Healing Sorc

1) I'd say other classes perceive us as target number one without a good tank. Easy and quick to kill.

2) I think our class is based on our ability to kite to survive, but it is extremely difficult when all of my abilities take a significant amount of time to cast/channel. If I'm kiting the one opponent, then I'm not healing anyone else with the exception of throwing random static barriers. I'm essentially guard dependent in PVP. PVE I'm good.

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

Madness spec - A free kill for any class. Only good for "utility" (in other words a couple of flashy gimmicks like force speed, force pull). In one word: weak.

Healing Spec: Static easy kill, easy to interrupt, easy to lock down, dead in seconds.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Madness Spec: Weak DPS class, too easy too kill, all glass with no cannon. Not wanted in rated war zones AT ALL. Not enough burst damage for PVP, not enough sustained damage for PVE. DoTs tick far too long and are easily cleansed. Very often out of force if we survive more than 30 seconds in a battle (pretty unlikely at higher level). No longer played after valor rank 80 - as I wanted to DPS! - .so I rolled both a mara and a pyro, the difference in DPS and survivability is night and day.

Healing Spec: Worst healing class in PVP, too many long hard casts, not enough on the move casts and instants that count. Essentially in PVP I felt like a Sentinel magnet, sorc healer appears and 2 or 3 Sentinels will instantly fly to you for the easy kill, usually within the time I can cast a bubble and start a hard heal. No longer played either - I rolled an Operative healer for PVP instead - I wanted to HEAL, not spend my life behind the respawn barrier - again the difference is night and day.

1. Lightning DPS: Target and kill otherwise don't worry

2. I love my spec but I do feel considerably weaker compared to my gunslinger

1. People seem to remain concerned that corruption sorceror's aren't really up to par as healers.

2. I find corruption sorceror's to be good healers provided I am able to constantly focus on healing. I can hardly do any healing if I have to move a lot, or if my healing target is getting out of my range, forcing me to move a lot. A 2 second cast time feels very slow.

1- I don't pvp but I know this is where most perceive sorcerors to be weak, especially healers (which is what I play). For PVE I think sorcerors are still sought after for healers.

2 - As a healer I think my spec is fine, although I would like a faster cast for DI, even if it was triggered by another ability and had a cooldown. Something that could be used in extreme emergencies. Aside from that I find everything about my healer to be quite fun.

Hi I play lightning Sorcerer and here are my answers

1) In warzones they usually see me as their potential doom and so target & attack me first, probably because of my fast and very high damage output.

2) I love my advanced class, the only thing I kind of don't like is that almost all of my "spells" are lightning-based and so there is little visual distinction between them.

Healing Hybrid Sorc

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

In Rated Warzones Sorcs are perceived as the "weak link of the chain". We annoy people when we are left to freecast but we are easily shutdown, especially by Pyro specced Powertechs. We are a kiting class that lacks powerful heals on the run, which makes our kiting capacity very awkard because we have to stop to heal and when we stop we are dead. We dont have tools to do our job.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Incredibly fun and intuitive, i myself like the support playstile the sorc gives me but i feel i dont have the tools to do my job properly. I feel im shutdown too easily, because basically everything i do to escape and kite is counterable by the most elementary skills any class has.

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes? Hunted in PvP to kill the Heal0rz even when you're DPS. Heavy hitter in ops

2. How do you perceive your own spec? Glass Cannon. Great in ops, Useless in PvP.

I don't PVP so these are pure PVE comments.

1. I believe a lot of people see the Sorcerer as the best healer in PVE, there was a huge discussion about this in general chat on the fleet one evening and a lot of people seemed to be under the impression that the Sorcerer was the best PVE healer and that the Operative was the best PVP healer.

2. I believe that the Sorcerer has the best aoe healing and probably the second best single target healing not far behind the Operative. We do however lack a lifesaving ability that can be used when someone is about to die except for the Static Barrier, may i propose a change to Recklessness perhaps from the healing skill tree that only makes it work on one skill instead of two but also makes the next skill activate without a casting time.

About the advanced class: Generally I feel that people don't really have enough knowledge/insight to the class they don't play to give any valuable feedback regarding specific talent specs. So when you ask what do I think how they perceive a spec I play, all I can really say is that they rather have a general perception of the advanced class as a whole. They don't really perceive the different specs differently (apart from healing/dps).

The general perception for madness / hybrid DPS in PvP is that it is the best spec to play, however it has very little burst and in general people think that sorcerers have very low survivability.

