ALL of the classes need to be put on the PTS at the same time to test.

Until we can compare them against ALL other classes, how are we able to determine if they are OP, balanced or UP.

ALL of the classes need to be put on the PTS at the same time to test.

 

Until we can compare them against ALL other classes, how are we able to determine if they are OP, balanced or UP.

Yup!!!!! I agree

Set Bonuses are really funny. Now in DD spec we must use Force Speed on CD?I must use this for lesser CD of Polarity shift? but if I need this skill in fight for mechanics or other situatuons I have to choose every time what I need more? Overload for buff, I must use GCD for useless skill for buff? It's will be better than i'll use DMG skill in this GCD? And same question, if I need this for mechanics I have to chose always? Funny, really Funny...

Give me better utility for rooting from overload in 1st line as it have sins, why sorcs can take it only in 3rd line of utilities? It's not fair. Give me 60% dmg reduction from Force Speed utility, and maybe Sorcs/Sages in DD specs can survive better, now it's easy frag on WZ. Give me Old pvp bonus set - lesser CD for Vanquish/Crushing Darkness, more helas from DoTs, or fix heal from Death Field when it dmg many targets. Or return chance for 2nd shock like it was in beginning of game.

New ability and tactical items. Now you officially throwing away Lightning Strike form Madness rotation? how about better dmg modifier for Wrath?

I wanna 3 Leeches in a row like sins in hatred. Why you doing so powerful bonus in one spec and don't give it to similar spec?

Set Bonuses are really funny. Now in DD spec we must use Force Speed on CD?I must use this for lesser CD of Polarity shift? but if I need this skill in fight for mechanics or other situatuons I have to choose every time what I need more? Overload for buff, I must use GCD for useless skill for buff? It's will be better than i'll use DMG skill in this GCD? And same question, if I need this for mechanics I have to chose always? Funny, really Funny...

Give me better utility for rooting from overload in 1st line as it have sins, why sorcs can take it only in 3rd line of utilities? It's not fair. Give me 60% dmg reduction from Force Speed utility, and maybe Sorcs/Sages in DD specs can survive better, now it's easy frag on WZ. Give me Old pvp bonus set - lesser CD for Vanquish/Crushing Darkness, more helas from DoTs, or fix heal from Death Field when it dmg many targets. Or return chance for 2nd shock like it was in beginning of game.

 

New ability and tactical items. Now you officially throwing away Lightning Strike form Madness rotation? how about better dmg modifier for Wrath?

 

I wanna 3 Leeches in a row like sins in hatred. Why you doing so powerful bonus in one spec and don't give it to similar spec?

Honestly these are all excellent points. The devs really haven't thought these through.

Here's a quick rundown of my thoughts on the relevant Sorcerer/Corruption Tactical Items.

Dark Cleanse - Consuming Darkness lowers the cooldown of Expunge by 3 seconds.

Incredibly niche, this might be useful on fights like Hateful Entity, Dread Council, Nefra, and Draxus. Even then, I simply don't see a reason for use.

Liberate - Extrication now heals you and the target and makes your next Resurgence free.

This would have to be a sizable heal to be desirable, it may have a place in Ranked PVP alongside the Extrication Damage Reduction Utility. A free resurgence is interesting, attached to Extrication, less so.

Preserve Self - Activating Unnatural Preservation removes Static Barrier's Deionize effect from you.

Appealing in PVP, more so than other options? Unlikely.

Dark Return - Returning to your Phase Walk marker causes a force explosion around you, dealing damage to any enemies around.

This could be fun, I can see this getting some use when others are not necessary, especially as a form of healer DPS. Will depend on the damage dealt. Given the setup requirement, cooldown on phasewalk, and the opportunity cost of forgoing other Tactical Items. Dark Return would need to deal significant damage to be useful even when only looked at as a method of healer DPS. Ballpark 258 ilvl gear at level 70, atleast 15k from a non critical hit.

Now for Corruption specific Tactical's.

Extra Mend - Roaming Mend can now heal up to 5 targets instead of 4.

