The problem isn't that DPS is too high. DPS being too high is a very simple design fix. The problem is ONE DPS being too high compared to the others. The HP of mobs, particularly in flashpoints and operations, is based on certain assumptions about the damage output of DPS characters. If one type of character does significantly more than these assumptions, it results in the content being too easy, and that type of character being stacked to make the content easier. This poses balance issues, both due to fight difficulty being skewed, and class preference being skewed. It should be relatively obvious that this imbalance justifies adjustment. The problem with the concept of just amplifying the HP of mobs is twofold. Firstly, it only addresses the content-too-easy problem, not the class-preference problem. Second, it involves changing a LOT more database entries, which means significantly increased chances of unintended bugs being generated, and significantly more effort involved in the change, both in implementing it and in quality checking it to prevent those bugs. The obvious solution commonly proposed to make it address both is to buff all the other classes to equal the over-performing one. This, however, leads to power creep (and, as above, also requires changing far more database entries). If they go overboard on one, which is much easier to do when you're buffing 18 DPS specs (which is actually 36, since abilities across factional lines are encoded separately in their database), rather than just nerfing 1, you now have to buff the other 18/36 again to mean the one that you overdid, and repeat that again if you do it again, etc. This results in massive increases over time, often causing very odd unintended effects, and also leading to players losing a bit of scope on what constitutes "good". Where 5000 DPS is pretty amazing now, after a few rounds of this power creep, 5000 is suddenly what 3200 used to be. As bitter a pill to swallow as it is (and I say that having a Lightning Sorc as my main), from a game design standpoint, you want to take the action that involves the least code and database changes. In the majority of situations, that means nerfing (or buffing) the outliers, not buffing the rest of the crowd to equivalency. Also, this nerf was address two issues, and people are conflating the two. Firstly, Lightning was flat out doing too much DPS, both AoE and single-target. It wasn't doing *that* much too much, however, which is why the single-target DPS was only reduced by about 3-5%, and AoE by only about 20%. The other issue was that Force Storm was being used in the single-target rotation, which was entirely against intended design. That's the origin of the halving of the channel time on Force Storm (which then halved the benefit of using Recklessness charges on it, in addition to the flat reduction in DPS to Force Storm). Net is that single-target damage was reduced by a relatively small amount to bring Sorcs more in line with other ranged DPS, AoE DPS was reduced by a moderate amount to bring Sorcs more in line with other DPS, and Force Storm's benefits from Recklessness were functionally removed, so it no longer has a place in the single-target rotation. Now, I don't end-game enough to know if the adjustments were too larger in magnitude, but I've been around these forums long enough, and done enough theorycrafting work over the years, and messed with my Sorc enough both before and after the change, to know that 95% of the complaining about this is purely whining about losing that OPness quality that Sorcs have been riding for the last 4 months or so.

I never understood this argument. So they put in pandas. We already had cows and wolves (well, werewolves). Pandarens already existed in WoW lore since WC3, so it's not like they reconned them in. Ya, it may have been sourced because of the popularity of Kung Fu Panda, but really, how is a racial addition enough to get you to quit? Why are pandas vile and untenable, but cows are perfectly fine and a noble part of WoW lore (also since WC3)?

Honestly, how is this a surprise? Force Storm was nerfed in duration and damage because it was flat out the optimal usage of Recklessness charges. Whenever an ability specifically designed for AoE becomes part of the single-target rotation, and it isn't explicitly by design (example, Chain Lightning), it's a given that it will be nerfed. The channel duration is a rather elegant method of doing that, to be honest (otherwise, they would have had to nerf the damage a LOT harder). All of the rest of the nerfs are fairly minor in overall scope. Shock with Chain Shock saw a 15% reduction, Crushing Darkness saw a 3.85% reduction, and Thundering Blast was a 2.5% reduction. I've not seen the numbers on LB, but I'm under the impression it's along the same magnitude. Lightning Flash is effectively a wash (it's a slight DPS increase with perfect execution and latency). Net, single-target took a relatively small hit (for most parses I've seen, it breaks down to about 4-5% total), though a bit larger if you regularly used Force Storm for Recklessness charges. AoE took around a 35-40% hit. It was absolutely justified based on how Force Storm was being used and where Sorcs were parsing. The class isn't dead or nonviable by any stretch, it's just not ridiculously overpowered anymore.

Were you checking with Dark Charge before, and now with another charge active? Because Dark Charge increases your armor rating dramatically. Armor is the only thing that increases it, though.

To expand, your DoTs crit at the same rate and for the same multiplier as Shock. Both are Force-based effects, so they depends on your Force crit chance and crit magnitude.

How else do you plan to calculate BIS?