I myself think about sorcerer as an advanced class in a way that we have really good mobility both PvE and PvP. In PvP aoe damage is really good, probably best in game, however single target burst is majorly lacking compared to other classes. In PvE now after the stacking armor debuffs got fixed, things got better, but our single target damage still feels a little off compared to other classes.

This is the spec I play mostly in rated warzones and in non progress (aka farm) pve since I don't want to pay every time to respec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201hMbZMsMMdRMZcMcRs0z.2

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

Since this is a spec that was used before the wrath + cl nerf, it is mostly perceived as an outdated spec. In rated warzones I don't think people realize how much aoe damage this spec brings, and I feel people tend to let me force storm a lot without bothering to interrupt or lock me down.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I think this spec is pretty good for rated warzones. It has high mobility and can keep up continues aoe for a long time to keep interrupting people who try to capture control nodes. However like all the specs, this spec lacks burst as well. (Obviously disregarding lightning because it is not viable in serious rated warzones)

This is the spec I play mostly during PvE progress:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201oZccMMbZfMfRs0krc.2

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

People recognize this as the hybrid spec correctly. My guildies know when I play this spec in PvE that I'll bring excellent multidotting capability, but my single target dps is still not among the best compared to other classes.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I know this is still a subpar dps spec compared to BiS lightning, but I'm lot more comfortable playing this than lightning, since this spec offers lot more mobility and survivability.

This is the spec I play in PvE when I have to heal:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GGrRrb0dGzZf00MZ0M.2

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

I think anyone who knows a little about sorcers recognize a spec like this as the generic PvE healing spec. I never felt that my guildies had any complaint when I played a healer, so I don't really feel they perceive healing sorcerers negatively in PvE.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I feel like there is just not much variety to sorc PvE healing. Also I feel like if you stand in double aoe healing you can easily use consuption to get back to full force.

Hi everyone,

 

We’re looking for some specific feedback about each Advanced Class and spec. Your feedback here, along with other feedback we’ve been gathering and our internal metrics, may guide future class balance changes. Similar threads will be found in every Advanced Class forum.

 

Here are the two questions that we’d like to ask (please only post about specific specs that you actively play, and don’t forget to tell us which one you’re talking about!):

 

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Please answer the post using the same format and in no more than 2-3 sentences per question.

 

This is not a discussion thread, so please do not debate others’ feedback – everyone gets to share what they think. Any off-topic or unconstructive posts (or any that do not follow the above guidelines) will be removed without warning.

 

Remember, this isn’t the only thread we’re looking at for feedback – if you have more feedback than fits the above guidelines, please feel free to post a discussion thread. We’re looking to get some specific insights here, but we are always reading the forums to gather feedback and player concerns.

 

Thank you!

1. She's a Sorcerer. She can do everything but tank.

2. I'm a Sorcerer, I do what I want.

I play as a Madness Sorc and PVP exclusively

How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

PVP: I often find myself focus fired down early in multi player clashes. This leads me to believe that I am perceived as both a threat and easy kill relative to other classes. It also seems clear that my DOT's (main theme of my talent tree) are viewed as a minor irritant and often aren't even bothered to be purged.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

PVP: Frustratingly close to good. I see the spec as week in that I can be killed within a 2 stun chain if my break is on CD and while being a dps class cannot return such a favor. I also see a weekness in the spec in having to use the mouse for our main nuke which is a large disadvantage to specs that can keybind all abilities.

Hi, I am a Lightning spec Sorcerer.

1) Our final ability, Thundering Blast, seems a bit weak even with the automatic crit we get from casting our target with affliction.

2) Our class lacks the maneuverability needed in PVP and some instances of PVE. While our damage is high, it becomes zero once we are forced to kite and run. Even though we are forced into place to cast our Force powers, we are too squishy to actually just stand there and let other classes hit us. We also can only be most effective in certain positions and even then we do not have access or range to the whole battlefield hot spot.

3) Our class currently has abilities that are a must have for most specs and have caused Sorcerers to become multiple hybrid specs, which is something your development team discourages. This causes Lightning to just be the spec that left over points go to for the need Passive abilities.

4) Alacrity is one of the only ways for us to reduce our ridiculously long cast times that can still suffer interruptions, losing line of sight from our position (see 2), be pushed back by damage during casting, and can not be completed because we die before it is fully cast. Even though this reduces cast time, it is rather minimal for the amount we stack up and also accelerates how fast we lose our regeneration. A Sorc that manages well can slow down our depletion but makes alacrity seem unviable compared to power or critical rating, two other abilities that may be considered essential to Lightning spec Sorcerers.

