As A Sorcerer, Every One Is OP

[GRINnBARRETT]

Remember when the game was so cool at the beginning. Regardless of class, the only thing you had to worry about was a geared Op opening up on you. Some people whined about sorcs but they wouldn't drop you nearly as fast.

Then came the attempts at balance incrementally. Then came a whole pile of changes with 1.2 that will probably forever keep this game unbalanced with respect to classes.

[hamerdin]

Im pretty sure you can win any of the 4 maps without actually killing a single person. So what if you die in 2 seconds, did you pass the ball? did you CC someone to allow a bomb planting/defuse? did you cap a turret?

 

TOR pvp is all about objectives, not dealing 8 bazillion damage or healing for Umpteen-thousands. You cap objectives, hold objectives, throw objectives.

 

Complaining is not yet an objective, but look forward to 1.5.. I hear its in the pipeline.

 

this is the most informative thread ive seen....EVER....I LIKE THIS GUY.

[Valerii]

You forgot the part where Sidious (Sorc) wipes the floor with 3 JK's before going toe to toe with Mace. He killed them in less than 2 GCDs!!! So your perspective is off a bit.

 

They were fresh 50's in greens.

[Sundragon]

I think you guys probably just suck.

 

Every single warzone I'm usually the #1 DPS, #1 in kills and I die probably around 5-8 times a game.

 

My typical (average) DPS for the various WZs are as follows as pure DPS sorc:

for Huttball (holding middle): around 500,000

for Voidstar (stalemate): around 625,000

for Civil War: around 300,000

for Novar Coast: around 350,000

 

Furthermore, I usually put out about 45,000-65,000 in heals in each match.

 

The only class that gives me trouble 1v1 is a marauder given their high single-target damage and ability to close the distance quickly and the ability to ignore most damage for a decent amount of time. Assassins are also a bit of a pain, but the key is watching for their resist ability and stunning them afterwards to unload on them.

 

I don't know what you guys are complaining about as a sorc. We're the game-changers in dps in a game if played right. Sometimes the other team will ignore our healers and just concentrate on me, but that frees up a lot of other players to get objectives. Having 5 enemy players chase you so that your team can cap the door/turret/score is hilarious.

[JDotter]

Disagree with OP, I love playing my sorc. Granted I wish I could kill things easier before they run to a healer its case and point.

 

1) Our Aoe's are outrageous, I can hide in a corner on derpstar, and any other WZ and just watch the objective to light up and press a button, re hide until a group gets mad and runs at me.

 

2) Do you expect us not to die in 4-6 seconds to a quality player if we stand still? You can't expect someone who can heal/run away, have great mobility to stop a objective cap to have a ton of armor/not die quickly.

 

If you're playing a sorc/sage and running in like rambo or by a crowd in general stop, corners are your friends and the majority of people will leave you alone until 1) your team dies, 2) you're stopping a objective cap and they get annoyed.

 

 

The only true thing that annoys me as a sorc is that our get away abilities fill up resolve bars, and when a premade calls me out and 3 people come flying at me.

[kenbenobi]

Sorcerers/Sages are utility/support classes now. You can kill bads on your own (depending on the class), but your role is to find friends and hide behind them. Once safe, you should be slowing melee or peeling for your healer with your stun. Just don't use any lighting abilities unless you absolutely have to. You don't want to draw any attention to your hiding spot.

 

If you are the healer, pray for a tank and some intelligent DPS, otherwise you should stand just outside the spawn area and buff your respawning allies. Maybe throw some bubbles out there.

 

Support medics who die first. Yea thats sorcerers/sages. Yes we can slow melee and thats it and try to hide without hiding skill In healing speck we must pray to survive...yes sounds fun. And bubble the classes who have real bubbles so they would live even longer...

[Dajag]

Try playing a 31 tank spec and getting your face melted off by sorcs because you can not mitigate any of their damage. If Sorcs are under powered now Tanks are Under Under Under Powered. No DPS, No Mitagation, Not enough health to make up for it. I need a healer you better find a tank.

