Bioware STOP MERC/JUGGS WARS

Atalantia · June 15, 2018

Well as usual for BW devs, mercs where crap until the devs changed the DCd's, and ya they probably are bit OP, but no more than sins where or sorc's when 5.0 released. It's a merry go around with BW, they nerf some class and kill it at the same time they buff some other class and make it almost Immortal .

So who will be the Immoratl in the next balance patch? they probably roll d20 dice to determine that answer.

Rion_Starkiller · June 15, 2018

Well as usual for BW devs, mercs where crap until the devs changed the DCd's, and ya they probably are bit OP, but no more than sins where or sorc's when 5.0 released. It's a merry go around with BW, they nerf some class and kill it at the same time they buff some other class and make it almost Immortal .

So who will be the Immoratl in the next balance patch? they probably roll d20 dice to determine that answer.

I'm voting on lightning sorcs. Or maybe AP PT.

WayOfTheWarriorx · June 16, 2018

I'm voting on lightning sorcs. Or maybe AP PT.

Lightning Sorcs get a bad wrap. They are not bad. They have better DPS than Arsenal and Sharpshooter [Merc/Sniper] and while they are not able to control most melee quite as well as Snipers, you can utility up enough slows and roots on them that they can a nightmare to melee [except Fury]. and can kite them all day long. Lightning has more ways to slow people than turtle soup.I know two Lighting Sorcs on Star Forge who will rip pretty much any melee's *** apart and you can just forget about topping their damage, you won't.

I see DPS Sorcs doing both high damage and insanely high amounts of healing. They are without question the DPS spec kings of heals, I see them exceeding 1 mill + in heals as a DPS. Not always of course, as in much to do with such considerations individual player skills levels will always play a large part to performance. That said however, as far as I am concerned, DPS sorcs should have the best healing potential of any DPS spec so I really don't have much of an issue with that, but because of that you can't have them doing higher DPS. I am generally against DPS specs having strong heals, but I think DPS sorcs should be the exception. It just makes sense. Plus they are ranged and that in and of itself weights into the equation.

I'm not saying they're perfect, but they have the potential do excellently in the hands of a competent player, much more than most people seem to think. I know a lot of people think they are bad, but that's just he said she said and playing phone at this point. They aren't as bad as they use to be. They definitely have improved and are viable. I would be happy to provide examples of DPS sorcs doing very well. They are not the low guy on the totem pole DPS wise anymore.

If you are looking for 'top tier DPS', Sorc is not where you should be looking and nor should it be.

Regarding PT's, I think everyone knows they need some love defensively. They would best be served by throwing them a new DCD along the lines of Saberward. It's a melee class now it should have melee DCDs.

No DPS spec in the game is entitled to or should have extra lives. If it's Op on Mercs it would be OP any class. The last thing PTs should want is one of the Merc DCDs. They'd get no understanding from anyone if that happened and just be another DPS spec that has an extra life. Those DCDs are a great way to get people nerfed, and rightly so. Look at the uproar the EP buff on Juggs caused. People are going through the roof over the extra life they got. The only people who don't mind the extra life "DCDs" are the people who have them and they are

You don't want to just buff the DCDs PTs presently have because that would still leave them with too few DCDS. They need a whole new DCD, but heals on DCDs are broken. Defensive cooldown. Healing is not a defensive measure it is a recuperative measure and comparing DCDs and healing is comparing apples and oranges. Granted they both are the two factors that go into the survivability equation, but they're function and purpose are seperate. DCDs are for mitigation of damage, not recuperation of damage already sustained.

PT's are actually very strong, the lack of an extra DCD is an issue of course and they need it, but they need to be very careful in how they buff them because it would be very easy to make them too strong like they use to be. They have very strong DPS [AP has the best Burst in the game], they have a spammable 30' basic attack which no melee spec should have and they also can have an ability that allows them to attack at any range for 15 seconds which supersedes their melee attacks normal range limitations. They also have a crazy strong AOE hard stun on a relatively short CD. It's really just about getting a new mitigation DCD that would do the trick for em. You don't want them to get something that's too strong like Mercs have.

Mercs and Snipers are ridiculous and everyone knows it. Too much mitigation and too much healing. No one respects them and they get a lot of grief over it. I'm sure a lot of them probably hate it deep down inside because they know they are playing something that is head and shoulders over most other classes.

PT is a really cool class, I kinda liked them better as a "mid-range" spec, too bad they changed that. It was really cool and made them unique. They're still very cool and I can totally see why people want to play them more. They've got a lot of character to them and they stand out.

Edited June 16, 2018 by WayOfTheWarriorx

ZETA_SCORPII · June 16, 2018

Mercs are so 2011-2018

Going · June 16, 2018

How much time till you stop the damn overpowered mercenaries wars in pvp.
How much time till a reall balance classes ????
How much time till you nerf self-healing ????

Why u nerfed so hard other classes.

A full aprty of mercs can kil all any other, even tanks, healers, etc etc etc....

I see Guilds running only mercs with a healer, even unguarded.

IM TIRED OF THIS, U DO UNPLAYABLE ANY OTHER CLASS.

yo, get those soft stuns on lock, and jugg's cd's get put on lock. then pump the d

TrixxieTriss · June 16, 2018

Well as usual for BW devs, mercs where crap until the devs changed the DCd's, and ya they probably are bit OP, but no more than sins where or sorc's when 5.0 released. It's a merry go around with BW, they nerf some class and kill it at the same time they buff some other class and make it almost Immortal .

So who will be the Immoratl in the next balance patch? they probably roll d20 dice to determine that answer.

LoL, Sorcs went down hill since they got nerfed between 3.2 and 4.0. After 4.x they started to turn to crap and were under perfoming in a big way before 5.0 even released.

I can’t see how you think they were OP or even close to being in the middle of the pack of performance. I think you better learn your class better if Sorcs were killing you back then.

Lundorff · June 16, 2018

For ranked the best classes currently are:

Mara (mostly fury)
Sniper (if you are good)
Merc (arsenal)
Sin
Oper (mostly con)
Sorc (Madness)
Jugg (veng)
PT

Mara, merc and sniper are sorta interchangeable at the top, as all of them are deadly in the right hands.

Sorceress are not in a good place for ranked, but ironically they can still survive longer than juggs.

And I bet most complains about juggs in regs are actually tanks with dps mods. With the coming changes that is bound to change. I encourage anyone thinking dps juggs are op to try them in ranked.

TrixxieTriss · June 16, 2018

Lightning Sorcs get a bad wrap. They are not bad. They have better DPS than Arsenal and Sharpshooter [Merc/Sniper] and while they are not able to control most melee quite as well as Snipers, you can utility up enough slows and roots on them that they can a nightmare to melee [except Fury]. and can kite them all day long. Lightning has more ways to slow people than turtle soup.I know two Lighting Sorcs on Star Forge who will rip pretty much any melee's *** apart and you can just forget about topping their damage, you won't.

I see DPS Sorcs doing both high damage and insanely high amounts of healing. They are without question the DPS spec kings of heals, I see them exceeding 1 mill + in heals as a DPS. Not always of course, as in much to do with such considerations individual player skills levels will always play a large part to performance. That said however, as far as I am concerned, DPS sorcs should have the best healing potential of any DPS spec so I really don't have much of an issue with that, but because of that you can't have them doing higher DPS. I am generally against DPS specs having strong heals, but I think DPS sorcs should be the exception. It just makes sense. Plus they are ranged and that in and of itself weights into the equation.

I'm not saying they're perfect, but they have the potential do excellently in the hands of a competent player, much more than most people seem to think. I know a lot of people think they are bad, but that's just he said she said and playing phone at this point. They aren't as bad as they use to be. They definitely have improved and are viable. I would be happy to provide examples of DPS sorcs doing very well. They are not the low guy on the totem pole DPS wise anymore.

If you are looking for 'top tier DPS', Sorc is not where you should be looking and nor should it be.

