Yeah, Combat doesnt really shine till 40 when you get bladerush. Once you get bladerush, remove slash from your toolbar and use bladerush anytime you would normally slash. Bladerush hits with both weapons, does more damage than slash, and has 100% chance to do an ataru proc.

Not claiming I have the best Combat Build, but this is what I role with http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bcZGMrRRrrdGzZM.1 Combat you have to adapt to lots of situations. Its not like Watchman where you have your straight burns + merc slash rotation. Most fights you should open with (optional)Leap, Zealous Strike, Precision Strike, blade rush, Master Strike, Blade Storm. If you time it right you will get all 3 hits from Master Strike in and still have just enough time to hit Blade Storm before combat trance and precision is off. This gives you an autocrit, 100% armor bypass Blade Storm. From there its all about precision strike on cooldown, followed with either bladerush spam, or the masterstrike +bladestorm combo when available. With 1.2 You gain centering alot faster. When you have zen ready, hit precision, zen, then bladerush spam. On your last attack while under precision, bladestorm. Also dont forget utility. Your saberthrow roots people for 3 seconds, you also get a massive runspeed boost with transcendence.

Why are you using wounding shot before you have any bleeds on the target?

Drop Open Wounds. The extra tick to vital shot in the description is misleading. You do get an extra tick, but every tick is less damage. So as it stands vital shot does the exact same damage with and without open wound. However with OpenWound it takes a second longer, so it actually lowers your dps.

I must be awesome then, cause i rarely have energy problems. I use cool head alot, but it should be used alot. I maybe have1 moment a warzone where im out of energy, no cool head, and need to think of something.

Ive been running the "DoT and HoT" build : http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701rfcMzhZZhrdorMhd.1 You miss out on Hemm Blast, but you get a bit more survival from have 2 slow-release medpacks on you. Plus SRMP has a chance to give you an UH on each tick. So basically you can hang back further and still spam Wounding Shot, without having to get up close and personal. Or you if you have the health, you can rush in and add even more UH's through blaster whip, and really lay down the Wounding shots. Its not uncommon for me to get 2-4 Wounding shots off on 1 target. Really scares them when the stars align and you can fire off 3 Wounding Shots in a row taking almost all their life in 1 go.

Ummm, its pretty obvious. Dot Target up, put 2 SRMP on yourself. Everytime you get a free UH Proc, use Wounding Shots. Its actually a pretty common df/saw build. They call it the DoT and HoT Only suggestion is to drop Open Wounds. it actually lowers your dps. Open Wounds makes vital shot have an extra tick, however it lowers the damage of each tick to make up for it, so it does the exact same damage as normal vital shot, but takes an extra second. So it actually lowers your dps.

uhhh, I just did this mission. Basically I noticed one of the spec ops guy had aggro, so I just killed all the trash mobs around him first, then went to him. He was still at 3/4 hp when I got to him. Killed him, was still able to loot him. Seemed pretty cut and dry to me.

Ive been advocating Combat for quite some time. However blanket statements like that are just plain wrong. I Started out as watchman. From a PvP Aspect, I did more overall damage in watchman, on the scoreboard I got more kills, but thats only because anyone you damage who dies while your alive counts on that scoreboard. As far as people who I actually killed, on my own, Combat is a head by far. In the world of PvP, Burst is king. People think Watchman is just as bursty as Combat, but its not really. Yes you can get 5k merc slashes, but I do the same with BladeStorm plus an ataru hit, and then follow it up with more bladerushes, a master strike, root you, another bladestorm, etc. Combat takes out people in short term PvP Battles, faster than watchman does. Ive never lost to a watchman sent/mara on my server. Ive always been able to burst them down to death before the dots have taken me out. And thats with them using merc slash as well. Im not here to say Combat is better, the end all of PvP, hail to me your god. But I am here to say quite pretending that everyone but Watchman is not even worth playing. You say anyone that doesnt like watchman just must be a bad player. Ever think maybe you just suck at Combat Spec?

