Darth Hater

So I levelled my Sorcerer with the cookie cutter PVE dps spec 3/31/7 but after doing some calculations it looks like Thundering Blast's DPS/DPF is a bit shoddy. In my current, less than stellar, gear it does 50% more DPS than Lightning but has half the DPF, and it has a 9 second cooldown. I'm wondering if it's better to switch to 0/30/11 for cooldown free force lightning. I'd be giving up 3% crit for chain shock but that brings shock up to a viable DPS level (if not that viable DPF).

The main problem with opting for the cd free FL via the madness tree is that most all the skill points in the lightning tree prop up lightning strike as your main "filler" spell.  Forked Lightning and (more importantly) Lightning Storm both primarily fire off of from lightning strike.  Additionally, Thundering Blast should always be a critical hit, thus bringing Lightning Effusion into play.

If force lightning is more of your cup of tea, you may want to try out the 13/28 madness hybrid:

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_inquisitor/sorcerer/#::ef2ef7e3fe2f21e2f4efe11

Said spec is currently guesstimated to be the best dps spec available for sorcerors, which to me is kinda sad; one would want to think the end tree talents would be worth more than skipping out on them altogether.  I like the lightning tree as a concept since it closely parallels WoW's elemental shaman, which I played for several years leading up to TOR.

Thanks Kazgrel, very interesting points. I suppose one of the trade offs that needs to be considered is this. My current rotation: Crushing Darkness, Affliction, Thundering Blast, Lightning, Lightning strike x 3, Thundering Blast, never causes me to run out of force. In fact the only time I run out of force is when I'm spamming force storm for insta-chain-lightning procs. So I suppose my question to you is is the 13/28 build capabable of sustaining its dps for the duration of raid boss fights?

The main difference to note at least as a sorc is that "rotations" are a highly fluid concept. Some of our spells just have such a long cooldown, that they do not fit inside every cycle. As a former shadow priest, I have a love-hate relationship with Crushing Darkness, a dot that has a duration of roughly half of its cooldown. Therefore my "rotation" consists of keeping Affliction up, keeping Death Field on cooldown, spamming FL as filler and using procs first on C.Darkness, and Chain Lightning when CD is on cooldown.

Lightning tree is highly dependent on procs, and the procs are rather ineffective. 30% chance of getting a duplicate cast for 30% damage adds up to 9% damage increase of said spell. That combined to the 30% chance of Lightning Strike proccing an instant CL, (which you've omitted from your rotation) and the whole "resets a 6sec cooldown, occurs only once in 10sec" mechanic sounds rather weird. You can't use C.Darkness in every cycle and I'm not even sure if it's worth using in Lightning spec. (With my current gear, and Madness spec (which adds 2 ticks), it deals around a total of 2500 damage, noncrit, which is around the same as Force Lightning.) The difference is that I can cast it as an instant with a Force Lightning proc, with added 20% damage. Unlike Lightning Storm, this proc doesn't reset CL cooldown, but also has no cooldown of its own. Furthermore, each Force Lightning damage tick gives me 1% of my force back, removing the need to worry about 3 stacks of a 10sec buff, which drops way too easily, especially when you're juggling procs to maximize your dps.

That is not to say that Madness isn't proccy, but there aren't as many of them; just the instant cast proc, which is used either on CR or CL, and the one that halves FL channel time. The overall synergy seems better.

Let me preface:  I have primarily played corruption, with a brief stint playing lightning when I first hit 50 (due to lack of dps around at the time, imagine that).

I only recall using force lightning as lightning spec whenever I had the proc from Lightning Barrage.  Otherwise I held the same priority (I'd rather call it that than a rotation).

Regarding the hybrid build, you get force regen from Sith Efficacy, and from reading, that alone sustains it.  Madness based builds are also friendlier for mobile dps; yes, you have to channel force lightning, but in 1 second you can get 2 ticks of damage, whereas you get zero damage from a lightning strike.  You'll have Wrath, which accomplishes the same effect as Lightning Storm, but allows you to use any spell instead of just CL.  Crushing Darkness would be main priority, afterwards CL.

Priority not counting wrath procs:

Death field > crushing > affliction > force lightning

Sadly, I have yet to get to try this spec out.  I think it would be fun, but for now my guild sorely lacks healers, so a-healing I must go!

