I just re-subbed like 3 days ago. Been about a year + since I played. My main was an Arsenal Merc in pvp with Madness being a close second. It's funny that at that time I loved Merc dps but they had crap DCD's, look at em now!!! Madness was also pretty strong then as well. My gear obviously is not that good, still working on just getting 230. Is there a significant damage increase when at 248? I feel like after I get my Creeping Terror/Aff, Deathfield, and a proc'd Demolish my dot's don't do jack. By that time, whoever it is, realizes I'm hitting them and they proceed to kick my face in as I have to stand there and hard cast Force Leech or Force Lightning. I've been getting a lot better at kiting but as soon as someone gets to me, I take massive amounts of damage. Would love to see a race between arsenal and madness, facing each other and just free casting and see who wins. Pretty sure the answer is overly obvious there. So please, you experienced, geared madness vets....... does it get better? Edited July 31, 2017 by -Solace-

I just re-subbed like 3 days ago. Been about a year + since I played. My main was an Arsenal Merc in pvp with Madness being a close second. It's funny that at that time I loved Merc dps but they had crap DCD's, look at em now!!! Madness was also pretty strong then as well. My gear obviously is not that good, still working on just getting 230. Is there a significant damage increase when at 248? I feel like after I get my Creeping Terror/Aff, Deathfield, and a proc'd Demolish my dot's don't do jack. By that time, whoever it is, realizes I'm hitting them and they proceed to kick my face in as I have to stand there and hard cast Force Leech or Force Lightning. I've been getting a lot better at kiting but as soon as someone gets to me, I take massive amounts of damage. Would love to see a race between arsenal and madness, facing each other and just free casting and see who wins. Pretty sure the answer is overly obvious there. So please, you experienced, geared madness vets....... does it get better?

 

Yes with 248 gear and the right stat allocation (1800 crit, 1000alac rest power/mastery) it is OK but nothing special unlike in patch 4. You can fluff your way to top of regs scoreboard if you are left unchecked but your single target pressure is very mediocre if not just plain "bad". Also DcDs are such that if you get focused by one competent dps player like Mara and you spend half time running/healing and half time throwing a dot or two. Two dps on you and you can forget about doing anything productive. Basically in 4.0 you had pressure damage, now you have fluff damage. Damage was never the issue on Madness, it's self healing was a bit overtuned. Now you don't have either really.

Yes with 248 gear and the right stat allocation (1800 crit, 1000alac rest power/mastery) it is OK but nothing special unlike in patch 4. You can fluff your way to top of regs scoreboard if you are left unchecked but your single target pressure is very mediocre if not just plain "bad". Also DcDs are such that if you get focused by one competent dps player like Mara and you spend half time running/healing and half time throwing a dot or two. Two dps on you and you can forget about doing anything productive. Basically in 4.0 you had pressure damage, now you have fluff damage. Damage was never the issue on Madness, it's self healing was a bit overtuned. Now you don't have either really.

 

Thanks What a bummer.

Like you, I returned to the game in June, but after a 3+ year break. I was surprised to see what had happened to this class. Bioware has most definitely abandoned its original "glass cannon" design for this class. It's now very much a DPS support role with only Lightning having any burst, and even that's kind of meh.

 

I feel I make more of a meaningful contribution on my other DPS classes to winning than on my DPS Sorc and Sage. I can often bring someone to 1/2 to 3/5 of their total health on my Scrapper Scoundrel in 3, sometimes 2, GCDs, making it that much more difficult for my opponent to respond and/or putting pressure on healers to have to use their interruptible big heals. On my Sorc and Sage I can certainly put out high numbers, and do, but I rarely feel I can change the course of a match on my Sorc that I can on my other DPS classes, even if the numbers are comparable.

Like you, I returned to the game in June, but after a 3+ year break. I was surprised to see what had happened to this class. Bioware has most definitely abandoned its original "glass cannon" design for this class. It's now very much a DPS support role with only Lightning having any burst, and even that's kind of meh.

 

I feel I make more of a meaningful contribution on my other DPS classes to winning than on my DPS Sorc and Sage. I can often bring someone to 1/2 to 3/5 of their total health on my Scrapper Scoundrel in 3, sometimes 2, GCDs, making it that much more difficult for my opponent to respond and/or putting pressure on healers to have to use their interruptible big heals. On my Sorc and Sage I can certainly put out high numbers, and do, but I rarely feel I can change the course of a match on my Sorc that I can on my other DPS classes, even if the numbers are comparable.

 

If RNG smiles upon you and you get a bunch of crits and secondary hit procs in a short ammount of time, lightning still has pretty fearsome burst.