I’m sorry Grim, but on this we are on 100% polar opposites. Lightning Sorc has been my preferred class since launch, I’ve seen it be weak, balanced, OP and is now the worst sort of rubbish it can be. I’m sorry, but you may not like this post because I’m pretty defensive when it comes to this classes current position. So please look at it like this, you don’t play a Sorc, you main a Mara, you don’t like people who don’t play Mara’s saying things that aren’t true about the class or people speculating like arm chair Devs armed with their 3rd part observations. So I would ask you to listen from someone who knows the in’s and out’s of a Lightning Sorc after 6 years of maining one in pvp,

Let me start by saying, I’m comparing apples to apples, as in similar skilled players because that is the only way this should be approached, not from a place of they have the “potential to do excellently in the hands of a competent player”. Because that can be said about any class in the game. If you have two Lightning Sorcs ripping you apart separately (not running together), it’s because they are pvp gods. If they are doing it together, well enough said, move along.

I think you have a big misunderstanding of how the class “should” operate. It may look like it can do a lot of damage, but it’s fluff and AOE damage. That is not what a lightning Sorcs is supposed to be. It’s not sustained damage or dot spread, it’s supposed to be burst damage. You know, like how Fury Mara’s are supposed to be burst damage with high crits.

Lightning Sorcs now hit like a wet rag. Average crits are 15k, which isn’t even close to being burst. Skank tanks are doing higher burst damage than lightning Sorcs. Which is absolutely ridiculous.

When you consider the health pools of all classes these days and all the immunities and DCDs, 15k bursts are a joke. They should be 25-30k average to even make a dent in this high health pool and DCD meta.

Yes, Sorcs have pretty good self heals and ways to control, but if they didn’t have them in this meta, you would not ever be able to enter pvp with them because they have no dps burst to deter melee from tunneling them. The only thing they have going for them is making them hardish to kill so that they waste the time of people trying to kill them when there are more important classes that need your attention. All you can really do as a Lightning Sorc is annoy people because you aren’t a real threat.

I’ve said all along I would sacrifice some of that survivability, “if” they gave us decent dps burst to compensate. I dont just mean a small tweak buff and then Bioware give us a big nerf in survivability, It needs to be balanced so that there is a deterrent. If they over buff or over nerf, Sorcs will be still bad in pvp, wether they become OP or stay absolute rubbish. The only way Bioware will get that right is if they stop focusing only on potential dps output on a dummy and consider survivability and utilities all at the same time. They also need to realise that Sorcs shouldn’t be relying on Force storm in pvp to reach their “potential” dps.

You say Lightning Sorcs aren’t as bad as they used to be and there you are 100% wrong, because they are worse than when 5.0 dropped and they weren’t good before that either. We even got nerfed during the year, while madness actually got buffed. :mad:

This is where that class dps table you posted in the pvp section really skews reality. You are comparing snipers and Mercs to Lightning Sorc dps on dummy parsing, which I’ll concede looks ok on paper. But the reality in pvp is vastly different. I know it’s a tool to show the difference in the potential, but now you are using that as your reference to say Sorc dps is ok in pvp and it’s not. It’s so wrong in fact that you shouldn’t even be bringing it up.

Let me explain the Lightning Sorc situation.

We are supposed to be burst, but hit for 15k

We are hard to kill, but can not kill crap

We ONLY do high damage when left alone to free cast and spam force storm

Dumb Sorcs spam force storm to fluff numbers because, you know, people only care about the scoreboard, not wether a player actually did anything meaningful to help the team win.

We do high heals because we spam our healing abilities to keep melee busy and annoy them. We will never kill a melee unless he is stupidly bad or we are pvp gods.

What’s really dumb is our self heal crits higher than our dps burst. Seriously, how absolutely stupid is that.

We have great survivability and antifocus to escape and heal. That is the only reason our healing is high. Any Sorc DPS that is off healing people will NEVER do good dps because most of the dps Sorcs healing is self heal only.

Here’s an anology in the form of a bad joke...

Lightning Sorc runs into a gun fight with some paper planes, a wet towel, confetti, a glow stick and a force field.

They proceed to throw paper planes into the eyes of the gun fighters and annoy them with towel whips while they use their glow stick to do a rave dance inside their force field and throw confetti on the crowd.

One group of gun fighters waste all their bullets shooting the force field, while mesmerised by the glow stick and pretty confetti. While this is happening, the other gun fighters are shooting them dead.

The reality is this, Lightning Sorcs doing high damage and healing are just annoying people because they are free casting force storm to buff numbers and when they get focused they run around healing themsleves.

As a Lightning Sorc player, none of that is fun. It’s boring as bat crap and it’s why most Lightning Sorcs switched to healing or madness or switched mains.

I know they are ranged and have good survivability and I concede they shouldn’t be at the top of the dps spectrum (in pvp) when you compare them to burst melee like Fury Mara’s. But they are currently at the bottom when you compare them in pvp, which should not be the case.

I would ask that you take all of that into consideration before making post like you did, because they aren’t helpful and spread more misinformation.

Grim, I invite you to come play a Lightning Sorc with me and let me demonstrate my points,

Sorry to be so harsh

Edited June 16, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

TrixxieTriss · June 16, 2018

I'm voting on lightning sorcs. Or maybe AP PT.

I’ve a bad feeling that if Bioware get it wrong, PTs will be the new overlords. I can’t see them buffing Lightning Sorcs enough to be in the top 4 viable classes for ranked. Especially when I’m betting they get a survivability nerf to go with a dps buff.

Sarova · June 16, 2018

I’m sorry Grim, but on this we are on 100% polar opposites. Lightning Sorc has been my preferred class since launch, I’ve seen it be weak, balanced, OP and is now the worst sort of rubbish it can be. I’m sorry, but you may not like this post because I’m pretty defensive when it comes to this classes current position. So please look at it like this, you don’t play a Sorc, you main a Mara, you don’t like people who don’t play Mara’s saying things that aren’t true about the class or people speculating like arm chair Devs armed with their 3rd part observations. So I would ask you to listen from someone who knows the in’s and out’s of a Lightning Sorc after 6 years of maining one in pvp,

Let me start by saying, I’m comparing apples to apples, as in similar skilled players because that is the only way this should be approached, not from a place of they have the “potential to do excellently in the hands of a competent player”. Because that can be said about any class in the game. If you have two Lightning Sorcs ripping you apart separately (not running together), it’s because they are pvp gods. If they are doing it together, well enough said, move along.

I think you have a big misunderstanding of how the class “should” operate. It may look like it can do a lot of damage, but it’s fluff and AOE damage. That is not what a lightning Sorcs is supposed to be. It’s not sustained damage or dot spread, it’s supposed to be burst damage. You know, like how Fury Mara’s are supposed to be burst damage with high crits.

Lightning Sorcs now hit like a wet rag. Average crits are 15k, which isn’t even close to being burst. Skank tanks are doing higher burst damage than lightning Sorcs. Which is absolutely ridiculous.
When you consider the health pools of all classes these days and all the immunities and DCDs, 15k bursts are a joke. They should be 25-30k average to even make a dent in this high health pool and DCD meta.

Yes, Sorcs have pretty good self heals and ways to control, but if they didn’t have them in this meta, you would not ever be able to enter pvp with them because they have no dps burst to deter melee from tunneling them. The only thing they have going for them is making them hardish to kill so that they waste the time of people trying to kill them when there are more important classes that need your attention. All you can really do as a Lightning Sorc is annoy people because you aren’t a real threat.

I’ve said all along I would sacrifice some of that survivability, “if” they gave us decent dps burst to compensate. I dont just mean a small tweak buff and then Bioware give us a big nerf in survivability, It needs to be balanced so that there is a deterrent. If they over buff or over nerf, Sorcs will be still bad in pvp, wether they become OP or stay absolute rubbish. The only way Bioware will get that right is if they stop focusing only on potential dps output on a dummy and consider survivability and utilities all at the same time. They also need to realise that Sorcs shouldn’t be relying on Force storm in pvp to reach their “potential” dps.

You say Lightning Sorcs aren’t as bad as they used to be and there you are 100% wrong, because they are worse than when 5.0 dropped and they weren’t good before that either. We even got nerfed during the year, while madness actually got buffed. :mad:
This is where that class dps table you posted in the pvp section really skews reality. You are comparing snipers and Mercs to Lightning Sorc dps on dummy parsing, which I’ll concede looks ok on paper. But the reality in pvp is vastly different. I know it’s a tool to show the difference in the potential, but now you are using that as your reference to say Sorc dps is ok in pvp and it’s not. It’s so wrong in fact that you shouldn’t even be bringing it up.

Let me explain the Lightning Sorc situation.

