Balance/Madness Sage/Sorcerers in Arenas

[Aclepias]

Just wanting opinions but I've had no trouble w/ a 3/7/36 on my balance spec sage on my server POT5 In Ranked arenas.Any1 else got a cent or 2 to chip in

 

 

 

Hik

<Firestorm>

POT5 PVP Server

[Ren_simp]

I'm running tk and finding it to be awesome

Saved a few games dropping bubbles and heals on team mates

I'm thinking sage will be one of my fav classes for arenas.

[MidichIorian]

I like how we can just post stuff now without adding any additional details.

 

How high are your standards? For every good sorc/sage I come across in the game there are (obviously, since they say so) 50 in this forum. Odd isnt it? Yeah it's easy to say that everything is fine if you're satisfied with placing top ten in 8 vs 8 and winning "every now and then".

 

Are you running solo or on a team?

 

In the event that you are running with a team, who els do you have on your team? Any class/spec is viable if you are playing with the three best players on the server and they can put enough pressure on the other team to allow you to freecast from the back.

 

How has your matchups been? Do you feel like the games have been balanced in terms of skill? What's your w/l ratio?

Edited October 7, 2013 by MidichIorian

[OldSpiceSwag]

madness blows with the exception of QUADMADNESS

[Ren_simp]

I like how we can just post stuff now without adding any additional details.

 

How high are your standards? For every good sorc/sage I come across in the game there are 50 in this forum. Odd isnt it? Yeah it's easy to say that everything is fine if you're satisfied with placing top ten in 8 vs 8 and winning "every now and then".

 

Are you running solo or on a team?

 

In the event that you are running with a team, who els do you have on your team? Any class/spec is viable if you are playing with the three best players on the server and they can put enough pressure on the other team to allow you to freecast from the back.

 

How has your matchups been? Do you feel like the games have been balanced in terms of skill? What's your w/l ratio?

 

Im running solo queue mostly I'm under no illusion of my skill/abilities yes I get destroyed some games but most I can position my self vAppropriately not to be focused down in the first few mins of a match

 

As for comps and match ups

One of the best comp I've been in so far was double dps sage sentinel and a vanguard

I have won against comps that we shouldn't have, like 4 dps vs tank heal 2dps

Thanks to my ability to heal to full I have been the last many standing in several rounds

 

My win Los in solo is 12 loses 28 wins

 

Honestly I don't see what you problem is are you not happy that people are having fun in arenas on sages?

[Clanner]

I wouldnt even try Balance in solo ranked Arenas, as I would have no clue how to survive under pressure without stunbubble and root on KB.

 

From my current experience a decent hybrid high in the cast tree and low in the dot tree (30/16 in slightly different versions) performs nicely, because it is less easy to shut down and avoid, than the full-caster, while having all the nice usefull utility of that tree.

 

But which one works best is very much a matter of your teammates and the circumstances. A free casting full-tele Sage is for sure more dangerous.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Clanner

[MidichIorian]

Honestly I don't see what you problem is are you not happy that people are having fun in arenas on sages?

No I'm just trying to get a sense of from what position you deem madness, or sage/sorc, DPS to be good.

 

And to be honest, I'm not particulary happy about how sages/sorcs enjoy arenas because in 99 out 100 cases they'll be a liability. You simply don't go YAY when you see a sage/sorc on your team, give or take a maximum of three players per server. So far I've only come across one sage/sorc that was able to perform and it was in normals, where the lack of spec restrictions played in his favor. He got three warriors on his team and was able to freecast from the back. They still lost.

In ranked I've only come across a few and they've all been steamrolled.

 

So the conclusion, based on your w/l, is that you're either not being a good representative for class, by being significally better than the average player (remember that most players on the other classes are average too but we're not discussing their viability) or you've had some lucky games. If you for instance happened to be on at a time when the population was low and there were only **** players on the other faction you could have easily won ten games in a row for all I know.

Edited October 7, 2013 by MidichIorian

[Clanner]

It's a matter of being true to yourself... when I get focused properly in a game with either great players on enemy team or 3-4 DDs on each team, it is over after relatively short time, no matter what specc.

