Only thing Sentinels have that can stop that, is Stasis. Which I tend to always save to either interrupt massive damage channels (Series of shots I'm looking at you.) or to do just that. Keep a nearly dead opponent from escaping/healing. Those are the only two strategic uses of stasis outside of huttball. That said, the thing sentinels DON'T have, is CC.. they have massive damage, very good survivablitiy if their CD's are used properly. are excellent at hit and run tactics. But we have NO CC except stasis, and that's on a comparatively short CD for other classes' CC's, but still agonizingly long compared to many other sentinel abilities. It all comes down to being aware of the current situation, and getting that stasis off at the right time to either get yourself a kill, or allowing a teammate to finish them. Again, as I said above. Hit and run is the name of the game for sentinels. standing in the front will just get you CC'd to death, as you said.

That was my biggest problem with both of my inqusitor playthroughs too. 100% this.

yeah... assuming people are incompetent is a great way to get people to listen to you. I've tried using CC to break these people of this habit. It doesn't work. I use LOS regularly. And all too often, this knocback happiness come from a pull that I've already LOS'd once, and have very limited options in doing so again. But I get it, efficiency offends you for some reason. Making everyone's job harder than it has to be is just bad teamplay, imo. but.. whatever. my bad for wanting to be efficient on trash pulls. >.>

In this point in the lore, The Sith are mostly just bloodthirsty idiots foaming at the mouth with a hard-on for killing everything that breathes without permission. It's really unfortunate, and ultimately insanely boring in my opinion. Every time I play a more level-headed sith, or one with actual foresight, that is actually conniving and manipulative, I get told I'm doing it wrong... too bad.

for the third time, I had no intention of PVPing consistently at 55, So I didn't bother to grind for a bunch of stuff that's going to collect dust in my cargo hold for weeks at a time. I can definitely understand where you're coming from, wanting people who put in the work to have an edge, to get something for their effort. I understand that completely, as it's one of my personal values as well. Someone who puts in the effort, should get the fruits of their labors, no matter the medium. I'm not complaining about how long it takes to gear up, because I have no intentio TO gear up. If I thought it was just a minigame to screw around in, I wouldn't try as hard as I do to contribute to my team's success as I do when I do PVP. I'm well aware I could contribute more if I geared, or PVP'ed more often and such, but.. PVP has never appealed to me as a primary method of enjoying an MMO. That's just my personal preference, and we all have those. I'm not asking for PVP on the whole to cater to what I want. I'm well aware I have no right to make demands of anything PVP, as I participate very little in comparison to hundreds, maybe thousands of others who do. All I ask, is a fair shake. I have to wonder why you are so against people who don't PVP as often, having once been complete non-contributors to your team's success, are suddenly competitive, and not completely useless feeders. If your primary concern is winning, why does it matter so much if everyone on your team is competitive? I'm not askign for PVP or PVE to be homogenized and humdrummed into oblivion like some people in this thread. I understand full well the need and intent of a PVP gear grind. But I'm also of the mind that even PVP should be enjoyable for people who don't want to or don't have the time to put into gearing up in a few days. I know there have been several MMO's where I've found the PVP to be fun enough mechanically, but get snubbed every time I try simply because the gear gap is unbearable. TLDR: I'm not asking for PVP to cater to casuals, eliminate the gear grind, etc. All I'm asking for is a fair chance for those who haven't geared already, or want to possibly try a new way to enjoy a game.

Love how you cut out all but 1/10th of my post, and decided to use ad hominem to try to be clever. If you actually read the rest of the post, you'd see that I never claimed to be good, I just knew what I was doing to be competitive and help my team once the bolster change took place, and wasn't just dead weight merely because I didn't grind WZ comms in anticipation of 55 PVP, because that wasn't what I wanted to do.

I primarily PVE and RP, but as I said before, I PVP on occassion, but I know how to hold my own in a Warzone, and not be as you put it, a "boat anchor" for my team. The reason I didn't PVP nearly as much before the bolster change, was because the gear gap was so unforgiving, and despite my personal skill, I was still totally useless, simply because I was wet toilet paper in comparison. Now, I actually feel competitive, and like I can contribute. I just have to work a little harder, or play more conservative than someone who has better gear than I do. IN fact, there was one case, I ended up in a 1v1 against a fully conq geared Mercenary on my ungeared sentinel in my 3rd PVP match on Novarre coast at the mid turret. What did I do? I hit her, and when I started getting my *** kicked (naturally) I LOS'd her, and ran her in circles around the turret shed until reinforcements showed up and ganked her. I know fully geared PVP'ers who wouldn't think to do half the things I did to stay alive long enough to counter that cap. So in my humble opinion. Gear is a crutch. Skill, resourcefulness, and situational awareness make you a good PVP'er.