We are supposed to be burst, but hit for 15k
We are hard to kill, but can not kill crap
We ONLY do high damage when left alone to free cast and spam force storm
Dumb Sorcs spam force storm to fluff numbers because, you know, people only care about the scoreboard, not wether a player actually did anything meaningful to help the team win.
We do high heals because we spam our healing abilities to keep melee busy and annoy them. We will never kill a melee unless he is stupidly bad or we are pvp gods.
What’s really dumb is our self heal crits higher than our dps burst. Seriously, how absolutely stupid is that.
We have great survivability and antifocus to escape and heal. That is the only reason our healing is high. Any Sorc DPS that is off healing people will NEVER do good dps because most of the dps Sorcs healing is self heal only.

Here’s an anology in the form of a bad joke...

Lightning Sorc runs into a gun fight with some paper planes, a wet towel, confetti, a glow stick and a force field.
They proceed to throw paper planes into the eyes of the gun fighters and annoy them with towel whips while they use their glow stick to do a rave dance inside their force field and throw confetti on the crowd.
One group of gun fighters waste all their bullets shooting the force field, while mesmerised by the glow stick and pretty confetti. While this is happening, the other gun fighters are shooting them dead.

The reality is this, Lightning Sorcs doing high damage and healing are just annoying people because they are free casting force storm to buff numbers and when they get focused they run around healing themsleves.
As a Lightning Sorc player, none of that is fun. It’s boring as bat crap and it’s why most Lightning Sorcs switched to healing or madness or switched mains.

I know they are ranged and have good survivability and I concede they shouldn’t be at the top of the dps spectrum (in pvp) when you compare them to burst melee like Fury Mara’s. But they are currently at the bottom when you compare them in pvp, which should not be the case.

I would ask that you take all of that into consideration before making post like you did, because they aren’t helpful and spread more misinformation.
Grim, I invite you to come play a Lightning Sorc with me and let me demonstrate my points,

Sorry to be so harsh

Damn Straight!

You are not harsh - you speak the absolute truth for all lightning sorcerers (also my main's spec since launch). I call it the fairy dust spec now because that's all we do, especially in PvP. We have faced nerf-upon-nerf and most recently our ability to self heal well was nerfed making us even worse in PvP. No amount of adjusting gear stats help. I'm really hoping that lightning sorcerers get some love soon for both PvP and PvE or we will have many more months (years) of being that billy-no-mates who is last to be picked for any team!

Yours is a post that needs to be read by every developer for this game.

WayOfTheWarriorx · June 16, 2018

I’m sorry Grim, but on this we are on 100% polar opposites. Lightning Sorc has been my preferred class since launch, I’ve seen it be weak, balanced, OP and is now the worst sort of rubbish it can be. I’m sorry, but you may not like this post because I’m pretty defensive when it comes to this classes current position. So please look at it like this, you don’t play a Sorc, you main a Mara, you don’t like people who don’t play Mara’s saying things that aren’t true about the class or people speculating like arm chair Devs armed with their 3rd part observations. So I would ask you to listen from someone who knows the in’s and out’s of a Lightning Sorc after 6 years of maining one in pvp,

Let me start by saying, I’m comparing apples to apples, as in similar skilled players because that is the only way this should be approached, not from a place of they have the “potential to do excellently in the hands of a competent player”. Because that can be said about any class in the game. If you have two Lightning Sorcs ripping you apart separately (not running together), it’s because they are pvp gods. If they are doing it together, well enough said, move along.

I think you have a big misunderstanding of how the class “should” operate. It may look like it can do a lot of damage, but it’s fluff and AOE damage. That is not what a lightning Sorcs is supposed to be. It’s not sustained damage or dot spread, it’s supposed to be burst damage. You know, like how Fury Mara’s are supposed to be burst damage with high crits.

Lightning Sorcs now hit like a wet rag. Average crits are 15k, which isn’t even close to being burst. Skank tanks are doing higher burst damage than lightning Sorcs. Which is absolutely ridiculous.
When you consider the health pools of all classes these days and all the immunities and DCDs, 15k bursts are a joke. They should be 25-30k average to even make a dent in this high health pool and DCD meta.

Yes, Sorcs have pretty good self heals and ways to control, but if they didn’t have them in this meta, you would not ever be able to enter pvp with them because they have no dps burst to deter melee from tunneling them. The only thing they have going for them is making them hardish to kill so that they waste the time of people trying to kill them when there are more important classes that need your attention. All you can really do as a Lightning Sorc is annoy people because you aren’t a real threat.

I’ve said all along I would sacrifice some of that survivability, “if” they gave us decent dps burst to compensate. I dont just mean a small tweak buff and then Bioware give us a big nerf in survivability, It needs to be balanced so that there is a deterrent. If they over buff or over nerf, Sorcs will be still bad in pvp, wether they become OP or stay absolute rubbish. The only way Bioware will get that right is if they stop focusing only on potential dps output on a dummy and consider survivability and utilities all at the same time. They also need to realise that Sorcs shouldn’t be relying on Force storm in pvp to reach their “potential” dps.

You say Lightning Sorcs aren’t as bad as they used to be and there you are 100% wrong, because they are worse than when 5.0 dropped and they weren’t good before that either. We even got nerfed during the year, while madness actually got buffed. :mad:
This is where that class dps table you posted in the pvp section really skews reality. You are comparing snipers and Mercs to Lightning Sorc dps on dummy parsing, which I’ll concede looks ok on paper. But the reality in pvp is vastly different. I know it’s a tool to show the difference in the potential, but now you are using that as your reference to say Sorc dps is ok in pvp and it’s not. It’s so wrong in fact that you shouldn’t even be bringing it up.

Let me explain the Lightning Sorc situation.

We are supposed to be burst, but hit for 15k
We are hard to kill, but can not kill crap
We ONLY do high damage when left alone to free cast and spam force storm
Dumb Sorcs spam force storm to fluff numbers because, you know, people only care about the scoreboard, not wether a player actually did anything meaningful to help the team win.
We do high heals because we spam our healing abilities to keep melee busy and annoy them. We will never kill a melee unless he is stupidly bad or we are pvp gods.
What’s really dumb is our self heal crits higher than our dps burst. Seriously, how absolutely stupid is that.
We have great survivability and antifocus to escape and heal. That is the only reason our healing is high. Any Sorc DPS that is off healing people will NEVER do good dps because most of the dps Sorcs healing is self heal only.

Here’s an anology in the form of a bad joke...

Lightning Sorc runs into a gun fight with some paper planes, a wet towel, confetti, a glow stick and a force field.
They proceed to throw paper planes into the eyes of the gun fighters and annoy them with towel whips while they use their glow stick to do a rave dance inside their force field and throw confetti on the crowd.
One group of gun fighters waste all their bullets shooting the force field, while mesmerised by the glow stick and pretty confetti. While this is happening, the other gun fighters are shooting them dead.

The reality is this, Lightning Sorcs doing high damage and healing are just annoying people because they are free casting force storm to buff numbers and when they get focused they run around healing themsleves.
As a Lightning Sorc player, none of that is fun. It’s boring as bat crap and it’s why most Lightning Sorcs switched to healing or madness or switched mains.

I know they are ranged and have good survivability and I concede they shouldn’t be at the top of the dps spectrum (in pvp) when you compare them to burst melee like Fury Mara’s. But they are currently at the bottom when you compare them in pvp, which should not be the case.

I would ask that you take all of that into consideration before making post like you did, because they aren’t helpful and spread more misinformation.
Grim, I invite you to come play a Lightning Sorc with me and let me demonstrate my points,

Sorry to be so harsh

I didn't take it harshly at all. I know it's your main [or was] and you are passionate about it. I'm the same way with Carnage.

Regarding Lightning, you would know better than me. My perception of it is based solely on the numbers I see on the WZ results and on parses in operations/ dummy parsing potential DPS.

Madness is all fluff, I know that and I don't see it as meaning it's 'strong'. It's true of vengeance and Annihilation as well [damage wise].

Regarding the healing, while I'm normally not in favor of DPS with high heals, again, I don't have a problem with it on Sorcs, they should be an exception IMO among the DPS specs.

I'll be honest with you, I don't find them particularly hard to kill assuming I can stay on them which isnt always easy because of thier mobility used correctly. I can't keep up with Force Speed with Perdation and phase walk and the slows/roots. They can be very effective kiters.

