Balance Sage
This is a preliminary guide that provides details on abilities and skill changes and initial recommendations for skill tree choices and an overview on the changes to the rotation. I suggest reading this guide in combination with the 6.0 class guide to understand the previous rotation to then adapt to 7.0 as discussed briefly herein. More detailed guides will be forthcoming after preliminary guides are posted for all disciplines.
Combat Style Abilities & Passive Skills
Discipline Passive Skills
Telekinetic Balance
Telekinetic Throw no longer has a cooldown. Telekinetic Throw channels and ticks 33% faster but deals 25% less damage. In addition, your Rejuvenate increases your armor rating by 30% while it heals you.
Force Suppression
(Not on ability tree) Force Sweep deals 75% more damage and consumes 2 less focus. Additionally, the critical chance of Cyclone Slash and Blade Barrage is increased by 30%.
Psychic Barrier
Reduces the pushback suffered while activating Force Serenity by 75% and Telekinetic Throw by 100%. Targets hit by Force in Balance have a 50% chance to emit a Resonant Pulse, damaging itself and up to 7 targets within 5 meters for internal damage. Targets affected by Shifted Balance’s Slow have a 50% chance to have the slow reapplied and dealing internal damage to the target.
Abundant Justice
Force in Balance spreads your Weaken Mind and Sever Force to the targets it damages, as long as it damages targets already affected by your Weaken Mind and Sever Force. In addition, Force in Balance overwhelms its targets for 45 seconds. Overwhelmed targets take 10% more damage from area attacks. Shifted Balance slows targets by 50% for 6 seconds and grants Assailable increasing internal and elemental damage on the target by 7%.
Critical Kinesis
Increases the critical chance of Force Serenity and Disturbance by 15%. Increases all periodic damage dealt by 15%.
Rippling Force
Damage dealt by Telekinetic Throw has a 20% chance and damage dealt by Force Serenity has a 60% chance to restore 2 Force and deal energy damage to the target. Increases the duration of Mind Crush and Vanquish by 3 seconds.
Mental Scarring
Increases the damage dealt by periodic effects by 15% on targets below 30% of max health. In addition, Force Serenity restores 15 force when used on a target affected by your Force Suppression.
Mind's Eye
(Not on ability tree) Each time a charge of your Force Suppression is consumed, you gain 2 Force.
Focused Insight
Increases the life stolen by Force in Balance, Shifted Balance, and Force Serenity by 100% and causes Weaken Mind and Sever Force to reclaim life from enemy targets, healing you for 10% of the damage they deal.
Psychokinetic Torrent
Dealing damage with Telekinetic Throw increases the critical chance of your damaging periodic effects by 3% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times.
Discipline Skill Tree
Recommendations
Level 23
Consuming Light
Consuming Light can provide significantly more stacks of Force Suppression to increase DoT damage by 15%. I recommend this passive since it synergizes well with Shatter Connection to buff most DoTs by around 15% and the two are a better combination than Shifted Balance and Returning Light.
Shifted Balance
Shifted Balance does about 20% more damage than Force in Balance and 50% more healing in exchange for being purely single target and not taking Consuming Light. Shifted Balance is a good choice if not taking Shatter Connection at Level 39 and if the fight has no AoE.
Level 27
Teachings of Rajivari
Teachings of Rajivari gives Balance the ability to significantly increase its burst damage potential and mobility. Choose between it or Cloud Mind depending on whether burst damage/mobility or burst DR is more useful.
Cloud Mind
Cloud Mind is helpful to provide strong burst DR for predictable spike damage mechanics.
Level 39
Shatter Connection
Shatter Connection causes Sever Force to deal 15% more damage than normal so is a good single target DPS increase assuming Consuming Light is taken. If not then consider Returning Light.
Returning Light
Returning Light should give you more uses of Force Potency in a fight. It is less useful than expected since you should only use Force Potency with Force in Balance/Shifted Balance and Force Serenity, thus the cooldown reduction is reduced by rotational delay. Shatter Connection should be significantly better assuming Consuming Light is taken.
Level 43
Enhanced Force Speed
Enhanced Force Speed will be better for individual damage assuming another player can provide the raid buff to the group and assuming group wide damage is not a concern for healers.
Warden of the Force
Warden of the Force should give full uptime on 15% more DR, which is really strong for fights with significant group wide damage.
Force Empowerment
Raid buff can be taken if no other party member has it but the team needs raid buffs.
Level 51
Force Mobility
Force Serenity on the move is important given the need to turret channel Telekinetic Throw.
Level 64
Metaphysical Alacrity
Metaphysical Alacrity synergizes with Gathering Storm to increase DPS through more frequent usage of Force Speed and higher uptime of Mental Alacrity.
