The hard truth for DPS Sages

[SoonerJBD]

Not necessarily disputing your point, but I would like to point out if i go to the scoundrel forums (Their DPS only really got a movement buff), or if i go to the merc forums, or I go to the sage forums, or i go to advanced prototype threads in the PT forums (however few there are), or i go to the Vengeance/Rage comparison threads in the juggernaut forums (post 1.4), every one of them has complaints with their DPS, and every one of them has numbers to "prove" it. They all compare themselves with the snipers and the sentinels, and every single one finds themselves to be underpowered, or gimped, or broken. Sages are not the only ones pulling "sub-par" DPS, maybe its not that every other AC is sub-par, but Snipers/Sentinels are too far ahead?

 

My complaint is not that we are that far below EVERY other DPS class. It's that we are far below the top specs. So yes, a nerf to the top specs would solve this just as easily as a buff to the lower-performing specs. I want us to be within 5 percent of all other DPS specs. Whether that is accomplished through a damage buff to Sages or a nerf to the classes that are 10 percent or more ahead of us does not matter to me.

[totherkins]

/sigh sages have perfectly fine dps in pvp you can do 800+ dps. If they buff sages it needs to have more burst potential the amount of burst damage rage/focus juggs can now do is OP in my mind juggs and snipers need a nerf sages are fine cause they kickass at killing tanks but I'm a pvper in a pve thread >>

[SoonerJBD]

Yeah, this thread has nothing to to with PvP. Strictly PvE.

[Elyx]

First off, to the OP: I agree.

 

Given their stated goal (5%) I can see why people are bringing the information up. so I agree....having input from Bio would be amazing, because they are saying one thing....and all the information players can glean from the game is saying another. SO.... i can understand the trust gap.

 

Now on the other point that always seems to grow from these conversations. that is... people who are being obstinate and saying that they don't bring along sages as DPS because theoretically they aren't top DPS. I simply do not understand that paradigm in this game (Note I said this game...not in general.)

 

It doesn't make sense. when a sage can do enough DPS ( and even those who are obstinate are saying they can....) for every encounter in this game, then why would you even bother having to think about it?

 

Picture this. I have 2 juggernauts (which I do). one is 35, the other 50. Now, when they both do normal Black Talon (lvl 11-12 instance roughly), my lvl 35 kills most of everything in one blow. My 50 kills....most of everything in one blow (the actual run times are pretty close). So obviously....like the sage...it really doesn't matter which one I use, they both have met the damage threshold. so do I care which one I take? nope..as of now I'm taking my 35, cause he needs the social points.

 

So...in real play....WHY DO YOU CARE? if sage's can meet the threshold, if they can add their part just as much as a sniper can, why do you care? you shouldn't...because at that point you are being obstinate purely for the purpose of being....obstinate. You need to get a grip, and bring the people you enjoy playing with, not some goofball because he rolled a class that looks better in a mock up.

 

now...if there is a team that is struggling, and DPS is the one issue that is standing out, and you could see in a damage parse that the sage WAS doing less damage then the sniper...okay, I could see that. but to drop them because of a isolated simcraft? lol that's pretty epically egotistical. But then again, it's easy to believe that you are perfect like the simcraft, and that you can make judgements on other people because of your perceived amazingness.

 

So to the OP's message I salute you. Bio needs to show us why they believe we are all happily hugging each other in this mystical 5% circle that they say exists. to those who think that kicking a sage in a group that is clearing content just fine because...oh well the simcraft told me to...well I guess I'm glad I'm not in your guild. get a grip.

 

Like the example above of a sage who was ONLY 50 DPS above the Sentinel with whatever gear. Honestly dude....if i were the raid leader in THAT raid, and I had to make a choice (he obviously didn't...since you both were in it....you both hit things, and you both were in it at the end)...I would choose...you. Do you know why? because no matter what a simcraft says...you did 50 DPS more then him. no matter what people whine about in the forums and whatever numbers they throw out...you contributed more to my Op.

