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Complete Jedi Sage Balance Guide (PvE only), suitable for both beginner players and more advanced and experienced veterans, who seek to improve their performance! This Guide is written for VULKK.com by Endonae (Satele Shan)

UP TO DATE FOR PATCH 6.1.2

INTRO

Welcome to my 6.0 guide for Balance Sage In 6.1.1, Balance performs ever so slightly better on the training dummy than Telekinetics, though in actual combat, it will often perform slightly worse since it doesn’t synergize nearly as well with the Telekinetic Defense utility. Balance also has a shorter max range (30m vs 35m), its mobility is weaker thanks to Telekinetic Throw channels, and isn’t as strong defensively since it provides self-healing instead of damage reduction, though it can still benefit from the damage reduction provided by utilities.

It isn’t all bad though, Balance does perform much better in AoE situations since their Slow Mercy tactical item is far better than Telekinetics’ Elemental Convection. The base rotation is also quite a bit easier than the priority for Telekinetics. Compared to other specs with a rotation (not a priority), Balance is one of the easiest as well since there’s no resource management to worry about, so you also don’t have to think about when to use a strong versus a weak filler. You just have a completely static rotation. Balance’ complexity comes in when you have to AoE/DoT spread since you have to switch to a priority system. Generally, I use Telekinetics for single target and Balance for AoE fights, though you shouldn’t feel bad about using Balance for single target fights since the DPS difference is very small.

Really, the biggest deciding factors for using Telekinetics over Balance are if you need the damage reduction for spike damage or 35m range.

DPS Mindset

How can I do as much damage as possible each GCD (global cooldown, 1.5 second duration before you can activate another ability) given the constraints of the fight? Which ability do I use right now that will provide me the most DPS? How can I maximize my uptime on the boss? If I’m not activating an ability right now, why not? Can I finish this cast before I need to move? What happens if I don’t have time to finish a cast before moving? Can the healers deal with it without too much stress?

Regarding Damage over Time Abilities (DoTs)

DoTs are not special abilities that let you deal damage when you can’t target the boss with new attacks. Throwing your DoTs on right before you become unable to attack the boss does not result in a DPS increase over an ability that deals the same amount of damage immediately because you’re still spending a GCD to cast the DoT. I think it’s most helpful to conceptualize DoTs compared to direct damage abilities (regular non-DoT/non-Periodic abilities) by imagining them as dealing all of their damage hitting at the end of their duration instead of being spread evenly throughout, or at least that’s when you’ll get the amount of damage listed on the packaging. Prior to that point, you’ll be getting less damage out of each GCD equal to the damage dealt per tick times the number of ticks that were left. This is why clipping your DoTs (reapplying them before they’ve expired) is generally considered a bad thing. When you do clip your DoTs, you make the last GCD where you applied your DoTs retroactively deal less damage.

In general, DoTs are worse than abilities that deal the same amount of damage immediately because the boss could become immune or enraged or something by the time all of that damage will hit. For this reason, DoTs tend to deal a bit more damage than direct damage abilities and tend to deal Internal/Elemental damage more often so they ignore armor. DoT specs have traditionally been capable of dealing more DPS than burst specs and usually have some sort of sub-30% HP execute window where DoT damage is increased. This helps to compensate for those targets dying before the DoT has finished ticking, though on targets that die quickly, this damage bonus isn’t enough to make it worth reapplying DoTs and makes it no different from clipping your DoTs. The sub-30% damage increase becomes more than just an equalizing effect on bosses since they usually last multiple DoT applications (and often several minutes) below 30% health, allowing enough time for DPS to actually increase. If DoTs have just fallen off of your target and you know it will die before the DoT completes all of its ticks, you should not reapply them to that target and either use one of your direct damage abilities (usually filler) or apply your DoTs to another target. Unless an enemy needs to die ASAP, it’s usually okay to switch targets preemptively since the vast majority of your damage contribution will be over in this situation. If you do decide to switch targets before the enemy dies, make sure you verify that the enemy actually died soon after you switched, sometimes the rest of your group might have the same idea and you’re left with an add wandering around with 1% HP left.

LEARN MORE ► SWTOR Guide to Damage Types and Damage Mitigation

GEARING AND STATS PRIORITIES

I’m not going to get into which specific versions of enhancements and such to use. The tiny stat variations from using something like an R-3 versus an R-4 aren’t worth the trouble and a single extra random crit, lag spike, or mid-fight sneeze will completely overshadow any difference in DPS you could possibly observe from an extra few points of power. Generally, the unlettered stuff is is pretty close to optimal if it isn’t outright followed by R and AR mods. If you want to be fully BiS, you can start swapping out some of the unlettered enhancements for R variants in order to not waste a single point when going past a threshold, though I wouldn’t waste too much time doing this if I were you.

Armorings/Hilt – Superior Versatile Armoring/Hilt 80 (should have 471 Mastery, 409 Endurance)

– Superior Versatile Armoring/Hilt 80 (should have 471 Mastery, 409 Endurance) Mods – Superior Lethal Mod 80 unlettered, R-1, and R-2 are the best. As long as the sum of Mastery and Power is above 725 with Endurance being the lowest stat of the 3, you have a good mod that you should keep.

– Superior Lethal Mod 80 unlettered, R-1, and R-2 are the best. As long as the sum of Mastery and Power is above 725 with Endurance being the lowest stat of the 3, you have a good mod that you should keep. Enhancements – The best enhancements are the ones where Endurance is the lowest stat of the three and the sum of the other two (Power and Tertiary) is 744 or higher. The unlettered +285 Endurance, +313 Power, +431 tertiary stat are a great base and once you surpass your stat targets, you can start swapping them out for the R-variants that have more Power than tertiary stat. The best word corresponding to BiS for each tertiary stat is: Accuracy = Initiative Alacrity = Nimble or Quick Savant (must include the word Quick, regular Savant is bad) DPS Mods = Lethal DPS Armoring/Hilt = Versatile Critical = Adept

– The best enhancements are the ones where Endurance is the lowest stat of the three and the sum of the other two (Power and Tertiary) is 744 or higher. The unlettered +285 Endurance, +313 Power, +431 tertiary stat are a great base and once you surpass your stat targets, you can start swapping them out for the R-variants that have more Power than tertiary stat. The best word corresponding to BiS for each tertiary stat is: Implant/Ear – Sha’Tek brand MK-19

– Sha’Tek brand MK-19 Relics – Sha’Tek brand MK-19 Level 75 content: Sha’Tek Relic of Focused Retribution and Sha’Tek Relic of Serendipitous Assault Sub-level 75 content: Sha’Tek Relic of Primeval Fatesealer (it’s a clicky so put it on your bar) and Sha’Tek Relic of Devastating Vengeance

– Sha’Tek brand MK-19 Stim – Advanced Kyrprax Proficient Stim

– Advanced Kyrprax Proficient Stim Medpac – Advanced Kyrprax Medpac

– Advanced Kyrprax Medpac Adrenal Level 75 content: Advanced Kyrprax Attack Adrenal (the critical adrenal is less consistent, but performs very similar, so if you don’t want to keep switching between the two, it’s fine to use the Advanced Kyrprax Critical Adrenal in level 75 content as well) Sub-level 75 content: Advanced Kyrprax Critical Adrenal

Set Bonus – Gathering Storm 6-piece + 1 Amplified Champion piece since it has a combat-oriented Amplifier in the shell slot instead of a non-combat-oriented Amplifier. Since set bonuses are on the shells instead of the armorings now, it makes the most sense to use your Amplified Champion piece for your helmet if you plan to do Dreadful or Hateful Entity, though it doesn’t matter which slot you use beyond that.