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These four issues need to be addressed. A way to help this would to be to allow Shock to trigger our free Chain Lightning so while on the move, we can at least have a chance for a free burst of damage on a class dogging us and not just wait until Shock finishes cooldown for it to give such minimal damage.

On the other hand, since Lightning Strike is a necessary filler for Lightning Sorcerers. You could allow one of our Passive abilities to modify how Lightning Strike works (I would recommend this further up in the tree so hybrid specs cannot attain it easily).

Currently Lightning Strike interrupts whenever we move out of our casting spot. How about the Passive ability allows the ability to not interrupt and keep casting. It will be an ability that has to go through once we press the button to use it. Since the Lightning Sorcerer rotation requires us to spam pressing our 1 key to use it anyway, it will not hinder how the class is played since anyone who would want to move to interrupt it would just be a know-nothing who is ignorant of how the class works.

With this and Shock being able to trigger our free Chain Lightning, the class maneuverability would be solved.

We would then be limited to not being able to use Thundering Blast and Crushing Darkness, two big abilities in our rotation that (if Thundering Blast is buffered) will be a big hit to our DPS while not completely crippling it.

Also, on the topic of Crushing Darkness. The ability itself works fine but the sound effect is terrible. I am an auditory player, so I like to watch my opponent and listen to my abilities as they activate instead of watching a cast timer charge up my Force power. All of Lightning Spec has a distinct sound the but the Sith Inquisitor does not have a sound effect for Crushing Darkness other than for the opponent who has it cast on them. That opponent needs to be close by for me to hear it.

Therefore, I can suddenly feel confused when I go from hearing the constant jolts of Lightning Strike, Affliction, Chain Lightning, and Thundering Blast, to hearing an absolute silence for over 2 seconds. A sound effect for when we are casting the power would help keep the flow and focus of the player who is taken aback by the sudden silence. This silence can be interrupted as being out of range or lose sight of the target or not facing them and can confuse the player.

Buff Thundering Blast in some way to help its damage output more and giving alacrity a more viable benefit would do wonders to helping the class be used as a full spec more often than just a hybrid spec.

Thank you for your time to hear my feedback on one spec for Sorcerers.

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

I think other players see us as an easy class to play because we have a high amount of force at the start of every battle, in PvP a quick kill, In PvE an almost limitless healing bank, and if we run out of healing then its our fault for not managing our abilities correctly.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

A weak but fun spec to play. The SI story as a whole was a bit of a let down and I didn't feel like a cunning genius more of like tomb raider with lightning. I enjoy the spec because it feels powerful due to shooting lightning from my figures not because of burst damage or survivability.

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

I play corruption, and in PVP I feel like I'm perceived as a fairly certain kill, but a time-consuming one. In PVE there's really nothing anyone has against us or for us as far as I know.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Previously having played a Commando Medic spec, I feel like it's a step up in difficulty what with having to manage consumption, force bending, innervate crits and the like, but I also feel like I have a lot more utility and options in a tight situation, especially in the AOE department.

1. From the folks I know, sorcs are generally considered decent, consistent ranged dps. However, they don't have a lot of burst, and they're the squishiest advanced class. Maybe it's the cloth, or the fact that we're not behind a sniper's screen, or the lack of any defensive cooldown outside of static barrier (which may already have already been applied by a healer), but it's well understood by everyone I know and hear from that sorcs are pretty much the squishiest dps right now.

The rest of my guild doesn't think sorcs are very strong dps, but they hold me as the exception (but my gear is about as optimized as you can get in the current content). I still consistently lag behind our top two marauders on most boss fights, but I jockey back and forth with our good sniper, so I feel like we're in a pretty good place. But because marauders are perceived to be so awesome right now, they get put in the same group to benefit from each other's blood thirst. And since the ranged dps don't get that buff (which I believe is the only buff/debuff that applies to other people, but only in a single group), this widens the damage gap.

But whether the perceptions create a problem or not, sorcs are perceived by folks I know as potentially decent ranged dps, but less dps than a good marauder, and the dps with the weakest survivability.

2. My perceptions bled into my assessment of my guild's/other people's perceptions of sorcs, but the thing I like about sorc dps is that it's extremely consistent and can go forever. I raid lightning spec, and I can go full tilt for as long as I want. I can afford to use lightning storm, static barrier and whatever, and it won't put a significant dent in my resources. I suppose other classes don't use resources for their defensive cooldowns, but it's still nice. When I'm on my sniper, I have to watch my energy level a lot more carefully.

