That's an interesting variation. Not as good on the healing side but better utility with the instant, multi-target Whirlwind.

It's unavoidable that in some jumps you'll be in combat and won't be able to dismiss/resummon. But most of the time you should be able to

I meant heroics.

Mostly Ashara but just because I was maxing her influence. Xalek or Khem for the tougher elites.

(I originally posted this guide at the Sorcerer's forum a few weeks back: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=196605 This is a translation for Sages but it's an "honest" translation since I'm also using it at the moment to level my mid 40's sage. I hope you find it useful.) I see many posts in threads promoting different end-game specs from people requesting a more detailed breakdown on how to get there. This thread is for you, beginning Sages. First a disclaimer: This spec is all about leveling a Sage while being competent in all aspects of the game but the emphasis is on solo play. Like it or not, you will spend the vast majority of your time soloing so that's where the emphasis of this spec is. I also want to mention is that I don't believe there is an ultimate way of picking talents while leveling--there are many ways to do it and the truth is that most of us did it slightly differently and it worked. This post is written with the advantage of hindsight. Companions Qyzen is it. Let's get this one out of the way early so you don't waste a lot of time and money attempting to gear them all as you level: unless you're determined to ignore this thread and level as a full-fledged healer (definitely doable but someone else can write that healer guide,) in which case you'll want better DPS than what Qyzen puts out even if you use his DPS stance and gear him for that by emphasizing DPS over Endurance/Absorption/Shield/Defense. Qyzen is all you need as long as... Always, always gear your companion up as if he was the main character...you gear him first and yourself second...really. Qyzen is a tank. Not only can he take several things beating on him, more importantly, he holds aggro which allows you to DPS things down without attracting a lot of attention. Please note that you can also maximize his effectiveness by using focus fire, just the same way as if he was a player tank. If you go AOE crazy or attack something other than Qyzen's target, you will pull aggro off him and generally just slow things down. That's not to say you can't throw your AOE around some: just don't start with it before he has a chance to attract all the attention to himself. Jack of All Trades There is no reason in the world why you can't heal flashpoints while you level. This is especially true of FPs before level 30 or so. You really can do it all the way to 50 but dedicated healers with healing-focused specs will have a much easier time at the higher levels. The emphasis of this spec is DPS, but don't be afraid to heal an FP, especially if you have a good group where everyone knows their role: If you're mostly healing the tank you'll have zero problems but if everyone starts taking too much damage, it'll be a struggle with this hybrid spec. Levels 10-14 The goal of these early levels is to overcome the force cost of your abilities which can easily leave you depleted after a tough fight. 2/2 Mental Longevity and 3/3 Inner Strength should be your first 5 points spent resulting in this at level 14: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600Zf.1 You'll see end-game specs without any points or perhaps 1/3 in Inner Strength. There are good reasons later on to make those compromises for increased DPS...just ignore that for now. Levels 15-19 You want to start increasing your DPS. The easiest ways to do this is by Increasing your Willpower by 6% with 2/2 in Will of the Jedi (Willpower increases, damage, healing and critical chance) and putting 3/3 in Empowered Throw to increase your Telekinetic Throw damage by 12%. TK Throw is the signature ability of the Sage and you will use it as your primary attack always. Increasing its damage is essential. Your spec will look like this at 19: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600ZfZcM.1 Levels 20-23 Let's emphasize defense a bit so we can get out of jams more effectively. By now you will have realized that our bubble shield is not bad at all...pretty damn good actually. Let's make it even better (+20%) by putting 2/2 in Telekinetic Defense. You will probably have also come to love Deliverance and hate the meager heals at a high cost of Benevolence. The problem is that Deliverance takes 3 seconds to cast... let's improve that to 2.5s with 2/2 in Immutable Force. The end result at 23 is: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600MZf00MZcM.1 Levels 24-34 OK. Let's get serious about Balance. Over the next 10 levels you progressively become more adept at killing with an almost limitless pool of Force, No one else in the game will be able to sustain this much damage for as long as you can. You should start out by increasing the critical chance of TK Throw by 10% with 2/2 in Critical Kinesis. Yes Disturbance gets the same buff but you'll seldom if ever use it with this build. A word about Disturbance: you might use it occasionally while TK Throw still has a cool down but once you get rid of that CD, Disturbance will only ever be used in the rare situation that it can be cast instantly, Mind Crush is on cool down and you either don't have Telekinetic Wave yet or TK Wave is not appropriate because it might break a crowd controlled mob nearby. It's just not part of the main rotation with this spec.