I think it is too close to say it needs a buff or a nerf at the moment. And PTs can put out bigger numbers than sorcs in certain conditions and fights while sorcs are good in other fights. I only think carnage mara is in a sad spot at the moment. Well maybe madness is a bit squishy....but their damage in fluff fights is good. Also note sorcs don't have armor break which is a huge thing in nim content. So yeah you need to use arsenal even though it parses a bit lower than lightning. From what I observed on pts nim content, PTs, Lightning Sorcs are still quite meta. But you still need a merc for an armor break quite often.

From classes that are receiving changes I did sorc parses with good precise rotations. Lightning will parse 22.5-23.5K range and Madness 22.2-22.9K range depending on crit luck.

Guard should be linked to a on cooldown mechanic on any dps spec...that should fix a lot of issues and is independent of Power techs. Also keep in mind PTs will probably get some form of dps adjustment and follow the trend of the other specs (Sins, Sorcs, Opers) regardless in a patch or so - less burst, more sustain etc. Anyways they are melee dps (need to be close to a target) and have lackluster dcds, so any type of problem created here is by dps guarding each other non stop and not the dps.

Please consider buffing madness and lightning damage output by about 2-3% beyond these planned changes for sorc dps to be on par with their sniper and merc counterparts in Nim dxun and unscaled content, but maybe scale back force/tech yellow damage in scaled sub 75 content by the same amount (LEGACY OPS)- that would result in an overall better damage curve for the class and make them not subpar in unscaled content.

First off, I agree that this set needs to add a buff at the 4 piece or 6 piece threshold to healing after the use of force barrier to become a viable healer set and not just a gimmick set no one will use. Like after using force barrier your healing is increase by 10% for 15 sec etc. Second, I wish you made a set specifically dedicated to burst and crit damage (or healing). like "after activating recklessness, your first reckless charged ability heal or damage is increased by 20%" and under polarity shift, your crit chance for force attacks and heals is increased by 15% for its duration.; or something like that.

Yeah with these changes sorcs will struggle to hit 22K on dummy 6.5mil, while mercs, snipers (even markman) will be able to do that more easily. So summery is, madness has been always mediocre, any buffs to it have been very minor and it will struggle to match io/as on dummy and is well behind virulence (even after viru nerf) - nothing new there. Lightning, which was the one sorc dps spec to compete with merc and sniper dps will be gutted yet again. Note, this above is for unscaled lvl 75 content, if looking at scaled content sorc will propably be brough "in line" at the cost of unscaled content.

this is a PvE sustain nerf....over like several minutes of attacking damage drops off at least 1k dps. in PvP I think the changes will have very little noticeable affect, because damage under polarity shift has actually been buffed (although it lasts 5 sec shorter), so actually in PvP Ling can be actually stronger because you want to do as much dps as possible in a 20sec polarity shift burst to force a death.

They're getting a buff to sustain damage to compensate though. It was just a redistribution of damage because peeps in PvP complained about 3x crit maul.

nim without stacks is pretty balanced actually except a few fights were (mainly) adds do a bit too much damage to raid. it was not really a dps issue or hps issue but that certain things hit harder than even when these were released. bw never does things subtly though so if it was on one end after they got rid of stacks, now it will be somewhat too easy again if they blanket buff our stats back. but base line is that it is old content so who cares.

Without compensation sorc nerf on their gathering storm set is huge. Like easy 1.5K dps loss on lightning and 1k on madness. Of course they needed compensation given at least for PvEsustain damage madness is not doing too hot as is.

Same with madness...guess they decided dot spread with constant slow+good pressure damage too OP in PvP .

