AdrianDmitruk
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Posts posted by AdrianDmitruk
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You forgot the bullet point about how sages get baseline interrupt immunity every 45 seconds while DPS commandoes have no interrupt protection at all.
Every 2 minutes, not every 45 seconds.
You also forgot the point about how commandoes can only kite once every 90 seconds, while sages can do it constantly.While simultaneously fulfilling their role? (be it damage or heals) Only since 2.7.
Before 2.7 it was easy to permaroot us unless we were healers (but healers are so reliant on cast/channels, and continue to be so, that we can't do our job while kiting)
You also forgot to mention how reactive shield is a 2 minute cooldown.Yes, one minute shorter than ours, but doesn't hinder your role
You also forgot to mention how sages have a marginally overpowered hybrid while commandoes have never even had a hybrid.We have to hybrid because there's so much useless filler in the top third of our skill trees, tell Bioware to fix our full trees pl0x. 2.7 added more skill taxes in the bottom tiers by moving fadeout/egress down to tier 2. Balance/madness literally can't afford to pay both this skill tax and the force management skill taxes that have been in our middle tree since launch.
You also forgot to mention how the sage gets a baseline ranged snare and talentable roots and snares in other trees while commando only gets one melee root in only one tree.Yeah the baseline snare is so awesome, let me know when it locks out pulls/leaps. (WTB electronet lol) Its cooldown is 12s, but its duration is only 6s; leaps are 15 with ways to reduce/reset them. We can't reduce the cd on our slow.
It must be alternated or combined with either 30 point middle tree root or 36 point right tree root to give us a chance to counter leap spam. Healers are ****ed as they can't talent root.
You also forgot how sages get a baseline instant self-heal that costs nothing and is off GCD...It's on GCD
your post is hereby fixed
also, as an aside, I'd gladly add 10 seconds to cooldown of Force Wave if it could get same airtime and radial as Concussion Charge
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Feedback was asked for in the PVE perspective. As far as the PVE DPS set goes, it's very good as I said so why talk about anything other than Seer?
I'm more familiar with the crappiness of PVP set bonuses, and tbh that is where most if not all of our set bonus issues are. All specs are incentivized to get either PVE set bonuses or the other advanced class' stalker set bonus, but the incentives might not be quite as obvious for DPS as they are for seer.
Saying "our set bonuses are fine for PVE" completely ignores where the problem is. PVE accounts for only half the set bonuses and PVPers appreciate having to run ops to get a viable set bonus about as much as hardcore PVErs enjoy grinding PVP for the practically-BiS relics.
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The PVE DPS set bonus is very nice if under-appreciated. The PVE heal set bonus is honestly extremely attractive with the 2 piece absolutely essential to play at a high level and perhaps a bit too attractive to PVP Seer Sages. Reduced cooldown on the largest net single target heal is huge in both environments. At the same time, the 4 piece is kind of just there. If you can manage Force with 650 Force, you can probably manage Force with 600 just as well. So overall, the 2 piece is amazing and the 4 piece is kind of meh.
Well in fairness the 2 piece PVE bonus is attractive to seers mostly because the 4 piece PVP bonus for seers absolutely sucks to the point it may as well not exist. With bolster, there's literally no sacrifice made to take the 2 piece PVE bonus and everything to gain.
Change the 4 piece PVP bonus to eliminate health cost on noble sacrifice entirely, and switch the 2 and 4 piece around for PVE seers, and maybe we won't have that problem.
Also I didn't ask for the set bonus feedback to be completely moved back to seer. I just asked for it to be referenced there as it's a glaring problem with that one spec (and in no way diminishes the fact that set bonuses for other specs also suck). Something like, "We also suffer heavily from lackluster set bonuses in PVP; see discussion of set bonus feedback below" would have been fine.
But then the feedback would have to include more than the PVE/PVP set bonus imbalance for seer to get all specs' set bonuses looked at. Being thorough there is not a bad thing.
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At this point I would think so. Besides what people have posted here, I've looked back over the Sage and Sorc forums and these issues come up again and again. I'm going to try to refine them more, but I think these topics should be the 3. 2.7 dealt with some serious QoL issues and took some stuff off the table, like Balance force issues.
