Madness Sorcerer

Last Updated: 5/31/21

6.0 Impact on Discipline

Sorcerer DPS received some interesting changings in 6.0. The overall class got a great set bonus in The Gathering Storm between making Force Speed apply a powerful damage buff to the next ability and increased uptime and duration of Polarity Shift and an accompanying damage buff during its entire duration. The Gathering Storm is arguably one of the best overall set bonuses in 6.x to date.

Madness Sorcerer as a discipline received a decent buff through the combination of a great class set bonus in The Gathering Storm and some useful tactical options. The discipline has suffered a bit in comparison to Telekinetic / Lightning, which does nearly as much DPS while offering better burst and mobility. That said, buffs in 6.1 and beyond are intended to buff the discipline to an appropriate level so it should continue to be a solid sustained ranged DPS discipline and offer very good sustained AoE DPS through DoT spreading.

Please see my Gearing Guide for a detailed overview of gearing in 6.x in SWTOR. Please also see my Alacrity Guide for a much more in-depth look at alacrity.

For Madness Sorcerer, I gear as follows:

• Set Bonus: Gathering Storm

• Tactical: Tempest of Rho (I usually keep Tempest of Rho even for heavy AoE since Madness has great AoE already)

• Amplifiers: Force Sensitivity

• Mods: Unlettered Lethal Mods

• Relics: Devastating Vengeance & Primeval Fatesealer (Serendipitous Assault & Focused Retribution for Dxun/PVP)

• Stim: Proficient

• Adrenal: Critical (Attack for Dxun only)

For Madness Sorcerer, I allocate my tertiary stats as follows:

• Accuracy: 1,585 - 1,630 (anything outside this approximate range and I usually try to re-optimize by swapping around enhancements and augments)

• Alacrity: around 1,400 (at least 1,895 if the Zeal guild perk applies)

• Critical: all remaining tertiary points go into Critical

• Shield: None

• Absorb: None

1. Demolish - DoT, should be instant due to procs from opener or previous rotation, debuffs target to take 5% more damage from Force attacks

2. Creeping Terror - refresh 1st DoT

3. Affliction - refresh 2nd DoT

4. Death Field - AoE damage, self-heal, also buffs DoTs 15% damage for 15 DoT ticks

5. Force Leech - high damage filler, self-heal

6. Force Lightning - filler, completing a cast enables an instant cast of Lightning Strike or Demolish

7. Lightning Strike - instant-cast via previous Force Lightning

8. Force Lightning - channel here to ensure we can instant cast Demolish when it comes off cooldown

9. Force Lightning - generally will need to clip channel per main rotation

(begin main rotation instant proc of Demolish)

Please see the "Lightning Strike v. Force Lightning" discussion below. Replacing Lightning Strike with extra Force Lightning will be a DPS increase in most circumstances. However, I recommend learning this rotation first since it is more mobile before working on more advanced rotations.

I think it is important to note that this single target rotation is a bit inefficient but will probably be the best rotation for the majority of players due to its simplicity and ability to consistently execute it.

The inefficiency comes from us committing the first sin of a DoT class...refreshing our DoTs early?!?! Yes, most rotations for Madness refresh their DoTs based on the 15 second (before alacrity) cooldowns of Demolish and Death Field rather than the 18 second (before alacrity) duration of Creeping Terror and Affliction.

Why do most rotations do this? It is a pain to float DoTs through the Balance rotation due to Force Lightning's 2 second / 1.5 GCD channel time. Balance is the only DoT class that has key abilities floating through the rotation along with multi-GCD channel abilities. Let's compare to other DoT classes:

• Vengeance Juggernaut - All rotation abilities are instant and consume 1 GCD, Shatter floats through the rotation

• Annihilation Marauder - All rotation abilities are instant and consume 1 GCD, Force Rend floats

• Hatred Assassin - All rotation abilities are instant and consume 1 GCD, Death Field and Leeching Strike float

• Virulence Sniper - Cull is channeled but its cooldown is 1/3 that of your DoTs so you can refresh them without any conflict or overlap