 

THATS what I look for in a group...people that can produce, and meet the goal. if you can, great. I don't care if your blue and purple and have feathers up your ***. if you cant make the grade....then well talk. but your example actually proves the idea that you bring the player, not the class, more then it proves your point that sages are somehow broke.

 

again...I still agree with the OP's post. we need to have classes around that 5% magical mark that Bio is trying to sell us like a slick salesman. But as of right now....this shouldn't' impact who you bring along in your raid....Unless the rest of your players suck. But at that point I wouldn't be blaming the sage.

[enoax]

 

Like the example above of a sage who was ONLY 50 DPS above the Sentinel with whatever gear. Honestly dude....if i were the raid leader in THAT raid, and I had to make a choice (he obviously didn't...since you both were in it....you both hit things, and you both were in it at the end)...I would choose...you. Do you know why? because no matter what a simcraft says...you did 50 DPS more then him. no matter what people whine about in the forums and whatever numbers they throw out...you contributed more to my Op.

 

>.> You could argue that the sentinel should still come since he provides a temp group wide damage buff, group run speed and shorter cool down interupts. 50 dps difference is neglible considering the utility a sent brings to a raid.

[SoonerJBD]

I think the extra bells and whistles, like transcendence for Sentinels or the group shield for gunslingers or the CC and occasional off-heal we offer should give people a reason to bring a diverse group. But that only really works if the difference between DPS is minor.

 

I've been running Mox in raid groups, and I generally am near the top of DPS output. That's partly because I out-gear the other DPS in these raids by a little bit and partly because I know most the instances and take advantage of multi-dotting and Force in Balance to hit multiple targets in boss fights like Toth and Zorn and Firebrand and Stormcaller or nightmare Jarg and Sorno. But I don't do as well with other (pre 1.4) BiS-geared groups. I'm limited by my spec, and that just isn't right. It's not an issue in Denova, but when you have a group learning a new HM op like Terror From Beyond, every bit of damage counts, and the 100+ DPS difference between what I can put out and what I could put out if my spec were optimized like a sniper's or sentinel's can be the difference between clearing the content or not.

[Tyrias]

...Now on the other point that always seems to grow from these conversations. that is... people who are being obstinate and saying that they don't bring along sages as DPS because theoretically they aren't top DPS. I simply do not understand that paradigm in this game (Note I said this game...not in general.)....

 

It's entirely possible that I'm not really understanding you, but if you understand a concept/paradigm "in general", you should surely then see how that concept can be applied to any similar situation?

 

Honestly, I feels it's pretty obvious as to why people choose not to take [insert inferior class here (in this context, Sage DPS)]. The only point at which class + role performance matters, as you noted, is when things are really tight, and where that little bit more DPS makes the difference.

 

Before they reach the tipping point, a group will take every advantage possible to breach that point, get the loot and get better. So they'll be disinclined to take inferior classes. You're at the fun "learning the fight" stage.

 

Once you hit the tipping point, you're at the fun "Just winning the fight" stage. Here you might substitute an inferior class in if you think you can manage it, because it's still fun and not always a dead certainty.

 

And then you reach the Farming stage. While there will be some more sociable guilds and groups that find repeating the same content fun in and of itself, I would be largely unsurprised to find a much bigger number of people who are doing the operation purely for the equipment drops, crafting materials and schematics as opposed to doing it because it's necessarily fun. When fun is no longer a motivating factor, people look to make the event as quick and easy as possible. Why do you think people kill traded in Ilum, Swapped wins in Ranked Warzones, massively abused the vendor bug to rack up quick credits, etc etc? I think I can safely say that it's because when what you are doing loses it's fun factor and become a grind, spending rewards is far more fun than earning them.

 

That is why so many people say they wouldn't take a notably inferior class. When you break down the reasons why people do operations, there is such a small window in the lifetime of an operation (or any repeatable group content really) in which is makes sense to be indifferent to function and output.

