Since Nibbon has quit: Sage/Sorcerer Top issues discussion

[AdrianDmitruk]

Regarding the healing/dps hybrid IMO it is a poor healing spec in comparison to the other healing specs (including full seer) and the only reason that it is popular is because it is queued as dps. Even if seer was perfectly viable people would still play the healing hybrid as long as it queued as dps simply because it offers a very big advantage to your team. In other words, the rise of the heal/dps spot hybrid is popular not because of the poor performance of the full seer tree but because of how the matchmaking system works.

 

Then we should also be seeing a proliferation of skank operative and mercenary heal specs masquerading as DPS. But aside from a couple hybrid medicine/lethality curiosities, this seldom is a problem. Full heal operatives never had a problem and mercs, while still having some issues, were recently buffed far beyond what seers can do in arena.

 

So what's the difference between our healers and the other two healing ACs' healers? Our heal spec doesn't cut it and we've got way too many skill taxes in other trees. Since we take so much damage we have no hope of healing through 2 dps--or even 1 dps--interrupting us, anything that creates a diversion for us (including playing dps matchmaking games) is very welcome.

 

The advantage that hybrid offers to your team is directly tied to offsetting the glaring weaknesses of full seer (mobility issues, inability to Make Them Pay, hoping to hide as "just another DPS" so you're not constantly yolotunneled).

Edited April 24, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk

[Ycoga]

Typo in PVP question: Nobel Sacrifice

 

[gblXsw]

...

 

The problem with hybrids is not that you "might not be min-maxing effective to the very best point one could reach", on the contrary. The problem is that hybrids can be more powerful than the class is intended by design. You're wrong, frowning on hybrids doesn't have anything to do with "Blizzard ... eradicating anything else that was fun".

 

Why do you always have to start these grand, sweeping declarations about the decay of gaming over, basically, nothing? Nobody forces you not to play in a (if you want to call it that) more fun, less efficient way; but doing the math and minmaxing towards a certain goal is just as valid and right and healthy a way to play a game as yours and it can be just as fun.

[MusicRider]

Then we should also be seeing a proliferation of skank operative and mercenary heal specs masquerading as DPS. But aside from a couple hybrid medicine/lethality curiosities, this seldom is a problem. Full heal operatives never had a problem and mercs, while still having some issues, were recently buffed far beyond what seers can do in arena.

This seldom is a problem cause at least for skank-healer scoundrels that I have played quite a lot their hybrid has severe energy problems from start; if you have played one you will understand why (pulv. poultices). Can't speak why mandos hybrids are not as successful without looking at their tree but I imagine there will be some similar reason.

 

So what's the difference between our healers and the other two healing ACs' healers? Our heal spec doesn't cut it and we've got way too many skill taxes in other trees.

I don't understand anymore what you mean by skill taxes... all classes have such kind of skill taxes so it's not a sage only characteristic. I don't see how this can be a question. And personally speaking these"skill taxes" don't prevent me from taking what I want both on my pvp and my pve seer builds. In fact in the pve seer build I have a redundancy of 1 point that you can allocate wherever your want.

 

Since we take so much damage we have no hope of healing through 2 dps--or even 1 dps--interrupting us, anything that creates a diversion for us (including playing dps matchmaking games) is very welcome.

 

The advantage that hybrid offers to your team is directly tied to offsetting the glaring weaknesses of full seer (mobility issues, inability to Make Them Pay,).

Can you please point me to the skill point that makes your heals instants and hence more mobile?

 

hoping to hide as "just another DPS"

I am glad you agree that the strength of this hybrid is the unfair advantage of exploiting the matchmaking system.

 

so you're not constantly yolotunneled

Actually if you are known to play hybrid you are target #1 and yolo-tunneled guaranteed.

 

 

Bottom line is that IMO the skunk-heal hybrid spec is inferior to full heal and it is only powerful due to the matchmaking system.... your arguments here presenting it as superior to the full seer tree is concerning as it means that changes to the tree are needed to kill the hybrid rather than to the matchmaking system.

Edited April 24, 2014 by MusicRider

[AlrikFassbauer]

Why do you always have to start these grand, sweeping declarations about the decay of gaming over, basically, nothing? Nobody forces you not to play in a (if you want to call it that) more fun, less efficient way; but doing the math and minmaxing towards a certain goal is just as valid and right and healthy a way to play a game as yours and it can be just as fun.