EDITS ARE UP. I'VE MOVED THE DISCUSSION OF THE SET BONUSES TO FEEDBACK.
I would like to bulk that section up, so if you have concerns with set bonuses, please post comments.
The set bonuses really are a seer spec issue. I can see why you moved them to feedback (to allow a broader discussion of PVP set bonuses being lackluster for every spec, to the point where we literally think about taking the other AC's stalker bonus--ridiculous!) but it is particularly glaring for seer and deserves a specific reference there. Please add a cross-reference in the seer question.
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You should be slapping your English teacher.
I have made a small correction to the OP to resolve a contradiction that caused my English teacher's head to explode. Thank you for reminding me to proofread.
I'm putting the same amount of effort into editing as Bioware puts into keeping PVE and PVP gear separate, though.
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My Vigilance Guardian, wearing full PVE gear, was able to lose his way to 2 PVE, er oops PVP relics that are even closer to BiS for his main PVE activities (and still outperform 75% of his team while losing his way to near-BiS). Hell maybe they actually are BiS for PVE now.
Thank you for the relics upgrade Bioware!
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This is subjective - I personally use Project as an 'execute' and it works fine.
Request: Please don't misquote me as I'm not the one who said the above
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They're already looking into these issues - don't ask this question please.
Where have they said they're looking into reducing our skill taxes? I know they are talking about reducing how much offhealing is considered "utility" for game balance purposes in answers to other classes, and they are taking concrete actions in the direction of reducing/eliminating pushback. But the only yellow comment I've ever found even remotely concerning our excessive skill taxes is admitting that perhaps our crit was overnerfed as a feeble attempt at a face-saving concession to us in the Heal to Full disaster; I have seen no follow up to that of any kind (and no, they never directly admitted that said crit nerf forced us into paying crit-related skill taxes). I suppose that actually applies to alacrity as well (which they have tried to make more important, but continue to leave the scaling of the stat poor).
NEVER have I seen a yellow post admitting that sages are forced by game design to take talents up to the second tier in all three trees, which is what the potential skill tax question would be meant to address. Oh, and they're adding another skill tax for PVP come 2.7 (granted in an attempt to break the 0/30/16 hybrid, but still).
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Feedback on skill tax section: Don't forget to mention seer is taxed an extra 2 points in telekinetics (beyond the 5 Force management points) to get the improvement to Force Armor
It just doesn't seem as noticeable because our full tree needs so much work that we don't want to take extra points in it anyway, haha.
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Questions:
1. In Czerka tactical flashpoints, mobs/bosses drop Basic Comms. In 55 Kuat tactical flashpoints, the mobs and bosses only drop Planetary Comms, which you have outleveled, and the only Basic Comms come from the daily. Is this intended? Why not standardize the comms for all 55 tactical flashpoints to Basic so all are equally desirable (from a rewards point of view) to run?
2. The Czerka tacticals also have Hardmode versions, allowing players who are able to find balanced group compositions to take a higher level of challenge in exchange for higher rewards. Sadly, this option is not available for Kuat at all, leaving us pressured to roll new alts if we want Kuat rep (Kuat seldom pops at 55, at least on my server, due to the considerations of Question 1). Why not create a Hardmode version of Kuat (and future tacticals) to allow those players who want to invest a bit of time into finding "proper" groups to enjoy the tactical FP storylines while at the same time accepting a bit more challenge for better rewards?
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That's a nice and detailed post... I guess it will have to be compacted but it explains the point in detail.
Just some minor corrections, not that they really matter for the question as hopefully it won't go to that long level of detail.
The arguement is still the same but the "tax" that TK pays both in pve and pvp is not in the seer tree but in the balance one (7 points in fact)... +6% crit for lightning strike (and FL) is kind of a must, in fact 6% crit on LS and FL >> +2% alac and 3% crit if I had to choose one or the other. For pvp given how much egress is important, you will have to lose out on the 6% crit bonus on LS... TK pays a much higher tax than balance in this respect.