 

Sensibly, it follows that if you do not know the person in question and how well they utilise their class to know if they are above average/good/great at what they do, you will fall back to what you know of theoretical comparisons, because it is the most definitive basis you can judge on without spending time getting to know more. Because that obviously detracts from the whole original intent or farming-stage operation runs to just blow through content quickly and get rewards.

 

It's a sad state for MMO's to be in, but it's just how things are.

[Kyriosgundam]

You can certainly complete all the content as a DPS Sage. I just find it insulting that we are clearly not within the 5 percent promised and the devs apparently don't care. And we are further behind other specs.

 

I'm not much of a PvPer, but I think the gripe there is even more legitimate.

 

Its because of the PvPer's that they screwed everyone over. Dont get me wrong some of the changes were good ones however most of them should not have been done. Just redoing the overload/force wave knockback skill was the devs caving to the whiners. All because the PvPers didnt like an Inquisitor or Concular knocking them back when they attack from behind is just dumb. So now because of the class changes(which really hamper my Tank Assassin and Shadow Tank) forces me to play PvE content as if I was in a PvP fight.

[SoonerJBD]

Its because of the PvPer's that they screwed everyone over. Dont get me wrong some of the changes were good ones however most of them should not have been done. Just redoing the overload/force wave knockback skill was the devs caving to the whiners. All because the PvPers didnt like an Inquisitor or Concular knocking them back when they attack from behind is just dumb. So now because of the class changes(which really hamper my Tank Assassin and Shadow Tank) forces me to play PvE content as if I was in a PvP fight.

 

Agree completely. I find it particularly odd that they nerfed our stun and knockback because of PvP whining but did nothing to buff our burst damage, which is a legitimate complaint for DPS sages in PvP. And as you mention, these ridiculous nerfs that had nothing to do with PvE end up changing how we play in PvE.

 

I will say that the new self heal is excellent, both for healing and DPS specs. For healers, it obviously lets them noble sacrifice more often. For DPS, it just makes us a little more survivable. We don't have a defensive cooldown, so this serves as an alternative. They improved our survivability, but they still haven't improved our damage, which is the entire point of a DPS class.

 

One other thing I will note is that the mechanics for Terror from Beyond seem to be weighted towards RDPS on several of the boss encounters, particularly the first two bosses which require lots of movement and target switching. This negates some of the theoretical advantages of the melee classes, Sentinels and Marauders in particular. I ran the first half of TFB HM tonight and led DPS on both of the first two boss fights. Also whipped two sentinels on SM TFB the night before, although they did better on Kephess. I imagine gunslingers and snipers would parse best on TFB.

[AdmiralTran]

You can certainly complete all the content as a DPS Sage. I just find it insulting that we are clearly not within the 5 percent promised and the devs apparently don't care. And we are further behind other specs.

 

I'm not much of a PvPer, but I think the gripe there is even more legitimate.

 

I couldnt agree more. After hopping around telekenetics, balance, and hybrid specs in pvp, I've realized that the damage outputs are pretty weak compared to that of sentinels/marauders and gunslingers/snipers. At the end of a WZ, the a balance or hybrid sage's damage can be pretty high. Thats if you were able to cast the weak, slow dots on everyone. Force in balance and project crits are pretty weak as well. From a distance our dps is average to below average in my opinion, and I am in full war hero gear.

 

The sage has been my main since the very beginning of SWTOR. I think the damage is great in PVE, but still as mentioned before the dps is still behind other classes. Since the nerf in 1.2, we've been given a short force (wave) push, a self heal, and a shorter cd on force speed.... Thanks, but try again. This does not exactly help our survivability once a marauder, juggernaut, assassin gets within melee distance of us. I will admit its nice to be able to pop a quick self heal, cc, and sprint away, but its not at all helping us to be able to stand up to another dps class unless they are in recruit gear.

 

I understand we have an advantage to dps from a 30meter distance, but the real fight begins when a melee class either comes out of stealth behind us or a warrior leaps in at us. Then we are forced to have to create somewhat of a distance between us to land multiple casts or attacks. I've seen marauders and juggernauts land 5- 6.5k crits from force screams and smash against a full war hero geared sage lol!!

