the following are a list of ideas i have for new abilities for the sorcerer. the damage and everything is based on a level 60 sorcerer. i will not provide sage mirror counterparts for these abilities. 1. electrify floor (AoE) channel: 5 seconds cooldown: 5 seconds force cost: 50 over duration damage: 3200 over duration range: 10 meters firing arc: 90 degrees the sorcerer fires lighting at the ground in front of him, electrifying it. arcs of electricity dance around the electrified area. the sorcerer cannot turn left and right while electrifying the ground. targets inside this area have lightning dragging at their heels, slowing them by 10% while within the area. standard and weak targets are stunned while in the electrified area. 2. split sky (charge up) (heroic) activation time: 5 seconds cooldown: 60 seconds force cost: 100 damage: 5000 range: 15-35 meters the sorcerer rises up and levitates a few feet above the ground and begins to draw purplish energy from the ground below. the sorcerer begins to glow a dark purple and lightning crackles around him. the sorcerer is vulnerable to interrupts during this time. the sorcerer then fires an insanely huge white-hot bolt of lightning, a meter thick, far into the sky. the bolt then comes down onto the target 2 seconds later, causing everything within 5 meters of the target to be blown away from the location by 5 meters. targets are stunned, laying on the floor, for three seconds. this ability drains the sorcerer greatly, reducing force regeneration by 50% for 5 minutes. this ability can only be used during heroic moments and is granted at level 60. this ability can only be used once per heroic moment. this ability is exclusive to the sorcerer. static burst (charge up) (AoE) activation time: 1 second cooldown: 15 seconds force cost: 25 damage: 1000 range: 4 meters upon activation, the sorcerer forms a protective force bubble around himself for the 1 second activation time, making him immune to any outside force including: interrupts, stuns, knock backs, slows, roots, crowd control, and damage. 10% of damage leaks through and damages the sorcerer within his bubble. after this 1 second is up, the sorcerer pushes his hands out to the sides quickly, causing the bubble to explode in a small static burst, damaging any nearby enemies for a small amount. shock hold (stun) (channel) channel: 3 seconds cooldown: 10 seconds force cost: 45 over duration damage: 2500 range: 2 meters the sorcerer walks up to an incapacitated enemy and firmly grabs it with a vice-like hand. the sorcerer sends electricity through his arm and into the target, damaging it and stunning it over the duration. if 1000 damage or more is dealt to either the sorcerer or the target from an outside force, the shock hold is broken. the target must already be stunned or crowd controlled in order for shock hold to be activated. aggravating shocks (channeled) channel: 2.5 seconds cooldown: 30 seconds force cost: 20 damage: 250 over duration range: 5 meters the sorcerer lets off small electric jolts with his hands at the target, interrupting any channeled or charge up abilities the enemy tries to activate and putting them on cooldown for 1 second, regardless of their regular cooldown. the enemy can avoid this annoyance by leaving the sorcerer's 5 meter range. the sorcerer cannot move, however, while using this ability. this ability generates a large amount of threat and strong enemies and players have a 50% change to become enraged when this ability is used, increasing the damage they deal to you by 10% for 5 seconds. blink strike (instant) cooldown: 15 seconds force cost: 45 damage: 2000 initial range: 10-20 meters the sorcerer creates a blinding flash of lightning around himself and teleports behind the enemy, stabbing him with his saber and wounding the target, reducing movement speed by 10% and making the target bleed for 1000 damage over the course of 10 seconds. thunder blast (AoE) (knock back) (instant) cooldown: 10 seconds force cost: 25 damage: 2500 range: 10 meters firing arc: 20 degrees the sorcerer blasts anything in front of him with a narrow cone of thunder by pushing his hand forwards, knocking back any target back 7.5 meters and knocking them to the floor for 3 seconds. this ability's knockback ability is matched only by its very small firing arc and difficulty to aim at a target. sap strength (slow) (DoT) (instant) cooldown: 10 seconds duration: 10 seconds force cost: 45 damage: 3500 over duration range: 30 meters the sorcerer casts a dark affliction on the target, slowing its speed progressively by 15% per second until it is rooted. dark energy swirls around the target's legs and body and the target struggles to drag its body forwards. this ability replaces affliction.

okay yes, it is not technically a guide, i just wasn't sure what to call it then. i am not a fan of alacrity, although it is useful. i do not have every ability memorized, i am sorry about that. i gave my utility choices in particular, but force mobility is wonderful. affliction lasts a long time and you can keep a slow on someone for the whole fight.

