Sorc PvP: We're Asking For the Wrong Things

[DarthAtin]

Reposted from the Sorcerer forums for a wider audience.

 

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To preface this, I'd like to congratulate the developers on what they have done with the Sorcerer class. I find it extremely fun to play; it's interesting, the mechanics are unique among all of TOR, and the story is excellent.

 

However, it is lacking in several areas in PvP. Most of us are aware of this, and after playing the class to 55 finally during double xp and gearing, I realized why:

 

(Warning: there WILL be heavy comparisons to World of Warcraft in this post, for a couple reasons. 1. It's a successful MMO. 2. I have a lot of experience playing it. 3. The Sorcerer class is very, very similar to certain classes from WoW.)

 

There's a heavy disconnect between design and reality, and most players are trying to fix the reality without seeing the design. This post will be directed toward Madness and Lightning, because I do not heal, but feedback from others who do is welcome!

 

The Sorcerer Advanced Class plays very, very much like a Warlock from World of Warcraft. It's not a clone, by any means - I actually prefer Sorc to my old Lock - but it's undeniable that the base mechanics are there. The problem is, the devs seemed to decide they wanted a Locklike class, made the skeleton of one, and expected it to perform as they wanted without really giving it the toolset that made Warlocks so successful in WoW PvP.

 

To begin with, Warlocks have one major advantage over Sorcs: they can tank damage. They're no Warriors or Paladins or whatever, but they are relatively immobile and do damage over time, so in return, they can soak up hits on their own and deal with damage relatively well. Sorcs cannot do this. We are squishy, and we have very, very little to mitigate this. There's clear evidence that Sorcs are supposed to follow in their footsteps with tools like Static Barrier, but it isn't enough.

 

I will now break it down by spec, as I see it, with generalities posted after. A TL;DR will be included after each section, in <<< these >>>.

 

Madness

 

Ah, Madness. My favorite spec of the three, relying on DoTs for damage and supplementing it with proc-fishing, Madness actually plays fairly well, but it suffers from a huge Force problem, especially in PvP, and heavy healer reliance. Madness is not at all self-sufficient, and that's a shame, because it should be the spec that is most so. It has the tools, the intention is there - it's just not enough.

 

Madness is quite similar to the Affliction spec Warlocks possess, and it's clear the inspiration is drawn from such. The problem is, Affliction never had mana problems. Why? Life Tap. Oh wait, we have that! It's called Consumption, and it does the same thing... except its useless, for three reasons.

 

1. The health-force ratio is terrible. Life Tap had a much better base ratio than Consumption's ridiculous 15% for 8%, and it could be improved easily via low talents in the Affliction tree to be even better. We're literally killing ourselves for paltry Force gains, and while that's borderline acceptable in PvE, it DOES NOT WORK in PvP. I'm not a fan of doing the other team's job for them.

 

2. We have no real way to recoup the damage we do to ourselves in this fashion. It's downright obvious to me that Madness isn't getting any Force regen mechanics because we're not supposed to have them,. The design is that we use Consumption to get Force back, and then our passive self-healing restores that health so we can reasonably use Consumption to get Force back whenever needed, to make up for the spec's subpar regeneration elsewhere.

 

Problem is, we have crappy self-heals. Fully talented, we regen 2% of max health on crits only. It's paltry, pathetic - a nice little fringe benefit but usually skipped because it's just not meaningful. It's certainly not enough to counteract frequent use of Consumption.

 

3. Consumption isn't spammable. It's absurd that Consumption reduces our base Force regeneration - to get Force back, we lose our ability to get Force back? It's shooting ourselves in the foot, and it's stupid. This honestly needs to go across the board, but especially for Madness, which relies so much on it.

 

What Madness Needs:

 

In light of this, what do we need? Not a lot, but definitely something. We need to improve Consumption, and increase self-healing (mostly this one. A lot.); that's really it. This could be easily accomplished with just two changes:

 

Modify Parasitism. New effect: All damage over time effects have a 25% chance to heal you for 2% of your health. Critical hits guarantee this effect and increase the healing by 50%. Cannot occur more than once per second.

 

New talent, high up (or bake effects into Devour). Same level as Devour and Creeping Death.

 

Scion of Darkness: [2 pts]

 

Reduces the heath cost of Consumption by 25%/50% and increases the Force returned by 12%/25%. In addition, Consumption no longer reduces Force regeneration OR reduces Force degeneration caused by Consumption by 25%/50% and reduces maximum stacks by 1 stack/2 stacks.

