Purely for leveling what spec is working best atm.

For leveling, Lightning is much better. Quick/Burst~y.. For longer fights, Madness tends to Parse better (maybe not anymore, not sure), but for leveling, I'd strongly go with Lightning. I even use it for Planetary Heroics, super easy.

As someone who's main is a Sage and alt-main is a Sorc I would definitely go telekinetics/lightning for PVE leveling. I've tried both, and perhaps others have had better success, but for myself the burst damage of lightning is far superior to the DOT damage of madness. When leveling you tend to have a lot of weak mobs in groups and the burst damage of using hard cast chain lightning, followed by force storm, immediately followed by another chain lightning* will clear most weak and standard mobs and take a large chunk of HP from strong mobs. This works especially well if you set you companion to tank mode and allow them to gather the mobs together.

 

* Lightning Storm, granted at level 12, allows an instant cast of chain lightning following a force storm.

Edited February 22, 2018 by ceryxp

For PVE, and other content I would still say Madness. Really if you are just doing solo content, with a companion healing, there are times you only need force lighting or Aoe without touching another ability.

for pve i say madness

i use mostly a tanker comp that can pull all mops close together

 

and then i use 1 DOT skill and with dealt field i spread the DOT

some times death field can crit nice to i had some time i do so 11K+ crit

most mops die right away

 

and with some stronger mops i use force lighting till my demolish pop up and finest them off

even if the dps is weaker atm then most classes i stile have a great time with this class

 

only bummer is not many want a sorc dps in ops duo our low dps

even my guild say it ore pick a other class ore play sorc healer

 

so in terms BW need to look again to the sorc/saga class

for pve i say madness

i use mostly a tanker comp that can pull all mops close together

 

and then i use 1 DOT skill and with dealt field i spread the DOT

some times death field can crit nice to i had some time i do so 11K+ crit

most mops die right away

 

and with some stronger mops i use force lighting till my demolish pop up and finest them off

even if the dps is weaker atm then most classes i stile have a great time with this class

 

only bummer is not many want a sorc dps in ops duo our low dps

even my guild say it ore pick a other class ore play sorc healer

 

so in terms BW need to look again to the sorc/saga class

 

In Lightning: Chain Lightning -> Force Storm -> Chain Lightning (or often just the last 2) can kill off literally any trash you meet in open world. Madness can only pull off better numbers in long AoE fights in ops where it can spread both DoTs consistently and for a long time.

 

Everyone who says Madness is better for leveling/general story gameplay/dailies/even heroics is just inexperienced with Lightning. (Have you even tried it? To me it makes no sense why would I play almost ANY DoT class outside of Ops and PvP/world bosses/basically only long fights with fat mobs)

 

As to Sorc DPS being weak. As many times said in these forums, there are quite a few good sorcs who cleared all Nim fights. It's definitely more difficult than on most other specs but if you are good, it's totally doable.

 

People who don't want to take a sorc DPS in their runs, usually are just bad themselves and just need someone to carry them. Indeed, sorc isn't a carry but it can pull enough to not need to be carried by others.

 

I personally can pull bigger numbers on my sorc than like 90% of random pugs you meet in ops... Those guys have no right to call you out on playing a sorc. And players in Nim guilds who can easily beat my sorc by numbers? Well, then we are all good for DPS checks. if they pull even more than me while I pull enough, we are not gonna enrage.

For solo stuff I still prefer lightning. Way more AOE options vs mobs. Sure single combat vs bosses can be a bit of a pain, but still plenty doable.

 

PvP yeah I'd probably flip to madness.

 

For group content, healer. Can't tell you how many times in get thanked for bringing my healer in.

For solo stuff I still prefer lightning. Way more AOE options vs mobs. Sure single combat vs bosses can be a bit of a pain, but still plenty doable.

 

PvP yeah I'd probably flip to madness.

 

For group content, healer. Can't tell you how many times in get thanked for bringing my healer in.

Put your companion on damage. Sorc has the tools to keep you and him alive pretty good while you blaze through content. Bosses can't damage you when they die in a matter of seconds

for pve i say madness

i use mostly a tanker comp that can pull all mops close together

 

and then i use 1 DOT skill and with dealt field i spread the DOT

some times death field can crit nice to i had some time i do so 11K+ crit

most mops die right away

 

and with some stronger mops i use force lighting till my demolish pop up and finest them off

even if the dps is weaker atm then most classes i stile have a great time with this class

 

only bummer is not many want a sorc dps in ops duo our low dps

even my guild say it ore pick a other class ore play sorc healer

 

so in terms BW need to look again to the sorc/saga class

 

Your guild sounds rather elitist to me, if they tell me to heal instead of dps, i would say no and if they try to force the issue, i would just leave the guild.

 

Overall, people just take the game WAY too seriously and in the end, most players that are elitist tend to want to always succeed as fast as possible with as little effort as possible and if anything or anyone threatens their precious need to finish with as little effort as possible, as fast as possible, they kick them out.

 

So very sad

 

In the end, if there is a problem with Sage or Sorcerer dps, then bioware needs to get off their lazy and clearly absentminded butts and buff them up.