– Gathering Storm 6-piece + 1 Amplified Champion piece since it has a combat-oriented Amplifier in the shell slot instead of a non-combat-oriented Amplifier. Since set bonuses are on the shells instead of the armorings now, it makes the most sense to use your Amplified Champion piece for your helmet if you plan to do Dreadful or Hateful Entity, though it doesn’t matter which slot you use beyond that. Amplifiers – +1% Force Sensitivity (only applies to armorings and hilts/barrels). All damage dealt by Sorcs is Force damage, so this amplifier will increase the damage dealt by all of your abilities.

– +1% Force Sensitivity (only applies to armorings and hilts/barrels). All damage dealt by Sorcs is Force damage, so this amplifier will increase the damage dealt by all of your abilities. Crystals – Eviscerating. This is a little more important now than it’s been in the past because the War Hero and Hawkeye crystals don’t do anything in sub-75 content.

– Eviscerating. This is a little more important now than it’s been in the past because the War Hero and Hawkeye crystals don’t do anything in sub-75 content. Augments – The new purple 286 augments (Advanced [type] Augment 74 + Augmentation Kit MK-11) are best-in-slot, however they are incredibly expensive, so I would only recommend getting them for your main and only if you have a bunch of extra credits burning a hole in your pocket. The blue 276 augments ([Type] Augment 73) provide about 88% of the benefit for about 6% of the cost of the purple 286 augments. They do still require the MK-11 kits, but it’s really hard to justify using the 286 augments unless you or your group really needs that small stat increase to slightly boost your numbers. Since those MK-11 kits are still a bit expensive, I recommend only augmenting the final pieces of your gear, so 306 left side, MH/OH, and set bonus pieces. If you played in 5.0, your 228 augments (Advanced [type] Augment 45 + Augmentation Kit MK-10) are still valuable, more than even the old 236 or 240s! They contain roughly the same amount of tertiary stat as the new 286 and 276 augments, so continue using those until you have pieces of gear that you want to use your MK-11 kits on. These old 228 augments are also all you’ll need for any of the gear you’ll be using for level 70 content because Power and Endurance are capped, so the new augments really don’t provide any noticeable benefit in non level 75 content.

Stat Priority

Please note that I have begun the process of min-maxing my enhancements by sacrificing some useless tertiary stat for more Power, so make sure you’re hitting the percentages listed for Accuracy and Alacrity and aren’t trying to hit the exact stat values I have.

Accuracy to 110.00% – I reach this with 3 accuracy enhancements/implants/ear + 1 augment + Advanced Kyrprax Proficient Stim, resulting in 1596 accuracy, equivalent to 110.03%. This is the most important stat to reach its threshold because attacks that miss deal 0 damage and no other stats matter if that happens. You need 110% accuracy and not just 100% because bosses have a 10% chance to dodge/resist player attacks and any percentage over 100% reduces this chance. I am working towards getting closer to 110.00% since anything over 110% does nothing for me. Alacrity to 7.15% – In order to make it so I only need to switch out an implant and earpiece to switch from Telekinetics, I actually have 7.40% alacrity, which I reach with 2 enhancements and 4 augments. Depending on which augments you’re using, you may need to use an additional alacrity augment to reach the threshold. You don’t need to bother with 7.40% Alacrity if you’re only going to play Balance or don’t mind switching out more gear. The key thing to remember is that you need to have at least 7.15% alacrity for Balance and 11.38% alacrity (16.38% with proc) for Telekinetics and they should both be as close to those thresholds as possible. The implant and earpiece I use for Balance have the critical tertiary stat (Adept) and have critical augments. In Telekinetics, these get switched to having the alacrity tertiary stat (Quick Savant) and also have critical augments. Critical gets the rest – I currently have 42.58% Critical chance from 3318 crit from 2 crystals, 5 enhancements/earpiece/implants and 9 augments. This stat is the lowest priority because it does not have a threshold associated with it like the other two tertiary stats.

Tactical Items

Tempest of Rho Tempest of Rho

Effect – Disturbance has a 100% chance and Telekinetic Throw has a 50% chance to cause Sever Force to tick an additional time whenever they deal damage.

– Disturbance has a 100% chance and Telekinetic Throw has a 50% chance to cause Sever Force to tick an additional time whenever they deal damage. Recommendation – Use as your default tactical item for single target situations. In StarParse, the extra ticks will show up as their own entry called “Tempest of Rho” and will end up accounting for more of your total damage output than Sever Force itself.

Slow Mercy Slow Mercy

Effect – Force in Balance spreads Force Slow’s effect. Vanquish hits all nearby targets affected by your Force Suppression and Forcequake deals 15% more damage to targets affected by your Force Suppression.

– Force in Balance spreads Force Slow’s effect. Vanquish hits all nearby targets affected by your Force Suppression and Forcequake deals 15% more damage to targets affected by your Force Suppression. Recommendation – This tactical is absolutely fantastic for AoE! Ignore the Force Slow effect, that’s more of a PvP thing. Please note that this tactical does not make Force in Balance spread Vanquish, but rather once you apply Force in Balance, all affected targets will now also have Force Suppression and then when you apply Vanquish, all nearby targets with Force Suppression will also get a full application of Vanquish.

Mystic’s Ruthless Blade Mystic’s Ruthless Blade

Effect – Vanquish deals 20% more damage on the initial hit. Additionally, under Mental Alacrity, Vanquish resets the cooldown on Force Serenity and causes the next Force Serenity to activate instantly.

– Vanquish deals 20% more damage on the initial hit. Additionally, under Mental Alacrity, Vanquish resets the cooldown on Force Serenity and causes the next Force Serenity to activate instantly. Recommendation – Never use this tactical. I suppose it would help with burst, but if you need burst then you need to play Telekinetics. A few extra uses of Force Serenity in weird places and 20% more damage on Vanquish do not provide nearly as much of a DPS increase as doubling the number of Sever Force ticks.

The Rushdown The Rushdown

Effect – When Telekinetic Throw generates 4 stacks of Presence of Mind, you gain Presence Blitz, allowing your next 3 Telekinetic Blitzes to deal 25% more damage and consume 50% less force. Telekinetic Blitz consumes all stacks of Presence of Mind.

– When Telekinetic Throw generates 4 stacks of Presence of Mind, you gain Presence Blitz, allowing your next 3 Telekinetic Blitzes to deal 25% more damage and consume 50% less force. Telekinetic Blitz consumes all stacks of Presence of Mind. Recommendation – Never use this tactical. Basically, it works by making it so Presence of Mind boosts your next 3 uses of Telekinetic Blitz just like it would for Disturbance and Vanquish and would replace your additional uses of Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance. Unfortunately, since Telekinetic Blitz is such a terrible ability, you’ll end up dealing less DPS with this tactical than you would if you didn’t have any tactical equipped at all. I haven’t tested it with the Overwhelming Offense set bonus, but I can’t imagine that there would be much of an improvement, or at least enough of one to make it better than Tempest of Rho + Gathering Storm set bonus.

An Explosive Return An Explosive Return

Effect – Returning to your Phase Walk marker causes a force explosion around you, dealing damage to any nearby enemies.

– Returning to your Phase Walk marker causes a force explosion around you, dealing damage to any nearby enemies. Recommendation – This tactical item is not worth it as it doesn’t deal enough damage. If it did like 100k or something and knocked enemies away, then it might be worth looking into, but it’s too unreliable if you want to teleport with it too and has too long of a cooldown to be worth it.

Endless Barrier Endless Barrier

Effect – Activating Force Mend removes Force Armor’s Deionized effect from you.

– Activating Force Mend removes Force Armor’s Deionized effect from you. Recommendation – Not nearly enough of a DPS increase with Telekinetic Defense to only get an additional bubble every other time.

UTILITIES

Skillful

Psychic Suffusion

Description – Force Wave heals you and up to 7 affected allies for ~3900.

– Force Wave heals you and up to 7 affected allies for ~3900. Recommendation – Never take this, you aren’t a healer, don’t waste your GCDs doing someone else’s job and even as a healer, it’s a terrible choice.

Jedi Resistance

Description – Increases damage reduction by 3%.

– Increases damage reduction by 3%. Recommendation – Always take this, it’s useful in every fight.

