Where does it say that the "primary purpose" of the sorc is to be a healbot? The apoth can run out and back in a short enough time to barely be at risk, don't even try to perpetuate that nonsense. I've watched them heal people and rez in the middle of melee fights. What is MoN range? Did they make MoN an attack now? Do you even know what you're talking about? Since when did sorcs get a power sword? Was that new just today? In fact, I have sincere doubts you even play Chaos; this reads like a ridiculous exaggeration coupled with a complete unawareness of what a sorc is actually using and doing.
The primary pupose of the AS is to support.Support doesnt mean a free kill.We f@cking had that and it was painfull even the metics showed that.
Asymmetrical balance doesnt require everyone to have the same abilities and skills. You're arguing for Sorcerers and Apothecaries to be the same thing in different ways. Neutering 1 while not changing the other can be balanced if something like Assault Marine or Auto-cannon squads with a Sorcerer behind them is an effective strategy, it doesnt mean that Apothecaries need to be able to heal at range out of line of fire. The range on corruption stream is to long. I have seen many Chaos mains agree with that. Especially considering it doesn't require any skill to use (which makes it seem even less fun to play against). Its one thing to get killed by a well timed/placed plasma cannon lob or great tracking from an autocannon. I can think they did a good job. When a sorcerer point and click adventures me to death from outside effective bolter range, I don't think they did a good job. I think the game was designed poorly.
But if you're going to use that as your argument, it applies to leaving things the way they are. Asymmetrical balance, right? You can't use that as the basis for saying, "it's okay to neuter this class but leave its counterpart able to do much more than it can", that's just ridiculous.
I really like the idea stated earlier of using a damage heal balance system for Sorc. You should always be able to heal, but as you do you increase your psychic resources that can be used for damage dealing.
I see a lot of people re-hashing stuff that has already been thrown out there and replied to in the game design thread. See somewhere around pg 44-45 for the original suggestion and Brent's reply. He likes the idea of diminishing returns as range increases, but said that it will probably come post-launch. For now, the range will be reduced. He also replied saying that Apo will get some cool toys for the narthecium soon and that poison on the narthecium will be accomplished though wargear. Don't remember what he guessed for timeline on the poison wargear. Like the idea of overheat on SoC, but let's see what happens. Brent didn't go into a lot of detail on the narthecium goodies, but it may be that one of them will confer poison resistance.
I'm pointing out that what you called "not balanced" can be be balanced without having everyone being able to do the same thing. If thats what you really need, play overwatch. Yes, it could be a good reason to leave the stream of corruption as is. If they wanted to make Chaos the lower skill auto lock on faction that makes perfect sense. Except it might not be balanced according to the metrics* (people say Chaos win a lot more than everyone else, I cannot verify that, I win plenty as every faction when I get teams coordinated) that people keep referring too. And if it isn't balanced it needs to be tweaked (and I would start with cheese designs like auto lock on super range spells).
Show us on the doll where the mean sorceror touched you. That's the only motivation I can think of for your constant hyperbole and sensationalism with regards to SoC, Spoiler Stalvert.
