While the boss is channeling his ion cutter attack on the tank, every tick of damage applies a stack of the debuff, increrasing the damage of that ability. So even though you cleanse at 4-5 stacks, the tank is still being hit by that channel, so he will immediately regain stacks. Now depending on your tank, you can handle this different ways. if your tank is properly using their cooldowns, they should be able to mitigate a couple of those channels. Jugg tanks don't want to be cleanse when they have reflect available bc they want to use reflect as they get to higher stacks. Sin tanks can use shroud and stealth to deal with the beam. PT can use energy shield and explosive fuel. As a sorc healer, i would suggest to bubble the tank as soon as the channel starts then you can cast resurgence>dark infusion>innervate>cleanse. at this point the tank will probably have dropped to about 50% hp, but you are cleansing closer to 6 stacks so they won't get to high stacks again. They otherwise shouldn't be taking too much damage in that fight so it is relatively easy to heal so long as you play around the beam correctly. Keep in mind of course that these are random flashpoint pugs, so at least 50% of the time, if not more, your tank will probably have no clue what they are doing. you can try to explain to them what to do, or just heal through it if you can manage.

I guess some people just can't handle it when others tell them just how wrong they are. Funny that my post got removed, but it doesn't change the fact that whiny threads like these are childish, misinformed, and have been reposted so many times over the years i can't tell if the people making them are trolling or just too lazy to actually look up any information on the topic.

My initial thoughts for Sorc (though mostly Lightning) based on my initial and limited testing: Volt Rush Set Bonuses Tacticals

My concern here is how much damage this ability is going to do and by what passives from each skill tree it will be affected. In order for us to truly give any meaningful feedback, this is information we need to know. What is the base damage of the ability? Is the 30% increase per stack additive or multiplicative? Clearly the goal here is to provide an ability that provides ramping damage. However, I foresee a big problem with the energize duration and the effective cooldown of this ability. Sure, it recharges every 10s, but the only way that you are going to want to use this optimally is when you can use all three charges, which means even if you are spacing out each Volt Rush activation to maximize the duration of the energize buff/debuff then it still has an effective cooldown of 20 seconds. If not, then its cooldown will be as high as 30 seconds. Additionally, if the damage is subpar with the first 2 hits, then it is going to feel really bad to be using 2 low dps gcds just to get 1 good or even great gcd. For Lightning, I can see how this ability will slot in, assuming the damage numbers are there. This ability has to hit harder than Lightning Bolt with no stacks of Energize, and should hit harder than both Chain Lightning and Lightning Flash with max stacks of Energize. If it doesn't, I don't really think this is going to be that great an ability. For Madness, this ability becomes a rotational nightmare at first glance. With only a 5 second buff/debuff duration on Energize, this is going to force Madness to use Volt Rush in spots that are going to feel awkward. On top of that, Force Lightning is incredibly important for force management, so you are not going to want to replace that with this. My overall recommendation upon seeing this ability, is to change the duration of Energize to longer than the ammo recharge. So in its current form, I would suggest a 15s duration for Energize with the 10 second ammo recharge. However, I recognize that without damage numbers currently available, this could be providing too big a burst every 10 seconds. Therefore, if that is the problem, my suggestion is to increase the ammo recharge time to 15 seconds, and make the Energize buff last 20 seconds. These all look ok for the most part. However, forcing overload as a means to Energize is just not a good design if Overload's damage is going to remain where it is. Either have this set bonus also increase the damage of Overload massively, or just make Force Speed trigger this because it has a similar cooldown and would fit better. I don't really see these being used too much given the discipline specific. Dark Return could be fun in some scenarios if it does enough damage though. Healing Volts is a great idea. Sorc healers need to be able to do more damage, and being able to heal at the same time is a very cool idea so this one is awesome. The two Revivification tacticals could be fine, depending on numbers. These aren't super exciting for "changing how you play your class", but if the numbers are there I think that it's fine. Extra Mend is similar. It isn't exciting, but it is going to add more healing so I guess it's okay. Death Channel is going to either be extremely strong or completely useless depending on how much more of a chance Forked Darkness has to proc and how much more damage Crushing Darkness is dealing. I don't foresee this being good enough to take over Stormwatch for single target. Volt Flux look amazing for AoE. I have one question though. How is it spreading Energize though if Energize is a buff and not debuff? As you say here: I don't see anyone taking Convection Burst over these other 3. It just doesn't provide enough. Stormwatch is cool and I like this idea. Is it any time the target is critically hit, or just any time you critically the target though? Similar to the overload set bonus, I don't understand the desire to push terrible dps abilities into dps rotations under any circumstance. Even if it is useful in the new operation, it won't be useful anywhere else except maybe pvp sometimes, though I honestly doubt it. I would suggest changing it to applying force slow to all targets it hits. Having to actively use Force Slow is just not going to feel good, and the damage amp for Death Field isn't high enough to justify taking this in my opinion. Ruthless Demolition looks really cool and decently strong. I think this could create a new interesting rotation for madness. The percentage on Writhing Terror is just too low to justify taking this over Ruthless Demolition or Wrath Rushdown. Wrath Rushdown also seems interesting and could be good depending on how good Volt Rush is. Also please change the name to just Wrath Rush. Rushdown just sounds bad. My final thoughts regarding these changes: I think that there are some good ideas here. I don't like that we have no numbers to go along with them because it makes feedback incredibly hard to give. I am disappointed that this isn't on PTS to test right now as was originally said. Please provide some damage and healing numbers so we can give better feedback on all of these changes.