I also think that lightning sorcs bring some of the strongest aoe in the game. It doesn't come up that often in raid encounters, but I think it's because of the Kephess add groups that I can end up with higher damage done than our top marauder at the end of the fight. Can't necessarily say the same for other encounters, unless it's an encounter that punishes melee.

I often hear it said that sorcs bring a lot of utility, but I kind of wonder about that. We can cc anything, and it's a cc that's usable in combat, which is very nice. But it's not worth much in a 16 man raid. Extricate can be useful in certain situations, but it's not quite the same as a sniper raid shield, a marauder blood thirst/ predation, or a class that can taunt/off tank if need be. I guess we can throw some slow heals out occasionally, and cleanse some things. My point here is that I often hear sorcs described as having high utility, but I'm not really seeing it in a raiding setting. Not compared to other advanced classes. The biggest thing I think we bring is that we can stop dps for a while and heal ourselves if the healers are over taxed. Same as mercs and ops. But we also take more damage than other classes, so it's a mixed positive.

In the end, I still really like sorcerers. I prefer the ranged play style in general, and I like lightning shooting out of my fingers. I also like having the option of respecing heals if need be for the needs of the raid. I guess I mainly just wish we didn't take quite as much damage and could bring some kind of raid buff the way marauders do (or I'd like it if we could benefit from their blood thirsts).

But that's my two cents.

Healer

1. Others percieve us as a free kill in pvp, and as a waste of a party slot in flashpoints/ops. We have the lowest survivability of the healers, and pretty crappy healing output since the 1.2 nuke. Fixing the double dip bug was fine (wasn't a nerf at all, just a bug fix that should have happened long ago). Changing consumption the way you did was over the top. It is a useless skill that will barely give back enough force to heal ourselves for the damage we did to ourselves to get the force, so we can use it again, and heal ourselves again....

2. I still like the class (have been playing healer types since the earliest days of EQ), but am now pretty much restricted to solo pve, as we are pretty much not wanted in groups or pvp (except by the other side).

If I could make a suggestion, instead of nerfing the so-called 'overperforming' classes, you guys should try buffing the so-called 'underperforming' ones. Flailing about with the nerf bat in response to bad pvp players is the main reason this game is hemhoragging subscriptions.

Spec: Corruption

PVP

1. Squishy healer class. Ops have vanish/hots and a BH is beefier, so why take a sorc?

2. Awesome healer simply because of force speed. Great utility but not a stand still and heal class. Force camo or vanish would more then balance us with ops.

from healers point of view

1. In pvp they see sorcerers as a free kill we are squishy with zero defensive cool-downs, that coupled with that fact that if left alone we can be very good makes us target #1 so we are Constantly focus fired, interrupted, and stunned. In pvp we are supposed to kite to survive, but we have very few kiting abilities, we have utility but are to squishy to make it that helpful and most groups would prefer a different class over us in rated warzones. In PVE we are seen as a slow but reliable healer that can heal through a battle with force to spare, we have great AoE but lack a little in the burst healing department.

2 In pvp we are greatly lacking survive-ability and to easily interrupted we have to be chained to a tank, but with the amount of dps/cc/interrupts in this game a good team can still easily kill sorcerers I suggest we get a uninterrupt-able CD that lasts for 10 seconds and change recklessness to making the next 2 moves instant cast and reduced the cooldown on force slow to 3 seconds. In PvE we are doing pretty good my only complaint is to make consumption no longer on the GCD.

this all comes from a 4/4 EC HM and 3/5 war-hero player

Oh, now THAT is just opening a can of worms...

Other classes perceive us a weak, particularly in PvP.

I myself perceive us (all specs, actually) as ungainly and awkward in many ways. We're not necessary underpowered (though the sims show we're a solid 10-12% behind several other classes), but many of our mechanics just feel unwieldy, as if they are a rough draft of a more finished product. Examples are:

• Wrath only being useful on CD every 15 seconds, despite having a proc rate that means it's almost always up within a couples seconds of use.
  
• Reverberating Force not having the base filler for the spec included in its buff (which just feels incomplete).
  
• Corruption being based around burning GCDs on Consumption, dropping their own HP to maintain efficiency. A more elegant solution would be to simply have Innervate restore Force on tick or on crit tick (either with an ICD, or more fluidly a lower amount on every crit or tick).
  
• The AC being based around mobility and avoidance as its survivability mechanism, but having a solid delay on its knockback and all 3 specs with extremely limited mobile DPS (much of which is due to the lack of a ranged "basic" attack).
  