Oh, I concur. We use Patchwerk sims to model the precise differentials between specs in their best-case scenarios. However, we also have movement settings built in, which we also use. Hatterson mentioned just the other day that when he found time he was going to test the effects of movement on the BIS setups and see if they changes sizably (my gut says the changes won't be that significant, but who knows).

Actually, mechanically speaking Energy and Kinetic are 100% identical to each other for damage purposes, as are Internal and Elemental. Energy and Kinetic are both armor-mitigated, Internal and Elemental are both not, and no effect in the game grants DR to only ONE of the two paired damage types (it's always Internal AND Elemental DR, or Kinetic AND Energy DR (usually just armor)). The issue is, I'm disputing the observations themselves. I've tested Sage versus Sorc damage, particularly Tele Throw versus Force Lightning (since both are generally the de-facto testing ability, as they are easily sustainable, deal a static amount of damage per tick, and have a large data-point per time ratio). I've never yet found ANY discrepancy amongst any of the abilities for either side, excluding the well-known bug with Reviv's mirror before it was fixed. Well, this actually appears to be intentional. Sage effects visually have a travel time, as most of them are rapid projectiles. Sorc effects are instantaneous bolts of lightning instead. Beyond that, the Sage effects all have less than a third of a second travel time, even at max range, so the difference is very minimal. This just isn't the case, though. If you can front me evidence that an ability is doing more damage than it should, I can definitely look into it (but forward me that evidence out on the MMO-Mechanics forums, as this is my last day out there, sub expiring...), but every single bit of testing I've done completely and overwhelmingly fails to support the notion that Sages do more DPS with the same ability usage in the same gear.

I've got hours left before I lose access. Just doing my final rounds.

Do note that regardless, SimC will deflate the DPS values for more movement-susceptible specs more than actual. SimC's movement settings are X seconds movement every Y (I believe 2 every 90 for Light, 4 every 10 for heavy). Unfortunately, the Sim's profiles aren't capable of anticipating this movement and altering their ability usage so that instant abilities are available during it. For a 2 second movement every 90 seconds, Lightning, if run by a competent player, should see ZERO DPS loss, but it doesn't, because the Sim doesn't anticipate (or at least, I've not found the command or override to let it do so). Granted, the heavier and more often the movement, the less player anticipation can offset it, but most current raid fights (which float around Light movement or slightly heavier) can be offset by such. Basically, SimC's verdict for movement is a worst-case value (which is at odds with the fact that everything else about SimC is effectively best-case or statistical average).

I know, it's ridiculous. It's a self-censoring acronym, but it has to be censored as well. G T F O also censors out.

I believe "Exceptional" is the category added to items that are critically crafted, but I've been away from the game for a while, so I could be wrong.

Moderately decent for PvP, as it gives you some decent burst without the turret requirements of full Telekinetics. In PvE, though, it's a solid 10-15% behind Telekinetics. This is mostly because the TkThrow -> PoM -> Disturbance -> maybe TkWave combo just flat doesn't cut it for DPS. It's actually better DPS to simply spam TkThrow than to attempt this combo.

Your actual crit chance is a sum of many different sources. You get 5% baseline, another 5% from the Smuggler buff, up to another 5% from skills (depending on your spec), and then some from crit rating and willpower. The amount you get from crit rating is on diminishing returns. This means that every point you get gives you a smaller boost to your crit chance than the last point did. This is based entirely and only on how much crit rating you have, though. Your crit chance can never be increased by more than 30% by Crit Rating alone (though there's no hard limit on your actual crit chance). Willpower works similarly. Each point gives you less of an increase to your crit chance than the previous point did, and similar to Crit Rating, this is based only off how much Willpower you have. Again, like Crit Rating, your crit chance can never be increased by more than 30% by Willpower alone. So, for example, you could have 20% contribution to your crit chance from Crit Rating (which is less than the 30% cap from Crit Rating), and another 20% from Willpower (which is also less than the 30% cap on Willpower). Together with your 5% baseline crit chance and your 5% from the Smuggler buff, that gives you a 50% crit chance. Note that this final crit chance is above 30%. The 30% cap only applies to the benefit you can receive from Willpower and Crit Rating, and applies to each separately. The primary difference between Crit Rating and Willpower is how quickly their benefit falls off. Crit Rating gives far more crit chance per point initially (about 5-6 times as much, actually), but diminishes much more rapidly. Where it might take you 2500 Willpower to halve the amount of crit chance you receive per point of Willpower, it'll only take you about 450 Crit Rating to do the same per point of Crit Rating. Make more sense? If not, think of this visual analogy (I find visualizations often help me understand something): You've got two large wide funnels, about 2 feet across at their top. You plug the bottom ends, then start filling them up. Because the funnels are much wider the farther up the water goes, it takes more and more water to increase the water level by the same amount (say an inch). DR works similarly, except the design of the funnel is that it would take an infinite amount of water to fill the funnel entirely up to the brim. Willpower and Crit Rating are in separate funnels next to each other. How much water you have in one doesn't affect how full the other one is (and vice versa), but your crit chance is equivalent to the total height of the water in both funnels added together.