I only PVP when I want to. I couldn't care less about the gear. But what do I know, I'm just a dirty casual.

Best advice I can give for when you actually hit 50. Stockpile as many planetary comms as you can, and as soon as you hit 50, go to the makeb vendor and buy up as many of the most useful mods/armorings/enhancements/hilts whatever you need as you can. This will give you a very good head start on surviving Makeb, as well as passing requirements for lvl 50 HM ops, which I'll get to the reasoning for those in a minute. Once you've got those mods, start queueing for 50 HM's, and continue working on Makeb content. The armor mods you already bought will give you decent enough gear to get started in HM's, and you'll likely find even more useful pieces in the FP's themselves (black hole gear drops in FP's which if i'm not mistaken is equivalent if not slightly better than what the makeb mods will give you anyway. Only reason to get the makeb mods first is to get you past gear req's, and because comm mods are guaranteed to be there. FP drops are not.) Once you're more comfortable that the gear you have is up to snuff, start lookign for guilds running lvl 50 retro Hardmode ops, and see if you can't squeeze in. Most of the guilds I've seen pulling pugs are fairly lenient on requirements to get in, and as long as you listen, understand your role, and don't act like a tool will allow you to stay, possibly run again in the future, and most importantly, get gear. The main reason you want to run Hardmode or higher lvl 50 Ops, is because the gear you get out of them is right at the gear level requirement for lvl 55 hardmode flashpoints. you can also rack up a nice number of basic and classic comms this way as well, Useful for obtaining lvl 53 gear (which can be baseline for storymode 55 ops in most cases) or just to gear your most commonly used companion. (I'd only ever use classic comms to gear a companion. the basic comms are too valuable to waste on your way to 55 IMO) Once you've got the gear for 55 HM's, just do them. Make sure you get your daily FP, and if you're looking for more drops than that, continue queueing. you'll have enough basic/elite comms through those (and dailies and weeklies. Never forget to pick these up before you queue.) To get the gear you need in no time to start story mode ops. And from there, well. self-explanatory. And of course, once you hit 50, you gain access to the daily zones Section X (if you're a sub or you bought the authorization) Black Hole, the Belsavis dailies, Ilum, and more. Do as many of them as you can stomach a day. pre-55, they still give the same credit reward as they did when 50 was max, and also give a nice chunk of experience to help you along the way. A decent enough diversion if you find yourself wanting to take a break from Makeb content, which IMO would be totally understandable. XD Hope this helps you out. Edit: Damn, I got beat. D:

You're most likely right, but if that's true, she probably thought she could take me without them. Which was clearly a grave miscalculation on her part. Gear doesn't make you a crafty, sneaky bastard. Situational awareness does.

People like that make MMO's better. The ones who vote to kick on basis of ignorance need to be physically kicked in the junk for being toxic. Kudos to anyone who's helped someone who didn't fully understand something about a game.

Yay ad hominem. can we get back on topic please?

Knowing what/how to use defensive cooldowns and threat reduction is what seperates the excellent DPS, from the average DPS. Marauders/sentinels are most definitely stacked with defensive cooldowns, and this often leads me to take a secondary role keeping an eye on the healer just in case the tank misses a target. I can typically pull off the healer and either off-tank it with a defensive cooldown, slow it and kite it to the tank, or outright kill it with a little extra juice, usually in the form of popping Zen. A lot of DPS get tunnel visioned on their target, and don't pay attention to anything else, including their threat generation, or their health. this gets them killed more often than not. Situational awareness is the name of the game as a melee DPS.