Tectonic Mastery

Description – Increases the damage dealt by Forcequake by 25%.

– Increases the damage dealt by Forcequake by 25%. Recommendation – Sometimes take this. If you plan to use Forcequake at all during the fight, you should take this.

Pain Bearer

Description – Increases all healing received by 5%. Does not affect redistributed life.

– Increases all healing received by 5%. Does not affect redistributed life. Recommendation – Always take this, it’s useful in every fight even if it doesn’t affect Force Serenity and Focused Insight. Redistribution sounds like a euphemism that a thief would use to describe their actions. “No officer, I wasn’t stealing that jewelry, I was merely redistributing it!”

Dizzying Force

Description – Reduces target’s accuracy by 20% after Force Lift ends. Additionally, your Force Lift affects up to 2 additional standard or weak enemies within 8m of the target.

– Reduces target’s accuracy by 20% after Force Lift ends. Additionally, your Force Lift affects up to 2 additional standard or weak enemies within 8m of the target. Recommendation – Never take this. If you need to reduce the accuracy of something, other classes have far better ways of doing this.

Benevolent Haste

Description – Benevolence increases the movement speed of the target by 50% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds.

– Benevolence increases the movement speed of the target by 50% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds. Recommendation – Never take this. If someone needs to move and you need to waste a GCD to do it, you’re far better off pulling them.

Mind Ward

Description – Reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%.

– Reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%. Recommendation – Sometimes take this. If there is significant DoT damage, this is usually a good option. There are some DoTs that bosses apply that are not considered periodic damage. You can test this by seeing whether or not it causes Telekinetic Defense to tick.

Staggering Stratagem

Description – Lowers the cooldown of Force Stun by 10 seconds. In addition, targets stunned by your Force Stun deal 25% less damage when Force Stun wears off.

– Lowers the cooldown of Force Stun by 10 seconds. In addition, targets stunned by your Force Stun deal 25% less damage when Force Stun wears off. Recommendation – Take this on specific fights only. I can’t think of any fight where this would be required that exists now except for maybe Tyth if you’re handling Graces or Nahut if you’re handling turrets, but it definitely could be helpful if you’re required to stun something.

Masterful

Blockout

Description – Activating Cloud Mind grants Blockout, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds.

– Activating Cloud Mind grants Blockout, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds. Recommendation – Always take this. It’s one of your primary defensive cooldowns.

Valiance

Description – Reduces damage taken by the target of your Rescue by 25% for 6 seconds after your extricate them. Additionally increases the healing done by Force Mend by 30%.

– Reduces damage taken by the target of your Rescue by 25% for 6 seconds after your extricate them. Additionally increases the healing done by Force Mend by 30%. Recommendation – Almost always take this. The big benefit is the heal increase for Force Mend, though this is the least helpful point you take in this tier and should be the first one you give up if you need to take something else.

Confound

Description – Targets affected by your Weaken Mind are slowed by 30% for its duration.

– Targets affected by your Weaken Mind are slowed by 30% for its duration. Recommendation – Never take this. Most enemies in raids are immune to slows.

Telekinetic Defense

Description – Your Force Armor reverberates with Force Energy, blasting attackers for ~11,000 energy damage when it absorbs direct damage to you. This effect does not affect Force Armors placed on allies and cannot occur more than once each second.

– Your Force Armor reverberates with Force Energy, blasting attackers for ~11,000 energy damage when it absorbs direct damage to you. This effect does not affect Force Armors placed on allies and cannot occur more than once each second. Recommendation – Take this on specific fights only. Balance doesn’t benefit nearly as much from this utility since they don’t get as much damage reduction as Telekinetics so the maximum number of ticks is lower and it doesn’t fit quite as well in the rotation. Unless there’s consistent downtime or you’re able to get multiple ticks out of a single use of Force Armor, don’t take this utility. If you plan on using this utility to its fullest, play Telekinetics and check out my Telekinetics guide if you want more information on how to use this utility effectively.

Metaphysical Alacrity

Description – Reduces the cooldowns of Force Speed by 5 seconds, Force Slow by 3 seconds, and Force Barrier by 30 seconds. In addition, Force Speed lasts 0.5 seconds longer, Mental Alacrity increases your movement speed by 100% while active, and the active cooldown of Force Speed is finished when Force Barrier ends.

– Reduces the cooldowns of Force Speed by 5 seconds, Force Slow by 3 seconds, and Force Barrier by 30 seconds. In addition, Force Speed lasts 0.5 seconds longer, Mental Alacrity increases your movement speed by 100% while active, and the active cooldown of Force Speed is finished when Force Barrier ends. Recommendation – Always take this. You need the cooldown reduction on Force Speed in order to maximize the benefit provided by your Gathering Storm set bonus and the other effects are nice too.

Kinetic Collapse

Description – Force Armors you place on yourself erupt in a flash of light when they end, blunding up to 8 nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect breaks from direct damage.

– Force Armors you place on yourself erupt in a flash of light when they end, blunding up to 8 nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect breaks from direct damage. Recommendation – Take this on specific fights only. This is not generally useful in operations because most enemies have CC immunity. It can be helpful for Hull Cutter Droids on Izax.

Containment

Description – If your Force Lift breaks early from damage, the target is stunned for 2 seconds. In addition, Force Lift activates instantly.

– If your Force Lift breaks early from damage, the target is stunned for 2 seconds. In addition, Force Lift activates instantly. Recommendation – Take this on specific fights only. It is useful for the turrets on Nahut and Berserkers on Geonosian Queen.

Force Wake

Description – Force Wave binds its targets in electricity, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends the effect prematurely.

– Force Wave binds its targets in electricity, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends the effect prematurely. Recommendation – Take this on specific fights only. It is required for Styrak in NiM. This tends to be more for managing adds which is more often a tank mechanic, so you will see Shadow tanks take this utility more often.

Heroic

Egress

Description – Force Speed grants Egress, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration.

– Force Speed grants Egress, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration. Recommendation – Always take this. Almost every fight in the game has some form of AoE damage and the vast majority of damage dealt by bosses is considered AoE.

Mental Defense

Description – Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Additionally, reduces damage taken from area effects by 30%.

– Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Additionally, reduces damage taken from area effects by 30%. Recommendation – Always take this. Almost every fight in the game has some form of AoE damage and the vast majority of damage dealt by bosses is considered AoE.

Force Mobility

Description – Turbulence, Healing Trance, and Force Serenity may be activated while moving.

– Turbulence, Healing Trance, and Force Serenity may be activated while moving. Recommendation – Always take this. Force Serenity is one of your most damaging abilities, you don’t want to delay it because you have to move.

Swift Rejuvenation

Description – Restoration grants Swift Rejuvenation, making your next ability with an activation time activate instantly. The effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds and lasts up to 15 seconds.

– Restoration grants Swift Rejuvenation, making your next ability with an activation time activate instantly. The effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds and lasts up to 15 seconds. Recommendation – Never take this. Every ability that can be made instant by this ability can already be made instant by your Presence of Mind proc (except for Force Serenity, be we have Force Mobility for that) and you never use those abilities without the Presence of Mind proc anyway.

Life Ward

Description – Your Force Armor, Force Barrier, and Enduring Bastion heal you for 1% of your total health every second for as long as they last. This healing scales up to 4% with the charges for Enduring Bastion.

– Your Force Armor, Force Barrier, and Enduring Bastion heal you for 1% of your total health every second for as long as they last. This healing scales up to 4% with the charges for Enduring Bastion. Recommendation – Never take this. The healing is too small and ends when the bubble breaks. There are always better defensive utilities to take.

Valorous Spirit

Description – Force Mend increases your damage reduction by 15% for 6 seconds. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of Force Mend by 5 seconds.

– Force Mend increases your damage reduction by 15% for 6 seconds. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of Force Mend by 5 seconds. Recommendation – Almost always take this. The only time you won’t take this is if you’ll be taking Ethereal Entity instead.

