I am prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are still trying to improve our 'playing experience'. This whole revenue/server lease theory could be true but I don't care. Thats because, if you have not told us that due to 'financial reasons' or otherwise, you are taking this course of action, then I have to take you on face value and assume you are trying your best, albeit slowly. You need a way better understanding of what the players want. Conduct a poll or actually speak to people. I would bet my subscription on the results showing an undeniable majority of APAC players value ping over population, server type, legacy and character names combined. Not everyone, but a huge majority. A majority so big that they are worth pleasing if you really have the APAC community's best interests at heart. Do the research, and show me results that say otherwise. This is the wrong decision. I find the reasons you have given us confusing and inconsiderate to the way everyone appears to feel about the issue. TL;DR Change this decision. I cannot be any clearer about it. I will be unsubscribing if you don't. Do nothing; it would be better than this because to me and I would say the majority (WTB Stats): PING > POPULATION

On behalf of myself and anyone I have ever spoken to who currently plays on APAC servers, this is the wrong decision. Lets be totally clear, I would prefer you did nothing than do this. My ideal scenario is still to merge all 3 APAC servers. For me, and I'm sure many others, the most crucial elements to this issue and the reasons we continue to play this game are in the following order of importance: 1. Ping 2. Population 3. Legacy 4. Server Type Lets break it down: If you remove my choice of Server Type, I will still play, because I have my own Legacy, high Population and low Ping. If you remove my Legacy, thats alright. I will start over willingly if I have a high Population and low Ping. If the population dies, its not ideal, but I will still play because I have low Ping (this is the situation right now). Instead of attempting to solve issue number 2 (the biggest issue in-game currently), even if it means sacrificing issues 3 and 4, you have instead totally eroded the biggest reason I am still playing. Without element 1, it doesn't matter how good 2, 3 & 4 are, its no longer worth playing this game. It'd be awesome to know you have read and comprehend the point I'm trying to make, even if you do not change your course of action. But just knowing that you understand why I believe this is a terrible outcome would bring me some small vestige of satisfaction. TL;DR Any solution that even slightly improves populations and still lets us keep our low ping is good enough. Any solution that increases our ping, regardless of population increases is a terrible one.

My gear is all built for healing. I have no idea what the differences should be for DPS. I sit near 950 Bonus Force Damage with ~76.5% Surge, ~6.93% Alac and ~34% Force Crit. I have mostly 63 mods with some 61s. My set bonus is silly, I have just been using healing set bonuses. At least, thats what I did the good DPS games with. But since I have been playing DPS more lately I recently got just the 2 set force master pvp bonus, thats it. I haven't played full TK much in pvp. Its great if you don't get focused, but you will get focused. I have seen it totally dominate in lowbies, but never in 50s. I played my first ranked games with Sage DPS earlier this week. Wen't very well. Played two games (2-0) and topped the table in both. Definitely harder to burst a target compared to playing my sentinel but the damage is relatively high and immensely steady. I'll have to play more ranked games to test its viability properly.

When I'm bubbling I play: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GhMRrkMzZf0RroMbZ0M.2 When I'm puddling I play: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GhrRrkMdGzZf00MZ0M.2 Since I first posted I've done just over 1.1k DPS with this build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600ZMsMMdRrhZcMcRsMz.2 The only thing I'd mention with the DPS build is you can really do whatever you want with the bottom of the tele tree. I find it literally impossible to run out of force so I get as few regen talents as I can. Can mount an argument against that but I just find myself never needing more force. Agree about Sage being so versatile. In terms of team heals I generally just cleanse and bubble teammates (as opposed to hard cast heals). @chrisronline and @Midichlorian you make good points about the burst. It does feel like the weakest aspect. I wouldn't say its fluff damage (or dot damage). It feels to me like constant single target or AoE pressure damage. It can't compete with Pyro/Smash but it is solid nonetheless. I'm going to play my first ranked game with it this week so I'm excited to see how it goes focusing targets down in that environment

I've been doing some sage/sorc dps lately and have loved it! The output is definitely not an issue. My best is 1010 DPS, but I'm averaging somewhere between 500-900 dps per game. And this is not just team DoT pressure. I play a hybrid spec that I sorta just made up but I only throw out a few dots and didn't pick up many DoT-boosting talents. Most of the damage is single target burst, or AoE pressure. I'm playing a 0/23/18 variation The survivability is pretty awful if you're focused. I have to admit I haven't played it in RWZ yet so that will change my view I'm sure. You have great kiting abilities even without the 31pt shared tree root (sprint, bubble, KB w/ roots, slows, grenades, force stun, insta-lift), but you can't really survive more than 1 good smasher without a guard. Utility is great for the team. Pull, sprint, insta-lift, force cleanse, stun bubbles and to a lesser extent hard cast heals are great tools you can throw out to aid your team. Mostly your effectiveness comes down to positioning. Mine is average because I play sentinel as a main and so I end up standing way to far forward. If you get that right you will rarely get focused in normal wzs and when you do it will be by someone who has overextended, and you can kill/cc/kite them with relative ease.