Just wondering if we are going to get PTS coming up this week? If not can we get and update on when it is going to be available?

Can't speak for everyone in <Failure> but i have 60 or 61k. I just don't really care anymore. I don't have the desire to grind it like I used to. I've done so much of the achievements in this game, and I'm just exhausted by the super grindy ones,

One thing that I think needs to be addressed is if there is going to be class balance changes along with the new tactical items and set bonuses. Eric, can you let us know what the situation is with regards to that? We don't need specifics, just whether or not there is going to be changes to damage/healing/survivability because that changes, for me at least, how to approach some of these suggestions. For instance, if Sorc dps is going to be buffed, then suggestions can focus more about play style, but if not then they need to incorporate aspects to make up for that. I know you just said give ideas, but I think that what kinds of ideas we give actually hinges on whether or not there is going to be separate class balance or not.

I'm not trying to start an argument, but these are not QoL improvements you are asking for here, they are just things you personally don't like about lightning. I agree with your first comments about shock, and to some extent the fork procs, but everything else here just seems to be your personal pet peeves about the discipline. Focal Lightning is not dumb at all. 5% free alacrity is huge. I think it would be cool if the alacrity aspect of lightning were highlighted even more, not taken away. It is part of the spec's identity. The issues with affliction for thundering blast and shock with crushing darkness are all about optimizing play. As someone who plays Sorc at a NiM level as you say you do, these should be trivial things to do at this point. Being able to do these things is a matter of proper target swapping, keeping affliction on multiple targets up at a time, and effectively using your procs to maximize damage. This spec doesn't need to be dumbed down, it needs new and interesting mechanics added to spice it up again. General rule: add, don't take away. As far as non rotational buffs such as damage reduction and force regen, they are just that, buffs. They are not procs, and they shouldn't just be made passives. The rotation needs other abilities such that keeping them up is more of a reward for correct play, but lightning shouldn't just get 15% free damage reduction and 30% increased force regen for nothing. It isn't like it's currently hard to maintain them, so I don't understand what the problem is with self buffs as a result of correct rotation execution. Lightning has problem areas that need addressing. I'm not saying it doesn't need some love because it definitely does. Overall damage, effective raid damage, raid utility, rotation complexity (it's too simple and unrewarding) are all issues that this discipline has, along with some others. I'm just pointing out the things you bring up shouldn't be considered priorities, or in my opinion problems at all, when there are clearly more pressing concerns with the spec.

I'm going to put this here but I think this could apply to all Sorcerer/Sage disciplines. Dark Side Nexus - Placing your Phase Walk down creates a Dark Side Nexus on the ground with a 3m radius. While standing in the Dark Side Nexus you gain 1% increased critical chance, critical multiplier, and alacrity every 3 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. You lose all stacks upon leaving the Dark Side Nexus.

After giving some time and thought about the proposed tactical items and new set bonuses, I have come up with some ideas that I think would go along with what i perceive the team wants from these changes. Additionally, since it has already become a topic of discussion in this thread, as it has long been in others, I will also try to give my thoughts on the problem with Sorcerer survivability and its cooldowns. Tactical Items: Set Bonuses: These will focus on the set bonus style that currently exists. I understand that Bioware is attempting to make multiple set bonuses for different aspects of the game. MIGHT I SUGGEST YOU USE THIS TO HELP TO ADDRESS DISCREPANCIES IN PVP AND PVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's start off with the current set bonus. Here is what I would suggest: Keep in mind that I will not be including Madness/Balance aspects to this. I may post a similar thing for Madness/Balance later, but these suggestions are purely focused on Lightning. Additional thoughts: Defensive Cooldowns:

<Failure> Group Sapphire- Nahut 1st Kill Forgot to take it at Nahut's body. Here is the screenshot. If you need, i'll have the video uploaded in a day or two.