Thanks for the correction to detail--as I'm 99% a healer (and 95% a PVP one of that!) I hadn't really noticed the more "specific" tax for telekinetics over in balance tree like that--but the point is that skill tax still remains, it's just payable from a different account
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Well said Adrian. The skill tax issue was part of my initial laundry list, at least as it relates to the new placement of Egress. The concern that I have is that it's entirely obvious the devs, for whatever reason, want that level of sacrifice. For now, the skill tax issue will be in the bonus questions. After 2.7 we'll have a solid two weeks to see what you all really want to ask.
Also, I can think of ways to stick this in survival (via Egress) so stay tuned.
Do keep in mind that both seer and balance have been assessed Force Management taxes payable from telekinetics since launch in the same manner that telekinetics is getting taxed from seer now/after 2.7 with egress. Some of the telekinetics taxes were assessed effective in 2.0 with the big nerf to our stats scaling and the addition of accuracy to the stats we need (diluting our stat budget even further), but with the devs now expecting sages to make additional sacrifices to get the talent they should have acquired baseline when they gave commandos HtL baseline, only now does telekinetics pay the top skill tax bracket that seer and balance have been paying all along.
If skill taxes do make it into the round of questions, I'd like to see the issue addressed for all specs, as Egress is only the newest and latest example of a longstanding burden to our class.
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To say nothing of how various cartel market armor sets (usually with capes) clip when riding speeders. But not in the preview window! But Bioware would rather reskin an armor set to resell it then offer proper support for its existing products, which may have been sold under false pretenses due to their laziness (or worse) in reconciling the differences between what shows up in preview, and what you actually get.
(Strangely enough, my sage has the Sanctified Caretaker set precisely because it's one of the few "Jedi" sets that doesn't have those clipping problems when mounted.)
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I have a few topics I would love to get some commentary on. To wit:
1. Regarding an execute, can someone make the case for the need? TK probably shouldn't have one and Balance doesn't need one in PvP. Balance's problem is its DPS just needs a boost. Can someone articulate the problem an execute resolves? That's the support we'll need to back up a request like that.
2. Someone made a very adept argument regarding the skill tax suffered by Sages and how that would get worse in 2.7. I can see that for Balance, but is this truly a problem for TK or Seer? Give me your thoughts.
3. Off-healing. KBN suggests that Sage off-healing is very good. I'm personally skeptical. How do you all feel?
I'm the person who made Argument Number Two (and I believe that as the question doesn't fit within the other two questions, it should displace the "Jedi appearance" question to a bonus question, but it seems you were the only one who noticed the post). To answer the question:
Seer is currently taxed 7 points in telekinetics spec (5 points bottom tier for Force Management, 2 points in the bubble absorption talent, I forget what they're called pubside as my main is a sorc). That's in middle tree alone. It's also taxed 2 points in Will of the Jedi (3/6% Willpower bonus), and in the case of PVP, arguably taxed another 2 points for the (weak) DR talent as we need all the mitigation we can get.
In PVE, therefore, seer is taxed 9 points. That leaves only 1 "discretionary" point to pick up any desired talents in seer tree past the 36 point spec; it's very cookie-cutter with almost no room for variation. In PVP, seer is arguably taxed 11 points, which makes the 36-point build somewhat impractical (too many drawbacks of too much severity, literally not enough points to go around paying all the skill taxes), and when combined with the void of useful PVP talents between seer points 22-35, the excessive skill taxes impel many sage/sorc healers to experiment with hybrid builds. After the buffs to sage/sorc DPS, along with the decided lack of attention to the heal tree, however, I fear that the point in even attempting to heal with this class in PVP will disappear entirely.
To the extent skill taxes are not a problem with seer spec, I'd argue that is simply because the top third of seer tree leaves a lot to be desired, so it doesn't really seem like we're giving up much by "only" speccing 36 points.
In PVE, telekinetics is taxed 5 to possibly 7 points in seer tree alone. 2.0 nerfed crit and alacrity scaling very harshly (along with forcing us to exchange alacrity which is important to casters for some accuracy in our stat budget), and quite frankly, we are expected to get those stats back via those 5 talent points at the bottom of seer even if not every sage does it. (Autocrit TB makes up for the crit loss somewhat, but unlike smash, it's really hard to argue that the rest of telekinetics' rotation is simply filler.) Of course with the devs unwilling to give us any form of off-GCD active mitigation whatsoever, any anti-ranged mechanic requiring intensive healing starts to make the healing received talent another skill tax as well. And of course those 2-4 points in balance (depending upon how much you will need healing) are an omnipresent tax too.