• Engineering Sniper - Unload is channeled but it has the same cooldown as Plasma Probe, only minimally conflicts with Corrosive Dart and Interrogation Probe only has to be applied once with the Ruthless Interrogation tactical

• Lethality Operative - All rotation abilities are instant and consume 1 GCD, Toxic Blast floats

• Innovative Ordnance Mercenary - Unload is channeled but Incendiary Missile and Serrated Shot have the same cooldown so they do not conflict

• Pyrotech Powertech - All rotation abilities are instant and consume 1 GCD

Is it possible to change the rotation to be more efficient? In theory this should be possible but in practice it has a lot of potential trade-offs and difficulties to execute properly. For example, any other rotation would involve more clipping of Force Lightning that can be difficult to do properly and a significant DPS loss if done incorrectly. Demolish and Death Field take higher priority generally than your DoTs, so most attempts to restructure the rotation would leave to occasionally not having DoTs active. Having a tiny bit of downtime on DoTs might be okay but leaves us open to forgetting to refresh them and destroying our rotation.

I've outlined some alternative approaches to the rotation below for your consideration. Please note that I recommend following the above rotation unless you are a highly advanced player or are really comfortable with much more complicated rotations. It is slightly sub-optimal particularly with regards to using Lightning Strike (see more below on that) and the early refresh on DoTs but it will still deal high damage, is easy to execute and can clear virtually all content in the game.

If refreshing DoTs early bothers you as much it does me, then you can try running Madness as a priority rotation. The idea here is to let our DoTs, Creeping Terror and Affliction, float and only refresh them as they expire if possible. Demolish and Death Field take higher priority.

The upside to this approach is that you will gain a few extra GCDs due to less frequent application of DoTs, which will enable more frequent channels of Force Lightning. The downside is that you will occasionally have to either refresh them a bit early or let them drop off for a GCD due to Demolish or Death Field coming off cooldown. I have also found this makes use of Force Lightning difficult by requiring much more frequent clipping. As discussed in detail further below, there is some weird ability activation delay that commonly occurs that can make this priority rotation less efficient than it should be in theory.

My experience has been that playing Madness as a pure priority rotation discipline is roughly the same DPS due to the benefits and costs mostly offsetting or being within the margin of RNG on damage, crits and how often Tempest of Rho and Lightning Burns trigger. I do not recommend it as being better than the fixed rotation above, so would generally recommend newer players run the fixed rotation and then try this out later to see if it fits better after you know the discipline well.

Ability Priority

1. Demolish - Deals by far the most damage per activation, should always have the Wrath buff that makes it instant, consume 50% less Force and deal 25% more damage.

2. Death Field - Deals less base damage than either DoT but it contributes more total damage after considering the Deathmark charges it applies that buff 15 DoT damage ticks by 15%.

3. Creeping Terror - Deals slightly more damage than Affliction and can be ticked by Tempest of Rho by Force Lightning and Force Serenity. I suggest applying this DoT slightly early to avoid it falling off due if Vanquish or Force in Balance will come off cooldown when it needs to be refreshed.

4. Affliction - Deals slightly less damage than Creeping Terror and cannot be ticked for extra damage. I suggest letting this one fall off for a GCD before re-applying if that is more convenient.

5. Force Leech - Deals significantly more damage than Force Lightning so we want it to use it on cooldown. Force Leech can be used 1 GCD more often than Demolish or Death Field, so it will tend to float until eventually it gets "stuck" behind either Demolish or Death Field under this priority system.

6. Force Lightning - Filler for most situations since it deals more damage after considering bonus damage from Tempest of Rho and Lightning Burns.

7. Lightning Strike - Filler that should only be used with 4 stacks of Wrath to make it instant and deal 25% more damage. I only recommend Lightning Strike when you need to DPS on the move or the target will die in a few seconds. Be really careful not to use Lightning Strike with Wrath unless you know you will have time for a full Force Lightning channel before Demolish, as if not you will have to delay Demolish which is a big DPS loss.

If this guide has not yet convinced you I am a bit crazy, this part may do the trick. Let’s assume that you (like me) really dislikes having to refresh DoTs early but finds the priority rotation a bit clunky. Can we design a rotation that follows the priority but leads to a fairly smooth rotation?

