"Squirrelcorpse is hot," my brother, the dog, tells me. She's not bad. She's just rendered that way. Definitely think that outfit's a keeper. Has all the signs of class that you'd expect from a Light V Sith Lord. ---- LEVEL 55! Levels 51-54 are about as fun as it gets in WZ's because, while bolster is useful to make the game playable for lower skill levels, when your opponents average level 35, they just can't handle the superior skill tree. ----- So, I was going to make a big deal out of sharing my skill tree but, with 3.0 coming out and the end of the skill tree, it's probably not as valuable as it once was. But I think some concrete discussion of "How to play a Zap Witch PVP" is useful. So I'm going to end this thread with this post -- level 55 and 3.0 are going to be a whole new story and likely thread -- and talk skill tree and strategy. I'm going to start with "reads" (a term that'll be familiar to you if you follow American football at all), and then warzone-specific strategies I've come up with up until now. Your 4 reads are this: Self health: ESCAPE Nearby team member health: OFF-HEALS Nearby enemy groups: AOE rotation Nearby enemy toughs/single non-tank attacking you: DOT rotation The skill tree and the key bindings I use are all based on these reads, with the skills selected to support the given strategies. Here's my skill tree from level 47. The lightning tree is complete; all I added to it were full points in Forceweaver on the Corruption tree, and Calcify and Force Horrors in Madness. ESCAPE When you've been focused by multiple people, your only goal in life is to survive until the cavalry come in and distract your opponent. Force Speed, Overload (with the 100% chance of bindings), Unnatural Preservation, Cloud Mind (does threat even effect PvP?), medpacks, and -- in the right moments -- Force Barrier are the skills you'll be using, probably in that order. Knowing when to use Force Barrier is the difference between the best and worst Sorcerer plays, and the good Sorcerer never waits until it finishes before breaking the channel and attacking. If you're at low health, it's only useful if you're waiting for e.g. Static Barrier or Unnatural Preservation to pop, or your team recognizes the direness of your situation. Otherwise, with that long cooldown, you're almost better off dying and respawning in anything but arena play. If you're at high health, it's a good way to just get players to lose interest and go fight something else, but again, with that cooldown, it's a one-time trick. OFF-HEALS Simplest thing to do. If you're not immediately attacking, look at your Op list, identify the not-grayed-out players near you, and quickly throw Static Barrier on them whether they need it or not. If you see anyone with rapidly declining health, you can throw Dark Heal on 'em. In PvP, running out of Force is not as much of an issue for this class as time. Thus all the alacrity boosts. AOE Rotation Force Storm triggers insta-cast Chain Lightning. The closer-together they group, the better. Both attacks also slow your opponents down, keeping them close together -- and away from any objectives. If they stay together, hit Force Storm again unless you see an individual that's being a problem. DOT Rotation Crushing Darkness if available. Then: Affliction, which triggers insta-crit Thundering Blast, which triggers insta-cast Chain Lightning. You'll only need to Lightning Strike once before Thundering Blast pops, twice for Crushing Darkness. General Tips Keep Static Barrier up whenever it pops. Use Electrocute and Jolt whenever necessary to keep objectives clear. If you are in position to attack, launch every cooldown you have, starting with Polarity Shift, and keep them up when they come back up. In Arenas, stay within the group. If your team has a tank, be right behind him. If your team has stealthers who go off in another direction, stay near the visible teammates. If you get pulled away, see if you get focused; if you don't, stay back and nuke the site from orbit. Zap Witches are extremely weak at first in Arenas, but by level 50, they'll fast become your favorite. In node-control zones, you are most useful standing just outside an area and controlling that area, be it clearing out a node you're attempting to capture or defending an area that the opponent is attacking. Your AOE attacks, interrupts and off-heals will basically lean the balance of the game in favor of your team. Your speed and ability to clear out an area makes you an effective node capture person initially, but you're not going to be able to defend by yourself if more than one opponent comes calling. In Huttball, play defense. Stay in the back half of the field and attack the ball carrier if the opponent gets the ball. ---- So, there it is. The end. How to be an effective PvP Lightning Sorceress... at least up until level 55, or until 3.0 comes out and all the balance changes again.

MWAUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!! Sorry. Actually, I play a lightning sorceress (aka Zap Witch) -- for PVP, to boot. Which is supposedly a thing you're not supposed to do. Guess what? It's a load of horse hockey. Also, so is not being able to *stop* a sorceress. I get stopped all the time -- by players who have shown the patience to learn how to play the game, and don't just follow set builds and expect developer nerfing/bolstering to solve their own inadequacies for them.

Also, it should be for female sorcerers only. Because there is no class more Elaine Benes than that.