Unfortunately, no way exists in SWTOR. I suspect you're referring to the awesome interface toggle that Rift, among other games, had that made your abilities automatically target your target's target if your current target wasn't a valid target (for example, using a hostile ability when targeting a friendly, or vice versa). Frankly, I would have killed to see that implemented, it's an amazing feature, but somehow many MMO developers haven't caught on to how awesome it is (similar to AoE looting, though at least Bioware picked up on that one).

That would be a bit better, though I suspect most of the community would consider it worthless (despite the fact that it would be worth about 2% Alacrity per point). Honestly, what would probably work better is to add a 2/4/6% Alacrity bonus to Electric Induction or another T1 skill. Similar effect, more likely to be viewed favorably, and doesn't abnormally inflate only one spec.

Oh for christ sake. That's 9.4% more Bonus Healing (NOT damage, damage is 0.20 and 0.23). The crit benefit of Willpower provides the equivalent of approximately 15% additional bonus healing or damage, though that varies up to a percent in either direction depending on spec and gear. That puts Willpower at the equivalent of ~357.5 Bonus Healing, ~5% more than than Power. I don't care if you're "comfortable" with your crit chance, more crit STILL increases your healing and damage throughput, and since Willpower's crit contribution is on a completely separate DR curve from Crit Rating (and one that falls off much slower), that crit contribution is nearly static regardless of your current gear (and regardless of how much crit rating you already have on it). The ONLY time your total crit chance factors into the Willpower equation is that 40% threshold. Unfortunately, even at rather high levels of Willpower, it still takes more than the optimal amount of Crit Rating to hit that threshold. Thus stacking more Willpower instead of Power in those augment slots means you get to trade out some of that excess Crit Rating you had to hit that 40% threshold, picking up more Power on your Mod or Enhancement slots instead. Thus you get BOTH bonuses. There actually does exist a point. For DPS, it's in the ballpark of 9k Willpower. For healers, based on the differing conversion ratios, my napkin math guesstimates it at around 4500 Willpower, still WELL out of reach of current gearing. One thing is for certain, here, however: Willpower is just flat superior with currently available gear. Now, if you just REALLY want to boost your bonus damage, even at the expense of your actual healing output, be my guest, but don't think for one minute that it's actually "superior" to do so. Seriously, this rumor needs to die. I'm beginning to get really glad I don't have to deal with these forums much longer...

It has nothing to do with being "satisfied" with your crit chance. Willpower is just flat mathematically superior, period. There's no if, ands, or buts about it, you WILL heal for more with Willpower augments than you will with Power augments. It doesn't matter for squat where you think you have "enough" crit chance (which is honestly a meaningless term, more is always better as long as it doesn't come at the expense of a better stat), Willpower is simply better. On a side note: First off, the crit chance from Willpower is a floating value on a DR curve, not a static value. Second, Willpower gets buffed by 11% due to skills and raid buffs, closing a large portion of that gap. From a mathematical standpoint, Willpower is around 5% better than Power for healing Sages (and 10-15% better for DPS sages).

Why? It's not like we have dual-spec, and hardly anyone respecs to fill ops slots. In addition, unlike WoW, "hybrids" in this game aren't marked by a significant amount more utility than pure specs (in fact, Marauders arguably have the most raid utility). The "hybrid" advantage really doesn't exist in this game. Beyond that, 6 of the 8 ACs qualify as "hybrids", so that's basically just saying those 2 ACs should always win on DPS. Much like in WoW, this doesn't really work, as those classes just end up being stacked and the others ignored. Also, the current version of SimC place us at 1850 in BIS campaign-level gear. Arsenal Mercs (the only other AC that's been BIS optimized as of yet) are at 1929, 4.27% higher than us. Results from the pre-optimized list suggest Madness Assassins, Marks Snipers, and possibly Concealment Ops are also ahead of us (note that Powertechs, Marauders, and Juggernauts haven't even been implemented in SimC yet, so we don't yet know where they would be relative to the rest).

Wow, 0.1 seconds per point would be absurd. That'd cut a massive portion of the cast time off each, and boost the spec's DPS by ridiculous margins (probably in the 25-30% range). We're more likely to see TB instant and/or LS castable on the move, I think.