 

Why cant the sage do that kind of damage in melee range?? I think we should get a damage boost on abilities like force in balance and project at melee range, so we can at least be able to stand up to other dps classes that charge at us. We are a super squishy class and it would be nice to do some damage at melee range as well. Scoundrels can be great healers as well as extremely hard hitting and bursty in the scrapper tree.

 

Why cant the sage who is designed to also dps have strong hard hitting attacks?

[Gyronamics]

Not necessarily disputing your point, but I would like to point out if i go to the scoundrel forums (Their DPS only really got a movement buff), or if i go to the merc forums, or I go to the sage forums, or i go to advanced prototype threads in the PT forums (however few there are), or i go to the Vengeance/Rage comparison threads in the juggernaut forums (post 1.4), every one of them has complaints with their DPS, and every one of them has numbers to "prove" it. They all compare themselves with the snipers and the sentinels, and every single one finds themselves to be underpowered, or gimped, or broken. Sages are not the only ones pulling "sub-par" DPS, maybe its not that every other AC is sub-par, but Snipers/Sentinels are too far ahead?

 

Actually anyone in the merc/mando forums saying they can't get the numbers is more likely to be told to gear up and skill up.

 

2kdps looks perfectly possible in the L63 gear and of course they are the best anti-pack class in the game. They are a great PVE class.

 

On the other hand you will drown in the complaints about their pvp capability.

[MidichIorian]

I pug so I always play with new players, highly geared players since I'm focusing on EC and TfB, and I'm still pulling aggro on an operational basis. If there's a tank swap involved and they don't get the boss fast enough I can almost guarantee that I will have him over me. It also happens mid fight quite frequently. Same thing applies to the few times I make an exception for EV NiM, I'm almost always way ahead of everyone els on the council. I would say that it's weird because I'm not parsing that high on the dummies IF it hadnt been for the fact that I'm pretty convinced that the dummies arent working properly. For instance, I never see some of my dots and the damage that is showing up is sometimes not "recorded". Had one ten minute parse where not a single +5K FiB was parsed despite that I counted several. This is one of the main reasons to why I would like to transfer back to a EU server. I feel like the latncy and packet losses are too high when I play on the other side of the pond. Edited October 18, 2012 by MidichIorian

[Ssfbistimg]

With the 1.4 changes as announced, it is now clear that the developers do not want Sages to do the same level of damage as Sentinels and Gunslingers. I can only surmise that the fact that we have a heal button, in their minds, means we must sacrifice some DPS. They have previously stated the DPS classes would all be within 5 percent of each other. We know from SimC and our own parses that we are more like 15 or 20 percent behind the better DPS classes in PvE. The balance spec is way behind even the Shadow balance spec. So what do we get in 1.4? A free self-heal. It will be nice to have from a survivability standpoint, but it does nothing to close the gap in pure DPS that exists between Sages and other DPS classes. It's now clear that this is "working as intended." I suppose our value in PvE content is that we can provide serviceable DPS while taking pressure off healers by using our bubble and self-healing on occasion.

 

why should we. we arent a pure dps class like sentinels/gunslingers.

[MidichIorian]

why should we. we arent a pure dps class like sentinels/gunslingers.

I can't believe that you just posted that. If I spec tele or balance I'm doing that because I want to dps. Yes, I still have some really slow healing abilities at my disposal but the classes you mentioned have abilties that either mitigate or make it harder for enemies to damage them in the first place, they're just different approaches toward the same goal; keeping the HP up.

 

And if we can't be "pure DPS", then what are we? There's no need for offheals in operations as long as the real healers are doing their jobs so that would ultimately always make us the worst choice for a dps, on behalf of having an ability that no one asks for at the expense of less dps. Hence, I'll never accept "not being pure" dps as an excuse for not keeping us within the "dps spectrum".

