TitusOfTides
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Posts posted by TitusOfTides
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Your argument of "they thought that way then, but now they changed the mentallity about AoE" is fallacious simply because Orbital Strike would have gotten a buff to make it on par
Untrue. Just because one thing is changed does not imply that the other also has to change. I even mentioned that in the rest of my post you failed to quote.
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Interrupt only stops it from being usable for 4 seconds, and there is currently a bug going around where most classes can't interrupt Force Storm even while the sorceror doesn't have the unshakeable buff(if they did, the interrupt button would be grayed out and hitting it would not put it on cooldown anyway). It wouldn't be half as annoying then(same with not being able to interrupt thundering blast). It's also not as simple as moving out of it. You have a 50% slow on you, can't interrupt it, and when you do move out of it, all the sorc has to do is hit ESC and re-plant it a few pixels to the side and boom, you're caught in it once more(also, I play sniper, so sitting still is kind of my class' thing).
My mistake on the interrupt, and if that bug were fixed it would make a big difference in how often you see the ability used. The last couple days I have had the ability interrupted more than usual, so I misunderstood the bug for a steep learning curve
. Sure, they could replace it but without recklessness your only ticking for about 1.5k a second, which is pathetic already. As far as being a sniper, though, there are plenty of other classes that do not have to stand still - and because your class imposes a unique issue is not a solid basis for a nerf. Also, every class appears to get some type of immunity to movement impairments. Speaking of playing Sniper; as the devs have already stated way back when, AOE abilities should not be apart of a single-target rotation. If they were, my Orbital Strike wouldn't just be tickling my opponents. And even that has more reason to be able to hit hard, seeing you plant it once, and then if the enemies move out of it, they completely negate the damage for a minute! Force Storm, as I said before, can just be instantly replanted. Now, i'm not saying Force Storm should be removed from the game, but it needs about a 40-50% base damage nerf and the interrupt bug to be fixed. Then I would have absolutely no problem with the skill.I'm aware of this, but (as you said yourself) it was "way back when." Times have changed since then, and what was X before is now Y. While the old stance on AoE may have been eliminated, that alone does not mean that across the board all AoEs should now be viable as single target abilities. If there were a 40-50% nerf, we would be getting royally shafted. I will compare this ability to "Sweeping Blasters." Sweeping Blasters does 3409 damage over 3s - and receives the exact same crit/surge boost from the Blazing Barrels ability and furthermore 25% from the Boresights utility. Compare this to Force Storm. Force Storm does 6250 damage over 6 seconds, and receives the exact same crit/surge bonus from Storm Brewing ability and the Tempest utility. For half the channel time, Mercenaries gain over half the damage. Resource management is pretty low for both specs, so you could place Sweeping Blasters the same way - but they have better single target attacks, so you don't get spammed the same as Force Storm. So, even with our best ability, we do less than their mediocre ability. Then there are other factors where they outperform us yet again.
Anyways, Force Storm is only "OP" if you have all of your buffs active - so maybe for 6s in a 2 minute window you are "OP." Outside of that 6s window every 2 minutes, you will be doing about 1.5k a tick - all while getting torn apart in only a few moves by other DPS classes. Try Force Storm on Madness or Corruption, and you might as well just be standing there doing nothing. It's uniquely powerful in this specific discipline, and compared to other DPS abilities of other classes it is very weak.
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2. I think you misinterpreted me, sure it has high mobility. I'm just pointing out that in the current condition, a lot of that mobility cannot be put to good use because in order to achieve adequate parse numbers, Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning must be channeled heavily. You cannot move during this ability. This is what I was referring to. A large portion of our rotation currently revolves around this ability. I think that, personally if the damage of Disturbance/Lightning Strike were increased to the point of its use being viable again, that the time spent standing around for Force Serenity/Force Leech would become negligible and not required to be instant.
3. This is how it was in 2.10. It was part of what made the class a decent sustained DPS class. I suppose everything posted here is truly an opinion so here's mine: I believe in 3.0 that Bioware overboosted the Balance Sage/Madness Sorc's survivability and over-nerfed the DPS. This was my suggestion on how to rectify that, by nerfing the healing.
