It would be rare, but someone could stun you as your resolve was decaying. If they timed it just right you would end up with 999/1000 resolve. That is the only way an odd number like that.

I think many of us concluded that, I don't remember a BW source ever saying it.

Aren't they all? Of course anti premade threads are just disguises for I don't want to get better so make my opponents worse threads.

Yuck, so now they get another 6-8 week grace period before they have to do something about smash and bubble stun. Lameness.

He can still WW, when speced into insta WW if dmg breaks the WW early we get stunned for an additonal 2 seconds. Meaning probably a second or 2 before the dot ticks for dmg, and another 2 seconds for the stun. But you haven't used a CC breaker yet in this scenario so no problem. You cast tendon blast to start the your timer in the post. Then you cast it again 10 seconds later. It has a 12 second CD. Again not necessarily a problem, it just means we have to hover outside of 10ms for a couple seconds longer that your simulation implies. Overload, I'm with you in that he'll only get 2 (maximum of 3 depending on when the dot happens to tick) seconds out of it. But if he's smart, he can overload us from the same range that we TB him from. Meaning we were 10ms out when we used TB, he knocked us back an additional 10 leaving us at 20m. We're both rooted for 2 seconds, then we start to close the gap since he's slowed and we move at 115% speed. He will get his 6 second duration slow back before we get within 4m. We don't have sneak to counter this time, though we will still gain distance. The question then becomes do we get to 4m before force speed comes back up? If yes I think we've got it (with 1 major stipulation that I"ll get to) If no, I think we are back into he can kite us all day long territory, even with our passive speed boost. The stipulation is that TB and Overload both can hit a target 10ms away. This means that if they ever get us with the overload before we get the TB off, we simply won't get to slow them again. On the other hand if they are a second slow with overload and don't hit us until we've already rooted them and are 9m from them rather than 10ms it doesn't really change things from if they had casted it a meter earlier and still been TBed. Just something to watch for, if they kite kite kite kite, and then juke towards us at the last instant before 10ms and we are in the middle of a global, they can punish us.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

I disagree with the bolded part, and so does your OP. But for the sorc specific match up in a WZ setting I agree that 30second cd is better now as I said in my last post.

You are absolutely right I contradicted myself. I was aware of it but didn't have time to correct it and post the edit, I deemed the edit more important. I think in general LOSing is to their advantage, but if we are doing before we have used Disappearing act waiting on the DK CD I see it being worthwhile. As for them getting back all of the CDs, bubbles, self heal, speed, knockback, I'm aware that we are basically starting the fight over by stalling for 30-45 seconds. I don't think that is a problem because we can essentially kill them on the second open with SF follwoed by DC. We have both admitted multiple times that there is no comming back from that. It means we can't finish them with a vanish but I don't think we need it with 5.5 seconds of melee dmg. I suppose we could just as easily DA the second they CC break our first DK, but its unneccisary against the vast majority of sorcs, so might as well not waste it until we have determined it necessary. By that reasoning you are absolutely right a 30 second DK cd and no heals (no need since we can just be vanished for the whole 30 seconds) is not only viable its better. Vanishing immediately after they CC break is less likely to get them to cal for help / more likely to get the help to leave before 2 minutes have passed and they have a CC breakier back. Once again your insight in theorycrafing this match up is helpful so thank you. As for the assumption that the sorc is good enough to mouse turn catch us with an overload while moving I'm comfortable making it even though most of the time it won't be true. After all the question was whether a we could beat a sorc if they did EVERYTHING right, or if that meant we lost. It looks like there is a way for us to win without them messing up.

We agree on point 1 (though your 5 second bubble cd confuses me). Point 4 could be contested since there isn't really anything better for us to do in hutball than shut down the classes we are supposed to counter (snipers and sorcs both of which are very powerful in hutball and need to be stopped) but I understand your reasoning. Its point 2 and 3 where we once again run into issues. After they have handled our vanish reopen it doesn't matter how often we come close to catching them, they just have to kite us long enough for either force speed or overload to come back off of CD. After that we can start to close distance slowly again, but unless we can get to them before either one is available again their insta cast dot + the occasional force in balance will eventually kill us. This means they can loop a little bit to protect the objective even though it means we will gain a bit of distance on them because they are doing so. Yes they will be doing so with 30% health, but who cares, they aren't dead and we are never going to out dmg their bubble and self heal CD with just ranged attacks. If they do get enough of a distance advantage on us they can even squander if by channeling lighting which self roots them, but slows us. On a related note, I don't think los is to our advantage in this scenario, it is instead to theirs. LOS means a longer fight, a longer fight unless it hits the point at which we get vanish back means more bubbles, more self heals, and more force speeds and knockbacks for them. We in exchange get perhaps a second SC, and the ability to use a second Dirty Kick, if we could ever get close enough. A 1v1 isn't about who can get who to 30% first, or 10% first or even 1% first, its about who can kill the other. We can't finish the sorc who has all of his cds up and is guarding an objective. I think part of the reason we tend to think of sorcs as easy is because they either a) don't have all of their CDs, or b) give up once they are at the huge damage deficit you described and decide to save their reamaining CDs for after they respawn. If they didn't give up / mess up there is no reason for us to kill them. edit: you may have helped me explore this issue enough to find the answer. If we are subspec heals (7/31/3 or some variant) maybe we open with FR/SF and dirty kick, they CC break, we los and heal through dots just accepting that we will eat dot dmg until Dirty Kick is off cd (45 seconds yuck) then once we have it back vanish reopen and dirty kick again. It should work, or at least come down to our skill vs there in terms of minimizing incoming dmg for the 45 seconds. but it means taking almost a full minute to win, would never take a node. Still I'll have to try it and report back. Thanks for exploring this with me, if we can find a faster way to kill them than wait for DC to come off of CD that would still be preferable.