• All damage specs having border-line Force sustainability issues, also due to the lack of a free "basic" attack. Other classes can moderate their use of resource-consuming abilities and weave in more basic attacks if they need to use resources on utility. Sorcs simply have a limited amount of "excess" Force, which is an inverse function of fight length in most cases, and that's it. Most specs don't really have much in the way of options for regening Force. Add to this the lack of a rapid-regeneration CD (akin to Vent Heat or Adrenaline Probe), and there are issues.
  
• The lack of a burst mitigation CD really augments the PvP view of Sorcs as extremely squishy and easy burst kills. If we're not gunna have the armor, and mobility is going to be so easy to negate, we need an emergency mitigation cooldown.

The list is more extensive than that, but those are the key points.

Edit: Thank you CMs for posting this before I lost the ability to respond to it. Maybe without Zoeller around, y'all will be willing to take a bit more advice and input from your community...

Percieved by others as short-term, squishy, healers best at huttball games.

I percieve myself as an AOE healer.

Madness (PVE):

1. I think others view this spec as average DPS in the raid environment. No real utility except being able to throw out an odd heal/shield.

2. I found madness incredibly boring to play on raids. It's just a very simple spec and I don't think that a really good player and an average player will differ much on this class because it's so easy to master.

Lightning (PVE)

1. I think others view this spec as average DPS in the raid environment with good AOE damage.

2. While I like that lightning has more to do than madness, it feels chaotic and disconnected from a central "lightning" theme.

PVP

1. Sorcs are the squishiest class in the game and when focused have no cooldowns to save them. A very good pick for a first target in a warzone.

2. Healing: Sorcs can do the highest hps of any of the three healers if they are left alone. However, in pvp being left alone as a sorc healer rarely, if ever, happens. In order to get the ability to kite people as a sorc healer, I have to go half way up the lightning tree. This lowers my healing by quite a bit. In the 21/20/0 spec I currently use for ranked pvp, to get the utility I need to stay alive, I lose my aoe heal, 6 percent willpower, 2 percent damage reduction, 2 percent increase to total healing, and 6 percent bonus healing. Either sorcs need a defensive cooldown, better kiting abilities, or innervate needs to be changed back to where it no grants a consumption at no health cost. Given the change to how force bending works and how the double proc from force bending was fixed in 1.3, sorc healing has been significantly decreased. Adding the fact that a full healing sorc must hurt itself to regain force really hurts in pvp when being focus fired.

I do not believe much needs to be done to put sorc healers in a good spot overall as a healer. Just 1 maybe 2 minute changes to survivability would put sorcs in line with other healers.

Dps: In ranked pvp sorcs do not have a way to spec into burst damage. This makes them a poor choice as a dps class for a rated team. The only reason someone would take a sorcerer dps would be for utility purposes only. Having a sorc in huttball makes your team much better. Sorcs can also spec into a nice insta cc whirlwind and with full madness can have a 30 meter 2 sec root on a 9 sec cd. All of which can be very nice additions to a team. However, many teams are choosing either a second marauder or powertech over a sorcerer because since the sorc has next to no survivability, the utility gain is minimal as the sorc is probably going to spend a lot of the game behind the force field. Most teams would rather have the extra survivability and utility of a marauder or the extra damage of a powertech over a sorcerer anyday.

Hi everyone,

1. How do you think your Sorcerer spec is perceived by other classes?

I have to say I really don't care what other people think of the Sorc. Their opinions matter not in the slightest as to my enjoyment of the class.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I'm quite fond of it. I have two sorcs, one Lightning spec (I'll flip to Madness for PVP, but I play Lightning for PVE) and one Corruption (PVE-only). In my opinion, with no numbers to back this up, Madness feels fine for PVP. As a DOT class, mobility is high, which is essential in PVP. There's enough damage floating around to not make me feel completely useless. However, I am concerned that one spell shuts down a Madness sorc's DPS cold.

Cleanse.

No DOTs, no damage.

Corruption is a very fun healspec and I enjoy it a great deal. I put out nice healing numbers, my Purple Piddle Puddle of Healing works quite nicely, and when I'm on the move I've got my bubble and my insta-cast heal. Sure, they don't hit for a lot, but so far (Heroic flashpoints and lesser content) it's served me well.

Lightning can hit like a truck, and I played an Elemental shaman in WoW so a Lightning-spec sorcerer felt quite natural to me. They do suffer in the mobility department, having only a DOT and a Force-eating Shock to use while you have to move. But I do like the proc-based system giving some flexibility to the turret-like nature of the spec. Bubble to add some longevity, some off-spec healing if I really get up the creek without a paddle, and reasonably good DPS numbers (I presume. I lack the data to do any sort of a worthwhile comparison).