Regarding the two lightning sorcs I mentioned in the context of their ability to decimate, One of them is a poster on the boards, 'Hoppi". The other one is a Guy named Ocean whom I believe was helped by Hoppi to improve his performance. I don't think Ocean is a poster though, at least not that I am aware of. Both are on Star Forge. Skill level is always at play, and they are outstanding players and clearly exceptional on Lightning. As I understand it, there are a few extra slows and roots that can be gotten with utilities and it is trough that build which higher perfomance with Lightning can be obtained. They're greater range even compared to some other ranged specs [35] and shared only with snipers range also help some. Make of that what you will as I don't know exactly how their build specifics to state.

If they make them the best ranged DPS spec in the game I wouldn't mind at all. I don't really care which ranged holds the top spot, more or less they are all particularly annoying =p. DPS wise, as long as the ranged has less dps potential than their melee counter part classification I wouldn't see any issue if they were on top of the RDPS classes. They [ranged] just shouldn't do more DPS than Melee.

In all other aspects I defer to your greater knowledge and experience with Lightning Sorcs as I can only work on what I see numbers wise.

As far as I'm concerned, If you say that's the way it is overall, than it is that way.

Edited June 16, 2018 by WayOfTheWarriorx

AdjeYo · June 16, 2018

I'm not saying Lightning is good as they are right now, but come on Trixxie Thundering Blast doesn't hit for 15k, it hits for 18k easily, it's always a crit it has a 25% chance for 4k hit and is only on a 9 second cooldown. As far as dps is concerned, Lightning is also performing the best out of the ranged burst dps specs. The only problems Lightning really faces compared to their kin is survivability and other high hitters apart from Thundering Blast itself. I reckon if you add some proc to make Lightning Flash pack some extra punch every second Thundering Blast, Lightning is absolutely fine in the damage and burst department.

TrixxieTriss · June 16, 2018

I'm not saying Lightning is good as they are right now, but come on Trixxie Thundering Blast doesn't hit for 15k, it hits for 18k easily, it's always a crit it has a 25% chance for 4k hit and is only on a 9 second cooldown. As far as dps is concerned, Lightning is also performing the best out of the ranged burst dps specs. The only problems Lightning really faces compared to their kin is survivability and other high hitters apart from Thundering Blast itself. I reckon if you add some proc to make Lightning Flash pack some extra punch every second Thundering Blast, Lightning is absolutely fine in the damage and burst department.

Another arm chair analysis who doesn’t even play the class and has no f’ing idea what they are talking about.

Please post some proof of that happening in pvp consistently enough for it to be called “average” or “normal”.

If you can pull 18k crits consistently in pvp, not dummy parsing, please post, I’d love to see.

What I said was that 15k is the average crit, not the absolute highest. I’ve seen some strange crits from time to time that are higher, but I put it down to the other guys not having gear on or some such. They certainly aren’t normal crits and are certainly not average crits.

I’ve done massive crits on Jugg or Mara that are over 60k, they also aren’t average or normal either. I’ve even taken a 64k crit from a Merc and I can consistently hit for 30k+ on my sniper. I see many other Mercs and snipers hitting harder than 30k on a consistent basis.

Honestly, I dont know where you are getting your misinformed opinion that Lightning is perfoming the best out of the ranged burst classes. Sounds like fake news to me from a Merc or sniper player

Regardless of wether it’s 15k or 18k, neither is a big burst. Like I said, skanks do bigger bursts than that. Why is a burst class doing significantly lower burst damage than a tank? It’s ludicrous.

And seriously, you’re going to say Lightning damage and burst is fine? That must be why the Devs conceded they are underperforming and need help. Most people know that Lightning and PTs are underperforming in pvp. PTs because of weak DCD and Sorc because of dps. I’m not sure why you think they are fine? I’d sure love some proof.

If you’re saying Sorcs problem is survivability, then you need to cut back on what you’re smoking. Sorcs have some of the best survivability at their disposal. If you think they have a problem, you must think Mercs are squishy.

Edited June 16, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

AdjeYo · June 16, 2018

Another arm chair analysis who doesn’t even play the class and has no f’ing idea what they are talking about.

Please post some proof of that happening in pvp consistently enough for it to be called “average” or “normal”.
If you can pull 18k crits consistently in pvp, not dummy parsing, please post, I’d love to see.

What I said was that 15k is the average crit, not the absolute highest. I’ve seen some strange crits from time to time that are higher, but I put it down to the other guys not having gear on or some such. They certainly aren’t normal crits and are certainly not average crits.

I’ve done massive crits on Jugg or Mara that are over 60k, they also aren’t average or normal either. I’ve even taken a 64k crit from a Merc and I can consistently hit for 30k+ on my sniper. I see many other Mercs and snipers hitting harder than 30k on a consistent basis.
Honestly, I dont know where you are getting your misinformed opinion that Lightning is perfoming the best out of the ranged burst classes. Sounds like fake news to me from a Merc or sniper player

Regardless of wether it’s 15k or 18k, neither is a big burst. Like I said, skanks do bigger bursts than that. Why is a burst class doing significantly lower burst damage than a tank? It’s ludicrous.

And seriously, you’re going to say Lightning damage and burst is fine? That must be why the Devs conceded they are underperforming and need help. Most people know that Lightning and PTs are underperforming in pvp. PTs because of weak DCD and Sorc because of dps. I’m not sure why you think they are fine? I’d sure love some proof.

If you’re saying Sorcs problem is survivability, then you need to cut back on what you’re smoking. Sorcs have some of the best survivability at their disposal. If you think they have a problem, you must think Mercs are squishy.

I never said they performed the best out of ranged burst specs, I said they do as far as damage is concerned, which they do. Lightning outparses Arsenal and Marksmanshap, that much is pretty much a fact. And again, I said they could use some help as far as burst is concerned, just not on Thundering Blast. Thundering Blast already does more damage than Heatskers on averge, has a lower cooldown and is very close as far as max damage is concerned (remember to take second blast in account). I'm not saying Lightning doesn't need a buff, I'm just saying there's no real reason to buff Thundering Blast, it's performing perfectly fine.

Also, skanks aren't hitting more than Thundering Blast, get a grip. You may, you just may, get a 20k+ crushing blow when the stars align, but Lightning hits a solid 18k every 9 seconds, that's very solid for one ability. The problem is clearly in their other abilities, one ability doesn't really constitute burst by itself.

Edited June 16, 2018 by AdjeYo

WayOfTheWarriorx · June 17, 2018

I’ve done massive crits on Jugg or Mara that are over 60k, they also aren’t average or normal either. I’ve even taken a 64k crit from a Merc and I can consistently hit for 30k+ on my sniper. I see many other Mercs and snipers hitting harder than 30k on a consistent basis.
Honestly, I dont know where you are getting your misinformed opinion that Lightning is perfoming the best out of the ranged burst classes. Sounds like fake news to me from a Merc or sniper player

I hope you are kidding about 60k anything. I never seen a hit even remotely close to that, the only exception being if the person hit was in PVE gear while Expertise gear in PVP was still around. 34K is the highest I have ever gotten with Carnage in 6 years and if 50-60k hits are possible than I am the worst player ever! heh I'd of figured they learned their lesson after the smash monkey reign of terror!

While I have seen mercs and snipers hit in the 30k range, I can't say I've seen it consistently recently, not since 5.4. Additionally siting a comparison with either one of them is not something that anyone should want to be asscoiated with. They are the problem. We shouldn't make more classes like them, they should be made like more like other classes. I hate Mercs and Snipers, I do not hate Lightning Sorcs. [although I have been humbled by a few of them].

Regarding Lightning DPS it isn't the worst overall and I'm just talking flat numbers here. The truth is though that it's very hard to talk about DPS of any class or spec without a way of accurately measuring its DPS performance and there is only way to do that, a parsing program. If on the one hand if someone wants to talk [ comment not directed at you, I'm speaking generally.] about DPS difference between specs, they have no way of knowing that without reliable information. Parsing programs can be used in PVP, they are just as reliable of collecting accurate data in PVP as in PVE and they will give you accurate stats of every single thing that goes on in PVP that is related to the player [incoming, outgoing, all effects] it gives a combat log that you can simply read as well describing all the statisics in written form. The magnitude of the numbers overall are different in PVP but it's still relative to other PVPers who are in the same circumstances. The parsing program will literally give you the names of the players you were effected by in any manner, for good or ill and exactly what they did to you [buffs, heals, slows, roots damage etc.] and how they countered your every move. People jumped all over me for saying this before, but it doesn't have anything to do with me. Information obtained by Parse programs are simply put statistical facts and cannot be denied. Ya can't blame a player not even breaking 1k on a DPS on the spec and that works both ways.