finally, someone who doesn't insult my ability to play because i am a keyboard turner! truthfully i have been here ever since RotHC became free for subs as i don't remember when it wasn't. whatever is most comfortable for me and doesn't cause problems works and i don't care if it is frowned upon. oh ok, i trust you know about ops and scoundrels with 3.0, but previously they were better healers. i don't have any characters that are imperial agents or smugs because i never liked the story that much. as for charge up abilities in terms of DPS or healing, the lightning sorc has: crushing darkness, lightning strike, lightning bolt, chain lightning, thundering blast, and dark heal. this is a large percentage of the sorcerer's main abilities. most of the abilities are either 1 to 2 seconds, and chain lightning should never be used by itself. if you want to do that use thundering blast because it takes less time and you get the 40% force discount on chain lightning. yeah, i don't like that lightning bolt isn't so much of an ability as is a replacement for another ability, the same with the PT's flaming fist. i should get around to removing lightning strike from my interface. these "replacements" are either better or at the same level when it comes to their counterpart which they share a cooldown with. still, i like that we get 4 abilities with 3.0 now. before skill trees would only give 2, or 3 if the third one was a non-DPS/healing ability that is focused on support like riot gas or supercharge gas, and a new animation is always nice. other abilities say they do 3K to 3.5K damage, but as for how much shock really does against a tough target is questionable. there is the benefit of using it while everything else is either on CD or procced out. i mentioned thrash and saber strike because you said i didn't put up any information on melee fighting. those are the only melee (4m range) that the sorcerer has. the sorcerer doesn't even have any close range (10m range) abilities that i know of offhand, only long range (30m or 35m range). the only time i use those abilities is for NPCs. thrash does low damage, and the only thing saber strike is good for is its speed and the lack of cost. i think alacrity is good and really useful, but i just don't feel that the time reductions are worth it over other stats that could be focused on instead. remember that this guide isn't the only way to do things, this is just my way that is ideal for me. i am actually a kick-*** PvPer 70% of the time so long as it isn't 1v1. in that case i usually win 60%/40% unless it is a tank. i admit, the "tactics" where really more of rotations to be used in particular circumstances and not really fighting styles or anything like that. i am not sure then why unnatural preservation causes my GCD to go off, it might be a bug.

lol, i've been here for a year and a half, i just see nothing wrong with keyboard turning. regardless all of the information i have shared works incredibly well for me and i do not encounter any problems.

first off, yes, i am a keyboard turner, but i'm not going to start another argument on that. what i meant by the healing thing is that sorcs can be great healers, certainly better than the crappy merc/mando thing. the only problem is that, save for the super awesome unnatural preservation, the sorc's healing abilities can be inconvenient. dark heal doesn't heal that much and drains a lot of force, but you can pump those out like crazy and heal very well if you have several seconds and a lot of force to spare. the lightning sorc doesn't usually have to worry about force, but when he uses 12 dark heals to heal completely it does have a significant toll. the force bar won't ever ever go down the quarter mark unless you are fighting a FP boss. doesn't resurgence has a moderate price and heals for a fair amount, but the healing is spread over time, so it can't really be used when time is critical. i have found that using resurgence to reinforce other healing abilities is nice. in addition both unnatural preservation and resurgence have a pretty long cooldown time, so the rest of the time you are pumping out dark heal. dark heal is also a "charge up" ability, which can be interrupted and can't be used while moving. however, the heals per second of a sorc can be very high and sorcerers have a lot of potential if their utilities are placed right. also, DPS sorcs are great healers with the right utilities such as empty body and corrupted barrier. these greatly increase healing capabilities if you buy them with utility points, otherwise the sorc isn't nearly as good as it can be with them. i think that operatives/scoundrels are better healers personally. this guide is for lightning sorcs, which are DPS, so i am speaking about maximizing healing abilities but still focus on DPS. static barrier is not a healing ability without corrupted barrier. you should still use it as a healing ability, but i like to use static barrier and force barrier in tandem for super healing. unnatural preservation still causes the GCD to go off, and although it is free putting it on CD restricts you to two abilities. accuracy is naturally 100% with force abilities and 90% with melee. i think that is good enough as most people don't go all-in with defense rating. alacrity doesn't effect cooldowns that much, maybe half a second at most. i don't think that is worth it personally, allhough it is good with channels and GCD. the sorc only has two melee abilities: saber strike and thrash. usually you are pretty far away from enemies and using the two of them is pretty simple. the sorc has reverberating force and storm brewing, both of which effect critical hits passively. not as many as i thought, though. still, quite a bit related to energy, though. you are right, you should never be in a situation to use consumption and i never have, but it is available when necessary, even if it does suck. i usually only use it while guarding so i can heal back up to get medals. i brought it up in my guide to show that sorcs are very blessed when it comes to ability energy, in this case force. the sorc has many options and benefits for its power pool. i happen to like shock, it does good damage and it is instant. when i say "instant" i mean that you just click your hotkey and it happens. crushing darkness and lightning strike are examples of "charge up" abilities, which is when you click the hotkey and they spin up. during this time you can be interrupted by knockbacks, stuns, or sleeps and blinds. you also cannot move while using these abilities. then there are "channeled" abilities that you click the hotkey and the ability's effect comes out over the course of the ability. you cannot move while using them and can still be interrupted, but at least the effect is happening over the course, so even if you are interrupted you still get some as opposed to none if it was a charge up. the force cost of shock doesn't really matter, you will have plenty of that in lightning. it is good for finishing an enemy like you said, but i like to use it while on the go. the sorc has a lot of charge up abilities which hit very hard, but if you don't want to stand around and wait 1.5 to 2.5 seconds for them in which your kill can be stolen, you can be interrupted, you can be killed before you finish them off, they get an objective before you stop them, or they just keep hitting you while you are still charging up. the sorcerer is pretty stationary and force mobility only effects one ability. luckily lightning strike, lightning bolt, and chain lightning can be procced for instant damage. as with the 12.5K, damage depends on the enemy's damage reduction, so it is theoretical how much damage you are doing. either way damage is still pretty high with that rotation. i read the damage dealt right off my screen, so i was being pretty simplistic with that. endurance is very good for all classes. i didn't mean that endurance should be focused on any more than is naturally found in DPS-focused mods. my point is that if you had nothing that boosted endurance and just relied on your base health point, you would be screwed. i was saying that you should still have some endurance in order to survive a fight, but that it should not be something to focus on. i believe that most players' apathy towards endurance is bad and that you should still have some. there are many enhancements with both surge and crit rating in them, and some mods have critical rating included.