I think we mostly can by looking to Madness' cousin, the Hatred Assassin. Hatred's rotation is designed around refreshing its DoTs and letting Death Field and Leeching Strike float. Madness is the opposite where Demolish and Death Field have a fixed location and both DoTs float.

The key to Hatred's rotation is spacing the DoT application apart far enough to let abilities float without being delayed. We can do the same for Madness.

Prior to alacrity, Death Field and Demolish have a 15 second / 10 GCD cooldown while Creeping Terror and Affliction have a 18 second / 12 GCD duration. That means each DoT will float backward 2 spots in the 10 GCD rotation each block. As such, we can design a rotation where we let Demolish and Death Field take GCDs #1 and #3 and then as long as we apply DoTs in even numbered GCDs then they can float and be refreshed as they expire without ever delaying Demolish or Death Field.

This rotation design leads to 6 blocks that repeat until the DoTs get back to the same position. The major downsides to this rotation are the much higher complexity and blocks 2-4 involving a LOT of clipped Force Lightning. That is pretty messy to do effectively.

I do not necessarily recommend this rotation as I have not had significantly better DPS with it than the base rotation. I do recommend considering it as a way of visualizing how your rotation would eventually look if you tried to avoid refreshing DoTs early. I think it can outperform the base rotation when played well and I think helps one understand how the abilities work even if not.

KEY NOTE - The numbering below is per ability activation. An unnumbered Force Lightning represents the partial GCD for a full channel. A numbered Force Lightning without an unnumbered Force Lightning after it means the channel should be clipped by activating the next ability.

KEY NOTE #2 - I have outlined the use of Lightning Strike with Wrath below to illustratively show how it would move around. As discussed elsewhere, I generally recommend replacing Lightning Strike with additional channeling of Force Lightning due to the extra damage from Tempest of Rho and Lightning Burns. I feel this rotation should replace Lightning Strike with Force Lightning anytime doing so will avoid clipping Force Lightning, but where only one GCD is available continue to use Lightning Strike. For example, the third block below goes Creeping Terror / Lightning Strike / Affliction. I would suggest keeping that even if most of the time you avoid Lightning Strike.

Lightning Strike has long been a key ability in the Madness Sorcerer rotation due to the Wrath passive skill. Force Lightning builds stacks of Wrath each time it deals damage. A full channel of Force Lightning deals damage 4 times and will build 4 stacks of Wrath. When you have 4 stacks of Wrath, you can instantly activate Lightning Strike or Demolish and the ability costs 50% less Force and deals 25% more damage.

Historically the approach to Madness was to use one buffed Lightning Strike per rotation cycle then build another 4 Wrath stacks to use Demolish instantly when it came off cooldown. This rotation goal was complicated in 6.0 due to the Tempest of Rho tactical and Lightning Burns passive skill.

Before we think about the other effects, let’s first compare Lightning Strike with the Wrath buff and a full channel of Force Lightning. The numbers quoted below are from some baseline parsing without using any cooldowns like raid buff, adrenal, Recklessness, Force Speed or Polarity Shift. This was done so the “normal” damage by abilities could be compared without needing to worry about whether some were buffed more often than others, so are probably a bit low compared to a full-out parse.

Force Lightning usually did around 17k damage per full channel prior to any critical bonus damage or bonus damage from tactical or passive skills. This damage was over a 1.87 second channel with alacrity just past the 1.4 second global cooldown breakpoint. So the DPS by Force Lightning alone was around 9.1k.

Lightning Strike with Wrath did around 16.5k damage per activation prior to any critical bonus damage. Lightning Strike is instant with Wrath so consumes one 1.4 second global cooldown, which leads to DPS around 11.8k.

So Lightning Strike is the winner and we should always try to use a buffed one when we can without delaying Demolish? Not so fast!

