Cool, thanks for the reply. (Didn't mean to steer this thread back onto topic and stop the 3 or 4 people fighting about marauders.) That sounds really dumb, if I'm being honest. It just seems fully disconnected. From what I can tell, PVPers hate Madness because of its self healing and raiders hate it because it doesn't bring a lot in the way of utility or DPS when compared to sniper. There just seems to be some arbitrary metric used to determine that sorcs should do less damage than snipers. The issue I have with that line of reasoning is exclusively from a PVE mindset, but as I couldn't care less about PVP, that's the only mindset I have. If you give a DPS off-heals and nerf their DPS by 10% under a class without off-heals, PVE players will just play the higher DPS option. There's no strat that employs "And during this phase, our DPS sorcs will spam dark heal at the tank, and we'll win for sure" so I don't know why so much value is ascribed to their off-heals. In summation, I think this change is only going to make more people angry. It increases PVP viability through off-healing, and decreases PVE viability by a damage nerf when they weren't overperforming. Like, seriously, who in the PVE crowd was complaining about Madness DPS? Near as I can tell I'm the only serious player that runs the spec regularly, so did I say something to piss off the devs? lol. Either way, thanks for the response.

First, sorry if this has been answered before now, hard to effectively parse through 34 pages of posts. For the Disintegration change, would that life steal be in addition to what Disintegration already does? IE: Crit increase for Lightning Strike and Force Leach as well as increasing periodic damage by 15%. Secondly, for the Force Horrors change, I'm not sure what Force Horrors is... Is that a sage ability? It's either pretty good if it's increasing the Disintegration damage boost from 15% to 20% or slightly good if it's increasing the execute range damage increase. All that said, while I understand the direction, Madness was underperforming as a DPS spec while their tac was broken. I realize that they have quite a bit more survivability in their kit than most classes, but that means nothing when DPS checks are as steep as they are in PVE content. I'm afraid that this is just going to push more of us (Me) away from sorc entirely into playing Viru which has much more raid utility and does more damage despite having the complexity of a four-piece puzzle. My thoughts are that I think this change is going in the very wrong direction. If the worry is for their efficacy in PVP, giving FL lifesteal is only going to further annoy the PVP crowd while not really doing anything for the PVE crowd, meanwhile the nerfs to the damage are just going to lead to folks quitting the sorc entirely, or swapping to Ling which is getting even steeper nerfs here. I'm honestly not a fan of that mentality as 7.0 was the first time in a long, long time that Madness was playable in PVE content, and Ling was also doing well for itself, but I felt they were both within reason, if anything Madness was underperforming for its lack of practical ability to get the raid buff, as well as have any utility beyond being something the healers don't have to heal. I'd be interested in hearing the dev team's mentality on this. Is it the expectation that sorc be the weakest (or near to it, hard to tell) of the ranged DPS classes, and if so why? Beyond that, even if it was slated to be the weakest by some metric I don't know, does it have to be the weakest by such a degree as to turn off serious players from using the class?

To address a few of the things that have cropped up, on both computers (the one underperforming and the one doing just fine) nameplates are on, but I have tried without them on. Seemingly no difference. I will change out the thermal paste when I get home, but it's never been higher than 50 c (that being an outlier usually it idles around 37-40 c while playing). I have an open frame case and the cpu is liquid cooled.

I've gone into BIOS, but I've never messed around with changing the speeds and what not. When I was in there right before making this post, the channels were reading at 2666 MHz and 2400 MHz for slots A2 and B2 respectively, despite me having 3k MHz ram. Really bizarre

Apologies for these sporadic posts, but I am doing tests as I go along as well. So the interesting thing is that PC2 (The one that runs the game perfectly) is only registering the very same ram at about 1000 MHz, whereas PC1 (The inferior one) is registering it 300 MHz higher, at 1300 MHz, using the same software. I know that PC 2 has a better processor though, because according to CPU-Z, it is clocking at nearly 4200 MHz to PC1's 3400 MHz. Neither have been overclocked.

Also worth noting that despite these issues that I am having, I am fairly computer literate. I built both PCs in question and have been building them for years. I am reaching out because I just don't know what this could be. So in case anyone was shying away from asking something or suggesting something that falls under advanced troubleshooting, I am more than capable to do it.