Lacklustre, uninspired. Single Target healing buff, Area of Effect healing buff. Likely BiS barring some incredible number changes on All For One and One For All or something truly inspired with Healing Volts.

Healing Volts - Damaging an enemy with Volt Rush causes your ally closest to the enemy to be healed, scaling with how many Energized stacks are on the enemy.

This has the most potential of all the Sorcerer Tactical's to change the way you play, but there are a few things that will impact its usability and desirability. Firstly, this needs to be a smart heal. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it. A proximity heal will be lead to unnecessary over healing or ineffective target healing. Secondly, it needs to be force neutral if not force positive. Sorcerer Healers struggle with force management during periods of sustained DPS and are the only healer who has to heal to effectively DPS without a reasonable 0 cost spammable DPS GCD. Thirdly, the heal needs to be relevant. Between using Static Barrier when optimal, Resurgence on CD, Roaming Med on CD and Innervate on CD there is simply little time or reason to use Dark Infusion or Dark Heal when you could be DPS'ing or recovering force.

Healing Volts has the potential to return Sorcerer healers to an engaging state. I implore you not to waste it.

All For One - Revivification heals more for each ally it affects.

Not to put to fine a point on it but, this seems dull, almost lazy. Why balance sorcs to be an effective AOE healing class, lets just throw some additional power at them when needed and leave them lacking at other times. Also, will require Revivification to be reworked to a charged/stacked based heal. This needs testing ASAP because I suspect it won't function properly as no description of how this will work has been provided.

One For All - Revivification heals more the fewer allies it affects.

Again, not overly interesting. Will this mean that Revivification is now a higher priority single or two target heal than Roaming Mend with Extra Mend? if not, will never see any use.

Just my thoughts.

Testing needs to start sooner rather than later, honestly. Play the way you want is looking a lot more like just play the same again.

Here's a quick rundown of my thoughts on the relevant Sorcerer/Corruption Tactical Items.

 

 

 

Incredibly niche, this might be useful on fights like Hateful Entity, Dread Council, Nefra, and Draxus. Even then, I simply don't see a reason for use.

 

 

 

This would have to be a sizable heal to be desirable, it may have a place in Ranked PVP alongside the Extrication Damage Reduction Utility. A free resurgence is interesting, attached to Extrication, less so.

 

 

 

Appealing in PVP, more so than other options? Unlikely.

 

 

 

This could be fun, I can see this getting some use when others are not necessary, especially as a form of healer DPS. Will depend on the damage dealt. Given the setup requirement, cooldown on phasewalk, and the opportunity cost of forgoing other Tactical Items. Dark Return would need to deal significant damage to be useful even when only looked at as a method of healer DPS. Ballpark 258 ilvl gear at level 70, atleast 15k from a non critical hit.

 

 

Now for Corruption specific Tactical's.

 

 

 

Lacklustre, uninspired. Single Target healing buff, Area of Effect healing buff. Likely BiS barring some incredible number changes on All For One and One For All or something truly inspired with Healing Volts.

 

 

 

This has the most potential of all the Sorcerer Tactical's to change the way you play, but there are a few things that will impact its usability and desirability. Firstly, this needs to be a smart heal. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it. A proximity heal will be lead to unnecessary over healing or ineffective target healing. Secondly, it needs to be force neutral if not force positive. Sorcerer Healers struggle with force management during periods of sustained DPS and are the only healer who has to heal to effectively DPS without a reasonable 0 cost spammable DPS GCD. Thirdly, the heal needs to be relevant. Between using Static Barrier when optimal, Resurgence on CD, Roaming Med on CD and Innervate on CD there is simply little time or reason to use Dark Infusion or Dark Heal when you could be DPS'ing or recovering force.

 

Healing Volts has the potential to return Sorcerer healers to an engaging state. I implore you not to waste it.

 

 

 

Not to put to fine a point on it but, this seems dull, almost lazy. Why balance sorcs to be an effective AOE healing class, lets just throw some additional power at them when needed and leave them lacking at other times. Also, will require Revivification to be reworked to a charged/stacked based heal. This needs testing ASAP because I suspect it won't function properly as no description of how this will work has been provided.

