I challenge you to a duel! My personal record is 17 wins for 9 wins on a weekly, 9 wins for 3 wins on a daily and yday 50+ kills for 0/150 on Ilum. Beat that!

I'm confused...

Like i said - it's situational, it's just no more or less useful than Containment since they both have uses in completely different situations. Most of the times for example after Lift you know that you have to kill the target because it's more then likely that you won't be able to use another CC on him. Ofc that's a situation when you're 1vs1. Stopping runners, burning witches on the fire in a Huttball, interrupting - Lift is superior. Being surrounded by few melees, intentionally running in a bunch of healers, carrying the ball or supporting the ball carrier when the shield collapse etc. - KC is superior. Also don't forget the fact that you can cast your shield on some of your teammates just making them yet another exploding stun bomb since the effect carries on the shield even if it's not casted on your. Which is absolutely awesome when you have 1-2 strong tanks charging at the start, ppl focusing them, shields exploding thus giving you and your team a nice advantage. I took the other way around - played with 1 point in KC and maxed Containment, now the other way around. Tbh both ways are viable depending on your play style. But both talents have their usefulness in completely different situations.

Depends. Kinetic Collapse is AoE stun and it's "all targets". Which means if it explodes in the middle of 8 melees - they all get stunned. Ofc, haven't seen that happen yet but trust me - it's hilarious when 5 guardians/sentinels/whatever jumping beans jump on your face, insta explode the shield and sit there while you /wave and run. Apart from the joke, it's incredibly useful as an AoE CC. It compensates shorter duration with AoE effect and is more than enough to let you escape. It also works against ranged if you time it right and once you're used to playing with it, all you need to do is either run in melee range or if you're not taking enough dmg so the shield can collapse, look when it ends, it explodes when the duration is over anyway. So this is like... a passive stun on a timer. Takes a bit of time to get used to but it works wonders. For example ppl tend to bunch up around... let's say Alderaan towers and you can make them cry with that. I used to love Containment. But Lift fills the resolve bar so fast, sometimes it's not a good idea to use it if you're planning other stuns and cc effects. Kinetic Collapse doesn't fill the bar that much because it's a short duration. Both have their usefulness but it really depends on the situation. In warzones KC is superior simply because the fights usually involve more than 1 person and most of the time you may end up in melee range of a lot of ppl and then it simply shines.

EU server. Doesn't really matter. I wouldn't post here if i didn't have a problem. I don't see them trying to fix it. Like they didn't fix the last one. Do i play WoW? No. Do i care about WoW? No. Do i play SWTOR? Yes. Do i pay for SWTOR to play it? Yes. "I should be used to that stuff" sounds like a quitter talk - "bend over, take it like a man and shut the f*** up, it hurts a bit but then you get used to it". Are you for real? Or BW are paying you? Because there isn't a normal person on the face of the planet that can be satisfied right now with the "quality" (or lack thereof) of SWTOR and their inadequate pathetic attempts of throwing dust in your face... Demanding? More like "expecting to receive what i'm promised", lol, i don't "demand" anything. I'm just expressing my frustration with their incompetence and the obvious fact that they keep screwing up with every single change they make. There has been boatload of yellow posts on every single issue and most of them are ignored. Once again - what happened after the yellow posts considering the valor rank exploits? Let me give you a hint if you're not familiar - nothing happened. You want to call someone narrow minded? Try looking at the mirror. You got jedi mindtricked somehow, there is no other reasonable explanation of why would you lick their boots after they stepped in a horse sh*t... See what i'm talking about? If you're happy with that answer... Then you're beyond reason. ^ | I nominee this for post of the month.

