DCVAN Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 he should be doing the homework though Yeah I was a few seconds off. But it only makes my original point stronger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underpowered Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 (edited) 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. I don't deny this. I'm pretty much forced to use CT on cd too. This is negative pressure on our force but there's nothing we can do about it. 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. True, but how often are you clipping your FL to get off a CD burst in arenas? The answer should really only be 1-3 times, which in my opinion is not a significant factor in losing force. Obviously I'm not going to clip anything if my target is at 80%. You clip for burst when you know for a near certainty you're going to kill (say 10-20% HP on a stunned target who has no breaker left). If you're messing up your burst window and having to clip more than 3 times, you and your team need to re-evaluate your execution and judgment calls. 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. As I said before, neither Operative or Merc healers can remove Force effects (ie my dots) with their cleanse. Ops can remove my dots once if they blow Evasion, but if they're using Evasion for that purpose then that leaves them open to every other threat in the game, which I consider a win, cause lets be honest - there are way bigger things you'd want to use Evade other than my dots, like say Force Crush/Exhaustion, Dongcleave, etc etc. Which leaves only other Sages/Sorcs that can cleanse my dots. If that's an enemy Sorc healer I see, then I frown because yes my dots will be cleaned, but then I smile because the match is almost a guaranteed win for our team anyway If the enemy Sorc is Madness DPS and is as good as I am or close, then there's a problem. But then I cleanse their stuff too. So it cancels out. Even trade. Lightning spec sorcs are too busy hardcasting or being shut down to cleanse, but I suppose they could at significant cost to DPS (more so than for Madness.) 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. I agree Madness is a spec with flaws and needs serious buffs. Most especially resource management. Apparently we are getting some form of dot removal protection in 2.5. I would also like instant whirlwind back, that change was a mind-blower. That being said, I believe that Balance/Madness is fully viable for competitive rated play. I've gone over at length at the perks of the spec. Is it the top DPS spec in the game? Hell no. Does it have weaknesses? Yes. Doesn't mean Madness can't work with the right hands. I'm going to continue to put my rating where my mouth is and keep playing Balance. Edited October 7, 2013 by Underpowered Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clanner Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 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. Yeah, well I can only say what I have seen and they were beating setup after setup. I am not going to defend the specc, but the concept looked interesting. ^^ Due to the fact that they list whenever the healer Sage is online and fill the other 3 Slots with what is available, you can see rather exotic compositions there. Seen 2xmarauders + sniper and other setups with 3 DDs or at least no full-tank. Just check from time to time for the stream. He does his burst over the tele-wave instant procc from disturbance. (or rather the sorc equivalent ^^ sry, playing in german and sage, I dont have all the names for the mirrors in head) Dunno exactly whether he always saves his crit-buff for that matter, but it would sound logical, except for the case he needs a good healing-crit. Sadly the stream is in the middle of the night for me. ^^ Dunno for you. ^^ For the pressure on healers. I am trying to cause a similar effect like the root-dot by using my instant tele-wave to keep them from getting away too quickly. And I skilled the cooldown reduction for our hard stun in the balance tree. Most hybrids I see prefer to reduce the pushback on telekinetic throw. I dont, as I am working over proccs mostly and the force-gain is so minimal + I often wont even let telekinetic throw end. I prefer using that stun often, either to annoy the healer or defensively. Combined with stunbubble by placing myself close to healer, it works well. ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEANeD Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 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. If you exploit all the small advantages daney stated then madness is good. I would like to take it a step further and say the burst is decent. Also, you'd be amazed how many times I've saved a teammate from death with a bubble and dark heal. And wearing the other team down is another great point. So madness sorcs not having pressure isn't really accurate. If you play with a solid tank and play to go the distance they have no chance. The only problem I've encountered is even with great peels, use of cc breaker, medpacs, adrenals, guard switches, etc, a heavy dps team can sometimes find a way to absolutely blow you up. For the most part though if you bring the right classes with you(a good AOE class preferably) then you can play the dumb chase game with all these melees, throw out dots, and have your team drop AOE all over you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEANeD Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 Yeah I was a few seconds off. But it only makes my original point stronger. CT is makes a huge difference in keeping double melee dps separated to prevent them from bursting at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supermouthcml Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 (edited) balance only has value in reg warzones. in arenas or ranked arenas the only dps spec worth playing is lightning/telekinetics ,the reason being that there is too much cc in those specs to be ignored (stun bubble, aoe root, faster force slow, slow applied to targets hit with chain lightning/tele wave). The biggest reason is burst, madness/balance will never be able to aid a team in burning an enemy healer or dps like lightning/tele can (this coming from someone who played balance pre 1.2 through 2.0), and since its single target you can focus on 1 enemy player, whereas balance needs force in balance to strengthen its dots and can break cc if the player is not careful, whereas tele wave/chain lightning is not required to increase anything, so it can be left out of a rotation if there is aoe cc active, and turbulence only hits 1 target. i recently switched to telekinetics and make no plans to switch back, the burst it provides is on par with any smasher and has more survive-ability due to cc opposed to balance. just my 2 cents, but hope it helps. cheers Edited October 8, 2013 by supermouthcml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supermouthcml Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 tele spec i run purely for arenas (my reg warzone spec is slightly different, more focused on dps) http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600G0MZcRrbdRrcRrsZzM.3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rlamela Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 (edited) 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 I Run Balance on my Sage and in solo rank queue I am 24-6 when my team has a healer, and 5-20 when we don't. Basically I stopped playing her now (except in 8vs8) as it's only fun when we have a healer. Right now I'm finishing up getting my Conqueror gear on my Commando and will start using her in Solo rank queue to see how that goes. Edited October 8, 2013 by rlamela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeraz Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 I Run Balance on my Sage and in solo rank queue I am 24-6 when my team has a healer, and 5-20 when we don't. Basically I stopped playing her now (except in 8vs8) as it's only fun when we have a healer. Right now I'm finishing up getting my Conqueror gear on my Commando and will start using her in Solo rank queue to see how that goes. Interestingly I've had the opposite success. Games were we have no healers I have a substantially higher win rate and games where we do I tend to do even worse. (Just not enough burst to kill the healer and eventually they score a kill) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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