Class Changes: Corruption Sorcerer / Seer Consular

[Hichitsuki-hime]

Based off the Parsely parses of the Sorcerers who placed in the top 1% on Anni Droid in EVHM (the 1st boss) Dark Heal's average heal was 11995.099476439790575916230366492 (2291064 uses / 191 casts) not 15k... which is 9260.8875222630543996733980597177 HPS for the duration of the cast (avg heal / 1.2952429718646 which is the GCD for a sorc healer with "optimal stats" according to http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=918622&highlight=stats)

 

No, why shouldn't the heal we rely on to maintain our force be ACTUALLY worth casting HPS-wise. Why that would make too much sense. The ability to do things on the move is useful in PvE, but has a much much MUCH bigger impact in PvP and should not apply when considering how to "balance" its HPS. I understand the definition of "balance" I just don't agree that Sorc healers are out of said "balance" currently and also see no reason to touch Innervate, or any of our skills for that matter.

Just because we have abilities that heal multiple targets doesn't mean they'll be worth it to cast. So just to make it clear: You do know that Revivification has an "fi" in it, and that it's basically worthless to cast outside of a few instances where you can hit EVERYONE with it, and it's getting a HUGE nerf as well, right? Right now - based off starparse ratings - we do NOT do a MASSIVE amount more healing than the other classes, so any attempt to "lower healing to a reasonable amount" would just serve to cripple the class. It's already reasonable, whether you want to admit it or not, and to go any lower would be akin to giving us band-aids and telling us to mend gushing wounds.

 

 

Based on the same parameters as above (above 1% parses, EVHM Anni Droid):

 

The average tick of Progressive Scan was 6335.7149028077753779697624190065 (5866872 healing / 926 ticks) over the course of the cast it had an average of 9.5463917525773195876288659793814 ticks (10*(926 total ticks / 970 potential ticks)) leading to a total average heal of 60483.216494845360824742268041237 (avg tick amount*avg # of ticks) which mercs spent and average of 1.9923926532993707628865979381443 seconds casting (2.087063578510140 the channel time with optimal stats from the aforementioned stats thread*(926/970)) and an average HPS of 30357.076650873064441461514066008 (total heal / average time spent channeling)

 

*SNIP*

can i just say these numbers are way long? >.> can we has a tl;dr plz? :D

[Dhurwin]

can i just say these numbers are way long? >.> can we has a tl;dr plz? :D

 

TL;DR

 

Roaming Mend does 41% more HPS than Progressive Scan on a fight that Mercs do 2% more HPS than Sorcs. So Sorcs need major nerfs... right? ...RIGHT!?

[Elusive_Thing]

A ~20% healing decrease (averaged based on usage) across all skills when hps output was not the biggest issue to begin with. This strategy overnerfs raw output while not properly address the problems with sorc/sage healing.

 

There are currently two major issues with sorc/sage healing compared to the other classes:

 

The first is that due to simple and overly-forgiving force management combined with over-utilization of 'smart' healing abilities, they're much easier to play at an effective level.

 

The other issue, which is what sees sorcs rising to the top particularly in ranked pvp, is the high mobility and lack of necessary hard casting due to most of the healing being loaded into instant and 'smart' abilities.

 

 

The proposed changes will have a severe negative impact healers at all skill levels. If it does knock sorcs and sages out of 'fotm' status, it'll only be because the healing output is so far behind the other classes.

 

Any metrics you have showing that sorcs have a significantly higher output than the other classes is due to the fact that target selection and resource management are a lot more forgiving than other classes which allows inexperienced players able to put up bigger numbers than their skill suggests.

 

 

With all of that being said, here is my counter-proposal with explanations for each item:

 

• Increase the cooldown of roaming mend by 5 seconds (15 to 20s)
  
• Reduce the base force regenerated by consuming darkness from 40 to 25
  
• Increase the force regenerated by consuming darkness by consuming 1 stack of force surge to 15 (up from 5)
  

 

(for the)DevNotes: The 5 second cooldown increase to roaming mend will increase the time between burst windows and force healers to think creatively both about what to do with the 3~ extra gcds between mends as well as think more carefully about it's usage as not to waste the potential. The end result is a 30% hps decrease for the ability and approximately a 4% hps decrease overall.

 

It's impossible to make roaming mend ineffective as a single target heal (unless you nerf it by more than 50% or prevent it from hitting a target more than once), but this strategy forces players to do more casting (particularly infusion in single target) between mends.

 

The changes to consuming darkness make resource management important. Overall force management will be tighter due to the decreased force regeneration of consuming darkness with force surge stacks (by 5). This will reduce sustained hps by a further 5% or so due to the added consumes needed to maintain force. In addition, the steep decrease in base the base regen of consuming darkness will make using it without force surge very costly in terms of healing downtime.

 

These adjustments address both the sustained and burst healing targets, but do so in a way that creates a noticeable skill progression for the class. The maximum healing will go down moderately while the average healing outputs will probably drop sharply to become more in line with other classes at relative experience levels.

This has been quoted repeatedly, but it deserves the attention. Well reasoned (and justified) nerfs carried out without hammering the spec to the point of unviability.

[Hichitsuki-hime]

A ~20% healing decrease (averaged based on usage) across all skills when hps output was not the biggest issue to begin with. This strategy overnerfs raw output while not properly address the problems with sorc/sage healing.

