At the rate things are going, this game (and these developers' jobs, for that matter) doesn't have a future.

I think even a fair numbers of East Coasters would begrudgingly agree with you. Unfortunately it appears the decision is final, and EAware won't be making any apologies for it.

Yes, you can claim with certainty that it was a lie, because they specifically said in the 10/2 Roadmap update that they were rolling all of the servers into "one for each existing region and language". Last time I checked, the server list always had distinct East/West Coast designations for NA servers. So unless they want to retroactively redefine the word "region", this wasn't even a lie of omission, it was just a lie. You are in no way spouting hyperbole. Don't let this dishonest apologist try to convince you, or anyone else, otherwise.

What part of your reply was meant to be relevant? I don't need to know anyone from Bioware (or EA, for that matter) to know that the quality of the product no longer justifies the money I spent for it, and judging by the replies here, many people agree. Gameplay experience has actually managed to decline since last year, and this news only adds to the trend. Frankly, I don't care who made the decision, or how it was made. At some point along the chain, this was decided, and someone somewhere deliberately chose to hamstring us all by releasing such important information after the fact. That is poor business practice, and I hope for Bioware's sake that this was the Austin branch's doing. Because if it wasn't, then one can reasonably expect that this type of piss poor treatment of paying customers will be repeated in future titles. "The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update I wonder what kind of mental gymnastics you'll twist through to defend the devs on this one. They lied, and you know it.

+1 to these. Bioware, you've lost another paying customer today, and I'll be viewing any future titles produced by your company with a greater level of skepticism that I do not reserve for many other publishers. Your dishonesty is killing what is left of what was once a great brand.

I'll just leave this here. "The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update

"The United Forces update expands your connection to a galactic-sized community of players. We will be integrating our existing seventeen servers to five new servers, one for each existing region and language." ---10/2 UF Roadmap update That post aged really well, didn't it, Devs?

/Signed. The fact that the devs told us about the move after the fact just goes to show how little respect the company has for its subscribers. I'm extremely tempted to take my money elsewhere if Satele Shan is not stationed in the West. This is what we were promised, and this is what we will get if the devs want to keep enough money flowing to justify the continuation of their jobs to the higher ups. Because if the server locations stand as they are, then the revenue lost to the 5.0 player exodus will look small-time to what they're about to lose.

You people just screwed over a huge portion of your player base, and you knew about this well in advance. So you just now inform us in some cavalier manner after the fact, as if moving all of the NA servers to the East Coast was some insignificant decision made in afterthought. I and most other people in the APAC/Western regions would completely understand if you made this announcement as a key change in your Roadmap announcement, and just being honest about your reasons for doing so. But it's clear that you have so little respect for your community that you didn't even have the decency to do that. This crew has made some extremely seedy decisions in the past, but this one takes the cake. My server lag tripled overnight, with no explanation as to why until I heard about the move from another player. I was already on the fence about renewing my sub at the end of the month, but this may finally be the straw that broke the camel's back. I highly doubt I'm alone, either. Shame on you, Bioware, and shame on everyone else up the latter that was involved in this asinine decision. You deserve every bit of criticism and income loss for this dogsh*t move, and I hope your branch closes entirely by the year's end for all the dishonesty. Good riddance.

Welcome back to the game. I won't say specifically which discipline you *should* play, given that all three of them play very differently and offer different advantages. Instead, I'll highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and allow you to make a better informed decision. Concentration, in my opinion, has the simplest rotation of the three. It runs on a set, 12-GCD path that are divided up into two 6-turn "cycles". Focus management is easy, and you rarely have to deviate from it for optimal DPS. With a heavy alacrity distribution, it has the highest single target sustained damage in the entire game. It's the best equipped of any melee class for handling mobile targets, and it offers decent AoE that requires more attention to maintain than the other two specs. Combat is also a fairly simple rotation, but more difficult to execute. Half of the spec is basic attack spam, with the other half fitting ~60-70% of your DPS into a 3 second window. It also has very strong potential DPS for being the burstiest of the three, but mistakes during your burst window are extremely costly. It is also the weakest of the three against mobile targets, but it does offer the best potential burst AoE of almost any class. Watchman is currently the redheaded step-child of the three. While its DPS is still fairly competitive, it lacks the burst of the other two specs, underperforming in fights with multiple, weaker enemies. The rotation still requires the ramp-up time you likely remember, but it's significantly shorter than it was. When this is completed, you have two sets of abilities synced to two different base CD timers, which causes the greatest rotational variation of the three. Because of this, I argue that it has the highest skill ceiling for newcomers, but it's the most forgiving when making mistakes. It is the slowest in terms of GCD time, and offers decent AoE with many opportunities to spread DoTs. You do receive some baseline self-HoTs, and it does offer decent kiting tools as well. Conc is a decent choice in any scenario, and you have the tools to deal with anything. Combat is best for fights with multiple enemies and target swaps, but you potentially suffer being kited. Watchman's only comparative advantage is fighting two or more enemies with high health for prolonged periods of time. Hope that helps.