[Cempa]

Try playing a 31 tank spec and getting your face melted off by sorcs because you can not mitigate any of their damage. If Sorcs are under powered now Tanks are Under Under Under Powered. No DPS, No Mitagation, Not enough health to make up for it. I need a healer you better find a tank.

 

You realize MOST of a Sorcerer's damage is mitigated by armor, don't you?

 

Reading some of the replies here it seems people all assume every CD is up for a Sorcerer all the time, if one of our CD's is not up an Assassin will wipe our HP within Force Shroud...As in immune to all our control mechanics.

 

Toons I play:

 

BM Assassin

WH Sorcerer

Juggernaut

Powertech Pyro

 

On every toon listed above the fastest kill for me would be Sages/Sorcerers. Stop imagining duels or random PuG play in which a Sorcerer pulls 1 melee away and proceeds to kite him to death! I don't do scrub play!

 

PuG play I do 500k, 500 DPS and +17 Medals while tanking Marauders, Poweretchs and Snipers....You can't do that against half decent players.

 

Its not just on my Assassin or Powertech its even as a Sorcerer far too easy to kill Sage/Sorcerer, I feel like a Sadist! Honestly its pleasurable because its just not fair how easily I rip a Sorcerer apart ESPECIALLY as a Pyro Powertech.

 

Look, Pyro are DPS and they die like every DPS and I am not talking about other classes -other than Sorcerer- but the balance system is off. Sorcerer Survivability Vs Mobility Vs Control Vs Burst needs tweaking.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Cempa

[Ewgal]

Bioware killed the most popular spec at 1.2 and made us more squishy. sage/sorc could really do with a little more back as a lot have simply quit the class and play assassin or jugganaught as easy two button rotation melee classes. The Sage/sorc is now indeed a rarer bird in PvP and takes a lot of skill to work out in war zones. Bioware wiped out the less skilled sages/sorc...but does that really help anyone.

 

What Sorc/sage need now from Bioware is a little love. Why not boost our top tier talents a bit and give us something back.

[Cempa]

Bioware killed the most popular spec at 1.2 and made us more squishy. sage/sorc could really do with a little more back as a lot have simply quit the class and play assassin or jugganaught as easy two button rotation melee classes. The Sage/sorc is now indeed a rarer bird in PvP and takes a lot of skill to work out in war zones. Bioware wiped out the less skilled sages/sorc...but does that really help anyone.

 

What Sorc/sage need now from Bioware is a little love. Why not boost our top tier talents a bit and give us something back.

 

As a 82 Valor Sorcerer all I ask for right now is that Electric Binding be accessible to 31 Madness -Effusion also.

 

What that means is the 31 Madness skill needs to be reworked as you can't have a 5 sec AE root and a 2 sec root that is OP, so I hope for a 31 Madness TRUE DoT that actually hurts like hell.

 

OR a 31 Madness ability that spreads my DoTs!

Edited May 15, 2012 by Cempa

[SinnedWill]

Only ops/scounds (in pairs), shadows/assassins (1 does the job), and some powertechs/vanguards are the bane of madness sorcerers. Ops/Scoundrel healers are the hardest (healers) for us to kill. Everything else is managable with proper tactics. Yes, we benefit least from expertise due to our abilities lacking high base damage (against fully WH geared players), affliction deals 200-400 per tick, creeping terror deals 140-180 per tick, and crushing darkness deals 450-700 per tick (the higher numbers can even be crits if it's a class with significant internal/elemental resists or DoT damage reduction via talents). In all honesty, affliction is a waste of force for a madness sorc (unless you're about to drop). Creeping terror is great but not for its damage. Death field (power relic buff + expertise adrenal + recklessness) damage values are steadily decreasing (used to deal ~4400 per target that lacked AoE damage reduction via talents, now it does 2200-3600 - hell, I've been seeing many of my empowered crits on it not even break 2k for certain classes/specs) - again, this is due to the mediocre damage value death field has so expertise isn't helping it nearly as much as other abilities.