 

Several reasons :

 

- Yes, people force me not to play what I like. When I was explaining what I was playing my Gunslinger like (he was a Hybrid), people in the PvP forums forced me to give up that because they heavily frowned upon it. If I wanted to be a good player I'd have to go to the full tree, not some hybrid. Their outcry was quite visible to me.

 

I changed to the full left tree to please them, although I've had much more fun with my hybrid. But they are very harsh regarding that.

 

But that was 3/4 year ago. I have adapted to my full tree.

 

In General Chat in the fleet I had a discussion. People were insisting on me very much crippling and hurting them by playing a hybrid, and not a full tree, in FPs. They said that they didn't want that.

 

I often get the impression as if Hybridfs are not wanted. "If you want to play with us, then get rid of this abomination," to put it cynically.

 

- Decay of gaming : I have been playing games for 2 decades now. There wewre games where I had fun, and games where I didn't. Somehow those where I didn't sold much, much better. So yes, I am an alien.

 

- I'm always looking from an wider angle. Bigger picture. I look at what developments mean to things in general. I'm an philosopher, sort of. I use the way/approach of philosophical thinking to examine the core of what's going on. And I come to different thoughts than most other people.

 

- I'm active in an RPG site where my way of thinking is accepted. Yes, there are even a few people thinking like me. But that site also has an age of 30+ , gamers with 40+ years are not seldom there. We all talk from our experience. This site has a quite high intellectual level of civil discussing. Higher than most of the SWTOR forums at least. The class forums and the lore forums are the only places here coming close to that.

 

- I still believe that "doing the math and min-maxing" is not only a viable way of playing - it has become the only way of playing left in the RPG genre. Just consider why no games have social skills nowadays : They just don't contribute to the "Action-RPG way of playing".

 

That's all I can say for now. As I wrote above, I come from a different discussion forum where there is a different level of discussiong going on. I'm used to a much different culture of discussions, maybe. I can't say. I'm not that active in forums anymore.

[AdrianDmitruk]

This seldom is a problem cause at least for skank-healer scoundrels that I have played quite a lot their hybrid has severe energy problems from start; if you have played one you will understand why (pulv. poultices). Can't speak why mandos hybrids are not as successful without looking at their tree but I imagine there will be some similar reason.

 

If you're playing full skank hybrid, you don't have a point in Force Surge so you don't have Force management to speak of, either. The only reason why it can somewhat work is our deeper resource pool.

 

I don't understand anymore what you mean by skill taxes... all classes have such kind of skill taxes so it's not a sage only characteristic. I don't see how this can be a question. And personally speaking these"skill taxes" don't prevent me from taking what I want both on my pvp and my pve seer builds. In fact in the pve seer build I have a redundancy of 1 point that you can allocate wherever your want.

 

Yes, other classes have skill taxes. We have more of them, as I have stated recently, and Bioware seems intent on saddling us with even more. I point to the disparity between their changes to mercs/mandos (giving all HtL) and their changes to us (making Fadeout accessible to DPS, but also making us spec into it). Yes, Fadeout is now intended to be a PVP skill tax, even if some of us have suffered without it for so long that we're unwilling to pay the tax.

 

Can you please point me to the skill point that makes your heals instants and hence more mobile?

 

Skank build's mobility is in damage, not healing--but unlike healers, it can at least contribute something while moving.

 

I am glad you agree that the strength of this hybrid is the unfair advantage of exploiting the matchmaking system.

 

Not really, it's pretty much the only advantage that sage healers can have in arena. Full seer is so gimped in arena that I fail to see the advantage as "unfair."

 

Actually if you are known to play hybrid you are target #1 and yolo-tunneled guaranteed.

 

I thought you were yolo-tunneled guaranteed because of the class you play. And if you're yolo-tunneled guaranteed for playing hybrid, that kinda negates what you said above about being able to hide as a DPS being an advantage.

 

Bottom line is that IMO the skunk-heal hybrid spec is inferior to full heal and it is only powerful due to the matchmaking system.... your arguments here presenting it as superior to the full seer tree is concerning as it means that changes to the tree are needed to kill the hybrid rather than to the matchmaking system.