4. The set bonus change I feel would be an instance of "If there isn't really a valid reason to use disturbance/lightning strike" then there is very little use for the set bonus to be related to that and was merely offering a suggestion about how it could become useful. Most of these things are just the result of disturbance doing less damage than Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning. Yes the 2% damage buff makes it a slight DPS gain to actually use disturbance.
I wasn't referring that they change all of these, because frankly that's off base and would make the class OP, which frankly I don't want.
One other change that could be effective would be to move rippling force/lightning burns back to Disturbance/Lightning Strike. That would effectively eliminate the burst problem, and give a reason to use disturbance/lightning strike again. Just a thought.
However that being said, the line "you appear to be very knowledgeable and I doubt that is the case in your circumstance" I personally take offense to. You are posting your opinions same as I am posting mine. I could make similar statements about people on the forums. I choose not to.
I'm going to respond to the last part of your reply first, because I feel it is necessary to do so before I continue.
I think you may have misunderstood my last comment, which may be my own fault as I more than likely used improper punctuation. I was commenting on how your last comment, regarding adjusting playstyle and gear to accommodate a build, was naive - and that I figured someone who was taking enough time to consider so many other aspects was not. I am sorry to offend you.
As far as opinion goes, I always acknowledge when I'm stating opinion openly - and while I stated several opinions, my numerical comparisons are indeed fact (damage on abilities, ways around Forcequake/Force Storm, etc).
On your other points, especially mobility - it is debatable. We do stand still for this ability we use quite often, but (at least in PvP) there are approximately 5 other abilities you can cast before having to stand still and channel. Compared to Lightning/TK (which is very mobile) one could effectively argue they are at the very least comparable in mobility. Incorporating Disturbance isn't necessary, in the same respect that many would say that (same example again) Thrash or Saber Strike are no longer necessary in the rotation. If you were to boost the damage on Disturbance by even 10%, it would then be more effective for us than the Lightning/TK improved ability Lightning Bolt or Telekinetic Burst - but I must do that adding lightning burns would overcome this issue, as it would be a random chance for the increase instead of a static (no pun intended) boost.
3. I get this, I really do. I just feel that, personally, because the spec performed a certain way prior to 3.0 does not necessarily mean that it should perform the same way now - but in a way this is a bit more than just opinion. There is no reason that dictates 'because it was "this" way before means that it should also be "this" way now.' It's the nature of change.
4. You have a really good point here. I could see adding telekinetic throw/lightning strike to the same set bonus effect. It would effectively allow you to gain the damage boost often enough, and it would (arguably) provide a TK/Lightning user casting TKT/FL the same effectiveness as a Balance/Madness user casting Disturbance/Lightning Strike.
I'm really glad to hear that you don't want to cause any sort of imbalance - especially since you do appear to take more than most into effect (most arguments are simply "Nerf this! Nerf that! etc - so I really do appreciate this). There is just so much of that going around on Sorc/Sages right now, I must admit it's hard not to get a little irritated when everyone is saying one spec is over powered, and the other is under powered. Personally, I feel they are in great spots. Compared to other classes, everything seems to be very balanced despite popular opinion.
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You are right with the procs. Sorry I don't play Lightning/Telekinetics the amount I should. The point is, they shouldn't be in single target rotations, so maybe the perk in the Lightning/Telekinetics tree should be changed, because that is the whole reason it is in a single target rotation right now.
I'm glad you don't play them, they're overrated in my opinion. That is a very good point, and should be considered by someone with a better grasp of how the numbers affect gameplay than myself. I do feel, however, that simply because an ability is AoE doesn't mean it shouldn't be used in single target engagements.
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1. Despite your argument madness still parses 200-400 dps less. alacrity surely does everything you say it does, but it doesn't strictly increase dps, it allows you to get more rotations per combat.
2. Thundering blast has a 9 second CD and automatically crits, if used correctly in this scenario, with a 15 second cooldown if force leech crits it should hit harder than TB. if the cooldown were to be increased the damage would have to be aswell. increasing the cooldown in this case would line it up perfectly with the flow of the rotation, removing clunkyness. but perhaps having the damage increased in this case may be an over-site, only testing would bare answers
3. i cannot deny that you are only kind of correct about about it being an even trade off, removing the 25% reduced damage would increase overall dps by 200-300, which was half of my goal of proposing these changes.