All of that leaves PVE telekinetics in a very cookie-cutter position, again spending the minimum necessary 36 points and unable to invest in "optional" talents within lightning tree. (As an example, Electric Bindings--again forgive me for not knowing sage names offhand--is widely considered unnecessary in PVE because it doesn't directly boost damage in any way, even though it can be of immense help against stray adds and buy your tank/healer more time to support you.)
And that's before we even begin to get into PVP, where Humility and Egress also await as taxes assessed against telekinetics, payable from the second tier of seer tree. Egress of course for obvious reasons, but Humility's penalty to melee attackers is critical when we stun to buy space, only to see the attacker lolbreak the stun because our hardcasted mez is so useless/interruptable. In addition, PVP survivability regardless of spec is so infamously balanced around "heal to full," incoming healing bonuses become especially important to get the most out of h2f (especially given the weakness of our "offheals" in DPS spec); yet paying 8-10 skill taxes in seer leaves us robbing ourselves of the skill taxes in madness and again leaves us little room for "extra" talents in lightning.
Other classes can go 39-40 points in their trees if they like the talents in the top section thereof enough. Our class simply doesn't have that option. Oh, and did I mention that having so many skill taxes around encourages the very hybrid builds that Bioware has claimed to loathe?
These skill taxes need to die in a fire.
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Also, to provide a quick answer to your Question the Third: Lightning offhealing can be very, very good, though it requires sacrificing big offensive cooldowns (often simultaneously) to heal instead of filling your role, DPS. Force Armor+ [Off GCD Force Potency+Mental Alacrity] + Benevolence spam can provide some really, really nice and unexpected burst healing when your healers find themselves in a pinch. But Lightning spec alone has the spare Force to pull this off, and as repeatedly pointed out by the community, the devs' stated decision to balance our "utility" and survivability around "offhealing" to full detracts heavily from the role we actually want to play when we spec Lightning, i.e. DPS.
If you're trying to support an inexperienced healer in a pug run, while overgeared yourself, lightning offhealing is definitely viable. If you're worrying about enrage timers, however, it's a really bad idea, so offhealing should be considered a minor utility at best.
Offhealing in Madness, however, is utterly laughable. Madness simply doesn't have the Force to do it, and utterly lacks access to Force regeneration talents that can help it recover from a burst of off-healing. LOL Noble Sacrifice doesn't count, killing your Force Regen for a tiny percentage of Force gain leaves your net positive Force somewhere near the single digits and your health lowered---LOLOLOLOLOLOL please excuse me while I laugh manically---LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
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It's a shame because anyone using their brain could easily fix many of the PvP issues in this game.
Too difficult and technically challenging!
no
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ADDITIONAL PARAGRAPH ADDED TO QUESTION ONE AND ANOTHER SENTENCE TO THE ACTUAL QUESTION.
I'm trying to incorporate the 'essence' of this very interesting conversation we've been having regarding Sage survivability.
Another note, shouting again so it gets noticed:
THERE HAS BEEN NO NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ON THE "SAGE AS JEDI" QUESTION.
In fact, most commenters have seemed to like it. So it's staying in unless someone starts objecting. Thankfully we have a couple of weeks to go.
Eh I don't object to the content of the question per se, but I do feel we have more pressing concerns, namely the payment of the highest skill taxes in the game. Presently we have outright skill taxes in all three of our trees that must be paid, regardless of spec. (Other classes tend to have skill taxes in two of their trees at most, and there are fewer of them.) While making Fadeout possible for all pure DPS specs is much desired for PVP, this does also increase the skill taxes further. The excessive skill taxes paid by Sorcerers also encourage the "base" of the dreaded hybrid builds by discouraging specialization; they make it really difficult to justify spending more than 36 points in a single tree simply because there are so many of them.
Current skill taxes:
Corruption
2 points Forceweaver
3 points Seeping Darkness
2 points Fadeout (PVP after 2.7, also a skill tax for some PVE fights, compare to mandos' HtL baseline)
2 points Empty Body--not gonna count this for now but it does have the potential to become a skill tax for fights where sorc must be healed through a lot of damage, i.e. anti-ranged mechanics and/or PVP.