Hey everybody, My main is a sentinel but I have been playing my sage lately for healing friends in normal warzones. Bubble spec is OP, but also been puddling (AoE) a bit ahead of 2.0. Throughout all this I've read repeatedly that sage DPS is poor in PvP (compared to PT, Smash etc). But recently I've played some sage DPS and I could not disagree more. I've been putting out massive numbers as DPS, my best is 1010 DPS in a 1/2-3/4 length voidstar, but I'm consistently pulling 550-850 DPS per game. My biggest flaw is that I play like a sentinel still; I position way too far forward, often in melee range. Sage DPS is very strong! It suffers from serious survivability issues if focused hard but thats true of every class, especially one thats ranged with light armour. This often happens when there aren't any melee DPS teammates who draw most of the focus fire and my DPS suffers as a result. But overall, its seriously viable and short of getting trained the entire game you can go toe-to-toe, if not beat any other DPS class. Now I could be behind the times and in fact people do play sage DPS, but I never see them on my server. So I want to know why people think Sage DPS isn't worth playing? Is it output, or just survivability, mobility or utility? Keen to hear some thoughts!!

I thought that video was extremely entertaining! Watched it twice

Only thing that hasn't been mentioned much is that on Imps, if you are pugging, you literally might not get your weekly done. Thats a slight exaggeration because if you pvp enough you will, but it is far harder than playing on the reps and can be a bit of a demotivator. But looks like you've chosen already. Good luck

Well done to the organisers on what was in my opinion the greatest day this server has seen in a long time. It was refreshing to see an event pull 70+ people back to the republic fleet! It inspired the community and most of all was very entertaining. Thank you!

As an accomplished sentinel with fully min/maxed gear I agree that 1390 Expertise is the way to go. The high power option I feel is more effective on undergeared players, where that extra bonus damage really cuts through their low DR. But for geared players (which is what the best PvPers will be) the bonuses from expertise outweigh the purely offensive gains from more power. That is literally just my opinion based on my experience though, nothing more. I also picked up Defensive Roll at the cost of the Enraged Slash/Focused Slash (1/3 instead of 3/3). So far I haven't noticed any focus/rage issues, but I haven't done a close analysis of this. I pretty much never have to use our basic attack, but I do use Battering Assault/Zelous Strike to generate more focus (partly because I need focus, but also partly because watchman/annihilation is still drilled into my muscle memory).

The best teams have a balance of players/player-types. Objectives are well and good, but as others have already mentioned, they are currently an inadequate measure of team contribution. In non-organized PvP it would be interesting to see a Group-Finder style system where you queue for pvp and state the roll you want to play. A queue would pop when there is a balance of players for each roll. This wouldn't work great in practice, especially in a warzone like Hutball, but the most successful public games I have played have been where there are two healers who clearly do their job, 1-2 tanks who are actively protecting, taunting and peeling, 2-3 dedicated DPSers focusing healers and enemy DPSers and 1-2 players who actively focus on objectives (e.g. they are defending a node, providing utility, interrupting enemy node cappers, cc-ing opposition etc.) The balance works the best. What doesn't work is when you have a healer (as an example) who believes so strongly in playing the objective that they stop healing to focus on the objective. Their job is to keep the team alive, not cap the nodes. But the problem is they feel like no one else is doing it. In Hutball for instance, you need people to take control of mid so you can get hold of the ball. Its quite important. The current system doesn't acknowledge that. I tend to vote for people who attempt to communicate with the team and try to create a team structure which will allow us to win. I rate people who take the initiative. On a person note, if I'm playing my sentinel and get into hutball I can play in very different ways. If I am in a pug with a few shadow tanks, I will assume or encourage them to carry the ball, and so I will focus entirely on DPS, probably top the damage chart and either control mid/peel the ball carrier/burn enemy healers. However, if there are no such tanks I will take it upon myself to carry the ball and just hope our team doesn't get drastically out-dps'd. Common sense tends to prevail, but communication is the most effective way to get that team-wide balance.