 

We have two abilities that benefit moderately from expertise: Shock and (can't believe I'm going to say this) Force Lightning. Crushing Darkness doesn't seem to be doing much (even with wrath procs) - I tend to hit a target with a wrath procced crushing darkness for 1800 initial damage (should be more) whereas I hit the same target with shock for 2200 + 1100 (chain-shock). Something certainly seems to be bugged with wrath-procced crushing darkness's Initial Damage values (haven't checked its DoT values much since they fixed it to get bonuses from wrath procs).

 

Madness sorc. can dish out good (not great) Single Target DPS and potentially decent sustained dps, but its primary role is AoE and multiple targets (unfortunately, Death Field and DoT's are getting weaker as people gear up accordingly, and Force Storm is worthless except for being used as a door guard after bomb plants in void star - or in between door detonations on clustered enemies to slow them - it's damage is moot - 200-600 per person, per tick last time I found myself using it and I actually had relic + adrenal up - also costs a lot of force) and our force maintenance is awful. We can dish out dps for ~ 20 seconds of using our big damage abilities, then we have to use force lightning for 3-4 full channels before we can use another ability (here's where powertechs get to complain about being able to use an ability while our utility recovers, but powertech's rapid shots actually deals equivalent if not more damage to our force lightning depending on their procs as based on their spec - and can have similar effect, if pyro spec -50% slow-).

[Gannon]

This is a difficult one. Valor level 79 on my sorcerer and I can definitely understand our classes weaknesses. However, most of the time I still dominate and unlike pre 1.2 I have to work for it.

 

For example in 3 warzones (Hb, VS,CW) last night I did about a total of a million dmg 100 Kills and one death. I kited my *** off and ran like a ***** when required. I was top dmg, Kills and Objective points each time. I wasnt left alone but I wasn't trained like I normally am.

 

When im trained on by two powertechs ( a few sick ones on our server) or marauders I usually die fast. Even One powertech I die relatively fast. We aren't a 1v1 class anymore and when these big hitters are around I struggle. Im easily identifiable with FL coming out of my hands and knowing I can do sick dmg unchecked im either running or dead. This isnt a fun playstyle at all (I then jump on my 45 marauder destroy face rarely having to run and am calm again:P) as escape at times is nigh impossible.

 

Now is the issue Sorcerers are too weak or is it certain melee classes have too much of an upperhand on them at times. I certainly dont feel weak and with a good tank and healer with me Il survive the marauder trains most likely. I dont think il survie two pyro powertechs even guarded and healed. They just appear too strong at the moment. As an addendum Im curious to see that of the FOTm marauders at 50 very few are actually any good while the Pyros PTs still seem to do great dmg even when crap and the good ones are gods.

 

So in conclusion I think certain classes need to be brought back a notch to give Sorcerers a more even chance. I dont think Sorcerers need direct buffs although a viable turret playstyle for the Lightning tree would be appreciated much as was done for carnage and rage for marauders. Id like to see how ranked pans out in full WH gear before anything definitive although i predict we will be high up on focus target lists as I doubt we would last long focused (likely die in a stun pull).

[SinnedWill]

As a 82 Valor Sorcerer all I ask for right now is that Electric Binding be accessible to 31 Madness -Effusion also.

 

What that means is the 31 Madness skill needs to be reworked as you can't have a 5 sec AE root and a 2 sec root that is OP, so I hope for a 31 Madness TRUE DoT that actually hurts like hell.

 

OR a 31 Madness ability that spreads my DoTs!

 

It's very rare to find pure DPS sorcerer/sages remaining (I'm 3/7/31). Many sages/sorcs have either gone pure heals or hybrid heals/dps (almost all of them have knockback root and melee-ranged stun on bubble break, which is annoyingly beneficial to heal-spec survival and I must say all healers are effective -despite all the QQ- if their teammates have companion passive buffs - namely the healing received increase). Also, what would be OP'd about a 5s AoE root and a 2s targeted root when snipers have a 5s AoE root + 5s targeted root? Particularly when you factor in that we tend to be DoT dependant (thus, we're more likely to root-break via damage early on).