Yeah, funny at how all our parties, nobody wants to go for a swim in the pool. Nice!

Speaking as one of those squishy people, if you happen to be my opponent, then you should do the opposite of this. FOCUS THE TANK. DO NOT FOCUS NICE SQUISHY SQUIRRELCORPSE. now now... i thought the lightning sorc wasn't a good PVP class?

Welcome to the club! Just don't get caught with your feet in standing water; Darth Barfolomew always keeps an eye out for such things, thinks it's a funny prank...

Should add one more thing. There are several skills on the tree -- Force Haste, Electric Bindings and Backlash -- who get full points because they are all about keeping Squirrelcorpse alive when she gets gang-attacked. And one other thing. She's woefully under-geared, because I'm waiting for 50 to get Rakata (Makeb) mods for everything. It'll be Resolve (1:2 Endurance:Willpower ratio) for the base pieces and mods, and I'll probably go Quick Savant (Alacrity, Endurance, Power in that order) for the Enhancements. Quick Savant worked great around level 30, so I'm hoping it'll be great at 50 too. I still prioritize Power over Alacrity, but I prioritize both of those over everything else, and I don't recall encountering a Power/Alacrity Enhancement...

So Squirrelcorpse is on the cusp of level 50, and is grinding Kuat Drive Yards and Unranked Warzone dailies to get there, and I can now tell you that this isn't the thrill it was back when. For one thing, I've gotten accustomed to it. For another, even when not healed, Squirrelcorpse is now powerful enough that she can hold her own for quite some time, frequently even able to escape when gang-assaulted. This'll probably all change when she's facing other level 50s and folks with expertise on their gear. --- Let's talk skill trees and rotations, shall we? It's a few levels behind, but the center column is the important thing. What's probably most important is what isn't on here, so let's cover those, going from the bottom up. Chain Shock gets zero. There is nothing Chain Shock can do that Force Storm can't do better. Notably, Force Storm does as much damage, but does it repeatedly (over time); Force Storm also triggers Lightning Storm for that "free" Chain Lightning hit. It helped when I realized that double-tapping Force Storm instantly launches it on your currently-selected target. I've put nothing into Lightning Effusion; except for some really nasty boss battles, effects like Lightning Storm, gear with lots of Willpower and the general cast time of others generally means she almost never really needs to worry about force cost. Suppression also gets nothing. I'm rarely close enough to a target for Jolt to be of any use, and Whirlwind just hasn't been very useful. Lightning Strike is the thing I use now when I don't have anything else to do, and even then, I almost prefer Force Storm. My lightsaber looks pretty, but that's all it does. --- On the positive front, the rest of the skills all work to support each other. Static Barrier is always the first thing I do. If I'm in any kind of real battle -- a boss fight or a warzone, that is -- I'll hit Polarity Shift early, usually after Crushing Darkness. On a mob, I'll start with Force Storm and then the instant Chain LIghtning that comes from Lightning Storm. On a single target, Crushing Darkness to get periodic damage going; then Affliction, so that Thundering Blast will auto-crit; that triggers Lightning Storm, so Chain Lightning follows that, then Force Lightning, which should tick twice due to Affliction activating Lightning Barrage. What's neat about this class choice is how these various items on the skill tree work together; if you use the right skills at the right times so that these effects support each other, you do significantly more damage than if you don't. --- While I've gone pure Light in all my RP conversation choices, it's not enough. I've abandoned my Scavenging crew skill to compensate in favor of Diplomacy to compensate. As a bonus, this gives me companion gifts and, surprisingly enough, once you hit class 3 companion gifts, there are actually some things that Ashara likes. As I'm choosing light side options and running with her exclusively, this isn't as big of a need for me as it would be a Dark Side female Sith Inquisitor, but I'll take 'em anyway... not the least because I need lots of gifts for Andronikos and Khem Val.

