Please excuse my ignorance, but Second Wind heals for 10% of your health. For it to heal you for 3.5k, you'd need 35000 health, which currently is impossible. Was this a typo, or can it crit? Is it affected by expertise/power? 10% of my 17k is only 1.7k, which is pitiful and not worth it. But 3.5k combined with a warzone medpac...that'd be beastly. *only been Focus twice, fun tree but I prefer Watchman, and both times I skipped this talent because it sounded, purely from the tooltip, to be subpar*

Oh god, a ginger Sentinel. Now that is truly scary.

No joke, let dead posts rest in peace.

I can't offer anything really constructive, other than to say there is no 'waiting period' between getting 4 stacks of Singularity and using them. I was Focus less than two weeks ago, was doing 3.7k Sweeps pretty frequently. Never had an issue with consuming my stacks of Singularity, so you may want to ticket a GM.

..........troll, or serious? In case you're serious, and Dog help you if you are, you need to know you can't stack Caut. ..........................and as I said, specifically.........................................you always do Caut before Merc. Like I said. In the post you quoted. I smell a troll......

This is just me speaking, but I've never once, ever in the history of my Sentinel, had Dispatch not hit. Just sayin.

I actually agree, I <3 the Force Kick animation above any other (except Rocket Punch on a BH, but that's neither here nor there) and I'd love for it to be a damaging ability. Mid range damage and a 1 second knockdown or something. Something so awesome, relegated to an interrupt that does NO damage...just seems odd that a kick to the face doesn't hurt.

There is a method to the madness too. Just like the above poster showed, you always want to use Cauterize before Merc Slash when possible, because of the talent Mind Sear which gives Merc Slash a 66% chance to reset Cauterize. Keeping Cauterize up is very important for maximizing damage output. When I first started doing Watchman, I would do this... Leap Overload Zealous Merc Caut (switched them) That way, Cauterize applied the final stack of OS and the two dots were perfectly synced, they would both run their course at the exact same time. I found the symmetry appealing to my ocd. But this does ultimately lead to a loss of dps, so do not fall into this habit.

Kira is pure Willpower, nothing but. Gear her like you would gear a Sage/Shadow. She wants Willpower/Accuracy/Crit/Surge (eventually, while still leveling, just give her Willpower/Accuracy). I always took commendations, because commendation gear was usually the absolute best you could attain, although when the quest reward was COMPANION specific gear, I'd give it to my companions. Keeping them geared is as vital as keeping yourself geared. Never take a green armor for yourself over a commendation (always use your best judgement though, this rule works 99% of the time, but there are odd times where the gear is better than a com).

Who knows, the only Sentinels I duel on a regular basis are Watchman, and they end just like you say. I never dominate, it always comes down to a single Dispatch, the winner living by a thread. I'd like to duel you ^_^ Pity we never will...

My highest dispatch in PvP against a Sorc was 3.4k without a 15% exp buff. My highest Merc (you have to count the offhand portion) was 4k+. There is no way Dispatch hits harder than Merc. I've had the mainhand portion of Merc crit for 4k by itself. But, the Focus to Damage ratio of Dispatch is AMAZING, and it's getting bumped to 30% in 1.2, making it absolutely fantastic. For the record, Sentinel is the only AC in the game without a knockback (do Scoundrels/Ops get one? Actually not sure now...). Just saying, one more on top of everything else wouldn't imbalance the game.

I don't want to give the typical response of 'you must fight bad Marauders' but honestly, if you don't pop Pacify against another Sent/Mara, then the people you're fighting ARE bad. I won't dominate a Combat in a duel, it's not like they're super easy, but if you know what to look for it's cake. Oh, that's the animation for Precision, time to CC. Ok, that's over, now you hit like a baby. Oh, you just popped Saber Ward, AWE! Bam, there goes half of your most powerful defensive cd. You're right, it is all about skill, but just like any underdog situation, there is a limit to how far skill can take you before you hit a ceiling. So a Combat, fighting an equally geared/skilled Watchman...the Combat should lose. Pretty much every time. In any normal length duel, I will build enough centering to use Zen at least once, naturally. Then I can Val. Call and use it again. I just healed 36% of my health, giving me 23800 (effective) health, up from 17500. It's just that simple.

It increases the damage done by your offhand lightsaber, which is utilized by virtually every attack in our arsenal. This includes the following: Strike Slash Zealous Strike Merciless Slash Leg Slash Riposte Cyclone Slash Master Strike Cauterize (unknown, tooltip does not specify that it ATTACKS with both, it only REQUIRES two lightsabers, the wording is vague). So virtually everything we use on a regular basis is directly increased through this talent. However...it increases OFFHAND damage, which as you should know is drastically penalized in the accuracy department. So when the offhand portion of a Merc Slash misses, this talent is neutralized. It does not improve the mainhand damage or 'overall' damage of anything. So this talent is directly influenced by your accuracy. It becomes more worthwhile once you've crossed the 100% mark, or ideally the 105% mark. As a Watchman, a lot of our damage comes from dots, which are not influenced by this stat. But do not lose sight of the bigger picture. Once those dots are applied, everything we use is boosted by this talent. I personally maximize it, although 2/3 would be acceptable.

