- Fadeout baseline for all specs. - Blink. - Instant Whirlwind. - Make Purge remove all movement impairing effects baseline. - Proper energy management for Madness. - Lower cd on polarity shift. - At least 20m (but preferably 30m) range on electrocute. Seriously Bioware, we're a ranged class. Though quite honestly sorcs would be mostly fine were it not for the absurd amount of stuns, roots, mezzes and snares in this game. This one is essential, we need to be able to diss our foes with emotes during barrier. Bioware, take note quickly!

Trick is to bore your enemies by not dying, while you heroically support your team during god bubble.

This. LS seems to hit about as hard as deathfield with creeping death. Even if it doesn't crit and you're missing out of the reverberating force bonus damage it still hits harder than shock. I've hit LS for over 5k on the pvp dummy (which is still lvl 50 though) and generally found myself neglecting crushing darkness. Haven't tried it in pvp yet though, i'll do that once they fix the bolster bug. Apart from the removal of instant whirlwind I'm very positive about these changes to the DPS trees

They're kinda tricky, but try to get the kb off as soon as unstoppable ends and kite them <15m and stay out of melee range so you won't get pushed and jumped on again. Be careful with using sprint to stay out of range, getting charged->pushed->charged is worse than getting caught in melee range and only getting pushed and charged.

As a sorc you'll be considered a low risk and easy to reach target which is unlikely to retaliate in any meaningful way, even if it's not necessarily true. Everyone targets sorcs first, heck even sorcs do. So if you love kiting then look no further, this is your class. During warzones I'm on the run for probably about 70% of the time (yes I pulled that one out of the air, but I'm sure I've had matches where I've done nothing but run from melee ). Yes, things can be pretty bad. Is it always as bad? No. I have fun playing my class and I take pride in performing well on it. If you don't mind the challenge, kiting a lot and having memorized ways to counter any spec of other classes, play sorc. Now I don't play sniper so I really have no idea what I'm talking about here, but I imagine they have a less stressful time during warzones. And with melee classes flooding pvp lately, rolling sniper might be a more sensible choice as you'll hardcounter at least half the people in the warzone.

Is this actually true? I was under the impression that the knockback distance was still the same, only the range of people it hits increased.

Changes I'd make would be from a pvp dps sorc perspective, so if this throws things way out of whack for pve you know why . Lightning: - Thundering Blast: Is now an instant cast ability. - Lightning Storm: Only lightning strike now triggers lightning storm (30% chance). Removed Chain Lightning cooldown reset. Removed 10s internal cooldown on Lightning Storm. - Reverberating Force: Has it's place in the tree switched with Conduction. - Conduction: In addition to current effect now also adds a 30% chance to trigger Lightning Storm with Force Lightning and Shock. - Lightning Effusion: Switches place with Subversion in the talent tree. 35/70% chance to grant Lightning Effusion on force attack crit. Reduction of the cooldown on Force Speed removed. Motivation: Basicly turns the lightning tree into a light version of the old hybrid: No FL spam or stupid aoe damage with TB being single target as opposed to deathfield. Made better force management more accessible to other specs, but nerfed it slightly to prevent infinite force pool. Switched conduction and RV to keep it out of reach from Madness and Wrath. I'm not sure if TB should be autocrit with affliction now that it's instant. These changes should result in a relatively mobile spec with some nice burst damage. Madness: - New passive skill: Unlimited Power (what! it's catchy): Wrath stacks up to 3 times. Using Crushing Darkness or Lightning Strike will consume all stacks, wrath bonus damage adds up per stack. Increase healing generated by Death Field and Parasitism by 100%. Takes Creeping Terror's place as 31pt ability. - Devour: Removed. It's effect is added to Unlimited Power. - Creeping Terror (2pt skill): 1 point DOT. 2nd point grants the 2s root. Takes Devours place in the skill tree. - Haunted Dreams (2pt): Added effect, Whirlwind will not break upon damage from Affliction or Creeping Terror in the first 1.5/3s of it's duration. Motivation: A bit more burst with the new 31pt ability, which i wanted to keep out of range from Lightning Barrage. Creeping Terror moved to requiring 27pts to fully benefit from it (no idea if making it 2pt is actually possible). Didn't add Crushing Darkness to Haunted Dreams due to upfront damage and possibly high DOT damage depending on wrath stacks. Anyways, this is how i think this class would be better in pvp.

I think what he means is that there actually has to be a player within the target area or nothing happens and it'll go on cooldown. Hence the higher skill requirement.

Dispite my disapproval of the change to overload i'm gonna say positive. Madness sees the least buffs, but i'd literally kill for a 20s cd on sprint as full madness. The other changes are good and effort is being made to make 31 lightning more viable (will have to see if it's enough i guess). Too bad about the range on electrocute but i mostly used that defensively.

