Haven't parsed in a while, so here is my latest: Deimon - Lightning Sorcerer http://www.torparse.com/a/611546 TORParse says 3440.07 and by TTK its 3444.96 In any case its right near Rosalyn's (which makes me feel good!), but I have no doubt Rosalyn could probably throw up a higher number if so desired (which makes me continuously envious of his Sage awesomeness!). Gear is pretty much BiS minus implants, ear, and maybe switching around some power/crit in enhancements.

Just to nitpick: Making the font bold for server firsts would be more clear than the underline But overall this looks great!

If it would be helpful in our upcoming questions to be more generalized, the discussion about survivability should examine BioWare's philosophy towards off-healing and the community's concerns with that approach. It appears quite clear from the last round of questions that BioWare firmly believes the off-healing potential of DPS Sage/Sorcerers is a viable and powerful survivability tool. The community's consensus following this "heal to full" answer was quite rightly negative. It is true that off-healing has some benefit in PVP, but that's only if you can escape and line of sight players for a not so insignificant amount of time, which is not so simple with the low survivability of the class. In PVE, specifically Operations, off-healing is not a real consideration. No one brings a DPS Sage/Sorcerer in the group because of their utility to off-heal, and if you are having to take time from doing damage to heal yourself, then you are hurting the groups ability to beat enrage timers and push through difficult phases. Furthermore, the abilities available to off-heal have no synergy with the DPS talent trees at all. A class designed with the intention of having true off-heal capability must be more than abilities that only exist in the advanced class to be buffed within the healing tree. These are left over abilities that BioWare is wrongly deeming equivalent to defensive cooldowns. Most importantly, the consensus of the DPS Sage/Sorcerer community is largely against off-healing. These players want to deal damage, which is why they selected those specific talent trees. I imagine most DPS Sage/Sorcerers would gladly trade the two cast time heals for some additional mitigation ability. BioWare needs to rethink its approach to off-healing and its effect on this class. Either healing abilities should be easily incorporated into a DPS tree (most likely in the form of passive healing similar to the Watchman/Annihilation class or some of the abilities available to a Discipline Priest from World of Warcraft) or these abilities should be removed in favor of a defensive cooldown that does not hinder our DPS role.

Thank you Bioware for this promising update to alleviate pushback effects on Lightning Strike and Force Lightning in Patch 2.6! However for Lightning spec sorcerers the real culprit in regards to pushback effects is Crushing Darkness. Please consider extending the proposed 2.6 talent to include Crushing Darkness as well! If not, lightning sorcerers will need to make sure Static Barrier is up before casting Crushing Darkness, essentially wasting a global cooldown. Personally, I would love to see Crushing Darkness reworked for Lightning sorcerers. It has always felt somewhat out of place to me for the feel of the spec. Lightning already has one long cast with Thundering Blast and Crushing Darkness suffers greatly from pushback. The spec needs either a method to synergize Crushing Darkness into the rotation easily as Wrath does for Madness, or Crushing Darkness should be revamped to make it unappealing to include in Lightning's rotation (such as lower baseline damage that is circumvented for Madness in the Wrath talent).

Thanks Rosalyn and Tam! In actual boss encounters I do use the two TBs for each cast of Affliction method, but previously when I parsed I found I seem to get better numbers refreshing Affliction as it falls off! Although I am interested to learn that the numbers show it to be higher dps as prior theorycrafting in the sorc/sage forums suggested to refresh as it falls off. I'll try another parse following Rosalyn's method as I now have more gear and a little higher APM than than when I arbitrarily decided to refresh Affliction in parsing One thing I cannot seem to do is get my APM as high as Rosalyn, and nowhere near K'Tap/Handcuff on the world leaderboard. Currently I have one more alacrity enhancement than what Handcuff's AMR profile suggests, so I can only assume that it has to do with some lag or I just have slower fingers

Nice Rosalyn! I'm so jealous! Here is my new best on my sorcerer, which isn't much higher than Rosalyn's earlier one without adrenals Although I don't have a 78 MH either http://www.torparse.com/a/537501/3/0/Damage+Dealt 3211.35 Character: Deimon | Class: Sorcerer | Spec: Lightning (3/36/7) A couple minor things I've noticed with my parses: I seem to parse better with my Underworld Boundless Ages Relic in place of a Obroan PVP Serendipitous Assault (Although a DF SA would be nice to have!). I was also finally able to break the 40 APM mark by raising my action ability queue time from 0.5 to 0.75.