Lightning Burns is a passive skill that gives Force Lightning a 20% chance and Force Leech a 60% chance to restore 2 Force and trigger some bonus damage. In my testing Lightning Burns typically ticked for around 1.7 - 1.8k damage. A full channel of Force Lightning deals damage 4 times so gets 4 rolls for bonus damage at a 20% probability. A quick analysis indicates it is around 60% likely we get at least one tick of Lightning Burns per full channel and around 50% likely we get at least one tick per clipped channel. It is also possible we get really lucky and all ticks deal damage…

Tempest of Rho is a tactical item introduced in the 6.0 Onslaught update for Madness Sorcerer and is the recommended tactical for all encounters except very high AoE DPS fights and possibly PVP. Tempest of Rho gives Force Lightning a 50% chance and Lightning Strike a 100% chance each time they deal damage to tick Creeping Terror to deal damage. In my testing Tempest of Rho typically ticked for around 4.1k damage. A quick analysis indicates we should expect at least two ticks of Tempest of Rho on average per full channel of Force Lightning and it is almost 94% likely we get at least one tick per full channel.

So let’s revisit the math. So let’s revisit the math. Lightning Strike still dealt around 16k base damage plus a guaranteed tick of Tempest of Rho for 4k, which works out to a total of 20k damage over 1 GCD or a bit over 14.3k DPS before alacrity. Force Lightning deals base damage of around 17k, plus it should average 0.9k damage from Lightning Burns (assuming 1 tick every other channel) and 8.2k damage from Tempest of Rho (assuming 2 ticks every channel on average). Force Lightning's total damage contribution of 26.1k damage over a 1.87 second channel results in DPS of 14k DPS.

So our conclusion is that Force Lightning should be a DPS gain over Lightning Strike given the extra ticks of damage from Tempest of Rho and Lightning Burns. This is subject to RNG but absent terrible luck it should still be a DPS gain and could be a big DPS gain if you get lucky. This is supported by most top parses that only use Lightning Strike at the end of a parse if an instant cast can end the parse a second or so earlier than a channeled Force Lightning.

The only exceptions to this analysis is that Lightning Strike with Wrath can be activated instantly so can be used on the move. Many fights will require DPS on the move unexpectedly to move out of damage AoEs.

Force Lightning normally has a 3 second / 2 GCD duration. The Lightning Barrage passive skill causes Force Lightning to channel 33% faster, leading to a 2 second / 1.33 GCD channel duration for Madness Sorcerer.

Force Lightning deals damage 4 times during its channel. I noticed the exact timing for some ticks of damage varies a bit but overall was fairly consistent. When I gear just enough alacrity to get a 1.4 second GCD, I had the following results for a 1.87 second channel of Force Lightning:

• First tick @ 0.002 seconds (beginning of channel)

• Second tick @ 0.67-0.70 seconds (1.1 - 1.2 seconds left on the channel)

• Third tick @ 1.20-1.30 seconds (0.6 - 0.7 seconds left on the channel)

• Fourth tick @ 1.87 seconds (end of channel)

A common strategy for Madness Sorcerer players is to clip Force Lightning after the third tick of damage, since the rotation usually requires clipping to use Demolish as it comes off cooldown.

An important observation from the above results is that a full GCD for these purposes was 1.4 seconds (or 0.4 - 0.5 seconds left on the channel), so we deal 3 of our 4 ticks of damage after one GCD and 4 out of 4 after 1.33 GCDs. Mathematically this should work out to the same damage whether we do a full channel or a clipped channel.

I tested clipping a fair bit and had some interesting results:

• You cannot clip Force Lightning via re-activation of Force Lightning. Whether spamming the button or trying to hit at the right moment, the ability queue loads the ability but will not interrupt the first channel.

• You can move to break a channel of Force Lightning then channel again. This will always be a DPS loss due to the delay imposed by movement. The best I could consistently do with this strategy took the same time as a full channel of Force Lightning only with just 3 ticks of damage.

• You can consistently clip Force Lightning with another ability. It works most consistently with instant abilities, of which all Balance abilities are instant or become instant via procs except Force Leech. Spamming the button is less consistent than simply hitting the ability key around 1 second into the channel, which let me semi-consistently clip the channel at 0.6-0.7 seconds and always get the first three ticks of Force Lightning.