 

There are currently two major issues with sorc/sage healing compared to the other classes:

 

The first is that due to simple and overly-forgiving force management combined with over-utilization of 'smart' healing abilities, they're much easier to play at an effective level.

 

The other issue, which is what sees sorcs rising to the top particularly in ranked pvp, is the high mobility and lack of necessary hard casting due to most of the healing being loaded into instant and 'smart' abilities.

 

 

The proposed changes will have a severe negative impact healers at all skill levels. If it does knock sorcs and sages out of 'fotm' status, it'll only be because the healing output is so far behind the other classes.

 

Any metrics you have showing that sorcs have a significantly higher output than the other classes is due to the fact that target selection and resource management are a lot more forgiving than other classes which allows inexperienced players able to put up bigger numbers than their skill suggests.

 

 

With all of that being said, here is my counter-proposal with explanations for each item:

 

• Increase the cooldown of roaming mend by 5 seconds (15 to 20s)
  
• Reduce the base force regenerated by consuming darkness from 40 to 25
  
• Increase the force regenerated by consuming darkness by consuming 1 stack of force surge to 15 (up from 5)
  

 

(for the)DevNotes: The 5 second cooldown increase to roaming mend will increase the time between burst windows and force healers to think creatively both about what to do with the 3~ extra gcds between mends as well as think more carefully about it's usage as not to waste the potential. The end result is a 30% hps decrease for the ability and approximately a 4% hps decrease overall.

 

It's impossible to make roaming mend ineffective as a single target heal (unless you nerf it by more than 50% or prevent it from hitting a target more than once), but this strategy forces players to do more casting (particularly infusion in single target) between mends.

 

The changes to consuming darkness make resource management important. Overall force management will be tighter due to the decreased force regeneration of consuming darkness with force surge stacks (by 5). This will reduce sustained hps by a further 5% or so due to the added consumes needed to maintain force. In addition, the steep decrease in base the base regen of consuming darkness will make using it without force surge very costly in terms of healing downtime.

 

These adjustments address both the sustained and burst healing targets, but do so in a way that creates a noticeable skill progression for the class. The maximum healing will go down moderately while the average healing outputs will probably drop sharply to become more in line with other classes at relative experience levels.

agreed. absolutely THE best idea we've had in this thread. :D can we have this instead of this intended nerf plz?

[Ramalina]

No, than you didn't understand the meaning of balance. Innervate shouldn't be strictly better than a Dark Heal. But right now, it heals more than a Dark Heal and can even be used while moving.

 

I think you're the one that doesn't understand the meaning of balance.

 

Your proposals are basically centered around mirroring. That is, everyone gets effectively the same set of moves that do the same things. A lot of classic games like chess, checkers, go, etc. work this way, and it is one of the easiest ways to balance a game.

 

That's not what balance is though. Balance is about the probability that over multiple trials multiple options will on average have about the same outcome.

 

If you have a new class, call it the Band-Aid Jedi, and it has only one heal, an instant, with a 12 sec cooldown, and the resource cost and healing done of that ability result in healing output and more importantly, target survival, that's about the same as a sage, scoundrel, or commando healer would see in similar situations, then the Band-Aid Jedi is a balanced healing class. Probably a very boring and easy to use class, but balanced. With only one heal, obviously it's going to have to heal more in both absolute heaing per cast, healing per GCD, and HPS compared to other healing abilities from other classes, but as long as the class as a whole has similar outcomes, that doesn't make it unbalanced.

 

It's worth noting that really for both PvE and PvP for healers HPS is relevant only to the extent that it influences patient survival. It's the classic reason that good raid leaders don't care what parsers say about HPS or even effective HPS. "Did characters die during the encounter?" is the most important consideration followed by, "how much margin for error was there," followed by, "what other utilities does this class bring."

 

That's what healing balance revolves around.

 

Where sages and sorcs are really unbalanced right now is the margin for error. It's absurdly huge.

 

You can literally run in circles spamming AOEs and that will work up to the easier HM content.

 

The BW proposed nerfs will probably cure that and then some, the question is whether or not they'll go too far and put sages on the wrong side of the, "can you keep your target alive," question.

 

Healing and tanking are both somewhat forgiving in terms of being OP in getting balance reasonably good. The difference between those roles just barely doing their jobs well enough and doing them superbly well is not that great. The grading for tanking and healing is pass/fail. Or more aptly in a Star Wars setting, "Do or do not."

 

There's an incentive therefore for designers to make sure that there's a bit of a margin between those roles and the minimum bar of performance that they need to function in game. From a design standpoint, those roles don't hurt too much if OP, but cause serious problems if under powered. Where you see FOTM coming from tends to be in terms of ease of use rather than output.

 

DPS on the other hand, well every point of DPS counts, so very fine gradations can throw things out of whack.

 

In general I'm on board with seers having resource management again (or maybe having it for the first time ever, force pool was never hard to come by, it was just a question of whether you'd kill yourself in the course of replenishing it). I'm also on board for having to do the occasional hard cast heal in PvP and regular hard cast heals for force efficiency in Ops (or any other long duration PvE encounter). It'd also be nice to see the vast array of utilities be a bit more prominent in seer healing outside of NiM raiding and PvP (where utility never loses it's appeal).