Pointless to compare the theorycrafting spreadsheet with the "perfect pve simulation dps'ing a mob" with the utility of a PvP build. What proof do you want? A screenshot from a warzone? I doubt that. I hope not. So someone sharing his practical experience with the idea of helping others improving their gameplay if they like what they see is called "a massive e-peen". Someone nagging about theoretical numbers on a random site is not "a massive e-peen". Thanks for clarifying. The person you're referring to has tried them all and more that are not listed. What i see from you is a) theoretical numbers and b) pointless flames and attacking something you haven't tried. So that person started his first post in this thread with the words: I don't think that person ever mentioned "This is the best build and you're all noobs if you're not playing MY BUILD!!1". Happy now? Frankly, it's annoying to constantly link random theory numbers from random site (and google) in some theoretical PvE scenarios and comparing them to the practical use and the utility of a completely different aspect of the game which does not include a mob standing dumb and bashing a tank while you unload on it, but actually includes another person that is actually trying to kill you at the same time. Yes, i've read your precious site cover to cover. So what. Doesn't change the fact that "theorycrafting" is called a "theory" for a reason. Apparently you haven't read it very well or you would've noticed some stuff like: "This guide is focused on PVE gameplay of the Madness/Balance specced Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage with emphasis on end-game Operation viability / utility." "This is primarily a PvE discussion thread. On the PvP side, I've honestly not considered it." "There is explanation inside excel on how to use it, but here is some short summary of what it was intended for: - calculate DPS of sorcerer on boss fight, for any selected build (madness, lightning, hybrid, custom)" So how is that related to the PvP once again? The original posters of those threads specify what they're intended to do and you come here on your high horse and start applying PvE theorycrafting for boss fights on PvP, concluding that "we don't deserve your... help". Less arrogant please. Or you're under the impression that PvE dps = PvP dps. I hope not.

Nice try. Try again.

My real life work is providing an internet and voice services to hundreds of thousands of customers. Let me tell you one thing. A "customer" does not care nor should he/she care about where do i get my funding and who pays my salary. A customer cares to receive the service he's paying for and i'm obliged to provide that service with the proper quality that was promised to the customers. If i screw up the customers will cry and demand instant fixing of any problem (and trust me - if i'm not able to fix their problem in a matter of hours - i will be without a job). So it's a bit childish to go to my customers and start crying "I'm understaffed and with not enough funding". Customers.Do.Not.Care.About.My.Problems. I have to deal with them because that's what i'm getting payed for. Beginning to see a pattern here?

If i had such high expectations, i would've unsubbed weeks ago... Scratch that, i wouldn't have even bothered starting this game, there are so many problems unresolved from their beta stage (poorly done i might add) that it's just incredible. Atm i'm expecting them to... fix their crap in a reasonable time frame but not to continue screwing up with every single minor patch they release. As in "Oh, look guys, we made a terrible mistake with today's patch, how about we rollback until we fix it!". Or at least a proper testing before they release it. If that's what you call "expecting too much"... Yea... i guess... not. And stop licking their boots, they're not as understaffed as you may think. Not to mention the vast resources they have at their disposal. Like i said, i'm a SW fanboy. But you're obviously blind for the... obvious. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Paying for beta? Awesome... And what's that "rushed to be released"? Rushed? After almost 5 years of development??? Yea... rushed... lol. Nobody argues about the release - awesome indeed, and the leveling - awesome. And then you hit endgame and endless frustration... I agree tho - we are paying for beta. Which is actually the problem... I'm trying to stay positive but they just keep doing it wrong. I mean every single minor patch - a new screw up. C'mon... Can't you at least feel it when they're slapping your face with pure insults? Crying is when i come here and cry about "OMG POWERTECH SO OP NERFNERFNREFR!!1". Alas, i'm here presenting a real issue that affects everyone in quite a negative way and this is not crying - this is constructive criticism - and that's the least they deserve. Burning them with fire is more suitable but hey... I don't really have the time to take a plane and nuke them from orbit. And besides we kinda gave quite a lot of suggestions already - personally i'm tired, they're not paying me, i am paying them: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=234156 And look how well they're implementing them - by screwing up even more with a damn "minor" patch (God, help us when they release 1.2 AGAIN without proper testing)... And? BW did not intend for that to happen and did not test it properly. And? Did they do something to fix their own mistake (for which we paid literally and figuratively speaking)? No, they didn't. Just a bunch of useless copy/pasted yellow answers from a bunch of clueless on the forum boards and Twitter with empty words and promises. Why did they leave the servers online at first place when ppl were FLOODING them with youtube movies of what is happening currently? The problem was obvious for a 3 years old monkey - and they did nothing to prevent it, fix it or stop it, they just stood there and did nothing while ppl were exploiting the sh*t out of their mistake. They were receiving tons of feedback literally every single minute on forums, twitter, youtube, mails, ingame tickets - and they did absolutely NOTHING. But yea, we're asking "too much" from them and crying for no reason... Really? Yea, it could've been avoided. But it wasn't. Second time in a row counting only their patches, not the pseudo-beta they were running for months before the release without realising that most of their "testers" were just treating it as a "Free2Play" game and not doing anything about giving feedback about problems and countless bugs that are still present in the game (that's why we ended up with a product still in "beta" on the release).