Ethereal Entity

Description – Using Phase Walk to return to its marked location grants Ethereal Entity, keeping you from being lept to or pulled and making you immune to pushback for the next to seconds. Additionally, the cooldown of Phase Walk is reduced by 15 seconds and all defenses are increased by 30% for the duration of Ethereal Entity.

– Using Phase Walk to return to its marked location grants Ethereal Entity, keeping you from being lept to or pulled and making you immune to pushback for the next to seconds. Additionally, the cooldown of Phase Walk is reduced by 15 seconds and all defenses are increased by 30% for the duration of Ethereal Entity. Recommendation – Occasionally take this. It’s a more effective defensive cooldown than Valorous Spirit, but far more situational because it’s only more effective against ticking damage.

Impeding Slash

Description – Strike the target with your lightsaber, dealing ~8,400 weapon damage and immobilizing it for 3 seconds. When the immobilization effect ends, the target is slowed by 50% for 6 seconds.

– Strike the target with your lightsaber, dealing ~8,400 weapon damage and immobilizing it for 3 seconds. When the immobilization effect ends, the target is slowed by 50% for 6 seconds. Recommendation – Never take this. Saber Strike and this utility only exist so that the Sage has some reason to have a lightsaber at all.

ABILITIES PRIORITIES AND ROTATIONS

Opener and Standard Rotation

Vanquish (pre-cast) Relic (sub 75) Mental Alacrity Force Speed Force Potency Sever Force Weaken Mind Force Empowerment + Adrenal Force in Balance Force Serenity Telekinetic Throw Disturbance Telekinetic Throw Disturbance (skip if no Alacrity boost is active) Telekinetic Throw Repeat

The opener is almost the exact same as the standard rotation. The only major difference is that you have time for an additional Disturbance in between your final two Telekinetic Throws if you have some sort of Alacrity boost active like Mental Alacrity, Relic of Primeval Fatesealer, or Supercharged Celerity (Commando raid buff). If you don’t have an Alacrity boost active, you won’t have time for a second Disturbance, so just skip it and do 2 Telekinetic Throws in a row. If your offensive cooldowns are unavailable, just skip them as well, but they should always go in those places in the rotation when they are available.

It’s easier to think about this rotation as two sections: DoT reapplication and strong abilities section – this is the half of your rotation where you are completely mobile. If you know you’ll have to move soon, this part of the rotation is the best time to do it. Filler section – this half of the rotation has you doing Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance repeatedly while your DoTs tick and strong abilities while on cooldown. It’s much harder to move during this portion of the rotation, though Project does very similar damage to Telekinetic Throw and you can move while using Disturbance since it’s instant from Presence of Mind.

This rotation does involve clipping Sever Force and Weaken Mind. There isn’t a way to do the rotation without delaying something unless you clip them. Normally, you do not want to clip DoTs because it results in a DPS loss, but it actually results in slightly higher single-target DPS to do this rotation than trying to do a more convoluted one that involves occasionally delaying abilities. When you’re doing AoE though, you won’t be able to clip them and will need to switch to a priority list.

Vanquish will come off cooldown before your final Telekinetic Throw is finished channeling, I would personally recommend finishing the channel since the final tick will have a chance to trigger your Tempest of Rho tactical but it doesn’t seem to have a very noticeable effect on your DPS either way.

Alacrity buffs are used before Weaken Mind and Sever Force because they will benefit from dealing the same damage in a shorter duration, unlike Vanquish which expires before it comes off cooldown anyway and wastes uptime on those abilities while waiting for the tanks to pull.

Force Potency and Force Speed can and should be activated before Weaken Mind and Sever Force since they only trigger off of direct damage and you want those abilities to be on cooldown as soon as possible to minimize the time before they can be used again. I’ll speak more about Force Speed later on.

The Primeval Fatesealer Relic is only used in sub-level 75 content, so just skip it in the opener if it isn’t equipped. Mental Alacrity and the Primeval Fatesealer Relic should be used before Force Potency and your Adrenal since they are affected by Alacrity.

As of 6.1.1, it’s important to wait to use Force Speed until after you activate Mental Alacrity in the opener, since Mental Alacrity now always lasts 5 seconds longer with the Gathering Storm set bonus and Mental Alacrity will initially be off-cooldown, so you want to wait to benefit from the 5 second cooldown reduction. To be clear, you’ll still end up using it before Sever Force.

Non-Clipping Single Target Priority

Vanquish (only w/ proc) Weaken Mind and Sever Force (if not on the target) Force in Balance Force Serenity Disturbance (only w/ proc and you have time for another Telekinetic Throw before Vanquish) Telekinetic Throw

This ability priority ensures that your most damaging abilities are being used as frequently as possible. It’s very important that you practice this on a dummy as well as the rotation at least until you can do both without having to constantly look at your bar. Make sure understand and remember this priority because you’ll often have to do it if the fight is not conducive to a rotation (generally if there is frequent downtime or lots of target swapping) or if you have to DoT spread, though you will have to make additional adjustments if you need to do the latter. I will go over these adjustments later on in the AoE section.

If there is downtime during a fight, remember that you can precast things and often place your DoTs on shortly before the boss can actually take damage. You won’t get the full damage of your DoTs but you also won’t have to spend a GCD to apply them when the boss is vulnerable, so you will end up dealing more damage. You can also use Weaken Mind and Sever Force on other targets instead of Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance (multi-DoTing), just make sure you still have 4 stacks of Presence of Mind in time for Vanquish.

The key to being a great DPS is to be always DPSing. Using any damaging ability is better than just standing there not doing anything. Some DPS is better than zero DPS. Even if you mess up, keep doing the rotation! Unless there’s a mechanic that prevents you from dealing damage or forces you to stop DPSing, you should not stop DPSing. If a tank is telling you to stop DPS or hold off for a few seconds because they can’t keep aggro, don’t listen to them, they’re the one that doesn’t know the proper way to keep aggro. Tell them to git gud.

Single Target Rotational Abilities, Attributes, and Important Procs

Please have the game open while reading the remainder of this guide. I will not be writing out tooltip descriptions for abilities and I will only be writing out the components of discipline passives and procs that directly relate to the ability and rotation, not the full text of the description. This forces you to read through what everything does so that you can understand what all of your passives and abilities do as well as locate these abilities in-game. Make sure you place all of these abilities on your bar in an order that makes sense to you.

Force Serenity (Force/Internal/Direct/Single Target/Casted)

This ability accounts for about 11.4% of your overall DPS and 72.5% of your self healing from damaging abilities, making it one of your most important abilities both offensively and defensively. Force Serenity’s cooldown is also a bit shorter than it is Force in Balance and Vanquish and while this difference is somewhat made up by the cast time, it still ends up having a slightly shorter cooldown than Force in Balance and Vanquish, but you’ll still only use it once per rotation cycle. When using the priority, you’ll end up having the opportunity to take advantage of this shorter cooldown and use it more frequently. Force Serenity has 3 important discipline passives associated with it:

Mind’s Eye – Force Serenity deals 30% more damage when used on a target affected by Weaken Mind. In addition to affecting the damage output of one of Balance’s best abilities, this also influences the healing you receive since Force Serenity heals you according to how much damage it does. Make sure Weaken Mind is always on the target before you use Force Serenity.

Focused Insight – Increases the life redistributed by Force Serenity by 100%. I’m not entirely sure why they decided to have Force Serenity work like this, but for whatever reason, from level 42 when you get Force Serenity to level 52 when you get this discipline passive, Force Serenity only heals you for 50% of the damage it deals but then for the rest of the game it heals for 100%. This is not reflected in the ability tooltip. Focused Insight also increases the healing dealt for some of your other abilities and plays a major contributing factor in your defensive capabilities as a Balance Sage.