I mean Lightning was overperforming a little bit and as a Ling player of course it is upsetting to be nerfed but I can live with the changes as long as that proc to get extended polarity shift is designed around a 5sec window after hitting force speed instead of the very long 10sec it is currently. Having to hit it immediately during force speed is just too clunky and a poor design choice....like imagine having to entrench right after a roll on a sniper to get entrench set bonus or needing to rocket out on merc to get super charge. These set damage buffs have to be independent of repositioning abilities otherwise they are too restrictive. Madness will still be luckluster though except in scaled content (because of that force yellow damage - so there it will be decent I guess and pull good numbers). In Pvp its DCDs are just too week for competitive play. For PVP nothing changes with regards to Ling here fundamentally, yeah you have 5 sec less in a polarity shift window, but you still have more than enough time to get very good burst in in that window if PVP. Whether you do mega pressure in 20sec vs 25 sec is not a fundamentally big change with all the uncontrollable factors happening in an arena game. It's just a flat sustain nerf at this point for PvE.

so I ran some quick parses on sorc changes on sorc will make each of those sorc specs parse about 22k on average +/- 500 on crit fyi, sure if you get lucky on crit you maybe you hit 23k on like 1/1000 parses on 6.5mil; yeah and force speed to alacrity change is dumb and clunky, basically unduly penalized to make a mechanic more clunky this changes don't really affect madness it is the same, lightning gets a noticeable nerf to damage.

DECEPTION gonna be filthy now in PVE as well thx. - clear winner here Madness change looks fine, at least what you are doing in terms of keeping its sustain while nerfing the gathering storm set. Lightning might not be compensated enough for the nerf to the set though - sort of concerning there given the big buff Deception is getting as pointed above. Please give us 5SEC after hitting force speed on sorc sage to get buff on polarity shift - otherwise it is a bit unfounded and ridiculous - maybe the current 10 sec leeway is too long, but activating it during that 1.5sec will be a pita and mess up some timings in the dps rotation. I don't understand why we have to be under affects of force speed to trigger the extended polarity shift. Don't play healer in a long time now, but looks like a generous buff there.

MM is a very good spec and even viable in nim ops, but you have to play it well, just as viru once you decide to do the hm/nim stuff. upfront burst is highly desirable in any fight when there are gaps or breaks in damage uptime...and a lot of apex bosses have phases when you need to crank extra damage in a few burst windows so being a burst spec with somewhat lower sustain is actually not a disadvantage. think stuff like Brontes, Styrak even Terror are fights where MM is probably just as good as Viru or can be. Viru can kind of do it all in terms of both aoe and single target damage all at once while on MM you have to choose wether you want good single target damage from one tactical o rgreat aoe damage from another., main problem on MM is that it is a pure white/weapon damage spec and those scale worse than specs with yellow force tech damage in scaled content.

timed runs should be restricted to running the ops without stacks of veteran's edge. I guess they need to enable an "option" to allow vet edge stacks in those ops...but if you do that option to do a timed run will be disabled and no chievo. I am only talking here about timed run achievements, not individual boss kill or anything else achievements- because teams have to practice the content and disable stacks for the timed run attempt when they think they are ready.

deception is in a decent spot....it is not the highest (pyro/ anni etc) but also not the lowest (Carnage, marksman) in terms of aoe dps, pyro pt and vengeance jug are beasts, so is hatred sin with the dot spread in the right conditions. single target dps crown goes to concealment , and then a bunch of other specs just bellow it (deception among them). as long as you are doing yellow (force/ tech damage) you are doing very much better currently in scaled ops than weapon/ white damage classes.

Yes check parsley, both "max" and "average" figures to get an idea. But honostly you can play with any spec at the moment except if you are trying to clear NIM/MM content with no veteran edge stacks. With gear and veteran edge there is no dps checks in pve hardmode ops. The short list for best performing classes is: MDPS: Annihilation (sustain), Concealment (burst) RDPS: Virulence (sustain), Lightning (Burst) Above is probably best comp at the moment. Honorables are: Fury Mara, Pyro, Hatred, Advances Prototype, Lethality

Madness needs a tactical to cast / channel force lightning on the move. It can also use a bit of a defensive passive buff like +2% dr for every stack of wrath you have - this should be a change to a passive on the class ability tree. Corruption needs better tacticals - like casting unnatural preservation heals nearby allies for that amount or at least half. Roaming mend +1 would be nice. Set bonus on corruption needs to improve energy regeneration a little btit too. Lightning is fine as is. Would love to see them making fore barrier a bit more useful (like reseting active cooldown of phasewalk, or give you 30% health on activation). Or something else. Right now it is a meme ability - sure you can force a hard swap from yourself for like 8 sec, but afterwards your health is still the same and people just finish you off - like a lot of times itsbetter not to stand around like stupid under the force barrier and just continue to dps. .