I like all of these ideas. I'm not a hardcore PVP'er myself, I tend to RP or PVE most of the time, but I do queue for Warzones when it strikes my fancy, and I've definitely noticed the difference since the max level bolster change. I actually feel competitive, rather than a comlpetely useless balloon, feeding the other team kills (and points in certain WZ's, which lead to a loss) I'm not one of those PVP'ers that's focused purely on the numbers, whether on gear or on DPS/heal charts, I focus on how I contribute to my team. Whether that be harassing healers, defending an objective, protecting an ailing comrade, whatever. The situation is more important than the numbers to me. Before the bolster change, I rarely Queued because I honeslty felt I was nothing but a hindrance, a walking feeder, and it was by no fault of my own, aside from not PVPing my way up to 55 and prepping to buy partisan gear (or better) beforehand. Why didn't I prep for 55 PVP? Because as I said, it's not how I planned to spend my time at max level. That's not to say I'm bad, or that I don't know how to play my class in PVP, or to play the warzones. I do my research to know what I'm getting into, and what goals I need to be working for before I start, and pick up strategies and tactics that help in the future from Ops chat during them, remembering and reusing tactics that work. PVP gear has always rubbed me wrong ever since it's inception. I understand the need for progression and such, but I've *NEVER* condoned improving one person's experience of the game at the expense of another person's experience. That's not to say that winning and losing is part of that detraction of the experience. Losing is part of the game too, and can be just as satisfying as a win if both sides were fighting tooth and nail, and it was neck and neck the entire time. The more frantic and nailbiting the fight is, the better IMO. I don't judge my experience with PVP on how many W's and how many L's I get, or even how much damage/healing I put out. I base my experience on how much enjoyment I got out of it. nothing more. Isn't that what we play games like this for? To enjoy them? That's just my 2 cents as what most would consider a "casual" PVP'er. I know. we're the devil to some people. How dare we not grind for weeks for the best gear, doing something we'd rather not all day.

Edit: I copy/pasted this to a friend, and he equated it to a Benny Hill video, runnin circles spanking her and running in circles to Yakkety Sax. Whoops, sorry for the double post. hit qupte instead of edit. :X

Probably already a thread like this out there, but I thought I'd share one of my favorite moments from maybe my 3rd lvl 55 PVP match. Was playing Novarre coast, and my team captured our turret and mid rather quickly, some moved to defend our other turret, and the rest went to harass the imp's only remaining turret, and they fell for it. Amusingly, I, a completely ungeared Sentinel, was left alone at the mid turret when I see a Merc in full conqueror's coming. I call out 1 inc, and engage. I deal a lot of damage to her, but she deals more to me to start with, so I naturally disengaged, and ran off. however, I didn't run away necessarily, I LOS'd around the console shed. And she followed me to my amazement.. didn't try to cap, she followed me. So I kept running in circles around the shed, and she kept following me. Occassionally, I'd hide inside the shed and let her run past, then run out the other way and confuse her by changing directions on her, and lead her on another chase, one time, I even leg slashed her as I passed, went around the corner, camo'd and misdirected back through her as she came around teh corner after me. By the time she finally gave up trying to catch me and cap, the cavalry was already there, beating the crap out of her. I spent the rest of the WZ laughing hysterically. I as usual had crappy damage that WZ, but I did my job, damgit. ^.^

Best advice I can give, is to try playing your Sentinel as more of a skirmisher than a front-line fighter. Engage quickly, do a lot of damage, and slip away before they can retaliate to their full extent. Combat is an excellent spec for this, as is Focus. Both for different reasons. Combat gives you nice damage burst through procs on bladestorm and dispatch, which can result in massive single target damage, especially on squishier targets like an op or sorc. And focus Gives you an auto-crit on Force Sweep, which you don't want to use without Zen giving you 3 stacks of singularity, or after using force exhaustion to get 3 stacks of singularity. the auto-crit proc lasts 20 seconds, so don't feel you have to use it immediately. the entire point of that proc is to only use it with 3 stacks of singularity. Pile exhaustion on top of a massive sweep, maybe a zealous strike and blade storm, then find a way to disengage and LOS them, especially if they're ranged. This is where the real fun begins. If you piss them off enough, they'll actually leave their team to chase you down. you notice this? use force camo and run back through them as they come around the corner to misdirect and confuse them. while they're looking for you, Zealous leap on their backs and punish them again. Once again, if they're still not dead yet, disengage and find another opportunity. Situational awareness is key to playing a sentinel well in PVP. If you just charge into a mob of enemies and stay there focusing on one target (unless you've a tank guarding you/watching your back, keeping enemies from maxing their damage on you and distracting them) you're going to get stunlocked and ganked very quickly, and very often. You may be a melee DPS, but you're most definitely not a front line fighter in most situations. You have to be more opportunistic, and aggressive when you see an opening. Also, watch what your enemies are doing. learn their class. If you see them throw their CC's on someone else, move in and punish them for it. Leg slash them so you and any allies in the area can crush them while they try in vain to escape. Just a few pointers from my experiences playing a sentinel in PVP. Nowhere near a be all end all guide on how2play.