 

The reason your balance proposals probably have no chance of being implemented is not because they would result in poor balance (they'd be pretty good for balance) it's because they'd significantly change the classic feel of the seer playstyle, which is still there hidden under the sea of instant smart heal output and ocean of force replenishment.

 

Preserving that feel is a priority, so as a result achieving balance with a mirroring approach is not an option. The only trouble is that even unevenly distributed HPS equalization isn't direct balancing, and based on past results the question is not so much whether the devs will get the balance wrong, but how wrong they'll get it, and whether or not they'll revise quickly if it turns out that they get it extremely wrong.

[Icykill_]

Hello, I would like to ask you WHY every time you make class changes for pvp you don't take pve into account? Every time. Stop killing PVE please. Some of us still try to clean "Master" formerly Nightmare content. I don't care about pvp, I'm getting almost OS by marauders and snipers each time I tag. So please, stop killing us just for pvp boys.

 

Or just don't make classes stupidly OP to kill pvpers just for the sake of the pve girls D:

 

Or better yet, "don't throw a WHOLE CLASS under the bus" to nerf one spec. I just do not understand this mentality. Everytime and I mean everytime they've made a nerf to Sorcs over the years they nerf the class and not the spec. Usually there is only one spec that needed adjusting, but they do the WHOLE CLASS and that ruins the other two specs.

There was literally nothing wrong with the Lightning or madness self heals, but they are getting nerfed. On top of that, Lightning does the worst damage so we can hardly ever kill anything and if we do, it's not fast. Without those self heals we are dead meat.. we have no dps, so we don't even have a deterrent to being focused... using a lightning Sorc in this game in any group content will now be laughed at.

Well done Bio combat team. Instead of hiding behind your calculators and spreadsheets, hoping your parsing dummy can protect you, why don't you take a leaf out of Keith's book and get on here and engage with the players who actually know something about playing these classes. Maybe if you should brake the "balance mold" that doesn't work well and hasn't for years. Come and engage with the "actual players of this game". Playing isn't all about numbers and statistics.

[Dhurwin]

agreed. absolutely THE best idea we've had in this thread. :D can we have this instead of this intended nerf plz?

 

best idea outside of leaving this poor class alone maybe

[Icykill_]

I want devs to make a nim run with a team full of nerfed classes. And I want to see that run

 

Let's also ask them to bring them into pvp while they're at it and see if they can even a win a match or better yet, get 3 Lightning Sorcs against one Merc in pvp and see who wins.

[Quraswren]

I want devs to make a nim run with a team full of nerfed classes. And I want to see that run

 

You're not the only one that wants to see that. Combine that with seeing the so called data that supports this nerf and compairing it to the real world OPS thay are playing in and not some bogus target dummy 5 min parse.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Quraswren

[traxxmusic]

Well this should be fun trying to find healers after most the of them quit the game. As if they are not hard enough to find already. 90% of time wasted trying to form any type of pve grouping is pugging healers. Ya may want to give us a pugging auto command, and an alarm to let us know when anyone responds. With that option, we could play another game for a few hours until a healer becomes available.

 

Group-finder is already ridiculous if ya just wanna do some quick, fun things. 9 of 10 gf things I run have no healers already. May as well kill off the role with this over-the-top nerf. Just eliminate all roles but dps. Give us all some healing/tanking/defensive capabilities ---- and every man/woman for themselves, lmao.

 

Yep, the game is dying - or shall I say, dead already with all these overboard class balancing strategies. Funny how ya made the storyline game so easy, an 8 yr old can go thru it with ease - and ya gave everyone the ability to obtain end-game gear (without the need to earn it, and most of which will never need to use it).

 

Now, you also killed the gtn by offering most of the best hyper-crate drops buyable via cc, and anyone can craft almost anything - without the need to earn the things to attempt re-ing. There is no more prestige in game anymore. Who can be proud to be wearing great gear now - no one. It is also so nice that all the "don't care to learn" players who now have end-game gear - think they can actually play true end-game things - and will not even try to listen to advice - makes for really fun ops and hm fp's.

 

Have fun when the game becomes all newbies and I don't give an f players - as the serious/dedicated players will move on.

[realleaftea]

errrr .... no i like my innervate the way it is lol. dunno about nerf on roaming mend. i know there needs to be some nerf. but maybe a bigger CD would work better? >.>

If my class would have a "restores 100% of your lifetotal" skill, I'd like it the way it is as well. But it doesn't mean it's fair. Sure, Innervate won't bring you back to full HP, but that doesn't mean it's balanced. So like I've already repreated countless times: If you want to achieve inter-skill balance, there can't be a skill like Innervate that outperforms other skills like Dark Heal or Dark Infusion.

 

And in regard of Roaming Mend:

No, a higher cooldown wouldn't fix the problem, because it's not the overall HPS score that is addressed this way, it's the effectiveness of a single Roaming Mend that is broken. Likewise, an on-shot overkill that can be used every X sec stays a overkill, even if you make sure it can't be used that freequently.

Edited June 26, 2017 by realleaftea

[RevorteX]

I don't understand one thing - why sorcerer must be destroyed completely,as it if wasn't bad already? There are hundreds of people & threads calling out for buffs not nerfs. And there are people who give logical and straightforward ideas,which have potential to fix things.

Why the most weak discipline in the entire game,doesn't get any buff at all - lightning? It's dying and this buble nerf hurles the discipline down the drain.