Okay, so a few things: My Ram is all DDR 4, same as the other PC with which I did the testing. My CPU is clocking at about 3.4 GHz, so I don't think the problem is there. The reason I didn't include Ram speed is because both PCs use the same exact ram, so the speed seem irrelevant because one was running the game better. However, both are 16 GBs of 3000 MHz ram (DDR 4). What I found interesting, however, is that the Ram is only clocking at 1332.5 MHz according to CPU-Z; confusing as the Ram is much better than that. They are properly slotted, in slots A2 and B2.

So I've been playing this game since launch and I've literally never had good FPS during any raid or PVP content. This is despite the graphics settings, other settings, hardware upgrades and so on. Now that my thesis is out there, lemme get into specs. The following specs are not only my PC (PC 1) but also the specs of my girlfriend's PC (PC 2). It's worth noting that her pc (PC 2) runs the game on ultra in PVP at upwards of 80 FPS. PC 1 (My PC) CPU: Ryzen 5 1600 6-core Motherboard: MSI Gaming Pro x370 carbon Graphics card: Radeon RX Vega 64 (MSI) with 8gb of VRAM Ram: 16 GB Vengence Drive: It's running on a Samsung SSD, though I can't remember the speed. PC 2 (GF's PC) CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 6-core Motherboard: Asus B450-F GPU: Radeon VII (Asrock) Ram: 16 GM Corsair Vengence Drive: Running on a 7200 RPM HDD and not an SSD. Now to more thoroughly explain the problem. I have done all of the troubleshooting steps that are recommended on this website before. I've played this game through 4 different motherboards, CPUs, GPUs, and two different hard drives. During which time I have always had to deal with a stuttering as a constant. I just thought that's how the game looked. Fast forward to the other night. My PC was going to be out of commission and so I had to raid on my GF's PC. It ran beautifully. Hardly a dropped frame, all of her settings on ultra, max view distance, and a much higher res because she has a better monitor than I do. Now, I know that her computer is objectively better than mine, a side effect of her building it after mine and investing more money; but I don't think any of my hardware falls short of this 10 year old game. I tested this much more today and while she is getting upwards of 60-80 FPS in PVP on a few maps, I am lucky to see 60 in the staging area and during combat this falls sometimes as low as 20 FPS. Obviously this is really frustrating, and there's obviously something that I am doing wrong, as I seem to be the only one among my friends that's experiencing this issue. Troubleshooting I've tried: Reinstalled the game a few times Turned each graphics setting to nil, even going so far as setting res to 800X600, running all the settings on the lowest that they can go, and I am still setting poor FPS in raid and PVP. I have tested this while closing every other non-essential program on my PC, usually SWTOR will cap out at using 40% of CPU and something like that of the RAM, but just to be sure. Tried it with Vsync on, off, every iteration of graphics settings that you can try. I've raided in windowed, full, full (windowed), on the second monitor, etc. What's really frustrating about this is that I can run other games perfectly fine. I can Stream playing Diablo 3, Smite, Anthem, and several other games that I run in my off time without issue and the CPU and GPU barely break a sweat. I know that the game is poorly optimized, a quick google search was enough to know that. The part that really bothers me is that my GF's PC without being overwhelmingly better than mine is running the game perfectly with no stuttering. After conferring with a few of my friends, they aren't experiencing this at all either. Thanks to anyone that made it to the end of this post. I will be monitoring this constantly for help, and can answer any questions that people have about the build or things that I have or haven't tried. Thanks so much for any replies! Edit 1* I've updating my drivers, rolled them back, and updated C++, so on. I am convinced this isn't a driver issue.

That's so bizarre. If we operate under the assumption that this is a PVE nerf only, that means that BW thinks Sorcs are doing too much DPS in a raid setting. But they are by no means the top class. All this is going to do is shift the DPS players off of Sorc as a viable DPS onto Sniper, IO Merc, Etc. That doesn't solve any issues, just spites Sorc players that were happy having a class that performed at, or, a little-below-par of the other two ranged classes.

