If 4 of your rotation have significant activation times good luck getting all that down in PvP on a target without them moving or simply interrupting or cc ing you. In most competitive PvP matches I have seen lightning/TK sages mainly ending up spamming TK throw...that's why some people consider Powertech/Vanguard dps build OP, their rotations are instant cast. In PvP the Balance/Madness rotation is instant outside of TK Throw, so it means we can get most of it off without having to stand still for 10 seconds or so to complete a dps rotation cycle.

Not certain what madness/balance build you're playing , but if you are gooing OOF casting DoTs in an Ops operation you're playing the spec wrong. As for Toth and Zorn many will end up casting DoTs on the targets as they are being exchanged by the Tanks after they jump... Comando and Gunslinger both have more than one AoE... The majority of the fight is single target. The AoE phase isn't very intesive for Balance or Hybrid specs, they just cast Force quake. I'd say about equal with hybrid or balance in Ops, in PvP it isn't viable.

Agree one hundred percent here. Just need one or two war hero geared Huttball stars and the rest of the team can be in PvE greens for all it will matter against another PuG team.

For PvP we are talking balance or a hybrid. Hybrid dps/healer can work out quite well. For PvE TK/hybrid/balance all are viable in the Ops, I think.

For DoTs force management shouldn't be a problem running balance/madness. If' you're talking Toth and Zorn I'd worry if you were in a group where the dps was so low that you actually needed to keep DoTs on both bosses as that encounter is really just a gear check in HM and in story mode even easier. For Balance due to the longer DoTs you end up overlapping on them no matter what you do. There aren't really many occasions where you actually need to multi-spam force quake. On Kephess for example in a reasonably geared group the other dps, e.g. gunslinger/commando, uses their AoE on the mob packs at the same time so hard to imagine you'd ever need to do more than 1 FiB followed by 1 force quake per pack. Most of Kephess is single target, so by your logic hybrid/balance works out best for most of it. There isn't that much AoE needed in any Ops, either EV, EC, or KP. That's why they are all a bit similar in a way, on three bosses you need to cast the occasional AoE, but there isn't a really intensive AoE encounter so not critical to have AoE build. Balance does just fine having to put up the odd force quake over a boss encounter. I have to write that to be honest with you once you get to mainly BH/campaign level gear any Sage build will work out alright in EC.

Well, it is clear that you really love TK/lightning and that is all well and good, but I think you are being a bit unrealistic. There is a gear curve with EC, especially HM, but once you get to mainly BH/campaign level gear then you will find that TK (lightning)/TK hybrid/ Balance (madness) builds can all work out here, though they do different things (and different types of dmg).

It depends on your spec, but Sages do output internal dmg that obviates target armour or kinetic dmg that has some of that dmg subtracted after it hits target armour. weaken mind internal sever force internal Force in Balance internal mind crush kinetic TK throw kinetic TK wave kinetic Disturbance kinetic So if you think about it there are advantages on Sage builds that maximise our internal damage casts, but we can do one better than gunslinger in doing dmg that doesn't need armour debuff.

Not really well said. At a mere valor rank 62 likely they don't have that great gear. My balance sage is in war hero gear and does really well in pre-made PvP on my server. Unfortunately in PvP if in less than full war hero for any class you are going to struggle to kill or to survive, and with the squishier classes like sage the Powertech Pyros and Marauders can chop you up in a few seconds flat no problem...it's probably why there are so many Tank Assassins running around in warzones right now, they are much harder to kill in recruit gear than sages/sorc. Also because of class imbalances most of the better geared (full or near full war hero) players are playing the easier classes such as Tank Assassin, Powertech Pyro, or Maurader...so people tend to get the wrong idea about sages/sorc in PvP as many are fresh 50s in recruit or less.

There are some valor requirements for items in the game.

Yes and no. Believe it or not Balance sages can do a "burst" in a narrow window of time say less than 15 Sec. Basically if we have presence of mind up then we can instant cast mind crush, instant cast Force in Balance, and then head into TK throw. If at the start of that you pop adrenal and on use relic you can maximise this a bit if necessary, and that can be useful. However, generally passive cubes work out very well since Balance is all about DoT rotations, and Campaign Relic of Dark Radiance kinda fits us as we do a lot of internal damage (TK sages, by contrast, tend to do a lot of kinetic so on use can help, as it pump the numbers up further and that is useful as the boss armour mitigates some of their kinetic damage). So matrix cube, while not BiS complements a `Balance Sage' quite well if they don't need to do the "burst". In 1.3 Matrix cube gets buff and augmentable by kits, so however, that works out in the end, it may be BiS again.