Lightning
2 points Reserves (There is no conceivable reason for the AC not having 600 Force baseline and this becoming some other talent entirely)
3 points Electric Induction
2 points in either Lightning Barrier (corruption) OR Subversion (Madness)--depends on spec
Madness
2 points Will of the Sith
Bonus: 2 points Sith Defiance--similar talents in other classes return 2/4%, while ours only returns 1/2%.
Total skill taxes: 14 points under the most conservative count and circumstances (PVE, not taking the "semi-optional" points above). PVP: 16 points. Subtract the ones from your spec and you still end up with precious few points past 36. 2.7 PVP madness will have to break its Force management entirely to get proper movement, due to the overabundance of Force management taxes in lightning. Want a 38 point tree grabbing that extra talent you want? Too bad, gotta pay the skill taxes in other places. Moreover, some of these skill taxes are for things that other classes were given baseline, such as granting a movement-impairment break/immunity to the class' movement cooldown (compare Force Speed with Hold the Line).
In a situation where we must pay so many skill taxes across our three trees, the top tier abilities had better be really, really good if Bioware wishes to discourage hybrids. Yet the top tier abilities are widely regarded as lackluster and we already have so many points required to be spent in other trees that we tend to look for hybrids because the class design/layout of talent trees almost encourages it anyway.
Does the Combat Team have any intention whatsoever of streamlining the skill taxes we must pay, and if not, why not?
The "look and feel of Jedi" question might properly be considered an extra "bonus" question like the shadows/sins had...
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Why don't you know about the knockback which roots in Lightning, a stun bubble again in Lightning and in 2.7 we get immunity to roots and slows when we force speed which is a definite boost to DPS kiting and escaping. If you've played a bounty hunter you'll know that resistance to roots means you can dodge leaps from knights when you see it coming. The only reason a leap lands is because it roots you first, with no root the melee lands behind you if you keep moving.
1g, self healing and when it comes to CC no other class can snare/root/stun as much.
I need to make a correction here. If you try to sprint away from an inbound leap, you WILL get rubberbanded back. It won't root you, but it will rubberband you. To avoid the rubberbanding, you have to wait until the leap actually lands before sprinting.
I've had Fadeout since I returned to the game around 1.7, I know of what I speak.
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suddenly my guild has found itself interested in progression raiding for the first time since 1.4
eaware: mission accomplished
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A slight modification to the Seer Spec question lead-up, perhaps?
Also, while Benevolence has its uses in emergency situations and off healing as a DPS, for Seer Sages this ability is very underwhelming and rarely used, usually as a last resort under multiple interrupt spam. In your 2.0 blog you mentioned that the ability is to be used when Force efficiency is not a concern. Unfortunately, in most emergencies efficiency is a concern as wasteful rotations will only lead to a prolonged emergency.I would personally remind the devs that once upon of time we had the option to use a far more Force-efficient heal with the same cast time, and that gave us a chance to actually get the better heal off. Two competent DPS on you each with around 4-6 interrupts of various kinds completely locks us down, even when we are receiving peels.
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From my perspective, I agree with you. BUT, this is without a doubt the most pressing unresolved issue for folks. I am very open for ways to modify this question so that it meets the goals of the community. As I see it there are a couple of goals for that question:
1) To try to understand the devs's philosophy towards Sage/Sorc survivability, i.e. how do they envision the class. Are we simply to be a D&D mage, standing in the back row finger-wiggling? Are we intended to be a Jedi?
If the devs envision us as mages or priests, then they need to actually give us the tools of mages or priests. Our bubbles can't actually reflect damage (if they did, they'd be worth being on the global for DPS, and give sorc healers a reason to be taken in PVP--the healers might be squishy, but they'd have the most ability to support a team offensive). Our CC is much worse (though I recognize CC isn't a big deal in PVE with boss immunities). They gave things like temporary invisibility to sentinels instead. We're missing a true blink, which they gave to sins instead. And if sorc healers need to LOS--which the devs specifically mentioned we should be doing in H2F/Make them Pay--for whatever reason, they can't H2F their team.