Why our threads and questions are left out ? A big number of us subscribe and want to see changes,but not changes done for the sake of something else? Why kill the class entirely?

Please for the sake of hundreds of sorc players who have invested money and time into their characters,to be heard and to take our opinions seriously. I am not atacking you,as a matter of fact - I am urging only for you to listen. I know it's hard being in charge of certain duties and try to maintain a balance,but this is not balance,this is destruction.

The ENTIRE Class needs a change,not just corruption/seer - why was madness chosen instead of lightning? Why not balance both - I doubt it's difficult.

Why don't you leave the buble as it is now and give some of our abilities a damage boost and increase the survavibility with some REASONAL numbers. We don't want to enter and destroy each class,we want to fight in the same row as the other classes.

If we look into the Star Wars lore - would you see in a movie or a book - a dude with a pistol kill a fully powered SITH LORD with powers and connection to the Force over the top - it sounds ridicilous doesn't it ?

But leave out the lore. Let's talk reasonable updates,after all I think for the past 6 months we deserve real balance with reasonable numbers.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Agree with everything except the matchmaking being unrealistic part. Nobody is asking for a 100% even system across the board for all roles (tanks, heals dps etc). But when same faction games pop and one team has 3 heals and the other team has none, matchmaking isn't taking ANYTHING into account. Bioware can't have its cake and eat it too. If they are taking steps to "balance" classes (and I use balancing loosely here) then matchmaking is an integral part of that due to role stacking as it magnifies what the role and their magical HPS/DPS target goals are. I'm baffled that more people aren't talking about this.

 

There are loads of reasons that just balancing around a target goal and nothing else is a bad idea, and not taking into account class utilities is mind boggling. So yes keep beating that drum, but matchmaking is just as much of an issue, things aren't gonna be perfect, but when matchmaking is simply taking a queue'd number of players and throwing them together disregarding roles and not trying to at least ATTEMPT to disperse them evenly then there is major improvements needed to be made under the hood. Will queue pops take a bit longer? Sure, will having a better (not even perfect just better) system in place to balance roles on teams have closer balanced games? By definition it will since those roles serve different purposes. There needs to be some level of give and take here, quantity over quality in games is what we are talking here. If they are looking for any level of balance this needs to change

 

Class roles serve different purposes, if you aren't gonna have some level of system in place to take that into account why even have roles then. Screw it make everyone dps, or tanks, or just heals etc. I dont even play Sage/Sorc heals so their "gutting" here while insane is irrelevant at this point. This applies to all the classes being touched. Matchmaking NEEDS to change and be tweaked under the hood to take SOMETHING into account.

 

I don't disagree at all that matchmaking would be a great asset, and I think every pvper would love to see this happen. WZs are won and lost at times right from the start. - That team has two healers, 2 mercs, 2 snipers 2 skank tanks, other team has no healers, just dps sorcs and pyro pts. Doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out how that match is gonna turn out!

 

As much as I would love to see matchmaking become a reality, I simply don't think if that made it so quece times went from 10 minutes to 2 hours that people would prefer that.

 

The quailty of the matches would certainly be better, but I think if it came at the price of significantly longer quece times, I think that would just create a new set of problems that could effect game play by lack of sufficient numbers of pvpers willing to wait so long [im justr ball parking numbers to illustraite my point].

 

You might be willing to wait so much longer, and I might as well, but there would be people who wouldn't be happy with that arrangement either, considering how alot of peeps complain about how long it takes to save UCs for better gear. The longer the wait times, the less ucs people earn on average compared to now, the longer it would take to gear and such.

 

Again, it;s not that I find fault with your reasoning, it's perfectly sound, but not everyone shares the same level of reasoning and impatience itself can be toxic.

 

If people had to wait so much longer, and when it finally popped, people who were not performing up to the standards some people may hold and they felt they were draging the team down [right or wrongly] the toxicity inherent to pvp may start to take on worser per portions.

 

I'm not saying that's definitely how it would play out, no way to know for sure, but I do think its a reasonable consideration.

 

I'd love to see some decent matchmaking measures take place, I just don't know how it would play out in the long term all things considered.

[xoxygenthiefx]

wow just delete the class from the game and since it's the only one I play and just returned from 2012 you can nerf my subscription from this game to:eek:

[Lahandra]

Or better yet, "don't throw a WHOLE CLASS under the bus" to nerf one spec. I just do not understand this mentality. Everytime and I mean everytime they've made a nerf to Sorcs over the years they nerf the class and not the spec. Usually there is only one spec that needed adjusting, but they do the WHOLE CLASS and that ruins the other two specs.

There was literally nothing wrong with the Lightning or madness self heals, but they are getting nerfed. On top of that, Lightning does the worst damage so we can hardly ever kill anything and if we do, it's not fast. Without those self heals we are dead meat.. we have no dps, so we don't even have a deterrent to being focused... using a lightning Sorc in this game in any group content will now be laughed at.

Well done Bio combat team. Instead of hiding behind your calculators and spreadsheets, hoping your parsing dummy can protect you, why don't you take a leaf out of Keith's book and get on here and engage with the players who actually know something about playing these classes. Maybe if you should brake the "balance mold" that doesn't work well and hasn't for years. Come and engage with the "actual players of this game". Playing isn't all about numbers and statistics.

