Which is why I took charge of my own guilds PVP division and recruited who I wanted to based on lots of deliberation and basically attempted to get the best of each class on my faction but also based on the composition I wanted to play. I cant be a follower, I want to have control so even if for some vague reason my rated team was to fold and I get invited to another rated team I would quickly take in-game lead of that eventually. A skill-set I have carried over from playing competitive counter-strike at a very high level for 10+ years across the globe.

Oh and I want organic mounts.

Team skill-set goes a lot further in a Warzone than individual skill. Teamwork is build by creating a ranked team, devising strategies that have on the fly alternatives as well as rigid frameworks. Building chemistry and communication by talking about these set strategies as well as constantly playing premades with each other. Focus firing is one of the easiest skills to acquire for ranked WZ's. Reading enemy movements a couple steps before them and adjusting accordingly takes much more time and experience. My future ranked team is beastly but I would love to have the opportunity to record Warzones and then review them and exactly point out where my teammates are making mistakes (even when we are winning with perfect scores). This exists in all other TRUE competitive games and genres (unfortunately not in MMO's).

A full 31 madness build is a minor DPS loss over most other hybrid builds. Similar to how proc-ing lightning strike over just casting force lightning is a DPS loss in the lightning build. So nope CT is far from the best ability for a sorcerer. The best ability for the sorcerer is hands down Backlash. And before you start arguing that it is not an ability (its a skill point), it is because you can manually discharge it by right clicking the static barrier buff hence making it an AOE blind that is under our control.

You yourself mentioned in another thread that you solo q and max q with 1 or 2 other guys. You do not have fair perception of what true nature of ranked will be if you haven't been playing/preparing for a ranked environment pre 1.2. I would love to see you kite a skilled PT, Vengeance-Immortal Hybrid Jugg / Operative DPS for longer than 25 seconds while still contributing objectively to the Warzone.

This man understands. I would take a PT + Rage Juggernaut combination over two Anhilation Marauders.

A new defensive CD for the Sorcerer.

Warzones are for team based play. Rated is for competitive play. Ranked Warzones are for team-based competitive play. There is no reason for solo ranked. Make an effort and join a ranked team. Not only will it make you a much better player but its a much more enjoyable experience than Solo ranked/unranked. Whoever argues that there are more skilled solo q-ers than premades has not gone against proper premades or overestimates his/her own ability. If you argue that you do not have the time to take part in a ranked team than you probably are better off not playing ranked altogether because the argument that you gain commendations much faster through ranked is null and void if you are solo q-ing against any form of 8 man ranked teams since they have inbuilt chemistry and communication. BW needs to make sure that they are not lenient on losing teams by giving them decent amount of commendations. The grind is going to be almost as 'poor' as it is now if you are losing and you WILL be losing a lot more often in ranked warzones as a solo q-er than in non ranked. (Although I personally do not find the current grind that bad). So the cycle will continue. Solo Ranked Q - > More Losses -> Less Commendations -> More Gear Disparity and -> Going up against teams that capitalize on the gear disparity -> More Losses How can ANYONE argue that in a team based environment such as Warzones, team based play is not a true test of skill? *Mindblown*

That would be the lazy way out from Bioware. If they increase the static barriers absorption from say 2.75k to around 4k-4.5k. Yes it is now able to last through one railshot (but not one smash). However, this has a bigger probability of screwing the balance of the game as I feel this would make my Sorcerer OP. Static Barrier as mentioned above is on a 20s cooldown and the ability to shield a burst every 20 seconds is too good. Now if they increase the cooldown on Static Barrier that messes us up even further because without the barrier we are completely useless. Which is why I feel they should not mess with the static barrier at all and just give us an addition defensive CD. However knowing how most MMO developers work this might be a very realistic outcome come 1.3. (Buffing the static barrier)

You do not factor in the time dead in spawn as after one-max two static barrier breaks Sorcerers are dead within seconds against bursty classes. (Talking from a ranked POV). So in essence even though our static barrier is quicker to consume it does not increase our life expectancy by much so the low cooldown does not help much. Comparatively the defensive CD's of other classes can genuinely allow them to survive.

