Also this is not strictly related to class balancing but because I know Eric Musco is reading this thread, it needs to be said:

 

Return the ability to queue ranked but still accept a normal pop please.

 

Otherwise on PVE or RP servers there's no point in bothering to queue ranked as you can have an undefined/infinite queue time, even when you could get a normal pop within 5 minutes. The infinite wait discourages ranked queue and thus feeds a cycle of more people not queuing. This is why ranked fails even as you reduce the barrier to entry from 8 man team to 4 man or even solo.

 

Yes even though sorc is far from optimal for arenas and I can't viably heal in pure corruption spec (I feel forced to hybrid for survivability) I still would appreciate the challenge of solo vs. solo queue ranked, only on my server it never pops.

Edited October 31, 2013 by AdrianDmitruk

Electrocute back to a 30 meter range, it makes no sense for other ranged classes to have stuns out to 30 meters and Sorc's not. Give us back the ability to insta-cast whirlwind, there are just too many roots and snares for other classes to use against us to keep us from being able to move away and break combat.

 

I also believe it would be helpful if force run would give you a short bit of immunity from roots and snares as well as break them. Again, too many of the classes have so many roots, snares and stuns.

 

As far as damage output, it is way too easy to completely shut down a lightening Sorc. We already have no damage mitigation to speak of and if we also have no burst damage. As it is, lightening Sorc's are just not useful. I believe there are some great suggestions in this thread already without going back into them. And many of them would not make the class overpowered.

 

All in all some small changes to abilities and small tweaks to a few things might just bring Sorc's in line with some of the other classes.

I'll just suggest one thing: CONSUMPTION OFF OF GCD.

 

This and it's a bare minimum

1. Make rootbreak/movement impairing effect immuniy baseline for Force Speed. Change Fadeout to give a 50/100% chance to make user immune to all kinds of cc for it's duration.

 

2. Make root on Overload baseline. Change Electric Bindings to make Overload's effect 180/360 degree.

 

3. Take Unnatural Preservation off the GCD.

 

4. Take Static Barrier off the GCD when casted on self.

 

5. Make Subversion additionally grant pushback reduction to Crushing Darkness.

 

6. Make Lightning Spire additionally increase the maximum range of Affliction by 5 meters.

 

7. Change Polarity Shift to additionally make the user immune to spell pushback for it's duration.

 

8. Change Recklessness to give the user 100% critical chance instead of 60%.

 

9. Fix Forceweaver talent, so the granted alacrity also grants the force regeneration it's supposed to.

 

 

The above are merely QoL improvements off the top of my head, the class possibly could use a lot more and bigger changes too. I may post some of my other ideas later, but I feel some or all of the mentioned changes are necessery to make the class more competitive in the current game environment, without touching any base class mechanics.

Edited October 31, 2013 by colemanron

I would like to see some sort of damage stance like Lightning Shroud that does like x% more damage on all spell, less push back and removes the ability to use any of the heals(except for self heal and shield). I mostly play PvE lightning dps and I feel like our class fall far behind classes like Snipers and Marauders in dps and raid utility like Bloodthirst and Ballistic Shield.

 

I also think that Polarity Shift should be raid wide maybe at a lower % for the rest of the group and take the self heal off gcd.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Bodda

Ow and fix Deathmark so that only the sorc that casted it get its dot ticking it down. Right now as lightning I'm harming madness dps by having my weaker dot steal them off. Boost my DPS a bit, really harm madness' and overall less combined DPS.

i'd like to see you being creative on a few new powers using the lightsaber with the Force.i just feel dumb with a saber i never use, always busy i am between heal casts and lightning bolts.

y not something like a defensive sort where your weapon Force-gravitates around you to intercept damages? (Kreia was able to control three blades against the Exiled)

Ow and fix Deathmark so that only the sorc that casted it get its dot ticking it down. Right now as lightning I'm harming madness dps by having my weaker dot steal them off. Boost my DPS a bit, really harm madness' and overall less combined DPS.

 

This should really just be fixed in general. It has been like this since the game started

i'd like to see you being creative on a few new powers using the lightsaber with the Force.i just feel dumb with a saber i never use, always busy i am between heal casts and lightning bolts.

y not something like a defensive sort where your weapon Force-gravitates around you to intercept damages? (Kreia was able to control three blades against the Exiled)

 

I mentioned this earlier as well. There is a lot of potential for our melee attacks to have some cool functionality. They certainly don't even need to be optimal in order to be useful

Sorcs need a resource building attack, both AoE and single target...a health leech IMO. I also think that the Overload changes (cone from 360) was good for PVP but bad for everything else in the game.

 

I think it would be best to return Overload to its former function, disable it for PVP and create a PVP only ability with Overloads current function.

Sorcs need a resource building attack, both AoE and single target...a health leech IMO. I also think that the Overload changes (cone from 360) was good for PVP but bad for everything else in the game.

 

I think it would be best to return Overload to its former function, disable it for PVP and create a PVP only ability with Overloads current function.