4. A dps shouldn't have to use consumption when targets are available. If you had taken the time to practice / observe the 'new' rotation i proposed, you would see that its force negative by about 20 force per rotation.
1. It does parse less. However, we gain a lot of benefits that the higher parsing spec does not. To increase our damage here would give us an unfair advantage.
2. On this one, I'm going to use a movie quote: "That's... just like... your opinion, man." It does decent burst damage, heals you for equal damage, and you don't have to use it when it come off of CD.
3. This does seem unnecessary, in my opinion. In truth, it allows you more damage. 25% less damage, but in 66% of the time. Boosting this would only cause imbalance.
4. Your rotation is flawed. You feel obligated to use Force Leech. Also, whether or not is should have to use consumption is also your opinion. Do you really think I am neglecting to read what you type? If I understand correctly, we should not have to spend force points to cast our abilities? That would be awesome, but it's not fair.
I hate to say it, but it would still have a broken rotation. The reason is that Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning is doing more damage than Disturbance/Lightning Strike for the same amount of time, so we would still have a proc that is effectively useless. DoT's at 18s are just fine, they were that way in 2.10 and it still makes no difference to me if they stay that way. To me here is the solutions that need to be taken:1. Increase the damage of a Presence of Mind/Wrath proc significantly (~25%). This gives us a reason to use Disturbance/Lightning Strike in our rotation, which for a long time has been Biowares intention.
2. Find some way to make Force Serenity/Force Leech instant, be it wrath/PoM proc idc. We are already standing around like crazy from channeling Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning, there is no valid reason to stand around for an additional 1.5s. (Yes I know Force Mobility exists, but there are way better Utilities to take in its place) If they have to remove some healing to do so, fine. (the 12s Cd is fine, you can make your rotation obscenely complicated or you can just use it every 15s and keep it simple)
3. Decrease Healing from DoT ticks, and re-insert 30% surge bonus to both DoT's and Force in Balance/Death Field
4. The 6 pc set bonus I agree with you on. It is absurd that our set bonus is tied to an ability we don't use because the damage numbers suck.
Also, referring to your later post. Balance/Madness has always been force negative, we're used to it at this point.
As far as what else they need to fix:
Forcequake animation. This has gone on too long without a fix.
Forcequake/Force Storm damage (this needs a nerf, if they nerf this, most of the community will get off our backs about how "OP" this class is and we can get some real buffs to single target damage which are desperately needed)
Sage Old 4 Pc set bonus-Seriously 2 months, no fix.
DoT ticks being erased by alacrity abilities/procs (yes I know there is a way around it, but we shouldn't have to work around it to avoid losing ticks from abilities that are supposed to tick a set number of times)
I could go on, but I'm getting pissed so I won't.
1. I somewhat agree with this. That would give us more of a reason to use the ability, but on the other hand you have to compare Lightning Strike and Lightning Bolt. The damage increase is much less than 25%, it's actually closer to about 10% of an increase. If we did receive this boost, it would cause our spec to arguably have more burst. There are plenty of abilities that fall off the hotbar at a certain level. We don't see too many people asking for Thrash to get buffed, do we?
2. This spec is so mobile, it's crazy. If you have force mobility, that's only 2 abilities you will ever have to stand still for. if you take other utilities, you get arguable MORE mobility, too! This section appears to just be personal opinion on how you would PREFER it to be more sustained damage, rather than a balance between [good] damage and survival.
3. This one also seems like your opinion. If I understand this correctly, you would just prefer the spec to be different?
4. If you activate disturbance or lightning strike, you lose out on a very small amount of damage in that second - but you gain a 2% boost which could boost one of your good abilities a bit more. If someone would come back and say 2% isn't worth it, then it's not even worth saying that we lose out on it.
As far as what is "needed" to fix:
Animation, yes.
The damage is not that great compared to other abilities in other classes, and it has so many ways to negate the effects (jolt, knockback, or even move out of the way!) The class is far from OP, and people will always complain. You cannot make everybody happy.
Set piece bonus, sure.