(Even in the situation above, you might just want to skip it in favor of more TK Throw spam.) Your next 3 points should go into 3/3 Upheaval. Project is a great little instant with very decent damage that you can cast on the run (comes in very handy in PVP.) Making it 22.5% more potent (extra 50% damage 45% of the time) is a very good thing. Now get rid of the cool down for TK Throw with 1/1 in TK Balance and if that isn't great all by itself, let's make it regenerate force also with 3/3 in Psychic Barrier. The force regeneration here is huge since TK Throw is what you'll be using most of the time anyway. Your next 2 points will be spent in 1/1 Force in Balance which is a very nice and potent AOE and 1/1 in Presence of Mind which makes your TK Throw trigger an effect that allows the next damaging ability that would otherwise have a cast time to become instant (and therefore useable while moving) and hit 20% harder. You'll use that "proc" to cast Mind Crush whenever it's available or Disturbance when it's not. Later on, after you have TK Wave, it will be Wave and Crush you'll use it on 99% of the time. At level 34 it looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600MZf00MZcMcRs0z.1 Levels 35-39 Now it's time to round-out the Telekinetic tree and get the two great 3rd tier abilities in this branch but before we do that, it's time for a quick re-spec. Why re-spec at this point? Well you don't need the 9% force cost reduction from Ineer Strength as much as you used to now that you can regenerate force with your TK Throw spam. Those points are better spent increasing the damage from Mind Crush, Disturbance and the TK Wave you will soon be getting. A straight up 6% increase with 3/3 in convection is very nice. Your new level 34 spec looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600MZbc0MZcMcRs0z.1 Your next 2 points should go into 2/2 Disturb Mind to increase the time of your core Damage Over Time ability, Weaken Mind by 6 seconds. Contrary to what some people think, this does not spread the same damage out over a longer period of time which would be a DPS decrease. What it does is it adds 40% more damage per cast of Weaken Mind and, not insignificantly, it now only needs refreshing once every 21 seconds instead of once every 15. For your next point you have a choice: you can either go ahead and put one point back in 1/3 Inner Strength for a 3% force cost reduction on everything, increase the range of some of your damage spells to 35 meters with 1/1 in Mind's Eye or gain a 50% chance that some of your damaging abilities will trigger a 10% faster force regeneration with 1/2 in Concentration. Personally I prefer the guaranteed 3% cost reduction and that's where I put the point. In any event at level 38 you get the very best damaging AOE ability you have in Telekinetic Wave which also happens to be a close 2nd best single target ability to Mind Crush. You will be using the +20% damage instant procs from Presence of Mind on this and Mind Crush constantly. The next point goes into an equally spectacular ability with 1/2 in Psychic Projection which gives you a 50% chance that any critical tick from your DOT, Weaken Mind, will allow TK Wave to channel twice as fast dealing the same amount of damage and regenerating force twice as fast for a whopping 100% increase in damage and force regeneration per second for the ability you're always going to be spamming anyway. So if this ability is so good why only 1/2 points for 50% instead of 100% chance? Well it's a compromise because you'll need that point later on to gain a 100% chance of something even better....read on. At level 39 it will look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600MZdcMMkZcMcRs0z.1 Levels 40-50 Finally the time has come to round-out the healing while getting some nice DPS boosts along the way. With 3/3 in Penetrating Light you increase the critical chance of everything you do--damage and heals--by 3%. The next 2 points after that will be spent for 2/2 in Psychic Suffusion which is a great 10% increase to all your AOE damage abilities (healing too but you'll never see the AOE heal with this build.) You now need to spend 3 points somewhere to get to the 3rd tier and there are few wrong choices. You can go 3/3 in Foresight to reduce the push-back when something is beating on you while you try to heal and additionally reduce the threat generated by healing, increase the effect of self-heals by 8% with 2/2 in Pain Bearer or increase your Presence attribute by 6% while also increasing your heals by 2% with 2/2 in Wisdom. Since you're still leveling and Presence directly increases the effectiveness of everything your companion does, you might as well put it there and get a 2% healing bonus on top of that. Put the other point in 1/2 Pain Bearer for the 4% self heal increase. Your final 3 points will go into your instant small heal plus heal over time (HOT) ability in 1/1 Rejuvenate and 2/2 in Conveyance. It's Conveyance why we only put 1/2 in Psychic Projection instead of 2/2 earlier. What this does is that every time you cast Rejuvenate, your next Deliverance has its cast time reduced by 1 second. This extra second makes a huge difference in keeping yourself, your companion and others alive. Your emergency healing routine will be to cast a bubble, followed by Rejuvenate and followed by Deliverance...all in 4.5 seconds. (Note that there is currently a bug with ability activation queues: if you have the activation queue set to 1 second, you can cast a 2nd Deliverance also at 1.5s cast time if you do so before the previous one has finished casting. Enjoy it while it lasts but don't get too used to it.) Your final tri-spec hybrid at 50 will look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GMdRZdcMMkZcMcRs0z.1 Closing Thoughts As I said at the start, this tri-spec while very useful and potent for leveling, is by no means the best spec for anything at end-game. You'd be very lucky to heal a Hard Mode flashpoint with this and you'd manage it only if you had an exceptional group. For PVP it's missing what many of us consider essential, 2/2 in Containment for an instant Force Lift and there are much better DPS specs to be had by getting those 13 points out of healing and using them in the damage areas. But for leveling 1-50 it's really tough to beat this tri-spec and it's a helluva lot of fun to play with. I want to give credit to Hokonoso whose guide around Christmas time in the Sorcerer forum inspired me to try this tri-spec. That thread can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=101500 Hope you find this useful and have fun being good at everything