[Underpowered]

The TL;DR of the whole situation is: Hybrid and Madness/Balance DPS Sorcs/Sages are absolutely 100% fine as they are. Should not receive any significant tweaks.

 

It's Marauders and Pyro Powertechs that need to be brought back down in line with the rest of the classes. Plain and simple. How they should be brought back in line is up for debate though (I propose nerfing the absurd Marauder cooldowns and making the Combustible Gas Cylinder dot dispellable by Sorcs/Sages.)

 

I also think the full Lightning/TK tree for Sorcs/Sages should be buffed, but I feel that if Bioware does buff it, the Marauders and Powertechs will use that as a fake excuse to keep their class OP. Therefore that tree should stay lame for the greater good of PvP balance.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Underpowered

[Itukaaj]

I want bigger hits more burst. Stupid to kite and play hard and always to die with enemy at 3% and I am just kicking rocks cause I am out of cooldowns. Our dots should tick higher and through cc and we should have one reliable 4k (+) crit attack.

[SinnedWill]

This is a difficult one. Valor level 79 on my sorcerer and I can definitely understand our classes weaknesses. However, most of the time I still dominate and unlike pre 1.2 I have to work for it.

 

For example in 3 warzones (Hb, VS,CW) last night I did about a total of a million dmg 100 Kills and one death. I kited my *** off and ran like a ***** when required. I was top dmg, Kills and Objective points each time. I wasnt left alone but I wasn't trained like I normally am.

 

When im trained on by two powertechs ( a few sick ones on our server) or marauders I usually die fast. Even One powertech I die relatively fast. We aren't a 1v1 class anymore and when these big hitters are around I struggle. Im easily identifiable with FL coming out of my hands and knowing I can do sick dmg unchecked im either running or dead. This isnt a fun playstyle at all (I then jump on my 45 marauder destroy face rarely having to run and am calm again:P) as escape at times is nigh impossible.

 

Now is the issue Sorcerers are too weak or is it certain melee classes have too much of an upperhand on them at times. I certainly dont feel weak and with a good tank and healer with me Il survive the marauder trains most likely. I dont think il survie two pyro powertechs even guarded and healed. They just appear too strong at the moment. As an addendum Im curious to see that of the FOTm marauders at 50 very few are actually any good while the Pyros PTs still seem to do great dmg even when crap and the good ones are gods.

 

So in conclusion I think certain classes need to be brought back a notch to give Sorcerers a more even chance. I dont think Sorcerers need direct buffs although a viable turret playstyle for the Lightning tree would be appreciated much as was done for carnage and rage for marauders. Id like to see how ranked pans out in full WH gear before anything definitive although i predict we will be high up on focus target lists as I doubt we would last long focused (likely die in a stun pull).

 

Issue is expertise applying to abilities that have high base damage values - sorcerer doesn't really have any (shock being the only significant increase - although crushing darkness should benefit more yet my shock is doing more initial damage). Problem is some classes have multiple abilities that have high (at least significantly higher) base damage values than sorc/sage and therfore they have multiple abilities that gain more significant bonuses from expertise (sniper/gunslinger, assassin/shadow, powertech/vanguard, maras/sents -annihilation/rage specs have more than carnage-, etc.). The biggest issue comes from the increase to expertise value caps for damage modifiers (sorc. has no abilities with significant base damage, so doesn't benefit as much) - the reduction in damage mitigation from expertise is at least permitting us to deal SOME damage with our abilities, but the dipsarity between being a class that has high base damage abilities and doesn't is growing.

[V-Serp]

It's very rare to find pure DPS sorcerer/sages remaining (I'm 3/7/31). Many sages/sorcs have either gone pure heals or hybrid heals/dps (almost all of them have knockback root and melee-ranged stun on bubble break, which is annoyingly beneficial to heal-spec survival and I must say all healers are effective -despite all the QQ- if their teammates have companion passive buffs - namely the healing received increase). Also, what would be OP'd about a 5s AoE root and a 2s targeted root when snipers have a 5s AoE root + 5s targeted root? Particularly when you factor in that we tend to be DoT dependant (thus, we're more likely to root-break via damage early on).