The solution is to change the skill so only bubbles cast on the actual caster (sorc/sage) apply the stun effect when they are broken. All other bubbles cast on team mates just work as damage mitigation tools with no stun. I would also suggest that this 'talent', that adds the self-bubble-stun-effect be placed far lower in the tele tree so all 3 specs of sages can obtain it, not just healers. It will also allow healers to go deep into the Seer/Corruption trees. So the net result is, they will do more healing, there will be less cc overall, they retain their survivability, and they melee players won't spend most of the game cc'd. Why this works: Retains the survivability boost sorcs/sages get with the bubble (and which they need). Reduces the overall amount of cc in a large fight. At the moment most of us agree that on the whole it is too much (even if we disagree on why that is the case). It means that sorcs/sages are no longer the only #1 must-have class for Ranked, or highly competitive PvP. At the moment your team is at a serious disadvantage if you don't have a bubble caster and the opposition does. If this change was made, you would just face a healer that has good output and very effective survivability. Thoughts?

I personally enjoy the challenge of trying to kill the healer playing the bubble spec. I also think that sages/sorcs needed to the survivability. To that end, I would suggest leaving the bubble spec as it is. And for the record, I play a Sentinel. My issue is the fact that every other play on their team is bubble'd as well. In RWZ it is such a huge advantage words cannot even describe. Hence I strongly believe that the best solution is to make the 'stun' effect of bubbles only apply to the actual caster of the bubble. Every other team mate who is bubbled just receives the damage mitigation, but no stun.

Nice. I have cracked 1mil two times now, my best being close to 1.1, but I haven't gotten the DPS up to 1100 yet so congrats (Best has been ~1000). I think voidstar is probably the only viable wz in which you can achieve that kind of DPS. Need some stars to align on that map though, especially in terms of the way the opposition positions themselves so you can get more bang for your buck out of smash/sweep. Nice work!

I do not prefer Ops. Op healers are great, especially there high survivability, but sorc healers are in another league entirely if they are playing bubble spec. I think most people at the moment would choose a sorc/sage over an op/scoundrel for competitive ranked games everytime. You simply have to because if the opposition have one you will find it nearly impossible to bring a good team down. I stand by what I said. They needed the survivability boost, let them keep their stun, but only on the bubbles they cast on themselves.

Must be changed. But don't remove it. Sages/Sorcs (of all specs) need the survivability boost it brings. Change it so the stun effect only applies to bubbles cast by the caster on the caster. Other allies who receive bubbles just receive the shield and not the stun effect. I genuinely believe this is the best solution.

+1 Agree. It must be changed. What do you think about this as a solution (not saying its perfect, just looking for honest feedback): So firstly, Pre 1.4, sages/sorcs needed a survivability boost, their numbers were fine, but they were too easy to kill. The Self-Heal and the stunning bubble achieve this nicely I feel. Therefore I think solutions that involve removing the 'hard-cc' effect of the bubbles is a bad one because it reduces their survivability. I propose the following (make sure you read it all!): a) Basic Bubble works as it did Pre-1.4 b) The talent in the tele tree that gives bubbles the stun is removed and replaced with something else (not sure exactly what) c) There is a new talent (either 1, 2 or 3 points, probably 2) in the first tier of the tele tree that works exactly the same as the current 'bubble spec' one does, except that it only applies to bubbles that are cast on the actual caster of the bubble. So, what we have is an easy to pick up talent that means all sages/sorcs can get that survivability boost (i.e. a bubble that stuns) when they apply bubble to themselves. It also means healers can spec into it without having to go deep into the tele tree. It also means that there won't be stun fest because all bubbles cast (mostly by heal spec'd sages/sorcs) would just function as normal without the stun. Another possibility here is to make the current 'bubble spec' talent in the tele tree function like it did pre-1.4 and apply a soft cc to enemies who are nearby when any bubble breaks. This would be in addition to the hard stun the caster gets on their own bubble. There would still be the choice of whether or not to spec into the root on force wave (and perhaps the soft cc on bubble) for PvP healers. However at least now their are guaranteed the hard stun on their own bubbles and therefore guaranteed a survivability boost.