Bump for new leveling sorcs who may not know this was burried down in page 7.

I don't know where to start since your problem could be your spec, your chosen companion and his gear, your gear, your rotation, etc. Although the advice to be 2-3 levels above content works for the most part, the downside is that the quest rewards and drops you tend to get doing that are a bit low for you and your companion. There is no reason you can't do level 40/41 content at 40. I did a tri-spec leveling guide a few weeks back that you might want to take a look at. I can guarantee you that if you follow it you will be able to do all the class quest and other content while it's still "yellow" to you. Guide: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=196605

There's nothing wrong with wanting to do Hardmodes, PVP amd FPs...they're a lot of fun and an alternate way to level. But if you're asking about leveling efficiency (x levels / y time) none of those compare to solo questing since with all of those (except maybe hutball...err... PVP) you'll have a lot of down time just trying to put together a group. I wonder if all the people that used to be so proud that we don't have no stinking, despicable, wow-like, dungeon finders still feel the same way?

Well it's not THAT different from some popular tri-specs that take Force Suffusion for increased AOE damage. At a glance, it looks to me like you have yet to discover just how good Lightning Effusion is for force conservation or how miniscule the heals from Parasitism really are. Here's a similar but better version: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201G0bZdcMMdMMZcrcRkzz.1 With Lightning Effusion's 50% cost reduction (that is always up) you don't need 3/3 in Electric Induction or Sith Efficacy. They are each 1/3 just because there is no better place for that 1 point in each tree,. There's also an extra floater point in the madness tree I put in Haunted Dreams: not quite as good as the instant whirlwind version with 2/2 but quicker casting helps both in PVP and PVE. Speaking of PVE/PVP...if you're thinking just PVE, then you'll get more bang for the buck moving the 2 points from Electric Bindings to Suppresion. Suppression lets you lock-out a skill with Jolt a bit longer and the lower CD on whirlwind also comes in handy for multiple elite fights in some FPs.

It should be pretty easy for any 50 willing to try it to check it out: Just spec 5/18/16 leaving those last 2 points unspecced and find a relatively quick respawning elite to fight this way and again after you spec the last 2 points in Suffusion for the 7/18/16... Record it and look or just keep track of the CL numbers live. Better yet fight 2 or 3 elites before and after. If I wasn't busy playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning I would ...still might on the weekend if no one else has.

Actually it wouldn't make so much sense as it's written. GTAOEs (ground targetted area of effect) are by no means the only type of AOE. As a matter of fact targetted AOEs--where the epicenter is the one target--have traditionally been more common starting with the grand daddy of them all, the AD&D Fireball. Chain Spells are also considered a form of AOE just like directional point blank cones are. SWTOR is so GTAOE heavy that it wouldn't surprise me if they intend it to only apply to GTAOEs like Death Field, Revivification and Force Storm. But if that's the case they need to clarify it on the tooltip. As written, it should apply to Chain Lightning.

You're looking at the wrong talent though. The reason Lightning does not run out of force is not because of Subversion. It's Lightning Effusion that does the trick. I've never run a full Lightning build but I've experimented with several hybrids, some of which have Lightning Effuson. With any reasonable amount of +crit, the 50% cost reduction is literally always up. When everything you cast is 1/2 cost, normal force regen more than keeps up with force use. It is so good that I'm currently running a hybrid with only 1/3 in Sith Efficacy that works like a charm and never runs out of force: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZdcMrdRMhZcrcRkMz.1 I've also been contemplating a healing build based on force efficiency through Affliction crits triggering Lightning Effusion like this:http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GhdRrd0zZf0rr0MMZ0M.1

It looks theoretical. Run with that spec for a couple of hours and you'll want to make changes to it: 1. 3/3 in Electric Induction is not needed once you put 3/3 into Sith Efficacy. Running out of force just isn't an issue. Move 2 of thoe points into Exanguinate for a 40% increase in Affliction damage per cast. 2. 2/2 in Sith Defiance is not that big a deal. It means that something that would hit you for 4000 damage now hits you 3920... put those points into Chain Shock for increased DPS with an often used PVP and/or kiting ability.