 

Here we go with this again...... Survivability of DPS sorcs in HM/NiM or PVP wasn't really THAT big of a deal prior to 5.0. The only thing in need of address, and it's already on the list for Madness is the DPS output. If they in turn address lightning at some point, and add a self heal and possible boost to dps in the rotation of that spec somewhere, it all balances out. Stop with "THE SKY IS FALLING" garbage. Currently, you can run a DPS sorc through any of the HM content in either DPS spec, and so long as you play smart, it's totally viable. The only place it's suffering is NiM and PVP, and in both cases it's DPS output that's the problem, not the self heals.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Lahandra

[ViktorAres]

DPS sorc's current self-heals are weak though. It taken forever to heal to full after using phase walk. The self-heal should have been buffed, not nerfed. With the Trauma Regulators and Kolto-overload, DPS mercs are already much better self-healers and off-healers than DPS sorcs, and their healing is NOT getting nerfed.

 

Also the Static Barrier / Force Armor before the nerf is already much weaker than the shields of comparable classes such as merc and sniper, both of which have much higher DPS and better armor.

 

Nerfing self-heals and static barrier for all sorcs does not make any logical sense at all.

Edited June 26, 2017 by ViktorAres

[realleaftea]

Based off the Parsely parses of the Sorcerers who placed in the top 1% on Anni Droid in EVHM (the 1st boss) Dark Heal's average heal was 11995 (2291064 uses / 191 casts) not 15k... which is 9260 HPS for the duration of the cast (avg heal / 1.29 which is the GCD for a sorc healer with "optimal stats" according to http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=918622&highlight=stats)

Can't remember what caused the confusion, but I checked the values again and you're right. The avg. damage is lower than 15k. I apologize. Maybe I was looking at the avg. crit. damage, who knows...

 

But even if you consider a lower average, the value of my argument doesn't change... the HPS values of Dark Heal compared to Innervate. So let's use a few Annihilator Droid parses as a reference this time:

 

Innervate - Feihtëkiltac: 920,793 total, 34 uses => ~27,082 heal per use | 2.285s = 11,852 per sec

Innervate - Hot Spread: 804,261 total, 33 uses => ~24,372 heal per use | 2.016s = 12,089 per sec

Innervate - Instågråm: 836,030 total, 31 uses => ~26,969 heal per use | 2.438s = 11,062 per sec

Innervate - Lova: 804,039 total, 31 uses => ~25,937 heal per use | 2.408s = 10,771 per sec

 

Dark Heal - Feihtëkiltac: 1 use => so not really comparable

Dark Heal - Hot Spread: 183,333 total, 16 uses => ~11,458 per use | 1.323s = 8,660 per sec

Dark Heal - Instågråm: 121,765 total, 10 uses => ~12,177 per use | 1.341s = 9,081 per sec

Dark Heal - Lova: 133,838 total, 31 uses => ~13,384 per use | 1.403s = 9,540 per sec

 

So Dark Heal is significantly worse than Innervate. In fact it's that bad that you should try to avoid it, just like Feihtëkiltac did. Oh and just a funny side note:

 

Dark Infusion - Feihtëkiltac: 0 uses

Dark Infusion - Lova: 0 uses

 

And assuming 1.8s for an unbuffed Dark Infusion

Dark Heal - Instågråm: 221,705 total, 12 uses => ~18,475 per use | 1.8s = 10,264 per sec

 

But I guess you'll come up with another explaination why it would make total sense for this skill to be that awful, just to make sure noone touches the beloved Innervate.

 

No, why shouldn't the heal we rely on to maintain our force be ACTUALLY worth casting HPS-wise. Why that would make too much sense.

The answer is: class & inter-skill balance. A skill should either be powerful or 'energy efficient' but not both. But right now, Innervate is strictly better than Dark Heal.

 

So rather than keeping an overly powerful skill and justify this with another inbalance - a lower force cost - makes no sense. It would be better to fix the effectiveness and the cost.

 

But that's the main problem of the whole class and the reason why the devs change the costs with every new patch => they sinply don't address the real cause. Usually, a channel skill has a higher cost because it's basically 2 skills in 1 => roughly twice as effective and originally lasts for two GCDs. So it would make sense to give this skill twice the cost as well.

 

That's why a Suppressive Fire consumes 45 energy over the course of 4.5s. It takes three GCDsto channrel it and therefore has three times the cost.

 

So what BioWare would actually have to do:

Dark Heal = 40 force | ~1.35s => ~30 force per sec

Dark Infusion = 60 force | ~1.8s => ~33 force oer sec

Innervate = 70 force | ~2.4s => 29 force per sec

 

But 5 years later and they still randomly apply +5 or -5 pts.

 

And if we just take the existing HPS values, a more balanced version would like this:

(Let's use your 11,995 Dark Heal average (or 12k for simplicity) as a base)

Dark Heal = ~1.35s & ~8.880k per sec => ~12k per use

Dark Infusion = ~1.8s & ~8.890k per sec => ~16k per use

Innervate = ~2.4s & ~8.8k per sec => 21.3k per use

 

Now guess what my proposals for Dark Infusion & Innervate would achieve...

 

The ability to do things on the move is useful in PvE, but has a much much MUCH bigger impact in PvP and should not apply when considering how to "balance" its HPS. I understand the definition of "balance" I just don't agree that Sorc healers are out of said "balance" currently and also see no reason to touch Innervate, or any of our skills for that matter.

