Even the most updated sim craft is kinda confirming the 13/28 and full lightning are quite neck and neck on fights, and on both of them as far as mobility, yeah, 25% of your damage as lightning is all you get if you're moving, lightning is still only at roghly 40-45%. So if you're litterally never able to sit put for more than 1 second, yes the madness hybrid will win in the end, but something tells me that is not the case.

I'm quite confused as to how force is an issue with standard lightning play.... Like... I have a hard enough time dropping below 80% force during standard boss fights... let alone dropping to 0 in 90 seconds x.X and as far as mobility, i mean both madness spec and lightning are just as "immobile" they have a few instant cast spells (deathfield for madness, and then both specs get CL procs and shock) and all other damage comes from flat out casting. Both specs you're using afl, and in lightning you actually get some slightly BETTER mobility from what i've seen with only 20sec CD on force speed, and I cannot count how many times that has actually been helpful, since it almost seems like specific boss aoe's and such happen on 20 sec intervals. The only issue with lightning is the "theoretical damage posts" are pulling smaller numbers. speaking of which, can someone please post a link to one of these? Because i've messed with all of the specs, and lightning "feels" actually fairly good on damage.

Every time I see the Columi helm turned on... all i can think of is this... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lLsdaCVk3Kk/S9xELDZWJoI/AAAAAAABmFI/lqzI4kXKaoc/s400/ritazedd.jpg

Asking about dual spec is one thing, but demanding and throwing a pissy fit because of how game X came out with it already is stupid. The idea of dual spec didnt even come through in wow until 4-5 years into the game. Until then, we payed for every respec when we wanted to do dedicated pvp or hard core raiding or a DPSer needed to tank something or what ever.

Welcome to the beginning of any MMO where you ether have to use your PVP spec in PVE, your PVE spec in PVP, a mish mach of the two, or you dont do one or the other. WoW has clearly spoiled way too many kids these days.

I'm not saying stack crit and surge sky high, but I definitely think they will be the favored stat when you are given the option. As always a fine balance between them and the power stat is going to always be best, and willpower without a doubt is still going to be king. I'm just saying out of all of the extra "stats" not including willpower, crit and surge definitely seem like they will be quite effective. I am also curious about how much of an effect alacrity has on the GCD? I would assume it works almost the exact same as with wow. Also with the state of the whole cast time bug, is it even worth it to stack alacrity in the gear set?

I'll point out i think gearing will also have an entirely different effect on each spec. Surge is going to be HUGELY beneficial for lightning with all of the auto crit abilities and increased crit chance. Also surge % increase is pretty substantial on gear per point of itemization, only requiring around 5.5 surge per % increase on your crit damage. Another note is that alacrity will begin being of more help for lightning when the whole cast time bug has been fixed up! A few other questions to raise would be things like: With being required 110% accuracy (I could also be wrong on this number) for raid bosses, what is the effect of going over this 110%? I have heard claims of it reducing resistances on bosses. If so, what are the passive resistance values in place and what effect does this increased value have on them? The primary issue with this whole thing is there is just no way to GET data to get end game mechanics outside of crude simulations outside of game. With no combat log, and nothing like recount from WoW, there is just no way to validate anything in any simulation made in the current state of the game.

Madness: Very force heavy to apply full dots on the target. While there is a force return on force lighting, it basically makes it a free ability if all ticks go off (when specked properly). In soloing, or 4 man instances, it seems like a slightly better tree just due to a higher "30 second burst" timer due to the way dots will line up, which is what most fights last in these zones. As far as a rotation is concerned, I've seen that you start off with affliction, creeping terror, then use death field in the most effective way possible. Apply crushing darkness immediately after, then force lightning. Use the consumption only to one debuff to still retain some decent force regen, and to keep too much damage on yourself to make the healers sweat ^^;;. After this its keep dots up > use lightning strike when the instant cast is up > force lightning. Lightning: Much more force neutral in longer fights simply due to a half-cost proc on ANY crit from a force ability, and having force regen set to a passive 10.4 with talents (and has a near 100% up time). This spec seems much more reliant on the surge stat, due to many abilities having an increased crit chance, or a flat 100% crit on thundering blast in the ideal situation. This spec seems to be slightly more gear dependent, but much more favorable to the "end game raiding" situation from what numbers i have been seeing. For a rotation, I've kind of been using something loosely like this. Affliction > Thundering blast on CD > Chain lightning on proc > Lightning strike. Obviously use polarity shift in conjunction with relics for maximum DPS output. As far as PVP is concerned, madness is by far the better spec simply because of the crowd control abilities, and the amount of instant cast abilities that lightning does NOT offer.

Since there is no damage meter, or even active combat log in the game, there's no real way to tell which class is actually better in PVE, if this is what your question pertains to.

Have you done more experiments about this? Or seen any experiments with this from a caster POV? I'm curious also if you've found any sort of reliable "test dummy" mob in the world that could be used for further theorycrafting findings. Good to see someone with some actual data instead of just herp derping "class x is imba, does *insert outrageously unsupported number* moar damage"! Keep up any other findings!

You can't honestly expect them to get everything that every mmo has gotten into their game on the release date. You obviously have no idea what goes into a game development if you think otherwise.

There is a HUGE amount of spam if you are an ops leader about "party size limit reached" from your companions. http://tinypic.com/r/2n00iev/5