 

I've tried every Sage spec I could think of, and for DPS I settled on the full Balance build you use as well. It's really the only viable one, but as you point out it does lack synergy because of DOTs breaking our CC. This also however has the added issue of causing problems for team play, where we are unintentionally either breaking CCs and ruining caps or we just aren't contributing because we can't really do anything else.

 

It also scales very badly with and against high end gear and high end PVP, as it lacks burst and most of the damage can be cleansed. I believe that's why you don't see many DPS Sage/Sorc in high level PVP now.

 

Healing wise Sage/Sorc isn't the best but is still viable, especially on a good team. But, personally, I find PVP healing very boring. Ironically I strongly prefer PVE Tank or Healing over DPSing, and in PVP it goes the opposite where I more enjoy DPS.

 

I have 3 other classes I play with, Assault based Vanguard is a much better DOT based ranged spec than Sorc/Sage right now. But I actually no longer play that spec because I find the tank spec is actually stronger. My Marauder blasts out more damage and has better survivability by far, and surprisingly feels harder to contain even in huttball, which is the only WZ I enjoy being a Sage in. I use my Marauder defensive cooldowns extremely offensively, and I've really only noticed a handful of other Marauders that play a similar playstyle that I do. My last class is an Operative but at a low level so I guess I don't really have a comment on that, but the playstyle seems more fun and I don't think I'd have any trouble with it at high level.

 

With Sage/Sorc right now it's basically taking advantage of weak players and bad gear. But more than that, it's just a really boring DPS style. There really isn't anything too useful in it, and it's actually, despite people's claims, less skillfull than the previous hybrid builds pre-1.2. The rotations don't actually seem to change at all and there are very few options on what you can do. People mistake the Marauders having different viable options as being more difficult or more skilled to use, but having those options actually makes playing the game more fun and makes you more effective than not having them.

[SinnedWill]

The TL;DR of the whole situation is: Hybrid and Madness/Balance DPS Sorcs/Sages are absolutely 100% fine as they are. Should not receive any significant tweaks.

 

It's Marauders and Pyro Powertechs that need to be brought back down in line with the rest of the classes. Plain and simple. How they should be brought back in line is up for debate though (I propose nerfing the absurd Marauder cooldowns and making the Combustible Gas Cylinder dot dispellable by Sorcs/Sages.)

 

I also think the full Lightning/TK tree for Sorcs/Sages should be buffed, but I feel that if Bioware does buff it, the Marauders and Powertechs will use that as a fake excuse to keep their class OP. Therefore that tree should stay lame for the greater good of PvP balance.

 

Madness DPS falls off with gear. Get to full WH gear (remodded) and face opponents that are just as geared. DoT damage is bad. And we lose ~ 1000 damage to targets with death field (when we relic/adrenal) compared to when everyone was BM geared. Base damage of abilities is what is currently determining the efficiency of ability usage (i.e. I've stopped using affliction quite a bit now - just not worth the force cost).

[VoidJustice]

empire side on kinrath spider server. with the faction imbalance every imperal is a gear god.

 

not that it makes them better, it just makes them think they are better.

 

Wha... Kinrath is basically and totally balanced pub vs imp...

 

Make sure you check for noobz in pve gear... and if you see any

try to nicely ask them to buy some recruit gear.

 

We do have a few players that have not gotten the memo... once you get

one or two of those in your Wz it's game over... otherwise we get some really good games

going in prime time.

Edited May 15, 2012 by VoidJustice

[Cindarstorm]

I am sorry, but the whining in this game is ridiculous. Of course RDPS die to MDPS at close range. If they did not, NO ONE would EVER play a MDPS. Terribly hard to understand, I know.

[SinnedWill]

I've tried every Sage spec I could think of, and for DPS I settled on the full Balance build you use as well. It's really the only viable one, but as you point out it does lack synergy because of DOTs breaking our CC. This also however has the added issue of causing problems for team play, where we are unintentionally either breaking CCs and ruining caps or we just aren't contributing because we can't really do anything else.