Why shouldn't it apply? What's your justification to exclude it? So it it's not relevant, let's add a 1.5s activation time to Roaming Mend. Would still have the same HPS value and according to you 'mobility' doesn't matter.

 

Just because we have abilities that heal multiple targets doesn't mean they'll be worth it to cast. So just to make it clear: You do know that Revivification has an "fi" in it, and that it's basically worthless to cast outside of a few instances where you can hit EVERYONE with it, and it's getting a HUGE nerf as well, right?

Ok, let's check the parsely operation board on that as well:

 

Revivication - Feihtëkiltac: 1,486,487 total, 17 uses => 87,440 per use

Revivication - Hot Spread: 1,138,671 total, 12 uses => 94,889 per use

Revivication - Instågråm: 979,254 total, 10 uses => 97,925 per use

Revivication - Lova: 917,696 total, 11 uses =>83,427 per use

 

So you're absolutely right!!! This skill sucks so much, it's - quote : "basically worthless".

But sarcasm aside, ket's use the Revivication of Hot Spread and have a closer look:

 

Avg Heal: 984.2

Avg. Crit: 1,685.69

Crit Chance: 46.49%

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

True avg: ~1,310 damage per tick

 

Due to the fact that it lasts for 10s,, that's 11 ticks in total. Point is, the skill would therefore heal 14,410 per target. And that means the following:

 

1 target and it's as good as a Dark Heal

2 targets and it's better than both a Dark Infusion or an Innervate

 

But still you claim it's worthless - quote: outside of a few instances where you can hit EVERYONE with it

 

Right now - based off starparse ratings - we do NOT do a MASSIVE amount more healing than the other classes, so any attempt to "lower healing to a reasonable amount" would just serve to cripple the class. It's already reasonable, whether you want to admit it or not, and to go any lower would be akin to giving us band-aids and telling us to mend gushing wounds.

Let's once again take the Annihilation Droid parses:

 

Static Barrier- Feihtëkiltac: 20 uses

Static Barrier - Hot Spread: 11 uses

Static Barrier - Instågråm: 12 uses

Static Barrier - Lova: 17 uses

 

So now feel free to assume any damage value you think is reasonable for a Static Barrier to prevent per use and add this to the already existing 'healing done' value.

 

Or you can take Bant's numbers and realize that a Sorcerer has a 5~22% advantage over the Mercenary. Let's than apply a 30% nerf to an existing parse:

 

Roaming Mend - Feihtëkiltac:

974,990 total => x0.3 = 292,497

4,406,699 overall heals minus 292,497 = 4,114,202 = 93,36% of the orriginal value => a ~6.6 HPS loss.

 

The average tick of Progressive Scan was 6,335 (5,866,872 healing / 926 ticks) over the course of the cast it had an average of 9.54 ticks (10*(926 total ticks / 970 potential ticks)) leading to a total average heal of 60483 (avg tick amount*avg # of ticks) which mercs spent and average of 1.99 seconds casting (2.08 the channel time with optimal stats from the aforementioned stats thread*(926/970)) and an average HPS of 30357 (total heal / average time spent channeling)

 

Where as Roaming Mend had an average tick of 15,922 healing / 893 ticks) ticking an average of 3.50 times (893 total ticks / 1020 potential ticks) leading to a total average heal of 55,759 (avg heal * avg # of ticks) and with a GCD of 1.29 with "optimal" stats this is an average HPS of 43049 (total avg heal / GCD)

 

So contrary to your "67% advantage" this is only a 41.81% "advantage" in terms of HPS. ((Roaming Mend - Progressive Scan)/ Progressive Scan)*100 %

Ok, let's once again check the Annihilation Droid parses to see more realistic channel durations, shall we?

Because you used "realistic" data for the rest as well:

 

Progressive Scan - Toq'toq 2.297s average

Roaming Mend - Feihtëkiltac: 1,279s average

 

Progressive Scan: 60,483 per use | 2.297s = 26,331 per sec

Roaming Mend: 55,759 per use | 1.279s = 43,596 per sec

43,596 / 26,331 = ~1,656 => 65% advantage

 

And without any misses:

Progressive Scan: 6,335 damage per tick; 10 ticks max. => ~63,350 per use | 2.297s = 27,579 per sec

Roaming Mend: 15,922 damage per jump; 4 jumps max. => ~63,688 per use | 1.279s = 49,795 per sec

 

49,795 / 27,579 = ~1,8% => 80% advantage

Edited June 27, 2017 by realleaftea

[Bristol]

Some interesting info...

 

Current 5.0 - 5.2.2 Seer Sage / Corruption Sorcerer: -13.26% eHPS and -15.27% total HPS.

 

./dropsmic

 

With the aid of parsely.io, I just complied some Effective Healing per Second (eHPS) numbers for all of the Hard Mode Operations.