 

I make these arguments precisely because our full heal tree sucks for arena, but because there are more DPS around than healers, the DPS QQ about the state of our class was louder than the healer QQ and therefore Bioware listened to the DPS while practically ignoring the heals. I want Bioware to revamp the full heal spec so it's viable rather than see bubblestun nerf 2.0 all over again with them just killing the hybrid without offering us any options other than changing our role and/or class.

 

If you think the problem is fixed by tying matchmaking to whether or not you have the channeled heal: I've got news for you, it won't. Our class will still be by far the worst healer for arenas, only instead of having a viable option, we'll be forced to DPS and/or reroll.

Edited April 24, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk

[MusicRider]

If you're playing full skank hybrid, you don't have a point in Force Surge so you don't have Force management to speak of, either. The only reason why it can somewhat work is our deeper resource pool.

 

 

 

Yes, other classes have skill taxes. We have more of them, as I have stated recently, and Bioware seems intent on saddling us with even more. I point to the disparity between their changes to mercs/mandos (giving all HtL) and their changes to us (making Fadeout accessible to DPS, but also making us spec into it). Yes, Fadeout is now intended to be a PVP skill tax, even if some of us have suffered without it for so long that we're unwilling to pay the tax.

 

 

 

Skank build's mobility is in damage, not healing--but unlike healers, it can at least contribute something while moving.

 

 

 

Not really, it's pretty much the only advantage that sage healers can have in arena. Full seer is so gimped in arena that I fail to see the advantage as "unfair."

 

 

 

I thought you were yolo-tunneled guaranteed because of the class you play. And if you're yolo-tunneled guaranteed for playing hybrid, that kinda negates what you said above about being able to hide as a DPS being an advantage.

 

 

 

I make these arguments precisely because our full heal tree sucks for arena, but because there are more DPS around than healers, the DPS QQ about the state of our class was louder than the healer QQ and therefore Bioware listened to the DPS while practically ignoring the heals. I want Bioware to revamp the full heal spec so it's viable rather than see bubblestun nerf 2.0 all over again with them just killing the hybrid without offering us any options other than changing our role and/or class.

Well there is also effusion which with a couple of dots does miracles.... can't remember saying the word hiding but even if i did it was meaning hiding a healer in a dps role.... but anyway the most important bit is the following:

 

If you think the problem is fixed by tying matchmaking to whether or not you have the channeled heal: I've got news for you, it won't. Our class will still be by far the worst healer for arenas, only instead of having a viable option, we'll be forced to DPS and/or reroll.

The exploitation of the matchmaking system and the fixing of it has nothing to do with the deficiency of the full seer tree. These two are separate things. In other words, the strength of the hybrid does not come from being better than full heal, it is actually worse, but it comes from exploiting the matchmaking system having one team with a healer and one without. IMO this is unfair, game-breaking and affects everybody. It is basically a bubble stun fiasco once again and like I was against the bubble stun back then I am against the hybrid today. If the matchmaking is not fixed, even if the seer tree is fixed for ranked there will still be many people that play as hybrids because it offers a bigger unjustified advantage.

[StormTerminus]

I totally understand the seer/dps hybrid complaints. But I am very confused why hybrids like 2/28/16 or 0/30/16 get any grief. I have never seen another MMO community whine so much about hybrids. Back in the WOW beta through BC I don't remember any threads about hybrids. I personally think the 2/28/16 hybrid is an interesting build and provides an excellent duel pvp/pve playstyle. If someone runs one build they get good at it. Switching builds for pvp and pve causes muscle memory issues that degrade dps.

 

Yet there is talk about nerfing hybrids in every class forum if you search. Odd.

[AdrianDmitruk]

Well there is also effusion which with a couple of dots does miracles.... can't remember saying the word hiding but even if i did it was meaning hiding a healer in a dps role.... but anyway the most important bit is the following:

 

The exploitation of the matchmaking system and the fixing of it has nothing to do with the deficiency of the full seer tree. These two are separate things. In other words, the strength of the hybrid does not come from being better than full heal, it is actually worse, but it comes from exploiting the matchmaking system having one team with a healer and one without. IMO this is unfair, game-breaking and affects everybody. It is basically a bubble stun fiasco once again and like I was against the bubble stun back then I am against the hybrid today. If the matchmaking is not fixed, even if the seer tree is fixed for ranked there will still be many people that play as hybrids because it offers a bigger unjustified advantage.