 

 

 

Again, not overly interesting. Will this mean that Revivification is now a higher priority single or two target heal than Roaming Mend with Extra Mend? if not, will never see any use.

 

 

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Testing needs to start sooner rather than later, honestly. Play the way you want is looking a lot more like just play the same again.

Can you give me one example when you would use phasewalk offensively?

Can you give me one example when you would use phasewalk offensively?

Well currently I could use PW offensively on every single Nightmare Boss in the game if it did damage.

Would I ever use it offensively in Solo or Team Ranked? As a healer? No, but then again. Healer DPS is significantly less relevant in PVP.

P.S Snip your quotes.

ALL of the classes need to be put on the PTS at the same time to test.

 

Until we can compare them against ALL other classes, how are we able to determine if they are OP, balanced or UP.

Cause conceptual feedback is irrelevant right?

 

Dark Return - Returning to your Phase Walk marker causes a force explosion around you, dealing damage to any enemies around.

a playstyle defining tactical

Merged it for you

Dark Return - Deploying Phase Walk also deploys Sorcerer's Shelter, increasing the healing done(or alacrity?) by those within 5 meters of the Phase Walk marker by 5%. In addition, returning to your Phase Walk marker causes a force explosion around you, dealing damage to any enemies around and grants Shifting Silhouette, keeping you from being leapt to or pulled and making you immune to interrupts and ability activation pushback for the next 10 seconds. Placing Phase Walk marker is now instant cast(down from 1.5 sec cast) and off GCD, cooldown of Phase Walk is reduced by 15 seconds and all defenses are increased by 30% for the duration of Shifting Silhouette.

Please dont put Overload in a rotation, we have enough problems with people not knowing how to manage the classic mmo skill formula, we dont need people disrupting aoe every 15 seconds with knockback.

This will make grouping even more annoying.

I would rather see this skill removed entirely than see it placed in a rotation.

Please dont put Overload in a rotation, we have enough problems with people not knowing how to manage the classic mmo skill formula, we dont need people disrupting aoe every 15 seconds with knockback.

 

This will make grouping even more annoying.

 

I would rather see this skill removed entirely than see it placed in a rotation.

^This

Overload is a strategic ability, not a rotational ability. The only time it should be used with the new Voltage stuff is to "energize" yourself right before a boss pull, or as you prepare for spawning/respawning in pvp. Players should not be using it randomly as it knockbacks grouped adds, players, etc.

Perhaps move it to the cleanse?

PS - For these reasons, Overload healing utility is also very very bad. Please remove the utility.

^This

 

Overload is a strategic ability, not a rotational ability. The only time it should be used with the new Voltage stuff is to "energize" yourself right before a boss pull, or as you prepare for spawning/respawning in pvp. Players should not be using it randomly as it knockbacks grouped adds, players, etc.

 

Perhaps move it to the cleanse?

 

PS - For these reasons, Overload healing utility is also very very bad. Please remove the utility.

I agree with the overload stuff you and others have pointed out. Perhaps another option would be Cloud Mind, the threat drop, which you can make into a 25%, 6 second dmg reduction with a utility. So if that also offered some offensive potential, that would be good.

I agree with the overload stuff you and others have pointed out. Perhaps another option would be Cloud Mind, the threat drop, which you can make into a 25%, 6 second dmg reduction with a utility. So if that also offered some offensive potential, that would be good.

Tying a defensive cooldown to threat drop is already bad. Sometimes when you're getting hit you want to either pop a defensive and tank for a while before it switches to somebody else or threat dump immediately and save the defensive.

You want to use a threat drop to do more damage. Do you see a problem with that?

Tying a defensive cooldown to threat drop is already bad. Sometimes when you're getting hit you want to either pop a defensive and tank for a while before it switches to somebody else or threat dump immediately and save the defensive.

 

You want to use a threat drop to do more damage. Do you see a problem with that?