If Force/Tech damage is scaling "better" in level synced content than weapon white damage please just rescale it and not mess the force/tech damage classes, that puts them in disadvantage in non level locked content or pvp. thanks.

they should just nerf the damage on chain lightning if it is performing too well and not nuke the whole set bonus which will affect madness as well and madness is really not doing that great right now. basically I am ok with them neutaring lightning cleave damage somewhat but don't touch single target dps cause in PvE no one cares about cleave it is a pvp thing.

From PvE it also makes no sense, like at all: It's facts that madness is parsing less (given skill and equal gear) to IO and Virulence as pointed out. As for cleave damage, look at Nim Grobthok http://parsely.io/parser/operations/grobthok/8/MM/dps/all/all/all/live/0/ If the gold standard for cleave is vengeance jugg any rdps cleave is just an afterthought period in PVE. Sure I agree that extended polarity shift on lightning with elemental convection tactical and repeated chain lightning is aids in PvP, but that is just it...nerf elemental convection tactical and not the overall Sorc set bonus which is needed right now for BOTH sorc specs to compete with other rdps classes in THEIR respective categories (sustained rdps and burst rdps). Otherwise the dps gap between any sorc dps and the other rdps specs (sniper and merc) will become even greater. Alternatively if even sorc dps is overperforming than other dps is overperforming even more, and for that they should then rebalance ALL classes at once and not cherry pick or do it patch per patch.

Yeap this is very important post from Hoppin, and I just plain don't understand how the bioware devs can be targeting Sorcs over other classes right now from either a PvE or PvP perspective. If madness = 0% (target dps) it should be competing and close to virulence sniper (not bugged dirty fighting) or IO merc. Highest virulence parse (not bugged dirty fighting mind you) 24942 dps on 6.5 mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/468511/0 Highest IO merc parse 6.5mil 24366 dps on 6.5 mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/471581/0 Highest madness parse 6.5mil 23070 dps on 6.5mil http://parsely.io/parser/view/467615/1 ...like I get variance in quality of parses but even the "averages" show madness lagging over 1K dps bellow the other two ranged sustain specs if not even more by 1.5K. And all these 3 specs have built in cleave in rotation (aoe damage) so they should be parsing the same. And the force speed change is just a half baked idea that makes no sense, imagine needing to roll as a sniper just before hitting entrench to activate the set entrenched offense bonus or have to rocket out as a merc to get the power surge buff on their 6 piece set.

Inquisitors do not need a nerf to their class set, if anything madness needs a buff. This is gonna wreck it even more. And not addressing sin burst issues what is going on? Also, looking at GS set and adjusting it down without looking at Established Foothold is a bad idea.

In PvE you can do any content as a dps sage in either spec and they hold up very well (about mid of the pack) against all specs in terms of dps output. Telekinetics is somewhat preferred though because of their longer attack range which makes them more versatile in terms of positioning, IF gunslingers (snipers are ok as is) get fixed TK would probably be the best current rdps actually. In PvP you will get burned on either spec if you go leroy and face tank enemies so keep your distance and use corners to los. But that goes for any ranged spec or class at the moment really sage is not weaker than them - you play stupid go first into an encounter and you die on any of the NONE-STEALTH classes. TK defensives are adequate even for competitive ranked yolos while for balance they are somewhat subpar so group organization is more critical if you are running balance. Above is true if you read up on how to gear your toon in best in slot and learn the rotations and abilities.