 

I've also "off" healed arenas in full, 36-point lightning. In a 4 DPS match vs. a 4 DPS match, is this somehow exploiting matchmaking too? After all, I'm effectively a healer even though I'm not running the hybrid spec. Or is it simply adapting the capabilities of my class to the situation I'm in?

 

(Granted, that was not in ranked as ranked does not have a history of very frequent pops on my server. But it is entirely possible as full lightning can sustain some very good "off" heals with its self-peeling talents--which full corruption almost entirely lacks--if you know what you're doing.)

 

If you get the matchmaking fix you desire, how is that going to prevent me from running arenas in full lightning (or possibly something like 16/30 but not having channeled heal) and troll healing my team?

 

Sure these issues might technically be separate, but they are very closely related. I've never heard of operatives feeling like they have to hybrid spec to heal arenas because their full heal tree is up to the job. Post 2.6 the same can probably be said for mercs. We have a lot of pressure to hybrid if we desire to heal, and whether you admit it or not a lot of that pressure does come from the inadequacy of seer compared to the other two full heal trees, in spite of the fact that full seer can put out more raw HPS than our hybrids. The hybrids essentially trade that raw HPS for survivability/control, which I actually think is a fair trade given the full seer spec's rather glaring deficiencies.

 

Now you can say it's not fair for one team to have a healer and the other not, and even raise a valid point in doing so, but as I said above removing the hybrid from matchmaking won't necessarily fix the problem. Bioware would need to literally tie our heals to stances to do that, which would be a very large change with unforseen consequences (bear in mind that Bioware has explicitly stated that our survivability, even as DPS, is balanced around h2f).

Edited April 24, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk

[MusicRider]

I've also "off" healed arenas in full, 36-point lightning. In a 4 DPS match vs. a 4 DPS match, is this somehow exploiting matchmaking too? After all, I'm effectively a healer even though I'm not running the hybrid spec. Or is it simply adapting the capabilities of my class to the situation I'm in?

 

(Granted, that was not in ranked as ranked does not have a history of very frequent pops on my server. But it is entirely possible as full lightning can sustain some very good "off" heals with its self-peeling talents--which full corruption almost entirely lacks--if you know what you're doing.)

 

If you get the matchmaking fix you desire, how is that going to prevent me from running arenas in full lightning (or possibly something like 16/30 but not having channeled heal) and troll healing my team?

You seriously are comparing dps off-healing with the healing of a healer? /facepalm

 

Sure these issues might technically be separate, but they are very closely related. I've never heard of operatives feeling like they have to hybrid spec to heal arenas because their full heal tree is up to the job. Post 2.6 the same can probably be said for mercs. We have a lot of pressure to hybrid if we desire to heal, and whether you admit it or not a lot of that pressure does come from the inadequacy of seer compared to the other two full heal trees, in spite of the fact that full seer can put out more raw HPS than our hybrids. The hybrids essentially trade that raw HPS for survivability/control, which I actually think is a fair trade given the full seer spec's rather glaring deficiencies.

Not true the slightest.... The hybrid is not trading anything but it is exploiting the matchmaking system to gain an unfair advantage. The hybrid is in fact inferior in every aspect to the full seer tree.... and simply because of its superiority it was the only heal spec for sages in ranked warzones when they existed. Nobody played hybrid other than during the term of the bubble stun fiasco.

 

Now you can say it's not fair for one team to have a healer and the other not, and even raise a valid point in doing so, but as I said above removing the hybrid from matchmaking won't necessarily fix the problem. Bioware would need to literally tie our heals to stances to do that, which would be a very large change with unforseen consequences (bear in mind that Bioware has explicitly stated that our survivability, even as DPS, is balanced around h2f).

Yes it will fix the problem if the matchmaking is fixed. And no need for stances.... just if you have healing trance you are a healer. I have already posted that. The opposite is true, even if seer is fixed as long as the hybrid is queued as dps many people will prefer it cause one team having a healer against another that does not, gives a big advantage and increases significantly the chances of winning. On the other hand if the hybrid was queued as healer then nobody would actually play it, cause it is the crappiest of all, even worse than full seer. I have said this a million times but it seems it doesn't come through.