Mental Scarring – Force Serenity restores 15 force when used on a target affected by your Force Suppression. Resource management is not something you have to worry about for Balance, so this isn’t really as important as it used to be, but still a good reason to generally use Force Serenity after Force in Balance instead of the other way around.

Force in Balance (Force/Internal/Direct/AoE/Instant)

This ability’s damage accounts for about 9.5% of your overall damage output, though this ignores the fact that it’s a rotational AoE ability and its significant additional contributions from several important procs and discipline passives. Of its primary damage, it heals you for 20% of the damage it deals and this accounts for about 12% of your total self healing from damaging abilities which is the second most healing dealt. You might have trouble placing this ability when you’re far away from large bosses if you double click to place instead of positioning manually. The range on your AoE abilities is calculated based on how far away the center of the reticle is from the player, so when you try to place your reticle on a large enemy when you’re close to 30m away, sometimes the center of the reticle doesn’t reach the center of the boss so you can’t double click to place. In practice, this means that Balance often has a closer max range than 30m, for especially large bosses, you can’t be further than 25-27m away from the boss to be able to activate Force in Balance without manually placing it. This used to not be an issue when Force in Balance had an 8m radius, but now it’s only 5m. While this was done for class balance reasons, the issue could be fixed without having a noticeable effect on balance by giving Force in Balance a 35m range. This is a major reason for why Telekinetics’s 35m range feels so much more valuable than it might seem, it’s actually closer to 8-10m range in practice unless you’re okay with manually placing your AoEs. Force in Balance has 4 important procs and discipline passives associated with it:

Force Suppression – The next 15 ticks of your periodic abilities will deal 15% additional damage. This is a major contributing factor to Force in Balance’s high priority and there are a couple other things that are dependent on Force Suppression stacks being present, like Slow Mercy and Mind’s Eye. Force Suppression stacks do not get consumed on other Sages’ DoTs (though they used to).

Abundant Justice – Force in Balance spreads your Weaken Mind and Sever Force to targets it damages as long as it damages targets already affected by these abilities. In addition, Force in Balance overwhelms its targets for 45 seconds, causing them to take 10% more damage from AoE abilities. This is your DoT spread. I’ll go into greater detail about this later on.

Resonant Pulse – Targets hit by Force in Balance have a 50% chance to emit a Resonant Pulse, damaging itself and up to 7 targets within 5m for a small amount of internal damage. This passive helps to extend the reach and slightly increase the damage dealt by the ability. Resonant Pulse does not spread DoTs, but it does provide a small amount of self-healing.

Mind’s Eye – Each time a stack of your Force Suppression is consumed, you gain 2 Force. This means if you hit 3 targets with Force in Balance, it will effectively be free. As I mentioned before, it’s not super important to care about this since Balance does not have any resource management to worry about.

Weaken Mind (Force/Internal/Periodic/Single Target/Instant)

This DoT is one of your harder hitting abilities and accounts for about 9.7% of your total damage output. It should be the second ability you use on any new target immediately following Sever Force. This DoT is used second because it is the weaker of the two and gives you more time to activate Force Serenity before Weaken Mind falls off when using the priority instead of the rotation. Often, Force Serenity will come off cooldown right before Sever Force falls off. Weaken Mind has 1 important discipline passive associated with it:

Mental Scarring – Increases the damage dealt by periodic effects by 15% on targets below 30% of max health, so this also affects Sever Force and the periodic component of Vanquish. This is the execute/sub-30% damage bonus for Balance that I had mentioned earlier. It’s one of the weaker ones compared to other DoT specs though.

Sever Force (Force/Internal/Periodic/Single Target/Instant)

This DoT is another of your harder hitting abilities and is slightly stronger than Weaken Mind, it accounts for about 10.4% of your total damage output. Be mindful of the 2 second root it applies when you intend to DoT spread from a moving target since you will have barely enough time to DoT spread before the root wears off. Sever Force is also the sole beneficiary of the Tempest of Rho, our default tactical item for single target situations. These additional Sever Force ticks from Tempest of Rho actually account for an additional 13.5% damage of your total damage output, bringing the total damage output of this ability up to 23.9%. Sever Force does not have any procs or discipline passives associated with it that I have not already explained.

Vanquish (Force/Kinetic/Direct and Periodic/Single Target/Casted)

Vanquish is a somewhat unique ability, it deals a very high amount of damage overall, accounting for about 17.7% of your total damage output, but doesn’t interact very well with some of the buffs provided by Balance and Sage in general. This ability deals both Direct and Periodic damage with the initial hit being Direct and the DoT component being Periodic damage. This makes Vanquish a very poor candidate for use with Force Speed and Force Potency because only the relatively weak, initial hit will benefit from these abilities or any others that only affect Direct damage. It also ticks every second, so the damage dealt by each individual tick is a little smaller than it is for Sever Force and Weaken Mind, making it a worse candidate for Force Suppression stacks (there aren’t enough to boost all of your DoT ticks), not that you can help it since it still hits really hard so it needs to be used on cooldown. As a result, it is placed as far from Force in Balance as possible to maximize the number of ticks that go toward your other DoTs. It also doesn’t spread unless you have the Slow Mercy tactical, please note that this tactical works with Vanquish by making it so that any nearby target that has Force Suppression will also have Vanquish applied to them, but it doesn’t matter if the initial target it hits has Force Suppression, so if you miss one of your targets with Force in Balance but they’re all sufficiently grouped up, it’s best to apply it to the target without Force in Balance since it will still spread but also deal damage to that additional enemy. Vanquish has 1 proc that is relevant to the rotation that I haven’t yet mentioned:

Presence of Mind – Dealing damage with Telekinetic Throw produces a stack of Presence of Mind. At 4 stacks, Presence of Mind causes your next Vanquish (or Disturbance) to activate instantly, consume 50% less Force, and deal 25% more damage. This proc is the most important one in your rotation. You need to make sure that you have it before Vanquish comes of cooldown so you don’t have to delay it. Presence of Mind should only be used on Disturbance if you know you have enough time to use another Telekinetic Throw before Vanquish comes off cooldown, including being able to also cast all of your other high priority abilities as well. Telekinetic Throw doesn’t do that much less damage than Disturbance and it’s way better than missing out on Vanquish. Throughout this guide, I refer to the Presence of Mind proc as something you get and you’re done instead of it having 4 charges. Presence of Mind is not useful until it has 4 charges which is why I refer to it in this way. You can get all 4 charges of Presence of Mind from a single full channel of Telekinetic Throw since Telekinetic Throw ticks 4 times.

Telekinetic Throw (Force/Kinetic/Direct/Single Target/Channeled)

Telekinetic Throw is your standard filler ability, and accounts for about 18.3% of your overall damage output, though this is mainly because it’s used more frequently than any other ability. It’s also responsible for triggering the vast majority of your Tempest of Rho Sever Force ticks and generating the Presence of Mind proc. Every use of Telekinetic Throw will result in 2 additional Sever Force ticks on average. Telekinetic Throw has 5 procs or discipline passives associated with it that I haven’t already mentioned:

Psychic Projection – Telekinetic Throw ticks 33% faster and does 25% less damage. Overall, this increases the damage dealt by Telekinetic Throw and is responsible for making it a 2 second channel instead of a 3 second one.

Psychic Barrier – Each time your Telekinetic Throw deals damage, you recover 2% of your total Force. This is a major contributor to why Balance does not have any resource management, each channel of Telekinetic Throw gives you back more Force than it costs to use the ability.

Telekinetic Balance – Telekinetic Throw no longer has a cooldown. This allows the ability to be spammable and function as a filler ability (outside of Balance, it has a 6 second cooldown).

Rippling Force – Telekinetic Throw has a 20% chance (and Force Serenity has a 60% chance) to restore 2 force and deal a small amount of kinetic damage to the target. Overall, this effect is very minor. Rippling Force from both sources only accounts for about 2.5% of your total damage output.