Edit:  Creepycrawly beat me to a lot of points.  Damn job.  :P

Creepycrawly, thanks for your description of the madness sorcerer it is very interesting to read. You are quite right, the rotation I suggested is very rough and it's more a priority list excluding procs than a true rotation. As for Crushing Darkness not being effective DPS for lightning sorcerers, I'm afraid it very much is (not sure I know why though), in fact, its DPS is second only to thundering blast and its DPF is second only to force lightning.

and Kazgrel thanks again for your input, I think I might give this hybrid build a try. I'll let you know how it turns out :)

It is interesting that you should compare Crushing Darkness to Thundering Blast, since TB is an absolutely horrible spell (which you already know, since you've considered removing it from your spec). TB can be seen as critting every time. This means that it gains no benefit at all from critical rating. On the other hand, a critical TB deals less damage than a noncritical Force Lightning. So when you say "its DPS is second only to thundering blast" doesn't really make it seem that appealing.

Crushing Darkness is a good spell, but I'm not sure if a 6sec dot is worth the 2sec cast. As the dot component is somewhere around 1200-1400 damage with my gear and spec (8 ticks, or is it 9?) the 2 less ticks would result in 933-1088 damage (for 7 ticks) and 900-1050 (for 6 ticks). It does look fairly competitive, but I myself found that keeping the force regeneration buff was a handful even without it, AND I had force starvation problems in longer fights.

I leveled as lightning. My gear has not changed dramatically after speccing Madness. These are my observations:

LIGHTNING: When killing standard and strong mobs, the initial burst and aoe make it far easier to beat larger groups of opponenes. Chain Lightning proccing from Force Storm is ace. However, fighting Elites usually requires that I heal my crappy tank pet for the last 30% of the fight, and I can even run out of force. As the force regen buff only lasts 10 seconds, and the refreshing spell isn't an instant, you have 8,5 seconds to cast other stuff. Thundering Blast and Crushing Darkness are not evenly rotatable in a cycle of that length, and together take almost a half of that window.

MADNESS: Killing large groups of mobs is more of a handful. Since Death Field is on a 15sec cooldown, it can't be spammed and Force Storm damage in itself is rather paltry. Killing standard mobs is more effective by spamming FL and CL procs. However, I usually don't have to heal my tank comp at all while killing elites. I can still run out of force but I can spam FL for decent dps and GAIN force.

But as we don't have combat logs or addons, there is no reliable way to test the validity of a given spec. We can only theorize, and you should probably see www.sithwarrior.com for theorycraft.

In the hybrid spec listed, is Lightning Spire really that useful? I mean the spec doesn't exactly gravitate towards the spells listed, so the range bonus is at best useful for an early Chain Lightning. I know the answer will be "what else then?" And I can't say much else than Subversion might just be the stuff. The pushback protection alone would be useful, though not critical but the sort of fallback regeneration in the form of Lightning Strike could be very useful. Depending on how long fights will drain the hybrid spec.

Kraxis Yeah I was thinking that too. I know sorcerer healers who swear by taking just 1 point in subversion for the force regeneration.

Creepycrawly I don't know what you're doing with lightning (maybe offhealing?) but throughout hardmode flashpoints and normal raids I haven't had any problems with running out of force (except as previously mentioned if aoeing intensively), maybe this changes in hardmode raids? But it sounds like you don't have any experience using a lightning spec in them. I don't even go out of my way to keep 3 stacks of subversion up; I just use lightning strike as a filler when my the other higher dps spells are on CD.

As for your continued doubts regarding Crushing Darkness I don't really understand them, if your goal is to DPS then, using the second highest DPS spell in your arsenal is obligatory. I do admit, however, that Crushing Darkness might drop down the priority list as my gear gets better. But right now it is an absolute must on any fight where the dot will tick out. 

I also have to question Chain Shock. How often is it really used? It looks like a PvP talent to be honest. Of course on high mobility fights it can be useful, if a bit wasteful on Force. So it comes back to the same issue as with Lightning Spire, how much of a drain is the spec in a long fight with Shocks being used.

Until I can be certain I would actually pick Parasitism and a point in Corrupted Flesh. The former is obvious I should think, such selfheals will be quite useful in Ops where the bos does a lot of raidwide damage. Or when the healers are under pressure. I agree it is most likely more of a PvP talent, but this one actually helps a fair bit in PvE as well. Not stellar, but hey, saving just a bit of healing resources can be quite the bonus. And Corrupted Flesh is a significant reduction on DoTs, something that is one of the more common boss mechanics for damaging random raiders (and thus the reason I would pick it over Sith Defiance).

Wow what a fantastic thread.  Very interesting read and I learned a lot. Sadly, I don't have anything to contribute other than my thanks as my Sorc is only 27 so far.  I'm Lightning specced and have noticed some of the things that have been mentioned.  I run out of Force in long fights but It's usually not a terrible problem.  I have Khem geared pretty nicely though and he tanks like a champ.  

I think I'll have to revisit my Spec so far though as I do have the occaisional problem with a Gold if he has silver buddies.  

Cheers