 

So such a win ratio (mine is 50/50) implies he either had great players on his team or bad players on enemy. Hell, I die unnecessarily so often, because the tank never cares to switch his guard from healer to me, no matter how much the healer gets ignored and the DPS Sage focused first. Or a simple total lack of communication even though you directly talk the people at the beginning. Or that the 3 stealthies being with you totally ignore the fact, that the enemy team can see you, the teams' weakest link, roaming freely 60 meters away from you in different directions. ^^

 

As a Sage you are so dependent on your team... you will either do great or horrible, with very few shades of grey inbetween. It's a gamble... and that doesnt really feel great. But I am going to stick to the class anyway. We got a lot of very usefull tools, but they only come in handy if our teammates watch over us properly. :-/

[Ren_simp]

Yes my win loss means it was pure luck and my team carried me and I've been facing bads this whole time

All because im a sage it's got nothing to do with my previous experience in pvp or other games arena style pvp

Or my ability to learn tactics and improve my game play just pure luck.. What a joke

Edited October 7, 2013 by Ren_simp

[DCVAN]

I've been playing my balance sage in solo arenas, and I don't find it to be bad at all. I'm around 30 wins and 15 losses. The dots can keep applying pressure on the target even while I'm being focused and have to line of sight or throw out some heals. When you do get some room to breathe, you can pop force potency and lay down some pretty good burst as well. The sever force root on a 12 second cd is amazing for blowing up those pesky operative healers that like to kite or pillar hug. And lets not forget about the balance talent that gives you 30% damage reduction while stunned, which is almost a must for dps sages because you will get focused every game.

 

Playing a dps sage was frustrating at first, but its been getting better with a few adjustments. I started using the force humility talent in the healer tree just for arena purposes. I've also been putting in some fortitude augments. Its no longer about being able to do as much damage as possible.

[Xeraz]

Just wanting opinions but I've had no trouble w/ a 3/7/36 on my balance spec sage on my server POT5 In Ranked arenas.Any1 else got a cent or 2 to chip in

 

Hik

<Firestorm>

POT5 PVP Server

 

My personal experience is pray for games with no healers and limited enemy stealthers.

 

I already Team Ranked as a healer so I will continue to solo ranked on a dps spec. Atm, I don't think Sorcs have any real viable dps spec in Solo Arena. I'm not sure which is better between Madness or Lightning though. Extra cc vs more Instants... hmm idk?

[MusicRider]

The sever force root on a 12 second cd

 

12s cd? Check again.

[LuciferinDNA]

I'm running tk and finding it to be awesome

Saved a few games dropping bubbles and heals on team mates

I'm thinking sage will be one of my fav classes for arenas.

 

I'm not sure, if you trolling here or not : ) The only thing what I can imagine, that you actually RP in PvP arenas : P

[Underpowered]

I've been running Balance Sage this past week in ranked arenas, 0% loss rate in team ranked, and here's what I can tell you: Balance/Madness sage sorcs are viable and potentially very useful in arenas, provided that the Sage/Sorc plays to the maximum. A mediocre DPS sorc is way worse than say a mediocre smash mara. But for those of you who think Balance/Madness sucks in arenas, consider the following:

 

1. Almost every competitive arena team runs an operative healer. Operative healers can't cleanse your dots off targets (unless they pop their evasion, but it is trivial to reapply dots). That means you will have strong DPS uptime.

2. 6k HP absorb bubbles on your allies throughout the entire fight. 6K is enough to turn some of the worst burst in this game into gentle damage. I can't even begin to explain how critical this is - in every fight I've been in, I've been top or near top in damage but also provided about 50% of my damage total in healing as well through bubbles. My total numbers output (damage+healing) out-totals any other player in a match. You're basically getting a second (albeit mediocre) healer for free with a DPS sage.

