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Telekinetics Sage and You


Grimsblood

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Since the changes in 1.2 to the Hybrid Sage build (Which was just about the most fun you will ever have playing a Sage) I have moved my interests into the Telekinetics tree. This tree is arguably one of the better burst and AoE tree's out there to date. Not to mention the ease of resource management.

 

However, I feel we are lacking for sustained dps in an operation (Before we get into if it is viable or not/what SimC says for numbers; I challenge anyone to take 4 Telekinetic Speced Sages into HM TFB and not hit an enrage timer on a single boss.). I have personally ran a number of my own Sim Crafts for my sage and others in different gearing and what not for my own reasons. Sim Crafts results are pretty solid and consistent for the program. But not for live play. I consider myself a pretty good player for the Sage Sepcs (For crying out loud I can come with 50 dps of the theoretical max for Hybrid and Balance Specs!).

 

Last night as I was parsing and messing around with some Commandos withing my guild I discovered that Telekinetic Wave and Disturbance to not hit for their tool-tip values. I began to look deeper into the problem and came to the conclusion of damage type being the cause (Some may or may not know about it). Turbulence and Weaken Mind do internal damage; where Telekinetic Wave, Disturbance and Mind Crush do kinetic damage. What this means is the attacks doing internal damage are not affected by Damage Reduction from armor values. The kinetic damaging attacks are affected by that value.

 

With that said, move over into the Balance Tree. Both of the abilities you pick up do internal damage. That brings the total to 3 abilities from balance that are not affected by armor pen. Only the filler ability is. I think that either Telekinetic Wave or Disturbance should have its damage type changed to internal. This would move our damage numbers just far enough up the curve to run 4 Telekinetic Sage's within the same 8 Man (If both were moved I fear we would be out-performing other classes. I can easily pull 2k+ dps on the ops dummy that is without an Armor rating.)

Edited by Grimsblood
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All DPS classes have significant damage mechanics that are mitigated by armor. Even balance. Some of them are farther down this road than others. Gunnery commandos, for example, have exactly zero main rotation attacks that deal internal damage. The game is balanced with this in mind.

 

SimC says a fully min-maxed Campaign-tier TK sage will do about 1850 DPS. Looking at my own parses, I can absolutely believe those numbers. So, with the assumption that this is accurate, let's consider the results if you brought 4 TK sages into HM TfB. Altogether, that's 7400 DPS. Add in the tanks and we're at an even 9000. Assuming they were allowed to burn the boss uninterrupted for the full duration of the fight, they would kill Writhing Horror (at 1.76M HP) in 3 minutes, 15.5 seconds. Of course, that's not quite how the fight works. Writhing Horror has periods of downtime where you kill adds and the male. In my experience, this downtime is between 15 and 20 seconds. Lets be cruel and assume 20. At 4 males, that's 80 seconds of downtime, meaning the boss will die at the 4 minute, 35 second mark. That's more than a minute ahead of the enrage timer.

 

TK is in a fine place as a spec. We do get out-DPSed by sentinels, gunslingers and vanguards, but we're neck and neck with everyone else. I wouldn't hesitate to bring 4 TK sages into an op, so long as they're geared and competent.

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All DPS classes have significant damage mechanics that are mitigated by armor. Even balance. Some of them are farther down this road than others. Gunnery commandos, for example, have exactly zero main rotation attacks that deal internal damage. The game is balanced with this in mind.

 

SimC says a fully min-maxed Campaign-tier TK sage will do about 1850 DPS. Looking at my own parses, I can absolutely believe those numbers. So, with the assumption that this is accurate, let's consider the results if you brought 4 TK sages into HM TfB. Altogether, that's 7400 DPS. Add in the tanks and we're at an even 9000. Assuming they were allowed to burn the boss uninterrupted for the full duration of the fight, they would kill Writhing Horror (at 1.76M HP) in 3 minutes, 15.5 seconds. Of course, that's not quite how the fight works. Writhing Horror has periods of downtime where you kill adds and the male. In my experience, this downtime is between 15 and 20 seconds. Lets be cruel and assume 20. At 4 males, that's 80 seconds of downtime, meaning the boss will die at the 4 minute, 35 second mark. That's more than a minute ahead of the enrage timer.

 

TK is in a fine place as a spec. We do get out-DPSed by sentinels, gunslingers and vanguards, but we're neck and neck with everyone else. I wouldn't hesitate to bring 4 TK sages into an op, so long as they're geared and competent.

 

I am speaking directly to the difference between Sage specs. The only two moves in balance that are not internal are TK Throw and Mind Crush. Both of which are used regularly in TK. However both of the abilities we pick up from the balance tree are internal. Moving into TK one move is internal, the other is kinetic. We use a filler ability that we do not for Balance that is kinetic. Personally I feel making TK Wave internal would make that move OP (The ability it hit 5 targets for 5k+ in one GCD can be abused as a powerful nuke). That is why I think Disturbance should be the one. The move does not have a good output for filler abilities. We only use it to maintain Tremors.

 

Hell, if you want to get technical in comparing classes let's take a look at the Gunnery Commando since they are both turret classes.

 

A)

 

Grav Round used as the filler ability and chance to proc curtain of fire. (45% Chance for a +25% Damage Increase

Distrubance used as a filler ability and chance to proc Tremors . (30% Chance for a +1% Force Bonus Damage, stacks up to 3 times. 30% Chance to Proc Instant TK Wave, only one every 10 seconds.)

 

Verdict: Grav Round hits harder then Disturbance to begin with. Grav Round Procs the damage increase more reliably.

 

B)

 

Demo Round and High Impact bolt. The two "extra damaging abilities". Always there on CD. Hit for 4-5k for a crit.

TK Wave and Psychic Projection TK Throw. Hits for 4-5k for a crit. NOT always there. Can only be used a maximum of once every 10 seconds assuming the procs...well.....PROC. Not reliable and causes huge discrepancies.

 

Verdict: Demo Round and High Impact bolt are more reliable.

 

C)

 

Full Auto and Curtain of Fire. Full Auto is a 3 Second Channel. All the damage comes from this move. Curtain of fire increases this.

 

Turbulence. Ability to have a forced crit for 5k every time. Good damage for cast time.

 

Verdict: Even though I believe Full Auto does more damage (Do not have the numbers in front of me), I will call them equal due to DPC and forced crits.

 

 

 

As we look at the comparisons, it is quit evident that deeper into the tree the two specs start to equal each other. However, early on they do not. Those fillers is what makes the differences for sustained dps on a more burst oriented class. If Disturbance was changed to internal damage the would even out with a difference play style.

 

Even though High Impact Bolt and Demo round out perform TK Wave and TK Throw due to their reliability, I wouldn't change those proc chances because having to maintain and utilize the procs are what make the spec fun.

 

 

 

On a side note here. I have seen one TK Sage parse that has hit 2k dps. I have NOT seen any others. That parse is an outlier. I personally have a min/maxed TK Sage. I can not get over 1600 Sustained. Just because I can not, doesn't mean someone else has. However, where is the problem I have.....proc dependency. If nothing procs the damage stays low. Since this can happen I feel if the filler is changed to internal it would make a small enough difference to change the end result.

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