 

Madness is pretty survivable, and while its never as satisfying to dot someone to death, its efficient in what it does. A good madness sorc can keep single and group pressure dps if he's doing it right, and left mostly alone.

 

Someone said they were forced to "Stand still" using force leech, force mobility is a must, and some utilities are key to being able to somewhat take some focus without losing a lot of dps.

 

In short, both work well, but if you expect something like sniper's facetanking and big hit, you won't get them.

 

However planned right a sorc will win any war of attrition with any class, safe perhaps a good operative. Actually a somewhat decent operative will most likely kill a great sorc 1vs1 in most cases, if he plays his self-heal right, and counter the sorc's escape correctly.

 

Might take a while tough.

However planned right a sorc will win any war of attrition with any class, safe perhaps a good operative. Actually a somewhat decent operative will most likely kill a great sorc 1vs1 in most cases, if he plays his self-heal right, and counter the sorc's escape correctly.

 

Might take a while tough.

 

An average operative should always beat sorcs. Decent mercs should always beat sorcs. Rage jugs, fury marauders, and deception sins should generally beat sorcs unless the sorc has a ton of LOS. A lot of it boils down to LoS...but if your opponent is a livelord, you won't have the long-term resources (e.g. you will run out of force and have to consume).

Edited August 1, 2017 by Hoppinswtor

An average operative should always beat sorcs. Decent mercs should always beat sorcs. Rage jugs, fury marauders, and deception sins should generally beat sorcs unless the sorc has a ton of LOS. A lot of it boils down to LoS...but if your opponent is a livelord, you won't have the long-term resources (e.g. you will run out of force and have to consume).

 

Nah resources not the problem anymore at least not on Madness. But your dps and DcDs are weak comparitavely to those classes so they just get more bang per buck on each global cooldown then you.

Edited August 1, 2017 by ottffsse

Nah resources not the problem anymore at least not on Madness. But your dps and DcDs are weak comparitavely to those classes so they just get more bang per buck on each global cooldown then you.

 

clearly dont forget that the real buff in 5.3 was our force management increased when casting force lightning.

 

a buff apperead quasi a day before update and surely due to our feedback and legitime "whine".

Still struggling and working on getting gear. I miss the old days with the pvp gear vendor where I could get a toon maxed out in pvp gear/aug's in a week, even less if you hit it hard enough. This grind though..... I still don't see how it's possible to 1v1 a merc or sniper as a madness sorc unless they have absolutely 0 DCD's. I actually enjoy being outplayed/outplaying others but there seems to be zero counterplay especially to these 2 classes. Anyone have any tips?

Still struggling and working on getting gear. I miss the old days with the pvp gear vendor where I could get a toon maxed out in pvp gear/aug's in a week, even less if you hit it hard enough. This grind though..... I still don't see how it's possible to 1v1 a merc or sniper as a madness sorc unless they have absolutely 0 DCD's. I actually enjoy being outplayed/outplaying others but there seems to be zero counterplay especially to these 2 classes. Anyone have any tips?

 

No those 2 classes are overtuned. Forget about taking on a sniper unless you have assistance, sniper is bad or pre-occupied with something else. Against Merc it is possible I guess now as their damage is not quite as it was but their Dcds are better still, but you can't make mistakes and they probably have to make some mistakes. Get better gear that's important now. Dot the Merc, keep some self healing and force armour up (play defensively), save your root breaker for E-net if your other Dcds are used up (suppression/warzone adrenal). Interrupt tracers. Try to line up a combo of 3 hard hitting attacks in sequence: Leech, Death Field+Demolish or Lightning Strike to make them pause a second at the incoming damage. If Merc shields himself with the reflective **** hard stun and only use Aoes. Then Merc probably uses Adrenal Surge if you get that far and heals up completely and you loose. Or have to start all over again. LoS is helpful I guess so can hide from tracers etc, but that way you just maybe stay alive while not really pressuring the merc, which is bad too. Oh yeah and if merc has a brain and starts using off-healing abilities and not just the reflective shield you can forget about it in a battle of attrition.

you can beat a sniper if he has not the dome available.

 

you can beat a merc if you can use the environment and timing.

 

but seriously beat a fury mara a sin deception or a concealment ops at equal skill is a nearly impossible. (only ops are possible if you root perfectly...and even if he can run away easy..)

Edited August 6, 2017 by Thaladan

you can beat a sniper if he has not the dome available.

 

you can beat a merc if you can use the environment and timing.

 

but seriously beat a fury mara a sin deception or a concealment ops at equal skill is a nearly impossible. (only ops are possible if you root perfectly...and even if he can run away easy..)

