Sage Top 3 Questions - Answered

[Rocanon]

Quitting the game makes him stuck up?

 

Then again, he had mentioned you were an .....

 

You are not worth it.

 

I'm beginning to doubt if this entire playerbase is worth it.

 

PvPers left with 1.2. Raiders left with Wildstar. RPers left with 2.0. Even my best friend left. All my in game friends left.

 

And I'm in hell with whatever that is left.

 

**** this ****. I'm done.

 

Could you try to be a little bit whinier? Its not coming through strongly enough for everyone to realize you're an angsty child.

[TheMarmalade]

Gotta say, loving all of the actually educated responses from the community here. Although the response from the devs really make me question if any of them have ever taken one as a DPS on a true high end end game Op.

 

After reading all of this this is what I see. You're a dps sage, you get no real defensive CD like every other class, we just expect that you be better and not stand in **** like a dumb sentinel. At first this irritated me, cause so many other classes have great PVE defensive cooldowns (rebuke, guarded by the devs, dodge, defensive screen, ballistic shield, reactive shield, reflect the list just goes on and on), all we get is bubble which as a dps we are clearly not supposed to use (even though the ability to make it better is in the dps tree), mend (which is awesome cause it takes a GCD, and most classes can do more damage than it heals in one GCD), and barrier cause it causes a super aggro drop and whatever your protecting yourself from won't hit you anyways then. When you look at all of this in summary, it first appears as though we got boned majorly in survivability, but now I am thinking that maybe BioWare is challenging us sages to just simply be more skilled than players who play the other classes.

 

So I say F it. Challenge accepted.

Edited May 29, 2014 by TheMarmalade

[CommanderKeeva]

Then, please, why is the stat stick used in Sage animations at all ???

 

Is it such an overwhelming concern, though, that alternate animations have to take precedence over ANY concern TK or Balance Sages might have?

 

If the unused lightsaber annoys people so much, you can make a simple thread in the Suggestions forum to allow using healing and DPS skills while it is holstered and deactivated.

[CommanderKeeva]

Now I am thinking that maybe BioWare is challenging us Sages to just simply be more skilled than players who play the other classes.

 

Well, they said as much...

 

 

Sorcerers are an “easy to play, hard to master” class, in that most of their abilities are rather straight-forward and easily understood, but getting the most out of those abilities may require a higher skill level than many players are comfortable with.

 

It looks like the developers really meant this.

Edited May 29, 2014 by CommanderKeeva

[KeyboardNinja]

Either balance sage is going to be stronger than you realize, or I'm out of touch with what commandos can do. Either way, balance sage gains more in fights where you can dps multiple enemies over a sustained period from double dotting, so I don't think the burst AOE damage is a blanket advantage for commando, and we can agree the sage will still do more damage in a dummy fight.

 

Unless I missed some parses, as of right now, balance/madness is parsing around a 3950 in a mixture of 180 and 186 gear (with 186 off hand). In that same gear and with comparable luck, assault/pyro is able to get about a 3900. This isn't definitive, obviously, since it's the PTS and we're talking about comparable, but not equal gear. Once the changes go live and people hit the leaderboards, we'll know more. However, it really doesn't look like the gap between them is going to be that substantial.

 

Multi-dotting is inherently unsustainable for balance/madness. Heck, their baseline single target rotation is inherently unsustainable! One of the things I really dislike about the 1 mil dummy is that it allows people to have appreciably energy-negative rotations. Balance/Madness now benefits from that dramatically more than any other class since they can kill the dummy roughly concurrent with the moment that you run out of force. If you take that same sage/sorc and have them parse on the 1.5 mil dummy, the results will be enormously lower due to the need for a slightly more conservative Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning policy. Multi-dotting is completely out of the question unless you either a) have time for Noble Sacrifice/Consumption, or b) know that the fight is going to end before your force will.

 

In any case, as I said, balance/madness does have higher sustained AoE, if only from Force in Balance/Death Field.

 

The fact that assault/pyro has half the setup time of balance/madness as well as substantially higher burst is more than enough reason for them to be parsing lower.

 

I implied that was A balance consideration, not the only one, and looking at the balance of ranged classes in 2.8 is my biggest evidence. Ranged are far easier to balance than melee, and trying to directly compare melee balance is difficult due to varying position requirements, on- and off- the GCD gap closers of varying effectiveness, capability to do damage while closing the gap, defensive cooldowns, etc. Ranged balance is a much simpler problem, with the only variables really being survivability, utility, and damage output (with the implied consideration of capability for burst, target swapping, etc). Comparing Watchman to Vigilance to Shadow Balance to Scoundrel DF to Vanguard Assault is hard. Comparing TK to Gunnery to Sharpshooter is much easier. When I see the balance in 2.8 being that dot spec sages out DPS dot spec commandos and dot spec gunslingers, and the same for TK/Gunnery/SS, that makes me think a decision was made to consider incoming damage in the DPS balancing.

 

The thing about comparing just the DoT specs is that they all have very different tradeoffs even within just the damage dealt bucket. Balance/Madness is really the purest DoT spec in the game. Most of its damage comes from DoTs and frequent low damage filler abilities. Dirty Fighting/Lethality is basically the opposite end of the spectrum: almost all of your damage comes from Cull. The DoTs in DF/Leth exist more as a procing mechanism for Cull than anything else. Sure, eliminating their damage would be an appreciable loss of DPS, but it would be far less of a DPS loss than eliminating DoT damage from balance/madness. Additionally, Cull is a relatively infrequent, extremely high damage ability. Sages/Sorcs have nothing even close to it in balance/madness spec. And so while the setup time is comparable, the flexibility offered by timing that periodic burst gives DF/Leth an advantage they can exploit to close the sustain gap in a boss fight with downtime, burst phases, damage buff phases, and similar. Assault/Pyro is similar to this with respect to High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot, though HiB/RS does less damage than Cull and comes more frequently.

 

With respect to TK/Gunnery/SS, I'm not sure it's intentional for SS to be parsing as low as it is in 2.8. I really feel like gunslingers are still in transition, because I just can't think of any other justification for how maniacally out of balance they currently are. Dirty Fighting is in an almost OK place, but it does need slightly more sustained damage to be damage-competitive with assault and balance. Sharpshooter though… Outside of the utility, which is substantial, there's just no reason to favor the damage dealt by a SS gunslinger over the damage dealt by a gunnery commando. In fact, if I had the choice between taking a commando who could play gunnery and assault verses a gunslinger who could only play sharpshooter, I would take the commando hands down. This is despite the utility that the gunslinger brings.

 

Given that gunnery has much better AoE and much better burst than sharpshooter does, I tend to think that sharpshooter should be parsing higher than it. In fact, I would put sharpshooter equal to or even slightly higher than TK, given the kind of sustained AoE TK is capable of delivering. That's a harder question though, especially given the SS variation specs which provide better AoE while leaving the core of the spec intact.

[Master-Nala]

Is it such an overwhelming concern, though, that alternate animations have to take precedence over ANY concern TK or Balance Sages might have?

 

That is a false dilemma. The PvE and PvP questions were devoted to mechanics. You have to remember that Sages, especially Balance, have been buffed in two straight updates. Further, realize that Rob Hinkle has opined about Sages issues very frequently of late.

 

For a great many people, the third question was irrelevant and a waste. I get that, but you should acknowledge that for just as many if not more it was really important. The first question which was far and away the most complained of issue, was a bigger waste IMO and we only wound up with an answer that was somewhat better that the H2F.

 

The third question incorporates two complaints that come up again and again. While I can respect they are not important to you, I don't see why people jump on that one. Personally, I'm more annoyed that I couldn't get a better answer out of the survivabilty question.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Master-Nala

[Master-Nala]

Well, they said as much...

 

 

 

 

It looks like the developers really meant this.

 

 

I agree. It appears that Sages are simply meant to have less margin for error than comparable classes. Ah well, it is a Force using class, so it will be OK.

[AlrikFassbauer]

I agree. It appears that Sages are simply meant to have less margin for error than comparable classes. Ah well, it is a Force using class, so it will be OK.

 

I fully agree. It dawned to me already with the H2F answers that the devs had designed these classes TO BE challenging & difficult to maintain.

 

IT'S MEANT TO BE SO.

 

But I don't like it. Because other classes - according to my personal impression ALL OTHER CLASSES - have the "easy button". Sages & Sorcs lack them even in the armor department.

 

What I see more clearly now is they crippled the Sage / Sorc class by design. It's MEANT TO BE a crippled class - compared to almost all or all other classes.

 

On the other side, this could also mean that someone in the team who is especially intellectually gifted made this class so that he would have a real challenge - and frowning upon the "easy classes" which all other classes appear to be.

[Gnoblesse]

Just wondering what people would think of this;

 

Put the "no health cost" right back where it was in the tree for Seer/Corruption. Then, adjust the numbers on the force reduction parts of Force Bending/Conveyance downward just enough that if you are perfect with timing your NS/Consumption + proc usage, you're still going to be somewhat force negative. You'd be able to last a long time, but not forever, which was the concern before; you DO need your healers to run out of resources at some point or it makes content too easy. (This could also be used to "break" the PvP healing hybrid that a lot of people hate.)

 

Set bonuses = the PvP 2 piece could be the same as the PvE 2 piece. The 2 piece PvP bonus could become the 4 piece. I'd actually use both set bonuses then.

 

For survivability issues, swap Confound/Conspiring Force with one of the survivability talents in one of the DPS trees. It has always seemed to me that that talent belonged in a DPS tree anyway. Alternatively...replace it entirely with a survivability talent that is really only useful in PvP.

[ArchangelLBC]

Compare Sage to Commando and Gunslinger.

 

Commando:

Reactive Shield (25% less dmg, 12s, 2m CD),

Adrenaline Rush is a last ditch DCD, requiring you to almost die and then not get finished off. (8s of healing up to 35%, 3m CD)

 

Gunslinger is often banned from using their Scrambling Field as a personal DCD, typically it's controlled by the raid leader in serious content so personal CD are:

Dodge: 0 ranged/melee damage for 3s, (1m CD)

Defensive Shield: mini force armour (20s CD)

Ballistic Dampers is a talent but since it's tier 1 it's typically taken: 30% less damage from next 3 hits in cover (6s CD)

 

Sage as you say:

Force Mend: chunky heal (30s CD)

Force Barrier: immunity for 10s(?) followed by about 75% of your health in a damage absorbing buff for 5s(?) (3m CD)

 

Doesn't immediately look like Sages have a bad deal for Operations.

 

Commando got some pretty bad news though, passive buff of heavy armour is intended to be bypassed by specific mechanics to ensure they do take as much damage from it as a sage and their two DCD have long CD.

 

Sage:

Pull -> total aggro dump on target and rescue/hilarious fail mechanic to save/kill an ally.

Force Armour - a heath buff you can put on an ally before a hit if no sage healer is available.

Combat Res

 

Gunslinger:

Scrambling Fields raid protection which I excluded from personal DCD

Armour debuff with healing debuff attached

Accuracy debuff (sharpshooter) -> can be used on powerful adds but not the boss

Immunity during roll, can remove self destructive damaging mechanics such as circles vs Dread Guard without anyone taking damage

 

Commando:

Armour debuff (gunnery)

Combat Res

 

This is pretty obtuse of you Gyro. I don't know what bug crawled up your butt to make you poo poo on every ranged class not assault commando, but this is pretty ridiculous. Let's take your points.

 

DCDs:

Commando and Gunslinger DCDs are completely off the GCD. Force Mend isn't, and it really absolutely should be. Additionally, Force Barrier is pretty much a nono in raids most of the time, unless you just really need another threat drop. It's significantly more useless 99% of the time than Adrenaline Rush. SS Slingers also get a 60% AoE damage reduction that lasts 23 seconds, has a CD of 45 seconds, and you can get an additional 6 seconds per use with good usage of Hightail it. Let's not forget that, as KBN pointed out, a lot of things that you have to eat are in fact K/E damage so armor rating does come into play.

 

Either way, Force Mend is their only real DCD in raids and asking for it to be off the GCD is not at all unreasonable. Putting Force Armor off the GCD with some sort of cooldown is also not the worst thing in the world, but I'm willing to say that Force Mend off the GCD is a good enough place to be starting with.

 

Utility:

 

I would include off cleanses for both commando and sage. I know those are very useful on Nefra and Draxus (the CG looking DoT he uses), Brontes (Nanites), and Council (Death Marks, especially with the raid so spread out). Additionally, if you're going to include Force Armor for sages, you should include Kolto Bomb for Commandos. It's instant, relatively cheap, AoE, and isn't negated by having another commando use it unlike Force Armor.

[AlrikFassbauer]

Is it such an overwhelming concern, though, that alternate animations have to take precedence over ANY concern TK or Balance Sages might have?

 

I'm indifferent about new animations. I don't care.

 

What i want is animations that reflect the lore part.

 

If you insist so much on the TK part, then you are clearly not playing SWTOR for its lore. To you, at least i get this impression, and to so many other players, SWTOR is merely the x-th MMO, which you will play no matter what. Only damage numbers are of interest to most here, it seems to me. And not at all how the game looks like, how it plays.

 

Me, I'm interested in the lore. IF they do an Star wars game, THEN I want it to be as close to the movies as possible (because OT & PT have the highest priority in terms of lore). Next would come comics, novels, etc. .

 

With this, we have 2 entirely different factions within the player base - and thus within the forums :

 

- Those who don't care at all how a game looks like, the only thing that matters to them is the - cynically put - hack & slay part. SWTOR could be ANY hack & slay game they'd discuss about - and about damage numbers within the game.

 

- Those who don't care about how the mechanics are. All they care about is the look, is how it feels, is how it plays. For them, it is important that they can have immersion and that, if the game is tied to a franchise, that it looks as closely as possible top that franchise.

 

And their entirely different approaches of how to play SWTOR can be very clearly in this "TK olr Jedi Lore" discussion.

[wadecounty]

One of the things I really dislike about the 1 mil dummy is that it allows people to have appreciably energy-negative rotations. Balance/Madness now benefits from that dramatically more than any other class since they can kill the dummy roughly concurrent with the moment that you run out of force. If you take that same sage/sorc and have them parse on the 1.5 mil dummy, the results will be enormously lower due to the need for a slightly more conservative Telekinetic Throw/Force Lightning policy. Multi-dotting is completely out of the question unless you either a) have time for Noble Sacrifice/Consumption, or b) know that the fight is going to end before your force will.

 

 

But this completely ignores how operations fights actually work. There is hardly any operations fight where you're DPSing for 6+ minutes straight non stop. Let's look at Fortress/Palace...

 

Nefra: 3 minute fight

Draxus: 10 minute fight with multiple short breaks and with the burst/aoe requirements, you'd never take Balance anyways

Grob'thok: OK, 1 fight where you're mostly DPSing non-stop.

C-Zero: 6 minute fight with stoppages for the big red circle and when he leaps in the air, also another TK fight with how good AOE is here

Brontes: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages dispersed throughout, longest continuous portion is maybe 3 minutes in length

 

Bestia: 10 minute fight with potential stoppage from first to second phase depending on how good your DPS is, otherwise this is another continuous fight but a fairly easy one

Tyrans: 3-4 minute fight

Calphayus: 10+ minute fight with MANY stoppages

Raptus: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages, also with the burst required may want to go TK here

Council: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages

 

So by my count, the only fights where you're really DPSing non-stop for the time it'd take to kill a 1.5 million dummy are Grob'thok and Bestia, arguably the 2 easiest fights in the current progression level operations (Nefra's easier when you bump it up to Nightmare, point still stands).

Edited May 29, 2014 by wadecounty

[Shikyo]

Allow to preface this with the fact that I do not play my sage healer enough to remember all the correct names for abilities so I will be speaking from a Sorc Healer perspective. With that said I have only really played sorc healer and operative healer so most of what I will be sharing below comes from this base experience and I cannot speak much to Merc healing at ALL. AND...I'm sorry about the wall of text lol. it is a essay.

 

That said, there are a few things in pvp I notice that I lack as a Sorc Healer but have as a operative healer that makes the operative so much more successfull in a PVP enviornment.

 

1. The ability to heal not only myself but my team while Kiting around the pesky people trying to shut me down and kill me. Mobility with my heals. Operatives have only two channels for heals to manage and they only really come into effect when preasured to have no tac advantages left.

 

2. A second defense ability that allows me to do my job as a healer while staying alive a bit longer. Speaking of how operatives have Evasion and Shield Probe. As a Sorc I have a Static Barrier and Force Barrier. Static Barrier is comparative to shield probe but Force barrier is a beast that isn't really helpful enough in pvp. I would gladly trade it for a ability like evasion or force shroud.

 

Now with the above noted let me begin my suggestions. Please note that in NO way am I suggesting the all of the below be put into game as it would clearly be Over Powered; instead, these are simply suggestions of where to look in the current form of Sorc Healing in PVP that may help improve performance.

 

1. Now I read loud and clear that the Devs are NOT likely to humor making anything instant cast, but considering one of our greatest hinderence in PVP is the inablility to heal a team member while moving I can't in good conscience not include this suggestion.

 

-Force Surge to effect Dark Heal as well as what it currently does: Casting Dark Heal whith Force surge active will make the cast instant and consume one charge of force surge.

 

Now hear this out please: Currently Dark Heal, with some alacrity, is a channel that really is close to the same time of a Global Cool Down, the problem lies with the fact that this heal still requires you to remain still and not get interrupted, stunned, or knocked back to get the benefit from it. My above suggested change would give sorc healers something to use to heal their selves OR their team WHILE kiting around the several players trying to kill them.

 

This change wouldn't affect PVE as Dark Heal would still be a bad idea to use due to the amount of force it costs to the amount it heals. It would remain a emergency heal in PVE unchanged.

 

Due to the fact that innervate is required to recharge Force Surge, this ability cannot be spammed, plus considering the force cost remains it would not be in the best interest to spam it anyway.

 

Also Force Surge is high enough into the Healing tree to help prevent it from creating hybrid specs that would be too powerful.

 

Now I do foresee that the force cost COULD make this still not a valuable change in PVP, to which it could be tweaked after testing it to see what metrics it provides.

 

2. Give us a ability that works similar to Evasion/force shroud. Now this idea requires ADDING a ability to the healing tree (most likely need to be high up in the tree) But I cannot tell you how useful it is having evasion on my operative with healing. It keeps me going so I can keep healing. It purges the DOTS that can't be removed any other way which takes preasure off of me and it slaps a stop sign in front of classes such as marauders/juggernauts and Snipers.

 

I fully understand that this idea is most likely to not gain any attention since we have Force Barrier but the differences in barrier and evasion are night and day with me personally wanting something like evasion up my sorcs sleeve in PVP.

 

3. Lets change how reverse corruptions and Corrupted Speed works. I don't know about the rest of you sorc healers out there but for top tier talents that lesson the degenerating effects of Consumption and then adding .5 seconds to my force speed....yea... I don't really find good use for that in pvp or pve. It helps me about 0%.

 

So what if one of them instead added a effect similar to what the Op healers have that lowers the cooldown of evasion everytime they are attacked, on a DR of once per 1.5 seconds but have that apply to our force Barrier?

 

Force Barrier currently has a 3 minute cool down, and while it will allow you to survive, and does apply lasting bastion, it completely removes you from the fight for 10 seconds max. Now, the neat thing I find that force barrier does do when I use it in pvp is 1 of 2 things:

a) If DPS sit there waiting for me to pop out, I effectively removed them from the fight with me for up to 10 seconds.

b)DPS will find new targets giving me a chance to escape and hide again to heal.

 

-So lets say we changed Corrupted speed or Reversed Corruptions to reduce the active cool down for Force Barrier by X amount of seconds when being attacked. Efect cannot occur more then once every 1.5 seconds.

 

Now seeing how Force Barrier has a 3 minute cooldown I'd most likely suggest it be rather high for it to be of use. 2-3 seconds maybe? (3 seconds would mean that a sorc getting hammered on for 30 seconds would reduce it's active cooldown by 60 seconds). This will be the part to tweak as we all know that it doesn't take long for a sorc to get focused down lol, but it could be a step in the right direction.

 

4. Change lasting Bastion to act more like force shroud and tweek Force Barrier a bit.

 

Force Barrier has too long of a cool down to be extremely useful. It's a use this once every 3-5 deaths.

What if:

Force Barrier: Does what it currently does, but only for 5 seconds. Each second channeled grants lasting bastion for a max of 4-5 seconds.

Force Barrier Cooldown reduced by half. (90 seconds)

Lasting Bastion: Grants 100% immunity to Force and Tech attacks (or switch this to melee and ranged attacks) for it's duration.

Modify Reversed Corruptions to instead: Reduces the active cool down of Force Barrier by 1.5 seconds when attacked. This effect cannot occur more then once every 1.5 seconds.

 

The problem with the modification to force barrier is this would also effect DPS sorcs and if you are currenlty comfortable with where they stand then you may not want to do this, but also keep in mind you can have the modification to Force Barrier be tied to Corrupted Speed.

 

Well, those are my ideas and again, I do not suggest that all of these be implemented as clearly it would creat a case of being over powered, but these are some areas I would look into from a development stand point and then build on and test in closed environments and even on the PTS for players to test and give feedback on. Get some metrics essentially.

 

I also don't think any of the above changes will affect how I perform in PVE Operations. The only one I feel may border that is reducing the cool down of Force barrier in half as that means I could use it a few times in a boss fight to save my but from a mechanic.

 

Hope these ideas help, or at least help others build better ideas off of them.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Shikyo

[KeyboardNinja]

But this completely ignores how operations fights actually work. There is no operations fight where you're DPSing for 6+ minutes straight non stop. Let's look at Fortress/Palace...

 

It's a tradeoff. The 1 mil dummy similarly ignores operations. There is one boss total that is a static burn for anything on the order of 4 minutes, and that's Nefra. The 1.5 mil dummy is too long, while the 1 mil dummy is too short. Gear will eventually settle this issue definitively in favor of the 1.5 mil, but right now we're in a bit of uncomfortable limbo.

 

I prefer to err on the side of checking the sustainable properties of a class, rather than what they can do on current content in current gear, since the former is a long-term class balance question, while the latter is a short-term ops team composition question.

 

Draxus: 10 minute fight with multiple short breaks and with the burst/aoe requirements, you'd never take Balance anyways

 

8 minutes, actually. You'd be very dead from the hard enrage if it required 10 minutes. More importantly, the short breaks are too short for a balance sage to realistically noble sacrifice or naturally regenerate anything meaningful. There are generally targets available though, so Telekinetic Throw spam judiciously applied can help a bit…

 

Grob'thok: OK, 1 fight where you're mostly DPSing non-stop.

 

Sort of. Breaks for lava. Also, TK out-DPSes even post-2.8 balance by a wide margin on this fight (tested).

 

C-Zero: 6 minute fight with stoppages for the big red circle and when he leaps in the air

 

Less than four minutes, actually. I know this further establishes your point over mine, but precision is important in either case. The break for the red circle is actually no break at all, because you're still DPSing adds during all of the grav field moments. The longest break is during the four laser phase, since the adds are usually gone after the second laser. This particular break is long enough to Noble Sac, though technically there is no reason for you to care since the final burn is a joke.

 

Also, depending on your comp and strat, you may want TK for this fight rather than balance. The target swapping alone probably pushes for it.

 

Brontes: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages dispersed throughout, longest continuous portion is maybe 3 minutes in length

 

8.5 minutes. Stops and holds are generally not long enough to do anything in the realm of regeneration. Also, as a sage DPS, you would spend most of those meaningful stops on bubbling yourself (a further force drain).

 

Bestia: 10 minute fight with potential stoppage from first to second phase depending on how good your DPS is, otherwise this is another continuous fight but a fairly easy one

 

I actually don't know how long bestia is. Is it really ten minutes? I think my brain AFKs on this fight unless I'm tanking it. Definitely a continuous fight, though I suppose you could DPS very conservatively during the second phase to recover energy.

 

Tyrans: 3-4 minute fight

 

Another straight burn fight, though less so in nightmare mode due to simplification.

 

Calphayus: 10+ minute fight with MANY stoppages

 

Plenty of time to get force back. Helpful HoTs (even in nightmare mode) to make it even easier. Bleh. It's a TK fight though, without question. Lots of DoT overkill, target swapping, plentiful AoE and high burst requirements in nightmare mode.

 

Raptus: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages, also with the burst required may want to go TK here

 

Yeah, I would definitely go TK here. See my prior list of fights where I would go balance vs TK.

 

Council: 10+ minute fight with multiple stoppages

 

Only one stop, really (unless you're the kiter). Whenever I'm doing any role other than the kiter, I DPS continually on this fight.

 

So by my count, the only fights where you're really DPSing non-stop for the time it'd take to kill a 1.5 million dummy are Grob'thok and Bestia, arguably the 2 easiest fights in the current progression level operations.

 

And yet also by your count (especially using your timing numbers rather than mine), there are really only two fights which are short enough to qualify for the 1 mil dummy. WTB 1.25 mil modifier.

[Gnoblesse]

 

-So lets say we changed Corrupted speed or Reversed Corruptions to reduce the active cool down for Force Barrier by X amount of seconds when being attacked. Efect cannot occur more then once every 1.5 seconds.

 

 

Or, maybe even put something like that where Confound/Conspiring Force is now. (I'm sure BW has numbers re: how many people actually even put a point in that @ 55, I'd love to know what those numbers are.)

[Master-Nala]

With this, we have 2 entirely different factions within the player base - and thus within the forums :

 

- Those who don't care at all how a game looks like, the only thing that matters to them is the - cynically put - hack & slay part. SWTOR could be ANY hack & slay game they'd discuss about - and about damage numbers within the game.

 

- Those who don't care about how the mechanics are. All they care about is the look, is how it feels, is how it plays. For them, it is important that they can have immersion and that, if the game is tied to a franchise, that it looks as closely as possible top that franchise.

 

And their entirely different approaches of how to play SWTOR can be very clearly in this "TK olr Jedi Lore" discussion.

 

I don't think those two groups are necessarily distinct. It seems there is a clear Venn diagram that could illustrate this. For example, I and KeyboardNinja appear to be in the middle group. People who care about animations, lore, etc. BUT also care about the numbers and mechanics. I think both are important. Probably equally so.

 

Forum posters tend to skew a bit more towards mechanics because of their more hardcore bent. That's OK, but I still think that the vast majority actually do care about both to some extent.

 

But I agree with you in having no patience for people for whom this game is fungible with WoW and other MMOs in completely different settings.

[AlixMV]

If you are a Sage/Sorcerer that specializes in dealing damage, we do not expect you to use Force Armor/Static Barrier on yourself or others in an Operation.

 

As others have said: telling us 'you're not expected to use one of your only viable defensive cooldowns during an Operation' is ludicrous.

 

KBN especially has already made the detailed points, I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus.

 

Sage/Sorcerer healers, we hear you and we see that our data validates what you are saying – as it shows you are currently performing behind both Scoundrel/Operative healers and Commando/Mercenary healers in PvP.

 

I only PVE, but from my (albeit) limited experience, qualifying the first bolded statement as 'PVP' is incorrect--Sage/Sorc healers are, as others say, being looked at as the weakest Healer-type for high end Op groups. Another reason why Scoundrel/Operative Healers are so favored in a lot of the groups I run with is their near limitless Energy supply, especially when they REGAIN Energy for one of their Heals (really, guys? really?) and Tactical Advantage.

 

Now here are some questions for the Sage/Sorcerer community, regarding Noble Sacrifice/Consumption. Do you believe removing the health cost of Noble Sacrifice/Consumption as a PvP set bonus would be something that PvE Sage/Sorcerer healers also feel like they need, or are PvE Sage/Sorcerers happier with their current set bonuses? If it is something that PvE Sages/Sorcerers would rather have as well, then which current PvE set bonus would you want to give up for it? Do you think that having a health-cost-free Noble Sacrifice/Consumption would be too good for PvE? Do you believe it might take away too much of the challenge for healing in PvE situations?

 

If the bolded change was made, I would absolutely make the attempt at getting a PVP set for my Sorc Healer to take advantage of any set bonus that reduced the health cost of Noble Sacrifice/Consumption. A starting pool of +50 energy sounds good until you're several minutes into the fight and Force starved--then it's about maximizing getting Force back.

 

Personally, I didn't even bother with a 4-piece set bonus passing through the Arkanian and Underworld levels because there was a much greater incentive gearing up with Oriconian than having the +50 Force.

 

I think making it 'free' would be overpowered in PVE for sure (and it seems reasonable that making it free in PVP would be as well). But I think replacing the current 4-piece PVE set bonus with one that reduces the amount of health lost to Noble Sacrifice/Consumption would be highly appealing and seems like a pretty good incentive for Sages/Sorcs to want to get it.

 

The only potential drawback I could see in that is something would likely need to be done to de-incentivize it for DPS specs. Given that I dual spec my Sorc into Madness, having a set bonus that would help me with Force management (given how finicky it is at the moment, as well) would almost make it worth abandoning the Force Master set altogether.

Edited May 29, 2014 by AlixMV

[wadecounty]

Oh I'll admit I haven't actually gone ahead and clocked those fights, tbh, most of those are just rough estimates of mine. I'm just saying, in general its very rare in an operation to have to continually DPS for more than say, 4 minutes straight in a fight.

 

Also are you sure about Council? Obviously kiting means you're using a lot less resource, but even if not, you have the break after you push the council the first time (something like 10-20 seconds til the 2 come down), then if your DPS is good you have 5-10 seconds before the third phase, and to my knowledge none of the first, second or third phases should go longer than 4 minutes. Also there's no real hard DPS check on the 1st or 3rd phases, and in fact I'd argue when you're near time to push on the 3rd phase is a great time to regen resource to be ready for the last burn (also man do Sage DPS get burned in that final burn phase).

 

This is off the hard mode fight, I'm not sure of all the nightmare changes although I hear one of them is the whirl you around the room thing from Soa, which is another break in the fight if it chooses you.

 

EDIT: btw on the animations and melee question discussion, count me as another very interested in that aspect of the game. I definitely think Sages should have willpower affect melee attacks, as it wouldn't really change any of their rotation so the class still plays the same, but it at least gives them another option if they can't get melee classes out of their face, or while doing dailies and such. It'd still be very low priority, but at least it wouldn't be considered "dumb" to do.

 

With the rock throwing stuff... I dunno, I'm one of the few that likes that stuff, and I haven't seen very many good alternative suggestions to replace them (the saber throw one for tk throw sounds awful imo). Also, I think in general people are ok to neutral on the rock throwing animations, the outcry to change them really isn't THAT large, and naturally the people that oppose them will be more vocal than those who are ok with or like them.

Edited May 29, 2014 by wadecounty

[Galothor]

Well animations are nice and certainly add some atmosphere to this game BUT no one is playing a game solely for the light show. You can play a game with broken/boring animations as there are still some challenges and competition left. But no one will play a game if the mechanics are broken and all that works are flashy animations, as it will become pretty boring pretty fast watching the same light show over and over again while there is basically nothing to do.

 

And I don't know why people are complaining about mechanics, obviously we are in a good spot right now if we can afford to ask questions like adding melee attacks to the most squishy class in this game or whether there will be something on the Cartel Market.

 

Sarcasm aside:

The first answer was inevitable but still is a joke. At least they were a little bit more creative than last time and didn't tell you to heal to full under pressure

 

What this class needs is DCD off GCD (all of them). BUT add a GCD if you use the Bubble on someone other than yourself. Anything else would be ridiculous at the current balancing situation.

 

Instant Whirlwind (minimum as Madness, maybe even as Healer, but not as Lightning/Tk as they got their stun bubble to help them escape).

 

360° degree knockback. Not because we are too lazy or too stupid to direct out knockback at the intended target but because BW is unable to fix their server lags / positioning problems which cause our knockbacks to miss, despite being perfectly executed from our point of view.

 

No Health cost on Consumption / noble sacrifice. If necessay put a cd on it.

 

Finally some decent 4 piece set bonuses. This is a bloody joke. We have had those utterly useless 4 set bonuses for over 2 years now, while other classes get something like a 10% damage boost to their main attack (jugg smashers) or crit for their main attack (rail shot). All we get in PvP is bonus on an ability that us almost useless as it somewhat suicidal to us it and an extended range for lesser skills. Granted the +5m range on Interrupt can be useful BUT you are usually within the 30m range anyways as you want to do more than some shock damage every once in a while AND because you are getting focused anyways which means all the enemies are within the 30m range as they are trying to kill you. Ok granted their healer might be a bit further away, but with several enemies unloading their damage onto you as the most squishiest class in this game you have other concerns than interrupting their healer! Oh yeah I forgot there is the sniper class with extended range, so there might be some use to that extended range after all ... oh wait I forgot, you can't interupt those guys!

 

So get you act together BW and finally grant the sorcs some decent 4 piece set bonuses.

For the Healer (Mystic) set the eliminating the Health cost to noble sacrifice / consumption seems appropriate. Or alternatively some cost reduction for the small heal.

 

For the DPS (Master) set something like a reduced cooldown on Crushing Darkness or Polarity Shift or slight increase to the self heal / bubble are something you should consider. I would suggest 1 Sec cast time reduction on Whirlwind but thanks to 2.8's free 1 sec cast tiem reduction for all sins that would give instant whirl wind to the stun kings aka deception sins. Otherwise this would have been a great set bonus for both the sins and the sorc and give Madness sins and sorcs the possibility to get an instant whirl wind in combination with the talents.

[KeyboardNinja]

Oh I'll admit I haven't actually gone ahead and clocked those fights, tbh, most of those are just rough estimates of mine. I'm just saying, in general its very rare in an operation to have to continually DPS for more than say, 4 minutes straight in a fight.

 

Most of the time, you're switching seamlessly from one target to another. Most of the fights where you can have breaks, it's technically better if you just keep going and pushing. Council is a really good example of that. You start the fight on one target, and if you have good enough DPS you'll need to split off very quickly to avoid pushing Bestia too hard. Especially if you have some mobility, you're going to push Bestia, then you'll push Caly for like 10 seconds, and then you'll be on Tyrans. If one boss is ahead, you switch off and DPS a different boss rather than just stopping and waiting. I truly don't stop doing damage in that fight until the transition to the second phase. After that, I'm on Styrak, then Brontes, then immediately on whatever target I'm pushing (remember, they come down immediately if Brontes dies, and they can be damaged during the channel). Even though there is no hard DPS check, it's still easier on your tanks and healers if you push things as quickly as possible.

 

This is off the hard mode fight, I'm not sure of all the nightmare changes although I hear one of them is the whirl you around the room thing from Soa, which is another break in the fight if it chooses you.

 

That does give regen time, though you can't use it for enhanced regen (e.g. full channel TkT or Noble Sacrifice).

Edited May 29, 2014 by KeyboardNinja

[cxten]

RE: Draxus

8 minutes, actually. You'd be very dead from the hard enrage if it required 10 minutes. More importantly, the short breaks are too short for a balance sage to realistically noble sacrifice or naturally regenerate anything meaningful. There are generally targets available though, so Telekinetic Throw spam judiciously applied can help a bit…

 

I imagine you'd tap some in phases 4 and/or 7 if it's actually necessary. There's no strong dps check on those phases. The overall enrage is nothing compared to the dps requirement for phases 5 & 6, so if you're making that, you should be fine to have your sage slow down / stop on phases 4 & 7.

 

RE: Brontes

 

8.5 minutes. Stops and holds are generally not long enough to do anything in the realm of regeneration. Also, as a sage DPS, you would spend most of those meaningful stops on bubbling yourself (a further force drain).

 

Another fight where there's a phase-by-phase dps requirement, but not really an overall one.

 

If you watch zorz's world first gatecrasher kill, you hear Milas call out near the end of the 6-finger phase that he's going to be tapping (when the 6 fingers are down, but not yet the hands), and he taps from less than half force to completely full all at once.

 

I think you could sit in that phase in particular waiting for quite a while actually. If you watched Ace's world first 16-man kill, they wasted time there while waiting for inspiration to come off cooldown/debuff apparently.

 

There are other phases where you can tap too, I'd imagine.

 

-----------

 

Anyway, there aren't really fights at this tier where you have a challenging dps check that goes on for 4+ minutes without the possibility of pausing.

Edited May 29, 2014 by cxten

[Drahy]

I think developers missed the main point of second question - healing in PVP:

Finally after three years they agree that we are "currently performing behind both Scoundrel/Operative healers and Commando/Mercenary" - WoW finaly ... Thank you...

 

What to do? "we dont know" - nice - lets talk to community and let this rest for a year or so. You can just look at every other class in game ... Everyone has "normal cooldown" - they have

- big reduction damage cooldown (can move and heal)

- auto-self-heal over time cooldowns (can move and heal)

- can go to invisibility - loose focus and go away (can move not heal unless they get out of it)

- have special shields/auras for reducing damage or anti-interruption effects (can heal and move)

- have instant heals

 

What we have?

- Bubble - 5 000 damage absorbtion - so for one skill and you still get dmg from the single spell

- barrier - cannot move, cannot cast, see friends die + now non-interruptable effect which still can be interrupted by guardian leap or harpoone

- Force mend? - I dont consider this as cooldown at all - PVP warzone medpac gives you more HP which everyone has

- thats all

 

What do we have for DPS in PVP?

- Worse normal bubble

- less HP from Force mend

- Barrier - 8 seconds longer waiting for death after end

 

Survivability in PVP is an issue from the begining, mostly as a healer and they gave us barrier where you cannot do one single thing you do in PVP as a healer - heal ... thats really bad and removing sacrifice health is good but when you are focused in arena or PVP - managing force is not a problem - your survival and your party survival is a problem and when you hiding behind barrier and watch your friends die is no cooldown at all ... I would personally remove barrier from healing specs completely - it is useless in PVP as a cooldown.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Drahy

[Rocanon]

I think developers missed the main point of second question - healing in PVP:

Finally after three years they agree that we are "currently performing behind both Scoundrel/Operative healers and Commando/Mercenary" - WoW finaly ... Thank you...

 

You might have forgot the thing where you weren't worse than mando/merc for most of that 2 years, and weren't as much worse than op as you are until 2.0

 

- big reduction damage cooldown (can move and heal)

- auto-self-heal over time cooldowns (can move and heal)

- can go to invisibility - loose focus and go away (can move not heal unless they get out of it)

- have special shields/auras for reducing damage or anti-interruption effects (can heal and move)

- have instant heals

 

What we have?

- Bubble - 5 000 damage absorbtion - so for one skill and you still get dmg from the single spell

- barrier - cannot move, cannot cast, see friends die + now non-interruptable effect which still can be interrupted by guardian leap or harpoone

- Force mend? - I dont consider this as cooldown at all - PVP warzone medpac gives you more HP which everyone has

- thats all

 

This whole thing is intellectually dishonest in the extreme. You're combining ALL of the utility of ALL the healing classes plus some stuff that you imply but isn't real, then compare it to this alternate version of sorc that you imply is bad.

 

Yes sorc needs some love, but at least be forthright in your comparison.

 

Mobility:

Op has hot, AOE hot, small moderately spammable heal.

Merc has reactive hot, weak AOE on a cooldown, medium size instant heal on a 21 sec CD.

Sorc has small hot, bubble (bigger than either other instant), large self heal.

 

Op is clearly the most mobile, but you're about tied with merc in terms of actual output. (probably better, bubble being basically a cooldown free 5-6k heal)

 

Resilience:

Op has a moderate self damage shield on a 20sec CD, Self cleanse/dodge about every 40s. No immunity to interrupts but inherently more resistant to them (although you do need to cast to have real output)

Merc has a 25% resist shield on a long *** CD which shares utility with interrupt immunity, and a weak self heal up to 35% on a similarly long cooldown.

Sorc has the strongest defensive CD in the game (barrier, and trying to imply that it isn't was the most asinine part of your asinine post), and interrupt immunity via polarity shift.

 

Op has the best defensives but no way to cast under pressure other than stuns. Energy shield for mercs is strong but not amazing, and sorc has an "I can't die button" plus a huge boost to output via polarity shift in addition to making you interrupt immune.

 

Kiting/distance:

Op has a roll and a short range short slow. AOE mez, short CD melee stun

Merc has hold the line and a knocback, ranged stun, net.

Sorc has sprint, knockback, slow, talented 18sec slow, ranged stun.

 

You're actually arguably first here, although op can kite a bit more effectively due to higher output when moving.

 

What do we have for DPS in PVP?

- Worse normal bubble

- less HP from Force mend

- Barrier - 8 seconds longer waiting for death after end

 

Survivability in PVP is an issue from the begining, mostly as a healer and they gave us barrier where you cannot do one single thing you do in PVP as a healer - heal ... thats really bad and removing sacrifice health is good but when you are focused in arena or PVP - managing force is not a problem - your survival and your party survival is a problem and when you hiding behind barrier and watch your friends die is no cooldown at all ... I would personally remove barrier from healing specs completely - it is useless in PVP as a cooldown.

 

Lol. Sorc DPS has "the basic ability to kite" which other ranged classes don't. Sniper straight up doesn't move, and merc cannot kite so effectively due both to less mobility and having fewer control effects. You have more effective offheals than merc and bubble/mend provide strong sustain (plus self heals from dots).

[Dropfall]

Ehm .... what the blieb are babbling about? ...You are making zero sense .... The only occasion I would classify as life threatening is Czero and even there with proper tanks/healers you will be safe.

In my group the sage rarely dies in that fight because most often after the taunt my saboteur gunslinger and her sage would share aggro on adds.

Your example of DF/DP is really nice and fitting where your sorc healer should use force armor on the persons who get the most droid aggro. Since your own force armor is less good I would prefer the healers one at any time.

 

One fyi ..... there are multiple vids around of healers who are solo healing either HM or NiMs. The last one I saw was a sagehealer on my server who solohealed Czero from 74%. If you die, shame on your healers mate .....

 

CD 1 - Rescue teammates (I assume you meant this one). They didn't say a thing about not using this. You can't compare this 1 on 1 with force armor. Fyi, it doesn't break mechanics if you use it correctly. Sage rescue in Draxus NiM for example is very nice. Not to mention rescuing pugs to their appropiate spot

 

CD 2 - force armor. You can not deny the logic behind the devs words. Regardless how useful it is to armor yourself a healers force armor will always have a the potential to be better. Thats why they said you should avoid using it. If really needed I'm sure any dev playing a sage would force armor himself. If the healer has the time and force the healer should do it.

 

You seem to have missed some dcds

CD 3 - Force ment

CD 4 - TK interrupts (on adds without a immume its very nice since it acts like a short interrupt a la flashbang (RIP gunslingers fbangs )

CD 5 - Bubble stunning adds (again situational and an exception on the not use FA yourself rule)

CD 6 - Force wave (only if you are 100% sure you won't knock m out of AoE)

CD 7 - benevolence/deliverance in lulls of the fight with nothing to dps on

 

A Heal is not strictly a DCD its a Heal; it's used after taking damage, and cannot reduce damage in anyway.

An Interrupt is not a DCD that can be used all the time, you cannot interrupt even 1/3rd of the damage you take in Ops.

Knockback is useless against ranged targets or AOE dmg.

Mez anything that can't be Mez'd; super-effective.

 

The only two purely DCDs for a Sorc can use on themselves and in every situation is Static Barrier and Force Barrier.

A healers Static Barrier is better than a DPS, but you have to have a heal Sorc in the Ops group, within range, and not healing his *** off to be of any use.

The Force Barrier breaks game mechanics, in a bad bad way. If you've never used this ability in an Op, Sage or Sorc, you have no clue what I mean.

 

Now if you're suggesting the only time I should take my Lightning Sorc into an Op is when I have exceptionally skilled Healers available to heal my exceptionally squishy ***, I'm just gonna laugh at you like I did the Devs.

Hahahahahaha

 

Elitist *****

[Drahy]

You might have forgot the thing where you weren't worse than mando/merc for most of that 2 years, and weren't as much worse than op as you are until 2.0

 

LOL - No way - sorc was always the "paper" one ... Sorc did not even have Barrier we just had normal bubble in pre-2.0 NO other cooldown ... Then we got finally Barrier where you cannot move Great cooldown when you knoiw everyone else got another cooldowns as addition to what they had before 2.0 and much more powerful.

 

The list about cooldowns was to prove that there are other ways not just adding "better" versions of actual cooldowns but Bioware can add a new ones or remove actual ones according to other classes.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Drahy