I recommend the PvP Developers do the following four solutions for long term improvements in the game. Which will attract new PvP players and bring back older players who have moved on to other things. First...The guild program must be improved to include guild alliances and guild money (which would be used for maintenance of structures and guild ships. Then guild money would be earned through either taxes on player earnings...player deposits or completing PvP/PvE objectives. Second... Guild structures (Bases...Forts...Outposts... BattleCruisers...Fighters...Breaching Pods used against other enemy guild ships) must be designed with different layouts to compliment differing defensive play styles and lower to higher level guilds. Say 10 of each type ... ideally these could be custom configured using a design GUI by the players / guilds. The building structures would be auto assembled on PvP worlds and act as defensive rally points during open world PvP combat. Upgrades for these structures ... (assassin droids...traps...pits... decor... alarms) could be added by the guild for a cost of guild money. These structures would be damaged in PvP fights which would need to be repaired or replaced. Third... Objectives in Open World PvP zones must be designed to benefit both the guild/alliance and perhaps the entire realm (Empire vs Republic). This could be temporary exp / credit bonus for the realm... access to other PvP/PvE flash points or planets only available on capture of majority of objective points. The underdog teams could get temp damage bonus say 10% while in the PvP Open World area with faster travel to the war front. Finally... Ship combat must be designed in a Flashpoint style where 6 to 9 guilds could que up and fight each other. Alliances could form teams of 3 for these events with both fighter style spaceship combat and boarding actions with breaching pods onto enemy ships. (Boarding Enemy ships you destroy the engine room while fighting other players and getting past the ships defenses. Last ship or alliance standing wins !!! :p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p

Any chance the Bioware Development Team could comment on any of these valid suggestions on improving Sorcerer DPS...Burst and Survivability ??

First lets all agree Sorc's need buffs to DPS due to lack of survivability. The class obviously will never have the survivability of a PowerTech or a Marauder ... therefore we need to beat them in both total DPS and Burst to be fair and balanced as a class. Second, the Lightning Tree is flat out broken and must be fixed. Did most of us sign up to be Sorc's for our DoTless animations as a Hybrid. Hell if I knew I was going to be a Hybrid I woulda been an Assasin Class !!! Where does it say that my top tier lightning 31 spec spell is a 2 second cast and does awefull damage. 2 seconds of interuptable standing in place. Make the damage for Lightning Tree Elemental and fix the top tier spell making it instant cast on a reasonable cool down timer ... problem solved. Support DPS is another word for Fail DPS or We'll Find Someone Else For End Game PvP Who Has Real Burst. The reality is the higher up the PvP WZ food chain you go the faster and more organized the combat becomes if you die in say 6 seconds it takes you 20 seconds to get back its now a 7.3 to 8 fight in favor of the enemy team. Good players in high end PvP know this ... bad players make Support DPS comments. IMHO

So ... If a Power Tech with as you say a natural 45% damage decrease built into their armor and can ignore 95% of the opponents armor using Rail Shot its okay. Just don't give it to a Sorc who has the lowest defenses in the game ?? Lowest Defenses should equal Highest Offense flat out. Without being overpowered or breaking the game.

Forgive my ignorance on this subject ... is a Vangard Tank considered a true DPS spec ??? Please tell me what your armor value is in full WH gear out of curiosity.

Checking WH Armor numbers again... Full WH... Heavy ~4900 Armor ~31% Dmg Reduction Medium ~3700 Armor ~26% Dmg Reduciton Light ~2600 Armor ~19% Dmg Reduction So lets say we made Sorc spells ignore armor ... turned the entire lightning tree into Elemental Damage (instead of Energy) after all it is Lightning how Elemental can you get This would add an average of 25% or so to the lightning tree spec... a damage tree which is not used much at the moment save Force Lightning. Running some numbers using Force Lightning as a highly geared lvl 50 Sorc say the dmg per tick on an average geared target is 600 (Not discussing Crits atm) ... this would add 25% more damage becoming a 750 / tick hit. 4 ticks in 3 seconds = 3000 damage over 3 seconds while standing in place mind you... verses 2400 damage over 3 seconds as currently designed. IMO that is not an overpowered change considering the Sorc defense down side. Especially since other classes can beat you down even faster while you're standing in place focus casting a steady stream of Lightning (Placing A Large Electric Bulls Eye On Your Head)

Just a few comments... First our Lightning Tree is broken ! The top end Lightning Spec spell is worthless ! Fix It !!! Classes should be balanced between Defense & Offense. You have higher Defense then you get less Offense. Sorcerers are unbalanced because their primary Offense is limited to DoT's which are easily cleansed and do not press the enemy attack as other classes do. Their armor is the lowest in the game and their bubble is on a relatively long cool down which can be burst in 1 to 3 enemy attacks (say 1 to 5 seconds)...the sprint can be blocked by stuns which are rare in this game. Additionally other classes with higher armor levels (more damage mitigation) and better defensive abilities (such as I'm immune from all damage for ~ 8 seconds or I stealth out of combat before you kill me) have the same or higher damage potential with strong burst damage output. If you can't see the problem here you're either not looking or like Sorc's as your personal squish target. Compared to Heavy Armor Classes with similar damage numbers and much higher burst. The Sorcerer design fails in comparison. For those that say Sorc's shouldn't get internal damage in their lightning tree I say this... Imagine if we gave Sorc's Heavy Armor and one of our main attacks reduced armor by say 95% ... sound familiar ... can you say Power Tech ! So I'm not asking for heavy armor ... I'm asking for internal damage that ignores armor in other players as they ignore our armor. I do not think that this is really asking for too much considering other classes in game have these abilities. Sorcerers role as currently designed in high level PvP is to slowly wear down the opposing force. This is why no one wants them in Ranked WZ's because high end PvP is anything but slow. Player Name: Arisis (formerly Lyta)... Full WH Gear... Valor Rank 92 Server: Prophecy of the Five (formerly Terentatek) If you think I'm a bad Sorc ... Play me in a pug WZ sometime and leave your pocket healer/guard behind.

