I already did this with Mercenary and people on Discord seemed to like the changes, so I'll take a crack at Sorc. Here's how I'd suggest to continue the skill trees in 6.0, with new level 72 abilities and level 74 passives:

 

MADNESS

 

Level 72 Ability: Torment Bolt (replaces Shock)

Cooldown: 6 seconds

Force: 36

 

Old Shock:

Shocks the target for 6.4k energy damage. Standard and weak enemies are stunned for 3 seconds.

 

Torment Bolt:

Shocks the target for 3.2k energy damage. Standard and weak enemies are stunned for 3 seconds. Also applies a Torment debuff to the target, causing your next Lightning Strike to deal an additional 4.5k internal damage. Torment lasts 15 seconds and can only be applied once per 15 seconds.

 

Level 74 Passive: Executioner's Torment

On targets below 30% health, Torment Bolt's internal damage will always critically hit and restore 10 Force. Additionally, Lightning Burns now applies to Torment Bolt's initial hit, and Creeping Terror and Affliction deal their damage over 15 seconds instead of 18.

 

These changes will smooth out the rotation completely and give Madness a small boost to execute burst. Right now, the optimal madness rotation requires you to clip a Force Lightning and apply dots 3 seconds before their falloff. Obviously you can see how replacing the awkward clipped channel of Force Lightning with a new ability (Torment Bolt) fixes things.

 

 

LIGHTNING

 

Level 72 Ability: Static Crush (replaces Crushing Darkness)

Force: 36

Cast Time: 2 seconds

Cooldown: 15 seconds

 

Old Crushing Darkness:

Instantly deals 5.2k kinetic damage and crushes the target for 7400 damage over 6 seconds.

 

New Static Crush:

Instantly deals 5.6k kinetic damage and applies a Crushed debuff to the target for 3 seconds. When the debuff wears off, the target is crushed for internal damage equal to 25 percent of the damage dealt to the target while Crushed was applied.

 

Level 74 Ability: Force Flash

Lightning Flash reduces the channel time of your next Force Lightning by 50 percent and causes your next Static

Crush to activate instantly. These effects last 15 seconds. Additionally, Static Crush's initial hit does not consume Recklessness charges.

 

Thundering Blast has travel time, so if you cast it and then immediately apply Static Crush, you can clip the TB into the window along with the two abilities after Static Crush (obviously procc'd Force Lightning and Shock for max

damage...Chain Lightning would also be decent in the window). Shock still has the extra dmg buff during the Crushed window.

 

Under Recklessness and Polarity Shift, Static Crush's second hit could deal approximately 17k. A normal 2nd hit of Static Crush would deal around 10k, or about what Crushing Darkness' dot deals now when you factor in crits.

 

This would give Lightning a 4-second burst window of around 70k, putting it in line with other burst specs.

 

You'll obviously be delaying Static Crush a little bit so it can be used with every second Thundering Blast. Considering that you'll be using it only half as much as the old Crushing Darkness, I've reintroduced the proc that allows Force Lightning to activate twice as fast. Under recklessness, the procc'd Force Lightning will do some pretty nasty damage (upwards of 18k over the one-GCD channel). Plus if you have latency you can use Force Lightning as the last ability in the Crushed window - that way if you fail to get the entire channel in the window, at least you're getting some extra damage from the first parts of the channel.

 

I've also given Lightning Flash the ability to reset affliction so that you don't lose burst on a target while keeping affliction refreshed on a second one.

 

CORRUPTION

 

Level 72 New Ability: Echoing Renewal (replaces Resurgence)

Shares cost, cooldown etc. with Resurgence

Old Resurgence: 4.3k instaheal, 3.3k hot over 15 seconds

 

New Resurgence: Heals the target for 5.5k and an additional 2.5k over 15 seconds. Additionally, using Echoing Renewal on a target affected by Revivifcation will spread the hot effect to all targets benefiting from Revivification. This effect can only occur once every 12 seconds.

 

Level 74 Passive: Focused Healing

Every time you use an instant Dark Heal with the Dark Concentration effect, the active cooldown of Polarity Shift is reduced by 1 second. Additionally, when Dark Heal consumes a stack of Recklessness, it restores 1.5k to up to 8 targets within 5 meters of the target.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Hoppinswtor

I like it - but 6 second activation time? Would be an eternity without something like galvanizing.

 

 

 

Just gonna throw in my constructive criticism.

 

Madness:

 

Maybe this is just a numbers thing, but this ability would never be worth using. You are spending 6 seconds to either do 7.7k non crit with the proc or up to about 13k with the autocrit. This amounts to be a 1.3k-2.2k ability. It just would never be worth using. I also think a 6 second channel is just way too long to sit there and not be able to move. I do like the passive change to the dot duration. That would smooth out the rotation some.