 

actually ops are nigh on impossible to kill 1vs1 when used smartly. Some classes like carnage mara can surpise them with roots and burst, but really killing one 1vs1 is very hard, as you typically have 1-2 roots, on any given class.

 

As madness, you have one every 9 seconds, and you'll always need to protect your force leech with it against any smart operative, as they'll roll it rather than interrupting, and interrupting your Force Lightning instead.

 

Sniper are actually more beatable, assuming you are ready for a war of attrition. As you've said, without the bubble, and with some LoS, they are doable to wittle down, and you typically as a sorc have a small mobility advantage.

 

A good sniper will do a lot of burst on you and debuff your healing tough, so its going to be long and any mistake will not be very forgiving.

 

Marauders...well it depends. While Fury is definitely the hardest spec for you to beat due to their better defenses against root and stuns, it depends.

 

But a marauder with his undying rage availaible will be a tough nut to crack.

 

I beat some decent ones with lightning as its more mobile and smart use of phase walk, but the best among them normally will kill me 1vs1 unless they have no dcds availaible.

you didn't mention against deception (stun hit stun hit stun rotation) with lightning. it interests me.

 

problem for madness/sorc is that you can potentially beat those 3 melee monsters but you need all utilities related..very specific and you can't do it and be globally efficient :\

Edited August 6, 2017 by Thaladan

you didn't mention against deception (stun hit stun hit stun rotation) with lightning. it interests me.

 

problem for madness/sorc is that you can potentially beat those 3 melee monsters but you need all utilities related..very specific and you can't do it and be globally efficient :\

 

Roots dont build resolves. Stun/mez do, altough a good lolslashing sin will be careful to manage your resolve bar. they also do not self heal like conc, which mean war of attrition are possible. Its a very good 1vs1 still, but you have tools they don't.

 

Against operatives not so much.

 

They stun better than you, have better mobility than you (therefore are impossible or nearly to successfuly kite) root better than you (1vs1 their crippling slash might as well be a total damage immunity) potentially reflect your best moves at 1.5x the damage, and they potentially have better self healing than you. And their burst is nothing to scoff at.

 

 

 

worth to note all those comment suppose 1vs1. in brawl or against focus, operative aint that hot as roots nuke most of their mobility, and their main defense.

I had only re-visited the game for a couple of weeks over the course of the past three years when I came back roughly a month ago. And yes, things have changed. Granted that madness never was an OP single target class (it used to be good against some specs) but it used to be amazing at fluffing the damage chart. Outside of 2-3 other sages/sorcs I was almost guaranteed to top the charts, way ahead of other classes, back in the day. That's not really the case anymore. Since returning I've worked a good deal on the new content and I've only played sorc and operative - and their mirrors - so I'm not in a position to point at a cause for this decline. I do have some guesses:

1. It's me? The thing that speaks against this is that I don't see other sages/sorcs out dps me. It's the other classes that have caught up but also that the cap on sorc/sage seems to be have been lowered so that all sorcs/sages are more even in their output.

2. Mitigation and how damage is recorded. It feels like there are way more DCD's going around (again, I havent played or read up on all classes) but I was under the impression that mitigated damage still counted as damage. Did they change this?

3. It feels like other classes got way more stuns, resulting in less uptime and lower output.

4. The other classes simply got buffed in relation so madness/balance. Again, havent played or read up on them.

5. Server populations. Now, I think this could be a huge contributor to the problem. From what I've seen we now have a pretty shallow pool of PvP'ers and it's made up by two groups; People who have no freaking idea what they are doing and hardcore premades who are still hanging in there. All my games have been solo and as a solo player you'll, statistically, end up on the team without the premade more often. Regardless,, every match has been completely lopsided. No exceptions. This puts you - as a solo player - in a very wonky position. When your entire team is wiped in seconds it's hard to have some form of great output and when you're with the premade they're usually on their own small group adventures - while you're stuck guarding or trying to figure out where they are heading. You're basically always one step behind and you lose uptime because of it. Hence, it's hard to judge how well the class actually performs.

 

One thing I would do if I was in charge would be to make Force Leech instant and reduce the CD slightly. As far as I can tell Dulfy doesnt even have a madness guide for PvE so not sure if it's used in PvE rotation but I'm personally not using it for damage (I occassionally use it for the heal). Perhaps there is some dps benefit to it in PvE (I havent done the math) but as of now, with the cast time, it just feels disruptive in rotation and for PvP you're lucky if you get it off on a target that actually looks at you. It's a very weird ability for a mobile spec too. And yes, I'm aware of Force Mobility but that doesnt make it harder to interrupt.