[Sototh]

I can't believe that you just posted that. If I spec tele or balance I'm doing that because I want to dps. Yes, I still have some really slow healing abilities at my disposal but the classes you mentioned have abilties that either mitigate or make it harder for enemies to damage them in the first place, they're just different approaches toward the same goal; keeping the HP up.

 

And if we can't be "pure DPS", then what are we? There's no need for offheals in operations as long as the real healers are doing their jobs so that would ultimately always make us the worst choice for a dps, on behalf of having an ability that no one asks for at the expense of less dps. Hence, I'll never accept "not being pure" dps as an excuse for not keeping us within the "dps spectrum".

 

Yes, but then every class should be considered as full DPS, cause every class has a DPS tree.

[SoonerJBD]

Yes, but then every class should be considered as full DPS, cause every class has a DPS tree.

 

It has nothing to do with your class. It is a question of spec. All DPS specs should be within 5 percent of each other. This is Bioware's stated goal. If I spec DPS, I can't heal. It drains my force away and makes me ineffective at the job I'm spec'd for and the job for which I'm being brought along on raids. Plus, any time I spend healing is time I'm not DPSing, thus making me even more ineffective at DPSing. It will cause our group to wipe because of enrage on tougher instances like EC HM and TFB HM. All DPS specs are full DPS. Hybrid heal/dps builds don't work for crap in PvE.

[SoonerJBD]

I pug so I always play with new players, highly geared players since I'm focusing on EC and TfB, and I'm still pulling aggro on an operational basis. If there's a tank swap involved and they don't get the boss fast enough I can almost guarantee that I will have him over me. It also happens mid fight quite frequently. Same thing applies to the few times I make an exception for EV NiM, I'm almost always way ahead of everyone els on the council. I would say that it's weird because I'm not parsing that high on the dummies IF it hadnt been for the fact that I'm pretty convinced that the dummies arent working properly. For instance, I never see some of my dots and the damage that is showing up is sometimes not "recorded". Had one ten minute parse where not a single +5K FiB was parsed despite that I counted several. This is one of the main reasons to why I would like to transfer back to a EU server. I feel like the latncy and packet losses are too high when I play on the other side of the pond.

 

Lag and latency can be an issue when using the ops dummy, but it's an issue for all classes. I pull aggro in a lot of encounters too, but that has nothing to do with this topic. If you pop force potency and/or an adrenal and use your two best abilities, you are likely to pull aggro, especially early in fights and especially in fights where the tanks are switching. That is why you have an aggro dump. If your gear is even a little better than the other DPS, or if you know the encounter better, it will make up for the difference between specs. I lead DPS in plenty of raids, but not when there is a similarly geared and skilled sentinel or gunslinger in the group. Good example the other night in TFB SM. I was consistently doing 1400-1500 DPS. I'm in full optimized campaign/BH gear. The sentinel in our group had about a 75/25 mix of Rakata/BH, not optimized. And we were about even on DPS in every fight. If he had equal gear to me, he would be beating me by right about 10 percent. That is the difference in our specs. If you are leading similarly geared sentinels or gunslingers in operations, those players aren't very good.

 

One other issue I don't understand is this argument people use about utility. Sentinels have both defensive cooldowns and Inspiration, a group-wide buff which is valued much more than any off-healing I could ever do. So they get better DPS and a group-wide buff that can absolutely make the difference in boss encounters with a burn phase? It doesn't make any sense.

[eventidephoenix]

Lag and latency can be an issue when using the ops dummy, but it's an issue for all classes. I pull aggro in a lot of encounters too, but that has nothing to do with this topic. If you pop force potency and/or an adrenal and use your two best abilities, you are likely to pull aggro, especially early in fights and especially in fights where the tanks are switching. That is why you have an aggro dump. If your gear is even a little better than the other DPS, or if you know the encounter better, it will make up for the difference between specs. I lead DPS in plenty of raids, but not when there is a similarly geared and skilled sentinel or gunslinger in the group. Good example the other night in TFB SM. I was consistently doing 1400-1500 DPS. I'm in full optimized campaign/BH gear. The sentinel in our group had about a 75/25 mix of Rakata/BH, not optimized. And we were about even on DPS in every fight. If he had equal gear to me, he would be beating me by right about 10 percent. That is the difference in our specs. If you are leading similarly geared sentinels or gunslingers in operations, those players aren't very good.