Hey guys, Never felt the compulsion to create a thread here suggesting something because I have never felt strongly enough about anything to justify it. Until now! The Suggester: A bit about me, I am a PvPer first and foremost. I have played a Sentinel, a Sage and a Sniper to 50, as well as a Vanguard and Scoundrel under 50. The reason I mention this is because I want to show that I have played the game from many different perspectives. The Issue: The following is a PvP issue. The Sage/Sorc bubbles are causing far too much CC, especially for melee players. They have become a 'required' class for RWZ because of this ability (you can still win without one, but you will struggle if the opposition have one). The Explanation: The goal of the devs for 1.4 was to reduce the amount of 'random' cc-ing/physics in the game. They attempted to achieve this by reducing the range and design of skills such as Sage/Sorc/Trooper/BH stuns, as well as KBs. They also changed the resolve system so people didn't reach full resolve too quickly when disorganized teams all stacked their stuns at the same time. Finally, and most importantly, they changed bubble so the stun effect wouldn't break on damage. Unfortunately, 'bubble spec', as it is now known, causes players to be cc'd so much more than pre-1.4. I can't imagine that this was the dev's intentions, because it is contrary to what they explicitly stated before the patch. When I am playing a melee class and the enemy sage/sorc is bubbling their team, I get cc'd from everywhere constantly. There have been a handful of incidents where I was hard-cc'd from 100% to 0% health, (they are rare, but that never happened before 1.4). Due to the resolve changes, multiple bubbles breaking at the same time doesn't build my resolve bar quickly, but the bubbles themselves don't seem to accrue much resolve on their own either. The difference I have facing a team with a bubble spec'd sage/sorc versus one which doesn't is simply huge. Classes like Snipers, Operatives, Commandos etc. do not feel the impact of this very much, but melee classes feel it severely. TL;DR a.k.a The Suggestion: Make the 'hard stun' effect of bubbles only apply to the actual caster, not any other allies. This means that Sages/Sorcs still get the survivability buff that they needed and are harder to kill. But it also means that everyone else isn't being hard cc'd all the time. This solution also keeps the 'hard' stun nature of the bubble and it also means cc's have to be used more tactically (and again, due to the good resolve changes, unorganized teams wont be penalized for mistakes with their ccs). Now the obvious issue here is that, the way it stands now, if this change was made, then all PvP healers would go back to a full healing build. So I propose that there should be a new 2 point, 1st tier talent put into one of the trees (probably the middle tree), so all sages/sorcs can spec into it if they like. What it would do is hard stun nearby enemies when bubbles they cast on themselves break. This would allow healers to get their AoE heal as well as pick up their survivability talent to give their own bubbles the hard stun effect.

Hey this is a random guess as to the cause of your problems, but here goes. Could it be possible that on the occasions where you have been cc'd while Resilience was up, you were being cc'd by a target who had over 100% accuracy? The tooltip says your resistance chance is increased by 100% (http://www.torhead.com/ability/dEsVsc4/resilience) The swtor character sheet says that accuracy over 100% reduces a targets resistance. http://www.swtor.com/gamemanual/how-to-play/character-sheet Is it possible you are ending up with a net of 95% resistance for example, and just getting unlucky? I have limited experience with your class, but its just a thought I had.