I'm guessing this one http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/swtor-star-tour/

To be fair 31 lightning looks like it might creep into remote viability in pvp. It really depends on how much more reliable blacklash will be. The times i've tried full lightning it works up to a point (and catches people trying to interrupt force lightning off guard) but is quite worthless against melee heavy teams, which is all of them lately.

I highly doubt they'll allow that but it does lead me to believe there's a lot more to the 1.4 changes than just this, and that's hopeful.

You misunderstand . Most of us had already cancelled before anything was known about 1.4. I wouldn't mind about trying it out but my sub runs out within a week. I'm still (obviously) keeping an eye on this game and will resubscribe in an instant if they changed this game for the better. As it stands now i'm highly sceptical about 1.4, but who knows once the pts patch notes are revealed

Doubt all you want but they're top sorcs on our server.

None that i know i'm afraid. They're now all laughing how incompetent bioware is... in gw2.

Every class has issues with people flying off to an awkward angle every once in a while after a knockback, that is not really the issue. The issue is that someone actually isn't on the position that he appears at on your screen, so your knockback might miss entirely. Currently your intended target will fly off you, possibly in an awkward direction, but he is off you. 1.4's version can potentially miss entirely because your enemy wasn't actually where he appeared on your screen. Maybe I'm underestimating how good the selfheal and 10s off sprint will be (having tried 31 lightning, 20s sprint IS really good). But to me, making the squishiest class in the game more prone to defensive errors by turning overload into a cone... is questionable. Nor have i seen any complaints about overload specifically in the pvp forum (which is apparently their reason to change it) or demands for a cone in the sorcerer feedback thread. The only thing I've seen were demands in making it truly instant, so the need for this change just seems a bit odd.

You realise that the unrootable force speed is for healers only right? Most of the good changes bar the heal and 10s off sprint are deep spec in places most dps sorcs will not venture. People are unhappy because one of their main escape abilities is now being made more prone to error (reaction time lost in turning/aiming, chance of getting it wrong and missing, server lag). This class doesn't need another survival moment in which it can mess up.

Look, the fact that it's instant is positive. But being directional makes an invaluable kiting tool now subject to increased reaction time (aiming, you usually get charged from the back), missing entirely and server lag (players not being where they are on your screen and that kind of nonsense). All the good sorcs that i talked to think this is a horrible change for those exact reasons.

And after 1.4, you'll run through them and it misses. Why exactly can't it be both instant and aoe like the merc or sniper one?

That's 17 points into the lightning tree, i don't know any good sorcs who go that far into lightning. Edited my previous post, but you had already replied. 31 madness and most hybrid specs gain very little from these buffs/nerfs.

Only if you're a healer as it's specced 16pts in the healing tree. The popular dps specs (31 madness, mild hybrid specs) are getting as much nerfed as they're getting buffed. buff: selfheal, 10s off sprint cd (good changes) nerfs: electrocute range reduced, 240 degrees lost on overload

I can appreciate that, but as someone who's main and only lvl 50 is a sorc eventually enough is enough. Fadeout is deep in the healing tree (16 pts) and polarity shift is even deeper lightning tree (21 pts), good changes by themselves, but people will not be benefitting from both at the same time. The skill trees might be altered of course, but this is how it currently stands. I can safely say that i don't know a single good dps sorc that is specced that deep into corruption or lightning. They're good changes for the people that do spec that far, especially fadeout, but the change to polarity shift hardly seems to make the lightning tree more viable... at best it makes it more viable for 10s every 2 minutes.

This is true and i'm sure there are a lot more things that are going to be changed. I can't see them allow certain specs to have sprint on a 10s cooldown or something. I think most complaints are specifically about this skill in relation to leap. People want to get their kb off as quickly as possible when they get leaped by a marauder. There are alternatives to counter leap (whirlwind would be better) but that is not the point. The main complaint is you're rooted by the charge and need to react fast, which is now being made harder and can even miss completely.

Well just keep in mind that things might change when you get to lvl 50, I eventually spent most of my time running away from a disproportional amount of melee classes who all wanted to have a whack at that one sorc in the wz. As a hybrid i guess you'll have slighly more to look forward to with the new changes. I was running 7/3/31 before i quit, which gains the least from this buff: a new self heal, 10s off sprint (these are good changes mind you) and an extra oppertunity to make a mistake with the 120 degree cone. This class is very unforgiving and what it does not need is another defensive instance where people can make a mistake. The skill cap of this class is high already, it doesn't need to go even higher by having a gimp knockback. I'm fairly confident there will be plenty other balancing changes made in 1.4, but the details we've seen now do not look very convincing to me.

I'm slightly confused by what you mean. Counter leap with sprint? You're rooted, they'll get at least one attack on you if you wait it out and they have the oppertunity to cc you, be it snare or choke. Or are you using your cc break on this? Also I'm curious if this is from a lvl 50 perspective, 'cause some time ago i remember reading you weren't lvl 50 yet. I'm not trying to attack you btw, just figuring out in what light i need to hold this.