This is so true.

I don't think DPS sorcs are going to be that highly represented this season. DPS is relatively low on madness, and lightening is terrible. Sorc healers are going to be all over the leaderboards though, and will probably have the highest aggregate ratings in solo and ranked (with the possible exception of good AP PT's and good tank PT's).

Yep, definitely overpowered since you had 0 Kills and lost.

You're impression is pretty consistent with mine in that sorc healing and PT DPS and tank are a bit over the top right now. Not as far as some think, but they are a bit too good. Otherwise class balance is not terrible, but solo ranked will be dominated by those two specs barring something changing between now and the start of the ranked season.

If you look you will see me playing both my sentinel and marauder on harbinger. They are my primary DPS classes and I am planning on playing both in ranked when the new season starts. Although I primarily run carnage/combat.

I've come around on this. While I was initially frustrated at the experience of having some players who did not care to even try to win on my team, I have had several players who admitted they had never PvP'd before asking about warzone mechanics and I have continued to see some of them in warzones with progressively better gear for a week after the initial inquiry. So basically, despite some pain and suffering for PvP vets, I think the quest is expanding the PvP population and that is a good thing.

I have yet to see someone under level 40 when PvPing on my 60-64 characters (I have all 16 Ac's at 60+), so there is effective bracketing for most of the day at the very least. Can still be a bit of a culture shock when you ding 41 as you instantly go from being one of the stongest in your warzone to one of the weakest.

The only thing that gives Fury an advantage over Carnage right now in my opinion is the Force Crush related CC immunity. If Carnage had similar immunity tied to any ability that is part of it's primary rotation, Carnage would be the superior option. Burst potential is really about the same as Fury, and the sustained damage is considerably better. Fury could get closer to Carnage if they had a mechanism for allowing Viscous Throw to be used on a target with any health or if Force Lash did any real damage. Without something like that, the sustained damage of Fury is just too anemic to really pressure a group with good healers. Carnage has sufficient sustained with excellent burst. It is just way too susceptible to having it's burst shut down with CC. That is the larger problem (and one that has crippled the spec in competitive play since 3.0). Prior to 3.0 is was adequately compensated by the fact the burst damage was so good when you could land it. BW has since toned down the burst of the spec and that has been a problem for it. My belief is that the only way BW can put a truly competitive carnage spec out there again is to give it on demand CC immunity protection for some of it's burst cycles, as I believe they are uncomfortable with putting the burst potential where it needs to be to overcome the CC vulnerability.

The 1st pre-season lasted almost a year, but I would not expect that again. I would bet on the next season starting sometime in January as another poster suggested. I agree with you on class balance by the way. It's far from perfect but I have seen far worse in other games.

They don't have to even have it change that much. Just have it fill a little more quickly, and give full resolve for overlapping stuns and CC's again and it would be pretty good and would change the PvP experience immensely

Why would you need a ranked season to have full 208 gear? You've never needed to do ranked matches to get the top PvP gear in this game.

208 is it. Once you have that min maxed you are done collecting gear. Time to go dominate.

How much better would it have been overall for healing balance if sorc's had gotten the reverse charge while merc's got phase walk?

23K is not really that exceptional right now. Multiple classes have the ability to pull crits that high or nearly that high, and most of the others do it with instant casts, not a 1.5 second ambush.

Apparently is for you. As others stated, the class may well be overpowered (and I believe it is), but your screen shot is not really evidence of the fact unless you want to conceded that vig guardians, madness sorcs, and annihlation marauders are also OP as all of those classes and many others can pull similar numbers.

The rage against operatives was real at launch. With what they were capable of using on demand adrenals and relics, the burst was rather insane. The funny thing was that I think watchman sent/ annihilation mara was even more overpowered at the time. Since I was ridiculously lucky with the champion bags and had a full champ set 2 weeks post launch, my sent was particularly op. Had a geared operative open on me, and just laughed as I healed to full using GBTF and killed the op because he was two stubborn to run away. People cried about annihilation/watchman at the time, but not nearly as much as operatives.

funniest thing is seeing what they considered amazingly heavy crits 4 years ago.

I'm not sure that PT's are a good bench mark right now as I believe their damage output potential is a bit over the top right now, but I understand what you are saying. While DB would hit really hard without that surge nerf, it's not like PT's and snipers aren't already doing the same thing.

Missed that comment, but you are absolutely correct. And Carnage marauder is still in a pretty good place for PvE as well.

Personally I am liking carnage better than fury again since 4.0 hit. The changes in how crit works has done wonder for the spec. Problem is that you still are vulnerable to being CC'd during gore windows. Utilities can help a little with that but hardly solves the problem. Fury has built in CC immunity that helps the situation a lot but has significantly lower sustained DPS despite it's good burst. Carnage by comparison has very good burst as well as very good sustained damage. It's burst is just much more vulnerable to crowd control than Fury's is.

Spec actually has the best burst currently of any DoT spec. Beserk with fully stacked DoT's and an annihilate crit are not bad in the burst department.

That is probably about as good a setup as anything out there, but mixing in some alacrity if your crit is over 40% may yield higher DPS (but potentially lower burst). We need more time with testing by the theorycrafters to know.

I'm still playing around with this a bit. I'm going to need to parse sets of warzones with both sets of enhancements before I am certain, but in a small sample I have been doing better without the accuracy and with more crit. I do hate those times I notice an attack missing without an obvious defensive on me.

I would recommend trying to substitute crit for all of your accuracy enhancements. You won't miss that much more often and will get substantially more burst. I agree with you on fury and prefer carnage a bit myself, despite the CC immunity in fury being so nice, and getting CC'd during gore so frustrating. As for utilities I would consider brazen a must take, and the others should be some combination of Overwhelm, Maiming reach, and Innexorable. Overwhelm is a must for carnage in my opinion. In tier 2 Relentless is a must, but you could use Phantom, Defensive roll, or strangulate depending on preference for the other slot. In tier 3 Unbound is a must have, but the other slot has many possibilities and you could use undying, blood ward, expunging cammo, or brooding depending on preference. The one thing I would say is that I would slant your utility choices towards things that break roots and snares and improve mitigation until you get really good at staying on target without dying a lot.

Which spec are you playing, what utilities are you using, and how are you augmented? Knowing what your Accuracy, Crit %, surge %, and bonus damage are. If you can check and post those things I can give advice on improving your damage. Some basic suggestions. If you are playing Fury your sustained damage is the lowest of any spec in the game currently but your burst is quite good. Try to look for targets that are already hurting and finish them with your substantial burst. If you are carnage or annihilation your sustained damage is quite good (the current best in the game in the case of annihilation) but you have less burst. Pick an unguarded target, preferably a healer, and use that high sustained to provide good pressure. Also, learn to use focus target. Use someone you recognize as a high output DPS from your team and make them your focus target. That way you can easily stay on their target (if you have target of target enabled) and more effectively focus fire. Some of what you are probably encountering is having difficulty dealing with opponent cross healing and guard.