umm, yes...? force speeding backwards gives you room between you and your enemies. it also gives you a wider view of a battle being farther away.

eh, it works for me quite well. the part labeled "tactics" were really just tricks i like to use in varying situations that happen a lot. i also went into the positive and negative traits the lightning sorc has, while most people just skip to how to build the right character. i wanted people to have a developed understanding of their class before learning how to operate as that class. what mistakes did i make exactly?

since i had a complete PvP guide for the sorcerer, i felt i would do another now that things have changed. the new discipline system is unfortunately very simplistic compared to the old skill tree system and entirely unchangeable save for the utility points, so instead i will go into tactics, what to spend utility points on, the stat build i had the most success with, and the strengths and weaknesses of the lightning sorcerer. keep in mind that this is what works for me and might not work for you. this guide is meant for fresh 60ers. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Lightning Sorc: the sorcerer in general is built to never run out of steam, always with a limitless energy pool. this is ever truer for the lightning sorc, which has many force regenerative boosts and force discount procs. the sith inquisitor and jedi consular are unique in that their power regenerative abilities are not effected by its current quantity as in the case of bounty hunters, troopers, smugglers, and imperial agents. sorcerers also have the highest regeneration per second and can always convert health into force with consume. lightning sorcerers can pump out extreme damage, but have few instant gratification abilities, having only lightning flash and shock to dish out quick damage. both of these abilities have high cooldowns, and other abilities require long charge up times. all discipline paths that sorcerers can take have the capability to be extreme healers. pulling 6K unnatural preservations and 3K dark heals are easy if your character is built right. resurgence and unnatural preservation are instant, and spamming dark heal, although ineffective and costly, are pretty easy to do since it lacks a cooldown. one reason why i love being a lightning sorc is the many slows and roots available. lightning bolt slows targets by 30%, force slow for 60% for a short period of time, force storm slows targets by 30% in its AoE, affliction can be made to slow targets by 30% both cheaply and for a long time, and overload can be made to root targets if you want to knock back a swarm of melees and keep them still so you can click and kill. even chain lightning slows targets, and combine that with the sorc's incredible range, and a cooldown-less large area AoE and you can control the battlefield. one downside to the lightning sorcerer is that the class has very few filling healing abilities. unnatural preservation can have as much as a 40% healing bonus, but this can only be used on you and has a long cooldown. resurgence heals well but is meant to be for slow release and won't get anyone anywhere if healing is required then and there and also has a moderate cooldown. dark heal is wasteful and heals very little, so i only use it for healing others quickly as possible or while waiting for unnatural preservation to go off cooldown. the lightning sorcerer has many procs available both for resource purposes and for reducing or eliminating cooldowns as the lightning sorcerer is a burst-style class. the sorcerer has a wide variety of useful free abilities that can give you a stat boost like unlimited power and polarity shift. lastly, the lightning sorcerer gains many impressive passive boosts to both critical hit and chance for specific abilities. Stat Focus and Utility Point Spending a lightning sorc is meant to deal as much damage as possible and can not be expected to hold up in a fight against most foes in PvP. endurance should be a focus but not as much as power and willpower, which increase damage and healing efficiency. you should stay alive long enough to kill the other person, your healing abilities can be used in a sustained fight if needed. first off, i cannot tell you how much i think alacrity is a waste of time. speeding up abilities is useful, but there are more important things to focus on and alacrity might cut off a quarter of a second at best. i like to focus on surge rating because i think criticals are