Actually I play my Sorc at the highest level in game and have enjoyed the class since release. I've run in many high end PvP WZ groups... so your comment about this doesn't fit in with the end game for Sorc's is quit rediculous. If you really want to know what most High End Sorcerers think see the comment below ...

You realize the Force Lightning only does 400 - 500 dmg per tick on the average heavy armor class ? Then they walk up to you or pull you to them and smack you down for 4-6K dmg. You can run away if you're not stunned or pulled or snared... still the DPS med and heavy armor classes mitigate more damage than you can comparativelyl all the while dishing out more damage to you. This is not purely a L2P or play style problem. Trust me

Essentially the problem boils down to this... If Med/Heavy armor classes can do the same level of damage as a light armored Sorc with little survivability options except run away and hope you dont get focused stun/mez/dead. Then why play a Sorc ? For role play ?? Clearly other classes have spec issues. However for the Sorc the lack of survivability with comparable DPS is the problem. Either Sorc's get more Tanky with survivability options or their DPS in the Lightning Tree becomes more internal dmg type. I mean the top Spell on the Lightning Tree is a 2 second Cast !?! Are you #*&$in kidding me ???

You could make the Force Lightning Internal Damage a spec ability high enough up in the Lightning Tree that someone would have to give up the top madness tree abilities. The lightning tree is not a real option at the moment and the survivability is a joke compared to other classes. We should IMO be able to melt down tank classes since we have little dmg mitigation abilities ourselves ... save run from combat. Therein would lie the balance. Tanks get melted by sorcs ... then you need to kill the sorc if you dont want to be melted. I do not want Sorcs to be easy to play or unbalanced. I'm saying the balance has swung too far and if they continue to be the easiest class to melt ... then they should also be the hot knife through butter in their ability to melt other heavy armor classes. Why should the melting only work one way ???

We all know Sorc's have survivability problems in PvP and their DPS is arguably lower than Heavy Armor "Tank" classes in game. The AE nerf that Sorcerers suffered was not balanced by improved defenses or improved single target DPS mechanics. This plus the damage buffs to other DPS spec'd medium to heavy armor classes is what has created the imbalance for our class. Here is my recommended fix: Fix lightning tree so that the top end spell is insta cast on a reasonable recast timer. Adjust Force Lightning so that it does internal damage. Decrease the recast timer on our bubble (Only if cast on self) to improve survivability. For the doubters that do not think Sorcerers need buffs: Look around see how many Sorcerers PvP compared to Marauders/Juggs/Powertechs ... the proof is in the numbers and the fact that most Ranked WZ groups would rather take most any other DPS class if given the option. BTW this is a DPS discussion not a Heals discussion ...

The problem is the Armor/Defense does not balance the Offensive/Damage capabilities of each class. Power Techs and Marauders are fine examples. Damage capabilities of the highest DPS classes in the game without having to sacrifice any survivability. Some say range is a factor. Very limited in this game since almost all the classes have ranged attacks / snares / stuns. Kiting is difficult at best and on a flat playing surface its almost impossible against certain "melee" classes with ranged attacks and Jumps. Armor absorb needs to be balanced by doing one or a combination of three things: 1) Add more internal damage to the light armor class attacks (Sorc is a good example of that need) 2) Decrease the damage on attacks for Medium and Heavy armor users. 3) Completely change the armor system so that one class doesn't absorb 2 to 3 times more damage while having similar offensive/damage capabilities. If you think I'm wrong check the WZ population lately...you will see far less light armor classes than say 2 months ago.

Please explain how one effectively kites in this game with Jump/Pull/mult Stuns/Knockdown/Snare...ect) You run out of escapes pure n simple. Oh and assuming all dmg is mitigated by armor PLEASE .. its pretty close to 80% so dont even go there... If your one of those high armor classes it does take longer to be focused .... thats my main point. Why shouldn't there be more balance ... more risk more reward ... less damage tradeoff for higher dmg mitigation ??

So heres the root problem with the current PVP system the Damage vs Defensive does not scale well. ( i,e the trade offs between damage and damage mitigation are way off) Perfect example...why play a light armor DPS with limited dmg mitigation options and similar dmg output ? When you can play a heavier armored DPS class that gets 50-100% more dmg absorb just from their armor with no real DPS penalty. Not even including the i'm invincible for 10 seconds or unstunable abilities that certain classes receive. Don't believe me ? Check out the PUG WZ numbers sometime and see which classes show up at top damage and lowest deaths. Compare these classes to a light armor DPS ... such as a Sorc...with little dmg mitigation capabilities. The sorc bubble is a bad joke since patch 1.2 it often pops in a single enemy attack ( because it doesnt scale w/ the increased dmg ) ... whereas the med/heavy armor users take a set % off the dmg delt for most attacks (so it at least scales somewhat with the dmg increase). Bottom line ... unless the dmg / defense balance is fixed ... there will be no reason to put light armor DPS into rated WZs cause their survivability S U C K S !!! Already on my server the numbers of Sorcs are dwindling fast ! As in most MMO's the melee classes DPS just gets stronger as the dmg rating on their weapons just keeps increasing. Advice: For you new players ... Best DPS classes to play is "Melee" Med/Heavy armor class. Ranged means little in this game (Jump/Pull/Stun) ... Heavier Armor FTW !!!