 

That is a horrible idea since the nerf was intended to primarily affect sins and we were caught as collateral. It's been a pain to use because of lag ever since.

In addition to some of the other proposed changes that my fellow sorcs have stated, I would like to request a buff to Purge (the cleanse). As it is, being that it cannot remove tech or physical effects (without going into the corruption tree for the latter), I would like to request that it be changed to also remove 2 movement impairing effects of any sort. While probably unnecessary if fadeout is given to all sorcs, I feel that Purge really needs to be buffed in some way to bring it up to par with the 2 tech cleanses.

Bring back the old Overload. The new overload doesn't even fit the old animation.

 

Bring back insta whirlwind. Madness sorcs have the worst survivability in the game. Especially vs melee, and specifically, guardian/warriors. Roots are useless against them because they can just leap out of it.

 

 

Madness sorcs run OOF very fast and yet they rely on sustained damage, not burst. This is a bad design and gimps the spec more than anything else. Consumption doesn't help a whole lot because of the debuff, its counter productive.. and a madness sorc won't see enough gains from parasitism to even use consumption. The only time consumption is useful is when there is a health buff nearby.

 

If you aren't going to do anything about the force situation you should buff the damage output of the DoTs. I would prefer to see DoT do higher damage than become uncleanseable. This change is counter-productive in creating a game and environment where skill and ability are trump cards instead of class, build, and gear.

 

Bad change, coming from a sorc.

Edited November 3, 2013 by crunchbarry

Also, you should give sorcs an armor buff.

Is it wrong of me to worry about the PVE stuff being drowned out by all these suggesting stuff for PVP? A sorc DPS is far from perfecting in raid situations, and in the past most changes we get affects pvp, hell the future one we get where our dots can't be easily cleansed is solely a pvp thing, when would a boss ever cleanse one of our afflictions or Crushing darkness' (or the third dot that those madness sorcs use, creeping terror I think)

 

I don't know, I am sure pvp changes are necessary, but I feel we need something major in the pve department so we can keep up with the likes of Snipers, Marauders and Mercs, it was a big blow to my ego when my fresh 55 sniper in un-augmented gear and a mix of 69's and 72's could out dps my sorc which I have been playing since launch, sorc damage feels okay at best, I feel it just relies too heavily on critical hits and procs, so maybe we could use an increase in damage to some of our more frequently used moves or just give us some raid utility like out the snipers get ballistic shield and marauders get Bloodthirst and predation, maybe it could be something that is activated when you use force barrier (like a battle meditation or something)

I personally do not mind the lower damage...it takes a bit longer to put out the kind of damage that equals other classes, but as long as I have an easily renewable resource to generate that DPS it works for me at least. Not to mention I can stun normal and weak mobs with my AoE, which helps quite a bit in regular world questing IMO.

 

Without a resource generator however, like some kind of life leech (which I would think would follow logically considering your health is your resource pool, you have a way to sacrifice health for that pool, it then follows that one should have a low cost way to replenish that health), you end up running into rotation problems here and there.

 

The bubble periodic heal helped, but not enough IMO.

 

I still strongly feel the Overload change was a foolish change...especially considering it uses the old animation, which just makes it worse IMO.

Edited November 2, 2013 by LordArtemis

Originally posted this in another thread, just wanted to hear thoughts from the community on the ideas. Perhaps a rep can come in and share his thoughts?

 

Healing Tree

1. Force Regen- I would love an explanation from BW for making the squishiest class in the game have the worst resource management by a LONG SHOT. Not only does every other healing class have ways to refund their resources after casting, but give the class with highest survivability/hps the best regeneration. On top of that, the only way to "regen" as a sorc is to sacrifice a couple of talents so you don't end up with 2/3 of your health for only small portion of force back equivalent to 2 dark heals that require procs to crit for about 5k-5.6k. I won't even be greedy and bring up fixing degeneration that's in the game for whatever idiotic reason a dev thought it was good idea to further nerf the class with the worst survivability and highest cost on heals. Ok, enough with the rant on that...

 

Solution: Adding a simple you gain X amount when polarity shift is used or some kind of 2 min cd that gives a percentage of total pool back. I bring up polarity shift because any sorc/sage healer will waste 40%+ of his total pool during that time if he's maximizing the globals on healing. This creates a snowball effect and eventually lose regen simply because you made the best of a crucial cd that keeps your teammates up...I noticed this especially after doing arenas where my ap tank was opened on with me being double flashed and I had to catch up quickly on heals...(bubble/rejuv/innervate/salvation when he was stunned and dark heal spams with innervate/bubble on cd.....by the time polarity shift ended I was down to 40% just to top off my teammates....with 4+ mins to go. Perhaps asking some kind of force back on broken bubbles is asking too much?

 

2. Fix useless talents in the tree- BW talks about preventing hybrids from being the stronger specs in the game...yet they add in useless talents such as 10% slow on affliction...OH WAIT 2 POINTS AND IT'S 20%??!?!?!. I would love another explanation as to why this talent in still in this tree. The only thing I can think of is lowbie idiots who quest as a healer trying to kite "strong" npcs.