frequent enough. one surge rating point is equal to .01% critical damage bonus, the same goes with critical rating. as with endurance, 1 endurance point is equal to 10 health point.s it might not be reliable or predictable, but that 11K heal will pay off in the right situation. as i said before, lightning sorcs have passive critical chance boosts to a lot of abilities. another approach is to balance out between surge and critical rating. as for utility points, select sith defiance for increased survivability, tempest mastery so that force storm can be spammed at your location when there are too many enemies to deal with, empty body and dark resilience for maximum healing capabilities, corrupted barrier for tortoise-shelling and healing, and electric bindings and conspiring force for control purposes. Tactics and Strategies in Warzones my favorite tactic is to activate static barrier and then force barrier when some jugg is shaving the health off of you like crazy. this is a trick to cheat death, as both the force barrier and the static barrier you will heal you for 2% of your maximum health every second. enduring bastion will heal you for 8% every second for a few seconds when force barrier is over. by this time you will probably have unnatural preservation off cooldown and ready to be used in the fight you are now all healed up for. it might be that attackers will give up afterwards, or you can force speed out of there if necessary. all an enemy can do is watch as you gain health rapidly while in your protective bubbles. sometimes when getting attacked lighting bolt will be procced and able to be activated instantly. i like to activate this ability for about 3K damage and a slow. then i use force speed to get an extra two 3K instant jolts as opposed to only getting two freebies if i activated force speed first. lighting bolt makes chain lightning instant, for about 3.5K to 4K damage. i just pumped out 12.5K damage within 5 seconds. a quick enemy is hard to target and disorientating. i like to keep a constant affliction on them, which slows them by 30% for 16 seconds. force slow can be used now and then and lightning bolt will keep them shuffling their feet for several seconds as you pound them with a few thundering blasts. this is very useful for melee opponents, which should always be kept from a distance. even then, most classes have a range of 10 to 15 meters, the sorc has 30 to 35 meters. an enemy that can't attack you is vulnerable, so keep them far away. sometimes i like to use overload to root them and then force speed backwards and nail them with a couple lightning strikes. by the time they get out you can use chain lightning to slow them again. force storm is great for denying other players a node or area and can also be used for preventing stealthed opponents from going through a choke point or a friendly-controlled area without going unnoticed. it lasts a long time, slows targets, lacks a cooldown, and has a wide area.

that's cute, nicely done <3

but yeah, no, i do wish BW added more romance options and conversations because they help me feel like my band of companions and i are actually a close-knit "family" with feelings and interactions instead of merely becoming soulless mindless "combat assistants" after the companions are acquired. pretty much SWTOR is like an interactable movie saga, which is fun. bioware has been doing a great job so far at tying 50+ content with our characters' past to make it seem like an intricate and non-linear storyline. that's why i like american RPGs: the freedom to shape our path to a limited extent and have consequences several planets later, being able to be on either side and make moral choices on your own without the "good guy vs bad guy" mindset, as well as other things. bioware reassured me of a hope for any sort of personal storyline past level 50 by giving me a single class mission on rishi, so i do think that they are trying to do a good job. everyone says every MMO is "on the downtrend" or "doomed" but swtor is still kicking and pumping out expansions faster than i can play them through (i play every day i can!) and i think so long as an MMO can stack content up faster than the majority of players can mow down and they make a sizable profit, all will do well. i doubt SWTOR is "not as big", as with every expansion ever, there are always a ton of bugs and a perceived void of content, but give it time to mature before you judge. ROTHC turned out perfect in my opinion, and BW is learning their mistakes.