 

There, you didn't touch our damage, and yet our problems are solved and we're more interesting. Funny how that works.

 

<<<TL;DR: More self-heals, better self-heals, make Consumption suck less.>>>

 

 

Lightning

 

I confess I am far less proficient with Lightning than with Madness, but it's main issue as I see it is a crisis of identity; it plays like it can't decide if it's a Destruction Warlock or an Arcane Mage. What it needs is to decide if it wants to totally divorce itself from the Sorcerer image and become a glass cannon (in which case it needs mobility and control) or if it wants to embrace the heavy turret it seems to want to be (in which case it needs survivability and also a little control).

 

Lightning has excellent damage; no one disputes this. The issue arises that it has no way to keep melee off it reliably, even with the extra control the tree has, which exacerbates the utter lack of damage on the move and pointedly lacking tools to kite.

 

What Lightning Needs:

 

Contrary to strangely popular belief, interrupt protection (at least beyond Polarity Shift) isn't one of them. Interrupts are much less punishing in this game than most due to no school lockouts, and juking is extremely effective. The fact that melee have too many non-interrupt ways to shut down casts is a different matter.

 

Instead, we need to go one of two routes:

 

Mobile Cannon. If we go this route, we need to change a few things. First, we need mobility. We have terrible mobility and no real gap opener. I won't advocate for Blink - it's not what we need and it's too direct a poaching from WoW - but if we're squishy, we have to stay alive by keeping them off us.

 

First off, Force Speed needs a reduces cooldown or increased duration in this route, and needs to remove movement-impairing effects like it does for Corruption.

 

Overload's already pretty good for Lightning.

 

Force Slow needs to be improved.

 

Finally, with decent ways to get away and keep them away, we need some actual, decent off-control. I propose Lightning have a cooldown reduction on Whirlwind to 15 seconds or less (not less than 8). It still breaks on damage and affects only one target, and is still hardcasted, but it will actually provide useful control now. I think it's a fair deal to be able to soft-CC someone every 15 seconds or so in exchange for easy prevention of said CC.

 

With control and mobility addressed, Lightning would be in pretty good shape. I think only one more change would need to be made: cause Lightning Strikes against targets affected by Affliction to reduce the casting time of the next Thundering Blast by 25%/50%, stacking twice. (An alternative for more mobile damage would be to instead case Shock to make Lightning Strikes within x seconds faster, or the next LS instant.)

 

In total, the changes would look something like this:

 

Suppression [modified]:

 

In addition current effects, reduces the cooldown of Whirlwind by 20/45 seconds. (Possibly replaces cast time reduction.)

 

Force Haste [modified]:

 

Reduces the cooldown of Force Speed by 3/6 seconds and Force Slow by 2/4 seconds. Furthermore, increases the potency of Force Slow's movement-reducing effect by 10%/20%.

 

Ride the Lightning (or Stormrunner) [new talent, same tier as Forked Darkness, 2 pt]:

 

Force Speed has a 50%/100% chance to remove all movement-impairing effects and provide immunity to such effects for 2 seconds. When Lightning Strike hits a target affected by your Affliction, reduces the cast time of the next Lightning Strike or Thundering Blast within 8 seconds by 25%. Stacks once/twice.

 

Heavy Turret: This route is simpler to achieve. All we would have to do is increase damage reduction, modestly increase control, and perhaps add a dash of healing. My suggestions:

 

Increase Lightning Barrier's bonus absorb from 5%/10% to 7.5%/15% (or 10%/20% if that's not enough).

 

Apply the Whirlwind change proposed above.

 

Bake about 10% damage reduction into the tree somewhere. Alternatively, implement a new talent that gives Force Lightning/Chain Lightning/Lightning Strike a chance to give a buff that reduces damage taken by 10-15% for a moderate amount of time.

 

Finally, allow Lightning Barrage to affect certain healing abilities.

 

The changes would look something like:

 

Lightning Barrier[modified]:

 

Increases the amount absorbed by Lightning Barrier by 7.5%/15%.