You can't think of Focus management in black and white terms. Master Strike doesn't build, or use Focus, but it does a very respectable amount of damage over a three second period. So say for the sake of argument, you have no Focus, and both Zealous and Leap (your main Focus generators) are roughly 3-5 seconds from being ready. Sure, you could Strike for craptacular damage and craptacular Focus, or you could MS for 3 seconds, keeping your DPS high and then having Zealous ready the instant MS is finished. Finding ways to maintain high DPS while Zealous and Leap are on cd is important. Heck, even Stasis isn't a terrible way to generate Focus, mine does a minimum of 2k over three seconds, upwards of 3k with a few crits. If you Stasis while dots are ticking you can easily do 5-6k damage in that three second window, AND generate more Focus than a Strike. *edit* However keep in mind with Stasis, you build three focus over three seconds, where you could Strike twice in that same time frame for four Focus, and roughly the same amount of damage.

Sadly, unless you're on Daragon Trail, we couldn't test this theory. But you're forgetting, any Sent with 12 Focus built up, especially 12 Focus and 30 Centering, is going to do some stupid numbers. And for the record, if I had Camo or GbtF available, that'd never work...so you face bad Sents. I also pop 6150 health Warzone Medpacs like candy. Combat hits hard, there is no doubt. It's just broken. Oh, what's this, a Carnage Mara? Ohhh, he just used Gore, AWE/STASIS/PACIFY/LEAP (to distant target)...uh oh, just wasted your most powerful 4.5 seconds. Now you hit like a flaccid *****. Tickle tickle tickle.

What you actually want to do is pop Zen a millisecond before you apply your final stack of OS. This is the breakdown on both dots. Cauterize ticks six times over six seconds. Each tick is considerably weaker than a two or three stack of OS. OS ticks three times over six seconds. A three stack of OS crits (for me) for 1298 against a strong NPC on Ilum. 1298x3=3894 damage. Cauterize crits for 401, six times. 401x6=2406 damage. So as you can see, while you'd never be able to use all six charges of Zen with only OS, you want to ensure OS crits all three times if possible. Both dots start ticking the instant they are applied. There is no delay. So if you wait to pop Zen until just AFTER you apply your third stack of OS, you will in fact only apply the effect to the final two ticks, not all three, therefor you are losing out on potential damage.

Watchman is cake with enough practice. And currently outperforms both Combat and Focus in PvE and PvP. Focus is the easiest, Combat is...roughly close in terms difficulty with Watchman. But why work harder for less results? You'll want to be Watchman just to ensure you're doing the best you can. P.S. I leveled as Combat, stayed Combat for quite some time, and PvP'd as Combat for several months before going Watchman. So I'm not just pulling this from my ***, I have quite a bit of experience with both.

Unless they have enough healing from instant casts to mitigate your damage. I'm not getting defensive, you don't know me and vice versa. So who can judge? I'll just say this. The two specific Merc healers I'm talking about are full BM (where I am full Champ) and I can kick/stasis/awe all I want, they somehow manage to heal themselves sufficiently without casting. Between Kolto Missle (instant), Kolto Shell (instant), Energy Shield (can't interrupt, increases healing received by 10%), Emergency Scan (instant)...they have enough uninterruptable healing to make them virtually impossible to kill. Sure, I can wear them out given enough time. But even smart use of my CDs generally isn't enough when they are competent. Throw in the fact THEY can stun and knock me back, plus every WZ has LOS objects to run around...I'd like to see a video of two equally geared and skilled Sent/Merc going at it without outside interruptions. I want to see how you supposedly kill this Merc, solo, in a reasonable amount of time (sticking on them until they run out of ammo is not reasonable). *edit* Their instant cast purge currently dispells our Crippling Throw debuff (fixed in 1.2), as well as our burns. It's cheap and instant and on a....5 sec cd? So good luck keeping your burns up for maximum dps.

Everybody will give you a different answer, based on so many different factors (bias, skill, familiarity or lack thereof, etc) so you'll never learn what you want to know from this question. Just play whichever spec feels better to you. Currently, Combat has a smidge higher burst potential, but that potential is lost WHEN (not IF) but WHEN you get CC'd right after using Precision. If you are prevented from attacking your target for the full 4.5 seconds of Precision, you might as well just accept your dps will be sub par. Since 1.2 has not hit yet, I will not speak as if it has. Currently, Watchman is simply superior for PvP. You build Centering faster, which means more Zen. Zen increases your dot damage, which means you do not currently have to be on your target like white on rice, whereas Combat Zen does. Watchman throws in a 4 second invincible 'oh ****' button, which can be utilized so many different ways I won't even attempt to list them. Dots ignore armor. Nuff said. Merc Slash is the hardest hitting ability a Sentinel has, and that includes a Singularity enhanced Sweep (although you may never get a 5k medal with it since the damage is split between main and off hand). A 6 second interrupt vs. an 8 second interrupt is invaluable. You cannot debate the usefulness of this. Point-blank Leap for interrupts and Focus generation is amazing. Shorter cd on Pacify is godlike, Pacify defangs virtually every dps class minus a Sorc (so about 50% of the game is immune, go figure). 30 seconds off Valorous Call is clutch. Anybody who PvPs knows 30 seconds is a lifetime in a WZ. It can make or break a fight. Combat gets a broken snare with Master Strike, a ranged snare (which is admittedly totally *********** cool) and a guaranteed crit ranged attack which is pretty sick for burst damage. Less personal healing, one less defensive cd, stutter and misfires...I rest my case. Until 1.2, just go Watchman. *edit* From the general consensus, aim for 100-105% accuracy (to bypass most peoples built in 5% defense), 30% crit unbuffed and 70% surge (putting your dots, if Watchman, at 100% with talents). The rest should go towards power. Aim for 400-500ish.

