Hello All, Like many others, I've decided to give The Old Republic a try again with the new expansion. I have not played in over 2 years (Fall 2012). The last activities I remember doing were gathering Black Hole Commendations and running Hard Mode 8-man operations. Obviously a lot has changed. I was alternativng between a Jedi Sentinel and Jedi Sage (Mostly healing spec'd) but have decided to focus on my sage now that I have returned. I do not even recognize the healing tree anymore; I'm trying to do online research but it has been difficult. Rather than spam to the community "how do I play again," I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of any resources for returning players in the forums, or just some general tips on what I should be doing first, now that I'm back. Thanks in advance!

Mia Culpa I thought it was a post-1.3 thread. That's what I get for not checking thoroughly. Sorry!

While I respect your opinion, that you feel PvP is the end all and be all of MMO's, and also agree that PVE is not terribly challenging (especially in endgame wasteland that is TOR), I think you are giving PvP too much credit and PvE not enough credit. Regardless of how good you are individually in PvP, your group dynamics matter just as much as any endgame PvE raid. You may be the best level 50 Sentinel on your server, but if your team is a disaster, and the opponents team is a carefully built, PvP hardened group, I doubt your match will go in your teams' favor. PvE and PvP are equally about personal challenge as much as they are about group dynamics in my opinion. And personally, I played this MMO to play with other people towards a common goal, but as I stated earlier I respect that some people would rather play *against* other people and get equal enjoyment out of it. I do believe however, that you can't compare PvP to PvE in terms of our performance as Sentinels (or any class for that matter). One thing I will comment on; I don't believe we get as much damage as we should as Sentinels, relative to our close position to the target. Melee DPS should always have an advantage over ranged DPS simply because we are exposed to more AoE's (frequent in endgame of any MMO). Ranged have an advantage in that, if they pull hate they have more time than we do to drop threat. Usually we don't know we have grabbed hate until we are being pounded. I'm not advocating an enormous increase, I just think Sentinels (any melee DPS in fact) should have a slight edge over ranged DPS because we are exposed to more potential damage.

First, if this has been addressed somewhere else I apologize. I could not find an answer to my specific question in the threads here. Now that I am adding augments to all my gear I am wondering about some "target" values. It seems everyone feels there is value in balancing Crit, Power and Surge. My strength is now over 2k with stim, so I need to make some augment choices. I have two questions however. 1.) No one ever mentions alacrity for Sentinels, which to me seems to be our attack speed. Am I misreading this? This would seem to have direct returns on our DPS if we can spam our heavy hitting attacks faster. 2.) Are there specific numbers I should not be going over with regards to Crit percentage, multiplier etc? I know there are diminishing returns for some abilities, but do we in fact hit a glass ceiling somewhere? Any info and feedback would be appreciated.

My group is almost full Rakata and the droid is a nightmare on HM. What I do not understand here (please help me understand), is everyone says "it's easy when you figure out the mechanics." The problem we are having is it's too random. Once he starts dropping the blue balls of death all over the floor, on the melee we have to move. Once we start to move it's difficult, if not impossible to stun Incinerate while moving. You either have to stop in the blue ball of death or on the lava floor. Do people instruct their healer and ranged to stun this while melee are moving? Is that even possible? For reference sake, what exactly *are* people doing to beat this thing? I am willing to try anything at this point. Setup btw is usually Guardian Tank, Sentinel, Commando DPS and Sage Healer.

First let me say I am a Sentinel through and through. Someone in my guild the other day was bragging about how he (being a gunslinger) was "probably the highest DPS in the raid" we were on (KP HM). I was largely unimpressed by his gear but truthfully I don't know much about gunslingers. Is there any credibility to his claim? For the record I am in mixed (50/50) Rakata/Columi/Augmented. Strength is currently 1855 with stims so I would like to think I am not complete trash. Thanks for the replies.

I'm still uncertain of this myself. I have heard that Strength is key until it reaches ~1800. After that you start getting diminishing returns and should focus on Crit, Power, Surge etc. Anyone with more info or testing? Would love to know what to start looking at beyond 1800 Strength.

I was in the same position as the OP; I was at around 12k when I first dinged 50, with gear over time I can just hit 19k It's was a bit odd a concept to me in an MMORPG to increase your max HP by over 1/3 with gear but that's the way TOR is. Don't worry, you'll get there eventually!

I am debating ripping out the mods from my Rakata vest and putting them into an Augmented Sentinels Vest. I know there are stat bonuses for having multiple Rakata pieces (which I do) but I find them fairly lackluster. I think I would benefit more from the crit or STR bonuses than the 15 seconds off of Valorous Call. I was wondering what peoples' opinions are on this. Thanks in advance Ninja Edit: Nevermind, on closer inspection I realized there is no Augment slot on the Renown Gear. My bad!

I can't say much about the training dummy, but as a focus Sentinel, PvP damage tends to be skewed. Focus is great for dropping 4-5k Force Sweeps into a group of enemies protecting a target (door in Voidstar etc.) But if you get say 4-5 of them, your overall damage would spike to 20k+ in a single hit. I would imagine it is more lackluster on the training dummy (though I can't speak from experience).