Trying to keep each class within 5% DPS/HPS of each other hamstrings Bioware's ability to compensate for squish by upping raw numbers. This is a bit complicated because I think lightning is closer to mage and heals/madness to priests (though these are secondhand comparisons as I've never played WoW), so obviously we can't combine everything both classes had into a single spec when discussing comparisons. But it's clear we need more utility if Bioware is unwilling to either reduce squish or up raw output to compensate for it.
Right now our class is missing a lot of tools.
2) Do they ever intend to address the community desire for an actual cooldown. While their intentions seem clear to me, they have softened on other issues since the H2F controversy.The goal of this system is to give agency to the community's concerns. Even where there is a clear departure from the devs's ideas and the community's. I think the problem is that after the Sorcerer questions, everyone has been careful to over-lawyer their questions to rein in the developer responses. This is a shame, but inevitable. The good news is you guys have an actual lawyer to lawyer over your questions, so hopefully we'll be all good!
It's pretty clear the devs aren't giving us a new survivability based cooldown. Taking our existing H2F "cooldowns" off global so they actually work like real cooldowns, however, I feel is something they might consider.
Someone mentioned "OMG bubble, [off GCD Force Potency, Force Mend, Medpack], Benevolence way OP." I'm not so sure. Remember, we have nothing for actual mitigation (lolbarrier aside) so when balancing incoming damage vs. incoming healing, we effectively receive much less healing than other classes. The green numbers will seem really high, but since we have no mitigation and we continue to take damage, those green numbers disappear very quickly. 20-25k burst healing like that is barely offsetting one shot for certain PVE fights and will probably only last a couple seconds in PVP as we're that squishy. That same 20-25k healing applied to us is probably equivalent to 30-35k on other classes (when viewed through our mitigation).
Also Bioware must not view H2F as too OP because they are changing one of guardians' CDs (Focused Defense) to do exactly that LOLOL. Also they can do something similar to the OMGH2FoffGCD now with Enure+medpack (after 2.7 add Focused Defense for trolol) and it doesn't seem to be a big deal.
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Regarding the first question about survivability... as I mentioned on my previous post I am reluctant to bring this keyword up again given the 2.7 changes and how it has been met before. Most importantly the actual question has nothing to do with survivability but allowing the class to bring into a group its offhealing utility without hindering its primary role; ok maybe in the case of the seer tree it actually increases the survivability as you can bubble and heal on a single gcd. But genearlly speaking the title looks to me as something like realization of group utility without penalties to main function...
It makes perfect sense when viewed in the context of PVP (the "defensive cooldowns" we have--and that our survivability is balanced around--requiring globals/time while the defensive cooldowns of other classes don't). But in PVE the devs should not be too proud of the heal-to-full "instants" they've given us as we're expecting the healers to heal us and the ability to heal ourselves to full is insignificant next to the power of the enrage timer.
The question comes across as awkward because it tries to shoehorn a concern that is relevant to both PVP and PVE (though it manifests differently in both as described above) into a PVE only question.
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Why restrict taking on-the-GCD "defensive abilities" off the GCD to DPS only by adding talent bloat? (see Vengeance Juggernauts LOL) Yes the use of our defensive abilities requires time that DPS doesn't have in PVE. But DPS are hardly the only ones who both need love and would benefit from such changes. And besides, Bioware has just specifically given a lot of attention to our DPS with the planned 2.7 changes and I don't want to see Bioware answer with "We just gave you guys all these changes and now you're asking for the moon, h2f lol" while subsequently having an excuse to leave our more neglected spec as such.
I'd suggest broadening the question as really, it is applicable to all sages, regardless of spec (it's just different specs have different reasons for needing the questions asked).
The actual questionAre the developers satisfied with Sage/Sorcerer survivability in all play environments? Are there any plans to improve our current survival tools (Force Mend, Force Armor), perhaps by providing talents high in the DPS trees which move one of them off the GCD when cast on yourself?
should be changed to
The actual question
Are the developers satisfied with Sage/Sorcerer survivability in all play environments? Are there any plans to improve our current survival tools (Force Mend, Force Armor), perhaps by moving one of them off the GCD when cast on yourself?
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I see you whining about healing constantly and rightfully so. However regarding the knockback you are wrong.
