This sentiment really confuses me, and I hear it all the time. If you *must* have a healing companion before Doc, C2 is perfectly adequate (give him all of T7's gear, save for weapon and focus). The only issue is that he can't equip a weapon which hurts his stats. That being said, this hasn't noticeably affected my progression rate. Whether you a spend a few extra moments in combat because your companion is just a healbot or you spend a few seconds instrospecting afterwards because your companion is a kickin' saber chick, the speed of leveling is basically unchanged. It's all preference.

How important is the focus increase on leap though? 1 extra focus over 12 seconds doesn't seem to be worth 2 talent points. I think that the deciding factor here will be what percentage of our damage comes from Slash at max level. If Slash is prominent, then Focused Slash will become a necessity.

Inflammation is definitely useful if you need to fight other players, but I think Merciless Zeal is one of the key selling points of Watchman regardless of your playstyle. Even in Operations where you are unlikely to be targeted you will probably suffer low-level damage from AOE attacks and boss mechanics, so the passive healing will reduce stress on your healers. When combined with Zen, which will happen frequently because of Valor, the healing is actually very substantial: 18% for you/6% for the group over 4.5 seconds (if you have both burns up).

This is a fantastic guide Maefly and sorely needed on the Knight forums. I especially enjoyed your discussion of Overload Saber, as the same question (can I keep it rolling forever?) has been bothering me since I acquired the ability. As you said, ordinarily OS will only last for 9 seconds (6 at 3 stacks) before dropping. Theoretically that means if you can burn off 3 seconds (2 globals) before applying the third stack, you should be able to restart OS in time to keep the DOT rolling. In reality it may be necessary to burn 3 globals on moves that don't proc OS, due to timing constraints. Abilities I know don't proc OS: Blade Storm, Force Sweep, Crippling Throw, Force Stasis, Force Kick Abilities I'm unsure of: Cyclone Slash, Dispatch, Opportune Strike, Pommel Strike Force Sweep, Blade Storm, and Crippling Throw together are probably sufficient to keep OS rolling indefinitely. Unfortunately trying to use these moves inside the rotation would really screw with focus management, and any DPS gain from rolling x3OS might be offset by using suboptimal abilities as filler. This is a really tricky problem to work out without the benefit of combat logs or training dummies. In the interim I think its probably best to use your modified rotation as often as possible, preferably getting it to line up with Inspiration usage, and not worry about the rest until more information is available.

It's true that Watchman doesn't kill trash as quickly as combat or focus, but the distinction is trivial. No one has trouble killing standard/weak enemies. For the things that would actually give you trouble (Elites) it gets to really shine. @DreamWater Inflammation is something you should definitely grab if you PVP, I suspect the others were posting PVE focused builds.

This is a really interesting issue with a strange solution. However, I haven't personally experienced the problem as you showed it in the video (even though Leap>OS>Zealous is an action I've done countless times). Can you avoid the problem by holding right mouse or does it require an actual click? I would also concur with oflow on the general wonkiness of abilities off the GCD. Spamming them occasionally leads to what I perceive as weird input lock where GCDs get used but nothing happens. This may simply be another manifestation of that larger problem.