Level 68
Phase Walk
Phase Walk is useful on nearly all encounters for movement while other options are rarely useful.
Level 73
Mind Ward
Mind Ward offers DR against periodic damage that is present in most encounters. Other options are highly situational.
Skill Tree
Level 15 - Gain 2 Abilities
Mending Force Armor
30m range, costs 41 Force. Surrounds the target in a Force shield that lasts up to 30 seconds and absorbs damage. The target becomes Force-imbalanced and cannot benefit from Force Armor again for 20 seconds. Your Force Armor heals you for 1% of your total health every second for as long as it lasts. This healing scales up to 4% with the charges for Enduring Bastion.
Force in Balance
45s cooldown. Instantly generates 6 focus, reduces the cooldown of Taunt and 30m range, 15s cooldown, costs 45 Force. Deals internal damage and redistributes life from affected targets to heal you for 10% of the damage dealt. Strikes up to 8 targets within a 5-meter radius.Call by 5 seconds and damages all taunted targets around you.
Level 23 - Pick 1 Upgrade for Force in Balance
Consuming Light (passive)
When a charge of Force Suppression is consumed there is a 50% chance for a Force Suppression charge to not be consumed.
Shifted Balance (ability)
Replaces Force in Balance. Deals slightly more damage, is single target only and increases lifesteal from 10% to 15%. (Note Shifted Balance is bugged and currently heals for 100% of the damage dealt.)
One with the Force (passive)
Force Suppression heals the caster for 1% of their maximum health when a charge is consumed.
Level 27 - Pick 1 Ability or Passive Skill
Teachings of Rajivari (passive)
Project finishes off all your directly applied damage over time effects at once, dealing their remaining damage. The cooldown for Project is increased by 12 seconds.
Cloud Mind (ability)
45s cooldown. Wipes your enemies' thoughts, instantly lowering your threat by a moderate amount. Activating Cloud Mind grants Blockout, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds.
Destructive Wave (ability)
30m range, 1.5s cast, costs 36 Force. Fires a blast of telekinetic energy at the target, dealing kinetic damage to up to 3 enemies within 10 meters. Replaces Disturbance.
Level 35 - Gain Ability
Sever Force
30m range, costs 18 Force. Weakens the target, freezing it in place for 2 seconds and dealing internal damage over 18 seconds. The immobilizing effect cannot occur more than once every 9 seconds.
Level 39 - Pick 1 Upgrade for Sever Force
Center Point (passive)
Sever Force has a 30% chance to deal damage to up to 4 targets within 10 meters of the initial target.
Shatter Connection (passive)
Dealing damage with Sever Force shatters the connection to the Force of the target, consuming two stacks of Force Suppression and dealing increased damage.
Returning Light (passive)
The application of Sever Force reduces the cooldown of Force Potency by 2 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 5 seconds.
Level 43 - Pick 1 Ability or Passive Skill
Enhanced Force Speed (passive)
Periodic damage reduces the cooldown of Force Speed by 3 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 5 seconds.
Warden of the Force (passive)
Dealing critical damage with your damage over time abilities increases your damage reduction by 5% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
Force Empowerment (ability)
300s cooldown, costs 45 Force. Increases mastery, endurance, and presence for you and your operation group members within 40 meters by 10%. Lasts 10 seconds.
Level 47 - Gain Ability
Force Serenity
30m range, 12s cooldown, 1.5s cast, costs 45 Force. Redistributes life from an enemy, dealing internal damage to the target and healing you for 50% of the damage dealt. Force Serenity deals 30% more damage when used on a target affected by your Weaken Mind.
Level 51 - Pick 1 Passive Skill
Telekinetic Defense
Your Force Armor reverberates with Force energy, blasting attackers for 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.
Force Mobility
Turbulence, Healing Trance, and Force Serenity may be activated while moving.
Resistance
Increases damage reduction by 3%.
Level 60 - Gain Ability
Vanquish
30m range, 15s cooldown, 2s cast, costs 27 Force. Vanquishes the target with mighty force, dealing kinetic damage initially, plus an additional kinetic damage over 6 seconds. The target also becomes Vulnerable for 45 seconds, increasing the damage taken from Force attacks by 5%. Replaces Mind Crush.
Level 64 - Pick 1 Passive Skill
Metaphysical Alacrity
Reduces the cooldowns of Force Speed by 5 seconds, Force Slow by 3 seconds, and Force Barrier by 30 seconds. In addition, Mental Alacrity 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.
Valorous Spirit
Force Mend increases your damage reduction by 15% for 6 seconds. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of Force Mend by 5 seconds.