As a Watchman, Merc healer or Sin tank/tank hybrid. Everything else melts. Especially easy to kill are the bad Mara/Sent who spec Carnage/Combat. Come 1.2 everything will have to be reevaluated, but for now, the only scary Sent is a Watchman, and the only scary Guard is a Focus.

lolololololololololol Bitter player is bitter. If we're so op, re-roll. Or perhaps you can't hack it as a Sentinel, so you hate instead? Sounds about right. Trolololololol

Leap (4 Focus) OS (1) Zealous (7) Cauterize (5) Merc Slash (1, maybe 2 if Burning Focus procs) What ELSE would you do with both Zealous Strike and Leap on cd, along with the fact you now have no Focus? Strike/Slash. Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. I personally know of two good Merc healers on my server who I simply can't kill solo. It's impossible (currently, but when 1.2 hits and makes healing more resource intensive...*evil grin*). Right now Merc/Commando healers are just stupid OP. So if you're getting torn to shreds by a single Sent while healing on your Merc, you're doing something wrong. We simply do not have the dps to stop you. Combined with your uninterruptable bubble, stun, knockback, and apparently your utterly RIDICULOUS instant cast heals that I can't interrupt, and your ability to cleanse my dots... But back to the original question, our main abilities are of course Merc Slash, Caut, OS, Zealous/Leap. When those are all on cd, just fall back to your Focus dump. Always weave in Master Strike when feasible, and unlike what somebody else in the thread said, don't ever touch Blade Storm. That's just bad baddy bad talk. Unless somebody is out of range, this monster Focus vampire is strictly off limits. We have no talents to improve it or reduce the cost. Master Strike and Stasis are the best gap fillers, and Sweep (currently, not when 1.2 hits) is really cheap. Also (currently, not when 1.2 hits) you can spam Cyclone Slash to dump Focus and build Centering to bring Zen up more often, even with no enemies nearby. And no, second poster, only people who don't care about being good try to PvP as Combat in its current form. I'm sorry, people will still disagree, but it's true. Come 1.2, we shall reevaluate Combat viability in PvP.

http://i.imgur.com/N3x7K.jpg Not even one of my best rounds, I stopped taking screen shots when 500k became normal. I'm Watchman spec. I destroy 90% of the people I come across 1v1, and NOBODY takes me down without trouble. Even the people I lose to are hanging onto life by a thread. Before I had PvP gear, and also before I swapped to (and subsequently learned) Watchman from Combat, I HATED PvP with a passion. It was a godawful affair where I leaped in, got targeted, and died. Oh, and CC'd. A lot. Save Focus for 1.2 (when we will be on par with Guardian's who also go Focus), and for the mean time, avoid Combat for PvP as well. Spec Watchman, get PvP gear, practice the spec for at least a month, then come back and post whether or not you think we're still underpowered. Ranged have nooooothing on me, unless I'm already wounded from another fight with ALL my cds used. On a parting note, yesterday doing my dailies on Ilum, I was jumped by a Merc when I was at roughly 40% health. I had all my cds available, turned the tables on him and beat him with about 20% health left (I DID use a warzone medpack, but still). That had to be just humiliating.

That is a very good point, however I so infrequently fail to refresh Cauterize with Merc Slash that I tend to forget this. I think in the last Voidstar I just did an hour ago, I literally refreshed Cauterize with every single Merc Slash I did. But, (I'm really tired on the verge of sleep, I may be wrong) we're losing Quick Recovery, so this will be a moot point in 1.2. You'll never use Sweep for anything but exactly what it is, AoE (or Sweep Bombs as Focus).

I went from Combat for over a month, to now Watchman for well over a month. At first, coming from Combat, I had a helluva time adjusting to using Leap in combat for Focus generation. I mean, as Combat, you leaped in and that was it. Now that I can leap at any range, on a reduced cd, I may not be able to give that up, even if Combat does have superior burst (which is better for PvP). I dropped 80% Transcendence today to prepare myself. 50% isn't even worth using out of combat, it's a whole whopping 15% faster than Sprint. And still barely worth using IN combat, it isn't fast enough to escape, and if you aren't escaping, then you're fighting, and Zen is more powerful. I will of course TRY Combat, but I think I may be stuck Watchman now, the perks are still too attractive to ignore...