Psychokinetic Torrent – Dealing damage with Telekinetic Throw increases the critical chance of your periodic effects by 3% for 10 seconds, stacks up to 4 times (12% total). This effect will have nearly 100% uptime during your single target rotation, but isn’t worth maintaining in AoE situations when you have to use Forcequake.

Disturbance (Force/Kinetic/Direct/Single Target/Casted)

Disturbance is your second filler ability, it accounts for approximately 6.4% of your total damage output. It deals slightly higher damage per use than Telekinetic Throw, though it’s still much worse than any of your other abilities. It should never be used without the Presence of Mind proc, but when you use it, make sure that you have enough time to regain the Presence of Mind proc while still following the priority list. Disturbance does not have any additional notable procs or discipline passives associated with it that I haven’t already explained.

AoE Damage and DoT Spread

The formula for determining how much damage an AoE ability does per GCD such that it can be compared to single target abilities is: (Damage Dealt/Number of GCDs) x Number of Enemies. An AoE ability’s place in the priority is as high as it can be until it reaches a single target ability that deals more damage than the AoE will deal to all enemies in the GCD. AoE damage is considered fluff if the adds do not need to die or if you are otherwise shirking your main responsibilities to deal more damage to adds. The best example of this for Sages is placing your Forcequake on just a couple of the Ugnaughts that are away from Grob’thok. It’s pretty easy to tell what is and isn’t fluff, don’t be greedy and don’t hurt your group’s chances of beating the boss. Your incredibly fluffy numbers mean nothing if you wipe.

Forcequake (Force/Energy/Direct/AoE/Channeled)

If you plan to use Forcequake at all during a boss fight, you should take the Tectonic Mastery utility. Forcequake’s damage per GCD surpasses the following abilities after the following number of targets are hit with one use of the ability and assumes you are taking the Tectonic Mastery utility and have the damage increase from Force Suppression while using the Slow Mercy tactical:

Telekinetic Throw: at least 2 targets

Disturbance (w/ Presence of Mind proc): at least 2 targets

Force Serenity : at least 4 targets

Force in Balance (Force/Internal/Direct/AoE/Casted)

This ability is already used rotationally, though it’s very important to note that it should no longer be used on cooldown when you need to use it for AoE purposes because Force in Balance is your DoT spread and has a 15 second cooldown while Sever Force and Weaken Mind last 18 seconds (ignoring Alacrity). DoT spreading to a target that still has your DoTs active does not refresh or extend the duration in any way, so if you use Force in Balance on cooldown, you’ll only maybe spread your DoTs back to the enemy who you initially spread from and then the rest of the enemies won’t get respread to until the next Force in Balance. Unlike some other DoT specs, Balance can’t really bounce their DoTs very easily since their DoT spread has such a long cooldown. If you’re unfamiliar with DoT bouncing, some specs like Serenity Shadow have the ability to skip manually reapplying their DoTs because they have a short or non-existent cooldown on their DoT spread ability so once the DoTs wear off on the target the DoTs were initially spread from they can just use their DoT spread to reapply their DoTs to that initial target and then spread again to apply the DoTs to everyone else, resulting in a DPS increase. Balance really only gets one shot per DoT cycle though, so make sure you don’t activate Force in Balance until the DoTs have fallen off of all the enemies you’re spreading to. Usually you want to spread from whichever enemy has the highest health and continue spreading from that one until it dies for consistency.

DoT-Spreading Rotation

When DoT spreading, you will have a standard rotation:

Telekinetic Throw (only if you don’t already have a Presence of Mind proc) Weaken Mind Sever Force Force in Balance Vanquish (w/ Presence of Mind proc and Slow Mercy tactical) Forcequake (at least until you run out of Force Suppression stacks) Force Serenity (once you’re out of Force Suppression stacks if there are less than 4 targets) Repeat

It’s important to know the single target priority list that I mentioned earlier since you won’t be able to very easily transition between the single target and AoE rotations and often fights that require AoE have it intermittently. It’s okay to delay Force in Balance in your single target rotation for a few GCDs if you know you’ll have to DoT spread soon, just make sure that you aren’t delaying it so long that you completely miss out on using it for a cycle. It’s also okay to get started with generating your Presence of Mind proc and applying your DoTs before the adds have been fully grouped up, just don’t use Force in Balance until they’re close enough for DoT spread. It’s also okay to wait to use Telekinetic Throw until right after Force in Balance to obtain the Presence of Mind proc, just make sure you have it before using Vanquish and use Vanquish as soon as possible afterwards. If you don’t DoT spread in the GCD immediately following the application of Weaken Mind and Sever Force, make sure to continue delaying Force in Balance in future GCDs until the DoTs have fallen off the targets that the DoTs were spread to.

Defensive Cooldowns and Mobility

Defensive cooldowns are not used just to stop you from getting killed, they’re there to minimize overall damage taken. For any class and any fight, you should be mapping your strongest defensive cooldowns to the hardest hitting abilities in that fight and working your way down so that you are mitigating as much damage as possible. While this usually isn’t necessary to ensure your survival, it does make life easier for your fellow healers and give them more room to do off-DPS.

Balance is more reliant on these cooldowns than Telekinetics for surviving big hits since their damage mitigation comes from self-healing from Focused Insight and Force Serenity, so you’ll need to survive the hit in order for your health to return to a safe level as instead of just avoiding the damage in the first place. They do still fare better than many heavy-armor classes against Internal/Elemental damage (ignores armor) since self healing after the fact doesn’t care what damage type something is and neither does flat damage reduction. Sages in general don’t do quite as well over longer periods of time where they take high amounts of damage because they don’t really have any long-lasting cooldowns. Many other classes have single abilities which last 12-15 seconds like Saber Ward, Deflection, and Reactive Shield, while that’s about as long as Sages get out of all of their cooldowns (without losing DPS). I also want to remind you that you need to locate and read what these abilities do so that you can place them on your bar and use them in each fight.

Cloud Mind w/ Blockout utility

This is your bread and butter defensive cooldown, providing you with good damage reduction for a short period of time and over the long term, you’ll end up having higher uptime than you would with something like Saber Ward because of the shorter cooldown. It’s important to note that this utility is on your threat drop ability, so if you intend to hold onto the boss for a minute because a tank died or something, using this ability might make the boss go to someone else. If you need to use it at the beginning of the fight for threat drop purposes, use it right after Force Serenity or the first Telekinetic Throw and if you are having an issue with getting aggro continually, request that someone guard you and tell your tanks that they need to learn how to generate threat better because they should be able to keep aggro, especially from a DoT spec.

Force Mend and the Valorous Spirit utility

This ability is not off-healing. Do not consider it as off-healing. Consider it a defensive cooldown just like any other that just so happens to work by providing you with a lot of HP. The traditional wisdom with Sage survivability is that they can take big hits and survive because they will almost always be at higher HP than all other classes so if another class uses a different defensive cooldown with lower health, they won’t lose as much health overall but since the Sage was at higher health before they took the hit thanks to proactive use of Force Mend, they’ll be dropped to the same health level as the other class. However, Valorous Spirit has complicated this somewhat because it grants 15% damage reduction for 6 seconds after use, so now you often have to weigh the damage reduction against the healing if you’re at full health (is it better to take the full hit and heal afterwards or will the damage reduction end up being more valuable?). A good rule of thumb is to use Force Mend on cooldown provided you can take full (or almost full) benefit of the heal and save it for the damage reduction if you’re going to take a dedicated hit. It’s also okay to pair this ability with Cloud Mind if you’re taking an especially big hit since the damage reduction will just get added together.