obsessive much? go watch a dirty movie if it bugs you that bad.

i was just wondering if preordering as a sub just gets you the 1 week head start and all of those bonuses or if i need to buy the expansion to play it at all. RotHC was free for subscribers, and all the other expansions were free for everyone after a while. the FAQ page didn't address this at all.

i have a small list of commonly exploited tactics i constantly see in PVP that are far too powerful. i am 100% sure that most other players encounter these problems, so don't pull the "learn the game" thing on me. the solutions are minor changes that will not destroy the game, i promise. 1. interrupts interrupts add more complexity to the game, but they don't contribute to the resolve bar and melee classes can use them excessively. i believe that the 12 second cooldown is very balanced, but melee classes can have a 6 second cooldown. this means that there is a 2 second period (interrupts puts the ability on cooldown for 4 seconds) when an ability can be used. PT are even able to lower it down to 4 seconds, so there is no time in which an ability can be used. this is a huge problem for specs that specialize in charge-up abilities like lightning. sorcs who use the lightning tree use thundering blast and chain lightning as a one-two punch that works pretty well. thundering blast takes quite a bit of time to charge up, and if it gets interrupted constantly you are forced to use lightning strike, which screws up the entire rotation. solution: the solution is to make it so any particular player can only be interrupted once every 10 seconds. this means that there is a 6-4 second period where you can use abilities and melee classes can still have their short cooldown as a trade-off for the short range. melee classes can still use their short cooldowns to an advantage by interrupting multiple players. 2. kiting kiting is a common exploit of the game where a player runs circles around a target so that the target cannot target or attack them. when the target tries to activate an ability while not facing the target, they get a red message that says [not facing target]. i am not sure why this happens, but since nothing in the game even mentions using kiting as a tactic, i call it an exploit because i don't think it is supposed to happen, but does anyway. this is usually seen in melee classes, who often have a natural 15% boost in speed and have various speed boosts to sprint to their targets quickly. ops and scoundrels can run 3 laps around a target in a second by using shiv or blaster whip, which has a relatively short cooldown. solution: a solution is extremely simple: allow players to auto-target the nearest enemy with a hotkey, and make it so players automatically face their targets when they activate an ability. 3. focus fire while i certainly don't think that focusing on a target is bad, i actually find it as good teamwork, it is extremely hard in arenas for the target to pump out anything. especially in lowbies, the target of focus-fire can't even pump out a single heal to get a single medal to qualify for the WZ rewards. this is mostly because of pushback which is way too strong, the fact that lowbies don't have as many abilities, skill points, or stats even when bolstered, and that players don't last too long when everyone on the enemy team is after them. solution: i feel that the way to fix this is to give a protection bonus for the amount of players ganging up on someone. for every player attacking the same target after 2 players, the target gets an extra 7.5% resistance to pushback and and a 1.5% damage resistance bonus. so, if one player is getting attacked by all 4 enemies on a team, they get a 15% resistance to pushback and a 3% damage resistance. this will allow the target to pump out more abilities and last just a little while longer.

i really liked the exclusive decorations, tac FP pets, and the whole comms system which i somehow found more enticing than just getting the loot. like i mentioned before, people like you should be able to get all the story they want so long as the solo experience isn't mixed in with the group experience. i think ops/FPs and single player content should have their own story "path" that leads to the same destination. with group content, the next op or FP should be a continuation of the previous. with single player content, the planet stories like those of oricon, ilum, and makeb could be a continuation of the previous planet. eventually, the paths of both solo and group players end at the same final challenge. this way, both sides get their unique storyline without interference, all players have an orientation of what is going on, even if their individual path may have varied, and interaction is encouraged, but not necessary, at the end when players must face a great challenge, whether alone or together.

no, i definitely want raids and group content to have story, i just want to be able to experience that story content by my own. if they could just make single-player versions of ops and FP that one person, provided they are geared well enough, could complete. also, if ops and FP had their story by their own i would love that. up until endgame all FPs had a story that branches off from the main story. in other words, if you never ever did hammer station it wouldn't have any effect on my understanding of what is going on in the game. unfortunately with planets like ilum and oricon, the FP/op is actually the ending to the previously all single-player storyline with a profound impact on what is going on in the galaxy. now players who do not want to play with others have no idea what happens, they just get a big middle finger in their face at the climax of the story. i would like ops and FP to have a high quality story so long as it is independent and unessential for the greater picture like the early FPs were.