This last piece, unfortunately I feel is off base. Saying that we shouldn't have to gear or play a certain way to achieve optimal effects is naive. You appear to be very knowledgeable, and I doubt that is the case in your circumstance.
I apologize, to both of you, if this comes across as rude or insensitive, because that is not my intention. It just seems you guys really seem to be overlooking a lot here.
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Forcequake/Force Storm is designed to be an AoE force dump ability for AoE use only. There are AoE abilities in our Single target rotations, sure (Force in Balance/Death Field, Telekinetic Wave/Chain lightning), but those are proc'd or proc other abilities.
Perhaps it was designed that way initially, but now we are playing version 3.0 of the game - and a lot of changes have come with it.
Forcequake and Force Storm do trigger procs.
Also, Force Storm and Forcequake are far from optimal in anything outside of Lightning/TK. It is my personaly belief that since Force Storm and Forcequake are present in all 3 disciplines, that it gets much more exposure than some of the other discipline specific abilities, and thus causes the inevitable complaints to (by sheer quantity) target these AoEs.
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Because for some reason the devs decided it was reasonable to let it do something like 4k ticks and work off recklessness and therefore have it part of even their optimal single target rotation.
In a vacuum, sure. It can be interrupted and forced to CD for 8s. You can also move out of it. Then there are knockbacks and a slew of other ways to interrupt or avoid the damage. Even still, though, that damage is still less than other DPS classes get on approximately 50% of their abilities (most of which are bursts of damage and don't have to static channel). Also, just because it's an AoE doesn't mean it shouldn't have a place in a single target rotation - especially when that place in the rotation is once every 2mins or so when you can pop recklessness (even if it were viable all the time... so what? The damage is much less than other DPS abilities in other classes and it has more than one way to negate it... which you could argue is one too many).
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Lightning Spec spamming Force Storm and Chain Lightning on a large group for the whole match. (Yes it needs a nerf.) But seriously, he racks up that much damage without actually being helpful. He could have done so much more if he didn't care as much about the number as actually winning the match.
Also there aren't many people who are going to die against the heals trio you had going there.
Not trying to argue, but I don't understand why a spec that was unable to get a single kill would need to be nerfed? Do less damage AND get no kills? That doesn't really sound fair.
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Not sure if you are kidding or not. All that the patch fixes for 3.1 is tank dps which is my last concern honestly. As far as playing them differently I have no clue what you are talking about. If you are talking about rotation yeah that is going to change. But you can't change that you need to be within 4m of the boss to attack. Torque HM for instance, mDPS are just going to get melted almost immediately or rarely attacking the boss trying to stay alive. You would be better off bringing a mediocre rdps rather than a skilled mdps.
I can understand your lack of concern for tank dps, but you still have to consider people who play a singler saber mDPS - just as you feel inclined to say that the developers should consider you.
On playing them differently, I meant mostly from a gearing perspective. Everyone seems to be neglecting alacrity, which of course is an old habit to squash, but 3.0 seems to be all about alacrity. There are handful of Mara/Sents on my server that have caught on to this, and they are drastically outperforming others in their class. Also, mainstat is garbage now. I can assure you, if you switch to quick savant enhancements and overkill augments you will see a vast improvement.
3.0 is still fairly new, and not everyone has fully adapted to the changes it has brought - let alone realized the new stat priority.
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What should I aim for while augmenting and putting in ranked mods/enhancements? 0 accuracy, 5% alacrity, etc?
0 Accuracy for sure - it only serves a purpose in PvE for us, since our abilities are all force powers.
I believe that alacrity is the wave of the future, and I am sure in a few months you will see the rest of the forums catch on to this once they catch up to how 3.0 changed combat. I keep my alacrity at 7.45% and the rest goes into crit/surge - and I use all overkill mods as well. While it may be purely subjective, I appear to be outperforming other Sorc/Sages consistently and I happen to know for a fact that only a few people on my server have switched away from the pre 3.0 mentality of "mainstat, crit and surge."
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I was debating on posting a new thread to propose these changes, but maybe it's better discussed in here. I'm pretty sure most of us can agree that madness sorcs need help in PvE. not much, but it's undeniable.
here is what I would like to see changed about the spec:
1) Affliction and Creeping Terrors duration reduced to 15 seconds and have the damage buffed accordingly.