 

One other issue I don't understand is this argument people use about utility. Sentinels have both defensive cooldowns and Inspiration, a group-wide buff which is valued much more than any off-healing I could ever do. So they get better DPS and a group-wide buff that can absolutely make the difference in boss encounters with a burn phase? It doesn't make any sense.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

In raids, a sentinel's utility is unrivalled, in fact some fights they are necessary and can make a very noticeable impact. For us, um. The "utility" we have is PvP utility.

[Karasuko]

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

In raids, a sentinel's utility is unrivalled, in fact some fights they are necessary and can make a very noticeable impact. For us, um. The "utility" we have is PvP utility.

 

right cause force pull has zero pve applications.

As does bubbling someone else.

Decent aoe must be a pvp perk only.

Multi dotting doesnt exist in pve either

 

really...... stop with the whining, sages/sorcs are not that terrible in a pve enviroment.You are comparing apples (sents ) to oranges (sages).

Yes they have better single target dps when allowed to slam a target non stop, but they HAVE to be in melee range to keep a constant flow of damage up while sages can do it at a distance.

 

Inb4 simcraft says...........

[Kuvox]

right cause force pull has zero pve applications.

As does bubbling someone else.

Decent aoe must be a pvp perk only.

Multi dotting doesnt exist in pve either

 

To your points...

 

1) Force pull is something I rarely use in PVE. I really have only ever used it when the whole team is learning a boss fight and I need to save someone. It's useful, but certainly not mandatory, on the 2nd boss in TFB and on Kephess in EC but not really anywhere else. No raid leader is going to bring in a DPS Sage because they have force pull. If they did then I would question that group's skill. If everyone in the raid knows what they are doing then force pull is not necessary.

 

2) Sorcs/Sages shouldn't have to bubble anyone. Good healers prevent raid members from having to heal themselves or others. Anyone who raids with excellent healers knows this to be true.

 

3) Yes Sorcs/Sages have nice AOEs but so do Gunslingers/Snipers (e.g., Freighter Flyby) and Commandos/Mercs (e.g., Mortar Volley) but their single-target DPS is higher than ours so why not take them instead?

 

4) Multi-dotting. Sage DPS suffers greatly without mind crush and weaken mind (and Sever Force) being on a target a great deal of the time, if not always. In other words multi-dotting is essential to what DPS we have; it is not an added perk.

 

Look...I will be the first to admit that our DPS is enough for current boss fights but we will always be second choice after a Sentinel or Gunslinger fails to show up for the raid.

[SoonerJBD]

right cause force pull has zero pve applications.

As does bubbling someone else.

Decent aoe must be a pvp perk only.

Multi dotting doesnt exist in pve either

 

really...... stop with the whining, sages/sorcs are not that terrible in a pve enviroment.You are comparing apples (sents ) to oranges (sages).

Yes they have better single target dps when allowed to slam a target non stop, but they HAVE to be in melee range to keep a constant flow of damage up while sages can do it at a distance.

 

Inb4 simcraft says...........

 

Force pull is OK, but usually more the domain of Sage healers. I occasionally use it when someone is taking the bomb to Kephess' battle walker. It isn't used that often and doesn't compare in any way to Inspiration. We get force armor and a self heal to make up for our light armor and lack of defensive cooldowns. It's not some huge advantage, because if you are throwing them around during a boss fight as a DPS Sage, you are going to force starve yourself, and you are gimping your DPS output even further. Plus, if healers are doing their job, you should never be bubbling anyone as a DPS Sage.