 

Solid Thunder (or Crackling Shield)[new talent, same tier as Lightning Storm, 2 pt]:

 

Gives 4%/8% damage reduction plus an additional 11%/22% reduction against AoE damage OR gives Thundering Blast, Force Lightning, and Lightning Strike a 20%/40% chance to grant Solid Thunder (or Crackling Shield), reducing all damage taken by 10% for 10 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds, but critical hits from these abilities reset the rate limit. Additionally reduces damage taken from AoE attacks by 15%/30% at all times. (optional)

 

Lightning Barrage [modified]:

 

Lightning Barrage also affects Dark Heal and Dark Infusion, and increases the efficacy (or crit chance) of these heals by 10%/20%.

 

<<<TL;DR: Lightning needs to make up its mind. Either give it escape tools, control, and mobile damage, or give it survivability, more pushback protection, and some control.>>>

 

Thank you all for reading, and I welcome suggestions and feedback. If you have ideas(especially about Corruption and general Sorcerer QOL improvements), please post them! This is a community effort to make us an appropriate strength in PvP and address the issues holding us back from such, allowing us to reach the full potential we were designed for, even if that means slight paring down elsewhere (reversion of Madness uncleansable DoTs, possible reduction in Lightning's burst damage).

 

Go in strength, and may the Force be with you.

[MotorCityMan]

It's nice to see productive posts as opposed to the whiny ones.

 

It's some of the things you have pointed out, but more so it's tempo. When one player can use an instant attack and another player has to cast, the first player is able to attack again before the casting player even finishes. Throw pushbacks, LoS and other activities that interrupt the cast into the mix and the casting player can't even complete the one cast. So now the first player has gained 3 or more tempos on the casting player and hasn't even had to use their stun or interrupt yet. I don't see any future in casting classes in pvp until these sorts of rudimentary imbalances are addressed.

Edited December 4, 2013 by MotorCityMan

[Ottoattack]

Good suggestions. For sorc overall, I think the force regeneration reduction need to be removed. As mentioned, madness will go force broke quickly. That route is defiantly good for madness. I still think it needs a bit of buff in damage mitigation and a way to remove roots, aside from CC breaker and barrier.

 

Lightning has major identity crises. I call it poor's man arsenal merc, cuz it plays exactly the same (almost exact rotation) with less damage output, less survivability, less utility and pathetic escapes. Mind you, arsenal is by no means the $hit. Lightning is just terrible, absolutely terrible. Again, no roots, everything is cast and do not even deal enough damage. I do not know why anyone in their right mind will consider lightning. Major fixing after they determine how it should play to begin with.

[warstory]

I like the hvy turret ideas, 1 thing i would like to discuss is the soft stun effect on force armor/static barrier. its very hard to use this to our advantage where it breaks on anyones dmg. it is our biggest escape tool and what allows us to get off a cast.

 

I would like to see the dmg reduction baked into attacks like thunder blast/ turburlence. making project a instant cast would go a long way to mobility. adding a slow to weaken mind would be great for kitting.

 

I truely beleive we need our aoe knockback back.

 

love the idea of a passive hot healing.

[Red_Cruiser]

The class was inspired by warlocks and priests, but designed by people who thought they were overpowered.

[madtycoon]

Reposted from the Sorcerer forums for a wider audience.

...

 

Enjoyed reading your post.

 

Just going to talk about your Madness suggestions. Lightning changes will rely heavily on if they change how pushback works in the upcoming patches.

 

I don't like passive self healing. Preemptive defensives require more skill. Whatever baby defensive they decide to add to Sorcs, it should be preemptive. I'm convinced that a damage taken cap per global tagged onto Cloud Mind that lasts like 6 seconds would be ideal. It would be a unique defensive that helps survivablity against multiple incoming damage sources, but isn't very strong one vs one or when paired with guard.

 

Adding a passive self heal to a madness sorc in 4v4 where you have guard, taunt and an operative healer may be too much, especially if we can assume hybrid tanks will get nerfed and replaced with pure tanks, limiting teams to only two dps. Two dps and pure tank mirrors do a lot less damage.

 

Madness is no where close to Affliction. They only really share the three dots and channel. This isn't WOW. DPS classes cannot be self-sustainable. Survivablity has to be tank and healer reliant. It makes for weaker gameplay, but that's the price you pay when you add guard to PVP.

 

I like your consumption talent change. Sorcs have to sacrafice a global to get force back. That is enough of a cost. Force is really only an issue when you are aggressively using team utility. This should not be punished as much as it is right now. I don't want the spec using casted off heals, but I do want them to be able to cleanse and shield their teammates. Trading a global every now and again is a fair trade for the added utility.