3. You can cleanse Warrior/Knight AoE mezzes, Inquisitor lifts, Force Crush/Exhaustion (ie Smash buff stacks!). Your operative healer cannot do that. This makes your team almost twice as resilient than not having a class that can cleanse force effects. Enemy smashers do only 50-75% of their normal smash damage if you're fast at cleansing.

4. Force Slow, Sever Force/Creeping Terror root, TKT/FL means that Operative healer isn't going anywhere. Great for curbing enemy melee effectiveness too.

5. 5-6k internal aoe damage with force potency is clutch.

6. Balance/Madness can kite 1 melee easily enough, and can limit a second melee if you're skilled enough.

7. Put a dot on the tank and their taunts will basically have zero effect on you.

 

Are we squishier than other classes and therefore more vulnerable? Yes, it is a disadvantage. I'm a high-profile target on my server, and I regularly get ganked first in matches. But if you have a good tank, a good healer, and good kiting skills, you can deal with that.

 

You can argue that Madness/Balance doesnt have the same consistent burst as any other DPS class in the game. Which is true and it is a scratch against us. But we have the best DPS uptime in the game, and in many cases arenas isn't really about who can burst who down first, but rather which team's healer wears out first. Madness is great at keeping up pressure on a healer. Which leads me to my conclusion:

 

If you're going to bring a Balance/Madness Sage/Sorc to arenas, expect your overall team strategy to revolve around durability and wearing down the enemy team. If you're building a burst-heavy comp then obviously Madness/Balance sucks ***.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Underpowered

[Laforet]

I've been running Balance Sage this past week in ranked arenas, 0% loss rate in team ranked, and here's what I can tell you: Balance/Madness sage sorcs are viable and potentially very useful in arenas, provided that the Sage/Sorc plays to the maximum. A mediocre DPS sorc is way worse than say a mediocre smash mara. But for those of you who think Balance/Madness sucks in arenas, consider the following:

 

1. Almost every competitive arena team runs an operative healer. Operative healers can't cleanse your dots off targets (unless they pop their stealth escape, but it is trivial to reapply dots). That means you will have strong DPS uptime.

2. 6k HP absorb bubbles on your allies throughout the entire fight. 6K is enough to turn some of the worst burst in this game into gentle damage. I can't even begin to explain how critical this is - in every fight I've been in, I've been top or near top in damage but also provided about 50% of my damage total in healing as well through bubbles. My total numbers output (damage+healing) out-totals any other player in a match. You're basically getting a second (albeit mediocre) healer for free with a DPS sage.

3. You can cleanse Warrior/Knight AoE mezzes, Inquisitor lifts, Force Crush/Exhaustion (ie Smash buff stacks!). Your operative healer cannot do that. This makes your team almost twice as resilient than not having a class that can cleanse force effects. Enemy smashers do only 50-75% of their normal smash damage if you're fast at cleansing.

4. Force Slow, Sever Force/Creeping Terror root, TKT/FL means that Operative healer isn't going anywhere. Great for curbing enemy melee effectiveness too.

5. 5-6k internal aoe damage with force potency is clutch.

6. Balance/Madness can kite 1 melee easily enough, and can limit a second melee if you're skilled enough.

7. Put a dot on the tank and their taunts will basically have zero effect on you.

 

Are we squishier than other classes and therefore more vulnerable? Yes, it is a disadvantage. I'm a high-profile target on my server, and I regularly get ganked first in matches. But if you have a good tank, a good healer, and good kiting skills, you can deal with that.

 

You can argue that Madness/Balance doesnt have the same consistent burst as any other DPS class in the game. Which is true and it is a scratch against us. But we have the best DPS uptime in the game, and in many cases arenas isn't really about who can burst who down first, but rather which team's healer wears out first. Madness is great at keeping up pressure on a healer. Which leads me to my conclusion:

 

If you're going to bring a Balance/Madness Sage/Sorc to arenas, expect your overall team strategy to revolve around durability and wearing down the enemy team. If you're building a burst-heavy comp then obviously Madness/Balance sucks ***.

 

Madness sorc cant do half of the things you mentioned because he will go OOF.