I'm overdue to update and just broke a nearly seven-day losing streak in warzones, so let me tell you how it is. How it is, is this. Alacrity is great -- but Power is better. I know this because the Alacrity+Power Enhancements I was using just all went past their sell-by date last week, and I upgraded to Alacrity+Critical Enhancements. Actually, I was at my comms limit (WZ and Planetary) AND I was 5 levels higher, so it was time to re-gear. Yeah, that was a week ago, right when the losing streak began. --- The victory was one of those victories that you cherish, that you later tell your grandchildren about. 'Twas Novare coast. I went to the East side to cap the close node while the team went to Central, which we capped soon enough. It's definitely an advantage to cap first, as the opponent has to completely overtake it to point it back at you, and in the end, that might have made all of the difference. Their side capped West, and then, aside from a small contingent at Central, sent everyone East. We couldn't hold them, so we soon saw East fall, and then I saw Central begin to. We fought to regain East, but they were throwing the kitchen sink at it. In desperation, the Ops leader shouted, "Stealthers, go West! At least we can try and pull some of them away." Squirrelcorpse does not stealth, but neither does she back down from a fight any more. No, the zap witch who would spend her days hiding behind everyone else hoping she would go unnoticed is long gone. Modern-day Squirrelcorpse is shifty and has ways to deal with people who attack; she can Overload (with 100% chance to hold in place), she can stun with Jolt, she can heal herself like crazy, she can run like hell -- and she can fight back with lightning blasts that really, REALLY hurt. A teammate was waiting for backup, and the lone defender was knocked out in short order. Before the capture was complete, half a dozen opponents had shown up; however, so had half a dozen teammates. We captured the node, but then lost Central, and Ops leader posted an expletive in the chat. Man to man, we were outgunned. And now our shields were more damaged than theirs. Finally, however, we retook East and Central while they wasted resources recapturing West. East held, but Central was hard fought. For many cold minutes, we charged Central using every power in our arsenal just to interrupt their capture and then, just when it seemed all was lost... their ship's shields failed. Our ship's shields were themselves at only 6%. The scoreboard tells the tale. Squirrlecorpse had the second-highest ranking of all her teammates, but tactics overcame being overmatched. --- And I really think that's the moral of the story. You can waste time and resources and do some serious mathematical analysis to try and come up with the optimal build, but if you don't know how to use the character, you're not going to find success. On the other hand, you can use a build that's far from optimal (hi!), but through cunning and awareness, win the day. --- That said, there are definitely things on the Zap Witch side that are nice to have. I've rebuilt, taking all points out of Shock. While Shock was obviously useful to have at the beginning, since so many of the real power centers around Lightning Strike, putting any points into Shock -- or even putting it on a valuable key-bound slot -- is a waste of effort. I use it less often than I use my cooldowns. Speaking of Cooldowns, Polarity Shift -- which cuts your Alacrity down by a tiny fraction -- HAS become part of my WarZone rotation, and is keybound, which I've never done with a cooldown before. Skills like Chaos Nexus on the tree make it easier to use, and being able to go through your rotation in 2/3ds the time means you're doing just that much more damage and able to respond to a changing situation (e.g. drawing a mob of hungry attackers) that much faster. --- There is no greater feeling than that feeling you get when a mob of foes attack you in a warzone, and you suddenly realize you aren't dead -- someone is healing/guarding you. It's genuinely difficult not to let an evil cackle or "Muahahahahaha!" fly when this occurs, because then you realize you can fire up those nasty hard-hitting Area-of-Effect attacks with utter impunity. It's just fun. And that's how you end up with 342k damage and 121k healing in a single warzone. --- Meanwhile, I'm running with Ashara. Going Light means she agrees with almost everything I do. And let's face it -- that blue-tentacled orange-skinned chick is rendered to be easy on the eyes. On the other hand, won't she get cold dressed like that?

Guys... uhm... guys... ...I don't feel very good right now... ...guys? A little help? cough, cough --- Well, I don't know if it's favoring Alacrity, being on two very unbalanced teams, or just rusty play, but the WarZone effort was pointless last night. Two heavy losses, and not much Squirrelcorpse could do about them. But I'm thinking a little from column A, a little from column B. Spending time doing class quests seems to be bad for my PVP/WarZone habits, and I have to re-learn the patience and field awareness needed to be effective. This is very much not a button-mashing class for such things. PVE? Button mash away; PVP? No.

Let me be very clear on the Alacrity Experiment: I'm not choosing it over Willpower, I'm choosing Power/Alacrity over Critical/Surge on my orange gear's Enhancements, none of which boost primary stats (at the planetary vendor, at least). I always pick Willpower over anything else otherwise. As for making the arena 3v4, as you point out, that's a fool's game if there's a tank or healer who knows what he's doing on the other side. Even if you do go after the weakest player and make it 3v4, I've very often seen that not pan out; I've been on several teams that've won arenas despite Her Lordship Squirrelcorpse being the first player out. What makes the Zap Witch so horrifying in Arenas is that her hardest-hitting attacks, Force Storm and Chain Lightning, are multi-target attacks that slow and possibly stun the players they hit, AND they support each other (i.e. Force Storm triggering instant, no-force-power-required Chain Lightning). The problem with multi-target attacks that hit hard: Whomever the healer/tank guards, the rest of the team gets slaughtered. So in a few seconds, she's taken a huge chunk of your entire team's HP out, and meanwhile she's likely put shields on her own team, so the opponent is going to have to work that much harder to even get that first hit point knocked off of the Zap Witch's side. Really, the best defense, the ONLY defense, is to kill the Zap Witch quickly. It's not about making the battle 3v4; it's about preventing her from making the battle one-sided.