Group Sapphire A&E 8 man kill

Group Sapphire in Failure killed Tyth 2 days ago. Screenshot Twitch Vod We completely forgot to screenshot after. I went back in chat and took a screenshot of the achievements about 10-20 minutes later. Twitch video from Laet's stream for corroboration. Times are in EDT (I know, big oof. It's been a rough week).

This bug is also occurring with the mods and enhancements vendor

I wish this gear just dropped from NiM period. It would be better than it being crafted, but having a PvP mat tied to gear that exists specifically because of a NiM raid tier makes no sense. PvPers don't need this gear, it's for clearing NiM GFTM. Wanting and needing are 2 different things.

As the title states we are a team in <Failure> looking for raiders to fill out our roster that will be progging NiM GFTM both on the PTS and when it goes live. We are only looking for dps and/or tanks. Our healing spots are full. Our days will most likely be Friday and Saturday. The times have not yet been determined. While experience in HM GFTM is not required, it is strongly preferred. That being said, we will be judging applicants on their current ability, and possible potential to perform at a NiM level. Do not feel that you need NiM or HM GFTM achievements to apply, but understand that you will be evaluated on your ability to perform at a NiM level. While skill is important, we also want to see the desire to improve, the desire to be among the best. Those interested please message me either here on the forums or in game on SionCognus. Please include your raiding experience and your main class and role. For dps we would like two parses to show us you can consistently pull good damage. Please also indicate what days and times you are available.

Just gonna throw in my constructive criticism. Madness: Maybe this is just a numbers thing, but this ability would never be worth using. You are spending 6 seconds to either do 7.7k non crit with the proc or up to about 13k with the autocrit. This amounts to be a 1.3k-2.2k ability. It just would never be worth using. I also think a 6 second channel is just way too long to sit there and not be able to move. I do like the passive change to the dot duration. That would smooth out the rotation some. Lightning: I really like this idea, but I just have a couple of concerns. This would make the opener kinda weird and slightly more inefficient. You would either have to apply affliction as your first gcd, and then follow with static crush, which would waste another whole gcd of the first polarity shift, or you would have to keep the order and waste a gcd of empowered static crush under pol shift which you would not want to do. You also don't take into account our crappy shock buff under crushing darkness. This change would make that passive 100% dead weight. You would never want to use shock there, and so you would never be able to benefit from it. I also think that an argument could be made for that burst window to be 4 seconds, but that is a minor argument. As far as the passive goes I have wanted back lightning barrage ever since they got rid of it in 3.0 so I love this idea. Corruption: Resurgence hot heals over 9 seconds, not 15 so Echoing Renewal should probably reflect that. Additionally, while the spread is nice, it really isn't doing any more single target healing. Maybe that's the point, but for a new/replacement ability, it should feel better to use. I think that the hot could use a number bump. Otherwise I think this looks interesting. As far as the passive goes I feel like the first part is just copying a Lightning passive thereby making it not unique. I also don't think that you would get much use out of it as far as overall reduction goes. I think this part can be changed to something else or just removed. The latter part about additional AoE healing from dark heal + recklessness is cool, but there are some problems here. The first is that the amount of healing is just really low, especially because its also only targets within 5m. The other issue is that it is tied to dark heal. You never really use recklessness with dark heal, and this wouldn't make you want to either I just want to say that I really like that you are trying to make constructive feedback instead of just complaining about the class. I only wanted to provide my feedback on where your ideas could be improved. Solid start though.

This thread is epitome of sorc players in swtor (at least in PvE). You have the inexperienced/bad players complaining that the class isn't viable while all the experienced/good players try to tell them that the class is fine and they just have to learn to play and get better.

First off, this is the danger in letting other people interpret someone else's work. Also, you didn't read the article correctly, or the links provided. As I was talking with Schwarz when he was doing this particular work, I was able to point out to him the one flaw in his otherwise accurate models and functions. Force/Tech Damage use different damage numbers for their calculations. That is why in the reddit post to which that article links, he states that Sorcs/Sages are a special case because they are pure Force damage classes. The critical value for them is 2235.4. This is why I said about 2250. As far as overall gearing for PvP I will reiterate that it is not my area of expertise. I know that some people have differing opinions on the importance of alacrity. Bottom line, as a Sorc/Sage in PvP you can allocate around 2250 into critical. If you want to maintain high alacrity levels for Madness then you use 1876 alacrity. The rest of you stat goes into mastery after that.