Oh well, fellow Sorcs. We had a good run while it lasted (all 3 months). Back to middle-of-the-pack PVE DPS so that PVP can be a little more balanced. Honestly, say what you will, but aside from Stormwatch I would say that the sorc was right where it should have been. Bring SW down a little, and viola, perfectly balanced in my opinion. It really sucks that this is going to further reinforce the already-true idea that Lightning and, moreover, SW is the only spec/tac worth using for a sorc DPS, especially in PVE. All the while, this doesn't make any of the other set bonuses worth taking for any reason. This just nerfs the BIS Set for DPS sorcs, and it remains BIS, thus it's just a straight nerf. The thing that really irks me about this is that I feel the sorc is where it should have been. Snipers are still parsing higher in Vir than sorcs using SW; moreover half of their rotation consists of Lethal Shot, but the sorc must have been hitting harder in PVP, so here comes the nerf bat. It is really disheartening to just know that anytime the sorc steps a little above mediocrity, about 3 months goes by before they are smacked right back into the middle-of-the-road. Last time this happened was 3.0 with the (Admittedly ridiculous) Force Storm spam, now this. It is really frustrating that I've been a sorc player for a little over 7 years, and I am constantly hardcapped in my PVE content (DPS-wise) because of the performance in PVP. I thought that was one such discrepancy that the Tactical/ Set Bonus Choices were meant to solve; to make it easier to balance each PVP and PVE on their own terms without affecting the other in overt, game-changing ways. Thanks for anyone that managed to make it to the end of my whining.

Same guild here, but I would just like to corroborate these findings. Even in my ventures outside of running on our raid nights, I am finding more substantial drops from doing SM ops throughout the week than I was from TFB HM and Dxun SM. Through the entire TFB HM we saw one set bonus piece that dropped off of the final boss, and, if memory serves it wasn't even worth equipping by any of us. Then we did EV HM, and all 5 bosses dropped a set bonus piece, and everyone reported getting actual gear level increases from each boss. As stated by the original post, it isn't a huge sample size, and so it could just be that we were weirdly unlucky, but that does seem odd that HM wouldn't have a consistent amount of gear dropping throughout all of the ops. If anyone has similar findings, please post here. Even more helpful, potentially, if anyone has opposite findings, please post here. I would love to know if this is wide-spread, or just us whinging for bad luck:D

So, last night my group and I headed onto the PTS in the interest of doing the new op. We zoned in, and went at it; streaming for our own sake more than anything else. Well before we got too far, a few of us noticed that there was a little robot named Matt Pucevich running around. Long story short, Matt was in there with us, talking to us, watching the stream, helping us along in a few places and I know that meant a lot to us. One of the most notable examples of this was during the 4 Trandosian fight it is apparently bugged so that you can't come back into the room once you've wiped. Well, Matt spent a good few minutes rezzing us so that we could wipe and figure the fight out. Sure, these bugs are in the game, and it is their fault, be it from lack of time or because this is the first test; but it really meant a lot to us to see a Dev in there, helping us through them and rezzing us. It's really easy to give all of the devs flak on these forums, as evidenced by the number of times that it's done per day on here, haha:D But, credit where it's due, Thanks, Matt. It really did mean a lot to us to have you playing Guardian Angel to our mostly-drunk raid group.

Hello everyone, My post here is going to be a little harsh, but I am a smidge frustrated, so here goes. I am finding that testing this content without much communication or feedback to be, shall we say, challenging. The PTS patch today kind of sent me into a tizzy, and I am struggling to conduct testing like this. First and foremost, I have no idea where the baseline is. I have no idea where things should be performing, and so I am left to assume that, for example, Stormwatch is either super strong, or Ticking Force Bomb is super weak. I don't know which it is, or if they are both meant to be somewhere in between those. This was most notable with the set bonuses, that, albeit are fixed now, were still goofy for a long while. Berserker's was horrifically strong comparatively, and I was left to wonder if the other set bonuses should be buffed, that should be nerfed, or again something between those two values. Because of this lack of a baseline it's really hard for me to say how things are performing. Is every sniper rotation meant to be some ballet of energy management that you sometimes lose due to the lack of Target Acquired energy? Is Laze Target meant to only recharge one charge per cooldown? Is Volt Rush meant to be used at all? (Conflicting reports to that last all over the Sorc forums). I just don't know the answer to any of this, and so testing it feels like we are just assuming for a lot of variables, and, for someone that does math for fun, that seems like a fault of logic. Either these things are fixed, and then we must test them all again, or they aren't and they are working as intended. The answer to that doesn't really matter so long as we know so that we can conduct the tests. Point is, some feedback would really help this along. That leads me to why the Patch today frustrated me. There were no patch notes (at time of writing this) and to just stealth change a number of things on an actual test server seems just silly. Without going to each set bonus, item, etc, there is no way to confirm the changes; and without running all of my tests again there is no way to work out if things are now working that weren't before. We kind of need to know what you guys change so that we can figure out if it's working or not. I know this post come across as annoyed, that's because I am a little annoyed. I want to do all this testing, I really enjoy it and this game. I just don't want to do it if it's going to be a non-communicative mess the whole way through. Conclusion: Please start by giving us patch notes for what you're changing and fixing. Then please give us a baseline of what you intend for things as you add them. Not for each individual item, but just after a phase it would have been nice to see, "The Berserker's set bonus is performing far outside of what is intended. It is going to be brought in line with the other set bonuses.". Those are my gripes, and thanks for reading. Hope this doesn't fall on deaf ears.