@AsiriusNazriel Unfortunately I'm not on that server so I can't play with you, but fun and games aside, your (or my) skill with the class has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether Insight effects your burn damage. You could be the best player in the entire game and still be wrong. I'm sure you're very good at your class. Firstly, with the Close Quarters question and Force Leap. This is a subjective, play style issue. There is no right or wrong answer. I have given the reasons for why I pick up CQ, and you have given reasons for why you have not. We can both be 'right' here because it is just opinions at this point. The same cannot be said of Insight's function. You said: Once again, there is no such thing as force damage. There are only force attacks. Yellow damage is either kinetic, internal or elemental damage. You are correct in saying that Insight will indeed boost the crit chance of your force 'attacks'. However, as I mentioned already, Cauterize is a melee attack, that deals some white damage as well as some yellow damage (this is elemental damage and this part is the dot). Again, 'force damage' as you call it does not exist. Unfortunately Insight does not benefit Cauterize as Cauterise is a weapon attack, not a force attack. Despite all of these issues, you have gone on to say, 'That is a fact', yet you have provided no evidence whatsoever. Just your opinion (even if you have mastered your class, it is still just your opinon). Yes, the article I supplied you is 9 months old, but I am a) unaware of any substantiated criticisms levelled against it and b) unaware of any changes to these game mechanics (from any patch notes published) that have occurred in the last 9 months. @Stealios You said: This assumption is false. In general you are correct, but OS & Cauterize are two exceptions to this rule of thumb. They are examples of melee attacks causing yellow damage. Firstly: Cauterize - Strikes the target for 503 - 562 damage and deals an additional 1398 elemental damage over 6 seconds. Requires two lightsabers. Source: http://www.torhead.com/ability/e0WvPob/cauterize So here, Cautirize 'strikes' the target for 'damage' to begin. This is very vague wording, but we can see from the colour of that damage that it is white, and we can infer from other skills that use the word strike, that it is referring to a melee attack. Significantly, following the white damage, it deals 'elemental damage'. This is, as we agree, yellow damage. Now if you go back and look at it closely, you will see that the only attack type here is a melee attack. Therefore we can conclude that a melee attack caused yellow damage to occur. Secondly: OS - Charges your lightsabers with deadly energy for 15 seconds, causing your next 3 successful melee attacks to make the target burn for 235 elemental damage over 6 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. Source: http://www.torhead.com/ability/5kENzZ0/overload-saber This one is a little bit more complex, but essentially the same principal. OS 'charge your lightsabers with deadly energy for 15 seconds'. So far no mention of any attacks occuring or any damage being dealt, just this 'charging'. But if we read on, we see it causes the next 3 'melee attacks' to make the target burn for ### 'elemental damage'. This is similar to Cauterize. We know elemental damage is yellow, but it seems to suggest that it is being caused by 'melee attacks', not force or tech attacks. The only difference here to Cauterize is that Cauterize is a melee attack where as OS creates the potential for your melee attacks (from other sources, like Slash) to make a target incur yellow damage. Therefore Insight, useless for both of them. So hopefully you can see how this works. If you still don't agree, please tell me precisely what part you disagree with. Again, I am not 100% I am correct, I am just 99% correct. An example of a how I could be wrong is if Insight said it increased the crit chance of force attacks by 6%, but was actually programmed to increase the crit chance of yellow damage instead. But this would be an inconsitency with the programming and the tooltip. If all that is ok, combined with the ticket I got back from Bioware confirming what I'm arguing, then I am very very confident I am correct. But like I said, if you can see something wrong, tell me.

You are simply wrong. There is no such thing as force damage. Force attacks are a type of attack, not a type of damage. Yellow damage does not exclusively come from Force attacks (as my previous post hopefully showed). If you have read my previous post and still do not understand or believe otherwise have a ready of another source explaining it again for you: http://projectmayhem.com.au/swtor/2012/01/27/attack-types-damage-types-avoidance-and-mitigation-in-swtor/

@Kel-el Watchguard is very very important. Pop 2/2 into it. The only difference to my build is that: 1) I put 2/2 into Focused Leap instead of Force Fade. I recommend just trying both and experimenting. Its a personal question more about your play-style rather than a right or wrong answer. Questions to ask yourself include: Do I have enough focus when I need it? How much am I using Force Leap? Is Force Fade enabling me to impact the WZ (e.g. interrupt node caps, close gaps, stay alive etc.) more? 2) I put 2/2 into Stagger and 1/2 into Defensive Roll. I find the root on Leap very useful because I use leap all the time. Pretty much everytime it is off cool down (nearly!). That said, I myself am unsure about this decision. Since the patch 1.4 there is so much AoE going down that the extra 15% could be beneficial. This issue allows depends on your playstyle (Do you stay on the fringes or wade into the thick of it?). @AsiriusNazriel I have the disagree with you on many of your points. I will of course give you reasons why. 1) You should be using leap all the time. Even within melee range at times. The benefits of Leap as a watchman sentinel are massive: You have a reduced cooldown from Blurred Speed. So by not using Leap as much, you aren't really 'using' it to its potential. It is an interrupt. Very useful when killing healers as well as other classes, as both a ranged interrupt and when your kick interrupt is on CD. It is a root. This stops your target kiting you and gives you a few more valuable seconds to apply slows or just burn them. It procs your 4-Set Vindicator Set Bonus, giving you a 10% damage bonus for 5 seconds. This alone justifies using it at all times. Get Close Quarters. 2) Your bleeds are not 'force' damage. In fact there is no such thing as 'force' damage, only 'force' attack types. Damage is kinetic, energy, elemental, internal etc. Insight has no effect on Overload Saber and Cauterize DoTs. It does work on Blade Storm and Sweep. Therefore it is not worth 3 points in my opinion. For more information as to why this is true have a look at this post I wrote a while ago in another thread explaining it in more detail: 3) Finally, I would just add that Sweep/Smash can be very useful. If there are 4 or 5 targets around you, use it! Secondly, if you are fightning a Sniper/Op who uses Dodge/Evasion, they can still be hit with non-physical attacks, so use Sweep/Smash, Blade Storm and apply your dots! Thirdly, if versing a tank or an assassin who has popped their 50% Physical Damage Reduction cooldown, using your 'yellow' damage attacks to get around this can be very effective.