 

Lightning:

 

I really like this idea, but I just have a couple of concerns. This would make the opener kinda weird and slightly more inefficient. You would either have to apply affliction as your first gcd, and then follow with static crush, which would waste another whole gcd of the first polarity shift, or you would have to keep the order and waste a gcd of empowered static crush under pol shift which you would not want to do. You also don't take into account our crappy shock buff under crushing darkness. This change would make that passive 100% dead weight. You would never want to use shock there, and so you would never be able to benefit from it. I also think that an argument could be made for that burst window to be 4 seconds, but that is a minor argument. As far as the passive goes I have wanted back lightning barrage ever since they got rid of it in 3.0 so I love this idea.

 

Corruption:

 

Resurgence hot heals over 9 seconds, not 15 so Echoing Renewal should probably reflect that. Additionally, while the spread is nice, it really isn't doing any more single target healing. Maybe that's the point, but for a new/replacement ability, it should feel better to use. I think that the hot could use a number bump. Otherwise I think this looks interesting.

 

As far as the passive goes I feel like the first part is just copying a Lightning passive thereby making it not unique. I also don't think that you would get much use out of it as far as overall reduction goes. I think this part can be changed to something else or just removed. The latter part about additional AoE healing from dark heal + recklessness is cool, but there are some problems here. The first is that the amount of healing is just really low, especially because its also only targets within 5m. The other issue is that it is tied to dark heal. You never really use recklessness with dark heal, and this wouldn't make you want to either

 

 

I just want to say that I really like that you are trying to make constructive feedback instead of just complaining about the class. I only wanted to provide my feedback on where your ideas could be improved. Solid start though.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, "activation" was a typo. It's an instant ability on a 6-second cooldown since it replaces Shock.

 

For Lightning, the idea was that Shock would retain its buff under the Crushed window (since Static Crush is replacing Crushing Darkness). It might need a slightly higher buff just for emphasis. A 4-second burst window might make the spec a little too bursty in pvp, but the numbers can be tweaked to compensate.

 

Corruption isn't a spec I play that often these days, and I only really sampled a couple people for suggested changes. I think there's definitely a lot of room for refinement there.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Hoppinswtor

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, "activation" was a typo. It's an instant ability on a 6-second cooldown since it replaces Shock.

 

For Lightning, the idea was that Shock would retain its buff under the Crushed window (since Static Crush is replacing Crushing Darkness). It might need a slightly higher buff just for emphasis. A 4-second burst window might make the spec a little too bursty in pvp, but the numbers can be tweaked to compensate.

 

Corruption isn't a spec I play that often these days, and I only really sampled a couple people for suggested changes. I think there's definitely a lot of room for refinement there.

 

While I like the idea for lightning, I don't see it happening. With the changes to Carnage it seems Bioware made pretty clear that they do not want people to clip abilities into a damage window with travel times and such. Perhaps just keep the 1.5 second cast (with lightning flash buff) and increase the duration it 4.5 seconds. This would still allow for you to get in three abilities (with 1.3 seconds global cooldown you could probably even fit in a fourth attack, provided it's an instant hit attack).

 

As for shock, I think even a buffed shock does less damage than Chain Lightning. So it would be pushed out of the window (unless of course you manage to fit it in as a fourth ability with enough alacrity).

I personally love the lighting and madness ideas but would honestly redo the corruption ones side effect, atm it would pretty much give quasi kolto probes in an aoe fashion on top of revivification already with really high upime. I would personally have it so each cast of the new hot reduced the lockout timer of force/static bubbles by 2-3 seconds while also increasing the absorb of the next bubble by 5%. Bubbles are the defining class ability and best heal imo for sorcs even if ppl consider it a "fake heal". My only concern is someone using the old set bonus if anyone even has it still that used to lower the lockout timer on bubbles already by like 3 secs or something and it being wonky with bolster.

Hi, I am a long time sorc/sage dps fanboy and I have been playing it since 2.7 . I started doing operations and things in that expansion and I fell in love with sage dps. Both specs in fact.

 

What you are suggesting I absolutely love. Right now in Master mode operations sorc dps is serverly under performing with single target damage the only reason you bring a sorc right now is for AOE fights and even then you would under perform most classes.