 

I also like your idea of lowering the cooldown on whirlwind by 15 seconds. I would take it further and drop it down to 30 seconds for the DPS trees. It should have a lower cooldown than the other mezs as long as it stays casted. Same could be said about concussion missle.

 

Any change that slightly buffs sorcs survivablity and gives them a reasonable force regen mechanic would be good for the game. That's all madness really needs. They didn't need the recent uncleansable dot protection change. If dot protection was seen as an issue, they could have only made crushing darkness uncleansable/unpurgeable or better yet just reset the cooldown when it did get removed.

[Laforet]

Enjoyed reading your post.

I don't like passive self healing. Preemptive defensives require more skill. Whatever baby defensive they decide to add to Sorcs, it should be preemptive. I'm convinced that a damage taken cap per global tagged onto Cloud Mind that lasts like 6 seconds would be ideal. It would be a unique defensive that helps survivablity against multiple incoming damage sources, but isn't very strong one vs one or when paired with guard.

 

Good idea for cloud mind.

[Laforet]

Madness is no where close to Affliction. They only really share the three dots and channel. This isn't WOW. DPS classes cannot be self-sustainable. Survivablity has to be tank and healer reliant. It makes for weaker gameplay, but that's the price you pay when you add guard to PVP.

 

This is a very important consideration. Explains why sorcs and concealment ops are what they are. Also explains why LOLMARA and ROFLTECH seem to dominate yoloq (and are very strong options in group qs).

 

They seem to have designed classes like sorc and concealment to mandatory have a tank / healer babysitting them. Which is ok assuming tanks are a vital part of PvP in TOR.

 

Then in the next room they scrap up the design and give glutton defensive CDs for classes like marauder and rofltech, with juggie hanging somewhere in between.

 

Results, sorcs are a pain to play in solo queue and "adequade" to play on group scenario. Concealment is trash (because its melee) and LOLMARA and ROFLPWNTECH trample everyone.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Laforet

[MidichIorian]

Effuision at the bottom of the Lightning tree would solve a lot of the issues Madness have.

 

Egress is needed for Arena, not so much for 8 vs 8.

 

WW would be helpful in foremost Arena but also in 8 vs 8. We could actually feel somewhat safe guarding.

 

30 m stun range would be really helpful in Arena. There's really no point in trying to keep distance if you have to approach the enemy when they're heading your way or wait until they're already in their preferred range.

 

Bonus:

 

A tad more power to Affliction or preferably shorter duration while keeping the overall damage.

 

CC dot-immunity. Not that we get WW off that often but other people can still CC and it's pointless to play a dot spec if you have to be afraid of breaking CC all the time.

 

Some crit bonus on either the PvP sets or linked to some of our abilties.

Edited December 5, 2013 by MidichIorian

[RollaYoda]

Effuision at the bottom of the Lightning tree would solve a lot of the issues Madness have.

 

Egress is needed for Arena, not so much for 8 vs 8.

 

WW would be helpful in foremost Arena but also in 8 vs 8. We could actually feel somewhat safe guarding.

 

30 m stun range would be really helpful in Arena. There's really no point in trying to keep distance if you have to approach the enemy when they're heading your way or wait until they're already in their preferred range.

 

Bonus:

 

A tad more power to Affliction or preferably shorter duration while keeping the overall damage.

 

CC dot-immunity. Not that we get WW off that often but other people can still CC and it's pointless to play a dot spec if you have to be afraid of breaking CC all the time.

 

Some crit bonus on either the PvP sets or linked to some of our abilties.

 

Lethality has CC protection with it's own dots for Flash Bang. How the devs haven't figured out to do this with WW is just beyond me

 

Oh, and give Madness it's instant-WW back, that was just an absolute slap to the face for sorcs, but I could understand them wanting to keep it out of the hands of Sins and the old 23/1/17 spec. Just put the talent higher up in the madness tree and you won't have to worry about Sin hybrids trying to grab it.

[AdmiralParmesan]

Honestly I don't think the devs ever plan on working on dps ops, sorcs or merc for that matter in pvp.

 

They see that they can heal, and that should be enough in their mind. Sadly that is absolutely not the case.

-------------

Overall the changes aren't bad, the comments on consumption are really on the spot. Consumption really blows as a regen mechanic and I fail to see how anyone could believe it is working as intended when it costs a global and health yet harms your force management as much as it helps it.

