This is going to be long. I'd like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable about game dynamics and I thought I might help come up with some class changes that should increase some of our pvp concerns while not affecting pve balance too greatly. Most of which are quality of life buffs that should make the specs more "enjoyable." Lastly many of these changes should help to make Sorcs less of a "super high skill-cap class" and more accessible to the average player.

General-

1) Force Sprint now removes all movement impairing-effects and grants immunity to all movement-impairing effects for the duration.

2) Overload now adds a debuff which slows the the target by 50% movement speed for 4 seconds.

Corruption-

1) Reverse Corruptions now removes the health cost of using Consumption.

2) Twisted Force now also makes Innervate immune to interrupts.

3) Fadeout, redesigned, after suffering a critical hit gain a buff that increases movement speed by 15% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

4) Conspiring Force- Targets affected by your affliction are slowed by [25 / 50]% for its duration.

5) Corrupted Barrier- In addition to the current effect, after Static Barrier and Force Barrier end they now erupt reducing the damage of all nearby enemies by 10% for 5 seconds.

6) Dark Resilience now increase the total force gained by Consumption by [2 / 4]% instead of reducing the health cost.

Lightning-

1) Backlash and Suppression have changed positions in the skill tree.

2) Backlash has been returned to a 3 second stun to all nearby enemies but still only works on Static Barriers placed on yourself.

3) Suppression has been redesigned- If Chain Lightning, Thundering Blast or Lightning Strike are interrupted prior to completing activation then an Arc will extend from the Sorcerer equal to 30% of the abilities original damage.

Madness-

1) Haunted Dreams has been redesigned- Whirlwind no longer breaks from your own damage over times effects on the target. Additionally reduce the cast time of Whirlwind by [0.75 / 1.5] seconds.

2) Parasitism has been redesigned- Critical hits from periodic damage abilities to restore [0.5 / 1]% of your total force.

3) Devour- Only provides dispel immunity to damage over time abilities.

4) Death Field- No longer provides healing, instead provides 2% Total Force for each target struck.

5) Shapeless Spirit- In addition to the current effect, after suffering a critical hit gain a buff that decreases damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

My overall thoughts on these changes.

General-

Currently most melee classes have far more tools for gap closers than Sorcs do. For example, leap not only closes distance but also puts a slow/root on the target. This will provide Overload the same quality of life. As for Force Sprint, this is essentially for any type of kiting.

Corruption-

The changes to consumption have to happen. Currently Sorcs are already the favorite class to be focused in any type of pvp setting and having to sacrifice your own health while being focused is extremely difficult. The Force Regen cost will remain in place unless utilized by Force Surge charges.

Innervate is the CORE healing spell for a Sorc. It's not only our best single target heal but it's also directly linked to regen and AOE healing from Force Surge charges. The ability to lock this ability out has a major negative affect on any type of healing rotation.

Finally, Sorcs wear light armor so we don't want any light armor tanks walking around. With the current version of Fadeout being made available baseline this ability will provide Sorcs to try to utilize speed and elegance to survive when focused.

Lightning-

Lightning currently has pretty strong burst. It's only real problem is how it can be locked out so easily. Returning Mez bubble back to a self-only stun is a good change. Especially considering Lightning Burst has been designed to include Affliction for Thundering Blast crits. Moving it up higher on the tree is to prevent possible hybrid abuse.

Secondly, the ability to "strike an enemy" for reduced damage even while interrupt should help prevent a player from fully being locked out. (Which effectively is the least fun component of any mmo)

Madness-

Let's start with the beginning. Passive self healing has GOT to go. This is a crutch that inflates our healing numbers and misrepresents our ability to survive in any competitive setting. (Read: Being Focused)

Secondly, Madness has severe Force problems in pvp because we can't always just spam Force Lightning. Adding in passive Force Gains from Dots/Death Field will cure this problem.

Finally, without any heals and while still possessing light armor we need a way to survive. Adding back the instant Whirlwind is a step in this direction as well as providing some synergy with the spec to allow some tactical use. Also, Shapeless Form providing an active damage debuff while being focused should provide sorcs with a reasonable ability to survive without going overboard while a healing is assisting them.

All good ideas but I would like to see innervate and resurgence on shorter CD'es too alt. instead of some of the other healer tweaks. Those two would put us on par with operatives while still maintaining somewhat of a class distinction. Mercs would end up even more behind but that's their problem.

None of it will ever happen though, or atleast not in our lifetime.