[Clanner]

I rarely ever get stunned before getting killed. Being rooted or getting rooted while running away is enough.

 

Maybe I'll try balance some day and see how far I get, but somehow I wonder what you mean by "being focused" if you survive that in balance tree. I love the tree in regular WZs! Some teams get discouraged after eating the stunbubble 4-5 times, but the real ones dont and it is over... how to survive that without stunbubble, dunno. The root only controls one of them, while the KB with root works well on all.

Often we win the first round as I get mostly ignored, just to realise that they adapted and now totally concentrate on me, causing a loss in the second. To me the difference is a giant one between eating half hearted dmg and total focus.

 

I have seen Juggs, so willing to annoy little me that they completely ignored my whole team, walking thorugh it to jump at me who is 30m behind, just to throw me down. (yeah my team didnt really care, thats why the whole argument about the need of a team that does)

 

(If I blame 4-5 of my losses on disconnects, my rate is positive too. No problems for 6 months... arenas start... disconnect every evening...wheee \o/ Die vodafone, die!)

 

So to repeat my argument. It is not that we have to be carried by our team in the sense that we were useless or that we couldnt make the difference. Nobodys skill or experience is in question here. I should not have started by questioning the win-ratio anyway.

It is, that for a sage, more than for other classes, certain requirements have to be met to put us into the position to make the difference, because of our class design. And that is mostly a caring team. (or a team of bad enemies) That is why I would not finally question a sages role in premade arenas anyway. But for solo ranked, my argument makes sense.

 

And finally... if I can cast freely as a tele-sage, the enemy team is doing something totally wrong. Some games end so quickly, I dont even get to see all of my proccs on the hybrid. Cannot imagine how people possibly claim that a lot of their turbulences would get out, while under focus. A decent Jugg alone should be able to shut you down.

 

Edit: Yep@ Underpowered. But do your dots never place a problem to the "mezz and grenade"-gaming of your team? Or you usually only concentrate on one target? And you never get force management problems while keeping your team bubbled?! All these sacrifices must be annoying. ;-P

Edited October 7, 2013 by Clanner

[Exly]

12s cd? Check again.

 

I checked for him, it is actually a 9s cd.

[Clanner]

btw. anybody knows videos/streams of decent DD sages in arenas, premade or not?!

[MusicRider]

I checked for him, it is actually a 9s cd.

 

he should be doing the homework though

[MusicRider]

The success of a sage at the moment (in solo qs at least) depends not on how good of a sage you are, but on how bad and uncoordinated the enemy team is. With shortest TTD, and 2 specs easily shut down (heal and full tk), and 1 spec (balance) lacking pressure/finishing burst while destroying as the game currently is every cc attempt of your team it leaves only some hybrid specs seer/tk or tk/ balance as viable options. Neither though are the best for wzs so with respect gone it is problematic.

 

I had games where I was medium to not focussed and was fun and fine and I had a few games that the enemies knew how to coordinate attacks and it was hopeless and unpleasant.

[smellmop]

i did a hand full of solo ranked matches on my sorc last night, for me I felt like full heals was viable if my team had good burst dps....in extended fights I had issues with force management.

0/30/16 imho was better than 0/16/30 from the bubble stun alone...i didn't really use it to protect myself but rather as an aoe mez with very low resolve to give some breathing room to our healer or to separate one of the opposing squad.

I haven't had a chance to run it in team ranked, but when I was on my vanguard doing team ranked we saw quite a few good teams with sorc dps....all hybrid.....maybe make thundering blast proc some how to reduce cast time to make full middle tree viable?

[Clanner]

Yep.@smellmop and MusicRider

 

http://www.twitch.tv/matchlessglory

 

Saw their Heal-Sage playing a Hybrid, sacrificing the top stuff of healing tree for a little burst and stunbubble from tele tree. It was interesting to watch. His idea is basically that you buy time to bring through your heals due to the stunbubble in a setup very dependent on dmg, which he adds to by the little burst he can provide here and there. He kinda justified this playstyle as operative healers are better under pressue, but sage healers theoretically overall on par with them. To ease the pressure, you use the bubble.