Glad to see most of the uninformed players who keep saying L2Play, L2Kite leave the thread in exchange for well-informed suggestions. I want to add a suggestion that I read in another thread that even though would require skill to master (similar to ice block) but would be easier to implement for BW. The ability to cast affliction on friendly units for a small% of self-healing. Making affliction have a double purpose. This would force the sorcerer to move with the pack (which is what is recommended anyway) rather than trying to solo guard a node (silly). BW would have to come up with the numbers themselves based on their awesome metric system as to what the actual self-heal numbers would be. This would make pure madness a viable spec in terms of surviveability. It would help lightning a little bit but they would have to do something else to the lightning tree to increase burst. When the 31 Pointer CHANNELED ability of lightning is useless compared to an instant hit like railshot by a less squishy class, something is wrong. The major drawback of this is that we would be very very dependant on the awful targeting system of Bioware. I still prefer a 2-3 second Iceblock though.

Such biased situational analysis shouldn't even be worthy of a response but I will make one anyway. Ice block will not allow me to 'STOP a CAP' as it won't allow me to use any of my abilities. I would have to disengage it in order to stop a cap and then I am as squishy a kill as I was before. Also in a typical fight of attrition for a node the Sorcerer would be forced to use his ice block earlier because he is an easy focus fire target. One cant always save it for last man alive kind of scenarios. Secondly such a defensive cool down such as ice block would definitely only be a 2-3 second duration and a medium-longish cooldown (1min+). Not asking to be invulnerable AND being able to use my abilities for a longer period of time, skills that other classes arleady have. The whole point of an ice block is to do a 'WELL TIMED RESIST" against a massive burst from the bursty classes. It would require a lot of skill to get the timing down. Think of it as a skill more akin to action MMO playstyle

You and me think a lot alike Cempa. I completely agree. I have two get two x the +39 Power MODS to put into two of my pieces still and I am also contemplating putting one +39 Power / one +39 Crit into my Orange Belt and Bracer (Already have Advanced 25 Armoring in there). Already did all the enhancements . Yeah its not a 1% difference if you properly optimize your gear which practically requires the same amount of comms as a second WH set.

I agree with this post whole heartedly. I play sorcerer myself. I especially hate when the static barrier bubble breaks to blind the enemies and then a sorcerer throws a overload at the same time causing full resolve. I think it should only be used as a defensive mechanic when you are one of the last people left at a node and need to buy that extra 5 seconds for your respawning/rotating teammates. I pride myself in being able to use my utility quite effectively. Here are some ways I use the overload and other key stuns that actually HELP my Rage Juggernauts, Pyro PT''s etc. Before I list out the ways to use them I need to preface this by stating that equipping backlash is one of the best things you can do as Sorcerer and you can MANUALLY DISCHARGE IT into an AOE BLIND by right clicking the buff on your character. 1. There is a group of two - three enemies huddled together. I see an enemy not too far off from them. I sprint towards that enemy angle and knockhim into the first clump allowing making my rage juggernaut get an instant b-o-n-e-r. 2. Healers hiding near pillars/Corner of Alderaan node. I run into them overload and knock them out of heal radius then I proceed to whirlwind one and force slow the other healer. 3. When a group of enemies (mainly melee) are on me and trying to focus fire me. I will manually discharge my static barrier to AOE blind them. Or use my cybertech seismic grenade. Once again even after I die allowing my Rage Juggernaut or Pyro PT to have a lot of fun with them. 4. If I am not getting focus fired I often sprint to/past a group of clumped enemies and instead of knocking them into a SEAL TEAM formation like you mentioned I simply just discharge my static barrier in their face. 5. I see my Rage Juggernaut run through one rotation of his smashes, I then extricate him and pop a static barrier on him and then let him force charge back into a group of enemies (more rage) and start the massacre all over again. There are many other scenarios but these are some of my favraites. My Rage Juggernaut <3's me.

Already have full WH. Maybe will buy another WH relic to replace my Matrix cube thats it. Already min-maxed the enhancements and a few mods. Now I need to min-max the rest of the mods and I am complete (so two-three boots in my case).

When any decently skilled operative healer is consistently putting up over 650k in heals and a Mercenary over 550k then yeah those are not good numbers. Anyway the way to compare two healers in a WZ is not by pure healing numbers look at the damage they received as well. If both classes received around the same amount of damage and the sorcerer still out-healer the operative then I would be impressed. Doesn't happen.