Edited August 9, 2017 by MidichIorian

I had only re-visited the game for a couple of weeks over the course of the past three years when I came back roughly a month ago. And yes, things have changed. Granted that madness never was an OP single target class (it used to be good against some specs) but it used to be amazing at fluffing the damage chart. Outside of 2-3 other sages/sorcs I was almost guaranteed to top the charts, way ahead of other classes, back in the day. That's not really the case anymore. Since returning I've worked a good deal on the new content and I've only played sorc and operative - and their mirrors - so I'm not in a position to point at a cause for this decline. I do have some guesses:

1. It's me? The thing that speaks against this is that I don't see other sages/sorcs out dps me. It's the other classes that have caught up but also that the cap on sorc/sage seems to be have been lowered so that all sorcs/sages are more even in their output.

2. Mitigation and how damage is recorded. It feels like there are way more DCD's going around (again, I havent played or read up on all classes) but I was under the impression that mitigated damage still counted as damage. Did they change this?

3. It feels like other classes got way more stuns, resulting in less uptime and lower output.

4. The other classes simply got buffed in relation so madness/balance. Again, havent played or read up on them.

5. Server populations. Now, I think this could be a huge contributor to the problem. From what I've seen we now have a pretty shallow pool of PvP'ers and it's made up by two groups; People who have no freaking idea what they are doing and hardcore premades who are still hanging in there. All my games have been solo and as a solo player you'll, statistically, end up on the team without the premade more often. Regardless,, every match has been completely lopsided. No exceptions. This puts you - as a solo player - in a very wonky position. When your entire team is wiped in seconds it's hard to have some form of great output and when you're with the premade they're usually on their own small group adventures - while you're stuck guarding or trying to figure out where they are heading. You're basically always one step behind and you lose uptime because of it. Hence, it's hard to judge how well the class actually performs.

 

One thing I would do if I was in charge would be to make Force Leech instant and reduce the CD slightly. As far as I can tell Dulfy doesnt even have a madness guide for PvE so not sure if it's used in PvE rotation but I'm personally not using it for damage (I occassionally use it for the heal). Perhaps there is some dps benefit to it in PvE (I havent done the math) but as of now, with the cast time, it just feels disruptive in rotation and for PvP you're lucky if you get it off on a target that actually looks at you. It's a very weird ability for a mobile spec too. And yes, I'm aware of Force Mobility but that doesnt make it harder to interrupt.

 

you are aware that 1.5s of cast or instant is the same dps wise right? cast can be interrupted or pushbacked, which makes it lose dps, but in "normal" condition, it just change, since you have your GCD at the start of the cast, so instant are forced to wait 1.5s (modified by alacrity) either way.

 

And force leech is more dps than a boosted lightning strike, so yes its definitely got a place in your rotation regardless lol.

 

Make sure you cast it on someone that has your affliction ticking, as it increases its damage by I think 30% now.

 

Madness in pvp is about dot spread, self-healing and escaping roughly. And its mostly fine at it tbh.

 

You do have a smaller radius Death Field spread now tough (went from 8m radius to 5m, since you last played), so you do have to aim it a bit more to catch as much people as you can with the spread.

you are aware that 1.5s of cast or instant is the same dps wise right? cast can be interrupted or pushbacked, which makes it lose dps, but in "normal" condition, it just change, since you have your GCD at the start of the cast, so instant are forced to wait 1.5s (modified by alacrity) either way.

 

And force leech is more dps than a boosted lightning strike, so yes its definitely got a place in your rotation regardless lol.

 

Make sure you cast it on someone that has your affliction ticking, as it increases its damage by I think 30% now.

 

Madness in pvp is about dot spread, self-healing and escaping roughly. And its mostly fine at it tbh.

 

You do have a smaller radius Death Field spread now tough (went from 8m radius to 5m, since you last played), so you do have to aim it a bit more to catch as much people as you can with the spread.

You got some valid points but I dont personally think that the reduced radius on deathfield is the cause of the closed dps gap in PvP. It's probably contributing a little but I'd be surprised if it was more than 10 % of the gap. As for Leech, I don't think I've ever actually thought of GCD's as starting at the beginning of cast time so that's good to know ( I tend to perform more on positioning and correct targetting rather than theory crafting and knowing all the deatils) . I'm not sure if Leech really is better than force lightning followed by lightning strike though, which is a more fair comparison than just comparing it to lightning strike. And even if it is slightly better and takes slightly less time I personally and definitely find the ability more disprutive in rotation - mostly because it wasnt around when I last played.