Just to add to the madness self-heals discussion, I've never taken any of those abilties. I find them to be completely useless when 99,999% of my deaths come from three people focusing/bursting me down (I rarely die but when i do it's in those situations, usually while sacrificing myself for the sake of the objective). There's not a 0,5 % self heal in the world that could save me in those situations.

Just to add to the madness self-heals discussion, I've never taken any of those abilties. I find them to be completely useless when 99,999% of my deaths come from three people focusing/bursting me down (I rarely die but when i do it's in those situations, usually while sacrificing myself for the sake of the objective). There's not a 0,5 % self heal in the world that could save me in those situations.

I do grab those abilities BUT it's true that they don't save your at all in arena. The problem is that as long as they exist people in warzones will see the Sorc "op heals" of 200-400k and think that this will suffice for defensives in arena. They need to give Madness the Assassin-Tank treatment and take away the healing for some real passive defensives.

Quality ideas but i dont think corruption will ever be viable without some kind of focused will ability.

The changes to DPS trees seem perfect.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=45243/focused-will

This is going to be long. I'd like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable about game dynamics and I thought I might help come up with some class changes that should increase some of our pvp concerns while not affecting pve balance too greatly. Most of which are quality of life buffs that should make the specs more "enjoyable." Lastly many of these changes should help to make Sorcs less of a "super high skill-cap class" and more accessible to the average player.

 

General-

 

1) Force Sprint now removes all movement impairing-effects and grants immunity to all movement-impairing effects for the duration.

2) Overload now adds a debuff which slows the the target by 50% movement speed for 4 seconds.

 

Corruption-

 

1) Reverse Corruptions now removes the health cost of using Consumption.

2) Twisted Force now also makes Innervate immune to interrupts.

3) Fadeout, redesigned, after suffering a critical hit gain a buff that increases movement speed by 15% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

4) Conspiring Force- Targets affected by your affliction are slowed by [25 / 50]% for its duration.

5) Corrupted Barrier- In addition to the current effect, after Static Barrier and Force Barrier end they now erupt reducing the damage of all nearby enemies by 10% for 5 seconds.

6) Dark Resilience now increase the total force gained by Consumption by [2 / 4]% instead of reducing the health cost.

 

Lightning-

 

1) Backlash and Suppression have changed positions in the skill tree.

2) Backlash has been returned to a 3 second stun to all nearby enemies but still only works on Static Barriers placed on yourself.

3) Suppression has been redesigned- If Chain Lightning, Thundering Blast or Lightning Strike are interrupted prior to completing activation then an Arc will extend from the Sorcerer equal to 30% of the abilities original damage.

 

Madness-

 

1) Haunted Dreams has been redesigned- Whirlwind no longer breaks from your own damage over times effects on the target. Additionally reduce the cast time of Whirlwind by [0.75 / 1.5] seconds.

2) Parasitism has been redesigned- Critical hits from periodic damage abilities to restore [0.5 / 1]% of your total force.

3) Devour- Only provides dispel immunity to damage over time abilities.

4) Death Field- No longer provides healing, instead provides 2% Total Force for each target struck.

5) Shapeless Spirit- In addition to the current effect, after suffering a critical hit gain a buff that decreases damage taken by 5% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

 

My overall thoughts on these changes.

 

General-

 

Currently most melee classes have far more tools for gap closers than Sorcs do. For example, leap not only closes distance but also puts a slow/root on the target. This will provide Overload the same quality of life. As for Force Sprint, this is essentially for any type of kiting.

 

Corruption-

 

The changes to consumption have to happen. Currently Sorcs are already the favorite class to be focused in any type of pvp setting and having to sacrifice your own health while being focused is extremely difficult. The Force Regen cost will remain in place unless utilized by Force Surge charges.

 

Innervate is the CORE healing spell for a Sorc. It's not only our best single target heal but it's also directly linked to regen and AOE healing from Force Surge charges. The ability to lock this ability out has a major negative affect on any type of healing rotation.

 

Finally, Sorcs wear light armor so we don't want any light armor tanks walking around. With the current version of Fadeout being made available baseline this ability will provide Sorcs to try to utilize speed and elegance to survive when focused.

 

Lightning-

 

Lightning currently has pretty strong burst. It's only real problem is how it can be locked out so easily. Returning Mez bubble back to a self-only stun is a good change. Especially considering Lightning Burst has been designed to include Affliction for Thundering Blast crits. Moving it up higher on the tree is to prevent possible hybrid abuse.