^ This Generally I am a lurker who rarely posts here, but I have played Focus from the beginning. I tried Watchman when everyone was screaming about how awesome it was but saw a huge drop in my DPS numbers. I'm not saying Focus is better than Watchman; it just suited my playstyle and I have not been driven out of any HM's or Ops yet for it. Watchman offers many advantages over Focus (especially some self healing abilities). As many have pointed here, Focus has very specific uses but I am not sure I would call them "gimmicks." Focus is about building up to Force Sweeps and using your other hard hitting DPS moves in between. Consider that a Zealous Leap -> Force Exhaustion -> Force Sweep should deal in the area of about 10k. And there is nothing to say you can't spam your other DPS tools like Blade Storm and Master Strike while waiting for sweep to come up again. Personally, I also like immobilizing targets with Force Stasis as well, but again to each his own. My Ops groups appreciate having the ability to help clear out adds quickly via high AoE DPS, so there is a niche for me I suppose. But by all means, try them out and see which suits you best. Cheers.

Please forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere, as I tried to check beforehand: I know it is possible to set up custom chat channels in TOR, but is it possible to monitor another established channel (IE Coruscant, Republic Fleet etc.) while I am on another planet? If so, how would I do this? I tried to play around with it last night, but no dice Thanks in advance.

While I see some exaggeration going on, I do believe Focus is not as terrible as people make it out to be, especially for Ops where there are specialized roles for tanks, DPS and healers. I tried switching from Focus to Watchman, and saw a significant loss of damage in both PvP and PvE, though perhaps I did not play it long enough (gave it two weeks) Force Exhaustion and Force Stasis are solid DOT abilities, and the 1.2 5k Force Sweep is indeed a nice addition. While I would not suggest it is ZOMG super powerful, it holds its own as far as I am concerned in PVE, raids and Ops.

Forgive me if this has been posted somewhere else. I have been at 50 for some time and slowly accumulating a comfortable collection of decent gear. Currently I am mainhanding the Champion Lightsaber and offganding the Redeemer. Based on the stats I have seen, these are the best available to me at the moment. I want to be sure however, I have not missed anything obviously better. I see the Rakata weapons have marginally better stats.. Are there any other endgame lightsabers people use on Sentinel that they would like to share? Thanks!

Much to my own dismay, I recently abandoned Focus for Watchman, which is too bad because it was the build I levelled up with from 1 - 50. From what I did experience however, much of your damage in Focus comes from Force Sweeps preceded by either Force Stasis or Force Exhaustion. You'll get an even better result if you can get a Force Leap or Zealous Leap in before that. One of the problems I ran into which made me switch my build however, is that my guild started ops. It was often too risky in crowd situations to be continually Force Sweeping especially when we often rely on CC to survive. Focus is great for doing a lot of AoE damage to a lot of targets, but like all the builds has its drawbacks.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't I need to do more PvP in order to get the commendations in order to get Champion gear? I'll see what I can do about the rotation on an idle player. Also, when I said my gear is "good" I meant in terms of being level 50, I have tried to keep my stuff updated. I am almost out of options in terms of purchasable gear that isn't ridiculously overpriced (300-500k for a single mod slot etc.)

Thanks everyone for their replies. I'll try to pick my targets better as a start. Sadly, my force sweeps are still coming low. If someone could link me to a site where I could show my gear, I would be happy to; in the meantime my current stats are: STR: 1065 PRC: 299 END: 992 EXPERTISE: 0 (Clearly have something going on here) Damage Pri: 477-598 Damage Sec: 159 - 239 Bonus Damage: 236 Accuracy: 95% Crit Chance: 25.27 Crit Mult: 59.53 I have no idea how these numbers stack against others. I have made a point of getting all the datacrons up to Hoth and am working on Belsavis atm. Clearly my Expertise needs cleaning up. I don't think I realized how important it is.

First, I want to clarify: I am a level 50 Sentinel with what I would consider to be *good* gear. I am also not new to MMORPG's, though PvP is a newer concept to me. I'll be honest here and say I have difficulty targetting in PvP as everyone runs around like an idiot, so this may be user error. Whenever I go into PvP I get absoloutley devastated in terms of damage and performance. I would guess about 90% of the matches I play, the Republic loses (I'm hoping that it is not just *me* that is the common denominator). The Empire side seems to unload incredible amounts of damage, usually from a distance which I cannot close. I have been hit with numbers in excess of 3k with an average of between 1-2k per damage round. Best I seem to manage is around 1.5k with a singularity built-force sweep, and withh all the surrounding targets running around like crazy, I am lucky if it ever hits. I am set up along the Focus tree which most people seem to feel is inferior to the Watchman from what I have read. I really enoy the specs from the Focus for all aspects of the game; do I *need* to respec to even survive PvP? I guess I am asking for general advice. What should I try to be doing in PvP? It seems like every other class is at least twice as tough as I am with more damage output. Even standing toe to toe with hybrid classes, they seem to *at least* output as much damage as I can put out, which healing themselves at the same time. This doesn't seem fair, but I am not so arrogant to think the problem might be me. Thanks in advance for suggestions.. Please help

Thanks for the reply. Is Power a useful stat then, for Sentinels?

This pertains mostly to the Jedi Sentinel, though I suppose it could clear up a lot for other people on other Jedi advanced classes. Currently I am playing a 36 Jedi Sentinel and was wondering what primary stats should be for this job. I have done a decent job of keeping my Strength high, but I have wondered if I should be trying more for things like critical hit and power. And does Alacrity even matter to Sentinels? I guess my question is, what are the most important stats for the Sentinel, should I be looking for a balance or just pouring it all into one area? Thanks in advance.