A bit off-topic but personally, I have staid away from the PTR only because they haven't allowed character copies yet. Not only do I not have a desire to level 1-50 yet again over there, I think it's silly as hell to focus on testing the 1-49 content yet again. I would have thought that the Ilum exploit debacle would have been enough to show them the importance of having enough people to test level 50 content thoughroughly but they still don't seem to be in a hurry to allow copies. Once they do, I'll gladly help test, but until then, I and many others are staying away from the PTS.

He's probably level 50 and too embarassed to post himself with the butt-ugly Tionese robe's shoulder pads

It's the key to healing as a Sorcerer. Bubble + Resurgence + 2 Dark Infusions (Rejuvenate + 2 Deliverance) is enough to take anyone from the brink of death to almost full health. Once you know how good it is, it's actually hard to leave the Corruption (Seer) part of this spec for last... I'm currently leveling a Sage also and was thinking of doing just that. First time around, Chain Lightning was just too seductive to not do Lightning second. I'll see how it goes leveling healing after Pressence of Mind (Wrath) and maybe edit the OP.

That's the main reason I used a version of Hoko's tri-spec while leveling. It's tough to put-out enough healing otherwise for soloing some elites or champs. Even just 2 points there to cut 0.5s off Dark Infusion helps and since you went lightning I assume you put 2 points into the 20% better bubble. If you didn't, make sure you do that.

With all due respect, having done all of those myself, whenever part of the strategy for soloing an instance is dying twice or 3 times, there should be a flashing neon sign as the first sentence saying that I think when most people are thinking of soloing 2+ content they are thinking of doing it without dying. There are at least 3 of the dailies where only stealthers could pull that off and only because the quest requirement is to kill one guy. And btw, I can usually do Light's Out with just 1 death not 2: 1. Send bubbled tank companion at the ones on the left stair, run up and toggle that one. If your tank is well geared (I actually think Khem does better here), he'll still be alive when you run down past the same mobs. 2. Just keep running down the wall toward the middle stairs and bubble yourself and hit force speed just before you draw aggro from the middle mobs. You should be able to do the middle one before you die. 3. You should be able to find a no-aggro spot between the middle and right stairs to unstealth after reviving. You do the right one just how you did the first one except this time you save force speed until you're running toward the entrance hugging the wall. Bubble yourself when things start hitting you and you may need to use a medpac or instant heals if you're corruption. I always make it out before dying. Not trying to give you a hard time. It's just that I think the OP was asking about 2+ Heroics without dying. And those, get tougher and tougher to do at higher levels--especially the instanced ones.

Almost but not quite... Lightning Strike has a place when you're DPSing something down that is too near CC'd mobs to risk CL, Crushing Darkness is on CD, and you have a wrath proc to use. I don't like using it either but every now and then it's the best option.

I think the jury's still out. Once we can parse damage/healing, I'm sure we'll figure it out. Personally I prefer WP > Power (force or not) > Crit > Surge > Alacrity. But as you level, don't waste too much time worrying about it. You'll get drops that will make the decision for you a lot of the time. End game you can't help but get a lot of Alacrity with level 50 epic drops.

I still gear for crit/surge ahead of alacrity... if I can. But it's tough not to get a lot of Alacrity with end-game gear.

What's better in the bottom 2 tiers? That would be why.

The best use for overload root is in PVP when someone jumps you from stealth or to distance yourself from a meleer...PVE, not all that useful really. If you're thinking PVE only, imho suppresion is the better option since you will be using Jolt quite a bit and the 45s WW also comes in handy. My rotation for single target is Afflicion -> Force Lightning and then use the instant cast procs for CL and Crushing Darkness. Sometimes CL won't be appropriate if you have things CC'd near where the tank is. In those cases replace CL with Lightning Strike. The reason I start with Affliction and always keep it up is to proc lightning barrage. For AOEing trash down you've got all kinds of options: if they're normal/weak Death Field followed by Force Storm. If it's strong and/or elites, Death field + FL spam to proc CL and then CL.

See the comments @ Torhead for directions to the path that takes you up there: http://www.torhead.com/mission/hiGwyeb/the-path-to-power#comments

I agree that it's primarily a PVP spec, but it has its uses in PVE while leveling. (See my step by step guide to using a very similar spec to Hoko's to level.) You're tired of waiting for a healer to do a normal FP or the healer dies near the end of the fight? You can step in and heal it. Not to mention that it's an awesome solo spec for questing to 50. End game? Pretty useless in any PVE situation: your DPS isn't great and your healing can't do Hard Modes.