 

Google Sheet with Bulk Data

 

Summary of Highest eHPS per healing advanced Class:

Medicine Operative: 18,242 eHPS (8M HM Malaphar [TOS]) {100.00%}

Bodyguard Mercenary: 16,751 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF]) {-8.17%}

Corruption Sorcerer: 15,823 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF]) {-13.26%}

 

Summary of Highest Total HPS per healing advanced Class:

Medicine Operative: 22,984 HPS (8M HM Malaphar [TOS]) {100.00%}

Corruption Sorcerer: 19,399 HPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF]) {-15.27%}

Bodyguard Mercenary: 18,556 HPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF]) {-19.27%}

Edited June 27, 2017 by Bristol

[doggone]

Been playing Sage since release, it's the only character I really give a crap about. I've been having fun again after a looong break, but if this ruins my favorite character, I'm out. Lightning is still fun to play, but if just can not match other specs or even close. I mainly play heals so this is is just kind of a kick in the balls, I'll give it a shot, but if it's too much, I'm not waiting around for you to fix it. Enjoying the game, but it's like the same ops I was doing a year or more ago, story is pretty good, but short. I enjoy playing the class I wanted to play for like 3 years before the game even released. Ruin it at your own wallets peril, if that even matters anymore. Random rant that will change no ones mind...over.

[Ramalina]

So Dark Heal is significantly worse than Innervate. In fact it's that bad that you should try to avoid it, just like Feihtëkiltac did.

 

Well of course you should avoid it.

 

If we list the expansions during which hard cast Dark Heal/Benevolence have rated, "this ability sucks, avoid it if possible," we get:

 

• 1.0
  
• 2.0
  
• 3.0
  
• 4.0
  
• 5.0
  

 

The only reason you see it at all is that with procs it becomes instant and free and there are occasionally places in a rotation where there's nothing better to do.

 

"Dark Heal sucks," is a classic element of Sorc healing.

 

The core of sage healing has always run more or less along these lines for a stable rotation:

 

Shield primary target(s)

HoT primary target(s) to set up procs.

Channeled heal to get procs for regen and/or burst heals.

Slow cast mana efficient heal filler.

AOE heals as needed and as procs/force pool allow.

Cleanse as needed.

Force regen as needed.

Do nifty things with utilities.

Put Short Cast heal somewhere where it doesn't clutter up the UI.

 

Sage and Sorc healing as a whole are messed up largely because of changes they've made to controllable burst, efficiency, and output in ways that have significantly reduced the need to adhere to that sort of rotation structure.

 

HoT: Increased initial heal multiple times, changed to make clipping and single target overhealing turn into effective single target healing. Result: increased burst, increased efficiency, Increased single target output, reduced number of targets needed to reach max eHPS from 3 to 1.

 

AOEs: Nerfed Salvation pretty hard, but then compensated by introducing a new AOE heal vastly more powerful than Salvation most situations. There were a lot of people upset about getting Wandering Mend. Mostly because they were fond of the moderately OP Salvation, and didn't forsee the extent to which Wandering Mend could be OP. There was also a lack of appreciation for how easily you can use positioning to control double jumping it in conjunction with a proc. The insane level of burst that come with a proc was also largely overlooked at first. Result: Salvation went from a "cancel a whole raid worth of standing in stupid," level AOE, to a pretty decent AOE. Ease of use was increased by making targets just have to wander through the area rather than stand in it for the duration of the HoT (whatever makes DPS players stand in damage effect areas for the entire duration also makes them exit healing effect areas as quickly as possible). The bonus being that to compensate for a moderate nerf we got a giant and highly efficient semi-targetable burst(with proc, but there are always enough procs to allow using it as a burst heal) as a freebie. Woot!

 

That's pretty much it.

 

Now Dark Heal has never done what it was really supposed to do. The design has always pointed to being an emergency heal. The idea being that with a quick cast time the player can create a peak in HPS at the expense of a very high force cost.

 

The problem is that the HPS from Dark Heal has never been sufficiently faster or bigger than any other options to reliably be worth casting. Dark Infusion is slower, but not so much so that a healer that's anticipating well is going to really gain from using Dark Heal. You just start the cast a bit earlier, and get a bigger burst when the heal lands.

Or use Static Barrier, and get a front loaded damage prevention giving time to hard cast a Dark Infusion. Then with buffs to Resurgence's initial heal and the creation of Roaming Mend, Dark Heal became even less appealing. To top it off, they then took the force sink ability and made it both instant and free on proc. Not much of a force sink at that point, and it's still pretty unappealing.

 

For an emergency heal, it's pretty small and pretty slow. Regardless of cost, as long as those are true it won't be used for what it was meant to do. The other problem is that with every patch starting with 2.0, Bioware has loaded more and more front end burst to Sage/Sorc heals that weren't really designed for a massive front end burst heal role.

 

Balance wise it's as if their boat was leaking, and they took a hole saw drill bit to drill out a plug from the other side of the hull to try to patch the existing leak. So the initial leak is smaller, but overall the boat is sinking faster.

 

Dark heal's problem isn't that Innervate is doing exactly what Innervate is meant to do. It's that Dark Heal has never been good at what Dark Heal is supposed to do, combined with Roaming mend, Resurgence, Static Barrier, and even Dark Infusion being pretty good at Dark Heal's job to start with, and most having been buffed multiple times to be even better as emergency heals.

 

To fix it you'd need to make Dark Heal bigger, faster, and more expensive while at the same time taking the frontloading off of Resurgence and nerfing the snot out of Roaming mend (though for Dark Heal, the important part wouldn't be the raw output of Roaming Mend, it would be removing the insta-jump on proc. The ability to realize the full burst potential of Roaming Mend on every cast is where most of it's insane power comes from).