Force Barrier and Enduring Bastion

This ability works by giving you +20,000% defense chance, so if an attack cannot be dodged/deflected/parried/resisted, Force Barrier will not work. In most fights, this ability doesn’t get used and is more of an emergency button unless it’s getting used to cheese something deliberately like Doom from Ciphas or Ion Cutter from Master. Because you aren’t dealing any damage while channeling this ability, it is absolutely critical that you do not channel it for longer than you need to. If your health gets super low and you pop this, continue to pay attention to your health and break it as soon as the healers get your health to a level where you won’t die if the boss hits you with anything. Unless you’re buying time for DoT ticks and such, there’s not too much of a point to channeling for longer than 6 seconds anyway, which is when you get the fourth and final stack of Enduring Bastion which absorbs a massive amount of damage (though usually not massive enough if you need the 4 stacks). Force Barrier is off the GCD and functions as a CC break, and I do use it if I need to CC break frequently, like I do on Monolith when getting a color. I also like to use the ability and immediately break the channel to get the single stack of Enduring Bastion which helps a little bit in burn phases where everyone is taking constant damage. This ability also takes Force Speed off cooldown when it ends if you take the Metaphysical Alacrity utility (which you have to now thanks to the Gathering Storm set bonus), however this is not a good use of the ability in combat and it’s much better to save it for emergencies. The deciding factor for beating a boss is far more likely to be surviving long enough with Force Barrier over the full channel than getting an extra Force Speed or two throughout the fight and if you get killed when Force Barrier is on cooldown because you used it as a DPS increase instead, you’re gonna lose a whole lot more DPS by being dead. That said, if you feel 100% confident that you won’t need this ability, it is helpful for resynchronizing Force Speed, so you want to activate this immediately after using Vanquish along with Force Speed as you’re activating Sever Force; I’ll explain this in greater detail later on. Please note that most enemies will also stop attacking you when you activate this ability, so you can’t use it when you have to temporarily tank something. They will come back as soon as you finish channeling though.

Force Armor

You should think of this ability as no different than any of your other healing abilities like Rejuvenate and Benevolence because it costs a GCD to use, so you will lose DPS if you use this ability, though it is the strongest of your three off-heal abilities so if you do find yourself needing to off-heal, this should be the first ability you use. Force Armor should only be used if you think you or someone else will die if you don’t use it, and when I say die, I mean it, I do not mean take a giant hit, I mean die. This is a good ability to use if there’s downtime though since it will protect you from damage you take in the future, but make sure you aren’t losing any DPS to activate this ability. Also, the Sage healer’s bubble is stronger, so let them bubble you whenever possible.

Medpac

Don’t save it for a rainy day because today is that rainy day! Unless you get hit by a one-shot mechanic (which you shouldn’t), you should never let yourself die while your Medpac is still available and you certainly should never try to use one of your heals before using your Medpac (and I hope you know that Force Mend is not included in this rule). If everyone’s health is getting low or there’s a heal check in the current phase, do not hesitate to use your Medpac if you can take full benefit of the health provided or need to be above a certain health level to survive an imminent mechanic. If you think Medpacs are too expensive, it’s time to get Biochem on one of your alts or even better, your raiding toon so that you can make your own or get reusables. Choosing not to use a medpac for financial reasons and subsequently dying is not a valid excuse.

Restoration

This is the cleanse for the Sages. While healers are responsible for dealing with most of the cleanses, though there are a few instances where the DPS should help, like on Dread Council with Tyrans’ Death Mark. Try to avoid having to cleanse yourself with this ability, a lot of the cleanses that DPS are responsible for can be removed with an ability that is off the GCD like the CC break or the Egress utility and unless the debuff is going out to many members of your group at the same time, your healers are responsible for cleansing you.

Phase Walk and the Ethereal Entity Utility

Due to the Gathering Storm set bonus requiring us to use Force Speed on cooldown, our mobility is reduced significantly and it becomes more important to rely on Phase Walk for movement. This ability can be activated off the GCD even though it has a cast, the only reason it has one at all is to prevent you from placing it in the air or while you’re moving. It can also be activated in the middle of channels (including Force Barrier), not casts though, without interrupting the channel so long as you stay in range of whatever you’re hitting. It can also be used while CC’d, sometimes even when you can’t break out of the CC, the button will be grayed out, but it will still teleport you. If you try to teleport while in the air, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there is a whole lot of lag before it teleports you so be mindful of that. When thinking about different spots to place Phase Walk, ask yourself: is there a specific location I know I will want to return to at some point later in the fight? Is that position going to be generally safe to return to?

I also want to talk about the Ethereal Entity utility you can take. It provides 30% defense for 10 seconds after returning to your marked point, normally Defense Chance only applies to Melee/Ranged attacks, however this utility also increases your chance to resist Force/Tech attacks, so you won’t take any damage if you successfully dodge/deflect/parry/resist an attack but the effect won’t help you at all if you do take the hit. In PvE, this is much stronger mitigation than what you can get out of Valorous Spirit, however it’s unreliable. This makes it a bad choice for mitigating large hits where you need the reliability of damage reduction, but on frequent smaller hits, it’s not functionally different from 30% damage reduction.

Force Speed

This ability is easily the best ability for movement in the game because it allows you to keep DPSing while moving an incredible distance very quickly. Unfortunately, now we don’t really get to use it for movement since we need it for the Gathering Storm set bonus, though if you come across a situation where you will likely die if you don’t use it, save it for that situation but try to rely on Phase Walk as much as possible if those situations can be predicted and make sure to use Force Speed during downtime to keep reducing the cooldown on Mental Alacrity.

Offensive Cooldowns

All offensive cooldowns should be used as frequently as possible under the conditions stated here or saved if it necessary for a DPS check/burst window, but don’t start delaying it for that until you see that you have to because you don’t have enough room for another use of it before the next use of the ability.

Mental Alacrity

In 6.0, thanks to the Gathering Storm set bonus, this ability will have 20% uptime thanks to the cooldown reduction and 15 second duration. As of 6.1.1, it’s now much easier to activate this ability since the duration increase on Mental Alacrity is now passive and no longer requires that Force Speed was recently activated. Going forward, this means that Force Speed should be used after Mental Alacrity instead of before in order to benefit from the cooldown reduction. In Balance, you want to activate this ability right after Vanquish just like you do in the opener, this enables you to get an additional Disturbance before your next Vanquish (filler section: Telekinetic Throw > Disturbance > Telekinetic Throw > Disturbance > Telekinetic Throw > Vanquish). Make sure you have this ability off cooldown for any DPS checks, but still make sure that you are using it as often as possible, so don’t save it for so long that it could have come off cooldown in time for the DPS check.

Force Potency

This ability should almost always be used during Mental Alacrity and if you’re activating them at the same time, make sure you activate Mental Alacrity first. It’s okay to delay it for a significant period of time because the alacrity from Mental Alacrity will counteract the delay so your next Force Potency will end up happening at roughly the same time regardless. I usually base this decision on how much time is left on Mental Alacrity’s cooldown if it isn’t active. Normally, Force Potency will come off cooldown about 20 seconds before Mental Alacrity does, but you should use Force Potency immediately if it comes off cooldown while the cooldown for Mental Alacrity is above 30-40 seconds. The benefit of using Force Potency during Mental Alacrity is that you get to benefit from the 20% damage increase that is active thanks to the Gathering Storm set bonus, so those abilities’ damage increase will be compounded. Always use the charges on Force in Balance and Force Serenity and remember that Force in Balance will consume both charges if it hits multiple enemies. In this case, it’s okay to switch the order (use Force Serenity first). It’s also important to note that Force Potency only increases the critical chance of direct damage abilities, so it won’t work on Weaken Mind, Sever Force, or the DoT component of Vanquish. This means that you can activate it before applying Weaken Mind and Sever Force, but make sure you don’t use it on Vanquish.