Deimon - Lightning Sorcerer Parse - 3153.25 DPS by Time to Kill Standard Lightning spec with basically all Ultimate Comm Vendor gear mods except for 4 piece set bonus armorings (2 Arkanian, 1 Underworld, 1 Dread Forged), PVP relics, and 72 Main Hand hilt. There is room for improvement because I know at least once I tried to squeeze a Thundering Blast in just before Affliction dropped off and I missed it

I just wanted to echo this sentiment, especially regarding Crushing Darkness / Mind Crush. I know it contributes to our overall dps, but having two, two-second long cast time abilities hampers the spec. The ability simply feels out of place in the Lightning / TK rotation, and while it is probably not worthy of one of our upcoming questions, I do hope in the future that the spec can be slightly altered to exclude Crushing Darkness / Mind Crush, and leave it just for Madness / Balance.

Quick question from a new tank here: The guide says to use Guardian Slash before Sundering Strike in the opener, but if there is more than one boss or a mob should I not use Guardian Slash after Sundering Strike to get the damage spread it offers when the target already has the armor debuff? Thanks!

Something that could also be mentioned as sub-points to our survivability would be two current talents, that if reconfigured slightly, could have a meaningful impact in PVP. In the lightning tree, Lightning Spire increases the range of a few specific abilities to an additional five meters. If this was augmented to include all abilities, our positioning in the PVP environment would become crucial to staying within that additional five meter window, putting us slightly beyond the leaps of marauders and putting us in line with snipers. Allowing that small extra distance to begin our burst rotation, could be very beneficial to the turret-based lightning class. In the madness tree. Parasitism and its related ability Devour, seem very underwhelming, but the idea of leeching life from your dots gives the spec a unique appeal. These talents could easily be boosted to add some real benefit to this kiting-based class. This would also be an easy fix to enhance survivability for this spec.

This question regarding defensive cooldowns should be framed within a larger emphasis on BioWare's design philosophy for the sorcerer/sage class. The premise of our argument is the fact that sorcerers/sages have the worst survivability of any other class in the game, largely due to light armor and lack of defensive abilities. But this fact should be compared against the amount of damage our class can produce. The classic MMO model equates low survivability with high damage output. Furthermore, low survivability and limited mobility, as in a turret-based class, should produce even higher damage. However, the current dps leaderboard on the forums places the sorcerer/sage, at best, in the middle of the pack. This ranking should be qualified though as being produced in the turret-based lightning/telekinetic tree, which would benefit from non-movement training dummy parses more than any other class in the game. Therefore, it seems BioWare has left the dps trees for the sorcerer/sage in an unhelpful middle ground. So my question to BioWare would be: If the design intent for the sorcerer/sage class is to follow the traditional MMO archetype, then how can our damage output be maximized to warrant such low survivability and utility? However, if the sorcerer/sage class is intended to defy classic conventions, what specific opportunities can we expect to see to bolster our defensive capabilities?

I fear this may be a bit overpowered for Polarity Shift, and I would simply be thrilled with TRUE interrupt immunity while it is up, meaning no stuns/knock backs/etc would stop us. For that brief period we have polarity shift up in PVP it should be a signal to our attackers that it would be better to run!

In regards to survivability, BioWare should reexamine static barrier. Currently, it only absorbs a moderate amount and its lockout is such that you essentially always have it up. It has therefore no strategic value to when it is used and is essentially a check if you remembered to press the activation key or not. If the amount of damage it absorbed were greatly increased along with the length of the lockout, then it would have some strategic significance and add a unique element to sorcerer play style. Instead of just always having static barrier up, you would have to chose when to activate it so you aren't trapped by the lockout, such as times when you are being focused or pull aggro. The benefit would be that instead of absorbing a single attack, static barrier would feel more useful. The ability should be designed such that an attacker should sense some risk when attacking a sorcerer with barrier up instead of just ignoring it as they currently do.

Hey Nibbon, Maybe I missed it somewhere, but how do you get alacrity up to 6% with no alacrtity from gear. Does the 4% intrinsic you list reflect the set bonus? Thanks

I desperately hope that you are right! This is the first content expansion of this kind for the game, and the question of whether it is a small expansion to be followed by larger ones or an example of what we can expect in expansions for this game that is now free to play is a very significant one! I truly hope for the former but fear the latter.