[MidichIorian]

Cycling back to my issues with seer, am I really the only one who has force management issues? (I'm obviously not, based on the sage pugs I run into but the people here seem to disagree)

 

I recently discovered that I had a commando lingering on page two of my character screen so I decided to gear her a bit and run some operations. Such easy mode compared to sage, even with significally worse gear. Scoundrel is obviously way ahead of both but it feels like if scoundrel is #1 and commando is #2, in terms of effort you have to put into it, then seer would be #400. I think I used recharge cells once over the course of three operations (had not played the class in forever too) and on scoundrel it's even rarer that I'm using my "oh crap need energy button".

 

Then there's sage. My number one cause of deaths in warzones is that I don't have the force to keep myself alive anymore and it's freaking annoying. I can't think of any other spec, regardless of it being tanking, healing or dps, where you can't work your way back up while being in battle or atleast have one "oh crap ability". My last Arena, no tank on my team and I took 500K damage. Did the damage kill me? Not directly but the fact that I eventually didnt have force to heal myself did. Operations, same thing there. Who els has to continuously use two abilties (consumption + a heal) to keep themselves at a decent energy/force level?

 

And I wouldnt have had any issues with this if it hadnt been for the fact that we are squishy in PvE and the #1 and often ONLY target PvP. One would think that a class like that would have more room for errors/pressure than the other two, or foremost scoundrel, but in reality it's the complete opposite, just like most things with this class. Sage is like a race car chassi with no engine so if you've never played anything els I'd suggest that you don't, it will allow you to work under the assumption that the class is fine.

Edited April 25, 2014 by MidichIorian

[Ycoga]

How about... we stay on topic?

 

[MidichIorian]

How about... we stay on topic?

 

I'm just going to assume that you are adressing the last post since you didnt specifically quote anyone.

 

What in my post is not on topic of "sage issues"?

[MusicRider]

Cycling back to my issues with seer, am I really the only one who has force management issues? (I'm obviously not, based on the sage pugs I run into but the people here seem to disagree)

 

I recently discovered that I had a commando lingering on page two of my character screen so I decided to gear her a bit and run some operations. Such easy mode compared to sage, even with significally worse gear. Scoundrel is obviously way ahead of both but it feels like if scoundrel is #1 and commando is #2, in terms of effort you have to put into it, then seer would be #400. I think I used recharge cells once over the course of three operations (had not played the class in forever too) and on scoundrel it's even rarer that I'm using my "oh crap need energy button".

 

Then there's sage. My number one cause of deaths in warzones is that I don't have the force to keep myself alive anymore and it's freaking annoying. I can't think of any other spec, regardless of it being tanking, healing or dps, where you can't work your way back up while being in battle or atleast have one "oh crap ability". My last Arena, no tank on my team and I took 500K damage. Did the damage kill me? Not directly but the fact that I eventually didnt have force to heal myself did. Operations, same thing there. Who els has to continuously use two abilties (consumption + a heal) to keep themselves at a decent energy/force level?

 

And I wouldnt have had any issues with this if it hadnt been for the fact that we are squishy in PvE and the #1 and often ONLY target PvP. One would think that a class like that would have more room for errors/pressure than the other two, or foremost scoundrel, but in reality it's the complete opposite, just like most things with this class. Sage is like a race car chassi with no engine so if you've never played anything els I'd suggest that you don't, it will allow you to work under the assumption that the class is fine.

 

For pve:

1. Do you use noble sacrifice with trance stacks as part of your rotation?

2. Do you use rejuvenate 1 for tank and 1 for you?

3. Do you avoid casting salvation with 2-3 stacks but rather with 1?

4. Do you use force wave healing over salvation?

5. Do you not cast salvation on cd?

6. Do you consider delaying for a couple of secs healing trance but use rejuvenate with salvation as a last resort?

7. Do you avoid benevolence?

8. Do you avoid excessive use of bubbles? Ie do you bubble other people on deionising cd or frequently other than tank and yourself?

[Ycoga]

Any comments specific to the questions being asked?

 

This thread is about the questions on page1 - quite a lot of the comments made recently have already been covered / factored into the questions...

Edited April 25, 2014 by Ycoga

[Master-Nala]

Any comments specific to the questions being asked?

 

Quoted for Emphasis.