Kinetic Collapse
Force Armors you place on yourself erupt in a flash of light when they end, blinding up to 8 nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect breaks from direct damage.
Level 68 - Pick 1 Ability
Telekinetic Blitz
30m range, 10s cooldown, costs 45 Force. Deals kinetic damage to your target and leaves you feeling Empowered for up to 5 seconds. The Empowered effect can stack three times, with each stack increasing Telekinetic Blitz damage by 30%. The ability has 3 charges and recharges every 10 seconds. In addition, Telekinetic Blitz’s damage is increased by 10% and if applicable healing.
Force Lift
30m range, 60s cooldown, costs 9 Force. Lifts the target helplessly into the air, preventing all action for up to 60 seconds. Non-player, non-standard, and non-weak targets heal rapidly while trapped. Damage causes this effect to end prematurely.
Phase Walk
1.5s cooldown, 0.5s cast. Activating this ability marks your current location for 10 minutes. When this ability is activated again, if you are within 60 meters of the marked location, you instantly return to the marked location. Phase Walk goes on cooldown for 60 seconds when used to return to the marked location.
Level 73 - Pick 1 Passive Skill
Egress
Force Speed grants Egress, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration.
Confound
Targets affected by your Weaken Mind are slowed by 30% for its duration.
Mind Ward
Reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%.
Gearing in 7.0
Summary
Please see my initial 7.0 Gearing Guide for more information on gearing.
Preliminary gearing targets for Balance Sage should be as follows:
Legendary: Gathering Storm and Unmatched Haste
Tactical: Tempest of Rho
Relics: Focused Retribution and either Serendipitous Assault or Devastating Vengeance
Crystal: Eviscerating or War Hero
Stim: Proficient stim (Versatile works too but Proficient is more convenient for Accuracy)
Adrenal: Critical or Attack adrenal
Regarding Relics and Crystals, Critical Rating will be more valuable in lower tiers of gear or gear that has not yet been augmented. As the player moves through Rakata gear up to item rating 330 and beyond, it is expected that Mastery will be preferred. As such, I'd mostly suggest using whichever is most convenient as the impact on performance will be relatively low.
Tertiary stats and augments should be allocated as follows:
Accuracy Rating: 2,694 (110% accuracy)
Alacrity Rating: 2,250 - 2,400 (1.4s GCD assuming no Zeal perk)
Critical Rating: All remaining tertiary stats
Legendary Implants
Gathering Storm Package
Force Speed makes your next direct Force attack deal 20% more damage and Force attacks deal 20% more damage while Mental Alacrity is active. Package contains Alacrity Rating.
Comments: A fantastic option for damage disciplines, this legendary includes the benefits from the old Gathering Storm set bonus. A must take for Telekinetics and Balance disciplines.
Unmatched Haste Package
The duration of Mental Alacrity is increased by 5 seconds, and using Force Speed reduces the active cooldown of Mental Alacrity by 5 seconds. Package contains Critical Rating.
Comments: A fantastic option for damage disciplines, this legendary includes some of the benefits from the old Gathering Storm set bonus. A must take for Telekinetics and Balance disciplines. Unmatched Haste is also a solid option for healers to provide longer and more frequent sustained burst healing windows.
Tacticals
Tempest of Rho
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.
Comments:
This tactical is very straightforward in that it provides frequent chances for additional ticks of one of the discipline’s two main DoTs, thereby providing a strict DPS increase. It provides the greatest single target sustained damage increase and is preferred in most PVE encounters.
Mystic's Ruthless Blade
Vanquish deals 20% more damage on initial hit. Additionally, under Mental Alacrity, Vanquish resets the cooldown of Force Serenity and causes the next Force Serenity to activate instantly.
Comments:
The 20% buff to Vanquish's initial hit sounds nice but is underwhelming due to the ability doing a lot of its damage via a short duration DoT. The second buff to DPS is by enabling periodic bonus casts of Force Serenity while under Mental Alacrity. Replacing a GCD of Telekinetic Throw with a second Force Serenity each rotation is definitely a DPS increase.
The challenge for this tactical is you can only get 2 (maybe 3) bonus casts of Force Serenity per use of Mental Alacrity, and that bonus cast only provides incremental DPS based on it dealing more damage than Telekinetic Throw. The much increased uptime of Mental Alacrity via the Gathering Storm legendary is the only thing that might make this decent by providing 25s of uptime out of every minute.
In comparison to Tempest of Rho which provides predictable and consistent extra ticks of damage, Mystic’s Ruthless Blade provides a 20% buff to part of an ability used once every 10 GCDs and around half the time lets you use a higher damaging ability over a filler. Tempest of Rho is preferred in all situations.