Alright, here goes. During this phase of the PTS, as per BW recommendation, I was able to do an Eternity Vault, Karaga's Palace, and Hammer Station. Here are my thoughts on all of those. Eternity Vault: Admittedly I was only able to do this one on SM, but I feel that is an adequate gauge on where that mode is now. Since the PTS, I've done this twice, once with a PUG on fleet which went about as well as live. The content was easy, I was never at risk of dying, etc. Per Eric's post I think this is the intention. For people that haven't seen the content before to be challenged a little while also not being an hours-long grind. The issue is with the other time that I did it. A few members of my guild and I went in there with the intention of testing a few of the tacticles and what not to fight the first boss. What's interesting about this is the fact that there were only four of us, 1 tank and 3 DPS and we were still able to kill the first boss with basically no off-healing. I know that we want this content to be accessible by nearly everyone, but this feels as though it has gone way too far in that direction. There is almost no difficulty for that first boss. Granted, I don't think we could have done the entire op like that, but I think it a fair indictment on the difficulty that we were able to do the first boss in an operation with half the requisite people, and with no dedicated healer. This sentiment carries over to KP, but I was unable to test this with the guild. My only experience in there was with a PUG that was able to clear it in just under 40 minutes. I will say that this is slightly biased because the folks that are hopping on to test are likely to be folks that have done/seen all the content before, so it may play over differently given enough people of casual interest, but my point stands. I feel it is a bit easy on that front. Hammer Station: Now, in light of the operations that I ran we were looking to really push this, so we set it on Master mode...... With just two of us. Myself on a sniper running Engineering, and a guildmate on a Jugg Tank, as well as two level 1 2V-R8 companions set to heal. We then proceeded to roll through the entire flashpoint with really no difficulty at all except for the last boss, and that's just because companions stood in stupid and died very quickly due to their HP being so low. Per Eric's post, this is meant to be content intended for a group of coordinated, skilled players. Now, unless 2V is holding out on me for being in a Nightmare progression team, I don't think this was the case. I know that this was only a FP, but this was the second bit of content on the PTS that we were able to accomplish with half the number of people than are recommended, not to mention set to the hardest difficulty that we could set it to. In conclusion, I think the difficulty of each mode needs to go up, though, to be fair, I didn't get a chance to do HM ops, and didn't test the HM Hammer Station. Thanks for reading this, and I do think that changing scaling is a great idea for future content. Just giving my honest feedback. Disclaimer: These tests were all done prior to the patch on 8/2/19. Disregard if things have been fixed.

