This is a joke right? I am going to assume its not a joke however and explain in event you simply do not understand the mechanics involved. With the amount of accuracy on most pvp gear your defence will be completely worthless unless you have it stacked to well over 20% defense chance. (not to mention half the dps classes primarily use force/tech attacks which completely bypass defence anyway) Also absorption is a stat that functions alongside shield item, and REQUIRES a shield item in offhand. So your Absorption is doing absolutely nothing EVER. Will not go into the spec in detail but i do question the value of a support role that only adds a tiny bit of additional support that a pure spec to 31 cannot do... Whilst sacrificing all dps.

for A: i would say for most situations watchman spec will always be better in 1v2 settings. In 1v1 Combat or Watchman sentinels will generally beat all others using slightly different tools/speeds but victory is generally assured except i find vs other sentinels (i find watchman has edge over combat in 1v1 between the two assuming same player skill) B: Probably Focus spec, but in all honesty all 3 spec's should be perfectly capable of topping charts, i have done so with all 3. My highest recorded total damage done to date has been in combat spec in a very good premade, however i have no doubt i could do the same in watchman. C: Combat spec has the most tools for objective/team play, with the improved movement speed and immobilises being clear advantage in huttball, and likewise helps greatly in rushing to next doors in voidstar etc. EDIT: i generally play premade C, and i swap between both watchman and combat currently. Advantages as stated with combat is the speed and immobilises, but watchman i find better for being 'that guy holding the other door' in voidstar, or 'solo holding a turret' in alderaan, its very effective in these situations where 1v1's or 1v2's are very common.

if you want an aoe spec id recommend focus tree... but combat is indeed decent right now, i would say its strength lies in decent premades due to the high speed buff and less survivability than watchman for example. As to DPS, it parses higher than Watchman in my test dummy tests today, on 5min parses. I was getting Combat at around 1400ish, and Watchman at 1300ish... personally i recently have been giving watchman a go and whilst its dps overall is marginally lower, in practice its often higher due to combat requiring good timing on abilities after precision and such which can often be messed up, and the survivability of watchman is still much better. It is really now down to heals vs immobilises etc i think for pvp. In pve the combat spec's dps wont be inturrupted really and due to more armour debuffs it does come out a fair bit higher.

Both specs work perfectly fine in pve... and pvp. A good player can make either work very well in either setting. A bad player... may still be ok at watchman The only info i gleaned from OP is that he needs to learn more about the game and his spec.

This is actually incorrect. a common misconception is that force attacks ignore armour when it infact does not, it only ignores defence/shield (which only tanks have high enough to have any chance of lowering damage or deflecting attack) so the move to weapon damage and increased damage is most certainly a marked improvement on anything other than tanks... i am actually fine with that

That is a very good example of how 'not' to build a sentinel, thanks for sharing!

must work like magic when you get CC'd after 2 sec

Do you find muffins or doughnuts better food whilst pvping as a sentinel?

totally agree

played all 3 to some extent, played combat the most due to enjoying it the most, fits my style , i like the burst, the movement speed increase and the overal control All 3 work decently though and will be more balanced i think after 1.2 also

my recommendation is to try all 3 spec's and find the one you enjoy playing the most, asking others to choose for you may not necessarily help.

Not so, it is possible to have your team under orders to not lower the bridges or kill any of enemy as soon as those first doors blow. At this point your guy can leap over... have no opposition at all. Once your team has blown next doors, your team can jump down the pit or let themselves die and enemy team who have not figured out how to suicide are trapped

favourite thing about Sentinel (combat spec specific really) is the pace of play, it feels very very fast, you move faster in combat than everyone else really, you even swing faster (under zen) ive had so many people in HM flashpoints and such comment 'thats the fastest ive ever seen that boss killed' when ive been there, its nice

hybrid spec sentinels flat out dont work. you need to pick one and get the 31 point talent and imo all 3 spec's really need more than 31 points in their own spec just to get the most out of it.

i wont be surprised combat also here and loving the dps

this part is funny atm in duels, you can try hit it at max melee as someone is jumping, when they land (in combat spec) the immobilise kicks in and they are out of range to hit you back or inturrupt (only funny in sentinel vs sentinel duels, since mostly people dont consider currently to use force stasis just to inturrupt master strike when kick is sufficient.)

