Right now when I send out slicing missions, usually two come back with "Mission Complete" with no items in them. Not even regular mats. Level 55, 450, maxed affection on everyone, using HK - turns back nothing. At the very least tell me it failed so that I know you just have the fail rate up to high. It looks like a bug where the missions aren't giving what they are supposed to give.

According to that graph, the DR hits around index 600, or 25%. If you add that to the base 50%, that's 75% crit multiplier, which is what has always been recommended for surge. I'm not sure where you got 270 from that.

I think it's less about Sentinels specifically, and more about how people just don't seem to realize that Huttball is a passing game. It seems like most of the time I get the ball, my teammates just kind of stand around me, as if their presence will confuse the enemy on who to target. Get ahead of the traps so I can pass to you!

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. That's true. It does help interrupt people in cover. And in PvE it is useful when there isn't anything else to contribute when AoEing down adds (most of the time I find it more useful to keep single target going on the boss when adds spawn and let that AoE classes deal with them). I haven't noticed it applying an AoE burn. I'll have to test that. So it sounds like ranged AoE damage outweighs the less than powerful movement debuff from what I'm hearing. That's a fair point.

For augments it is all about the trade off. It used to be that the crit from STR kept might augments on par with Overill - it was a matter of preference and what you wanted more. However the crit gain from STR has been nerfed in 2.0, so now you get slightly more bang for your buck with each Overkill augment.

I'm interested on thoughts on this new ability. My initial impression was that it looked really cool and seemed really useful. However, the more I use it, the more I feel it is underpowered. In PvE it is nice to have a decent cone attack, but the damage is pretty minimal. It's a very small dent compared to the other classes' AoE, and almost seems like time better spent doing what we do best (as Watchman/Combat anyway) and single target, especially when mobs are CC'd. I suppose Focus might get more out of it, since they focus more on AoE, but I assume they'd have more powerful AoE abilities to use. The movement debuff is pretty useless in PvE. In PvP the damage, again, is negligible. I use it more for the 50% movement debuff, but it doesn't last very long, and I feel like my Force Leap is always about to come off cooldown anyway. Maybe it's spec-specific since Watchman can leap from short distances as well. Compared to every other class's new ability, it just seems very tame - ESPECIALLY in PvP. Force Barrier is super useful in PvP and PvE. Smuggler's stupid rolly polly is way OP in PvP right now and I imagine is very useful for quick dodges in PvE. The guardian in my guild can't help but declare his Saber Reflect out loud every time he uses it because he's so excited. Electro Net is a real pain in PvP, though I imagine pretty useless in PvE unless there's another benefit I'm not aware of. Teleporation?? Whaaa! I think our new ability could certainly be worse, but I think it could also be improved to be in line with the other abilities. I think in PvP it should be a root that isn't broken with damage instead of a movement debuff. For PvE maybe put a small DoT on top of the initial damage? Not sure. What do you guys think? Do you love it? Is it perfect for your Combat or Focus Sentinel? I loved the animation and the feeling of hitting multiple targets with a saber throw. I'm just getting more meh about it as I find less practical uses for it and see it compared to some of the uber abilities of the other classes.

PvP Warzones are objective based. All warzones have been designed for combat around objectives to secure that objective, especially at the beginning of a match. The rolly polly spam breaks this design. It eliminating the initial contested combat for objectives in Alderaan and Novare Coast. It eliminates contested combat for all objectives after the initial objective in Voidstar. It provides very close to a free score in Huttball. Warzones were not designed with this amount of burst speed in mind (timers and such). To solve this issue, there should be a cooldown on the ability. It should be the put on the same cooldown as other gap closers of other classes (15s). If they want to roll around every 15 seconds, be my guest. It's a useful skill for evading melee (I'm a Sentinel, so I'm seeing the intended purpose..grr). To add to all this, when it is spammed, it creates graphical glitches. It appears the player is just lag-teleporting around the map. This is especially noticeable in Huttball, when you watch the ball just teleport from spot to spot to the endzone. Needs a fix and will get a fix, I'm sure.