 

Dunno how viable that would be in random ranked arena...

[Underpowered]

Madness sorc cant do half of the things you mentioned because he will go OOF.

 

Right and wrong. Yes, force management is a serious issue with Madness (and healing tree) and I believe both trees should get resource buffs. I consistently end challenging arena fights at around 10-20% of my force pool remaining, so yes I'm flirting dangerously close to the limit doing the things I do. A few times at the beginning I overextended myself and ran dry towards the last 20 seconds. But if you make good choices, namely not overextending yourself through wasteful bubble casts, you will not run dry.

 

If you bubble your teammates too much (ie all of them throughout the entire arena) you will dry out super early for sure. You have to be smart about it; during the fight keep bubble up on the healer as often as you can, and then bubble ONLY the enemy's active focus target. If one of your teammates is low, bubble him. Otherwise think very carefully if you want to bubble someone or not. It's an experience thing, totally situational too; play around with it and you'll eventually find a compromise that works for you. Sometimes you can't control how a fight goes and you run dry; does that mean you should stop bubbling allies period? No.

 

Otherwise nothing else on my list is particularly resource intensive. Cleanse is cheap and has a cooldown anyway. Force Slow is super cheap. Sever Force/CT is part of your rotation.

 

Edit: Yep@ Underpowered. But do your dots never place a problem to the "mezz and grenade"-gaming of your team? Or you usually only concentrate on one target? And you never get force management problems while keeping your team bubbled?! All these sacrifices must be annoying. ;-P

 

See my response above to laforet in regards to force management.

 

My primary target where I lay on full dots is always the healer. In my opinion Madness/Balance is one of the very few (maybe ONLY) DPS spec that an operative cannot escape from without blowing major CDs, so I play to my strengths. As I said before, I also place a dot on the tank as well to prevent DPS loss from taunts. In general, I do not dot DPS (but I gladly catch as many as I can in my FiB/DF) until the healer is down or unless I have nothing else better to do, no real bonus in tab-dotting in arenas. As for breaking AoE mezz, my dots are generally not an issue since

 

1. I don't have dots on enemy DPS, so they stay put

2. The tank will always wake up instantly from AoE mezz once his guard redirects damage to him anyway, so my dot on him makes no difference most of the time since his guard is on the healer most of the time.

3. Okay my dots will wake up the healer instantly which is not desirable. But there's a good chance someone else on your team has some periodic or channeled effect on him that might break the mezz anyway. Or even if you get a clean mezz off, the healer will smartly use his cc breaker. That being said, this kinda changes the way your team uses Aoe mezzes for better or worse. Some teams use multiple AoE mezzes to shut down a healer (no dots on healer) then burn down a DPS or something. But with my dots, then the application is reversed; shut down the DPS to buy your healer time and open up on the enemy healer simultaneously.

 

So yes there is minor loss when it comes to AoE mezzing. But if you and your team plan and play smart, you can make that loss almost a nonfactor.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Underpowered

[Underpowered]

Yep.@smellmop and MusicRider

 

http://www.twitch.tv/matchlessglory

 

Saw their Heal-Sage playing a Hybrid, sacrificing the top stuff of healing tree for a little burst and stunbubble from tele tree. It was interesting to watch. His idea is basically that you buy time to bring through your heals due to the stunbubble in a setup very dependent on dmg, which he adds to by the little burst he can provide here and there. He kinda justified this playstyle as operative healers are better under pressue, but sage healers theoretically overall on par with them. To ease the pressure, you use the bubble.

 

Dunno how viable that would be in random ranked arena...

 

I can only speak from my personal observation, but every Sage I've ran into in ranked arenas that ran hybrid seer/tk (which ended showing up as "DPS" in the matchmaking system) drastically underperformed. Maybe they were just bad, who knows. To be honest bubble stun as a defense mechanism is overrated and has been for a long time. Any good DPS including melee classes know how to break them without getting stunned. Melee just have to count their damage, back away 5m then use a ranged attack to pop the bubble, then go right back in. And of course bubble stun means nothing to any ranged DPS. I also cannot see how a hybrid heal sage will ever have the time to contribute any DPS. What's he going to do, throw a Project that does like 1100 damage? Spend a million years trying to hardcast a TK Wave? lol.