Force Speed

This ability increases the damage dealt by your next direct Force attack by 20% thanks to the Gathering Storm Set bonus, it also reduces the cooldown of Mental Alacrity by 10 seconds, so you need to use this on cooldown in order to maximize the cooldown reduction. You should always use this on either Force in Balance or Force Serenity since they deal significantly more damage than Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance and it doesn’t trigger on Sever Force or Weaken Mind and only the initial hit of Vanquish, just like Force Potency. It’s important to note that without Alacrity, the rotation is a 15 second cycle, but Alacrity makes it a bit shorter. Unfortunately, Force Speed is not affected by Alacrity so the exact point in the rotation when this ability comes off cooldown will gradually shift over time. For this reason, it’s best to activate it as soon as possible after Vanquish when your DoTs are reapplied so that you have a full 2 GCDs of time for the cooldown to shift before it even gets to Force in Balance and then you have another GCD before you have to start using it on Force Serenity instead.Technically, Force Serenity is the better target for Force Speed, but it gets desynchronized too quickly, so you’ll end up buffing less ability uses overall. Force Serenity does have a travel time though, so if your APM is high, you can still use Force Speed immediately after the cast of Force Serenity finishes and it will get consumed on Force Serenity. Once you get to the point where Force Speed is coming off cooldown after Force Serenity’s cast, use Force Barrier to reset the cooldown and activate it right after Vanquish to resynchronize it. You can’t do this every time it gets fully desynchronized, and in those cases, it’s fine to just skip a cycle of using it. Make sure you don’t need Force Barrier for any mechanics though.

Adrenal

Make sure this item is always used during Mental Alacrity, even if you have to delay it a while. It is highly unlikely that a fight will last long enough where this delay will be enough to where it will result in missing out on a use of the Adrenal and most of the delay will end up being counteracted by the Alacrity increase from Mental Alacrity anyway. It’s important you do this because you will get more abilities off during the Adrenal window thanks to your higher APM thanks to the alacrity and the damage increase will compound with the stat increase from the adrenal. You should also be mindful of how long a fight is and how many uses of an adrenal you’ll get. If you’ll only get one more use of the adrenal before the boss dies and it comes off cooldown around 40%, you’re better off saving it for the next Mental Alacrity that occurs below 30% so you can also benefit from the execute damage boost. Remember, you should use the Advanced Kyrprax Attack Adrenal in level 75 content and Advanced Kyrprax Critical Adrenal in non-level 75 content.

Sha’Tek Relic of Primeval Fatesealer

This relic is unfortunately the only viable alternative for use in sub-level 75 content alongside the Sha’Tek Relic of Devastating Vengeance because the standard Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault relics are useless because Mastery and Power are capped. It should be used on cooldown because it is not affected by Alacrity like Force Potency and the Adrenal are. It should also be saved for burst phases and DPS checks if they exist in a given fight.

Raid Utility

Force Empowerment

Unlike the relics and adrenals, Force Empowerment does increase your stats even if you’re in sub-75 content. Your raid buff should be used on cooldown just like any other offensive cooldown unless it needs to be used for a burst phase or DPS check, normally the raid lead will make the call on when these should be used. This is not a personal buff for you, it’s something that buffs the whole team. It also only has a 40m range, so be mindful on larger maps that it might not catch everyone and position yourself accordingly so that it catches as many people as possible. Use this on trash mobs if you want to troll your team.

Revival

This is a battle rez. Often, if somebody dies, the healers have a lot on their plate and you should attempt to use this as soon as you see the text appear on your screen. Make sure you’re standing in a safe location and if multiple people are dead, check with the raid lead if you aren’t sure who to revive. Use this to revive someone who died on a trash mob if you want to troll your team.

Rescue

This is the famed Sage pull! While it is primarily used for trolling to great effect, especially when paired with Phase Walk to jump off ledges while pulling an unsuspecting victim to their doom while you teleport back safely, it does still have some utility in combat. If you are 100% certain that someone will die if you don’t pull them, do it; if you are 99% certain they will die, probably don’t pull them. You will probably get yelled at if you mess up. You should have a very good idea of where this ability is on your bar because if you have to waste time finding it, you’ll probably end up sending a corpse soaring through the air instead of saving someone’s life and at that point, you’re better off just removing it from your bar. Try to minimally disrupt the other person’s rotation since it will interrupt their cast and communicate with them beforehand if there’s time.

Off-Healing

If you ever have to do this, something has clearly gone wrong with the attempt, or someone is not pulling their weight and you should complain to the raid lead and make a big scene about having to off-heal. This game is designed around each role being able to fully perform all of its duties without the need for another off-role’s help. You should not ever off-heal yourself unless you literally think you will die if you do not receive healing right now and the pull is salvageable. You should also not waste your time healing another player with Rejuvenate or Benevolence, just bubble them and go back to DPSing because the other heals do not do very much and waste time. If there is downtime though where you can’t do anything else at all, it’s okay to heal yourself with these abilities, but really make sure there’s nothing you can do at all that would increase your damage output first. Besides it being not your job, a lot of bosses have fairly tight enrage timers, so if you’re having to waste your precious GCDs helping out another role because they can’t deal with what they are fully capable of dealing with, you’re gonna end up wiping to an enraged boss later anyway. It is true that Rejuvenate gives you 30% armor while the HoT is active, however this only brings your damage reduction up to 23.76% from 19.77%, and that’s only against Kinetic/Energy attacks. An additional 4% damage reduction isn’t gonna save you. Don’t waste a GCD.

Crowd Control and Other Notable Abilities

There are only a handful of instances in operations where CC is required, so I will briefly go over what the Sage has at their disposal.

Force Wave

This is your conal knockback. The only fight it’s important for right now is Styrak in NiM where you have to knock back the Chained Manifestations. Also, please do not ruin everybody else’s day by using this ability for its AoE damage.

Force Stun

This is your hard stun.

Mind Stap

This is your interrupt. At 18 seconds, its cooldown is longer than what most melee specs have, but isn’t the longest for ranged specs. That honor goes to the Mercenary, which has a 24 second cooldown on their interrupt (and it was the only class that didn’t have one at launch). If you really want to be a clicker, I highly recommend you at least keybind this ability or you will have trouble with some of the shorter casts that need to be interrupted.

Force Lift

This is your mez, a CC ability that breaks on damage. Usually if you’re using this in-combat, you will want to use it very soon after the enemy spawns, though usually healers are assigned this responsibility when possible.

Force Slow

This is your slow. Its force cost is extremely cheap and its damage is decent. If you find yourself running for long periods of time (normally if you’re kiting something), this is what you use if Project is on cooldown and you’re still in the filler section of your rotation and don’t have any other DPS abilities available that can be activated while moving. It even deals more damage than Telekinetic Blitz does on first use.

Force of Will

This is your CC break. Use it when you get CC’d.

Telekinetic Blitz

This is your last resort as an ability that you can use while moving if everything else is unavailable. It doesn’t even surpass Project in damage output until the third use and even then it only barely does. If you find yourself having to move a lot in a given fight, I would recommend playing Telekinetics.

Project

This is your go-to ability to use on the move if you’re in the filler section of your rotation since it does almost the same damage as Telekinetic Throw and Disturbance without Presence of Mind.

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements and Special Thanks

I want to thank Zab, Zanwell, and Cortell for your invaluable feedback on this guide, you’ve all been (and continue to be) fantastic competition in StarParse and inspire me to do better. I also want to give special thanks to everyone who is or has ever been a member of Time Turners, I’ve had an amazing time over the years and can’t wait to see what’s in store for the years to come.

About the Author

Endonae has mained a Sith Sorcerer continuously since release. He began nightmare raiding in 4.0 and is an avid decorator. He also leads a raid team that has been around since late 1.0 and currently resides in <Lightning Masters> on Satele Shan. It has slowly worked its way up from getting lost in the lava caves on the way to Gharj in EV SM to completing timed runs in nightmare.

From Vulkk

Another guide from Endonae and another thank you note from me! This Balance Sage PvE Guide for SWTOR 6.0 is Endonae’s fourth guide for VULKK.com!

Endonae also provided most if not all of the ability icons. Some I have taken from Jedipedia’s database and TorCommunity’s database.

If you are skilled with a Class and Discipline that has not yet been covered with a guide on VULKK (check the list here), and you want to provide one for the SWTOR Community, contact me via email or wherever you see Vulkk present.

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