Common Sage dmg types... FiB internal Sever Force internal Mind Crush kinetic Weaken mind internal TK throw kinetic TK wave kinetic kinetic is mitigated by armour internal damage is not mitigated by armour Therefore, for Sage DPS. TK builds have high kinetic damage, but this is mitigated to some extent by the target armour, and for Balance builds the damage is internal so it is not effected by target armour. It's why dps parsing isn't probably accurate. It probably doesn't factor into the target armour properly in most Ops boss encounters. Builds that do a lot of kinetic damage probably work out less well in the real world off the training dummy passes... ...in the end you need to get Bioware to compute the dmg outputs on actual bosses to be anywhere near accurate. I actually noticed this in PvP where TK sages could pump out really high dmg numbers, yet balance ones could get more kills in the same match. I think its because the high numbers tend to get mitigated in the real game world by the target armour.

Maybe Bioware should tone down Tank Assassin class a bit further and balance the hybrid builds better?

If in a pre-made on vent you merely have to shout for one of the team to help out. In a PvP PuG nobody can here you scream. If up against strong opposition being 8 versus 6 with two sticking to the other door/node is a major disadvantage, so solo guarding is necessary sometimes.

No that is just plain fuzzy logic... healers + DPSers = wins Voids Star The team that has the best of both usually progresses furthest. People try to stealth ninja doors, but outside of exploits that never works with organised teams.

Most of the geared Tank Assassins I know manage to get the healer medals in PvP...self-healing tanks were totally over powered and Bioware has rightly balanced Tank Assassin back to the level of the other tanks with 1.3.

I think a new huttball map would be a progressive step from Bioware in warzone PvP. Problem with NC war zone, and the others apart from the Pit for that matter, is it just another get to the node and hold the node for x amount of time kinda thing. Great Hutt Ball players, though, don't just heal or dps, they weave magic spells with the Hutt Ball that confound the opposing team with their breath taking PvP skills, and the poise by which they set up or score winning Hutt ball moves. Of course, Bioware need to have a dmg hazard near the centre of the warzone so enemy players can gank the opposing teams star players after they score by pull and multi-stunning them while the hazard takes them down to zero health and everyone from both sides watches on. As the seasoned pros will tell you, until you are a fantastic Hutt Ball player you will never be truly great at SWTOR PvP.

A very good question. Believe it or not if you are thinking starting on down the long road to PvP greatness in SWTOR you want to pick a class with great utility and stay away from the favour of the month easy mode classes that may get balanced back to the rest in any weekly patch. I would actually suggest Sorc as you can play heals or dps with it and the class has great utility, and a unique same team pull that makes the class necessary in any ranked warzone team (since you can't opt out of huttball).

It's a very good question. As a PvPer you know you are ahead of the curve and rising to the top when the following start to occur to you in a war zone (in no particular order of importance). 1. you zone into the war zone. All the other PvPers subconsciously move away from you and form a rough circular formation with you at the center of it (there are variants on the shape, but the herd gathering around the star is what is going on here). 2. the opossing faction (or even opposing same faction side) start performing spectacular ganking stunts on you in revenge, you are pulled into the acid bath in the pit and then multi stunned until you eventually die, and the opposing team aren't bothering to actually play the huttball while doing it (watching your character die has become more important than wining!). 3. you are solo guarding a node in PvP and the stealth operative/assassin just does stealth stuns on you for most of the match not daring to try it one-on-one. 4. you are in mostly war hero gear. 5. you start using social features of the game to complement your PvP moves. 6. people are scared to dual you. 7. you really need a rank of at least conqueror or above, anything less just won't do. 8. it takes 2-4 of the opposing side to kill you. 9. Maruraders find you a tough nut to crack (assuming you aren't a maurauder yourself for this point). 10. You use the most complicated rotations available to your class routinely in PvP, and use at least 10 buttons (not movement buttons) regularly when you use your magic bag of tricks in warzones PvP matches.

Yes. It is a fair change and will bring Jug dps into line with what you would expect for a tank in PvP.

The balancing is very fair from Bioware. You aren't really being brought down as tanks by Bioware, more placed back to the same level as them.

That's why the class balancing for assassin in 1.3 is fair from Bioware. Basically, a BM/WH geared assassin could charge into 3-4 ranged dps/healers in recruit/BM pop a relic and adrenal and chop them up and have enough survivability to get through that type of PvP encounter. Post 1.3 the tank assassin in PvP will be more careful in what they take on in Melee dps, this will actually make the class more skilful, and I think, still playable in PvP.

Yes, I think the balancing to Shadow and Assassin fair from Bioware. With the adrenal and relic changes gone are the days when a war hero geared tank assassin could charge into 3 recruit geared players and win, but that isn't a bad thing for PvP.

I thought after reading the PTS 1.3 patch notes that the class balancing looked very fair and was clearly thought out. Well done Bioware. This will greatly improve SWTOR and I certainly will keep my subscription to the game.

I have to say fair play to Bioware on this one. The re-balancing of shadow and assassin as detailed in the PTS notes seem fair and reasonable. I think the changes will improve PvP generally in war zones, for example.

Yes, a lot of assassin players I know in game knew they might be rebalanced. Many admitted to me that the class felt like it had an i win button to it and were expecting it to change at some point.