You can see damage numbers on the screen, sure, but that doesn't tell exactly why you got the numbers you did. If I hit a sniper with Devistating blast while he had one of his 1000 DCDs up I will see damage as low as 9k. When that's not up that same exact attack can do 28K.

I would recommend using Star Parse, it not only gives you all the statistical information mentioned above that can very useful, Star Parse being the most widely used parsing program also has the benefit that it tells you how your performance is compared to other people using the same spec. It "pools" all the stats of players using it and that makes an average of performance and wherein the player themself fits into that average performance level as well as compared to the highest examples of performance with said spec. It's the only reliable way to measure DPS and performance over all compared to other users of said spec.

I know a lot of PVPers don't see the value in parsing statistics, but that's a shortsighted view because it leaves them with absolutely no reliable way to measure DPS their own or anyone elses. The 'DPS" listing if you hover over the damage section on the WZ end results menu is not your DPS for the entire Match, it's only the DPS measured in the last combat state, it takes nothing a player did in any previous state into account so it's completely useless for determining performance in a match. The total damage does clearly give you an idea about how someone is preforming of course but there are so many changing variables from one WZ to the next that even that isn't a reliable source of personal and class appraisal or even others. For example if a player is on a team with heals against a team without any heals clearly that eskews performance levels.You can get trends of course of overall performance with certain people, even specs to a degree, but if skill level isn't taken into account, it's impossible to know what a class is capable of doing and what it is capable of doing, sets the limits, considers average performance, and thus directly speaks to the needs of any spec.

While not speaking to Lightning's overall performance, which I clearly defer to you on, Lighting does have higher DPS on average than aresnal and sharpshooter statistically speaking, but that's only DPS. Clearly Mercs and Snipers have an extremely better situation overall than Lightning, and that does make them able to put out more DPS at times because they have a better QOL than Lightning does, someone would have to be an idiot not to see that and recognize that. They outclass Lighting in virtually every single way.

I trust what you are saying Trixxie, again, if you say that's the way it is, than I believe you. I am going to PM you something, so check your box when ya can.

TrixxieTriss · June 17, 2018

I never said they performed the best out of ranged burst specs, I said they do as far as damage is concerned, which they do. Lightning outparses Arsenal and Marksmanshap, that much is pretty much a fact. And again, I said they could use some help as far as burst is concerned, just not on Thundering Blast. Thundering Blast already does more damage than Heatskers on averge, has a lower cooldown and is very close as far as max damage is concerned (remember to take second blast in account). I'm not saying Lightning doesn't need a buff, I'm just saying there's no real reason to buff Thundering Blast, it's performing perfectly fine.

Also, skanks aren't hitting more than Thundering Blast, get a grip. You may, you just may, get a 20k+ crushing blow when the stars align, but Lightning hits a solid 18k every 9 seconds, that's very solid for one ability. The problem is clearly in their other abilities, one ability doesn't really constitute burst by itself.

As my original post said, parsing has nothing to do with pvp performance. You can’t parse / do rotations in pvp.

I’m sorry but do you even pvp? You’ve no idea of the reality of the situation regarding these classes or the ability crits in pvp.

Edited June 17, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

TrixxieTriss · June 17, 2018

I hope you are kidding about 60k anything. I never seen a hit even remotely close to that, the only exception being if the person hit was in PVE gear while Expertise gear in PVP was still around. 34K is the highest I have ever gotten with Carnage in 6 years and if 50-60k hits are possible than I am the worst player ever! heh I'd of figured they learned their lesson after the smash monkey reign of terror!

While I have seen mercs and snipers hit in the 30k range, I can't say I've seen it consistently recently, not since 5.4. Additionally siting a comparison with either one of them is not something that anyone should want to be asscoiated with. They are the problem. We shouldn't make more classes like them, they should be made like more like other classes. I hate Mercs and Snipers, I do not hate Lightning Sorcs. [although I have been humbled by a few of them].

Regarding Lightning DPS it isn't the worst overall and I'm just talking flat numbers here. The truth is though that it's very hard to talk about DPS of any class or spec without a way of accurately measuring its DPS performance and there is only way to do that, a parsing program. If on the one hand if someone wants to talk [ comment not directed at you, I'm speaking generally.] about DPS difference between specs, they have no way of knowing that without reliable information. Parsing programs can be used in PVP, they are just as reliable of collecting accurate data in PVP as in PVE and they will give you accurate stats of every single thing that goes on in PVP that is related to the player [incoming, outgoing, all effects] it gives a combat log that you can simply read as well describing all the statisics in written form. The magnitude of the numbers overall are different in PVP but it's still relative to other PVPers who are in the same circumstances. The parsing program will literally give you the names of the players you were effected by in any manner, for good or ill and exactly what they did to you [buffs, heals, slows, roots damage etc.] and how they countered your every move. People jumped all over me for saying this before, but it doesn't have anything to do with me. Information obtained by Parse programs are simply put statistical facts and cannot be denied. Ya can't blame a player not even breaking 1k on a DPS on the spec and that works both ways.

You can see damage numbers on the screen, sure, but that doesn't tell exactly why you got the numbers you did. If I hit a sniper with Devistating blast while he had one of his 1000 DCDs up I will see damage as low as 9k. When that's not up that same exact attack can do 28K.

I would recommend using Star Parse, it not only gives you all the statistical information mentioned above that can very useful, Star Parse being the most widely used parsing program also has the benefit that it tells you how your performance is compared to other people using the same spec. It "pools" all the stats of players using it and that makes an average of performance and wherein the player themself fits into that average performance level as well as compared to the highest examples of performance with said spec. It's the only reliable way to measure DPS and performance over all compared to other users of said spec.

I know a lot of PVPers don't see the value in parsing statistics, but that's a shortsighted view because it leaves them with absolutely no reliable way to measure DPS their own or anyone elses. The 'DPS" listing if you hover over the damage section on the WZ end results menu is not your DPS for the entire Match, it's only the DPS measured in the last combat state, it takes nothing a player did in any previous state into account so it's completely useless for determining performance in a match. The total damage does clearly give you an idea about how someone is preforming of course but there are so many changing variables from one WZ to the next that even that isn't a reliable source of personal and class appraisal or even others. For example if a player is on a team with heals against a team without any heals clearly that eskews performance levels.You can get trends of course of overall performance with certain people, even specs to a degree, but if skill level isn't taken into account, it's impossible to know what a class is capable of doing and what it is capable of doing, sets the limits, considers average performance, and thus directly speaks to the needs of any spec.

While not speaking to Lightning's overall performance, which I clearly defer to you on, Lighting does have higher DPS on average than aresnal and sharpshooter statistically speaking, but that's only DPS. Clearly Mercs and Snipers have an extremely better situation overall than Lightning, and that does make them able to put out more DPS at times because they have a better QOL than Lightning does, someone would have to be an idiot not to see that and recognize that. They outclass Lighting in virtually every single way.

I trust what you are saying Trixxie, again, if you say that's the way it is, than I believe you. I am going to PM you something, so check your box when ya can.

Grim, I use star parse myself when I’m collecting data on priorities and rotations to use in pvp. I’ve used it in and out of pvp. I do parse a lot on the dummies while I wait for matches. It often surprises me just how much damage or lack of damage some of my classes when parsing compared to pvp match performance. My guild and I used to use it when we’d duel to see who was missing priorities or to offer suggestions.

As you know, parsing shows you what the Devs see when they adjust dps outputs. They allow you to set up the perfect rotations to take advantage of your maximised stats and Procs. But that’s about as far as they go in pvp.

You can’t compare them in pvp because some abilities and utilities only activate when getting attacked and you have survivability issues as well.

This is the reason those guys in that pvp thread were arguing with you because people try to transfer the same data from dummy parsing to pvp performance and say “look, it does heaps of damage, there is nothing wrong with it”.