• Despite clipping Force Lightning within 1 GCD, I consistently had some delay activating the next ability. Instead of 1.4 seconds from Force Lightning to the next ability as I was hoping, it was usually 1.5 - 1.6 seconds. I suspect this there is a “mini-GCD” imposed from the last tick of Force Lightning causing the delay.

• Even using full channels of Force Lightning nonstop for a few minutes still caused some delays between ending one channel and beginning another channel. Despite my alacrity causing Force Lightning to have a 1.87 second channel time, it was usually fairly close to 2.0 seconds. I noticed roughly similar results at various alacrity levels, so again I suspect there is a “mini-GCD” imposed from the last tick of damage from Force Lightning, which is either the third tick happening at the end of a clipped channel or the fourth tick happening at the end of a full channel.

Sorry if that is not super helpful. The lesson I learned from playing the discipline and testing clipping in a few ways is that it is theoretically a DPS gain if you can do it right but it dramatically increases the difficulty and can even be a DPS loss if done poorly.

So my conclusion and belief thus far is that a perfectly clipped Force Lightning is a slightly DPS gain over a full channel. However, I noticed some ability activation delays with both a clipped and full channel as discussed above. The delay was usually bigger with a clipped channel than a full channel. Thus I feel like trying to constantly clip Force Lightning will be a DPS loss for most players in most circumstances. The only time clipping Force Lightning will be a DPS increase is if it lets us use an ability closer to its cooldown, as is usually the case to align our rotation with the cooldowns of Demolish and Death Field.

Madness Sorcerer has really strong sustained AoE DPS. The discipline's DoTs tick pretty hard with the debuff applied by Death Field, which also spreads your DoTs and deals AoE damage.

The trick with Madness Sorcerer is determining when it makes sense to use Force Storm for extra AoE DPS. Since Death Field is used rotationally, Madness will generate high sustained AoE DPS just by doing its regular single target rotation.

I rarely execute the above rotation outside a couple very high sustained AoE DPS encounters. In nearly all situations, I use the single target rotation and use Death Field to spread my DoTs and often throw in one Force Storm in place of Force Lightning then go back to my single target rotation on my primary target.

The only situations where I would lean fully into AoE DPS per the above rotation, taking the utility to buff Force Storm and equipping Slow Mercy would be:

• Hive Queen in Veteran Mode if the group does not include other DoT spread classes. The DPS check in this fight is really a single target check to kill the Hive Queen before she starts spamming you with Berserkers, so I prefer to avoid AoE unless my group has so little AoE DPS that adds die too slowly and start overwhelming healers.

• Dxun Control Center (3rd encounter) in Veteran/Master Mode. There are a LOT of adds inside the control center and can be overwhelming in higher difficulties. Depending on group strategy and composition, you may need 1-2 DPS to focus moreso on AoE while others focus on single target to kill the big adds and droids. If so, this may be helpful.

• If I want to fluff damage on fights with regular adds, such as the above in Story Mode or a few other fights with lots of adds.

Normal Rotation (note that Telekinetic Throw is presented here by GCD so a full channel is 2 icons)

Rotation to DoT 2 targets

Rotation to DoT 3 targets

Please remember that applying DoTs to multiple targets reduces your uptime on your main target. Given that Force Lightning will generally tick your Creeping Terror DoT extra times via the Tempest of Rho tactical, DoTing multiple targets is less of a DPS increase than before since you lose Tempest of Rho ticks in exchange for extra DoT ticks on another target.

DoTing 2 targets is nearly always sufficient and DoTing 3 targets should never really be necessary in my opinion. The only fight where it might be useful is DoTing 3 Trandoshans in Dxun, though that should be done very carefully. The upside to the 3 DoT rotation is that it is entirely mobile except for one full channel of Force Lightning, so if used in Dxun could be helpful to kite Greus while keeping DoTs ticking on the other bosses.

Keep in mind also that the 3 DoT rotation will require a full channel of Force Lightning at the end, where normally that channel would be clipped. A full channel will require slightly delaying Demolish and Death Field, so again I do not really recommend it but list it here for completeness just in case you want to try it.