The Rushdown
When Telekinetic Throw generates 4 stacks of Presence of Mind, you gain Presence Blitz, allowing your next 3 Telekinetic Blitz to deal 25% more damage and cost 50% less Force. Telekinetic Blitz consumes all stacks of Presence of Mind.
Comments:
Telekinetic Blitz is not a useful filler for Balance Sage so Rushdown is not recommended.
Rotation
Balance Sage in 7.0 will feel very similar to 6.x assuming the player does not take the level 27 Teachings of Rajivari passive skill. The core rotation and priority will be similar to use Vanquish, Force in Balance and Force Serenity on cooldown while maintaining uptime on Weaken Mind and Sever Force dots. Fillers will continue to be Telekinetic Throw and up to one Disturbance per rotation cycle.
You will no longer get an offensive benefit from using Force Armor as Telekinetic Defense is now locked by Force Mobility, though Force Armor itself is better as a mitigation tool by providing extra self healing.
Force Speed continues to be an offensive cooldown though now it is tied to the Gathering Storm and Unmatched Haste legendary packages instead of the old Gathering Storm set bonus. One change to this playstyle for Balance Sage is the Enhanced Force Speed level 43 passive skill, which will provide more frequent uses of Force Speed in any fights with periodic damage. Taking this passive will require not taking the Force Empowerment raid buff and coordination with other Sages on your team.
Balance has several interesting options that lean into its identity as a high self-sustain discipline. Force Armor now has a unique twist per Sage discipline with Balance getting a 1% per second self heal. Another option to buff self healing is the level 23 Shifted Balance ability that provides 50% more self healing compared to Force in Balance. As of 7.0 Shifted Balance appears to be bugged and is actually healing for 100% of damage dealt when the tooltip indicates it should be healing for 15% of damage dealt (which is 50% more than the base 10% healing done by Force in Balance). Balance can also spec into Cloud Mind at level 27 for 25% burst DR, level 43 Warden of the Force for 15% DR all the time and level 64 Valorous Spirit for 15% more burst DR. These three passives let Balance add 15% more DR all the time and up to 40% more DR for a short time, which combined with Force Armor can let Balance feel similar to a tank for a very short time. These options generally should not be taken in most situations but are neat options and may situationally be useful in prog situations or fights where DPS checks are not relevant to success.
The first big skill tree choices are the level 23 and 39 choices to upgrade Force in Balance and Sever Force. Shatter Connection at level 39 causes Sever Force to consume double the Force Suppression stacks and doubles the damage buff accordingly from 15% to 30%. Shatter Connection itself is not a DPS increase though if all stacks are being consumed so Consuming Light at level 23 complements it to add around 50% more stacks based on RNG. The alternative is to take Shifted Balance at level 23 to buff Force in Balance’s damage at the cost of becoming a single target only ability and Returning Light at level 39 to allow more frequent uptime of Force Potency.
I recommend Consuming Light and Shatter Connection as the better options. My preliminary testing got better results from this build in single target and will be far better in any situations where AoE damage is relevant. For a short time it may be preferable to take Shifted Balance because it’s self healing is bugged and healing for 100% of damage dealt instead of the expected 30%, but I expect this to be patched and corrected. Assuming so, then the self-sustain benefit for Shifted Balance is fairly nominal. I also dislike Returning Light because the cooldown reduction of Force Potency is offset by the need to save it for use with Force in Balance/Shifted Balance and Force Serenity.
Regardless of your skill choices at level 23 and 39 there is no impact to your rotation, thankfully.
The second big choice and the one that may impact your rotation is the level 27 choice of Teachings of Rajivari (“Rajivari” hereafter) for single target damage, Cloud Mind for DR or Destructive Wave for AoE damage. Rajivari causes Project to trigger any remaining damage from Weaken Mind and Sever Force in one tick each of damage.
Rajivari is helpful for burst DPS phases, though it is held back by the lack of a passive skill to reset the cooldown of Project if an enemy is quickly killed. Rajivari also helps in movement phases to replace uses of Telekinetic Throw with Project and reapplication of dots. My testing is that it might provide a slight DPS increase but at the cost of massively disrupting the rotation.
If using Rajivari then the objective to maximize its benefit is to apply both DoTs, use Project, then immediately re-apply DoTs. Force in Balance, Vanquish and Force Serenity should still take priority so Project or DoT reapplication may be delayed 1-2 GCDs as necessary.
My overall recommendation is to take Rajivari anytime you can live without Cloud Mind’s DR but to generally avoid using it except where necessary. Use it during movement phases to buy yourself time to get to safety before resuming the use of Telekinetic Throw. You can also use it anytime the burst damage will kill the enemy without needing to re-apply DoTs. Otherwise stick to the normal rotation.