I've been playing around on my Sorcerer and I really love the class, especially the lightning spec. During the down time I figured I would post a little guide to the Lightning Tree. I have used Xorak's guide to Juggernauts as a sort of template. Please comment constructively, as I strongly desire to become a better player. If you find my rotation, build, anything, wrong with my post, feel free to point it out, even spelling errors. 
Please note this is not a comprehensive guide to the class, this is just for the lightning tree.
Sith Inquisitor: Sorcerer Lightning DPS Guide
Introduction:
- The Sorcerer class in SW:ToR is the only class of it's kind (within the confines of the Sith Faction). Unlike the many members of the Empire, these warriors wield lighting, and in some cases Damage Over Time spells (or DoTs) do do their damage from afar.
- Sorcerers wield lightsabers and a focus, but the lightsaber is rarely used in a physical manner. The Sorcerer, which will now be referered to simply as Sorc, does have two other trees, one focuses on DoTs and Force lighting while the other falls under the healing archetype. Neither of these are discussed much further in this guide.
Force:
- Force is the primary mechanic and recource that a Sorc, no matter the spec, should be focused on maintaining. More in depth ways of maintaining this are discussed later. For every Sorc that has not used any skill points this recource starts out at 500. Spells cast can either diminish or restore force depending on the situation.
- There may be times when you find yourself out of force, there are different ways to get it back. Out of combat, the best choice is to cast Seethe. While in combat, however, if it is possible (you aren't taking a lot of damage), the use of Consumption is recommended. This skill sacrifices health in exchange for Force. Do note, however, that for every time you use it, it decreases the natural force regeneration by 25% for 10 seconds (stacking to 4).
Primary Abilities:
- Here I will lay out the main abilities for a Lightning specced Sorc. Again, this is not a comprehensive guide to the class and its abilities. Instead, it is a listing of important skills and abilities used in the Lightning Sorc rotation/priority system. Follow the links for in depth tooltips.
Lightning Strike (LS) - No cooldown spammable nuke. Used for proccing other abilities in this skill spec. Your bread and butter/filler spell.
Affliction (A) - Quick, but lightly hitting DoT. Used for proccing other abilities in this skill spec. Do your best to keep it up 100% of the time, on at least your primary target. Instant.
Crushing Darkness (CrD) - Stronger DoT. Low up time, has a cast time. Low on your priority list if at all. (Due to the nature of this tree, and the lack of information on my part, I cannot say whether it is a dps loss or not to use this skill)
Force Lightning (FL) - Strong Channeled spell. While strong, due to the nature of this build, it is "rarely" used. See Rotation/Priority list for more info. Channeled.
Thundering Blast (TB) - Strong Nuke. High Priority (pretty much on CD). 2 second cast. 9 second cooldown.
Secondary Abilities and Cooldowns:
- The abilities found in this section are either A. Cooldowns or B. Are rarely used in single target, or situational.
Chain Lightning (CL) - Strong nuke. Normally a 3 second cast, this spell should only be used in a single target situation when Lightning Storm has procced.
Polarity Shift (PS) - 2 minute cooldown. This spell increases your Alacrity (haste) by 20% for 10 seconds. Probably best used when spamming your filler (Lightning Strike).
Recklessness (Re) - 90 second cooldown. This spell temporarily increases your crit chance with spells by 60%. Use fairly freely. Note that the charges are only consumed when you land a critical hit or use Force Lightning.
Force Storm (FS) - Your bread and butter AE spell.
Consumption (C) - Sacrifices health for Force, use with caution.
Shock (S) - 6 second cooldown, strong nuke. While the damage on this skill is high, it does take a full GCD and procs nothing in this talent build. It also does not recieve any damage increases aside from the flat ones (crit increase, willpower increase, etc).
Spec:
- I apparently fail at embedding, so here's a link for now. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#20...odoMutzZcM0M.1
- The purpose of this spec is to maximize single target dps using lightning as your primary source of damage. There is a free point that can be moved around, I chose to put it into Suppression for a tiny bit of support to the rest of the party (a broken CC for example).
Lightning Tree
Tier 1 (Lightning)
Convection - Increases damage dealt by LS, CrD, CL, and TB by 6%, these are all of your important direct damage spells in this tree, a no brainer.
Reserves - 100 more force? Yes please.