Oh, sorry. My bad, didn't even remember that one... A bit raging on the current issues atm...

I'm sorry, but i can't agree. I'm a "fanboy", a "sucker" for pretty much anything that says "Star Wars". But even a "devoted fan" like me has a limit of tolerance for stupidity and incompetence. What gives you the impression that they're doing something? A "yellow" post from Joveth on page 12 of a random thread? Really? And what happened the last time they "assured" us they're "investigating the issue" when countless ppl got 20+ valor ranks in couple of hours? Yea, exactly, they did absolutely nothing about that. You will excuse me if my "faith" in their "(dis)abilities" and empty words on twitter and forums is a bit shaken.

I got it... Still... Doesn't fix my Ilum kills...

Errr... mkay... "Ultima Online (UO) is a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released on September 24, 1997" "Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) is a 3D medieval fantasy MMORPG, released on October 10, 2001" "Neverwinter Nights (NWN) is a third-person role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Infogrames (now Atari). It was released on Microsoft Windows on June 18, 2002." And few more "real" MMOs. Considering NWN to be a mmo goes beyond stupidity. It's like considering Mass Effect 3 to be a mmo because it has multiplayer coop mode. Hint - a "multiplayer mode" an mmo does not make...

Killed 30+ ppl solo. None of them counted for the quest. Killed another 20+ in ops. None of them counted, lost 2 hours for nothing. Ppl got frustrated and left. Currently Ilum 1 = 15 republics. For some idiotic reason there was a second Ilum instance with 2 (yes, two) ppl in it. Now i can't finish the daily because there are no people there. Even if there are - kills don't count. Some guildies finished the weekly in 2 hours earlier today. I did 50+ kills and i'm at 2/150... from armaments from the chests. What's the cooldown on ppl's deaths? 6-7 hours or something? Look at the bright side - there's no more 1 fps slideshow on Ilum. Because there's nobody there. And just when i thought BW can't screw up more, they prove me wrong again.

Ofc most of the opponents get stomped, the ones that i said that present a challenge require burst to get down, not 300 ticks DoTs... I don't expect DoTs to get purged. If the majority of the sorcs/sages don't do it, that's their problem, i'm not taking into account complete noobs here... Ummm... that's a bit contradiction. They can't be "better PvPers" and not cleanse. Personally i play vs... obviously "not so good PvPers" that actually dispel a lot. And i'm not even gonna try to convince anyone which build is > the other. Respec, try it for yourself, come here, give feedback, pros and cons... After countless respecs, I've found the "perfect" build "for me", i'm just sharing it. A build that gives me enough AoE, single target burst, survivability and utility not to rely on tanks and healers but to be self-sufficient in probably every single scenario. Instead of attacking "on paper" its usefulness in different situations, try it and come back with the pros and cons. Because i have tried different 13/28's and that's why i'm comparing both. Nope, i'm implying that there is a way to get more survivability and energy efficiency without losing DPS (even get more burst due to tele momentum bugged 1 point investment).

Every single hybrid build main damage comes from Tele Wave and FiB. The damage is no issue here. I was talking about survival and these are 3 superb survival skills you don't have access to thus - glass cannon - you nuke and then you die. But you made it perfectly clear that you're okay with dying so no harm done. After all your build energy regen and energy efficiency revolves around dying since that's the only way for you to regen energy. Rest of your post is pure nonsense. If i was you i'd delete this post and pretend it never happened. It's embarrassing. Ah well, my bad then, sorry. It just comes to show that DoTs are not as effective, if you don't like my choice of wording... eh, well, can't help you there. Neither, but you're completely missing the point... "It doesn't completely lack, yours just has more...". Seriously, i'm getting kinda annoyed... Are you quoting me to give me "english grammar lessons the way you like it" or you actually have something to say? This was not directed to the OP.

