree disadvantage I am not doing so well I still do decent in PVP.

Ignorance. Pure ignorance. Success in pvp as a sorc relies on being unnoticed because we are so easy to shut down.

I'd like to ask you, what, pray tell, are our defenses? Force Speed? Countered by any class with a root. Static Barrier? That's a heal. Our armor? Rofl. Force Barrier? Great, a 10s self-cc ever 2.5 minutes at best.

We have serious pvp flaws thanks to various nerfs since launch and only the players at the top of our absurdly high skill cap can deal with them consistently. However, watch streams of the top sorcs on the PTS and you'll see that even these most-skilled players face hard counters in roots and have to be babysat by their teammates. Meanwhile, the other ranged dps classes aren't quite so squishy or easy to shut down.

Here's an example of what I had in mind to make the Lightning tree more bursty:

1. Move madness and wrath to lightning tree (replacing suppression and backlash maybe).
   
2. Increase the damage on Lightning Strike (possibly just when wrath procs) so that it's at least a dps increase on just casting force lightning again.
   
3. Lightning Storm could additionally reset the cooldown on Thundering Blast and make it insta-cast (may need to spec for this).
   

 

Your ideal rotation would then look like this:

Affliction (procs Barrage) > Force Lightning (procs Wrath) > Lightning Strike (procs Lightning Storm) > Thundering Blast (insta-crit)

So basically, you want to:

Take away two of Madness's best abilities, including the one that has its name.

As you said before, take away the survivability of Madness through removing the drain healing stuff, including death field which does good damage and increases the dot.

Give it some bad PvP CC stuff to make up for taking away a ton of its dps.

Increase Lightning's dps even more after giving it two great abilities to go along with what it already has.

And just for good measure give lightning more dps by turning the 2 second cast auto crit into an instant auto crit.

Why didn't you just say I want them to nerf Madness to be incredibly terrible in PvP and completely worthless in PvE, forcing all sorc dps to play lightning, which I want to be made incredibly OP? Or even just say I want them to get rid of madness and give all its good abilities to lightning?

I don't want to have to play Lightning .

Sorcerers would be an ideal class for a lot of off-healing,

Like Madness you get 1% of each crit you give from your DoT's attack,

You create a AOE around yourself and each damage your doing/Healing your ally's it heals 1% to you and anyone in your Healing Field.

That extra heal could make in a long fight the difference between getting wiped and survive