Disclaimer: I’ve have spent 85% of my time in this game as a madness sorc and the rest as healing sorc in pvp. I write entirely from a sorcerers perspective and I cannot entirely provide how effective or useful my ideas are in pve. I’ve tried to organize this the best I can but it may come out more as a stream of consciousness than a well thought out response. While not exactly on thread topic, I will also address some questions and concerns as a whole so I don’t have to post in 3 different threads and can collate my thoughts here. Potential Tactical Items So I understand you want classes to “play as how they would like to play”. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a few tactical items that may help change establish different play styles for all 3 advanced specs for sorcs. I understand my requests might sound ridiculous but please bear with me until I reach to the part where I discuss balancing. Replace Barrier w/ reflect Essentially this tactical item would make barrier into a reflective ability. You lose barrier but you gain a reflect on a shorter cooldown but a shorter duration. Heal to full Barrier (exclusively for dps - not heals) Remove the utility for barrier only healing for a little and include a tactical item that allows the barrier to heal to full. Moving force lightning Allowing the sorcs to move while channeling force lightning! (We discussed this at the catina, please don’t break my heart) Turrety/On-The-Move These tactical items will help sorcs choose if they want to either be a sorc on the move or a more turrety sorc - in both dps and heal specs. The problem with having a sorc try and be turrety is that all the cooldowns remove the sorc from the fight. They have to sacrifice dps uptime to stay alive. Healing sorcs cannot turret because they don’t have cooldowns that will also help healing uptime. They are forced to play on the move unless they’re playing with teammates. This is also much more noticeable in 1v1s. So to balance, you would remove the healing barrier utility right now entirely. Invulnerability to interrupts after barrier should become a final tier utility instead rather than feature of the ability. This would make sorcs a little bit more squishier if they choose to be on the move sorcs. Especially for sorcs who choose moving force lightning. Sorcs who want more uptime can choose to have the reflect and give up the barrier entirely. They can stand there and continue dpsing/healing w/ more output but are also...becoming more vulnerable. Heal to full barrier means they have to give up movement & uptime. Of course significant amount of healing should only happen if you stay in barrier for longer - really removing you from the fight. If you want invulnerability to stuns and interrupts after heal to full barrier - you’ll have pick it as a utility as in the final tier as opposed to a few others. - idk, I’m not the developer - I’m just trying to justify my fantasies here lol Set bonuses for different specs can also gear towards different play styles. For example, you can set bonus pieces for lightning sorcs that do what musco recommended. Chain lightning can become a massive aoe or can become a snipe - just changing the function rather than the dps. Single target sorcs may pic to be more turrety if set bonus allows for dps increase if standing still (ie casted instead of channeled) thus choosing to pick maybe reflect. Heals may like this if set bonus allows for boost to sitting still as well. Where there could be another set bonus that allows for more movement - maybe where an aoe sorc comes in. For madness, it could be that dots refresh with death field vs demolish and force leech doing more damage. You would want to increase the force cost of dots due to this - inserting a bit more force management help into the set bonus for single target madness (lol what an oxymoron). That’s my stream of consciousness. Onto my actual wishlist: DoTs refresh with death field Ideally, I would love this just be an integral part of the a madness sorc. This more due to how a madness sorc should feel while playing rather than just a quality of life increase. I understand if something needs to be done balancing this - increase force cost of dots? - but please of all the things in this post, make this happen! (more than moving force lightning) Changes to Teleport This is a QoL change that I would love, but never get. I feel port should be made of two abilities: one that places the port with no cd & the actually port ability. Also, if you use the port, the port doesn’t vanish but rather sits there. If you wish to move the port, toggle the first ability and go to where you want to move it. Honestly, leaving the fight to place port is making me lose uptime - along with using the port. Sheesh. Just let me dps lol Force storm slows people in range I feel like this is self explanatory. The effect obviously has a cd - cuz FS doesn’t. Death field drops a miasma that damages people standing in the aoe and slows them down. This would make the whole “takes more damage from aoe” effect it has more viable lol. Of course, if you give me only one or the other, I’ll still be happy. Switches my friendly pull into an enemy pull Friendly pull defensive utility turns into a debuff enemy utility. Moving while in force barrier No ability to use my abilities but being rooted in spot is annoying lol at least let my rp walk in my barrier dammit - full duration, no self heal. Overload taunts everyone it hits Literally just made this one up but I’m determined to get sorcs a taunt. I want a screenshot where I have the highest heals, damage, and prot pts in a match. I’m not denying the fact that got more ridiculous towards the end. The next part should be on an overall thread but...I’m hoping I’m not writing this into the void and you see this because some of the stuff here for me is more important than any of the stuff above. Questions/Concerns Someone (Keith) during the cantina told me that it was annoying playing a mando because everyone just disappears from your range so he wants to give them a bleed/root to help keep people close. I believe...that’s called an ELECTRO NET and NO, they do not need A SECOND ONE. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. PLEASE. I’M BEGGING YOU. How is this system stupid proof? For example, you (Musco) told me during the cantina that you have gear sets for gathering/crafting/AH. I brought up the concern that if stats were kept at level and buffs for gathering was massively increased alacrity, what’s stopping me from bringing this into pvp and decimating people. You told me it would be like actual reduction to gathering time. What will stop people from bringing gear sets like this into pvp or pve? Will you give a notification that alerts people that their gear set might not be the best for the selected activity? Are you going to allow for set swapping during pvp? Will you also let us change tactical items? I would use one item for say guarding and one for dpsing. I may change them depending on the people I see on the other side, or the comp? This could be beneficial for pvers where they can change their items to suit the boss. Is it overpowered for pvp? Will you lock the items in pvp like you do to the utilities? If you made it this far, prove it and say hi (Weapons designer pls…….. <.<)

I apologize, I haven't gotten off my dps sorc yet. I must be a masochist.