Well, it might stabilize it in PvP. A DPS nerf for mobility isn't really needed in PvE, though, and would sincerely hurt the class there (since Lightning is the top spec atm). Honestly, I think I'd rather see a Spiritwalker's Grace effect added instead (perhaps as our new 46 ability). If you don't know the term (it's an ability from the WoW Shaman, which Lightning is based upon), it's a 2-minute cooldown ability that allows all spells to be cast on the move for 15 seconds, and it is unique in that it can be triggered while another spell is already in mid-cast without interrupting that cast. It's an extremely solid ability for enhancing the mobility of both DPS and healing shaman in WoW, and I could see it being beneficial here (it was added to Shamans because they, like Sorcs, were very immobile and turrety). On the note of the blaster shots, though, do note that most of those abilities do a LOT less damage than even our Lightning Strike.

I don't. I agree that the highest damage abilities of most classes will remove it in one hit, but that still doesn't negate the point. Your HP isn't measured in how many hits you take, it's measured in HP, and the bubble is worth a sizable amount of HP, whether it takes 1 or 20 hits to break it. Uh...ya. Duh. Your bubble isn't meant to absorb ALL of the damage you have incoming. That would be ridiculous. It's meant to increase your EHP. It's a quick emergency buffer, a solid pre-heal, and a rather decent burst mitigator. Is it an I-WIN button? Hell no, not supposed to be, but it's far from useless, or even underpowered for that matter. Well, not ALL DPS skills scale with crit (Thundering Blast being a prime example of one that doesn't), just as not all abilities scale with Alacrity (though I have my own beef with that). Allowing it to crit work, but it would be difficult to telegraph unless they added an additional spell effect on the crit. /shrug, I guess it depends on how important you think it is to telegraph the crit. It ticks for more than Kolto Probe. As a rule, SWTOR DoTs and HoTs are just flat less powerful than in other games. There are a few exceptions, but most of these either require stacking, or require a lot of prep for them to tick that hard. Actually, I should point out that even at their current levels, both Resurg and Reviv tick for enough that they are both superior to Innervate and DI for HPCT even on a single target (though Reviv isn't nearly as efficient until it's hitting 2-3 targets). I would, however, not contest an argument to move more of the healing on Rejuv to the HoT, or perhaps simply roll the initial burst into the HoT itself, but make it tick on application as well as every 3 seconds (so 6 ticks over 15 seconds, similar to Force Lightning's 4 over 3 seconds). Doing so would boost the average healing done per tick by 70%, at the cost of reducing the up-front healing by 39%. I'd call that a fair trade.

For the record, "rotation" is often taken as simply shorthand for "optimal rotation or ability priority, whichever the spec actually uses".

Oh, now THAT is just opening a can of worms... Other classes perceive us a weak, particularly in PvP. I myself perceive us (all specs, actually) as ungainly and awkward in many ways. We're not necessary underpowered (though the sims show we're a solid 10-12% behind several other classes), but many of our mechanics just feel unwieldy, as if they are a rough draft of a more finished product. Examples are: Wrath only being useful on CD every 15 seconds, despite having a proc rate that means it's almost always up within a couples seconds of use. Reverberating Force not having the base filler for the spec included in its buff (which just feels incomplete). Corruption being based around burning GCDs on Consumption, dropping their own HP to maintain efficiency. A more elegant solution would be to simply have Innervate restore Force on tick or on crit tick (either with an ICD, or more fluidly a lower amount on every crit or tick). The AC being based around mobility and avoidance as its survivability mechanism, but having a solid delay on its knockback and all 3 specs with extremely limited mobile DPS (much of which is due to the lack of a ranged "basic" attack). All damage specs having border-line Force sustainability issues, also due to the lack of a free "basic" attack. Other classes can moderate their use of resource-consuming abilities and weave in more basic attacks if they need to use resources on utility. Sorcs simply have a limited amount of "excess" Force, which is an inverse function of fight length in most cases, and that's it. Most specs don't really have much in the way of options for regening Force. Add to this the lack of a rapid-regeneration CD (akin to Vent Heat or Adrenaline Probe), and there are issues. The lack of a burst mitigation CD really augments the PvP view of Sorcs as extremely squishy and easy burst kills. If we're not gunna have the armor, and mobility is going to be so easy to negate, we need an emergency mitigation cooldown. The list is more extensive than that, but those are the key points. Edit: Thank you CMs for posting this before I lost the ability to respond to it. Maybe without Zoeller around, y'all will be willing to take a bit more advice and input from your community...

Yes, Recklessness charges should be used on DI. Generally, for a healer, Recklessness is saved until you run into an emergency, at which time it's used on back-to-back DI crits to get the tank back into the safe zone on HP. Outside of Recklessness, though, Static Barrier and Innervate are your go-to emergency heals if off CD.