 

Secondly, the ability to "strike an enemy" for reduced damage even while interrupt should help prevent a player from fully being locked out. (Which effectively is the least fun component of any mmo)

 

Madness-

 

Let's start with the beginning. Passive self healing has GOT to go. This is a crutch that inflates our healing numbers and misrepresents our ability to survive in any competitive setting. (Read: Being Focused)

 

Secondly, Madness has severe Force problems in pvp because we can't always just spam Force Lightning. Adding in passive Force Gains from Dots/Death Field will cure this problem.

 

Finally, without any heals and while still possessing light armor we need a way to survive. Adding back the instant Whirlwind is a step in this direction as well as providing some synergy with the spec to allow some tactical use. Also, Shapeless Form providing an active damage debuff while being focused should provide sorcs with a reasonable ability to survive without going overboard while a healing is assisting them.

Duran'del here:

My thoughts(from a BH sense of view):

Well, Innervate is fine as-is. The Sorc is not a melee class(just like PTs are not ranged classes) so force speed should not be changed, as it would be better than HtL/HO by a LOT, thus taking whatever semblance of utility BH/Troopers have. And spamming Force Lightning is OP. by the same thing, shouldn't mandos be able to spam Full auto? Considering the ridiculous amount of stuns and CCs the sorc has, it is almost impossible to LoS them. This would but other classes at a disadvantage. A sorc has excellent survivability(a lot better than a 'mando, that is.)

a sorc has better survivability than a merc? lol

ok thanks for your opinion pve server guy

a sorc has better survivability than a merc? lol

 

ok thanks for your opinion pve server guy

well, 'Mandos have more damage reduction, but the heals we do really cannot compare to the other Healing Classes. The Commando/Merc is the worst Healer Class ingame.

And I'm on Begeren Colony. I was talking from a PvP standpoint. The Sorc class is one of the top classes when it comes to DPS. AP/Tactics isn't as good(I'm talking about one using a HE cell, not the tanky cell, even thought it is possible to be destroyed while using that) And the suggested changes would, as I stated, eliminate any utility the BH has. Everyone would bring Sorcs, Snipers, Operatives, Marauders, and Juggernauts to raids because they've got the most utility out of all the classes.

Ok, so I decided to give solo arena a shot today and played a good 20 games.

Conclusion: A lot has to be done with the class.

Now, I don't know if I got extremely unlucky or if the imps on my server only solo Q on PT hybrids, warriors and deception sins but pretty much every imp team I faced was real heavy on burst and pressure. Add to this that i for one or another reason had to play numerous games against three people on the same class (3 warriors etc).

To make things worse, I ended up in the same games as two people who used ranked as a way of farming gear on several occassions. They had around 27K HP on un-auged stock Conq sets. One of them even admitted to what he was doing and added that he didnt even know the class properly yet since he hadnt PvP'ed much while leveling. The other one "couldnt be bothered" with getting a stim and had an average skill way below average.

So basically the worst possible circumstances but it also showed how narrow "the class window" must be for a sorc/sage to have a fighting chance in solo ranked. Slightest "class shift" in the other team's favor and it won't matter if you're ten times more skilled than every player in the match, you will still not stand a chance. The worst incident was when I took 39K in damage over a couple of GCD'es in a game with no healer. Two sins opened on me and I was forced to use barrier but since there was no healer they would simply wait for me. I came out and was stunned too death.

I also had a couple of games where the other team would simply ignore the healer and put all their effort into bursting me down, knowing that a healer would never be able to heal through it.

Urgent damage control fixes:

1. Egress. We're the first target, regardless of spec, in pretty much every game and we don't have the DCD'es to withstand the burst. We need to have a chance to get away..

2. Roll-back on both the stun range, 360 KB and instant CC. You don't have time to spend 1,5 s channeling an ability when you've already taken 20K in damage and need to get away or when you see three DD'es come at you. We are currently sitting ducks.

3. My conclusion from today's solo q Arena is that madness is the only viable spec, I've previously played a hybrid. Even if you happen to face a mixed or ranged team, which are to prefer if you are a sage/sorc, you rarely have the support to just stand there and channel. You need to be on the move and have the ability to slow down followers (the top root).

The problem with madness is that the force managent still is piss poor and the duration on dots is too long. The dot duration should be cut in half while maintaining the the same overall damage. 18 seconds? That's twelve GCD'es for a healer to mitigate the damage....or in 99 % of the cases; a couple of scouprative hots.