combat is harder to play in general, id advise if your having trouble keeping track of your target.. to lower graphics settings perhaps to improve framerate (may make it easier) use leg slash more as they wont move away from you so fast after your immobilises break, thus easier to see where they are... strafe a LOT, keybind all you can, move about as fast as you can it makes it hard to mouse target you for the enemy that way, and tab targetting is a bit mental and can be used against them... Just run and leap in circles around people like a lunatic whilst hitting them i force camo a lot if i start to get focused by anything (or even if i see an aimed shot target on me sometimes.. or lightning start to hit) it forces people to re-target someone else or try and target you again with the targetting issues (see above) this reduces your deaths and gives you more in combat time as for rotations.. well you cannot really always stick to them due to amount of CC often flying around but.. Blade Storm always follows a Blade Rush thats one rule i follow (saves having to look for combat trance thing on your buffs) Use Precision as often as you can but always ensure you got a fair bit of focus built first and fill the time following with an immediate master strike, or some bladerush>bladestorm etc cannot think of what else, gear may hold you back a little atm but should be enough there to do the job. In mostly battlemaster if im mostly doing damage for a match (such as voidstar and a lot of alderaan games) my total damage done is usually in the 200-400k range, my personal best on a voidstar was 512k (in a game with rediculous healing on both sides) but i would not go on that number too much... What you need to be looking at is... am i killing lots of people really fast like an unstoppable machine! edit: sorry this was a pvp only perspective really as i dont do a huge amount of PvE atm. and i forgot to also mention.. when you pop zen, hit the relic and adrenal at the same time, then precision then bladerush spam, it can be quite devastating )

if you are only going to equip one companion i would recommend doc... however there is a spoiler related boss at the finale of your class quest that 'requires' T7 and the chest (when i did it) bugged... It is possible to do it without bothering to gear T7 tho it just makes it a bit more difficult

of course you would dominate from 40-49 in the low level tier, half of the people your killing have not even got half of their abilities or talents yet. I am not saying it is a L2P issue either since i have no idea how you play... But gear DOES make a difference on a sentinel. We are often one of the closest targets to the enemies backline of ranged... we will get focused and targetted over any other melee in general, if your gear is weak you may be targetted just due to it being a better chance of getting a 5k damage medal (since people in better gear will mitigate more) or hell i target new weak geared marauders just because its fun stomping them effortlessly (i like to think of it as my inducting them to the 50 bracket) The gear gap between centurion and champion is quite a step and unless you vastly outskill your target they will have a big upper hand. The gap between champion and battlemaster is not so big but its still there. edit: i would try stick with it until you have your champion armour set (well with 1.2 soon id say battlemaster mostly i guess) and if you have problems still.. THEN it is likely a L2P issue. But right now with vast under-gear i would expect you to get stomped mostly in all honesty unless you pick your fights well and pick other similarly undergeared people

stopped the stream for now since we seem to have run out of people willing to queue but its 1am here... will be streaming up on and off though daily and may be around on the chat pannel there if anyone interested in chattin! (especially from my own server!)

If any are interested im playing a Combat sent and il be streaming on and off from EU-Nightmare Lands server.... Currently slacking but will be doing lots of WZ shortly! http://www.twitch.tv/ainianu (Quality is poor due to it causing a touch too much lag if i up it too much)

but sentinels do not have true stealth, and that sounds important to you. Scoundrel/Operative and Assassin/Shadow are 'the' stealth classes.

It is still bugged, but i very very rarely use it on weak mob due to it being kind of overkill. I did bug report it when i first noticed it but really i stopped caring, the stun really needed? is that weak mob putting you at risk? Just do what i did and bug report it then carry on playing is my suggestion (if you do not do pvp however i would not take the talent since the immobilisation is really only for pvp)

One thing you need to stop is their lightning, it may seem similar to a sorcs lolspam but it is not. As soon as they start to do it, force stasis, awe or force camo (it cannot be inturrupted with kick if they have this spec) It can do a nasty bit of damage and heals them back for a % of their hp i think, so whilst it cannot be inturrupted stunning them with force stasis or awe will stop it, as would force camo to cancel the ability. (think of this as something like a watchman using zen) Further they have a force cloak thing that stops force damage (im pretty sure watchman dots fall under this) so focus more on your weapon damage, merciless slash, slashes and even master strike. I will admit that i have not played watchman extensively enough to come accross 1v1 situations with these guys whilst under the spec, but in combat spec the above holds true (roughly... the abilities i listed are obviously what i would use under watchman) and the battle is made a lot easier via precision, but even in watchman you got a lot of weapon damage available and it may be worth switching to shii-cho form for zen?

my experience in Nightmare Lands (from republic point of view) is as you say winning over and over against empire pug's rarely any pre-mades i see, and then eventually it just ends up republic vs republic for rest of the night, this is pretty much an average day. (That said i had a good game today against a 'the others' premade which we won still but was a good challenging game, happened to be one of the ones i was recording a vid of too)