Sniper class should have had stealth instead of tankassasins than SWTOR PVP would be a lot fairer . Maybe our server doesnt have a really good sniper and my opinion of skilled is very different to general number crunchers as we do have a few snipers that put out great DPS numbers. I look at what else they bring to the table other than defense. They are slow, can be spotted a mile away when moving to a node. They are quite one-dimensional. I will give you a simple example. Snipers are supposed to control MID in Huttball, so are Pyro PT's and Rage Juggs. However, both the Pyro PT's can sit in middle, win the ball and when not winning the ball they can move up to the top zonal fires quickly and still do minimal amount of support (gap closers, pulls) and then go back to mid. My ranked team will have assigned zones of activity for most of my teammates with the exception of the ball runners who have creative reign about how they want to run the ball. A sniper can just defend and control mid. You see my point? Just one example. As far as Sorcerers being viable for PVP. If you are utility sure. If you are DPS are you telling me in your server you consistently put out better sustained (total DPS) than GOOD Powertechs? (Usually a 200-250K DPS discrepancy between good PT's and Sorcs), Marauders, Rage Juggernauts, Operative DPS or even Snipers? We clearly do not have the BURST DPS to kill enemy classes quickly like they do. So really how does DPS sorcerer fit into a ranked team other than as a support/utility/secondary DPS-er?

Healer vs Healer is supposed to be a stalemate thats just how the game is balanced. Although the Sorc healer might have a slight advantage in the sense that he has a better resource pool than you, however, you have the opening burst advantage. But in the end the battle is going to take hours. So using a healer vs healer duel as a reasoning for not upping sorcerer survive-ability is flawed. No where in a ranked WZ will you see a Sorcerer Healer and Operative Healer trying to DPS each other. Yeah already mentioned have no issues kiting most classes, especially sentinels. I love kiting sentinels. Its only the three bursty classes that cause me trouble and I understand that not all classes are supposed to tackle every class which is why I am suggesting a small not OP defensive CD that requires a lot of skill to execute and negate one massive burst to allow us to maybe survive for 15 seconds more than the usual 5-10 second burst. They are called Electric Bindings and Backlash by the way. This is the type of answer that comes from a person who clearly hasn't played the Sorcerer class long enough in a potential rated environment.

I said I wasn't so sure about Vengeance Juggs (Dont go up against that many pure vengeance on my server, mostly immortal-vengeance hybrids or rage). And both those builds are good. As far as merc healers are concerned, I dont think you have fought a couple really good one. They are tanky as all hell. Yes if you time your CC with their uninterruptable shield then you can kill them but realistically a good MERC healer (like the one on my team) won't telegraph that bubble so easily. He will play around your cooldowns to choose the most opportune moment to utilize that shield and go back to top health. They are tankier than some tanks with guard on. DPS Operative post 1.2 is balanced. Pre 1.2 it was OP. I don't think it is a weak class in fact a well-played DPS Operative is better than a sniper for a ranked team. As they are versatile, they can be excellent in attack (focus firing, hit and run tactics) and great in defense as well (Stealth intercepting while team respawns). Their DPS itself is fairly bursty and again a good DPS operative (although my team does not run one, some of the other teams on our server have some good ones) puts out good DPS if he knows how to utilize his strength go in and out of comboat and DISENGAGE when needed. Actually a lot of 'skilled' players don't know when to DISENGAGE even when they are winning a battle 1v1 because of tunnelvision and greed when in the long run its better to DISENGAGE for the sake of being more objective minded (going to another node) or factoring in the rotating enemies to that node and thinking two steps ahead. There is no better DISENGAGE mechanic other than stealth so.... I think I was fairly right on with my previous post with the exception of Vengeance Juggs.

Those are not good numbers

I think the number of builds that need nerfing to ones that need buffing are about the same. There might be one or two more on the buffing side. Although I agree that buffing requires a lot more work on BW's side because in some instances it might require adding something such as a new function to a skill tree point or another characteristic to an already existing ability rather than simply changing the base value of an ability. But I am sure they have enough resources and time to put in the effort to make the game awesome by buffing instead of nerfing. I mean its their job after all.

