Why must the ability to heal as a DPS = underwhelming performance as a DPS?

Sorc/Sage is fine in PVE. I've personally witnessed a good sorc keep up and beat on some fights a good marauder. PvP is where they need a buff. This goes back tot he whole theory "Do we buff PvP capability for a class and risk a PvE imbalance."

I tried really hard to care about the plight of the sorcerer DPS, but then I read this thread and completely lost my sympathy. I just don't see anything here that sounds any different from any similar thread from any MMO that I have played.

When it comes down to it, this game is just not built for "serious" PvP or for "serious" raid progression. That's just not the target audience. There are MMO's out there that are built for those things, but this is not it. I see an effort on the part of the developers to try to satisfy some of that, but the players who care about "serious" PvP or "serious" raid progression are in the minority, and the development priorities do not seem to align with what that minority wants.

Perhaps it is a problem of expectations. Perhaps some players would be better off playing a different game. I would love to see this game gain in popularity and I hate to see it lose players, but it's not the game for everyone.

I can't believe that post stating that the dps of hybrids is lesser because they can heal to full actually exists and someone actually not only thought up that... intelligent comment... but green lighted it to be posted on the forums as well.

If you are healing yourself in a raid as a dps class in any MMO, you should be kicked from the raid solely for pandering to the poor design philosophy of whoever is currently in charge of class balance, not to mention you are hurting your raid.

I don't agree with the idea of the hybrid tax, if that's what's going on here. Especially in a PVE environment, we don't want our dps having to heal during a fight when enrage timers are at stake. There is absolutely no benefit to that. Same in PVP. However, I do think people underestimate the ability to *cough* heal to full. Look through WoW arena forums and see how much QQ there is over dps classes that can heal and the explosion when certain ones didn't get a heal nerf they were proposing.

I think that if Bioware buffed Sorc dps and gave them better defensive cooldowns, they would also inevitably nerf their ability to heal while in DPS spec. Would people find that an acceptable trade off?

LOL! Just had to hear that one for myself.

Inquisitors and Consulars will never be returned to their demi-god release status. The sooner you guys get over that the sooner we can all enjoy a balanced game.

If it isn't built to actually have people play the game then what is this game about? Jedi/Sith dress-up? What does the majority of the population DO? Drool on their keyboard spinning in circles in fleet? Farm relentlessly for things they have no need for?

In a nutshell...yes.

Saying "it isn't built to actually have people play" is a very narrow view, though. Serious PvP and serious progression raiding represent a relatively small part of the content in the game...there are a lot of things that qualify as "playing" that do not involve those things. It can be hard for some people to grasp, but a lot of people (perhaps even a majority) do not have any ultimate goal that they are striving for when they play...they don't have any concept of "winning"...they just play. As long as there is something for them to do to pass the time, they are satisfied. I may be wrong, but from my experience, those people represent the majority of players, and those people seem to be the core target audience for this game.