Hi everyone, I was lucky enough to have the day off when the PTS went live, so I spent the majority of the day online just playing around with the various specs, set bonuses, and what not. Here are my findings: Disclaimer: I know that per the Devs the numbers themselves are far from finalized, and that this was meant as more of a way to test all of the specs how they would play more than how the damage would play into it just yet, so I will do my best to avoid talking about that while I can. Also, there are a medley of technical bugs in the game currently that are standard for anything that is in testing, so if I don't mention those, that's because that's not what this forum is for. Also, I am a PVE player, so that's where my focus will be for this post. Set Bonuses: To start it off, I tested quite a few of the DPS set bonuses and how they would work in conjunction with the Tac slots. My eye was immediately caught by the Berserker's set bonus, and in its current state (confirmed through several tests) this is by far best in slot. The fact that it is only a 4 piece allowed me to pick up a sorc 2 piece, and with Relic procs and adrenals up I was well north of 20k power. Due to how good this is I have to expect there to be a substantial nerf, so I won't spend much time talking about this. My thoughts on it were: "Big, shiny numbers make boom-boom real nice!", and that was that. Moving on, the next set bonus that caught my eye was The Gathering Storm. I think that this added a few tweaks to the all-too-standard Madness rotation, and if it were to be brought up a little in some way I really think it has potential to be the one that I would use. I had a lot of fun trying to find ways to use this with the Mystic's Ruthless Blade Tac and get 5 Force Leaches into one opening. Pros: Adds interesting ideas to current Madness (and to a smaller degree, lightning) Meta, while not fundamentally changing the way that the specs interact with Polarity Shift. Cons: There is starting to be an over-reliance (especially in Lightning) of using Force Speed as an offensive CD. The issue that I have with this is the prevalence of fights that require me to chose between using it to re-position or using it to increase DPS. At this point, delaying Force Speed during any part of the fight is a DPS loss, just because of how big of a deal all the things that it will do for you are; potentially stopping the thing FS was designed to do in the first place. Currently those were the only two sets that I had any interest in using, and I have no interest in putting force slow back on my bar. Aside from attempting to divine a new opening for Madness, I must admit the majority of my time was spent over in Berserker's. Tac Items: I ran quite a few different tests with each of the Tac items and I intend on running more in the coming days, but these are my findings so far. Stormwatch: This is two-fold. Let me begin by saying that this is obviously over-performing and needs to be brought down at least a little. Now that I have gotten the disclaimer out of the way, WOW is it fun to just blast things with a true cascade of lightning. I've played Lightning off and on since launch and this is the first time that I've ever physically smiled at the amount of seizure-inducing light/sound show that this Tac provides. While it is currently too strong, as I stated earlier, this is the most fun that I had testing all day today. Just the visceral feel of lightning coming from every angle to strike the training dummy or my Juggernaut friend when he wanted to test his new defensives. I've never felt burstier than calling down lightning from Zeus and from my fingers at the same time. I know that this has to be brought down a little, but I really do hope that the feel of this is retained, if that makes any sense. Ticking Force Bomb Honestly, a little boring. in opposition to Stormwatch, this really gives no indication that anything has changed. You just run the regular lightning rotation and occasionally Crushing Darkness makes an additional noise. Mystic's Ruthless Strike This one was, as I mentioned in my set bonus review, the most fun I had while trying to figure out Madness. It was really interesting to try and fit as many Demolish casts into a Polarity Shift window as possible for constant leeching. I parsed on this likely less than I should have, but the low DPS numbers kind of turned me off to it. Tempest of Rho This one really has potential. Alas, the RNG really makes it the Devil's play-thing. I was finding that compared to the steady Damage that MRS provided, this would usually underperform or perform at level depending on procs. I like the addition of lightning strike procing it as well, but I feel this still has a ways to go before it is viable. Much like Ticking Force Bomb though, this one really doesn't change much about the spec. Now you're just a slightly higher DPS Madness Sorc. Volt Rush Right off the bat I want to say that I know it will likely be changed, but the point of this PTS is to get constructive criticism on the changes, so criticize I shall. I hate just about everything about this ability. I love the sorc, and I found a lot of these changes were really nice and a lot of fun to play around with, but that was after I had dragged Volt Rush off of my bar. Currently, Volt rush in Madness is woefully force negative, does less damage-per-activation than Lightning Strike (And vastly less than Force Lightning) and feels awfully clunky to put anywhere near the rotation. In lightning it is even worse because a spammed Lightning Bolt was out-DPSing it, costs less force, procs Forked Lightning, and gives a ton of other buffs to the class. Also, and this is the last on the list for a reason, but the fact that it sounds so quiet just adds to the feel that I am using a Force-Joy-Buzzer. To go from the booming of Thundering Blast and Crushing Darkness and the cracking of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning to this piddly bzz noise is disheartening. Here comes the constructive part: How does Kerplunk suggest we fix it? Here goes. Take it off the GCD. Done. Next problem? For real though, take it off the GCD, and vastly increase the Force cost (something like 70 per tick) so that it is a choice. Sure, it is a DPS gain to throw that sucker in on CD and even more if you're at 3 Stacks, but can your Force handle that constantly? Absolutely not. Make it something to the effect of Shoulder Cannon on the PT where it has a GCD, just a separate one from other abilities. That way you can't just throw out all three in an eye-blink, but it also doesn't ruin your rotation. Most importantly for this ability is the way that it feels to use it rotationally. For me, even if it was doing monstrous damage, I would still be quite disappointed with how it doesn't synergize well with either spec, and just breaks up the action. Overall, this testing has already given me a lot of excitement for 6.0, and I hope that this doesn't come across as too negative. I just want this to launch in its best possible way and these are thoughts from someone with over 200 days played on the Sorc. I love the Sorc, and the game and just want the best for them both Thanks for reading all of this.

