Can anyone confirm the 50% hardcap? Im sitting at about 30% crit raidbuffed in pvp. with juyo im closing steady on that cap in just centurion gear. (for bleeds)

Pretty dumb mate. "you called it"? No kidding? Currently watchman does more than combat, so its better. If combat becomes better than watchman, of course watchman is now going to be claimed as the inferior spec, BECAUSE IT IS. In 5 years when sedans get 10mpg better than they do today, people are going to say what they get today is inferior. IM CALLING IT NOW. ALL HAIL MY ABILITY TO PREDICT TRENDS!

If you have the bottom talents in watchman, slash. Slash does comparable damage but costs less focus. Also, the CD is obviously lower. The stun DOES work, but its PVE only and not on strong/elite mobs.

So I finally decided to go ahead and get to 50 on my sent. After reading tons and tons of complaints about difficulty questing, I have to honestly ask: Where? I kept hearing about "impossible to beat" bosses and such, but I never had that experience. I simply breezed through PVE with 0 issues or help. It started to become a chore right before I got Doc, but after that it went back to easymode. As for PVP, yes it sucks pre-20, and getting spells helps immensely, but I still rolled face in the 1-49 bracket. Its true that its much more intensive than other classes (have a full pvp 50VG), but its in no way WEAK like i see constantly. I was reluctant to go to 50, since I focus on PVP and was facerolling the early bracket. Once I did though I still find that Im very powerful, even though shadows seem to take an eternity to kill. I started the 50 bracket with 338 expertise with the new bag system, and that was without getting a single token. The gear gap isnt crazy as some make it out to be. I had 175 at 49 by pulling enhacements out of PVP weapons, had 1000/1000 coms at 49, and then spent my tokens on slots that didnt have enhancements. Just making this post so anyone who is looking to make a sentinel/marauder doesnt give up because of the insance flood of negative posts on this forum. BTW, My ungeared sentinel feels much stronger than my assault specced vanguard.

Its amazing that people think one trick pony smashing in PVP is going to produce more dps than anni over the course of time. Anni still gets some big crits with annihilate also.

In my experience watchman has the greatest utility and survivability, and is no slouch on damage. I think its the best spec for PVP. Combat is a bit more bursty but I can really feel the lack of centering generation and survivibility. I actually enjoy combat but I think watchman has more...Potential? I dont know, it feels like if I play optimally combat is weaker. Not positive. Focus to me is a one trick pony and is simply slow. It isnt fast paced and bruatl like combat and watchman. Not a fan of focus at all.

My god just make sents truly unstoppable.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRMRrZZGr0rkr.1 Anyone ever try this or a variation of it? It actually seems like it might be somewhat solid. No merciless but you get some good slash buffs, losing the burst but with half the focus costs your sustained dps would still be pretty good. Mainly I was just going to run around at 80% speed and laugh.

Combat gets +30% crit damage and armor pen. Watchman doesnt. I think merciless is fine.

Actually our survivability is quite high. It takes a lot more work to drop my sentinel than it does my vanguard (VG is assault specced however). Its one of those things you just have to feel out. If im 2v1 ill drop one of them and run away using transcendence/camo. If im 1v5 im pretty screwed and ill either drop all my CDs to stay alive (guarding a point), or I will force camo, run, and leap to a distant target. If in a 5v5 ill stick to a priority target. Once i start getting focused ill rebuke and continue to fight untill i get around 50% or things get too hot. At that point ill camo, sprint off, and leap back into my main target. Usually I can "drop aggro" for long enough to drop my target. Once I do it takes pressure off the healers to get me back up, and I can always use GBTF. I find that using the speed buffs and camo, you can control how people attack you pretty easily. Most people wont pursue you leaving you free to weave in and out causing massive damage. Sometimes people will recognize me and 1 or 2 jerks will just focus me the entire match, but not usually.

Ive tried all 3 trees, but have been watchman about 90% of my sentinel career. Youll have to make that choice yourself, but for the most part watchman is considered the overall best tree. It has good damage, survivability, centering generation, and CC with force kick. For your naga macro, just record a series of buttons with no delay and add the delay later. For example, i have VBNM,./ as my macro, with .010 delay inserted between the presses. I have my left side quickslot bar bound as those keys from top to bottom. At lower level, I had cauterize, slash, zeal, and strike bound (in game) to the left quickslot bar as VBNM. I made a macro that pressed VBNM, and applied it to my mousewheel click button. This will use cauterize first, and if its on CD then slash. If you dont have focus for it, it will use zealous, if zeal in on CD, it will use strike. Simple an effective, perfect rotation.