- We have the furthest range on our knockback in game
- We have it in a cone which means we can knockback individual players and not break CC
A sage healer does not need more help to kite (other than bugfix rubberbanding). Im sorry. Thats not going to happen, if you find yourself in need of more tools to stay at range thats simply a matter of poor teammates, not poor gameplay on your part. What you DO NEED is a way to get your heals off without having to channel 2.4 sec and being interruptable with everything. A sage needs more potential to stand steadfast than to kite.
The knockback is not the answer.
Honestly I think a quick study of sorcerer PVP healing history will help reconcile our two viewpoints. (Note: I'm using sage/sorc terms interchangeably here because I have both. TL;DR at bottom)
Pre 1.2, corruption heals were fine in PVP. We could get large heals off much more quickly, and our static barrier absorbed much more relative to health pools/expected enemy DPS at the time. The combination of our static barrier and a procced Deliverance gave us excellent burst healing. The ability to get a shorter cast time on our main heal allowed us to compress our time turret healing so we could move around and reposition. And all of that was before exploiting the double proc deliverance bug (which I refrained from doing on the principle of the matter). Back then it was our AOE heal that always got interrupted, but we were left with excellent single target healing and the AOE made an excellent fake cast.
Of course we both know that 1.2 was no mere bugfix. Bioware didn't know and/or was too lazy to bugfix, so they completely destroyed the proc that allowed us any kind of meaningful heal output under pressure.
Obviously we were left with the longest hardcasted "nuke heal" in the game, had no way of shortening it to a more reasonable cast time, and therefore we needed more space between ourselves and melee to get that (or any) cast off. Enter Overload and enter Electric Bindings, then only 14 points up in the lightning tree. After 1.2 sorc healers started to trickle over to lightning hybrids to pick up Electric Bindings, which made Overload capable of buying enough time to get a cast or two off. And for only 3-4 points more, we could pick up bubblemez (the variance depending on if we also wanted Chain Lightning). If we were already committed to giving up Salvation to trade it for kiting ability and space to cast, why not? Thus, even before Bioware buffed bubblemez into Team Bubble-hard-stun, the much-QQed about hybrid emerged into the mainstream.
(Coincidentally, the emergent lightning hybrids also addressed another 1.2 nerf, the nerf to full corruption's Force management--which while a necessary evil at the time for PVE was utterly disastrous for PVP.)
This is why you see me mentioning Overload so much. Its use as a healer arose as a direct response to the 1.2 nerf to our cast times as healers. If your solution of returning our Deliverance proc to pre 1.2 (with proper bugfix) addresses the root of the problem, my constant references to fixing Overload address the stem of the problem. You propose to reduce our cast times; I propose giving us the ability to buy more time and space to cast. The difference in our approach is mainly accounted for by my belief that we will never, ever see the cast time nerfs from 1.2 reverted. Bioware had the metrics that showed sorcs rerolling operatives and the remaining sorcs running bubblestun, not full corruption, in high level PVP. Bioware either knew not what to do with these metrics, or they were unwilling to admit their mistake by reverting some or all of the 1.2 nerfs.
Of course with 2.0 Bioware intended to destroy the bubblestun hybrid. As part of that, they moved Electric Bindings up so high in Lightning that healers could no longer get it at all. Of course this was not the first Overload nerf (that would go to the 360-to-cone change) but it perhaps had the most damaging effect as we lost the ability to keep the melee train far enough away to get a cast off. They also for the first time since 1.2 recognized that corruption had some shutdown issues, but rather than address the root of such issues by revisiting the 1.2 nerfs, they tried random band-aids of buffs. Polarity Shift accessible to healers, reduced/insta cast salvation, and shortened channel time on Innervate combined to give skilled full corruption healers some weird Frankensteinian kind of viability, though for 99% of the player base the operative healer was still better. It took a skilled sorc healer to equal a mediocre op healer but a very skilled sorc healer, with support from his team, could match a supported, skilled op healer. This state of semi-balance lasted from 2.0 to 2.4.