Agree completely. Watchman is an excellent leveling spec, thanks to zen allowing you to gain health back on burns and making them auto-crit, resulting in very good consistent damage. Also, Watchman has a few talents that buff your defensive cooldowns, and your "Oh ****" button (AKA Force Camoflague) Best part is, on most bosses, even at end game, the damage compared to Combat is comparable, so no one will bat an eyelash if you're not a combat sentinel. Merciless slash really starts to shine in boss battles, as the longer a fight drags on, the faster it gets, resulting in a huge damage spike all the way to every 6 seconds for a cost of around 3 focus (after focus refunds from earlier talents. Still need the base cost to use the ability in the first place however. It's a refund, not a reduction) Sure combat has much better burst damage potential, but most of that burst is from having at least 2 procs happen at the same time, which in my experience, trying to get both resulted in me just spamming blade rush desperately trying to get the second proc while the first proc dwindled, which I didn't like at all. I prefer consistent damage to a *chance* to do massive damage with a few abilities every few seconds. But everyone's different. However, there is the nifty "gain centering stacks while resting" talent that makes throwing out either massive damage early in a fight, or dropping a party buff such as transcendance early if it's required to kite specific bosses (like there used to be in Karagga's Palace. Bio's used the mechanic once, they will ad nauseum.) Having leveled 2 sentinels to at least 50, (one being 55) using both specs, I will pick watchman over combat any day. I see other sentinels swear by combat and do amazing things with it, just like I've seen people do amazing things with watchman. I truly have to hand it to Bio for giving sentinels the freedom to choose preference over pure numbers for end game content. But, as I try to tell every sentinel, both fledgelings like yourself and seasoned veterans. It's all about awareness. you may be a DPS, but that doesn't mean you can't help out in other ways too while you're slicing and dicing. Just earlier today, our sage's CC was on cooldown in a 4 man heroic. So what did I do? Offered to use Awe (AOE blind) on the two elites standing together, buying us time to take down the smaller mobs surrounding them. worked beautifully. you may be there to DPS, but NEVER forget your utilities. they're what seperate the average sentinels, from the ones people prefer to bring into ops. Sentinel gets a bad reputation as a faceroll class usually played by *******es who just think dual sabers are cool. Easiest way to prove them wrong is to always be aware of your limits, what your group is doing, and every single cooldown and ability, and what situations best suits their use. sorry for the wall of text, I just enjoy talking about sentinels quite a bit. Hope some of this helps, and I can throw some more specific advice from my personal experience anytime you like. just ask. Disclaimer: That said, I'm by far not the best sentinel out there, I just teach from experience, not what I read on a forum.

Totally.

Yeah, that's the biggest problem/fear I have with it too. The people who need it, won't take it. Too many times I've begged and pleaded (along with the rest of the DPS in the instance) for them to stop, but 9 times out of 10, they get spiteful, and do it even more... It's so excrutiatingly hard to fix problems like this, simply because the only sure-fire way to do it would be to require an IQ test before you can play the class. XD

Thanks, I might try this. I would assume if a stealther opens on you, usually with a stun, as they said. let the DR while stunned do it's job, slow them down, drop your 4M abilities, and start kiting. Just hazarding a guess. I could be totally wrong though, but that seems to be the theme of the guide anyway. XD

I'm the same way, generally. I've come up with some ruthless, cruel, and downright bloodhtirsty character concepts in my time. I can think of one character right now in another MMO. Everyone that meets her, hates her. and the feeling is definitely mutual. Hell, she killed her best friend in an arena in front of every RP'er on the server... and enjoyed it. I have a hard time playing overly nice characters. Usually a strong independant lead is more my speed (usually female. always easier for me to write female characters for whatever reason. O.o) Of course, then it comes down to my favorite part of writing a character. Personal, fatal flaws. I spent 5 years writing and adapting a character's story for this game, and loved every minute of it. I recently got her looking exactly how I had imagined her in my head all that time, and I swear I cried a little. It was an amazing moment. If that sounds weird to you, You've never seen an idea you've carried in your head for half a decade come to life in front of you. It's truly an amazing feeling. But back on topic. I play both, to be honest. Just whatever I feel like at the moment. Don't really find myself playing one side more than the other. But that's just me.

And this is why I got out of the raiding scene. Too much hassle when things go wrong.

Amusingly enough, I just talked to someone who CANCELLED their sub so the Xpac wouldn't be "forced on them" because they want to stay in the lowbie PVP bracket. and that's their choice.

+1... As a fellow Sentinel. Let me add to this for emphasis. Sentinels like you, are why so many people out there think all sentinels are leap happy idiots who play a sentinel just because "dual sabers are cool." Which is totally not the case, as I hope you're aware. It's also why so many people claim Sentinels are the faceroll class, because all they see are people like you leaping off into lalaland, swinging lightsabers at things while everyone around you is scrambling to adapt to a situation you created that would make Leeroy Jenkins wet himself for joy.