Matrix cube is sad face dated. Pretty sure it'd be in the patch notes if they were adding an additional leveled version, but it's essentially leveling gear and useless at end game.

Challenger is a better starting point. Min/max from there.

I have Conqueror Mainhand and 4 pieces of Partisan gear. I was spreading out the mods and enhancements over my gear to keep min/maxed as best as possible. I went from 2018 expertise to 993. ....

Ok, I'm FINALLY starting to get a handle on the expertise crystals. This was not explained well at all. So once I have Partisan or higher weapons, then I should use expertise crystals, correct? But I'm still in War Hero/EWH, I should remove expertise crystals? And the reason they don't make a new tier of crystals is that crystal customization is one of the most sought-after and hard-earned customizations in the game. Making all those hard-to-get color crystals suddenly inferior would cause a huge stir. I know that me and my 41 white expertise crystals that I bought for 2.5mil a pop a year ago would not appreciate it. Ironically, the new screwy system has done just that - made the 41 expertise crystals inferior and no longer BiS. IF this isn't the case once you get Partisan weapons, then at least it's temporary. My guild used to be a mainly PvP guild until we moved to this game and PvP was treated like a red-headed stepchild (see "Ilum").

I did extensive testing on the PTS. I found that going too far into crit OR letting crit dip way low would hurt DPS. Note that this was before the patch that buffed crit rating a bit, but from what I've been told, they didn't change crit much. I got my best parses with roughly these numbers with Arkanian-level gear: Accuracy: 98% Crit chance: 23-24% Crit multiplier: 72% Alacrity: 0 I wasn't augmented for my PTS testing, but once you hit around those numbers, I'd just stack power. Bringing crit up higher than 24% seemed to lessen my DPS, but if I dropped it to 20 I was hurting as well. This was 5 minute parses. Alacrity is useless. All of this is for the Watchman spec. If anyone has updated information, please share, as I know things change from the PTS. With Underworld gear, you might could get ACC and Crit Mult up to 100 and 75. I'd keep crit around the same, though. Note: My numbers are roughly this on the live server, and I'm still out-DPSing the rest of my raid group by a decent amount. I'm probably a little better geared than them and knew what I was aiming for with min/maxing, though, so that may not be a clear indicator. In any case, even if they catch up with me, I'll be holding my own and certainly not slacking off on DPS with the numbers I listed.

I'm getting 993 in Partisan/EWH mixed gear... So I should be PvPing in my Arkanian/Underworld mixed gear because they automatically add the expertise to my gear? That's better than my Partisan/EWH mixed gear? And apparently my white expertise crystals are now useless? Yeah, that's not broken.....................

Force barrier = 10 extra seconds of uncontested protection on a door/point. Completely changes the dynamic of capture/defend PvP Spam rolly-polly move - Guaranteed cap/ball grab/door arm. Negates the initial fight over a point and makes it very hard to prevent Void Star steam rolling. Both abilities need to be balanced a little better for PvP.

This. Is. Stupid. I've been min-maxing my PvP gear as I go. So now all my gear just has an expertise mod here and an expertise enhancement there. I went from 2018 expertise to 993. And everyone is telling me it's better to just use my PvE gear now? And I'm still confused about my expertise crystals. Does this follow ANY amount of logic?

So I'm supposed to PvP in my Arkanian gear? And what am I supposed to do with my white expertise crystals I paid 5 million for almost a year ago? I'm confused.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6144167#edit6144167

As others have said, Pacify. When you get knocked back and rooted, use Force Camo. You'll still be rooted, but the Sniper can't target you and then you can stealth back in range. Use Rebuke and Saber Ward to absorb the damage. If possible, keep your back towards a wall to avoid getting knocked back out of range. Crippling throw, Dispatch, Force Statis, and now Twin Saber Throw (new patch) can all be done at range, so don't just stand there. I think using Force Camo at the right time is key. Usually this will cause them to switch targets.