Unfortunately the introduction of arenas with 2.4, the removal of 8v8 ranked, and inability to filter arenas out of regular queue drastically changed the meta in ways that utterly killed what remained of corruption viability. Our team support was suddenly cut in half, and we could no longer be crosshealed when using Force Barrier, nor could we rely on the other healer to "cover us" when using it by healing other teammates. With no ability to respawn--not even the use of battle rez (i.e. skill) permitted--we lost our decision-making ability to allow a teammate to die for "the greater good" (i.e. I need to decide whether to heal that DPS or focus on healing myself and my tank so we can hold the objective long enough for the DPS to come back--can't do that in arena). The more unforgiving environment chokes off our ability to use LOS as a survival tool (a survival tool we are balanced around, mind) as we must stay within LOS of the team to heal. The bubblestun hybrid, or rather the shell that remains of it, can be adequate to address some of our shortcomings (like durability and lack of CC) in some kinds of matches but of course the sacrifice of heal throughput costs us in the most competitive matches, which we can only prolong, not win. (In those same competitive matches, you're probably against a team who can burn down a full corruption sorc healer in 30 seconds as opposed to a bubblestunner being able to prolong the match to 3 minutes by virtue of higher survivability.) Of course since you referenced my constant whining about sorc healers for cause, you know that our shortcomings in the new arena meta are well documented.
TL;DR: Either reverting 1.2 nerfs to cast times or buffing Overload to buy us more time/space to cast could help with our issues, considering use of the latter became more prevalent/necessary in response to the former. Reverting 1.2 is likely to be more effective but I believe it's impossible to convince Bioware to ever revert it, hence the various assorted changes/feedback I've suggested.
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Remove! With Egress/Fade out we definitely do not deserve a better knockback.
As a healer who has had Egress/Fadeout, I beg to differ. Our knockback is weak not only in terms of distance created, but it's also not omnidirectional like every other multi-target KB, which in turn makes it susceptible to lag, a certain exploit to create lag that is widely used on my server, and generally less reliable than any other knockback in the game. It's so weak that it is seldom worth the GCD to use unless you have high ground and can knock enemies down to a level below you (especially if they just used their leap to reach you). In warzones/arenas that do not have split levels, it's rarely worth the GCD to use. Certainly not on its 20s cooldown.
Granted Lightning already does get an improved knockback in the form of a root. That is talented. But corruption healers (which do need the help) have no way of improving the defensive viability of the knockback whatsoever. So it heals you for 1000--big deal, not even worth spending the talent point unless you're PVE. And that's a major issue with corruption in PVP--only around 30 or so talent points that are actually useful for PVP, yet we must spend 36 to unlock our multi-target heal. (And Bioware wonders why bubblestun hybrid is still tempting even after they nerfed it, lol.) Allowing corruption a talent to "fix" its overload would help with the "too much useless crap in our tree" issue as well.
Devs: Diplomacy missions "stuck" giving only one type of reward for LS/DS points
in Suggestion Box
Posted · Edited by AdrianDmitruk
If you have fewer than 5 available diplomacy missions, your diplomacy skill is too low to unlock more missions from that tier. You would need to run the DS companion gift missions to unlock more "choices" from that tier until you get a DS mats mission for you to run.
If you have 5 available diplomacy missions but can never seem to get the one you want, you're having an RNG issue. However, there is a way of forcing the RNG to slim down a bit:
Step 1: Load your companions up with all the crap missions that you do NOT want. Yes, actually send them out on the crap mission.
Step 2: Zone or relog.
Step 3: After the list o' missions has been repopulated from the zone/relog, cancel one of the crap missions. You'll get your credits back, and the old mission will drop off the list unless there was space for it beforehand (i.e. less than 5 unlocked missions due to crew skill or deployment issues)..
Step 4: Replace with mission you DO want to run.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3-4 as necessary with other companions/missions you want to use. (There should be little if any need for further relogs, unless you're trying to run multiple crew skills at once).
Yes it's kind of gimmicky but when you get enough crafting alts you figure out ways to troll the RNG instead of the RNG trolling you
This works because not only are you re-zoning to force a reload of your missions, you're actively removing the ones you don't want from the pool of available missions. Same number of missions you want - all the ones you don't because you're already "running" them = less room for RNG.
However, trying to run multiple crew skills (i.e. biochem and diplomacy for example) at once dilutes this protective effect.