[Laforet]

Right and wrong. Yes, force management is a serious issue with Madness (and healing tree) and I believe both trees should get resource buffs. I consistently end challenging arena fights at around 10-20% of my force pool remaining, so yes I'm flirting dangerously close to the limit doing the things I do. A few times at the beginning I overextended myself and ran dry towards the last 20 seconds. But if you make good choices, namely not overextending yourself through wasteful bubble casts, you will not run dry.

 

If you bubble your teammates too much (ie all of them throughout the entire arena) you will dry out super early for sure. You have to be smart about it; during the fight keep bubble up on the healer as often as you can, and then bubble ONLY the enemy's active focus target. If one of your teammates is low, bubble him. Otherwise think very carefully if you want to bubble someone or not. It's an experience thing, totally situational too; play around with it and you'll eventually find a compromise that works for you. Sometimes you can't control how a fight goes and you run dry; does that mean you should stop bubbling allies period? No.

 

Otherwise nothing else on my list is particularly resource intensive. Cleanse is cheap and has a cooldown anyway. Force Slow is super cheap. Sever Force/CT is part of your rotation.

 

 

 

My primary target where I lay on full dots is always the healer. In my opinion Madness/Balance is one of the very few (maybe ONLY) DPS spec that an operative cannot escape from without blowing major CDs, so I play to my strengths. As I said before, I also place a dot on the tank as well. In general, I do not dot DPS until the healer is down or unless I have nothing else better to do, no real bonus in tab-dotting in arenas. As for breaking AoE mezz, my dots are generally not an issue since

 

1. I don't have dots on enemy DPS, so they stay put

2. The tank will always wake up instantly from AoE mezz once his guard redirects damage to him, so my dot on him makes no difference most of the time since his guard is on the healer.

3. Okay my dots will wake up the healer instantly which is not desirable. But there's a good chance someone else on your team has some periodic or channeled effect on him that might break the mezz anyway. Or even if you get a clean mezz off, the healer will smartly use his cc breaker. That being said, this kinda changes the way your team uses Aoe mezzes for better or worse. Some teams use multiple AoE mezzes to shut down a healer (no dots on healer) then burn down a DPS or something. But with my dots, then the application is reversed; shut down the DPS to buy your healer time and open up on the enemy healer simultaneously.

 

CT is part of your rotation, but it has like a 9 sec CD and the DoT lasts for 18secs.

 

In PvE you only need to keep CT up, thats one cast every 18 secs (the dot effect). In PvP you will prolly cast CT every 9 secs. More pressure on force regen, less time to recup it by spamming lightning.

 

Also, to maximize burst (NOT DPS) madness players often interrupt force light as soon as they get a wrath proc instead of letting it run. I dunno the impacts of this practice in DPS over long fights (PvE) but this kind of rotation is an attempt to make Madness "bursty" while also being very taxing to force.

 

Cleanse is cheap, but your dots can be cleansed back. If theres a cleanser on the other side, foget it. You will have to reapply dots roughly every 5-10 seconds instead of 18-ish.

 

The spec is flawed. Its a pressure spec without survivability (AKA shadow priest without shadowform). They dont mount enough burst to kill people fast (only pressure) but they get rooted and destroyed within a few globals. I understand lightning being squishy - they kill people fast. Thats not the case with madness.

 

Force management is a big flaw. Its clear that they even bother playing the spec. Lightspam is the only way to keep force up, yet lightspam is very inneficient damage / wise and the ratio of force it gives back is not proportional to the needs of the spec.

 

I love madness, i like pressure specs when i play dps and i think pressure specs can change the metagame for the best, but the spec is currently underdeveloped and full of flaws.

 

Its a decent duelist tho.