Yes and no. You can't compare defensive talents to offensive ones which are affecting your primary and "spamming" abilities. Following this logic every single defensive talent is practically useless if you're not getting attacked at all which obviously is not the case. You may compare the "damage not done" scenario with something like "overheal", which is essentially lost healing. Tho it's not even that, we're talking about DoT abilities. If you have a HoT on someone, he may get max health, then lose a tick or two of the HoT but in the next moment take some dmg and the next HoT tick kicks in. So there's a way to maximize HoTs. But once your target is dead the DoT is lost forever and a dead target can't get damaged by the next tick. The DoTs were always ineffective in fast paced combat, it's not only the talents that are wasted there, the core skills themselves become kinda semi-effective even without any talents. So in terms of fast paced combat basically these talents try to benefit core skills that are not so effective themselves in PvP. Like i explained above i don't find DoTs particularly effective in PvP compared to direct dmg burst so by "wasted talents" i meant "talents that are improving not so effective core skills" in this case. The secondary effects of DoTs like WM as in stop ppl from capping objectives can't be taken in consideration, i can do the same with any other direct dmg spell anyway so it's not something that only WM can do for example. And MC is nice, sure, but most of the time in a hybrid build you'll be using your PoM for Tele wave and every single free second you will be TT spamming to keep the PoM up for the next Tele wave. So basically MC becomes a filler skill and not something crucial for a hybrid. I wouldn't even bother commenting on the "non-dispelling" sages/sorcs... Well, some bragging - not many ppl survive for that long considering my stats and burst. But anyway sometimes i can get in some long fights with some top of the food chain juggernaut on the server or some nasty 20-23k HP BH. But these are sooo rare and rarely good enough to present a serious challenge that it's really not worth it to spec for fights that happen once every 30-40 warzones... Errr... what gives you the impression that it's only the 10 sec sprint i'm talking about? Check both builds again please: http://knotor.com/skills#AgEDFRDLSWlyeomSmqq6ydLbeYmTmau6y9oA http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_consular/sage/#::e2fefe7cf2e4f9efe2fe3df20: Force Wake, Telekinetic Effusion, Kinetic Collapse... those are all defensive talents. And Kinetic Collapse is by far one of the most annoying talents out there right after... Force Wake. Sure, mine lacks containment and pinning resolve but in terms of survival FW and KC kinda outweigh them. I mean two talents that give you AoE stun/immobilize is just a bit OP. And all these AoE CC makes the perfect synergy with the sprint ability - AoE CC gives you the time to run away. So these talents are just way too good when they all work together. And that's another reason i don't really like DoTs so much - all these CC effects break on dmg...

And you will be right. TT is not affected. And the mobility and survivability actually transfers into more damage anyway.

So infinite energy and lower CD of one of our main defenses are not worth it? Sure, if you have two wahambulances healing you 24/7 and a 25k HP guardian guarding you, hell, i'd go full Telekinetics in this case. I can't imagine that there's a sage who doesn't love sprint and think it's useless... guess i was wrong. Oh, and btw, you won't be pulling any extra dps when you're dead or out of energy or humping noble sacrifice or meditating... Time it properly, 80% of the time force speed saves my a**. Besides because of this talent i don't need to meditate... ever. I cannot run out of energy. It's impossible. Thus i can spam everything i want for as long as i want while maintaining high survivability. Win-win situation. It relies on DoTs a lot. That's what we all do. A lot of the talents in 13/28 are wasted or not as effective as it sounds. Longer duration of Weaken Mind and Mind Crush most of the time is wasted since the targets are usually dead or dispelled long before the full duration of these spells is over. In very rare occasion you will get full duration of WM and MC so they can benefit from all the talents like increased duration and dmg. This is not PvE, you can't expect 5-10 mins fights on a single target thus getting everything out of every single tick of every single DoT. Just out of curiosity - which 4 skills you're referring to? For PvE dps, probably. For PvP it's a glass cannon with incredibly poor energy management. Completely lacks survivability and i can't accept the idea that as a sage i'm supposed to nuke-die-nuke-die-nuke-die...

Useful, yes. Better than hybrid, no. If you wanna go something "other than healing" for PvP which is full tree and non-hybrid, obviously that will be a dps and you should go full balance.