I think there have been enough assassin cameos on the various team wizard videos. We need some snipers....

Most is probably an exaggeration, (most people don't read the forums, be it server or pvp) but they guy they primarily focused definitely would have figured it out fast, he does visit our server forums. I agree, if lukewarm tauntauns wasn't so damn good at this game there would be less premade hate.

I think we should just answer every anit premade thread by quoting this response again and again. Just make every post include this quote.

Replying from tablet. I calculated in 40% of our dot critting. I also assumed the first SF critted as well as the only BB. The first SF has to crit to do the 4000 dmg neccisary to break a bubble. That seemed like a reasonable number of crits, I dont think it fair to assume both SFs crit or that SC crits. Assuming 75% surge that puts our damage that isn't absorbed by bubbles at about 19500 which is perfect for an optimized sorc. Now for potential issues. I'm not convinced charged burt + TG is enough to break the second bubble but that is because I can't remember charged bursts dmg. If its close we just fill with 1 more flury of bolts. A bigger issue is that we haven't accounted for the near auto crit free self heal when they pop recklessness. That is another 4k life. This means we are about 4k dmg from killing them and we will not get any more melee attacks for the rest of the fight in your first scenario. If they get in trouble there force speed is litterally seconds from being availablrle again, they still have a stun and an insta mez, and after minimal aditional kitting they will have either another bubble (4k) life or another insta self heal ( non crit this time so roughly 2.5k). Oh, they also have slow back to assist with those crucial moments. Thrownin a los tool and 4 k from range without sc is a dream if we get close, say TG crits at the end they can lift and cast a regular heal, 2 seconds of mez before dot breaks it, auto 2 second stun for mez breaking early automatically follows for their spec. As for scenario 2 dmg advantage becomes 7k with 2 bubbles factored in and 3k with critted self heal. So 3k of their life gone in exchange for DA and full resolve, no thank you. (Though I do love using the flyby combo I'd never thought to add VS to it myself). Obviously really its a bit more than 3k dmg because of crits, but it still comes out worse than the first example which I think I've illustrated isn't enough either. If we add medpacks and adrenals to either situation they just flat out become a nightmare. We still only get 3-4 melee attacks, and the fight length drags on. Once they get another bubble, speed, or self heal its over. I'm also not meaning to get into an argument with you just seeing if the best scrapper minds can solve the dps sorc puzzle and this is a place they will all drop by. I appreciate your thoughts on this topic. I do however think that you are writting off a sorc as dead just because it is low health and that is a mistake. If we can't gap close, they can take as long as they want to finish us. If the sorc isn't dead after our DA open, they win. getting close doens't cut it, unless it is so close that we can finish them with ranged before bubble or self heal comes back up. With medpacks on both sides I flat out don't see how that is possible unless the sorc messes up or doesn't have a cc breaker. As I see it the magic amount of damage factoring in bubbles and a single crit insta cast self heal is 28k to kill them if we can do it in less than 16 seconds. 32k in less than 30 seconds or 36k+ if longer than 30 seconds. This is assuming we never let them get off a casted heal and they don't use a medpack or adrenal. I'm not sure ignoring the medpack is reasonable (its another 7k life in all time brackets), but lets solve the easier fight before we add that. If we can't do the appropriate amount of damage in one of those time brackets, I think we lose. And the way I see it, the kings of kitting have enough ways to get and stay out of our range to win this fight. Thoughts?

Responses in bold. I wouldn't expect them to CC break the gernade, I would expect them to grenade you right back. Sounds like you are using a mez gernade so assume they do the same as soon as you hit them or the grenade wears off. I suppose it does buy 1 extra melee attack though. The flashbang idea doesn't work unless we didn't apply FR when we opened. 5 second root on the knockback if hybrid means our dot will tick and break the flashbang before we can move. If they are full madness we might again get another melee attack since their root is a seperate global, but between the grenade and the flashbang they now have full resolve and we have accomplished a SF a BB and maybe a BW?

That's fine and its a potential solution i've thought up before as well, but they can tag you right back with the same grenade, and I see no reason that they shouldn't. Once again, leaving distance in their favor.