I like both the ideas. I agree that the sorcerer needs to be buffed in such a way as to not make him win those 1v1's that he was previously losing just giving him enough of a time-frame to continue doing what he does (be an annoying cc-er) and a very objective based support class. I think though the dark heal instant could get OP if people start using relics and recklessness for healing instead of for DPS. I think the friendly affliction heals bit is way better. I don't know how that would actually be implemented. But it would also encourage Sorcerers to stay with group which is what they are more suited for (other than in Huttball) as they are not the recommended class to hold a node solo. So I think that really is a great idea. Its also not as easy as spamming a instant heal bind so I like the increased difficulty. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=470790 In my thread I argued for a defensive cooldown in the form of ice block. I think that is another option. However, I think I like the friendly affliction heal idea slightly better. Because its sustained survive ability as compared to my suggestion which would be to negate one massive burst.

Did not paint a dire picture just stated what must be done for Sorcerer to be viable for rated. To put it in short as of right now since there is no rated and ELO, sorcerer is fine (because only 4 man premades) however once rated comes no TOP RATED TEAM will be running a sorcerer unless they do something about it. If I wasn't the in-game leader of my own team I would gladly give my spot up to a Tankassassin. I am of the belief that nerfing shouldn't be the way to go for MMO's. People who play those classes enjoy it, probably cause they have high burst, high utility, high surviveability etc. By nerfing those classes it will result in quite a large disgruntled player base and in general a lesser skill ceiling / fewer mechanics to compete against. If instead BW was to add abilities/buff the rest then all classes would be fun and challenging to play. I think thats how they should do it. Good-Balanced (A.K.A OP Classes & Builds) - Rage Juggernaut - Anhilation Marauder - Pyro PT - DPS Operative - Healing Operative - Healing Mercenary - Tankassassin Under powered classes that need to be buffed or fixed - Sorcerer heals - Sorcerer DPS - Mercenary DPS - Deception Tankassasin - Vengeance Jugg -?? (Not so sure about this one) - Lethality Operative Sniper falls in between those two sets. So not quite sure what to do with them . Although the key is to buff while increasing the skill ceiling to master the class, not give us ezmode buffs like improving the static barrier etc.

1. I didn't say it was OP did I? I also clarified in my post that as a Sorcerer I dont have trouble against Tankassasins or Marauders because (b4ijumptoconclusions) I can kite them fairly easy. I referred to the bursty Rage Juggernaut / Powertech and Operative DPS. I said BW got it wrong in the sense that if all these 'defensive cooldowns' were just that, pure defensive cooldowns then the game would have been much more balanced. Instead of Maras and Tankassasins waiting to pop undying rage/force shroud and then pop their Relic/Adrenal/Recklessness to use it as their primary burst time frame. 2 and 3. I am a valor 91 Sorcerer from Launch and also PVP lead of arguably the best future ranked team on my server. Therefore its pretty foolish to jump to conclusions and assume that I already haven't have been using 2x2 set bonuses forever. Once again if you L2READ you would have understood that I already said I am fairly satisfied with the Sorcerer class as it stands right now because I know HOW TO KITE, UNDERSTAND RESOLVE BAR, LINE OF SIGHT etc.. I even manually discharge my backlash by right clicking the buff (blind on AOE) to make it another stun in my arsenal (can stun people back while stunned). Let me just ask you a simple question. You are trying to design an elite 8 man ranked team composition. Would you take a Sorc healer over an Operative or Merc healer? Would you take a PURE SORC DPS over a PT/Mara/OP/Sniper/Tankassasin/Juggernaut? If you answered No to the two above questions you already know that the class needs a buff to be viable for 8 man ranked. Only way a sorcerer fits into a ranked team is as a unique support role of pure utility build. The whole point of this thread is with the anticipation of 1.3 and rated and referring to what would be needed to make sorcerers viable for rated.

First off you need to understand the difference between a defensive cooldown and a utility ability (stuns snares etc). Yes we have tonnes of utility if we spec into it. I automatically assumed defensive screen was referring to sniper as they are the 'squishier' class. I thought the operative ability name was cloak screen or something. Still the crux of your argument was comparing Sorcerer squishiness to Operative Squishyness by comparing defensive screen to static barrier. Assuming those two are negated. You still have evasion and freaking stealth. Not to mention Operative healers can heal themselves out of most bursty DPS (maybe except for PT but even then they can last a LOT longer than sorcerers can). I dont think it was a valid comparison of surviveability at all. Comparing us to Merc DPS is better but I think both those classes need buffs.