 

Madness

I love the Tormenting bolt idea for madness, but the passive on lvl 74 would mean that the rotation would be around 14s if not less, and since you still need to use about 2-3 force lightning I don't see that happening. Reducing the dot would help for certain rotations where you keep applying before the dot ends, I get that, but people have adapted so you could use the entire duration of the ability. Also adding Tormenting Bolt means that you have even less time to use a force lightning -> lightning strike. So I would honestly keep the duration to 18s and let alacrity reduce the rotation. This would address what Hoppin said: "Right now, the optimal madness rotation requires you to clip a Force Lightning and apply dots 3 seconds before their falloff" This would only apply to one rotation. And there are mulitple rotations you could use in madness depending on your playstyle.

 

I like the fact that lightning strike would actually be buffed more than it currently is now. Because right now force lightning does more damage than 1 lightning strike on average. Both consume one GCD. The extra damage in execution phase would help but that does not help madness overall bad damage compared to other classes. I would recommend making the passive whenever force lightning lightning burns is applied tormenting bolt initial hit would regardless on health. Minor change would be change Fulminating Current to 12-15s because a slight interruption can cause you to lose the buff which happens quite a lot and lose damage.

 

Lightning

This static crush ability is quite cool, but honestly since this would involve things like clipping thundering blast into it, I doubt devs would allow this because that is not the way it is meant to be used. I think the idea is cool, but this does pose questions what about crushing darkness double tick passive ability what will that turn into? Would the damage over time from the original crushing darkness also be removed? Also shock still needs to be used under the Dot.

 

I like the lvl 74 passive to increment force lightning back into lightning again since it was removed with the release of 3.0. The damage should be increase by like 20-25% of force lightning as well to make it truly better than lightning bolt. This would make lightning rotation a lot harder and more fun to play. Minor changes would include Fulgorous fortification to 12-15 seconds as one interruption in rotation would make you lose the debuff, which tends to happen a lot in pvp as well as Master mode operations.

 

Corruption

The resurgence spread on the revivification would be a nice idea since it would not be too strong as resurgence healing is quite mediocre and mostly used now to proc force bending. Or renewal. The lvl 74 passive is a joke. Change it completely. Preferably something to do with Static barrier or Dark Heal.

I already did this with Mercenary and people on Discord seemed to like the changes, so I'll take a crack at Sorc. Here's how I'd suggest to continue the skill trees in 6.0, with new level 72 abilities and level 74 passives:

 

 

Hi all,

 

First of all, it’s very nice seeing people sharing new ideas and proposals that have concrete reason. It is obvious by the quality of the comments above. Well done!

 

My 2 cents comments ( not as criticism, but just my thoughts):

 

It can be a little debatable to state actual damage numbers, as we do not know the increase of gear and change of tertiary stats/diminishing effects in new lvl. I can understand that this was mainly done to depict more clearly the proposals.

 

Madness : Incorporating one more ability on a very static rotation (shock) although more challenging is not the approach BW follows as it becomes more complex for new people especially. Taking into account the change of rotation on targets <30%, is becoming further undesirable.

 

For madness I believe that the approach to go is to increase lighting strike damage ( as buffed). It was nerfed in the past, making it almost identical as lighting cast (so, insignificant in a way), which should not be the case. Also remove the uninspired dark echo passive and incorporate damage to lighting strike. This is a good way to address the single target damage and increase the burst.

 

Another option in my view is the increase of polarity shift to 15 sec (oh my). This would provide a partial solution of many issues that plague madness spec ( from 1v1 to op boss burst windows).

 

So, 2 passives for madness.

 

Lighting: Regarding Static Crush it could result as a nerf (though a strong feeling of burst). This is due to the 25% double tick ( as described above) but mainly due to the forked darkness reduction per 1 sec of polarity cd. Running the scenario (roughly) on 2.5 mio dummy (though the 4mio dummy should be a more ideal case in 6.0) it may result in a polarity swift may not happening (25-27 sec lost). This is unfavorable in a clear way. Also, it can be complex for new people.

 

The return of the lighting cast at 50% time (so a gcd) is the way! Fully supported It is so frequently requested and so desirable by the people advocating the class, that makes it surprising why they haven’t done it. Also, it will be specs 2nd hardest hit (with recklessness, more than 20k today) creating a strong burst window.

 

If lighting cast return, they should include it to the pushback reduction btw.

 

Thanks.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Panossss

If lighting cast return, they should include it to the pushback reduction btw.

 

Channeled abilities aren't affected by pushback since 3.0 (only casted abilities are), so that won't be an issue

No any new skills.

 

Try to think how to fix/replace/remove current ones.

No any new skills.

 

Try to think how to fix/replace/remove current ones.

 

Every skill he suggested is a replacement for ones we currently have.