So, two things here: 1: I play mainly as a Madness sorc, so firstly, thanks (Heavy sarcasm voice) for an additional ability. That spec was already a bit bloated, so I was really looking forward to trying to cram another thing into it. 2: The tactical items were meant to be "Build defining". Tell me, how is death field doing a tiny bit more damage and spreading another ability I have no intention of putting on my bar "Build defining."? I know that this is just the first phase of them, and they are obviously subject to change, but I just find that most of that is quite underwhelming. The healers got off nice with the few things about resurgence. That would change how they used the ability. Meanwhile, 10% more damage to something doesn't change how we use it at all. The next question that I have is not in relation to set bonus/ tacticals, but for the new ability. Is Volt Rush going to be off the GCD? Honestly that would validate it for me, but if it is going to generate a GCD then I am going to swap to lightning so that I don't get a disease from the new Madness rotation.

Hi, I'm Heidyn from the guild Knights of the Damned (KOTD). Due to a recent shake-up in group composition, we are currently seeking a healer for upcoming progression, coming in 6.0. While we may attempt some of the older, hard content until then, the true progression wont be until 6.0 does drop. Our main goal is to find someone that not only gives us a shot at beating the upcoming ops, but also meshes well with the group. We are a progression raid group, but not in the same ultra-serious way that other teams are. That said, though we may not be serious we do give it our all when it comes down to it. We raid on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 PM PST - 11:00 PM PST (12:00 AM EST - 2:00 AM EST) and occasionally do things on other days when the mood strikes us. We use Discord as our comms, and we do use StarParse. Parse presence will be required when we start progressing, not really for the numbers aspect, but more so that we can see damage types, mechanics, and speculate on areas of improvement. Our other healer is currently a sorcerer, but I am not opposed to having two sorc healers. TL;DR: Looking for a person to heal for our progression group! Most importantly, be open to constructive criticism. The same goes in the reverse, if you see something that we are doing wrong give up a heads up! If you have any questions or would like to see about heading in there, either reply to this post or message Heidyn on Imp side. We will be running it as a first-come; first-serve basis, but in the event that someone doesn't work out, don't be shy about posting after someone. Thanks, Heidyn. Disclaimer: We are currently not tremendously active in the game. While this will probably change with the update, I just want that to be known so that no one abandons their guild expecting a whole experience. As of right now it would be mostly for the raids. Also, we are going to be running this looking for the right fit, so if someone doesn't get on well with the group or vice-versa, we are going to keep looking. I don't mean that to be harsh, just so people don't make huge changes in their lives to raid with us and then it doesn't work out. That might even make me feel bad Thanks again.

A few Ideas for Madness Tactical slots: 1. Using phase walk leaves behind a Force Ghost that "Corrupts" targets within 10 meters, causing them to take x% more damage from Periodic Damaging Effects. After x seconds the Force Ghost will detonate dealing x damage to targets within 5 meters. Using Phase Walk again while the Ghost is active will detonate the Ghost, ending the corruption and dealing x Damage to all enemies within 5 meters. 2. While Polarity Shift is active, using Death Field will "Detonate" Periodic Damage effects on the target, immediately dealing X damage per DOT-Tick remaining. The Periodic Damaging effects are then replaced with weaker versions of the DOTs (Similar to what happens when Virulence DOTs fall off of a target.) that cannot be detonated. Also, Unnatural Preservation Increases healing received from Periodic Damaging Effects by x% for 6 seconds. I know that a lot of the posts so far on the Sorc/Sage have been in the interest of making them "Less Squishy" or have "More instants". Honestly, I think this destroys the purpose of playing a Sorc/Sage to begin with. I main a sorc and I have since 2.0, and probably longer, but the Sorc is meant to be a glass cannon, not a weirdly tanky god of death. I know that most every change has to be filtered through the lens of both PVE and PVP (A point of no small contention to parties on either side of that divide) but I would honestly love to be a raid-viable DPS first, survival-god second. Just my two cents. I know that this is sort of off- topic, but I would really also like to see a few QOL changes made to the sorc as well. Firstly, in Madness I would love to have Force Storm grant Wrath stacks per tick. There are a lot of times that the whole rotation is derailed due to having to AOE in a fight, potentially delaying the next demolish. Even if this came at the cost of some Force Storm damage in the discipline, I feel like this is a reasonable accommodation. Next, I would like to see some change that makes Lightning Strike more appealing to use for Wrath. Lightning Strike, per GCD is barely better than Force Lightning, and since some patch (I forget which one) it doesn’t even have a chance to PROC Lightning Burns anymore. Before, the fact that it had a much higher chance to apply Lightning Burns made Lightning Strike more appealing, but as of now it just serves as a break from endless Force Lightning. I really have no suggestion as to what to do to make it better, but just something. One of the things that I really want to stress is that for specs like Lightning, Madness, and a lot of others that I have played, is that there are already enough/ too many rotational abilities. Nothing quite so extreme as Fury/ Rage, but it exists on the Sorc. I hope that as an option we aren't just going to add more abilities to an already cluttered rotation.