2) Increase Force Leech's cooldown to 15 seconds and have its damage increased accordingly.
3) Removed the reduced damage to Force Lightning in the Lightning Barrage passive.
Change the current 6 set to each completed cast of force lightning instead of lightning strike.
4) {Something(s) force cost should also be lowered by 10-20 (need to do the actual math on this one) so the rotation is force neutral or only slightly negative OR Fix the 4 set so it actually affects Force Lightning OR change the 4 set to lower the cost of Force Lightning to 8 force per tick. (currently with or without the 4 set, force lightning costs 9 force per tick)}
The changes would address the current clunkyness of the rotation, and buff the damage to compare it to that of Lightning spec.
Numbering your points so I can better respond to them.
1) Alacrity gear solves this problem. The dots are shortened, and the damage becomes more per second.
2) You can solve the cooldown problem by self control. On the point of damage: if the damage was buffed even 10%, it would crit higher than Thundering Blast.
3) It speeds up your channeling, so it's an equal tradeoff. Especially when you consider it triggers our proc, it would be unfair to have higher damage and faster channeling - that would also allow a dot with a 2s activation timer to be cast instantly.
4) If you use consumption or noble sacrifice, this build has no need for additional force regeneration - especially with our channeled ability refilling our force in the time your regen is reduced by 100% (if you use that many stacks at once).
The guide's rotation is not optimal, in either PvE or PvP, and if damage were to be increased (even slightly) it would outperform Lightning in damage, survival, and healing. I really understand where you're coming from, but you have to understand that 3.0 drastically changed things - not for the worse, it is just different from how you used to play it. It's a well "Balanced" class, which some people (stuck in their old ways) might find to be "Madness."
I'm going to say this part again, because I cannot stress it enough: The game has changed. Things are different now. Adapt. Adapt. Adapt.
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I use all overkill mods. I tried to add some resolve mods, and bonus damage went down about a small amount per piece- so I must have hit the point where the returns on willpower are less than on power. I would imagine with the Force Empowerment/Unlimited Power buff active resolve mods would prove slightly higher in damage, but that would only be for about 10s every 5 minutes or so. With that in mind, I would be willing to say that overkill mods will give you slightly higher consistent damage, while resolve would give you slightly higher(er) occasional damage.
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With the 3.1 update, it looks like the melee classes should get some good fixes in time for Season 4. Other than that, it just looks like the way to play these classes has changed a bit - so someone trying to play them similar to how they used to play might be having some difficulty.
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I agree. I run full power (overkill mods too) and crit whenever possible. I seem to have traded about 10% surge for about 10% alacrity (rounding just for sake of comparison) and it appears to be more advantageous than having the extra 10% surge.
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ok. What's the ideal range of alacrity?
My alacrity is at 7.45% right now, I think it's 7 pieces of gear with level 60 warzone quick savant mods. I tried going all alacrity mods for 9.something% but it dropped my surge to about 50% and I didn't notice much of a difference (none of my activation times changed). Once I get enough comms to try out ranked mods, I will try full alacrity again
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how much crit/surge are you using for madnees?
Before any buffs, my crit is at about 20% and surge is at about 61%
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Man I wish you were on Bastion so I can duel you. I always want to duel a sorc stacking full alacrity just to see how it goes
Jung Ma has already claimed my soul
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The Guides in my signature discuss DPSing in each healing Discipline. In particular, see Section "Dealing Damage".
Based on your experience, which one did you find to have the most DPS?
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I dropped my surge down to about 61%, crit is around 20% (before 5% buff), and my alacrity is at 7.45%. (Only 3 moddable items without quick savant mods, so no relics, belts, etc either)
When I gain all 5 stacks of the alacrity buff from CL/TW I'm at 12.45% - then with our alacrity buff (Mental Alacrity/Polarity Shift) that puts me up to 32.45% - almost a 33% alacrity rating (will be much higher when I get ranked mods instead of regs - might then also experiment with going full alacrity augments - but I didn't even notice a 1/10s difference going from 9.x% to 7.45%)
In all honestly, I'm hitting just about as hard as I was before at 75(ish) surge. I'm casting turbulence and thundering blast way more often, and getting all of my other abilities off of cooldown much faster.