I felt this was so well said that I had to add my support. This wrapped up my feelings on GC and RNG completely. Forget all the technical details and the constant content rehashing. This is why RNG misses the mark so completely. Thank you for this post.

First, I want to say thank you. It is wonderful that you've added a method of playing that sets a direct goal, no matter how grindy that goal will be. Now bear with me here, I'm going to try and summarize what I understand your system will be like for PvP'rs and ask a few questions in that regard. I realize that I may have repeated a few questions already asked in this thread but I feel that reiteration emphasizes importance. As I see it, gearing for PvPr's will look something like this: Unassembled components -> unassembled gear piece (pvp vendor) unassembled gear piece + command tokens = tier gear (second, different vendor) To pass move up into tier 2 and later tier 3 gear it will be: Unassembled components + tier 1 gear shell = unassembled gear piece (pvp vendor) unassembled gear piece + command tokes = tier gear (second, different vendor) Assumptions: All tiers are behind a valor requirement. Command tokens are legacy wide. I am not restricted to gear for the class I'm playing. This set up leads to some general concerns/observations. The first and most obvious concern is that pvprs will have to use two different vendors in, likely, two different areas of the fleet to gear up. This is more inconvenience than anything. I have already received some tier gear through command crates right now. I pulled out the mods, and sold the shells. The shells are required for going up tiers. I'm assuming I'll have to start from the very beginning with those slots when I eventually decide to upgrade them and not rely on rng. All vendors are locked behind a valor requirement, not the gear. This means my valor 100 character can potentially gear all my alts up to tier 3 gear, in gear they would be able to use. Please confirm. Lastly, as both pvp and pve players will be pulling from the same gear vendor, my best guess is that the gear will have accuracy. Pre-5.0 we had vendors with enhancements and mods to optimize our gear. Will that be available again or will I have to tier through another set (heals) just to receive optimal stats (on dps sorc). I realize that crafting is an option; however, crafted stats are sub-par to GC. I will not be surprised if I completely missed some information and my questions/observations are unfounded but I appreciate the opportunity to put them out there. I hope you do consider some of these. Thank you!

Thank you for the comprehensive guide. When streamlined like this, this event looks a lot less daunting. I will probably use this as a check list going through the event. My only recommendation is to run biochem on one of your light/dark toons to help with the climb.

I am just considering how to do this event efficiently. If you wade through the blog and it's wall of text and look under "alliance hero" in this link http://www.swtor.com/blog/legendary-level-guide you'll notice they only mention hitting the level, not using the story. I'd rather not do things twice, so I'd level using the story which allows obtaining legendary status while completing the event. I'm just hoping the fix the bugs before the event starts to do this.

I should start by saying I am well aware that there's an entire thread dedicated to this topic; however, it feels largely filled. The dev tracker indicates that no post was actually made about this since 6/23 and my question has not been answered. I'm hoping with this thread that it eventually will. First This has been asked several times on the main thread and has not been answered: will you be able to complete portions of different levels at the same time or will you have to complete one level to unlock the next? It would not be efficient to unlock levels. For example, the first level requires completion up to level 25 during which you can complete 5 warzones, reach valor level 5, and do the stronghold quest among other things. Logic dictates that completion will be recorded at different levels simultaneously because legacy level requires you to hit 50 and legendary level requires you to hit 50 all classes. Unless they want to us repeat our first character twice, it will have to double count. Please confirm or deny. Second I hope with the start of the even, you have the chapter 3 bugs fixed. It would be highly efficient for me to run 8 new characters really fast through story line (guild bonus + XP buff + legacy buff etc) and meet ch 3 requirements while finishing the requirement for the level. I'd rather not run through the character a second or third time because down the road you decide the bug fixes will not be applied retroactively. I suppose I'm really just fishing for information before declaring participation. Thank you for your time!

Hi! As said in the title, I'm currently looking for a guild. I don't have much time to play, but when I do, it would be nice to play with ... well...people. Because I am in college, I will probably only log on for a few hours every couple days to do some pvp, conquest, social stuffz or whatever. I prefer to PvP. I hope to get to know some new people and have fun. Aoîde (alt 140)

http://i.imgur.com/B4IXgdq.jpg Madness DPS

If you say W 1 or G 1, people will realize that there is incoming. Having the call out pre-typed also helps. Some warzones, I have the guard on focus target. This lets me start moving before any call outs. That's just my preference though; I'm sure OP has some better things to say.

Madness Sorc: http://i.imgur.com/Czz0Epp.jpg And my sage as well. Cuz if it makes it up there, might as well put it up there right? Balance Sage: http://i.imgur.com/cLvr7m5.jpg

I'm sure we can come up with something ~~~ I'm in the mood for a purge. <3 And thanks for all the fun Zuna, you may owe me a new laptop