 

Oh, and Stat reallocation has also had an effect. With the slimming down of attributes we now get more crit, hence more procs, and so getting enough procs is almost never a limiting factor anymore. You used to have to save procs for regen, and then use the leftover procs wisely. Now you can almost use every potential procced ability on cooldown without having to worry about running out of procs for regen.

 

Basically the tradeoffs that are supposed to bring some balance to Sage/Sorc healing rotations have been eliminated. Most of it in relation to timing burst, and a little bit in relation to efficiency and output. They're nerfing that output hard, but doubling down on misallocation of burst and resource cost.

 

I suppose if I were having a go at balancing Sage/Sorc I'd do something along the lines of:

 

Resurgence/Rejuvenation 20% initial heal, 80% HoT, reapplying before expiration clips the remainder of the existing HoT from the previous application.

 

Roaming/Wandering Mend Change effect of Conveyance proc to cause mend charges to jump on damage or after 0.5 seconds without damage. The idea being to neuter the burst but not waste stacks of the mend if there's a gap in hits. For that matter even a 1 second timer might work.

 

Dark Heal, make it a 1 second or less base cast, make it heal more than Dark Infusion and make it painfully expensive. Say 110 force for 125% of Dark Infusion's healing or something like that.

 

Might also reduce the max number of resplendence charges from 3 to 2.

[Icykill_]

Here we go with this again...... Survivability of DPS sorcs in HM/NiM or PVP wasn't really THAT big of a deal prior to 5.0. The only thing in need of address, and it's already on the list for Madness is the DPS output. If they in turn address lightning at some point, and add a self heal and possible boost to dps in the rotation of that spec somewhere, it all balances out. Stop with "THE SKY IS FALLING" garbage. Currently, you can run a DPS sorc through any of the HM content in either DPS spec, and so long as you play smart, it's totally viable. The only place it's suffering is NiM and PVP, and in both cases it's DPS output that's the problem, not the self heals.

 

So why nerf it if it wasn't a big deal? We also had better dps prior to 5.0, but not anymore.

You want to know something, the sky is falling for Lightning Sorcs because they will be rubbish,

Let me guess, you don't even play one, so you don't even understand the arguement from our point of view.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Icykill_

[Lahandra]

So why nerf it if it wasn't a big deal? We also had better dps prior to 5.0, but not anymore.

You want to know something, the sky is falling for Lightning Sorcs because they will be rubbish,

Let me guess, you don't even play one, so you don't even understand the arguement from our point of view.

 

The nerf was because sorc heals were OP.... Plain and simple...... And you guessed quite wrong..... I main'd a sorc from 2.0 through the current content playing all three specs thoughout and currently have one at T4. I don't choose to take it into nightmare ops as it's just not putting up the numbers, but again, it has nothing to do with self heals or the ability to survive. I would happily take it into any HM raid at the moment though, and would put up perfectly viable numbers to finish any of those ops. Madness is getting a DPS boost regardless, and hopefully lightning will be addressed at some point as well, so again, if you simply added a self heal in the rotation of lightning these heal changes wouldn't hinder us at all in op's. Again, the sky isn't falling....

Edited June 27, 2017 by Lahandra

[Hichitsuki-hime]

best idea outside of leaving this poor class alone maybe

well there is that. but lol. it is indeed a sad tendency: they always seem to either buff something and then realize they over-did it. and then they over-nerf it and then it starts all over again. after 5 years of the same fact, i'm not even bothering saying leave it alone, that is just not going to happen lol.:D

[realleaftea]

Some interesting info...

Current 5.0 - 5.2.2 Seer Sage / Corruption Sorcerer: -13.26% eHPS and -15.27% total HPS.

./dropsmic

I'm sorrry but that conclusion is stupid. It only shows that there was a single boss fight where an Operative had an overly powerful result => Malaphar.... a boss with a special 'buff/debuff mechanic. Let's skip that boss and it's.

 

Summary of Highest eHPS per healing advanced Class:

Bodyguard Mercenary: 16,751 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

Medicine Operative: 16,252 eHPS (Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

Corruption Sorcerer: 15,823 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

[Bristol]

I'm sorrry but that conclusion is stupid. It only shows that there was a single boss fight where an Operative had an overly powerful result => Malaphar.... a boss with a special 'buff/debuff mechanic. Let's skip that boss and it's.

 

Summary of Highest eHPS per healing advanced Class:

Bodyguard Mercenary: 16,751 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

Medicine Operative: 16,252 eHPS (Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

Corruption Sorcerer: 15,823 eHPS (8M HM Nefra, Who Bars the Way [DF])

 

Google Sheet with Bulk Data

 

Alrighty then:

Average Effective Heals across all 8M HM Bosses where parsely.io has data is:

Medicine Operative: 11,287 eHPS {100.00%}

Corruption Sorcerer: 11,129 eHPS {-1.40%}

Bodyguard Mercenary: 10,2456 eHPS {-7.37%}

 

Average Total Heals across all 8M HM Bosses where parsely.io has data is:

Medicine Operative: 15,420 HPS {100.00%}

Corruption Sorcerer: 13,061 HPS {-15.30%}

Bodyguard Mercenary: 12,288 HPS {-20.31%}

 

Does this PvE data warrant a 30% nerf to Seer/Corruption healing when they clearly are not the highest healing class?

 

Alternatively: Commando/Mercenary and Scoundrel/Operative have VERY passable DPS options whereas Sorcerer/Sage so very clearly does not.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Bristol