Times are a-changing. Way too many people are set in the old ways - the old rules. Sure... they may hit a little harder, but as my good friend once said, "I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall; men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air; yet, their strength, and their speed, are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as *you* can be."
Alacrity is the new black (not even just for sorcs/sages - look at all of the other classes that get alacrity boosts, and build on that!) Free your mind.
#TooManyReferences
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Thanks for replying. Is there a particular set that gives more alacrity or crit surge? or are the sets just the same all around?
I'm really happy to help, and if you have any more questions keep em coming!
I'm not too sure on the sets, but once you get your full set of Exhumed (first level PvP set at 60, should be a few different set names - just choose the one that has set bonuses that fit your abilities most) but once you do get the exhumed set, you can purchase warzone modifications from the vendors on fleet in the combat section. I usually get quick savant (power and alacrity max if I remember correctly) and switch them out for whatever mod is in the piece that doesnt have alacrity on it. I have 7 pieces of gear with alacrity, to try and balance out my crit/surge so they don't take too much of a hit. My crit is around 20% (before the 5% buff from either legacy or warzone players) and my surge is at 61ish%.
I literally just had this conversation with a faction mate in General chat.I'm finding the burst to be wonderful when I can stay on target, but the survivability and susceptibility to CC is just HORRIBLE. Our burst is useless without the uptime on a target to make it happen.
What I'm wondering is if I should essentially build around Fleetfooted and Expunging Camouflage (Heroic Utilities) and ignore Zen, making up the difference by stacking Alacrity.
If not, does anyone have any useful tips on Utilities and gearing? And how important is Contemplation for a PvP build? Do we NEED the frontloaded burst or is that utility less useful than it appears?
Thanks in advance, y'all!
I won't be able to answer too many of the specifics, but I would think that maybe getting the most defense out of your utilities might balance out the problem youre having. It works really well on my sage and sorc, but my marauder isnt high enough level yet for me to have access to the heroic utilities
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what kind of gear would you recommend for pvp as carnage? im rather new to 60 and pvp
I'm don't play one myself, but I do know that accuracy is really important since most or all of your attacks are melee.
Other than that, I have a sneaking suspicion that alacrity will yield really good results for this class - especially since they get an alacrity buff right away in the discipline tree which amounts to about the same boost 3 pieces of alacrity gear would give you. Since 3.0 alacrity has become all the more useful, and I'm not too sure if Maras/Sents have quite caught on to it yet.
Then surge/crit of course.
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So I have decided, carnage marader is not as lame as everyone says they are,,they do alot of damage have decent cooldowns if rotated correctly i have very little down time on targets, even ones with roots and knock backs..
solid class in a decent place..couple of other classes might need to be toned down though.
I agree. There are a few Marauders that the regular solo rankeds and I usually target first right away - not because they are a "free kill," but because they will cause a massacre if they don't die right away.
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The only one animatione I hate is Telecinetic Throw ... it just looks so odd to throw a bunch of little stones against a soldir in full armor.
If I remember correctly, Bioware said that the Sage was for the player looking for the whole "Ewok" experience.
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Just curious on the Corruption sorc's dps rotation during relaxed healing:
Mine is Crushing Darkness, Affliction, Force Lightning, Lightning Strike (filler), then priority list.
I'm guessing though if I was ever spec'd for Tempest Mastery, Force Storm would be better than Force Lightning or Lightning Strike.
Any thoughts?
That's pretty close to what I've tried (haven't used corruption too much). I also take the 50% shock utility with tempest to squeeze as much as possible. so instead of lightning strike and force lightning I would use shock and then force storm. It does pretty decent damage, but I always tend to forget to heal - but thats mostly user error
. Sure, they could replace it but without recklessness your only ticking for about 1.5k a second, which is pathetic already. As far as being a sniper, though, there are plenty of other classes that do not have to stand still - and because your class imposes a unique issue is not a solid basis for a nerf. Also, every class appears to get some type of immunity to movement impairments. 
Balance/Madness issue and Bioware said the goal is to balance all classes?
in Sage / Sorcerer
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