First off I don't understand why the sorc is waiting until you are within 10m to slow you for him slow is a 30m range. If you are within 10m you can flashbang him as you pointed out so why would he let that happen? Second you can't "follow up with melee attacks." Your scenario didn't ever get the sorc to waste his knocback, so if you vanish reopen he's going to knock you back before you get anything besides SF and 1 melee move of your choice. You need to account for the sorc/sages knockback, and at least 1 root, (5second root on knockback if bubble stun speced 2 second root with heavy dot if full madness spec) Third, you opened with SF/FR which means you flashbang dot will be broken by the FR tick, so you won't get as much time to set up the SC and VS as you are implying. I do agree that in a WZ situation is they are solo guarding you can make them waste the CC breaker the first time, and then come back quickly and kill them with your second life and hopefully take the node. But if that is the only solution we have do dps sorcs belong in the easy opponent category or the very difficult opponent category?

Their bubble stun lasts 3 seconds so it is gives them roughly a global advantage over you if they are bubble stun. But I'm saying even if they aren't how do you keep on in melee long enough to kill them if they do what I explained in my first post? And if you mean to kill them from a range as the bold suggests how do you do get through their health pool before bubble comes back up? (at that point you'll never out dmg them before they kill you from a range). Assume you opened on them right as they re bubbled of course. Agreed pvp is dynamic and has no fixed rotation. But it is ultimately a game of moves and counter moves. The way I see it, even if you scramble the order moves are used in my original post, they come out with one more way to keep distance on us that we do to keep them in range. Once they get range and vanish is on CD, unless they have less than 15% health, no los, bubble still on lockout, and the insta heal +recklessness on cd, they win

Exactly. I mean yes if all of our big ability crited I could see the sorc/sage dropping in the scenario I described, but failing that they simply have more ways to stay away from us than we do on them. If we can't hold them within 4 meters for 3-4 GCDs (and there is no reason we should be able to if they are willing to blow everything including CC breaker) we can't win the engagement unless they mess up. LOS just makes it worse.

My understanding (and there is always the possibility that it is flawed) is that power passes crit rating in value once you pass the 350 mark for crit rating. For me that means 38.% crit when buffed, talented for 3% crit and with cunning augments. Unless we have something that auto crits that I just missed, or a proc that I missed that puts our crit on any move over 100% there shouldn't be any reason to gear away from crit and into power before that 350 mark. Again, maybe you know something I don't.

Fair enough, I would not be surprised if the best sorc/sage in the game plays on my server. I should have changed good to excellent or perfectly played. Either way what is your answer to the layout I purposed? Or have they the sorcs/sages you play against not discovered that route to victory against you yet?

In a wz sure, in a 1v1 encounter where both sides have all CDs available you can't win against a GOOD dps sorc, madness or hybrid. You open with FR/SF. Lets follow your route and say we follow up with a dirty kick. They instantly CC breaker and force speed away, so we catch them with a sever tendon. Mouse turn overload, now we are either rooted for 5 seconds if hybrid, or they sever force and we are rooted for 2 seconds and have a heavy dot on us. Keep in mind that all we have accomplished damage wise is 1 SF+ our FR dot, mostly negated by the bubble. While rooted we sab charge, Vital shot, as root falls off we pop sneak for movement boost. They slow us and kite, we can't get a slow on them because we can't get back within 10 meters. While kiting if we did real damage to them, they pop recklessness and hit the insta heal. So we don't bother and instead vanish (have to use evasion to clear the dot)At this point we can either go straight for them with our vanish speed bonus or we can loop in. If we go straight in they should be able to catch us with a force sorm pretty much every time. if we loop, they are getting valuable time off the lockout of their bubble and the cd of force speed and knock back. lets stipulate that we do successfully close with vanish and catch them with another SF before the lockout expires or they have any cds back. We can't stun this time, so as soon as they get up from SF, they can stun us or insta lift. We cc break, they hit us with the other and congrats we will never get close enough to them again while they kill us with dots. Even if they messed up and we did get close enough they would have speed and knock back up. All of the damage we did to them consists of 2 SFs, 2FRs, 1 Sab charge, 1 Vital shot, and 1 thermal grenade. Maybe we got a flury of bolts in there. We can also have caught them with 1 backblast (that won't apply a new FR, or 1 BW after the second SF) regardless we don't reach the 24-28k neccisary to kill the sorc and his bubble and insta heal crit. We can't finish them with ranged attacks before they get a second bubble available, even if we opened right as they renewed. The fight is even more stacked against us if adrenals and medpacks are used. If you see a solution please enlighten me, but the solution can't include the sorc being bad. Still reading the rest of your guide, its a good contribution even if there are portions I disagree with.

Time for me to test it again then. Would be nice if bw told us when they changed stuff...

Sedatives is still broken, at least according to the test I did 2 months ago, and I haven't seen any patch notes on it since.

So it will be just like a dps spec trying to throw an off heal... Yeah for some reason that sounds like better balance. Though honrstly I think off heals need to be buffed rather than taunts changed. All 3 dps specs that are heal capable are in rough spots.

If you pick 1396 expertise as the target dummy for both the 1214 still does more damage to them than another 1396? I agree a control would have helped his test. Argument two is irrelevant in the realm of min maxing though slightly higher ttk would be fine with me.