 

Solution: Change the talent entirely, if you want to give some kind of offensive talent in the healing tree then bring back instant whirlwind with 50%/100% reduce cast time. I believe this would create much more balance among sorc healer vs op healer comps...would make much more sense that sorcs have the stun debuff and one instant range cc while ops have reduce cd on stun and their close ranged aoe cc.

 

I would bring up my ideas for the dps trees, but...this is more enough text for me today.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Gomex

Agree with Gomex, we have some pretty useless talents.

 

The slow on affliction talent should be at least 20/40%. Then it'd actually be useful. Maybe 50% would be a bit OP considering the long duration of affliction and the fact it can be on multiple enemies at once. But it definitely needs a buff to make it worth spending 2 points.

 

I also agree we need insta WW, but I'd rather see a POTENTIALLY useful talent buffed directly and (if it has to be specced) instant WW put elsewhere in the talent tree.

 

Currently reserves is a blatant and brazen skill tax that EVERY sorc must pay, regardless of spec. Simply remove the talent entirely and bake the 100 Force into the sorc AC. Put 50/100% WW cast time reduction in its place. That puts it in first tier of lightning, where every sorc can choose to grab it if they want it (PVErs may decide to opt out for example if they don't need it for dailies). As a bonus, putting it on first tier of lightning keeps it OUT of the hands of sins, who already have a bunch of other CC and allegedly account for the reason insta WW was taken away from sorcs in the first place. And sorcs wouldn't have to resort to silly hybrid builds to get some Make Them Pay ability, either.

 

As for Force regen, fix our PVP 4-piece bonus to remove the health cost of consumption. At minimum, make 4-piece PVP set bonus a straight cost reduction instead of a useless refund hot that leaves us overly exposed to enemy burst in the meantime. Voila, consumption fixed for PVP without making PVE Force management LOLeasy. (Yes back in the day PVP Force management took it in the shorts because of a PVE nerf.)

Edited November 2, 2013 by AdrianDmitruk

Fixing the health cost on consumption is one way to do it through pvp gear...why not just add it in the talent tree with the 30% on self heal?

 

Say you do it through pvp gear, this would create another question...would this be too big of a buff to madness? This would also mean not picking up self heal talents intended for giving back health using consumption as a filler in the rotation and putting them elsewhere.

Edited November 3, 2013 by Gomex

Rework the entire CONSUMPTION and remove it from the game.

 

Drop the cost of ALL our cast items and decrease the force pool to EQUAL that of other classes.

 

REGEN is equal across the board on Force/Heat/Energy and should be that way. The amount of regen by percentage comparison to other classes is just terrible. We get 8.0 BASE REGEN for 500 points and the other classes get 100 points with 50% RECOVERY every 2 minutes and BASE REGEN is 5.0. . Anyone else see an ISSUE with that? I mean 8 vs 5 and we have 400 points more? Bioware, please stop shafting the Sage/Sorc class.

Would not a health leech solve the problem of resource generation, since health is the pool? At least based on current abilities.

I don't know why you people keep complaining about force management, in lightning spec you never have to worry about it, and the only thing I struggled with a bit is Madness, and even that isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

Fixing the health cost on consumption is one way to do it through pvp gear...why not just add it in the talent tree with the 30% on self heal?

 

Say you do it through pvp gear, this would create another question...would this be too big of a buff to madness? This would also mean not picking up self heal talents intended for giving back health using consumption as a filler in the rotation and putting them elsewhere.

 

Consumption health cost should be fixed through fixing the 4-piece PVP set bonus because doing it through talents instead lets raiders get it too.

 

Problem with that is Force management in PVE becomes LOLeasy for healers. Bioware's been there, done that. Health cost-free consumption was in the talent tree for healers once, but it got nerfed because it trivialized Force management in raids. In the process it (along with other unrelated but simultaneous nerfs) wrecked sorc healer PVP.

 

So Bioware created a PVP issue that should only be corrected for PVP, and the most direct way to do that without affecting PVE is to fix the PVP set bonus. Yes technically you can wear PVP gear into a raid but not only do you lose PVE stats, you're also giving up reduced CD innervate PVE set bonus for the fixed 4-piece PVP, and with the possible exception of new entrants to SM raiding who don't have PVE set bonus yet, that should be enough of a deterrent.

 

(Incidentally, the general idea of PVP set bonus>no set bonus, especially when the next tier of PVP gear comes out as 69s and therefore catches up to be at-level with SM raids, is an excellent argument for allowing set bonuses to drop from HM FPs again.)

Edited November 3, 2013 by AdrianDmitruk

I don't know why you people keep complaining about force management, in lightning spec you never have to worry about it, and the only thing I struggled with a bit is Madness, and even that isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

 

Because lightning is only spec that doesn't have force management issues in long fights.

I don't know why you people keep complaining about force management, in lightning spec you never have to worry about it, and the only thing I struggled with a bit is Madness, and even that isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

 

Madness's force management is completely based on where you are and how much you can free cast. There is no hang of it.

Edited November 3, 2013 by SEANeD