BiS for Madness (PvE), assuming you are using 248 gear and 236 augments, is: 1876 Alacrity: 6 Enhancements, 5 Augments 1594 Crit: 3 Enhancements, 6 Augments 765 Accuracy: 1 Enhancement, 3 Augments, 1 Stim I'm not quite sure what you are asking about here. For PvP you don't need accuracy but for PvE you need enough accuracy to get you to 110%. The OP asked about PvE gearing for Madness. Now as far as PvP goes, I'm not sure what people use for Madness, but if you aren't looking to change your alacrity at all you can dump most of the accuracy into crit until you get to about 2250. After that you can dump it into mastery.

Just to remind those who complain about Sorc dps not being viable... 4 Sorc DPS NiM Brontes

Based on the number of sales that they have done, I am going to say that you are just doing something wrong. Maybe check again.

Reasons this thread went the way it did: 1) This thread was from the beginning about the viability of Sorc dps in HM/NiM. That was it. It wasn't about anything else. This is why I ultimately didn't understand why you were bringing other classes into the discussion because the focus of the discussion was on sorc. I think this is obvious based on the other commenters in the thread as well. I even agree with you that there is too great a disparity between dps, but that is a philosophical and not a functional argument so long as the lowest parsing dps class can still contribute enough dps such that if all 4 dps did that same damage the boss would still die. Until that changes the question of dps spread unfortunately does not really rise to that level of importance. 2) The flippant, almost trolling manner, you posed your "question" about sorc viability doesnt look or sound at all like you are trying to have a serious conversation. It just looks like you are trying to pick an argument. Instead of rationally asking a question with some context, you made a few quips and then pulled a question seemingly out of left field with no context whatsoever. Forgive me for not divining your true purpose. 3) You make repeated statements saying that the weakest dps specs (lightning, marksman, and arsenal) can only clear NiM content if their lack of required dps is made up for by other classes. Also stating that it is about bringing the total amount of dps when it matters, and that is why you would never bring 4 sorcs (or whatever combination since you keep insisting on making this about other classes that weren't the focus of this thread). 4) In light of the previous statements, the video proving that 4 sorc dps are capable of killing brontes. Nowhere do I say or suggest that this is a good comp, an optimal comp, or even an enjoyable comp. I simply state and we showed that it was possible. Therefore, if 4 sorcs can kill that boss, that means each sorc on average is bringing the required dps to kill the boss. Extrapolating this yields the conclusion that a sorc dps (again or whatever) can meet the required dps checks without having to have their dps made up for by another dps in the group. 5) The final straw for me, and it makes even less sense given that your overall argument is apparently about the state of the dps spread and how wide and unbalanced it is, was your abject refusal to admit that you were wrong on sorc being a viable dps class that doesn't need to be carried. Just as I apparently missed your point, you completely missed mine. This was and always has been an attempt to refute the misinformation that sorcs need to be carried to clear NiM. That they can't pull their own weight. I started off refuting that, I continued to make that my key point, and the whole reason for that 4 sorc Brontes kill was to prove that.

Believe what you want. You have stated very clearly so many times that bottom end dps can only clear content if they are carried by other classes, and that they couldn't provide the necessary dps to meet the tough dps checks. We provided evidence in direct contradicton to your statements. If you want to continue to believe and claim that we have proved nothing then I suppose nobody can stop you, but you look like a fool doing so. Here are some examples of those claims just in case you try to refute that too. First it was this: Then it was this: Then this: And finally, this: Seems to me you were very clear in what you thought about bottom end dps. It just turns out your opinion isn't correct, at least for Sorc. But hey, you can keep arguing the point for arsenal merc and mm sniper if you want I guess.

You are truly outstanding. You claim that sorc is only viable if its dps is made up for by other classes. We then do a 4 sorc dps comp on brontes (remember no armor debuff) so there is no other dps class to carry the sorcs. Yet this is still not good enough? 4 sorcs was the extreme to show that they dont need another class to carry them. It's clear that you refuse to admit that you were wrong. Obviously no amount of evidence will be enough for you. For anyone else who is reasonable, it's plain to see that a sorc can meet required dps checks, even without the armor debuff that every group makes sure that they have.