Electric Induction - Force cost reduction for all abilities that require force (um...all of the ones you use!) by 9%, a no brainer.
Tier 2 (Lightning)
Lightning Spire - Ranger increase for LS, CL, and TB. It's a rather small increase, and it doesn't even include all of your skills. It is not 100% important in the slightest. This point could end up being better, for the min maxers and hard core players, in a talent like Lightning Barrier for more survivability.
Exsanguinate - Increases the duration of Affliction by 6 seconds. This will make it easier, usually, to keep that DoT up on the main target, more time spamming LS.
Subversion - Push back reduction and, when stacked, 30% increased Force Regen, a no brainer.
Tier 3 (Lightning)
Suppression - A personal choice, again, for a tad bit more utility in case of a broken CC. This point could end up being better, for the min maxers and hard core players, in a talent like Lightning Barrier for more survivability.
Chain Lightning- A spell, that thanks to Lightning Storm, can proc to be instant that does more damage than LS and chains to up to 4 other targets, a no brainer.
Lightning Barrage - Your Affliction crits cause your next FL to tick quite as fast. This should be the only time you're casting FL.
Tier 4 (Lightning)
Lightning Storm - LS has a 30% chance and FS has a 10% chance on damaging to reset the CD of your CL and make it instant, a no brainer.
Lightning Effusion - Critical hits reduce the cost of your next two spells by 50%. Yay for more sustain.
Tier 5 (Lightning)
Forked Lightning - 30% chance for LS and/or CS to hit a second time for 30% of the damage, a no brainer.
Conduction - Forked Lightning increases damage from Force abilties (all of the ones you use) by a total of 3% when fully stacked. Just more damage to throw on.
Polarity Shift - Grants 20% Alacrity (haste) for 10 seconds, a no brainer.
Tier 6 (Lightning)
Reverberating Force - Increases crit damage of A, CL, and TB by 50%, a no brainer.
Tier 7 (Lightning)
Thundering Blast - Your strongest nuke, 100% crit chance if the target is affected by Affliction, a no brainer.
Corruption Tree
Tier 1 (Corruption)
Seeping Darkness - 3% more crit for free, a no brainer
Madness Tree
Tier 1 (Madness)
Calcify - 12% increased damage to force lightning. With a low crit chance it won't be a huge portion of your damage, but what could it hurt, right?
Will of the Sith - 6% Willpower for free, a no brainer.
Tier 2 (Madness)
Disintegration - Increased crit chance for LS and FL by 10%, That's a total of 13% from talents with Seeping Darkness, a no brainer.
- The Lightning Sorc uses more of a priority system instead of a rotation. This means that when certain spells are off CD, they should be used ASAP. There are always exceptions to this rule but the priority is as follows. (Please note that this is more of an educated guess by someone who lacks the numbers to prove that this is the optimal solution)
A --> FL (with Lightning Barrage Proc) --> CL (with Lightning Storm Proc) --> CrD --> LS
- As was previously stated LS is your bread and butter spell. Just as a side note, though, in order to keep up your 3 stacks of Subversion (Force Regen) it is optimal to make LS your every 3rd spell at least. This should not be hard, but that's just something to remember.
- The only real change to this is at the beginning of a fight, during the primary set up. If no movement is required then it is suggested to start with CrD, if kept in perfect sync, this will make CrD's cooldown nearly coincide with the perfect time to refresh your Affliction.
Stat Discussion
- At this moment I, again, do not have any hard numbers to support my findings, so please, if you do, post them below with a source and I will gladly include them within the post (giving credit where credit is due).
- As far as a personal opinion, though, our most important secondary stat seems to be crit. We have a large amount of crit damage increase in our tree and we also have a few things that proc off of critical strikes.
- For our primary stat, I am not completely sure on this subject, check back later. While power also increases crit, we do get a 6% bonus to our WP, the question is, does that 6% outweigh the other stats. >.<
- If crit is our best stat, then my guess would be that surge rating is a close second. Surge rating is the multiplyer that affects how much damage is added to our critical strikes.
- After both Crit and Surge rating, I would say Alacrity would fall into place.
Changes/Updates
- Wait for it......waiiiiit for it.
Thanks for reading, again, let me know what you think.
~ Staticshock, The Lightning Legacy~
Wound in the Force - US
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