Good advice. Something I forgot, at low level master strike is actually pretty sweet. I dont use it much now but I did before I had a lot of options. It auto targets, so whenever someone is being hit with a cc, or when a melee is fighting you, go ahead and use it.

No you have to have a keyboard or mouse with macro functionality. They said they are adding it to the game though, no telling when that is.

I have, let me think..... I have maybe 22 skills keyboarded(including macroed skills). if you have a naga you shouldn't have issues. I run a priority on my attacks skills with a 10 millisecond delay. My basic attack has an amazing 7 spells on one key. In priority: Dispatch>Overload saber (off GCD)>cauterize>merciless>Bladestorm>zeal>strike I know I said dont use bladestorm but it works real well with the macro. I also have slash bound but running this Im always floating around the correct focus to do what i need, never starved, never overbuilt. On 123, i have rebuke, resolute, and saber ward on 456 i have guarded by the force(macroed), force stealth, and pacify on 789, i have zen, transcendance, and inspiration. I really like my guarded by the force macro. With a 10 milisecond delay, it uses GBTF, an adrenal, valourus call (dont have that yet), zen, and a reusable medpack. Going from 5% to 45% makes me lol.

Do they stack? How does merciless zeal work anyway? I have 13000hp while in WZ at level 46. So merciless zeal should heal me for 260 a tick, but I constantly see smaller numbers than that. Also, sentinels buff adds +5% healing, and I have 2% from expertise. So 260+7%=278. But im always seeing ticks for less than 200. What gives? EDIT: easy explination, the WZ healing debuff. Forgot about that. Anyway, does expertise affect merciless?

Sentinel really only starts to shine when you get more skills. You can actually feel the increase in your ability as you unlock each skill through level/talents. At low level just rotate between strike, slash, and cauterize. Force sweep is okay too. Dont use bladestorm, its damage is lackluster, it costs 4 focus vs slashes 2 (if specced). Use rebuke whenever you start getting attacked. I usually only use saber ward if I need to hold a point while waiting for allies. If you see a target dont force leap. Run up to him and attack. Forceleap is your ONLY way of closing the gap. If someones not attacking you its a waste to use it. For example, when you fight a sorc the first thing they are going to do is knock you back. If you jumped on them to start the fight, now you are screwed. Oh and use zeal whenever you need to.

With the internal cooldown of jedi crusader, I dont think you would loose too much by only investing one point.

Ok good points. Im strictly PVP only so that effects some choices. I actually only planned on having 1 point in close quarters, which would leave me enough for 5 points in combat. Force fade is a gimmick I suppose, would only use it for running through fire. Maybe ill drop that and grab defensive roll. I actually use transcendence a decent amount, lots in huttball and in voidstar I always build up and use it right as a door pops.

I really like the watchman tree and aside from recompense im planning on maxing the whole tree. Currently at lvl 42 I dont have focused pursuit or force fade but I keep running into situations where they would be great to have. Or I could get the 30% dmg reduce from aoes....

When you activate OS you will get 3 stacks of it on your buff bar. When you attack an enemy, a stack is transferred from your buff bar to thier de-buff bar. Similarly, when you attack or use focus, stack of centering will be added to your buff bar.

Ive been wondering about this myself. Currently im a lvl 38 watchman but when I get merciless strike my rotation is going to get all screwed up. Do you tend to build focus with strike so you can spam merciless? Do you float at a certain level of focus and weave in slashes so you dont "over generate" focus? Currently my rotation is: Overload, Zealous, cauterize, slash, strike. I basically just smash through that over and over. Its super easy and it does good damage. Dispatch will be tossed probably in front of overload, but im not sure what to do with merciless and its FIVE focus cost (one gets refunded im aware).

I actually couldn't care less, I simply answered the OP and then someone made a claim for no reason with no information backing it up. The reason many people are mad though is because right on the notes it says "Changes should lead to an overall increase in DPS" which is mathematically wrong.

Uh, no? Learn to math. Not going to do it for you. Try to remember we are losing 30% base dmg which is multiplied by surge.

The patch is a nerf all around, make no mistake. The searing saber talent is currently adding +30% dmg to all burns, crit or not. When the patch goes live this will be fixed, nerfing our dmg by a significant margin. The buffs to plasma blades will not compensate.

I just rolled a sentinel on that server this weekend, coming from a low pop lvl 50 vanguard. Maybe ill see you around. My planned spec is almost exactly what you posted, I was really looking at that 15% crit to slash talent though! Ill continue to watch!