You and I know that’s not what you were doing, but some people who don’t understand pvp dynamics like this previous poster, try to argue what damage abilities do or don’t need buffing or which classes are fine and which aren’t because they look at raw data from parsing and at fellow posters saying similar things. So when you or other pvpers use the same data in your arguments, these arm chair stat collectors feel vindicated because a pvper is backing up their flawed methods of understanding class performance in pvp.

As for those hight hits. I wasn’t joking, I’ve seen them happen every now and then. The biggest one I’ve seen was in Mids, that was the 60k hit.

With my sniper I can consistently hit above 32k and my Merc was above 30k until the last nerf. I’m not sure what it is now because I’ve not played it for a while.

My Rage Jugg hits consistently between 26-29k and usually max’s around 32-33k. My Fury Mara maxes around 32k.

But I’ve seen rogue hits that come out of no where and hit well above those of any class. All the stars must align and the crit gods must ******, but they do happen. They are hits people cannot reproduce because of skill, it’s random and you may never see them again.

I certainly don’t want my Sorcs to go from crap to OP FOTM. I think you know how I feel about FOTM spec classes. So the last thing I want is for lightning to become another Merc or sniper. Lightning burst crists don’t need to be as big as 30k, low to mid 20k would be good and then they could reduce some of the selfhealing crits to compensate.

There needs to be a trade off or we will have another Merc situation.

Currently most dps Sorcs choose all the utilities that improve survivability because choosing the ones that boost dps are pointless. If we got a boost to dps, maybe we would pick other utilities over the selfhealing ones. There really isn’t a silver bullet to fix Lightning Sorcs because those self healing abilities and utilities are class bound and affect madness and healing specs too. Any change to them will have adverse affects.

Lightning Sorcs problems started in 3.0. Bioware stupidly made them OP in pvp by adding a snare to force storm, made force storm longer with no CD and for what ever reason made it part of the rotation.

Obviously it needed to be fixed because force storm was like plasma probe spam on steroids and dumb people still stood in it.

But Bioware in their wisdom nerfed single target burst damage (by changing the procs and reducing damage) and left FS alone. Everyone was obviously outraged because it did nothing to fix the issue. (Just like they did with Merc dps).

This went on for a few more months until the QQ got so bad that Bioware nerfed FS damage into the ground, removed the snare and added a CD. Sorcs were also pissed because it ruined the rotation when they changed the single target procs and made it even clunkier when they finally nerfed FS.

Ok, so something needed to be done, but that went too far after already having the single target burst nerfed. What they should have done is reversed their early nerf in favour of the later one. But we know Bioware won’t admit a mistake and reverse it, they just double down. So lightning got to keep both nerfs that nocked them to the bottom of the dps pack in pvp. The spec has never recovered from that and just got worse over time.

Everyone then switched to madness and corruption. As those specs rose higher in the pack, especially corruption, people QQd more and more about Sorcs, but instead of Bioware doing what they did to Lightning and just tweaking those individual specs, they nerfed the class abilities and utilities which in turn affected lightning spec too.

Since the 3.0 fiasco, Lightning has been nerfed directly or indirectly many times till it’s become the sad state it is now. Even last year while we were perfoming the worst in pvp, we got a self healing nerf because Corruption was over performing. Bioware are lazy and nerfed the class when they should have only focused on corruption specific abilities and not the class abilities.

What really rubbed salt into the wound and actually made me rage quit the game for a few months was madness got a dps buff when they were already perfoming better than lightning and Bioware said lightning was fine.

It’s obvious to most pvpers that the methods Bioware use to balance classes for pvp is flawed. We were all screaming at them last year when they tried to use those methods to balance all the classes and mostly failed.

My concern is they will use the same flawed methods again and either make Lightning stupidly OP or look at the data you are seeing on Star Parse and say Lightning is fine and then don’t buff enough. It’s why conversations around dummy parsing can be so damaging when Bioware are planning nerfs or buffs. If some number crunching dev who doesn’t play pvp, pays too much attention to silly posts, we end up with a potential disaster in either direction.

I don’t want Sorcs over buffed, but I don’t want them to remain crap in pvp either.

WayOfTheWarriorx · June 17, 2018

Grim, I use star parse myself when I’m collecting data on priorities and rotations to use in pvp. I’ve used it in and out of pvp. I do parse a lot on the dummies while I wait for matches. It often surprises me just how much damage or lack of damage some of my classes when parsing compared to pvp match performance. My guild and I used to use it when we’d duel to see who was missing priorities or to offer suggestions.

As you know, parsing shows you what the Devs see when they adjust dps outputs. They allow you to set up the perfect rotations to take advantage of your maximised stats and Procs. But that’s about as far as they go in pvp.
You can’t compare them in pvp because some abilities and utilities only activate when getting attacked and you have survivability issues as well.
This is the reason those guys in that pvp thread were arguing with you because people try to transfer the same data from dummy parsing to pvp performance and say “look, it does heaps of damage, there is nothing wrong with it”.
You and I know that’s not what you were doing, but some people who don’t understand pvp dynamics like this previous poster, try to argue what damage abilities do or don’t need buffing or which classes are fine and which aren’t because they look at raw data from parsing and at fellow posters saying similar things. So when you or other pvpers use the same data in your arguments, these arm chair stat collectors feel vindicated because a pvper is backing up their flawed methods of understanding class performance in pvp.

As for those hight hits. I wasn’t joking, I’ve seen them happen every now and then. The biggest one I’ve seen was in Mids, that was the 60k hit.
With my sniper I can consistently hit above 32k and my Merc was above 30k until the last nerf. I’m not sure what it is now because I’ve not played it for a while.
My Rage Jugg hits consistently between 26-29k and usually max’s around 32-33k. My Fury Mara maxes around 32k.
But I’ve seen rogue hits that come out of no where and hit well above those of any class. All the stars must align and the crit gods must ******, but they do happen. They are hits people cannot reproduce because of skill, it’s random and you may never see them again.

I certainly don’t want my Sorcs to go from crap to OP FOTM. I think you know how I feel about FOTM spec classes. So the last thing I want is for lightning to become another Merc or sniper. Lightning burst crists don’t need to be as big as 30k, low to mid 20k would be good and then they could reduce some of the selfhealing crits to compensate.
There needs to be a trade off or we will have another Merc situation.

Currently most dps Sorcs choose all the utilities that improve survivability because choosing the ones that boost dps are pointless. If we got a boost to dps, maybe we would pick other utilities over the selfhealing ones. There really isn’t a silver bullet to fix Lightning Sorcs because those self healing abilities and utilities are class bound and affect madness and healing specs too. Any change to them will have adverse affects.

Lightning Sorcs problems started in 3.0. Bioware stupidly made them OP in pvp by adding a snare to force storm, made force storm longer with no CD and for what ever reason made it part of the rotation.
Obviously it needed to be fixed because force storm was like plasma probe spam on steroids and dumb people still stood in it.
But Bioware in their wisdom nerfed single target burst damage (by changing the procs and reducing damage) and left FS alone. Everyone was obviously outraged because it did nothing to fix the issue. (Just like they did with Merc dps).
This went on for a few more months until the QQ got so bad that Bioware nerfed FS damage into the ground, removed the snare and added a CD. Sorcs were also pissed because it ruined the rotation when they changed the single target procs and made it even clunkier when they finally nerfed FS.
Ok, so something needed to be done, but that went too far after already having the single target burst nerfed. What they should have done is reversed their early nerf in favour of the later one. But we know Bioware won’t admit a mistake and reverse it, they just double down. So lightning got to keep both nerfs that nocked them to the bottom of the dps pack in pvp. The spec has never recovered from that and just got worse over time.

Everyone then switched to madness and corruption. As those specs rose higher in the pack, especially corruption, people QQd more and more about Sorcs, but instead of Bioware doing what they did to Lightning and just tweaking those individual specs, they nerfed the class abilities and utilities which in turn affected lightning spec too.

Since the 3.0 fiasco, Lightning has been nerfed directly or indirectly many times till it’s become the sad state it is now. Even last year while we were perfoming the worst in pvp, we got a self healing nerf because Corruption was over performing. Bioware are lazy and nerfed the class when they should have only focused on corruption specific abilities and not the class abilities.
What really rubbed salt into the wound and actually made me rage quit the game for a few months was madness got a dps buff when they were already perfoming better than lightning and Bioware said lightning was fine.