 

We have about one week. So get me those final comments.

[MidichIorian]

While I don't disagree with #1 and #3 being issues and/or in need of tweaks I don't see those questions representing the community.

 

If we gave every sage in the game a poll, how many of those do you think would be concerned about NiM or even put that on their top 10? 1%? How many are even running NiM's when those NiMs are at their level? It's probably not even 1 % and out of those there's probably not more than a maximum of one sage per 8 players. So, 0.125%? We have three questions, no more no less, and you want to cater to the 0.125 %? Groups like that have to, IMO, lobby for themselves. Not to mention that it has been brought up in the past. There's no doubt in my mind that BW is aware of the issue but choose to linger since they don't know how to fix it without turning sage into a shadow tank.

 

#3 is another question I don't see representing the community, in this context I'm expressing what the change would do to players post lvl 15

Look, sage melee will never, NEVER, be buffed to the point that it can replace a force ability. This is why we have sents and shadows in the game. Even if sage melee was buffed to a decent level it still shouldnt be in a sage's interest to be up close and personal, use the GCD to run the hell away instead. So who is this for? Even if it should turn out to be nothing but a RP thing, which I don't have a problem with, I don't see that many RP'ers putting aside their force abilities for an option that is worse. And should we even, through a question, promote that people play the class in a way that isnt optimal or intended?

 

Your Feedback issues are IMO much more general and relevant because they affect entire specs, regardless of what content they're playing.

Edited April 25, 2014 by MidichIorian

[AdrianDmitruk]

While I don't disagree with #1 and #3 being issues and/or in need of tweaks I don't see those questions representing the community.

 

If we gave every sage in the game a poll, how many of those do you think would be concerned about NiM or even put that on their top 10? 1%? How many are even running NiM's when those NiMs are at their level? It's probably not even 1 % and out of those there's probably not more than a maximum of one sage per 8 players. So, 0.125%? We have three questions, no more no less, and you want to cater to the 0.125 %? Groups like that have to, IMO, lobby for themselves.

 

#3 is another question I don't see representing the community, in this context I'm expressing what the change would do to players post lvl 15

Look, sage melee will never, NEVER, be buffed to the point that it can replace a force ability. This is why we have sents and shadows in the game. Even if sage melee was buffed to a decent level it still shouldnt be in a sage's interest to be up close and personal, use the GCD to run the hell away instead. So who is this for? Even if it should turn out to be nothing but a RP thing, which I don't have a problem with, I don't see that many RP'ers putting aside their force abilities for an option that is worse. And should we even, through a question, promote that people play the class in a way that isnt optimal or intended?

 

Regarding question #1, I feel it does represent the community, as survivability is a widely held issue amongst us, but the question has to be narrowly tailored because Bioware previously answered a broader version of the question with "l2p, h2f."

 

Therefore the question must be structured in such a manner that we do not have the time it takes to "l2p, h2f," and NiM enrage timers are the clearest example of this even if most of the community does not partake in NiM.

 

Question 3, I do kinda agree with you on.

Edited April 25, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk

[MidichIorian]

Regarding question #1, I feel it does represent the community, as survivability is a widely held issue amongst us, but the question has to be narrowly tailored because Bioware previously answered a broader version of the question with "l2p, h2f."

I don't think that's the reason for the, IMO, way too specific questions this time around. BW is responsible in the sense that they gave some BS answers but the real complaint regarding the questions came from forum members afterwards, the type that doesnt say **** when they have a chance and then pop up just to add a "I told you so" when it's too late. Some people were really pushy about the questions not being forumlated correctly. I thought the whole thing was stupid. There was nothing wrong with the questions, BW understood them perfectly fine (a 1st grader would have) but they chose to not answer them, or atleast not in a satisfying way. A simple "no" to every question would probably have been better than the answers we got.

 

IMO, simply listing things such as #1 survivability, #2 Damage hitting like a wet noodle and #3 Force management on seer and balance sub-par should have been enough. I don't think anyone expect them to take down the servers one day later but they could atleast acknowledge the issues.

 

Still waiting for that promised crit change by the way. That alone would buff balance a bit.

Edited April 26, 2014 by MidichIorian

[Master-Nala]

While I don't disagree with #1 and #3 being issues and/or in need of tweaks I don't see those questions representing the community.