It's possible some of us may be Chicken Littles in this regard, but given the large number of staff changes at BioWare, shifting priorities with free to play and the Cartel Market, and the first major content expansion excluding specific class content, it is foreseeable for players to be concerned about BioWare's current priorities with the game. What might be incredibly informative for the player base at this point around the one-year anniversary of the game, is a statement of goals and priorities from lead developers such as James Ohlen to let us know the direction of a game that has seen some triumphs, setbacks, and significant changes over its first year in existence.

I didn't realize it was a CE exclusive, and I have yet to receive mine as well! I'll submit a ticket, but it seems to be a more systematic problem.

BioWare is taking a wrong direction with the exclusion of class stories in The Rise of the Hutt Cartel, but they have erred with their implementation of class stories as they currently stand. In game now, class story content is like a pyramid: large amounts of content at the beginning and trailing off as you approach level cap. In a game which has a clear focus on leveling alts, given systems such as Legacy, it would be far more prudent to reverse the implementation so that content becomes more unique as you level. Such a design encourages customers to create more characters and extends the playability of the game. With the upcoming expansion, BioWare has missed an enormous opportunity to encourage players to level alts within the new zone as each character per faction will have the same story. What sets this game apart from all other MMOs is the quality of the leveling experience, and that was only a result of the quality of the storytelling experience. Every player's primary complaint with leveling alts is the repeated world quests, and BioWare's pyramid of class story content only exacerbates the problem. Furthermore, expansions should make the player base want to revisit old content, usually because there is a new class to explore the leveling process. BioWare has the unique opportunity with their game, to encourage us to revisit old content without creating new classes. They can simply entice us with new story content for the existing classes, but we would have to level through the existing content to get there. BioWare, please do not keep missing the unique opportunities provided by your game!

Do you have a source for such interviews? Because I follow news concerning the game very closely, and have not seen such claims outside of those directed at the Makeb expansion. I further fear that the same reason such statements have not been made and a developer reply to this post will be unlikely is due to the public relations downfall that would result. Even if BioWare has no specific plans to continue class specific stories at this time, they would be loathe to admit it given that storytelling is the only unique feature and selling point for this game. I really hope the developers will give us some insight into their plans for class stories, because if they are dead then I fear the game will not be far behind them.

I've come to like the change to overload, as it is now more strategic than before; however, the animation desperately needs to be changed! In one of the original articles regarding combat animations, Principal Lead Animator Mark How stated, "For The Old Republic, we are committed to giving you a great combat experience through aesthetic movement, strong character and great design." This new animation for overload fails on the very merits BioWare has established for itself. As with many other facets of this game, BioWare needs to stay true to those things that make it unique. The cinematic experience of combat is a feature that separates The Old Republic from other games, so I urge the developers to not let the combat animations fall to the wayside. Please fix this animation soon

In regards to the lack of cross server functionality, I can understand the desires of the development team and given that the free transfer service will bolster the communities, the lack of cross server grouping may not be an issue in the short term; however, I would strongly encourage the developers to immediately begin the groundwork for cross server functionality. A proactive approach to address potential issues is the philosophy needed for the game now, not reactionary measures that will leave your most ardent fans wanting. Thank you!

This particular bug is quite frustrating since it essentially makes Xalek unviable as a tank companion. Sure, you can mitigate the issue by stacking defense instead of shield and absorption stats, but if you are going into a situation where you actually depend on a strong tank companion, you will without question have to use Khem Val.

In order to compete with other games (referring to WoW of course) all of the above would be preferred, but given that Heroic Missions are not instanced, the implementation of a group finder in those cases would be interesting.

Amber, I really appreciate you taking your time to acknowledge this issue. Even short comments such as yours, at the very least, let the community know you are aware of the issue and are pursuing a resolution. Following that line of thought, could you provide similar insight into the Xalek shield/absorption rating bug that has persisted since launch? Thank you!

As of 1.2, vendors will be removed from inside the warzone instances. This seems to be quite a negative impact on the quality of life inside the game. As it stands now, you can queue for warzones from any location in game, and the vendors inside the instances allowed one to restock adrenals or convert/spend commendations before reaching cap without having to return to the fleet. Personally, I have used these vendors quite often as a more casual PVPer who likes to queue for warzones while I complete the daily PVE quests. Perhaps Gabe, Georg, or Stephen could shed some light on the reasoning for this change (i.e. potential exploit concerns, possible performance degradation, or boycotting by the Intergalactic Warzone Vendors Union?) However, as is, this change seems to only harm playstyle flexibility with no identifiable benefit. Thanks for listening! "Adrenals: Don't leave fleet without them!"