Just maybe people were "flaming" you because you insist that despite most everyone elses experience of not having any problems when leveling, you keep repeating that EVERYONE is wrong and that YOU are correct. Sorry man, but the majority are finding no problems with sentinel, lightsabers, using medium armor, etc. So it looks like the problem resides with something YOU are doing/not doing.

in your "cookie-cutter" build, you need to drop Swift Slash from the the focus tree. By level 40, BladeRush replaces slash, so you will see no benefit from the talent points. This is what im currently running with http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#5010cZuMrbddrRrsZG.1 For your buffed Slash build, all I can say is try it. There was someone advocating a build very similar but with all the combat points put in watchman. SO they had burns and buffed slash. Only suggestion I would make if you want to try it is to removed your 1 point you have in saber storm (as 1 point wont make a huge difference there) and put it in Zealous Leap. As you are focusing more on slash damage, you will also need to be on target more, so having an extra leap would help with that.

And ofcourse precision + zen, bladerush till last bit of focus and then BladeStorm. Forgot to add that. Also, about Bladerush hanging. goto Options/Controls and change your ability queque to .75 or 1. For some reason this fixes alot of the swing lag people were having. My hangups was terrible. Changed it to .75 and it got alot better. Still not perfect, but better. I still have a bit but not much, now it goes BR, BR, slight hang, BR, BR, slight hang, BR,BR etc. Apparently reports for Test Center say with 1.2 the animation no longer hangs and fires off as fast as its suppossed too.

One thing I noticed about T7 that may seem obvious, but really made a difference for me. At the start of combat DO NOT send T7 in before you. Yes hes a tank, so it seems you would want to to send him in and then follow him after he gets aggro, but if you do that he will die FAST. With T7, i put him in tank mode, but I still leap in first, what happens is that you take initial aggro. Then T7 will follow you in, and taunt your target off you. He has a higher threat generation, so without 1-2 GCD's, all targets are on him, by this point in a npc group fight, your first target is dead, second target is near death, and other 2 are on T7. By doing it this way I have rarely had T7 die except in boss fights, and I have never dropped below 3/4 health. Sounds simple, but it made a huge difference for me. As far as spec goes, I love combat, but to be completely honest, it didnt really flow till I got bladerush at 40. So i would highly suggest going watchman till 40. Then trying the other specs out.

Im only level 43, in the 40 pvp gear, and im breaking 300k damage in warzones. Ive rarely if even seen anyone do that on my server in the under 50 bracket. And yes, im combat spec. My basic "rotation" (combat doesnt really use a rotation, its an adapt to the situation type of build). 1. Run up if you expect a knockback so you can leap back, or leap if there not a knockbacker 2. Zealous Strike 3. Bladerush (I hit bladerush once here to get a guaranteed combat trance up) 4. Precision Strike (start my 100% armor debuff) 5. Master Strike (Master strike with the immobolize has always worked for me, guess im just lucky, plus with precision up it does massive dmg) 6. Power Relic + BladeStorm ( if done correctly your bladestorm will go off before precision and combat trance fall off). For me, in the under 50 bracket, this 1 "rotation" takes the majority of players I face to 1/3 hp. Also, combat is a bit different from watchman. Watchman you normally get your burns up and then just strike till you can apply burns. In Combat I love to bladerush spam. Between leap and the Zealous Strike cooldown reduction, I always have high focus. So when everything is off cooldown, I bladerush like no tomorrow. When focus gets to about 1/3 of the way down, and things are still on cooldown, enter "neutral" zone of just strike, bladerush, strike, bladerush etc. Seriously just bladerushing more added close to 40k more damage at the end of the round then when I wasnt doing it. You also need to use your control alot more than watchman. Combat is about controlling the battle, not just the dps. Immobilize on saber throw, ataru givinging you 15% speed boost, fleetfooted breaking snares. You should always be on target, and always messing with peoples ability to do what they want.

Maybe you guys can help me out then. Im a level 42 Sentinel. Up till 35 I was watchman, and decided to give combat a try. At level 35 as watchman i would usually do around 240k in warzones. Since switching to combat, and gaining 7 levels, my highest warzone was 143k dps. I dont think im playing it wrong. My basic rotation for the most part is Leap Zealous Precision if Combat Trance has proc'd his Bladestorm, If not BladeRush then Bladestorm Masterstrike When ever I have enough for zen i load up on focus Hit Zen, precision, and then just bladerush spam untill the last ammount of focus and blade storm. I really like combats utility, immobilizes, run speed boost, and playstyle. But to be honest I feel like i have to work twice as hard, and have sub par effectiveness. I really want to like combat, but watchman was just easier for more dps. So what am I doing wrong?