I was talking purely from a pvp perspective, where it's used just as an extra dcd if you take the utility.

Isn't the current Set Bonus suggested heavily swayed towards the heal spec?

The force speed/alacrity buff can be made very useful by all specs but the dps specs would never bother with overload, at least in a PvE raid nor the other healing buff from the set.

Sorcerers have two primary defensive utilities across all specs they all use: 1.) Phase Walk and 2.) Force Barrier

Improving those two should be the focus. Something like 60meter range of phase walk and a short immunity to damage after executing it.

As for Force Barrier I really think it should be a short immobilized channel of 2sec of total immunity and after that another 5 seconds of immunity while being able to move and attack. The effect can become "weaker" in those 5 seconds if a total of 5 seconds immunity to damage and effects is to long....but it is absolutely a waste currently as a defensive because the enemy will just wait next to you while you are paralyzed channeling your barrier and once it end they attack you like nothing happened. So basically anything that improves Force Barrier within reason.

Edit: if this is indeed the new set bonus in 6.0 with overload etc, I'd rather just keep my old 5x one.

The Force-Speed-Alacrity bonus is going to be pretty sweet for Lightning TK.

Overload will be for building Energize as a sort of pre-cast to get 3 charges before a fight. My only worry is that it's carried over and used randomly during combat in pvp and pve.

Who knows

Lightning sorc needs no buff. It is tanky too much, even 3 dps can't easily kill one lightning sorc due to its defense buffs. it's dps is mediocore, if sorc breaks rotation it becomes badly in the end yet skilled sorcs can manage it. If you buff lightning sorc dps it will become overpowered since this class will both do big damage, have great defense and have two breakers (normal breaker + bubble)

Lightning sorcs still aren't better than maras in any scenario. And the new stuff for maras is light years better than the stuff for sorcs, so this complaint is beyond useless.

Having read through about 20 pages of different forum posts on this subject, including all the official stuff and everyone's reactions, the conclusion I've reached is this: sorc is absolutely "play the way you want" now. You can EITHER be a utility player, where you use your knockback, your positioning moves, all the moves that augment your playing... OR you optimize your damage. You decide!

/s

In all seriousness, having read the aforementioned material, I'm about to hop onto the PTS myself (it just finished downloading). But my hopes aren't high at this point :/ compared to the changes for sin and warriors, the universal feedback on sorc has been.... meh? Underwhelmed but cautiously optimistic at best, laughing because otherwise I'll cry at worst. I've played swtor for four years, and have mained sorc (lightning and corruption, with slight dabbling in madness) that entire time. Based on my experience up until now, I'm having a hard time maintaining hope that our commentary will yield any real results, but here goes nothing. More than anything, this is a plea for the development team to listen to player feedback here and seriously rework the sorc set bonuses and tactical items before launching 6.0.

As it's been pretty universally acknowledged for the set bonuses:

- Energized Overload is at best a laughable meme (what, are we supposed to spam an ability with a CD prior to boss fights in PvE just for an extra Energized stack, which is unclear and contradictory because in other places you've talked about Energized like it applies to the target rather than you? Or in PvP, use Overload on CD and screw everyone else's AOE/DOT spead/CC/stun with random knockbacks everywhere because MUST OPTIMIZE ENERGIZED) just omg please no

- Gathering Storm -- Thanks for tying a defensive/repositioning move (Force Speed) still more into our rotation? It at least makes sense to tie it to the two instant cast Lightning Bolts, as we're then able to do more damage while repositioning. But that already created a disparity between "do I save this move for when I need to reposition, or use it now for more damage?" Please don't make that worse.

- Dark Consumption looks interesting, BUT... Dark Heal is not the move you want to use when you're low on Force. For a healer, this is dumb unless the healing done has been SERIOUSLY buffed, and even then, it encourages risky behavior (using a move with a heavy Force cost when you're potentially already low on Force)... Honestly, I can see myself utilizing this set bonus more as DPS, because depending on how much more healing is done, maybe I'll hit Consuming Darkness just to regen a little Force, get the Weary debuff, and then get a stronger Dark Heal off that also takes care of that Weary debuff? Was that the plan for this ability?