I am going to refrain from the set bonus conversation in this thread, as it sounds like the set bonuses are heading into being used by like disciplines, and will no longer have class specific buffs on them. I mainly wanted to post some ideas that I have for the Sorc tactical items. So, from my understanding, each Spec is going to have some amount of tactical items to promote diversity of play, while also updating the way that each spec feels without adding to ability bloat. So, from that understanding I think some multiple of 3 would be the way to go. For example, if you had three for Lightning, you could have one that increases defensive abilities to promote survival, one that promotes DPS (or in other specs the efficacy of the role) and one that is a happy medium between those. My specific examples are such: 1. Firstly, I wanted to look at the DPS side of the tactical slots. What I was thinking is something along the lines of this: Static barrier can no longer be used on friendly targets, and now has a 25 second cooldown. You can now apply your static barrier to an enemy target. Once applied, your next direct damaging ability used on that target will "detonate" the barrier, dealing x amount of damage, and stun normal or weak enemies for 1 second. My reasoning for this is sort of the "Glass cannon" that I've always seen the sorc as. You would sacrifice one of your stronger defensive abilities for something that could be used in the same way as explosive probe. 2. Secondly, I will take a look at the "Survivable" one, for people that want to live through the fight. Unnatural preservation 1% more for every 2% of missing health you have, also using UP places a static barrier on you that is irrespective of the current 'Deionized' debuff. This will give you an "Off-GCD" heal and static barrier, increasing survivability without sacrificing uptime. 3. Lastly, we will look at the "Versatile" one. Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Static Barrier by x%. Also, while "deionized" increase the damage dealt by Lightning Bolt, Thundering Blast, Chain Lightning, and Shock by x%. My thoughts for all of these are simple: as a DPS in PVE content, I feel that Static Barrier is underutilized. Being that it costs a GCD to do, and provides only moderate protection I find myself pushing my DPS to a limit to beat enrage timers with little extra time to use defensives such as SB. My argument is not that SB is or is not good currently, but that it is hard to justify the cast when boss enrage is on the line. If I was to have a favorite of the three that I have listed, it would be the "Static Barrier as an Explosive Probe" option. There is something alluring to me about being a squishy-burst-god, instead of trying to make sorcs more survivable.

Hello, I am the leader of a guild named <Knights of the Damned> on the Imperial side of the server Star Forge. We are mainly a core group of 8 raiders that have recently returned to the game from a hiatus, and have a new interest in doing conquest objectives. The issue being that there are only 4 of us doing the conquest things due to obligations in reality and such not, and this prohibits us from doing the high, or, save for a lot of work, even the medium yield planets. We intend on unlocking the whole of our guild ship, but grinding the encryptions and frameworks is difficult given the lack of participation within the guild. Given this, we are starting to actively recruit new players into the guild with the understanding that we really have no raid slots open. We have a guild ship (Aforementioned), a guild bank with 6 tabs, 10% XP and Rep boosts, and are actively running perks. Like I said before, this would largely be for conquest, and being that we are just starting to recruit, it will be a lot of pioneering to get a hierarchy going; but we intend to. So, if you're looking for a guild with boosts, no obligations (Though we would love to have you contribute to the pool of encryptions), and nothing really past that; we might be the one for you If you have any interest, please send Heidyn (No special characters) a whisper, or if I'm not online, shoot me some mail!

Admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch, given the inherent lack of interest in GSF. I would argue though that part of the reason that very few people stick with GSF (Aside from there being very little intensive due to lack of exclusive rewards, or continued support) is that there is a rather insane difference between a new player and someone that has been playing since the release of GSF. I know that there are already plans in the works to alleviate this slightly, with the upcoming changes coming to matching players together based on their rating, but I would suggest taking it one step further and implementing a ranked mode to the game. While there will always be outliers, I believe this would move a lot of the players that have exceeded the "Newbie-skillcap" into a more challenging arena, and free up the regular queues for people with the interest in learning the game. I have been playing GSF since day one, and I love the game type; but it isn't fun for me or anyone else in the match when I end a TDM with 27 kills to 2 deaths. I don't mean that to sound braggadocios, mainly because I have been in matches where there was someone on the enemy team with the same ratio. Thank you to any on the development team that takes the time to read this, and though it would be great if these changes were implemented, I understand that there is only so much manpower to throw around, and GSF is at the bottom of group content frequented by subscribers. Good day.

<Knights of the Damned> is now recruiting for players of all levels, but emphasis on starting a second raid group. Our main raid group is currently 4/5 on Dread fortress HM and 4/5 for Dread Palace HM, and prior to 2.4 we were 4/5 on TFB NiM. No gear requirement, or knowledge of fights, thinking of starting the second group off somewhere earlier. We are a mainly social and end game guild, but we do other things such as pvp and level characters. We are mostly imperial with very little interest in republic side at all. Please either reply to this post with your characters name, or send in game mail/ whisper to Heidyn for invite or more information! Thanks.

Recently i have been growing more and more depressed with mercenary dps. When i DPS on certain boss fight, people that i parsed higher than pre 2.0 are beating me by a significant margin. I know what you may be thinking "he must not know how to play his spec" and the answer to that is i actually do, extensively i might add know how to play my merc. The main issue that i have when reviewing my logs and comparing them to other dps that i know is that i bring no raid utility to the group, have minimal offensive and defensive cooldowns, and yet pull far less then say a sniper or marauder. Snipers being the most of my pain because of a few reasons:1)they bring significant raid utility to the group in that their ballistic shield is an excellent raid-wide cooldown and their ability to time a roll to mitigate all incoming damage for intense portions of a fight.2) They have a massive array of both offensive and defensive cooldowns that are far better then the horrible amount of offensive CD abilities that i have on my merc. 3)not only do snipers have all of these raid wide and self spanning cooldowns, but on almost every fight and on the training dummy they have the top dps. I mean as of right now i am pulling enough dps to clear nightmare mode content, but i feel as though i have no capability to exceed with my mercenary at this point in time. I do understand that mercenaries have been a part in alot of the raid groups that have downed content suck as nightmare terror from beyond and scum and villainy, but none of them really seem to be the first choice simply because having four snipers filling all of the dps slots, or one mara and three snipers would be preferable to bringing a merc along. Just how i feel on the matter. Now im not trying to be one of those people that whines because they have better stuff then me, but at the same time it would be nice to have a proper place in the raid; rather than feeling like i should just gear up my sniper instead. The main issues that i am having with my merc dps right now (other than those that i just listed) is that ever since 2.0 mercenaries have had to work to control their heat, which i am fine with, but in the place of that heat management theoretically my dps should also be improved by the increase in damage of abilities to compensate. Like i said though this is not a "nerf the other classes i wanna be the best" but at some point i feel as though if i want to bring more to the table then a guarenteed armor debuff and the hopes that i wont be bottom dps. This being said i also enjoy my merc very much to be honest, and i would love to continue playing the class, but i feel as though i am losing more and more interest in a class that has nothing to bring to the table in a raid wide perspective (IE. bloodthirst, ballistic shield) , and yet i still have no ability to beat a decently played marauder or sniper. I hope that someone that carries some weight reads this because i do think that i have some valid opinions that i would like to be taken into account for future mechanics changes and what not. Thank you for your time if you stuck around through the entirety of this letter, i know that it was quite lengthy, and lacked proper grammar, but i feel that i do have some points.

The guild Knights of the Damned is looking for new, active members to join our ranks! We are a casual guild of friends that clear content, but don't have a problem getting each other killed on easier stuff. We are by no means a series guild, but we do know when to get focused, and we by no means mind helping people out with class, mechanics, a new op, or really anything. If this sounds like the right guild for you let me know post your player name in this forum. My main toons name in-game is Heidyn so if you see me on and have more questions send me a whisper!