It’s obvious to most pvpers that the methods Bioware use to balance classes for pvp is flawed. We were all screaming at them last year when they tried to use those methods to balance all the classes and mostly failed.
My concern is they will use the same flawed methods again and either make Lightning stupidly OP or look at the data you are seeing on Star Parse and say Lightning is fine and then don’t buff enough. It’s why conversations around dummy parsing can be so damaging when Bioware are planning nerfs or buffs. If some number crunching dev who doesn’t play pvp, pays too much attention to silly posts, we end up with a potential disaster in either direction.

I don’t want Sorcs over buffed, but I don’t want them to remain crap in pvp either.

I didn't want to assume as a PVPer you used parsing programs, that does tend to be a raider thing more so. The reason I did recommend Star Parse is because it's information isn't only based on dummy parsing it has different cateogories of data gathering and most of the comparisons in the data is from live fighting not just dummy parsing.

I get what you are saying though, there are so many variables involved, especially in PVP that the data can't take them all into consideration. Statistics may give a general idea, but they are far from perfect of course, and I agree they definately should consider more in class balance. I have been a long proponent on basing class balance and DPS variables on a spec by spec basis, taking into account everything it brings to the table [heals, DPS, off role abilities, range, armor type, mobility, utility options, etc. etc.]. You can't paint classes with the same stroke, like you brought up with some abilties being class bound and others being spec bound so it's important to give each spec a good and fair consideration of it's strengths and weaknesses. I think mercs and snipers are a good example how things can get out of hand when you don't take everything into consideration because things aren't always black and white and can appear differently on paper than in action.

And just for the record, I never meant that I thought Lightning was too strong, and if it appeared that way than I worded things wrongly. The differences between Sorc DPS and Merc and Sniper, despite them all being ranged DPS are night and day. Mercs and Snipers have it on Sorcs in pretty much every way.

I don't need to play something to be sympathetic to it's situation which is why I always said that Sorc DPS should have the best self heals of any DPS and when I made the suggestion that I thought that the TTK issues are in part due to all the healing DPS are doing and that I thought they should make DPS healing like Operatives [they have to choose to use the GCD for healing or DPS not both at the same time] I said that I think that Sorc DPS should be an exception and they alone should be able to do both.

You can't use the best top 5 % players as an example of what expectations of a spec should be like. There will always be those top players than can turn crap into gold. That's not a fair assement of the state of the spec. I say that about Carnage too. I do pretty well with it generally speaking, but I been playing it for 6 years straight so I just kinda "feel it" at this point, but the spec itself is not in a good place. So those examples I gave about the two Lightning sorcs I know who can just dominate, they are not a good example of the state of Lighting either.

The strategy they used for class balancing since 5.2 is inherently flawed and can't possibly lead to class balance and as long as they adhere to that strategy we'll have what we have now. Is there anyone who things class balance is in a good place? heh

My comments were more intended in line with your concerns that I have seen you say about various classes [Like PTs] , you want to careful not to overdue it because that just leads to the next cycle of that class being put on the chopping block in the next round of nerfs. The nerfs in this meta are just never ending and it's disgusting. Every new patch people cringe to see what they are gonna screw up next. That was really the intention of my post, and I did a poor job in wording it apparently. I don't want to see that happen to sorcs or PTs. Just like PTs, people remember not so long ago they were OP and Sorcs were king for a while and there are many people who remember that too. Going smash monkey may be fun for a while but it's going to end ingloriously at some point, and as we all know BW does everything with a sledgehammer, they don't know the meaning of the word moderation.

If someone were to check my past history they would fine numerous examples of me saying that as far as I am concerned and this still holds true now, there is nothing I would rather have as my ally than a Sorc. I would take a sorc over any other class because they are just so damn useful overall. My longest friend in the game, you might know him from Star Forge, Sonus he plays a Sorc and he's the best damn partner I could ask for. We dont get to play much together like we use to, but he made a sorc lover out of me, even know i would never play one, I love them.

To be honest though, I do still hold the opinion that Lightning sorcs have a worse reputation than I think many people realize. That doesn't mean they are fine or that they don't need some attention though, it just has gotten to a place where people just write them off as being not viable and I don't think they aren't viable. That doesn't mean you would want to take them into ranked or in DP/DF NiM or HM Revan. Smart players would definitely choose a merc or sniper over them because it isn't just about DPS, it's the whole package you need to consider.

As far as Madness, madness is all fluff you couldn't kill the worst PT ever with madness heh [not really =p ]

You could have 5 gazilion total damage and never kill a thing and it's all about killing, not hurting people. If it can't seal the deal, than it needs a look see.

Nothing would make me happier than to see Sorcs displace mercs and Snipers for the best Ranged DPS and I hope that happens. Preferably sooner than later. It should be sorcs turn next go around for Ranged DPS. Fair is Fair.

TrixxieTriss · June 17, 2018

I didn't want to assume as a PVPer you used parsing programs, that does tend to be a raider thing more so. The reason I did recommend Star Parse is because it's information isn't only based on dummy parsing it has different cateogories of data gathering and most of the comparisons in the data is from live fighting not just dummy parsing.

I get what you are saying though, there are so many variables involved, especially in PVP that the data can't take them all into consideration. Statistics may give a general idea, but they are far from perfect of course, and I agree they definately should consider more in class balance. I have been a long proponent on basing class balance and DPS variables on a spec by spec basis, taking into account everything it brings to the table [heals, DPS, off role abilities, range, armor type, mobility, utility options, etc. etc.]. You can't paint classes with the same stroke, like you brought up with some abilties being class bound and others being spec bound so it's important to give each spec a good and fair consideration of it's strengths and weaknesses. I think mercs and snipers are a good example how things can get out of hand when you don't take everything into consideration because things aren't always black and white and can appear differently on paper than in action.

And just for the record, I never meant that I thought Lightning was too strong, and if it appeared that way than I worded things wrongly. The differences between Sorc DPS and Merc and Sniper, despite them all being ranged DPS are night and day. Mercs and Snipers have it on Sorcs in pretty much every way.

I don't need to play something to be sympathetic to it's situation which is why I always said that Sorc DPS should have the best self heals of any DPS and when I made the suggestion that I thought that the TTK issues are in part due to all the healing DPS are doing and that I thought they should make DPS healing like Operatives [they have to choose to use the GCD for healing or DPS not both at the same time] I said that I think that Sorc DPS should be an exception and they alone should be able to do both.

You can't use the best top 5 % players as an example of what expectations of a spec should be like. There will always be those top players than can turn crap into gold. That's not a fair assement of the state of the spec. I say that about Carnage too. I do pretty well with it generally speaking, but I been playing it for 6 years straight so I just kinda "feel it" at this point, but the spec itself is not in a good place. So those examples I gave about the two Lightning sorcs I know who can just dominate, they are not a good example of the state of Lighting either.

The strategy they used for class balancing since 5.2 is inherently flawed and can't possibly lead to class balance and as long as they adhere to that strategy we'll have what we have now. Is there anyone who things class balance is in a good place? heh

My comments were more intended in line with your concerns that I have seen you say about various classes [Like PTs] , you want to careful not to overdue it because that just leads to the next cycle of that class being put on the chopping block in the next round of nerfs. The nerfs in this meta are just never ending and it's disgusting. Every new patch people cringe to see what they are gonna screw up next. That was really the intention of my post, and I did a poor job in wording it apparently. I don't want to see that happen to sorcs or PTs. Just like PTs, people remember not so long ago they were OP and Sorcs were king for a while and there are many people who remember that too. Going smash monkey may be fun for a while but it's going to end ingloriously at some point, and as we all know BW does everything with a sledgehammer, they don't know the meaning of the word moderation.

If someone were to check my past history they would fine numerous examples of me saying that as far as I am concerned and this still holds true now, there is nothing I would rather have as my ally than a Sorc. I would take a sorc over any other class because they are just so damn useful overall. My longest friend in the game, you might know him from Star Forge, Sonus he plays a Sorc and he's the best damn partner I could ask for. We dont get to play much together like we use to, but he made a sorc lover out of me, even know i would never play one, I love them.