[Odyseus]

I made this analogy months ago.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=685351&page=5

 

10.03.2013 , 07:32 PM | #49

 

I see a lot of Sorc's/Sages are going through the same turmoil. It's almost impossible right now to find a group that will take me on, despite the fact they know I'm great in WZ's. Here's all the defensive cooldowns I had on my Warlock.

 

1) Fel Armor, 20% increased healing, plus increased spell damage.

 

2) Fear, when geared that's a one second cast, spammable. No cooldown.

 

3) Soul Link, 20 to 30% damage mitigation (at the time of Burning Crusade)

 

4) Death Coil, instant 3 second terror, 2 min cooldown

 

5) Siphon LIfe, heals you for the damage dealt by the dot, can increase it significantly through talents. Can put it on as many targets as possible.

 

6) Health Stone

 

7) DrainLife, channeled damaging spell, healing me for all damage delt.

 

8) Fel Resistance Demonology, (I think that's the name) giving me significant damage mitigation to everything but melee damage.

 

9) Curse of exhaustion, 50% movement snare, spammable.

 

10) How of Terror, instant AOE fear, on a 20 second cooldown when talented.

 

Those are defensive cooldowns, things that actually work and constantly heal in the heat of battle. That's because Blizzard knows that If you're a cloth class it's imperative that we're supplied with a diverse array of viable pvp cooldowns. The Sorc defensive cooldowns sound decent on paper, but poor in execution. And to the people say we're face tanking. We have 2 instant dots, 1 on a 18 second cooldown, both which requires you to stand and cast to get the instant proc, or just stand and do the 2 second cast. So when I turned away from the pursing melee trying to get distance, I'm getting leaped to, snared, saberthrowed, forcechoked , pulled back,etc, getting thousands of damage done to me while I'm not helping my teammates, and unable to peruse my dps target. I called this the moment areans were annoucned. Basically, if you're a Melee DPS, you have all the advantages in Arena, on top of that, they'll get their gear first, not because they're better, but because they chose the unbalanced classes.

[Cempa]

As a high end WoW arena player I actually see more parallels to Priest than Warlock. I play Warlock Affliction/Destruction and Shadow Priest in Arena. In any case I truly enjoy Wizard classes and would make minor changes at this point:

 

1) Force Speed at 2sec duration and 150% speed boost is between Mage Blazing Speed -which is exactly the same as Force Speed with the addition of suppressing all movement impairing effects- and Priest Feather -which is 80% speed increase for 6sec and can be used 3 times with a new feather accumulating every 10sec CD and if used right after the 6sec can pretty much be kept up all the time but it gets hindered by movement impairing effects.

 

BioWare needs to pick one for Sorcerer, because right now Force Speed is lacking.

 

------------------------------

 

Though the class may not be in a good place right now I'd like to hear what others have to say about the DPS hybrid..

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZfoMrdRMfMzZf0cRsbz.3

 

0/28/18

 

Solid mana

Solid control

Wrath + Lightning Strike = Chain Lightning proc = Root+Snare

Electric Binding to save your life

15% less DoT I find a must because I tend to die from DoT's ...

 

I want Death Mark really bad so Bioware lower Electric Binding please...

Edited December 5, 2013 by Cempa

[madtycoon]

This is a very important consideration. Explains why sorcs and concealment ops are what they are. Also explains why LOLMARA and ROFLTECH seem to dominate yoloq (and are very strong options in group qs).

 

They seem to have designed classes like sorc and concealment to mandatory have a tank / healer babysitting them. Which is ok assuming tanks are a vital part of PvP in TOR.

 

Then in the next room they scrap up the design and give glutton defensive CDs for classes like marauder and rofltech, with juggie hanging somewhere in between.

 

Results, sorcs are a pain to play in solo queue and "adequade" to play on group scenario. Concealment is trash (because its melee) and LOLMARA and ROFLPWNTECH trample everyone.

 

Yeah exactly.

 

Don't know yet if the marauder changes will bring them more in line with Juggernaughts and Sins where all melee should really be. Casters in theory should have slightly weaker overall defensives than melee, because of their range, however they should have more damage output when not being interrupted (not pushback).

 

Sorcs and Concealment Operatives suffer from not having any real damage reduction cooldowns. Damage reduction cooldowns are much stronger in 4v4, especially solo queue when you are dealing with either all dps or only a healer and no tank or vice versa. The more people focusing someone the better a damage reduction cooldown becomes, because it starts reducing a lot more damage from multiple sources than say a shield or a self heal. Once a shield gets broken, the other incoming damage is unmitigated.