It also scales very badly with and against high end gear and high end PVP, as it lacks burst and most of the damage can be cleansed. I believe that's why you don't see many DPS Sage/Sorc in high level PVP now.

Healing wise Sage/Sorc isn't the best but is still viable, especially on a good team. But, personally, I find PVP healing very boring. Ironically I strongly prefer PVE Tank or Healing over DPSing, and in PVP it goes the opposite where I more enjoy DPS.

I have 3 other classes I play with, Assault based Vanguard is a much better DOT based ranged spec than Sorc/Sage right now. But I actually no longer play that spec because I find the tank spec is actually stronger. My Marauder blasts out more damage and has better survivability by far, and surprisingly feels harder to contain even in huttball, which is the only WZ I enjoy being a Sage in. I use my Marauder defensive cooldowns extremely offensively, and I've really only noticed a handful of other Marauders that play a similar playstyle that I do. My last class is an Operative but at a low level so I guess I don't really have a comment on that, but the playstyle seems more fun and I don't think I'd have any trouble with it at high level.

.

 

Biggest problem with madness/balance sorc/sages:

Many less experienced players of this template use instant-cast version of mez (which is the worst thing, ever) - if you put 2 points to make it insta-cast, you're usually the one to blame for needless hutt-ball goals or turning pt's/vg's/maras/sents/shads/sins into much more difficult encounters since this fills resolve to max if they take damage (love it when a sorc/sage does this to me - I get mezzed, then 2s stun, then I'm immune and took very little damage - 2s stun for full resolve isn't worth it). If you want a quicker mez cast, put 1 point in this, only. Personally, I have 0 points in it and I do fine with the normal casting time.

 

Problems for ALL DPS sorc/sage:

Yes, we scale terribly due to lack of any high (base) damage abilities. We (madness spec) could really use a buff to our DoT's (either increase their total duration but keep damage values or increase damage values), shock damage (assassin innate shock damage -without any bonuses from talents/procs- should be what we do considering its force cost), and crushing darkness (initial damage). Lightning specs should get something to make affliction immune to being cleansed, and some damage increase to its talented abilities (then again, I haven't tried it in a while - maybe I'll check how well chain lightning's damage is scaling with expertise - although I lack alacrity now).

[VoidJustice]

I am sorry, but the whining in this game is ridiculous. Of course RDPS die to MDPS at close range. If they did not, NO ONE would EVER play a MDPS. Terribly hard to understand, I know.

 

Eh... pvp forums are always full of the weaping and gnashing of teeth. Not that it isn't ridiculous, just that it is all too common.

[MrSIlverSurfing]

You think the sorcerer is bad. Play a merc. I have both and all though sorcerer isn't the top its better than the doo doo Mercs. Edited May 15, 2012 by MrSIlverSurfing

[SinnedWill]

I am sorry, but the whining in this game is ridiculous. Of course RDPS die to MDPS at close range. If they did not, NO ONE would EVER play a MDPS. Terribly hard to understand, I know.

 

I have no issue with maras/sents, contrary to popular belief - not on any class I play (Madness Sorc, Carnage Mara, Tankassin, MM Sniper, and Pyro P-tech).

 

I think the issue here is ability damage (namely base value) disparity, which isn't mutually exclusive to melee classes (try a sniper/gunslinger or powertech/VG with full WH gear to show what ranged damage can do). Every class with significant high base damage abilities (might only need a few so long as they can be reactivated without terrible cooldowns or has methods to reset the cooldown) are benefitting most from expertise (add x% of a higher base value, you get a greater benefit, no?). Sorc/Sage lack any abilities with significant base damage, thus they lose significant efficiency at end-game by comparison (200-400 DoT ticks, 1800-3500 relic/adrenal'd most significant burst crit ability).

[EugeneYap]

Sorc are very strong but only in the "Right Hands":jawa_evil:

But they are not OP even if they seem OP.

Edited May 15, 2012 by EugeneYap