After a couple of games I actually came to terms with being nothing but a support class. How bad isnt that? I'm specced full DPS but feel like some form of by-stander who makes sure that eveyone is bubbled (which you can't do much on madness anyway due to , once again, the piss poor force management).

An absolutely horrible expereince.

Also, anyone know if the root in madness/balance will be given immunity too or if it's just the damage of the dot? It would have been real nice if we could root sins and juggs when they're glued to us with their DCD'es up.

This is going to be long. I'd like to think I'm fairly knowledgeable about game dynamics and I thought I might help come up with some class changes that should increase some of our pvp concerns while not affecting pve balance too greatly. Most of which are quality of life buffs that should make the specs more "enjoyable." Lastly many of these changes should help to make Sorcs less of a "super high skill-cap class" and more accessible to the average player.

 

Corruption-

 

1) Reverse Corruptions now removes the health cost of using Consumption.

This needs to be done through our 4-piece PVP set bonus, not through talents. I do, however, agree that it is a necessary change.

The reason why is back when we could talent to eliminate the health cost, PVE Force Management was simply LOLeasy. As in, at least as easy as scouperatives have it now if not easier. The only time we ever had to worry about Force was if we never, ever had spare GCDs available to consume. And if we couldn't manage to free a global here and there for Force management, we were clearly either 1) unskilled or 2) undergeared for the content we were attempting to do.

Of course, PVP, where you can't rely on the tank to "hold aggro," is a completely different ball of wax that doesn't really allow us to sacrifice our health--when we do get a window to do that we often must spend three consecutive globals and then heal to full because we don't know when we'll get the chance to do it again. Considering that our 4-piece PVP set bonus already refunds a small amount of the health cost as a hot (but not enough to really be useful--it's better to either go 2/2 or take the assassin 4-piece recklessness bonus), that is an ideal way to make the change. And keeping it confined to the PVP set bonus should keep it out of the hands of PVErs, especially considering the huge disparity between top-end PVP and PVE gear that has been allowed to grow (67s vs. 78s).

This needs to be done through our 4-piece PVP set bonus, not through talents. I do, however, agree that it is a necessary change.

 

<snip>

^ wise man here

4 Piece set bonus would be a good idea, but some PVEers would still run it. If it was a reduced health cost and reduced it to 5 or 10% it would not be worth it to PVE players. While the gear disparity is huge, you still see MM snipers often running the 2-piece PVP set bonus to boost their orbital strike because the stat changes don't outweigh the extra tick of damage.

Except that they'd have to go full PVP 4-piece to get it. That means they have to give up their reduced cooldown innervate--and that's a big deal, a major tradeoff. There might be a few who did it, but I suspect they would be a minority.

Although you do have a point about low-mid tier PVErs who only do FPs/don't do ops and/or have bad luck getting the drops. I think allowing PVE set bonuses to drop from the last boss in FPs again would go a long way towards ameliorating that--it's tempting to run beginner ops, that you can get away with in a few 65s/67s, with PVP armorings for set bonuses anyway because there's no way to get set bonuses from the first few bosses in SM. The uber leet raiders will complain, but they'll complain anyway once the next tier of 69 PVP gear comes out and lets peeps enter beginner SM ops with PVP set bonuses anyway. A PVP set bonus is better than none and Bioware wasn't thinking clearly when they made PVE set bonuses that much harder to get.

Our 2-piece PVP bonus also really only helps lightning spec get more uptime on its bubblemez, as our static barrier has failed to scale properly with the general increase in stats over the course of the game.

At the very least our 4 piece should be a straight health cost reduction instead of a hot refund because of how ridiculously bursty PVP is (and it's not like we have any mitigation to tamp down the burst).

Duran'del here:

My thoughts(from a BH sense of view):

Well, Innervate is fine as-is. The Sorc is not a melee class(just like PTs are not ranged classes) so force speed should not be changed, as it would be better than HtL/HO by a LOT, thus taking whatever semblance of utility BH/Troopers have. And spamming Force Lightning is OP. by the same thing, shouldn't mandos be able to spam Full auto? Considering the ridiculous amount of stuns and CCs the sorc has, it is almost impossible to LoS them. This would but other classes at a disadvantage..)

A sorc has excellent survivability???? Please explain the excellent survivability that sorcs have. I don't play a sorc or sage but I never could blow up a mando as quickly as I could blow up a sorc/sage.