To be honest though, I do still hold the opinion that Lightning sorcs have a worse reputation than I think many people realize. That doesn't mean they are fine or that they don't need some attention though, it just has gotten to a place where people just write them off as being not viable and I don't think they aren't viable. That doesn't mean you would want to take them into ranked or in DP/DF NiM or HM Revan. Smart players would definitely choose a merc or sniper over them because it isn't just about DPS, it's the whole package you need to consider.

As far as Madness, madness is all fluff you couldn't kill the worst PT ever with madness heh [not really =p ]

You could have 5 gazilion total damage and never kill a thing and it's all about killing, not hurting people. If it can't seal the deal, than it needs a look see.

Nothing would make me happier than to see Sorcs displace mercs and Snipers for the best Ranged DPS and I hope that happens. Preferably sooner than later. It should be sorcs turn next go around for Ranged DPS. Fair is Fair.

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree with most of what you’re saying and I think we are on the same page. The only thing I think you don’t have right is about madness. The spec is quite good in regs and certainly not what I would call fluff damage. Getting hit with some of those dots can really hurt, especially if they are geared to 15% alacrity and the dots tick fast. I still wouldnt take them into ranked, but they certainly aren’t all fluff damage or all bad. They are in a much better place than PTs and some other classes specs.

I actually hope Sorcs don’t out shine snipers or Mercs when they rebalance. It’s better if most of the ranged is close to being balanced the same.

I’ve not written off my Sorc. I still play it to stay current and not lose my skills. But it is frustrating when I out play people and still watch them escape dying because it doesn’t matter what I do, it’s impossble to pump out enough dps to kill them. I would say it’s similar to the feeling I get on my Jugg/Mara when there are too many healers and it doesn’t matter how much dps I pump into the healer Im focusing, I just can’t kill them.

The one thing this meta has helped me with is honing my LoS and escape tactics. I like to think I’m damn hard to kill in WZs. Arena not so much, except Rishi (There is a tonne of LoS potential in Rishi and if it gets down to 1v1, I can usually last till the acid).

I’m just praying that Bioware get it right this time. I’d hate my Lighting Sorc to be OP. I like it when people consider them balanced so I dont have to put up with OP FOTM QQ when I kill them

Edited June 17, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

jimmorrisson · June 17, 2018

U DO UNPLAYABLE ANY OTHER CLASS

There is no MERC/JUGGS problem

There is a problem with turbonerds outfitted in 248 gear augmented with 240 augments rolling over lower geared characters, many of which were just created due to the recent double XP events.

Edited June 17, 2018 by jimmorrisson

Ramalina · June 17, 2018

@Trix

I'll hop in cause I'm very ok with improving the thread to highjack it for discussing Sorc/Sage issues.

We had similar problems in GSF with regard to strikes sucking horribly for ages. The numbers were ostensibly not that bad, but when you looked at how things went in combat balance was very very far off. The problem was twofold, first, ships depended on primary weapons and secondary weapons for damage, and it was fairly easily provable that most of the other ship classes could effectively guarantee that they would never get hit by missiles, the only secondary weapon available to strikes. So there was a DPS mechanism that was very deadly, aside from the fact that it never hit anything other than clueless noobs. Then there was the defense side, where the evasion based defenses prevented killing blows from landing and avoided things like snares, while shield based defenses would absorb part of the killing blow before it killed a strike.

The cure was that GSF nerds theorycrafted the crap out of the situation, crunched numbers, argued in detail what might or might not fix things, and finally Kieth let a really good Dev who listened to that discussion have some time to tweak GSF in meaniful ways. Overall, though they wished they had time to do more, it was a resounding success.

PvP is more complex than GSF, it's also entangled with PvE mechanics, and who knows how willing the PvP team is to listen (did I mention that the GSF patch Dev was great at listening to the community, because he really was). So it's clearly a harder to solve case.

Even so, if you can find someone with the passion and math aptitude to start outlining common in combat scenarios, and demonstrate in a way that can be calculated that there's a balance problem going on, then there is some chance that they'll listen and implement a pretty decent fix. Approach it like a designer talking to another designer, with reasoning and math to back it up, and they may listen. A better shot at any rate than just griping that the class/spec sucks. This is especially true if you think there's a specific issue with a specific ideal solution, and want action in that way instead of an eyes closed swing of the nerf-buff bat.

I main a Seer, and TK has been my traditional backup spec, but I don't have the passion for ground PvP that I do for GSF, so alas, I won't be doing the theorycrafting for you. If you can find someone though, that would be . . . how does it go?

Oh, yes, "our only hope."

WayOfTheWarriorx · June 17, 2018

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree with most of what you’re saying and I think we are on the same page. The only thing I think you don’t have right is about madness. The spec is quite good in regs and certainly not what I would call fluff damage. Getting hit with some of those dots can really hurt, especially if they are geared to 15% alacrity and the dots tick fast. I still wouldnt take them into ranked, but they certainly aren’t all fluff damage or all bad. They are in a much better place than PTs and some other classes specs.

I actually hope Sorcs don’t out shine snipers or Mercs when they rebalance. It’s better if most of the ranged is close to being balanced the same.

I’ve not written off my Sorc. I still play it to stay current and not lose my skills. But it is frustrating when I out play people and still watch them escape dying because it doesn’t matter what I do, it’s impossble to pump out enough dps to kill them. I would say it’s similar to the feeling I get on my Jugg/Mara when there are too many healers and it doesn’t matter how much dps I pump into the healer Im focusing, I just can’t kill them.

The one thing this meta has helped me with is honing my LoS and escape tactics. I like to think I’m damn hard to kill in WZs. Arena not so much, except Rishi (There is a tonne of LoS potential in Rishi and if it gets down to 1v1, I can usually last till the acid).

I’m just praying that Bioware get it right this time. I’d hate my Lighting Sorc to be OP. I like it when people consider them balanced so I dont have to put up with OP FOTM QQ when I kill them

I always hear people saying madness is all fluff, even people playing it so I checked out the 5.0 guide [http://dulfy.net/2017/02/05/swtor-5-0-madness-sorcerer-pvp-guide-by-emiri/] and it does seem like they have many DOTs [like 4 or 5] and multiple AOEs. I may be missing something in the context of actually play.

This guide is from before Madness got buffed and it hasn't been updated to reflect the changes so there could also be that that I'm missing. I'm sure you're right, I can only see it in laymen's terms as I never played Madness.

I haven't played all the classes so I don't know how they actually play from a players POV but I do study all the spec guides in order to know what they can do and to watch the buff bars as best I can, but again, things can look one way on paper but act differently in play.

I also think the differences between specs DPS wise is larger than it should be. There shouldn't be a class/spec that has 600 and more DPS differences between specs in the same category [melee needing to be handled separately from ranged]. I don't think they should all be the same some should be a bit better DPS wise than others for any number of reasons taking everything into account [ranged, melee, pure DPS, heals, utility, etc.] but the differences in some cases are huge. There is over a 1000 DPS difference between Rank 1 and Rank 18.

Hopefully with some of the changes in PVP instances like you said too much healing to close the deal we wont be seeing situations like that so much.

I'll be honest with you, I don't think we will see better balance between classes until 6.0. 5.X meta can't be saved at this point. That ship has sailed. It's been a year since they started 'class balance' from 5.2 on and we are worse off than when it started.

I love the game, but 5.x has been the worst meta ever. I'm hoping a phoenix will rise from the ashes of 5.x in 6.0.

Edited June 17, 2018 by WayOfTheWarriorx

TrixxieTriss · June 18, 2018

I'll be honest with you, I don't think we will see better balance between classes until 6.0. 5.X meta can't be saved at this point. That ship has sailed. It's been a year since they started 'class balance' from 5.2 on and we are worse off than when it started.

I love the game, but 5.x has been the worst meta ever. I'm hoping a phoenix will rise from the ashes of 5.x in 6.0.

5.x has been terrible for many reasons and continues to get worse. Two steps forward 3 steps back.

Let’s hope they trash the gearing system at the same time

TrixxieTriss · June 19, 2018

Grim,

I think I saw your 2 Sorcs yesterday. Either that or there are a group of them who do premades together. There were 4 running a premade yesterday that had 2 good Sorcs.

But it’s hard to tell just how good they were because 4 Lighting Sorcs focusing you is diabolical.

Mournblood · June 19, 2018

I'm hoping a phoenix will rise from the ashes of 5.x in 6.0.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Bioware STOP MERC/JUGGS WARS

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Announcements

Important Information