- Revitalize - for healers, a little tiny buff, yay? But I'd rather keep my current set bonus, it's SO much more useful. For lightning, a slight chance to get a tiny Resurgence tick on myself with Unnatural Pres, or encouragement to offheal other players? Either way... I'll take the set bonus I have right now over these updates any day. Completely underwhelmed here.

Everything I'm seeing about Volt Rush is that it's freaking terrible, so I'm not even going to touch that commentary until I go try it for myself. But I'm comfortable reiterating what others have said... please take another look at this ability, because it doesn't sound promising.

Tactical items... oh god there's so much, and I'm not going to touch on it all. Across the board, nothing stands out as good the way it is right now. There's nothing on this list that, in its current form, has me excited to play this new content.

- I'm hearing that Stormwatch is super fun but probably OP, okay great. We needed a damage buff so yay, but I already see people calling for it to get nerfed. And really, the only reason I'm commenting on this is that it's actually a damage buff coupled with actual damaging moves. As far as things to get excited about, that's setting the bar a little low... Also, please clarify, is this the next time the target is critically hit by anyone (as it seems currently written) or just by you?

- Dark Return in its current form is, again, laughable-- hey let's tie another defensive into damage! But I saw someone else say something that looked really cool, and I'd like to reiterate his good idea. Make this Dark Departure: returning to your phase walk point causes an explosion of damage around you as you LEAVE the area, damaging enemies around the point you're departing. Since Phase Walk is generally utilized (and intended, unless I'm terribly wrong) to get you out of a tight spot, like when you're getting piled on by melee, it makes sense that you'd want to do damage to THEM, not hope that someone is close enough to your Phase Walk destination that maybe you'll hit them-- or worse, turn this into a cluster-f**k where people are placing their Phase Walks on bosses/in high traffic areas in order to do more damage. While we're at it, make this ability extend your Phase Walk radius to 60m and maybe consider granting Shifting Silhouette also. Not trying to make this OP, but you said game-changing, and so far, all these things have been tiny nudges rather than anything meaningful.

- Preserve Self just looks like a terrible plan for lightning sorcs, as our Deionize debuff gives us DR. Please address whether using Unnatural Pres under the effects of the Preserve Self tactical item will cost us DR?

I don't mean to be universally "doom and gloom," and will be talking all this through with my guildies before coming back to post suggestions on how these abilities could be fixed, or giving suggestions for new abilities. But as it stands right now, this is primarily an entreaty that our feedback actually be taken into account. I know it's a lot, and reading complaints and criticism isn't anyone's favorite thing. But I'm speaking as a player/subscriber/guild master who's been here for years and who hopes to be here for years to come. I've played other MMOs-- I don't love them the way I love SWTOR. Every time I've left this game, I've come back before too long. This game feels like home, and I'm speaking from a place of wanting to see it continue indefinitely. I'm tired of reading game magazines writing eulogies about it, tired of seeing "game is dead" in gen chat-- please, let's work together to make this game patch one that shuts up the critics.

So I'm on the PTS now, have spent the past hour looking at all the new vendors, new gear, new bonuses... and I just don't know. I love that there are general tactical items, they honestly look better than any of the class-specific tactical items I've seen described so far. I'm loving the vendor for augments and kits, and am really hoping that's going to be something we get to keep, and not just something for the PTS. Same with the vendor for mods/armorings/enhancements. I hated relying on crafting for so much stuff, especially with the components needed for Grade 10 crafting coming from top tier operations... as a PvPer and head of a guild too small to field a full ops group at a NiM level... that really sucked.

BUT... but. None of these set bonuses are remotely appealing. None. As a lightning sorc, I'm most inclined to take one of the healing bonuses, because broad spectrum, the DPS set bonuses suck. Yeah, I could get two extra seconds of stun, and that's lovely for PvP... but how many gear sets am I going to have to carry here?? One for heals, one for PvE DPS, one for PvP DPS... I would trade every one of these set bonuses to keep the 236-258 ilevel set bonuses we have right now.