 

Most classes have decent AOE. Multi-dotting is an essential part of our DPS output and still puts us nowhere near similarly geared and skilled Sentinels or Gunslingers.

 

No one is whining here or saying that Sages are "terrible." The developers have said all DPS specs are intended to be within 5 percent of each other. This is clearly not the case right now. Asking why balance changes aren't being made to fix this disparity is a fair question and one the devs should answer.

[Elyx]

No one is whining here or saying that Sages are "terrible." The developers have said all DPS specs are intended to be within 5 percent of each other. This is clearly not the case right now. Asking why balance changes aren't being made to fix this disparity is a fair question and one the devs should answer.

 

I agree with this. Im not a big fan of the foundation of many of these "My class is worse then X classes", but when it comes to overall balance...Bio said everyone should be within 5% of each other. and the data is not even close to that. even if all the players were completely wrong (and the sims), bio could at least come here and say, "yeah, you have no clue, cause here's our data...and were right". but they don't. they just say that their design goal is 5%. but most of us know from real life as well as MMO's, that theories rarely connect with reality where the dirt meets the road.

 

I think the problem is lack of even a basic level of transparency. we don't even know if the dev's that manage the classes PLAY the classes. we don't know what metrics they use, how they test them, or...more importantly....how those results fare against the real world results of imperfect people in an imperfect world. (not a slight, we all are in that same boat. and not a bad one IMO).

 

I mean...if they could show me where they are getting this data, and how they are proving it in real world envorinments, i'd be happy.

[Gyronamics]

2) Sorcs/Sages shouldn't have to bubble anyone. Good healers prevent raid members from having to heal themselves or others. Anyone who raids with excellent healers knows this to be true.

 

Stuff happens and flexibility can save you from a wipe.

 

If you're about to lose a player due to health loss or even lose a player you could be stacking fotm raid dps and none of them can fix that.

 

On the other hand sage/commando are permanent heal/dps hybrids and have the option to cut the dps, heal the crap out of someone, even res and carry on.

 

Of course ideally you don't want a dps to be not doing dps but an excellent player does what they have to for the raid.

 

 

When it comes to sage vs commando in a raid, sprint and pull have tactical uses. Both can be used to good effect in EC Kephess as an example. Commandos can force an instant something every so often and have much heavier burst aoe damage.

 

A mix of classes is good.

 

Anyone imagining sage dps to be insufficient for HM TFB is just wrong, since that's the main point and all the extra stuff is just gravy, there's no real issue imo.

[SoonerJBD]

Anyone imagining sage dps to be insufficient for HM TFB is just wrong, since that's the main point and all the extra stuff is just gravy, there's no real issue imo.

 

This is not the issue. The issue is that all DPS specs are intended to perform within 5 percent of each other at equal gear and skill levels, per the developers' statements. That isn't happening, and we have had no input from the developers as to why or whether they have any intention of fixing it.

 

The question is not whether you can clear current content with a specific class. The issue is that it is HARDER to clear content with classes that are gimped by the maximum potential DPS output of their specs. And that isn't right. If you are progression raiding and running up against enrage timers on bosses in TFB HM or even EC HM, 5 percent DPS output can make all the difference.

[Striders]

Again I think everyone is getting hung up on this "5%" crap...

 

As others have stated, there are pure DPS classes and there are utility classes. Those little heal buttons on your quickbars mean you are a utility class. Everyone has the job they are meant to do and the pure DPS classes can only do one thing and they should be the best at it.

 

I honestly don't PVE a lot but I know in PVP (in a Void Star) I can pump out 400-600k DPS with 200k+ healing and I would much rather do that than be a gunslinger/sniper doing 500-700k DPS with zero healing. It gives the Sage sustainability and survivabitliy. We are the DPS class that when your healer goes down in an Op and the boss is at 10% we can start tossing heals around and save the kill ... if that happens to a gunslinger all they can do is say Oh S**T! and start trying to keep DPS and the group fails.

 

Look at all the positives and negatives of the class instead of putting blinders on and focusing on one number.