LEVEL 40 The Alacrity Experiment Squirrelcorpse's armor is now all orange, so I took her to the local Modification Commendations dealer to get her geared up. Gear priority remains Willpower above all else, naturally, so I pick up Resolve whatnots whenever possible. Implants seem to favor Endurance and secondary always seems to be Endurance, although I'd favor Power. Which brings up an interesting thing. Enhancements for the high 30s have a couple of pairs that both looked very interesting; one that boosted Crit/Surge, and one that boosted Power/Alacrity. Should I mix? Nah, let's stack. So I went with full Power/Alacrity. Power stacks nicely, and Alacrity is just super, super useful for a Zap Witch, because all of the fun things have a cast time or channel time. She doesn't hit as hard since she doesn't crit as often vs. the gear she had previously, but she can attack much faster and the base is more painful. --- Oh, and I ran through Taris with Ashara. She's fun. She's fully geared, too, focused entirely on Strength/Endurance as is appropriate. She has a cape! And two beautiful custom-built blue lightsabers. She also has about 1000 HP fewer than Squirrelcorpse. Not sure how that happened, but it was a blast charging through the ruins of Taris as a pair of over-leveled and fully-equipped DPS monsters. But Ashara is hard to please, apparently. I was really hoping for blue-orange alien love, but alas, this isn't Mass Effect, so I either have to be Light Side (easy), not kill Jedi (hard, especially when I'm Light 3 and the Jedi are bloody dark) and buy her gifts (very hard). I'm having to go the gift route, and so far, THIS has been the most-efficient use of all that Alacrity I now have, even better if I can throw Polarity Shift on. --- I guess I have to say something about PVP to keep on-topic, so here it is: Guys, seriously, if you get into an arena and the other side has a Zap Witch, seriously... KILL THE ZAP WITCH FIRST. She should go down easy and, if you don't, she will nuke you. I was part of a successful Arena battle where Squirrelcorpse was basically ignored by the opposing team. It went very badly for them. I just hit Hoth and I'm actually not over-leveled for it, so I'll probably be hitting up the WarZones more. We'll see how gearing for Alacrity works then.

Something just happened tonight that has never happened before, and I have to share it. Tonight's my second night in a row to do my Daily PVP WarZones after a hiatus of nearly a month. Last night, my attempts were like a methed-up hamster with hot sauce on its paws with all the random button-mashing I was doing. Tonight was a little better, but not due to my own efforts. I drew an arena, which has happened before. I aggro'd the entire opposing force almost immediately, which has happened before. I fought valiantly for every last second of life, which has happened before. In the first and second rounds, I died almost immediately, which has happened before. In the third round, however, I survived the entire round. That's never happened before. The secret sauce was none of my doing. The secret sauce was another player, who decided to guard the poor little weakly Zap Witch. In the first round, I got separated from the group, so the guard no longer worked, but the team won regardless. In the second round, the opposing force did a good job of basically keeping Squirrelcorpse in permanent stun mode, so it took several minutes, but she did eventually die (taking the poor guard down with her). But on the third round, somehow, the opposing force wasn't able to permanently stun her. And then she was able to begin to get her real attacks off, including the chains that really matter. And because of this, my dear friends, where the first two rounds took a few minutes to finish, the third round was over in mere seconds. Oh. So that's why they always go after me. Edit: Props to Pbr-streetgang, the character who made this experience memorable.

I must regretfully announce that Lord Squirrelcorpse's master, Darth Zash, died peacefully in her sleep last night after a bout with pneumonia. Yeah, in PvP, it's not so much about the damage you can deal out as much as it is the damage you can get away with before you get caught.

Thanks to all of you for the kind words. Sorry for not having an update in a while -- the machine I was using for the game gave up the ghost. It has since been replaced with a machine that can do the graphics at "Ultra" settings. Muahahahahaha... Fidelicatessen: Yes, I can respec at will, which is what I'm using to experiment with the tree, although I really don't have enough points to do any realistic kind of experimentation. I'm learning by going up as high as I can first, and may double back later. I wouldn't even think of using this power to change into Madness or Healing, because where's the fun in that? Xakthul: The great thing is, there is no way this experiment can fail: Even if Light PVP Lightning is a total clusterf**k, it's fun just to try, and "fun" is the whole reason to do such a thing. So even if I "fail," the worst thing that happens is I had an absolute blast trying it. --- Meanwhile, I'm spending some time in the Class story line. I just finished up Alderaan, and I have a bone to pick with a certain jedi: