CyberneticDucks Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 (edited) i currently have one 55er, which is my sorc, and i'd like to share with the community my tactics. i have found this system to be pretty effective, but it may be different for others. i do a lot of warzones, but i am not the best, so cut me some slack if i upset some hardcore PvPers. before we fight: gearing your sorc: this section discusses how to optimize your combat ability before heading into PvP. my classification for mods: i classify modifications based on their stats. each mod has primary, secondary, and tertiary stats, which i will go into. -Primary Stat: the primary stat is your main stat. it is always either your class's main attribute (MA), which is either willpower, cunning, aim, or strength, or it is endurance. -Secondary Stat: the secondary stat is the stat that you placed as very important, but not as important as your primary. your secondary stat is always just lagging behind the primary. if you selected endurance as your primary for maximum health, then your secondary is your MA (willpower for sorcs). if you wanted maximum healing and DPS and went with willpower as your primary, the secondary would be endurance. -Tertiary Stat: this is the "helper" that gives you a little boost, but isn't in high quantity. it is either power, alacrity, surge rating, or critical rating. the tertiary stat is really what makes your character more unique. everyone has their MA/endurance balance, but picking something like alacrity to speed up your rotations and cooldowns is your own special perk. you may have noticed with the PvP mods, as well as the makeb mods, that they all have a number and letter by them. the number tells you how good it is, the higher the number, the higher the level requirement and quality. PvP mods are either 29 or 30 in number. example: Advanced Mettle Mod 30AX however, if you look at the stats for each, the letter marks the balance of tertiary/primary/secondary mixture of stats. -A means that a modification has your class's MA as its primary, with endurance as secondary. -B means that a modification has endurance as its primary, and your class's MA as secondary. -X is only in PvP mods as far as i know, and it means the tertiary stat is the highest, and the other stats are both lower than usual. if there is no tertiary stat, then the MA/endurance is more balanced than usual. the different types of mods anyone who has gotten to level 15 in this game knows about mods, enhancements, armoring, barrels, and hilts, but there are some differences i would like to personally address. -mods: mods are responsible for giving you your MA/endurance mix, in about a 45/55 mix of either stat. higher level mods will give you a small bit of tertiary stats, but it is usually only critical rating or power, the others are in the enhancements. mods are meant to be your main bulk in nutrients, right next to armors/hilts/barrels. -enhancements: enhancements are meant to give you your tertiary stat and a very large portion of endurance, it is usually in a 75/25 mix. enhancements are meant to be universal amongst classes, so instead of your class's MA, it gives a decent amount of power in addition to its other priorities. -Armors: armors are really just mods that give you armor rating, which protects you against the most common types of damage by reducing DPS taken by a percent. unfortunately endgame armors that are already inside of another armor cannot be placed your CM adaptives, so it gets really hard to not look like a weird piece of sh%t. you will be forced to craft them or buy them from the GTN for millions. i am getting my cybertech up, which can craft up to tier 35 armors and mods. i have stick to the makeb commendation armors, and buy new ones whenever i want to switch my armor. -Hilts/barrels: hilts and barrels are the equivalent of armors, except they go into your weapons. hilts are for melee weapons and barrels are for ranged weapons and knives, i don't know why. they give you your MA/endurance mix and give you extra bonus damage. what stat layout to choose: now that you know about stats and mods, it is now time to see which will help you the most. the following sections will give a rundown on every kind of stat and how it will work for you. choosing between endurance and your MA (willpower): endurance may increase your health, but it may not be helpful to your combat survivability. with direct fights where everyone has a clear target, usually in arenas, it is a matter of kill or be killed. your Main Attribute will help you pump out stronger heals and attacks to help you defeat an opponent. eventually everyone falls in combat, even operation bosses, and pumping up with unnecessary health points won't fix that. at the same time, you want to be able to last long enough to kill your enemy. really choosing between endurance and willpower is a matter of preference. if you plan on doing some kind of healing, you may want to get your MA up. if you want to pit fight at warzone nodes, then lasting a bit longer is better for you. once you pick what you find more important, buy mods with more of what you want in it. next you must get your tertiary stat. choosing a supplement: tertiary stats there are four choices for your helping hand, they are listed below with descriptions on each. -surge rating: my personal favorite, this stat increases the damage or healing dealt by your crits. since hitting a target affected by your affliction with thundering blast is an automatic critical hit, you really shouldn't worry about probability and focus on making it as nasty as possible. the base for your critical multiplier is 50%, and 100% for thundering blast and lightning strike if you get reverberating force in your skill tree. this can go even further, my auto-crit thundering blasts do over 120% more damage than usual, thanks to surge rating and the skill tree. surge rating also gives a great surprise for heals and other attacks when crits do happen. -critical rating: this is a pretty nice stat, considering that the base for crits is 50%. you don't really need a bigger damage boost, and if you want to focus outside of thundering blast and lighting strike, critical rating is great if you want more frequent crits from all abilities. -alacrity rating: i don't really know why, but most healers prefer alacrity rating, which speeds up cooldowns, charge-ups, and channels. really you'll never get more than a second of time cut off, and that is if you shave your head and worship it. normally you would get .75 seconds off most abilities if you go all-in with alacrity. i don't really find alacrity too helpful, especially compared to the +20% more damage or probability you'd get from going with critical rating or surge rating. alacrity rating is also bad if you want a channel to last a long time like using force lightning to slow a ball carrier or use force storm to protect a bomb in voidstar. the lightning sorc's mechanics the lightning sorcerer is a relatively stationary class with a simple, repetitive rotation. for those that don't know, a rotation is the cycle of attacks you spam out while fighting. the lighting sorc is stationary because most of its attacks require it to stand still, and it has very long range. the sorc's energy: force the sorcerer is designed to never run out of energy, especially the lighting sorc. not only does it have 600 force, but the lightning tree also gives the sorc many benefits like 75% discounts on your next two attacks as well as temporarily increasing force regeneration. the sorcerer's energy pool, unlike many classes, is not effected by your current level of energy. unless you are fighting a boss in group content, you will likely die before you get down to less than 100 energy. the sorc's rotation the sorcerer's rotation is simple, flashy, and fun. i personally just put my rotation in the middle of the quickbar some go over and over. here is what i find most effective: -affliction -thundering blast -chain lighting -lighting strike -force lightning -shock the affliction is the main ingredient for this recipe, and it is absolutely vital! it makes thundering blast an automatic critical hit and makes lightning strike make force lighting channel super fast. using thundering blast or lighting strike will make chain lighting instant, which is never worth its charge-up time. the shock is supplementary, mainly to make a good use of your time until thundering blast is ready again. also try to use unnatural preservation as much as possible. it is a free, instant boost to your health and, if spammed often enough, can keep you alive just long enough. the rotation's weaknesses one minor problem is that the majority of the damage dealt this rotation is in the thundering blast and lightning strike. the lightning sorc's worst nightmare is interrupts! players who interrupt your thundering blast are the spawn of goldspammers and trolls blessed under the words of wildstar/eso necro posters! once they interrupt your thundering blast, your main punch-punch system is down. you can easily fix this, but you will lose your fluidness as you juggle cooldowns. you can use lighting strike to help you instantly pump out chain lightning and get your super fast force lightning, but then those abilities might not be ready once you get ready for thundering blast. you will have a good one or two seconds before everything is ready again. it may not seem like much, but i've seen players get g%ng-b%ng %ss-r%ped by 3 sins and die in a fraction of a second. in-the-moment abilities as with any class, you can't just keep doing the rotation over and over and expect to win. the following abilities are good in certain situations you will definitely find yourself in. -overload: if you feel that you are constantly getting interrupted by melee classes, use overload to knock them back. it will aso immobilize them long enough for thundering blast. then you can use chain lightning to slow them down. it is also good for revealing stealthers and for stopping large groups of CQ players from g%ng-b%nging you. -polarity shift: despite having a wicked animation, polarity shift is really a piece of cr%p. it has an insane cooldown and dies quicker than a fruit fly. it also doesn't do much besides boost alacrity rating, but that small amount of time is great because of the interrupt-proofing. -force barrier: one of my favorites, force barrier puts you in an indestructible bubble for some time. being a class that can heal, sorcs are often times targeted in arenas, even if they can't heal worth cr%p! it is also good for when a VG or PT grapples you so you can turtle until your teammates can save you. it is also good if you get stunlocked and if you need to get rid of massive amounts of negative effects. -jolt: jolt is a long range ability that interrupts the enemy. it is wonderful for breaking enemy rotations, which lightning sorcs have learned about the hard way pretty early on. -cleanse: cleanse purges mental and force DoTs, which is good for minimizing damage. it is really limited however, because all force sensitive trees that focus on DoTs have cleanse-proofing. i am of course talking about the madness, balance, annihilation, and the sentinel's equivalent of annihilation. -crushing darkness: really this should either be used with polarity shift or when you first hop into a fight. lightning sorcs have absolutely no pushback protection for this ability. there are also better things use your polarity shift time on. it is odd though, that the lighting tree does give some benefits to crushing darkness like a chance to tick twice and increase force bonus damage. going past the lightning tree: endgame skill points once you get to level 55 you will have 10 points left over to spend on the other trees. you could spend more into lightning, but you won't really find anything else very useful. there are two options: the madness tree and corruption tree. the madness focuses on DoT and the other focuses on healing. it really depends on your playstyle, just like everything else does. i find it is a good idea to go a bit into madness to enhance DoT attacks, being that affliction is the main base for the lightning rotation. the another tactic to to enhance your healing abilities, the +75% pushback protection for heals is a must. i just had to spend the 2 skill points for the extra 8% healing received from empty body, the rest went to madness. the end! Edited July 21, 2014 by CyberneticDucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skarlson Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Roll madness. That is the best advice you can give any lightning sorc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberneticDucks Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Roll madness. That is the best advice you can give any lightning sorc. i made a SI to shoot lighting out my hands, and that is what i intend to do madness just felt like button clicking to me. the animations are dull and creeping terror just immobilizes the target, it should make the enemy curl into a fetal position and shiver as you continue to crush it. there should be diversity in this game, if everyone rolled madness, which they seem to do, it wouldn't be very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwkingms Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 (edited) i made a SI to shoot lighting out my hands, and that is what i intend to do madness just felt like button clicking to me. the animations are dull and creeping terror just immobilizes the target, it should make the enemy curl into a fetal position and shiver as you continue to crush it. there should be diversity in this game, if everyone rolled madness, which they seem to do, it wouldn't be very interesting. i agree i go back and forth when i casually pvp between light and madness madness is sooooo easy to top dmg done and 1v1 kids... but lightning is by far the fun build...however lightning, which has mediocre burst/wow factor hits very limp on heavier armored/damaged reduced targets..... the closest comparative build is arsenal mercs, whom have greater mobility, greater dmg reduction, and what i feel is the best burst in the game with heatseeker critting over 10k. Arsenal has a better flow to it and the better dmg output is related to the armor penetration this build gets and specs too tbh take crushing darkness and affliction OUT of the lightning pvp rotation... like mercs... let lightning strike add the auto crit OR +damage % debuff to our targets. TAKE forked lightning out and add straight bonus dmg to these spells make lightning strike build/stack on our targets so each does more damage than the last.. spammng 2k lightning strikes while TB is on cooldown is sad face Edited July 23, 2014 by wwkingms Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberneticDucks Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 (edited) i agree i go back and forth when i casually pvp between light and madness madness is sooooo easy to top dmg done and 1v1 kids... but lightning is by far the fun build...however lightning, which has mediocre burst/wow factor hits very limp on heavier armored/damaged reduced targets..... the closest comparative build is arsenal mercs, whom have greater mobility, greater dmg reduction, and what i feel is the best burst in the game with heatseeker critting over 10k. Arsenal has a better flow to it and the better dmg output is related to the armor penetration this build gets and specs too tbh take crushing darkness and affliction OUT of the lightning pvp rotation... like mercs... let lightning strike add the auto crit OR +damage % debuff to our targets. TAKE forked lightning out and add straight bonus dmg to these spells make lightning strike build/stack on our targets so each does more damage than the last.. spammng 2k lightning strikes while TB is on cooldown is sad face arsenal was fun and flashy, and the heetseeks were amazing when it crits on a target effected by the tracer missile. i was getting 7K with bolster normally and spamming unload was fun. really with the lightning tree, the whole auto-crit from affliction never made any sense. affliction was so easy and affordable to cast on a target and it had such a small cooldown with the rotation and all i don't know why they wouldn't just make TB an auto-crit by itself. what i find annoying is that all skill trees have those "junk" skills that you are really just forced to add to in order to get to higher tiers. things like narrowed hatred for the mara that take up 3 skill points and only give 3% more accuracy or hydraulic overrides that increases the duration of an ability i never use. what i hate more is abilities in skill trees in which the main or only function of said ability is to get procs. flechette round is the only exception and is ridiculously awesome. one example of this is gore and massacre. massacre deals very little damage compared to the other top tier abilities and gives multiple temporary buffs i don't care for. gore really shouldn't deal any damage and gives a very short proc, but i must admit that the 4 seconds of 100% armor penetration is very useful. i agree that the forked darkness in lighting is a waste because of the pushback received from crushing darkness and the fact that lighting always has you so preoccupied with other abilities. also, i never found the small increase to force bonus damage very helpful in a fight the way the damage reduction from power barrier and energy redoubt were in arsenal. damage reduction would be really nice because everyone always pummels the healing class. maybe damage reduction that builds up the more damage you receive from enemies or even damage reduction that builds up more at lower health would be really cool! if you ask me what i thought the funnest tree was, i'd say scrapper. i load a flechette round, use shoot first out of the blue, slap him with my pistol, make him bleed, and throw three 3K punches in a row. really interactive, and i love the 4% bonus endurance available in the second tier! Edited July 23, 2014 by CyberneticDucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwkingms Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 (edited) arsenal was fun and flashy, and the heetseeks were amazing when it crits on a target effected by the tracer missile. i was getting 7K with bolster normally and spamming unload was fun. really with the lightning tree, the whole auto-crit from affliction never made any sense. affliction was so easy and affordable to cast on a target and it had such a small cooldown with the rotation and all i don't know why they wouldn't just make TB an auto-crit by itself. what i find annoying is that all skill trees have those "junk" skills that you are really just forced to add to in order to get to higher tiers. things like narrowed hatred for the mara that take up 3 skill points and only give 3% more accuracy or hydraulic overrides that increases the duration of an ability i never use. what i hate more is abilities in skill trees in which the main or only function of said ability is to get procs. flechette round is the only exception and is ridiculously awesome. one example of this is gore and massacre. massacre deals very little damage compared to the other top tier abilities and gives multiple temporary buffs i don't care for. gore really shouldn't deal any damage and gives a very short proc, but i must admit that the 4 seconds of 100% armor penetration is very useful. i agree that the forked darkness in lighting is a waste because of the pushback received from crushing darkness and the fact that lighting always has you so preoccupied with other abilities. also, i never found the small increase to force bonus damage very helpful in a fight the way the damage reduction from power barrier and energy redoubt were in arsenal. damage reduction would be really nice because everyone always pummels the healing class. maybe damage reduction that builds up the more damage you receive from enemies or even damage reduction that builds up more at lower health would be really cool! if you ask me what i thought the funnest tree was, i'd say scrapper. i load a flechette round, use shoot first out of the blue, slap him with my pistol, make him bleed, and throw three 3K punches in a row. really interactive, and i love the 4% bonus endurance available in the second tier! lightning would be the PERFECT tree to introduce a teleport, and disarm affect.. a stationary and floppy lightning sorcs biggest issue is getting time to cast.... especially with so much UP time from current melee classes teleport and a disarm would be large steps from a utility direction maybe crushing darkness in the lightning treee can be spec'd to disarm.. who knows Edited July 23, 2014 by wwkingms Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthEndonae Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 (edited) So some of your info/theory/opinions are wrong. You always go for the low endurance mods and enhancements as you get sufficient endurance from said mods and enhancements. And I didn't see anything about the value that expertise has, and as a result of lacking that info, if I were someone looking to use your guide, I would think that going for PvE gear would be better because it has more of the stats you talked about. And then there's Alacrity, which doesn't exactly do what you say it does. Alacrity does not reduce the cooldown of abilities. It merely reduces the activation/channel time as well as increase your regen rate proportionally to the accelerated cast time. It does reduce the global cooldown, but that's different than the ability cooldown that you refer to. You also way undervalue Polarity Shift, which is one of the best cooldowns a Sorc has. That alacrity increase provides a large damage increase because you're getting more abilities off in less time, thus killing people quicker. While the boost seems small, if you're shaving off .1 seconds off of a 1 second cast, that means that for every 10 attacks you do, you're getting a bonus attack. And that interrupt and pushback immunity can be used to allow you to heal up as well, reducing the need for the pushback protection you got in the heal tree. Crushing Darkness has been criticized for its lack of pushback protection, but that doesn't mean it is useless. To the inexperienced player, seeing a 2-second cast might cause them to use their interrupt on that instead of Thundering Blast. In addition, that double tick reduces the cooldown of Polarity Shift and those double ticks have a higher chance of happening during Polarity Shift, and you're immune to pushback, and activation time is reduced on one of your longest casts, it's really one of the best abilities to use during Polarity Shift. And I believe the PvP set bonus improves Crushing Darkness as well. Another rotational issue is shock, you should only be using that ability on the move, otherwise use Lightning Strike as it deals more damage and utilizes Forked Lightning and can proc stuff. Returning to stats, in general, you have less of a choice than you realize, the math has been done and does support a certain stat distribution, you can't just choose all willy-nilly. Also, you don't say anything about Enduring Bastion and the use it has in PvP. In addition, besides you not having a skill tree here, it seems like you aren't going for some of the great cc found in the lightning tree such as the bubble stun and overload root, or you are taking those and not taking core dps boosts. Either way, something isn't right. As a final point, you say you aren't a hardcore pvper, and want to be given slack. Here's the thing you really shouldn't be writing a guide for something that you have to ask for slack on the information. I understand that you're just trying to help, but spreading inaccurate information isn't helping anybody. Edited July 24, 2014 by DarthEndonae Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LtBombshell Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Thanks! Nice guide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TACeMossie Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 i made a SI to shoot lighting out my hands, and that is what i intend to do madness just felt like button clicking to me. the animations are dull and creeping terror just immobilizes the target, it should make the enemy curl into a fetal position and shiver as you continue to crush it. there should be diversity in this game, if everyone rolled madness, which they seem to do, it wouldn't be very interesting. You wanna shoot lightning? try this instead. Moar Lightning + Moar Mobility http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZcMrrkRrcRMZcMcRs0z.3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicRider Posted August 6, 2014 Share Posted August 6, 2014 Please can you change the title, it is majorly misleading.... it's not a guide but more your experiences which actually contains a lot of questions and inaccuracies at least until the point I've read some: A few examples: - every mod contains endurance and if you get the right one it contains your primary stat and secondary are power/critical and surge/alacrity/accuracy. - alacrity in healers is good cause you want to quickly heal multiple people, reduces the changes of overhealing, allows to finish and move quicker, etc... - Mind crush is part of rotation when you are not taking damage, and it suffers no pushback if you have your bubble... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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