Basically all the issues have now been covered. I might just reiterate some of the most significant ones that in my opinion have greatly effected PvP. In no particular order: The resolve changes. Overall I would say it has had a net negative effect. The amount of time you spend stunned overall has increased which is disappointing, especially given that Bioware made it clear they were trying to reduce the over abundance of crowd control (as evidenced by their decision to reduce the range of stuns for example). The finest organised PvPers aren't able to CC you any longer than previously, but in normal warzones and even in ranked games, the difference is quite noticeable. You will be cc'd more, especially if you are a melee player. Part of the responsibility for this is lies with: The bubble spec! The CC effect that follows the breaking of a bubble now no longer breaks on damage. It is a hard cc. Given the copious number of bubbles that a healer can produce, combined with the fact that now 2 or more bubbles exploding around you at once won't fill your resolve bar like they used to, means that you get cc'd far too often. Expect to see this spec become a required spec for good ranked pvp. I think some people are still working out how good it is. The overall TTK seems to have gone down again. Could be caused by a combination of factors (conspiracy theories contend that Bioware went under the hood and tweaked the formulas) but overall I see this as a negative as it reduces the skill required to PvP well. As a result of the sheer volume of burst (coming from things such as, FoTM Focus/Rage Juggs, Guardians, Marauders and Sentinels, 2 separate grenade cool downs for Troopers/BHs, buffs to Deception Sins/Shadows and Concealment Ops/Scoundrels) any healers that you have in a warzone confers a massive advantage to you and your team. Final thoughts: It is still fun to play and I am having a good time on this server PvPing with all the different people. It is still early days so things will change a lot in the coming weeks as we see more patterns emerge. The changes to the warzones themselves (timers etc) aren't the best as previous posters have pointed out, but they are non-issues compared to class balance in my view. Biggest issue in the game is, and will continue to be, the low population. That said, that community is doing quite well, all things considered. Finally, given the points I have raised, I feel that if they could increase the TTK substantially the resolve changes would work a lot better and make a more interesting gameplay experience. Now unfortunately it is all too often (CC-->Get Burnt--> Die) for the losing team and (CC-->Get Burnt-->Get Healed) for the winning team. With the benefit of hindsight, the TTK circa Patch 1.0-1.1 was where it was at.

I was giving this spec a try a few days ago straight after the patch. There weren't any builds being discussed on the forums that I could see so I made up my own. Yours is the same as mine except for 1 small change. Tell me what you think. I'm currently trying 1/3 into Enraged Slash instead of 3/3, and putting 2 into Defensive Roll. Now I'm not sure if you're running with healers often, but I haven't been and the biggest difference coming from Annihilation/Watchman (which I have pretty much mastered) is that as a Focus/Rage spec it is much harder to really influence the game without good support from a healer. You still do the DPS (and boy do you do the DPS!) but you die more often (at least I have been). With Watchman/Annih I felt like I could singlehandedly turn the tide by getting out the back and wreaking havoc, but as a Focus/Rage spec you are all about the team-wide DPS pressure. Admittedly, I am definitely a bit of a noob with the spec still (and given that I'm still managing to do more damage than Annih/Watchman in most games, which suggests how strong it truly is) but I feel my point still stands. I have found that since the patch Focus Sents/Rage Maras are absolutely focus/rage saturated, so the refund from Enraged Slash isn't really necessary (especially if you are using all your other focus generating skills correctly). The Defensive Roll points allow me to get right in amongst the crowd without getting burst down as fast, which in turn allows me to line up my 5x6k sweeps/smashes. Thoughts?

I feel as though you are using it the wrong way. The real benefit of Zen for a Focus spec is the 4 charges of Singularity it creates. You pop Zen for the 4 charges so you can line up another Sweep. You don't (very rarely perhaps) pop Zen in order to get focus. The 1.4 changes have caused Focus Sentinels to be absolutely focus saturated in my opinion. You can always use Zelous Strike (or Leap) for that extra focus too, rather than wasting a Zen on it. I understand the issue of having 'wasted focus' because you will almost always cap out your focus from popping Zen but think of that as just a bonus. The real effect of Zen is 4 Singularity charges. The full bar of focus you now have allows you to spam Slash, Blade Storm etc until you can line up another Sweep.