 

If we gave every sage in the game a poll, how many of those do you think would be concerned about NiM or even put that on their top 10? 1%? How many are even running NiM's when those NiMs are at their level? It's probably not even 1 % and out of those there's probably not more than a maximum of one sage per 8 players. So, 0.125%? We have three questions, no more no less, and you want to cater to the 0.125 %? Groups like that have to, IMO, lobby for themselves. Not to mention that it has been brought up in the past. There's no doubt in my mind that BW is aware of the issue but choose to linger since they don't know how to fix it without turning sage into a shadow tank.

 

#3 is another question I don't see representing the community, in this context I'm expressing what the change would do to players post lvl 15

Look, sage melee will never, NEVER, be buffed to the point that it can replace a force ability. This is why we have sents and shadows in the game. Even if sage melee was buffed to a decent level it still shouldnt be in a sage's interest to be up close and personal, use the GCD to run the hell away instead. So who is this for? Even if it should turn out to be nothing but a RP thing, which I don't have a problem with, I don't see that many RP'ers putting aside their force abilities for an option that is worse. And should we even, through a question, promote that people play the class in a way that isnt optimal or intended?

 

Your Feedback issues are IMO much more general and relevant because they affect entire specs, regardless of what content they're playing.

 

I don't disagree with you. I'll share something with you. NONE OF THESE ARE MY TOP THREE. Not one. I wouldn't ask a single one of these if I were solely representing my own interests.

 

Your post here and the later one right above, gets to why I tried to pull this together. I wanted this to be more than a half-hearted effort put together at the last minute that people would just complain about. I think we've done that. You're right, most people don't do NiM. But to be honest, most people don't have issues with Sages at all because they can't even play well enough to see the issues.

 

I have tried to cut through all the complaints to find issues where there is at least some semblance of a real issue AND (and this is the most important part) where the devs are likely to budge. I'll give you an example of an issue where I don't think they will budge...an execute. An execute is not likely to ever be added to this class. At best Balance will get some extra damage on their DoTs below 30%. Half the classes have executes, half don't. My sense is that this is an intended situation. And it doesn't get to the real issue which is burst and/or DPS.

 

As for #3, well heck, why not? We are not going to get what most people will see as satisfactory answers to survivability, damage, force management. The one reason I'm OK with #3 is we might actually get something resembling a decent answer.

[ShadowMudkip]

Many people are asking for a defensive cd for sage/sorcerer, but I think that increasing the amount of damage that our armor/barrier can take would be sufficient. Maybe by an additional 15-25%.

[MusicRider]

IMO overall the questions are a bit long.... I like the length and format of the shadows/sins questions.

 

Q1. The way I interpret this question is "can we discuss about having force mend and bubble, our defensive cool downs, off the gcd or on a separate 'defences' cd so that they don't hinder our primary role, either heals or dps?", with a few more lines of explanation.... The survivability, 'lack of punch', and the examples are a bit confusing to me and not sure how they will be interpreted.

 

Q2. Yes all good, if it could be sorter even better. Also the solutions suggested are not the only ones...

 

Q3. I like this question even if it might not be a pressing matter. To me I don't care so much about having willpower enhancing the melee attacks, have no intention in staying in close range, but it would be nice to see some use of lightsaber by maybe reworking even one of the animations of some ability.

 

Feedback section... again it seems to me a bit long... have a look on shadows questions.

 

- Skill tax. The way it is presented I can't see any point of asking it... all classes have such skill taxes... and in fact tier 1 abilities are abilities that can benefit all specs... tier 2 and above start things to get more specific... and other than egress for pvp I can't really see any other real skill taxes.

 

- Balance sustained damage. Cool and I hope the devs have an update on this as they said they are looking into it.

 

- Pushback. Also fine.

 

- Execute. Doubt anything will be done, particularly since they are looking in the balance sustained, but oh well let's ask and see.

 

- Set bonuses. This comes last and IMO this is an important thing that could be a question of itself. At least the 4-piece force master pvp set bonus is pretty useless and none is using it. This should ring a bell. The 4-piece force mystic pvp bonus is in the right direction, but there are question whether it is enough as self-losing health is pretty bad for arenas.