Buy the BM items with better primary stats, remove the alacrity nonsense, stick 56lvl crit/surge from champion sets. Can't be helped, BM gear sux. You will get some more willpower, endurance and 20 more expertise from the whole set so i guess it's not completely useless and besides you have to spend these commendations on something anyway...

You're welcome. I suppose it's just a matter of bad RNG. After doing extensive tests i really can't notice a stable 10% increase neither on primary target nor the secondary targets. So that's the reason i'm dropping this talent simply because it's not worth the 5 points investment, these points can go to something far more useful rather than a "floating" % bonus dmg. I suppose energy management won't be an issue even with one point in TE, i've tried it just for test and i really don't run out of energy even when doing massive dmg in long warzone matches without dying. I max the TE simply because i need that 20 points to get 1 point in Telekinetic Momentum and there's simply nothing else worth taking for 1 point in the lower Tele tiers. A viable alternative would probably be a 2/2 Blockout and 1/2 Tele Effusion but it's really up to your personal preferences, it's not something crucial for that build. It's bad RNG with one point, it's great with 3 tho. I simply can't get that out because it's still part of our only real instant cast nuke, everything else comes from PoM procs, talent skills like FiB and one puny instant DoT. So 45% bonus to an already instant cast spell is just too huge to pass. About FI... with the 4 pieces bonus it may work. But it's just a small bonus. Besides i'm already getting my 4th piece of Stalker set today and switching from Mystic/Master mix. Stalker's 4 pieces bonus is just too awesome. I already regret that i haven't done this long time ago and have 2-3 of each Master/Mystic champ/BM pieces and got only 2 champ stalkers but i will fix that mistake soon. And ~500k for swapping mods/enh... ouch. I just want to max out my burst in any way possible because sages don't really have good burst compared to other classes and everything that gives me the edge in maxing out my burst is more than welcome. And the Stalker's set 4 piece bonus is just too good to pass. The RNG factor just adds bonus dmg to already good dmg so if you're okay with procs (and after all we're playing sages, we have to deal with a lot of procs anyway) you will like the results. I really want to do more extensive testing on PS myself when i have the time. So far i'm just not sure it works as intended. Just like Telekinetic Momentum. It works, but a bit... odd. Well, if that's your play style and and you're ok with dying a lot... Fine. But i'm not. I don't die more than 1-2 times in full time Void Stars, when i'm with my premade i don't die at all. So the energy management becomes an issue. Sometimes i also have to support heal which usually eats your energy pretty fast. I'm just not okay with "run-nuke-die" kind of gameplay. The 13/28 is just awful in terms of energy efficiency, no argument there. It's also a bit more DoT reliant rather than burst. But i guess it's about personal play style, i just don't like running out of energy when unloading and then running/dying or humping Noble Sacrifice.

It is a guide!

You answered the question yourself - class balance. "Very similar" classes doesn't mean "the same classes" and there will never be such perfect class balance where some classes are not hard counter to other and they have a hard counter on them. Arenas promote FotM builds. For example - get an operative vs sage 1 on 1. Fine, operative is a counter to a squishy. But that doesn't mean that the sage will lose every single time 1 on 1. Few times he will win. But... what happens when you gather 4 of the current FotM classes and put them in the same team? Faceroll... until they get nerfed and rendered useless. Then the next FotM... then the next... and the next. And it will never be balanced. I stopped playing WoW long ago (few months after WotLK) so i don't know the situation now. Back then the 2v2 brackets were completely dominated and destroyed by unholy DK/holy pala combo. Utterly destroyed. What about the 3v3? How long, for how many years the RPM were obliterating everything and completely dominating the 3v3 brackets? That's the problem with Arena based PvP - they always promote the FotM classes, no skill involved, it's only the best possible combo facerolling the others. Don't get me wrong, i'm two thumbs up for rated PvP. But as it is now - rated warzones with objectives. That's a compeltely different scenario. Trying to outsmart the other team, capture the objective and keep it, beat them with tactics and not with OP classes (e.g. 4 operatives pop out of stealth on one sage - hai!bai! - omg, we so pro! ). Arenas will just force them to start "balancing" the classes thus "fixing" the OP classes, usually breaking them, and making some other class to be a complete faceroll so the new FotM combo becomes available on the next patch... There's simply no need for arenas. Just rated warzones and full premades, that's it.

Why no sticky yet?!?