Sure, here ya go. I've never used TORparse as I just seemed to get bogged down in the info, but I think i did that right. I notice that the parse says I was hitting the Warzone Training Dummy, but I'm pretty certain it was the Operations Training Dummy. Is that known issue with TORparse or should I double check that? Edit: Trying it again, I'm not able to reproduce those results on the Operations Training Dummy. Additionally, despite the parse not being able to pick out the fight automatically, it still calls it the correct dummy. I must have gotten turned around while switching around mods. My DPS is back in line with the other results I was getting: 2332. Lame...

Unless Zealous Leap is doing something really weird, Focus Leap does the exact same thing. Essentially the ability will either charge you to the FRONT of the target or the BACK of the target, depending on which one you are closer to. This means that, yes, you need to be spatially aware of where the front and back of the target is and make sure it is clear before using your leap. It's an ability that can't be used ALL the time. Positioning and timing are key. There are several fights where I time my leap out so I can use it and then quickly run back to my spot. Still there are other fights where I just play it safe and don't use it at all for certain sections. I suppose if it is key to your rotation and damage then that's a bummer, but I like that it requires some skill and thought every once in a while.

I switched to Overkill augments since main stat doesn't raise crit nearly as much as it used to.

I can get to 30% with a lot of min/maxing too, but it leaves me power-starved, causing about a 200 DPS drop. I'm currently trying to find the sweet spot. At 24% crit (28% force crit) and 1100 power I'm getting 2660 DPS. That's the top I've gotten to at the moment.

I did some more tweaking, going with a LOT of power and practically no crit. This started to lower my DPS, so there's still a sweet spot with crit. The sweet spot I'm getting at the moment is around 24% crit chance, or 400 crit rating. This is 28.24% force crit chance (with 4% from talents). 5% of this is from the smuggler buff. This leaves me with 1100 power and 2406 strength. This gets me to 2661 DPS, but I'd like to keep tweaking to see if I can get higher. P.S. Sorry if this got a bit off topic. I know the thread was originally about the Watchman Tree, but all of this info pertains to the Watchman, so I hope it's still beneficial.

For the OP, use STR to help get to 30% crit chance, then stack power. For Doc, I put specifics in the separate thread you made, but essentially your ACC is too low and your crit multiplier is too high. Aim for 98% ACC, 30% crit, 75% surge, then stack power. My gear. I think the only tweak I've done since that is switched out a bit of ACC for power. (alternating an implant and an enhancement, I believe). My DPS on tank'n'spank For 2.0, if the crit changes remain, you'll want to stack power over crit, leaving crit at around 20%. There's a lot of people complaining about it, though, so I don't know if the new equations will make it to live.

1. What tree do we believe is the best for DPS output? Watchman 2. How much Strength do you have? Can you ever have too much Strength? Use Strength augments to help get your Crit to 30%. Then you can use more power mods. Aim for crit number, not Strength number. Then switch to power. POST 2.0: Crit is nerfed and isn't worth the investment. Abandon crit for more power. 3. Should you stack power or substitue power for other stats like accuracy, crit or surge? Acc: 110% (I hover about 108), Crit 30%, Surge 75%, then stack power 4. What are the best % to have for Accuracy, Crit Chance and Crit Multiplier? See above. 5. What is the best ability rotation? Force Leap, Overload Saber, Zealous Strike, Cauterize, Merciless Slash, Cauterize (if up again), Slash, Cauterize (if up after slash), Master Strike. Use strike if you need quick focus in between any of that and zealous/force leap isn't back up. 6. What is the best form to be in? Juyo as Watchman. Form is completely dependent on tree. You'll notice that talents in the tree buff that form. I get close to 2000 DPS in tank and spanks (EC NM tanks, for instance). Please note that some of this will change with 2.0, especially the stat goals. The trick is to use Merciless Slash and Slash to keep Cauterize off cooldown. Also keep Merciless Slash stacked and replace Slash with Dispatch if target is below 30%. Always have Overload Saber running. Never be standing around waiting for something to come off cooldown. Always be using something.