I am playing a lightning sorc. I have tried out the new ability and tactical items. Here is my feedback.

I think that volt rush feels like a filler ability, I am not sure I like the underwhelming animation or sound effects. I think it would work better if it stacked 3 times so you could use it in fast succession having 3 charges but stacking two times feels a bit strange when playing my rotation. I think if it was off GCD like riposte it would be a better ability. I think that with elemental convection it is a far better ability.

Eyrins haste is a good tactical, it gives better mobility, I think it will be very popular.

Elemental convection is a very good tactical, my favorite. it changes up the AoE rotation nicely.

Stormwatch is good for single target focus, not sure its hugely useful if target swapping. I didn't notice any increase in dps unfortunately, but that might have been the encounter I tested it in.

Ticking force bomb, didn't notice a dps increase. probably not something I would use.

Greased lightning, didnt notice a dps increase. probably not something I would use.

I like the changes to lightning and the addition of tacticals. I feel that volt rush would be better if it had 4 charges and stacked 2 times, or 3 charges and stacked 3 times. If volt rush was off the GCD it would be an invaluable addition to lighting sorcs.

I am playing a Corruption sorcerer, I used to main this spec in previous expansions. I tested the tactical items and set bonuses in pvp, flashpoints, and operations. Here is my feedback.

Tactical Items.

One for all: I can't say I saw any difference.

All for one: I can't say I saw any difference.

RSVP plus one: Good tactical, saw better heals.

Storms succor: Ok tactical kinda think this is better suited to a dps spec for support role.

Of the Tactical items I think that it would be better to merge all for one and one for all into one tactical.

General sorcerer tactical items:

Cleanse the agony: really good for healers, will be looking for this tactical for PvP healing.

An explosive return: not worth taking, the damage dealt to enemies is too low to want to have this tactical. 16.5k single hit does not feel useful enough. Suggested force slow with damage hit on enemy to make this better.

A healing hand: May be useful for team mates that are about to die.

Endless barrier: I like this one. I would use this.

The general sorc tacticals are better than the corruption specific tacticals

Set Bonuses.

Robe of the gathering storm: good set. like the cool down it provides. It works in conjunction with utilities. Like this set for a healer.

Revitalized mystic: Saw a small force management improvement, did not experience better heals or hps in anyway.

Dire retaliation: Set should be changed to next damaging or healing ability. This would be good for healers to use.

Empowered restorer: The 20% did not work, just the consuming a stack of weary. May help with force management.

None of the sets stand out, and I feel a bit underwhelmed. I would choose the sets that help with force management, so I can heal myself out of tight spots.

H

- Dark Consumption looks interesting, BUT... Dark Heal is not the move you want to use when you're low on Force. For a healer, this is dumb unless the healing done has been SERIOUSLY buffed, and even then, it encourages risky behavior (using a move with a heavy Force cost when you're potentially already low on Force)...

 

 

^

Agree with that

Dark Consumption for a healer is dumb, you try to avoid to be Weary with your rotation as a must , and now this Set bonus will reward you when you are Weary .... , I don't see any sense on it , specially on PVP

The actual Set bonus for healers helps with Force Management, as Consuming darkness restores an additional 5 Force. The new Set bonus should have somthing similar , and not this useless Dark Consumption

(6) Energize now stacks up to 3 times. Force Speed immediately recharges one Volt Rush ability charge.

6 pc is clunky as hell. Screw it

Gaining a stack of Energize increases your critical chance by 15% for 15 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.

Activating Volt Rush increases the critical chance of your next Dark Heal, Force Lightning, Force Leech or Thundering Blast by 5%. Stacks up to 3 times

Damage dealt by Volt Rush heals you for 2% of your maximum health.

Activating Volt Rush reduces the cooldown of Recklessness by 5 seconds. Every enemy affected by Volt Rush takes 20% more damage from your next Force Lightning or Lightning Bolt.