[Capote]

I know I'm hitting the same nail again, but I have to agree with MidichIorian here. His opinion is exactly what I thought when I read these questions for the first time. I mean, I know it is impossible to please everyone, but questions 1 and 3 seems like something made by a noisy minority.

 

Starting with question 3, does it really matters to more than a handful of people? I mean, come on people, didn't we choose a class in the first place because of its particulars? How many of us actually care to how we swing our lightsabers around when we have so many other issues? Tbh, what bothers me the most here is that it'll obviously be answered with a "no plans, it's all about the class uniqueness". What do people really expect, that we get saber throws or start using saber strike, for real? What could we possibly get from this that'd benefit us as a class? Do you think they'd actually change animations/give new spells just because of that?

 

I understand this question can bring some curiosity, but to use an entire slot for something so trivial? It just feels so "meh". Oh well, that's just my opinion.

 

Now, about the first question, shouldn't we focus on bigger PvE problems such as the class performance when compared to other rangeds or even the huge difference in specs performance?

 

Not only that, but with the very recent changes on barrier don't you think they'll hardly give valuable news/info on this matter? It seems so obvious to me that we'll read a "we just changed barrier but are always balancing classes" answer. The bonus sets/skill tax/class performance issues seems like a better bet to me. What do you guys think?

Edited April 26, 2014 by Capote

[AdrianDmitruk]

- Skill tax. The way it is presented I can't see any point of asking it... all classes have such skill taxes... and in fact tier 1 abilities are abilities that can benefit all specs... tier 2 and above start things to get more specific... and other than egress for pvp I can't really see any other real skill taxes.

 

- Set bonuses. This comes last and IMO this is an important thing that could be a question of itself. At least the 4-piece force master pvp set bonus is pretty useless and none is using it. This should ring a bell. The 4-piece force mystic pvp bonus is in the right direction, but there are question whether it is enough as self-losing health is pretty bad for arenas.

 

As far as the skill tax goes seer has always paid up to 2nd tier TK for the Force Armor talent, ever since launch. You can argue that the willpower bonus in madness isn't a tax because it's 1st tier, but seer has been taxed since launch, and now DPS gets taxed for Fadeout in PVP (again, contrast with changing HtL to baseline). Balance got taxed up to second tier TK for Force Management and now has to decide which of the two skill taxes to pay in PVP, as it cannot pay both and remain a pure spec.

 

That is broken. The problem isn't the existence of skill taxes per se, it's that our class simply has too many of them. We're the most heavily taxed class in the game, to the point where it now breaks one of our pure specs for PVP. And Bioware wonders why we hybrid LOL.

 

As far as set bonuses go, I agree and tried to get some discussion of that in question 2 as honestly lacking set bonuses do gimp seers even more in PVP. Imbalance between PVP and PVE set bonuses for seer is a large problem; with bolster it is literally impossible to argue for taking 4 piece PVP over 2 piece PVE...for PVP. I'm not as familiar with the DPS set bonuses but it should say something that I seriously considered getting sin 4 piece PVE. As a PVP sorc healer. That was before 2.7 came along and I pretty much stopped PVPing because seer/corruption was utterly neglected as DPS got all the love.

Edited April 26, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk

[Master-Nala]

Starting with question 3, does it really matters to more than a handful of people? I mean, come on people, didn't we choose a class in the first place because of its particulars? How many of us actually care to how we swing our lightsabers around when we have so many other issues? Tbh, what bothers me the most here is that it'll obviously be answered with a "no plans, it's all about the class uniqueness". What do people really expect, that we get saber throws or start using saber strike, for real? What could we possibly get from this that'd benefit us as a class? Do you think they'd actually change animations/give new spells just because of that?

 

I understand this question can bring some curiosity, but to use an entire slot for something so trivial? It just feels so "meh". Oh well, that's just my opinion.

 

Believe it or not, those questions come up quite often. Personally I would prefer to have questions about: Skill tax; lack of a big hitter (not just an execute; a power that does a decent chunk in single target without going TK); reducing the lockout on Force Armor.

 

BUT, I am trying to speak for the community. The question about the lightsaber has been around since launch in various forms. The skill tax on the contrary really doesn't seem to have the same passion around it. But that would be the one that bumps #3, so if people really want that speak up.

 

I really wish they would have just answered people's concerns when they come up and end this class rep thing, because someone will be disappointed whatever we ask.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Master-Nala