 

Sorcs and agents also don't have much natural damage reduction and easily take the biggest hits. Like you said, they are more reliant on guard. I think madness is strong right now though. I think its damage is really high. The pressure with full dots and deathfield is insane. Deathfield being like a baby smash that you can use from range can really spread pressure. You can't really avoid it as a tank as easily as you can smash and madness is probably the best spec for chewing through tanks.

 

I honestly don't even like how madness is designed, because frankly you can't slow its damage down without just tunneling it. Interrupts really do nothing to stop its output and if this was a better game, I think this is something that they would have to fix. Having that option to use barrier to break CC when you aren't on a sorc makes off CCing them near impossible. But as things are right now, I think its fine, because its not like you can stop leap smash or unpeelable powertechs or sins with sprint up almost always.

 

That being said, I still think sorcs take unreasonable spikes when they get connected on by multiple dps when they don't have guard compared to everyone else and their force regen mechanics are poorly designed and need to be addressed.

Edited December 5, 2013 by madtycoon

[madtycoon]

I made this analogy months ago.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=685351&page=5

 

Not that you're suggesting balancing things around SL/SL locks, but I wouldn't make changes to sorcs based off of anything in BC WOW. That was like what 5-6 years ago? Burning Crusade arena is good for nostalgia, but the overall balance was probably the poorest it has ever been. Maybe first season of Wrath was worse?

[PloGreen]

Its more like a shadow priest than a lock imo. With a little ele shaman, arc mage thrown in.

[Red_Cruiser]

No class loses so much from being targeted by the enemy as the sorcerer, and compare them more to shadowpriests or warlocks or mages is kind of irrelevent, because the class lacks the depth of talents and abilities that make any of those classes work.

 

Really, I think sorcerers are like playing a fire mage in PvP, but without the fun abilities and mechanics that made getting run over constantly worth it.

[HaoZhao]

There's nothing you can do to make Lightning or Corruption viable in competitive war zones (and especially arenas). Any class that needs to stand still and perform long casts is going to end up as a loser in PVP. Operatives can heal themselves while they run around pillars and jump off of ledges. Sorcerers can't. Even DPS operatives at least have stealth to fall back on. Sorcerers don't get anything other than bubble and that also requires you to stand still on top of having a painfully long cool down. The nature of PVP warzones and areans rewards teams who can focus fire individual targets. The only way to avoid focus fire is to run. When a sorcerer is running, he can't do much of anything other than cast Shock or Affliction. That sorcerer certainly can't do anything to keep himself alive once force speed and bubble are both on cooldown.

 

What I'm trying to say is that to make Lightning or Corruption viable, you'd have to turn the sorcerer class itself upside down and inside out. Madness at least has some mobility because Death Field, Creeping Terror and Affliction can all be cast on the move. You don't have to choose between dying and contributing nothing while you're being chased. While spec'd for Madness, you really only have to stop for force lightning or crushing darkness. (FL can give you a free cast of CD though.)

 

The forums are flooded with topics where people think that a few tweaks would suddenly make classes like the Sorcerer into top-tier classes. Say it along with me now. If your class focuses on you always standing still, you're road kill.

[Vodrin]

There's nothing you can do to make Lightning or Corruption viable in competitive war zones (and especially arenas). Any class that needs to stand still and perform long casts is going to end up as a loser in PVP.

 

Not necessarily true. Snipers and Gunslingers seem to do OK as turrets don't they. Truth is any effective tweaks to need to give sorcs and mercs a little more mobility. Forcing them to turret in order to do heavy damage is fine, but they need more tools to get away with it.

[smellmop]

madness is fixed by changing the procs / talents that regen HP to regen force instead.

 

put fadeout as a bottom tier talent (or gasp make it part of the inquisitor base class ability like they did with hydro overrides for BH)

 

shorten the cooldown of god bubble to 1.5 min and make it last 3-5 seconds...taking yourself out of the fight for 10seconds is useless (tho can help for pve...but still kinda lame)

 

healing sorcs....the above things would obviously help, make dark heal instant or have it just instant and consume charges, take consumption off the GCD, make Resurgence have no cooldown (this would help with mobility)

 

Maybe just drop in the effects to healers one at a time and see if sorc/sage healers can come back into the fold for competitive pvp.

[byteresistor]

Not necessarily true. Snipers and Gunslingers seem to do OK as turrets don't they.

That's because they have a plethora of tools that supports turret style gameplay.