So the parse boards have been reset, and it's safe to say that my initial argument is vindicated. I will grant that Conc probably needs a sustained nerf, but there is absolutely no reason even Combat should be putting up higher sustained numbers than Watchman on a dummy. Devs, I urge you again to either reverse or soften the Watchman nerfs, or provide us a new bone to chew on. Better discipline CC-immunity, AoE, or DCD up-time will suffice.

Nope, Sentinels completely lack any baseline CC immunity while attacking. Zealous Ward from the Legendary tree provides 6 seconds of it on Saber Ward (3 minute cooldown, though). Our only other source is Force Camo, but nobody can even target you to attempt a stun while in stealth, obviously.

I provided solid evidence that contradicts your opinion, and your response was "but Conc is a PvP spec". Again, Conc has objectively superior burst, sustained DPS, CC-immunity, target swapping, energy management, rotational ease, and time-on-target utility. It's better in both PvE and PvP. If we are to continue operating under the assumption that the developers still wish to balance every discipline for PvP purposes (or even the game at all), then the sheer number and magnitude of the advantages Conc has over Watchman cannot remain as they are. And if they no longer wish to balance every class in PvP, they should just make their intentions clear and lock the "non-PvP" specs from PvP. Until you provide any solid evidence that suggests Watchman actually has some large advantages over Conc that have not yet been represented in this thread, I see no point in further debating this matter.

This "Conc is a PvP spec" argument is also nonsense. If the developers intended for one discipline for each class to be played in PvP, then why are all of them available in PvP? Furthermore, if Conc is going to out-DPS Watchman, then why would Conc not also be locked to PvE conversely? You know this was never the case since launch, and there are plenty of cases where classes' DoT specs outperform their burst counterparts in one patch and the underperform in the next.

I'll argue that Combat suffers more than Watchman in PvP because a single stun or DCD at the proper time will erase ~70% of their damage in that rotation cycle, and just about every class in the game is capable of repeatedly shutting down Precision windows. To the guy attempting to argue that Conc is somehow more difficult than either of the others --- what on Earth are you smoking? So to you, the only discipline in the class with built-in CC immunity, a 100% set-path, net resource-positive rotation, a free resource/rotation reset (Valorous Call), the best anti-kiting utilities of any class in the entire game, the only tree that allows your only 30M ability sit idly for use at your leisure, is the hardest Sentinel tree to master? I'd just dismiss you as a troll, but your level of commitment to denigrating people in the thread who disagree with you suggests otherwise. This argument is nonsense. Conc's top parse was less than 300 DPS below that of Watchman pre-nerf, and its parse average is actually higher than Watchman's. Don't believe me? Here you go. As you can see there, Conc has a 200 DPS advantage over Watchman even on the 2.5M dummy, and I can attest to that with my own anecdotes. Pre-nerf, I was hitting 10.3-10.6k on my better parses. Post-nerf, I was happy to break 10k, and it wasn't until I had to re-optimize my gear that I was regularly surpassing that mark. In fact, the only fights I'm reaching my prior numbers on are add-heavy fights (such as Tyth, C0 and Underlurker). Tell us all how Watchman is out-performing Conc in sustained, again. Ball is in your court, my dude. I reiterate all of my points from the start of the thread. 1. Conc is objectively superior to Watchman in almost every way. It is easier, more resource-friendly, burstier, more sustained, and better PvP-equipped. 2. Watchman hit like a wet noodle in PvP, even when it was king of the Parse Heroes™ This problem has been further exacerbated with the nerf. 3. Sentinels suffer from weak up-time on their DCDs. The mitigation on the DCDs is absolutely fine, but the rate at which mitigation is sustained is horrible. 4. Watchman and Combat completely lack CC-immunity while attacking targets. Such up-time can be increased by a whopping 6 seconds every 3 minutes with a Legendary utility. 5. Other DoT classes have superior target swapping, and all but Watchman have a main AoE ability (defined as providing a DoT spread and/or powerful debuff) in their single target rotations. My solutions to the above issues: 1. Reduced CD on Saber Ward. This solves both the CC-immunity issue, and DCD up-time. Do it through utility or baseline AC change, I don't care. But 3 minutes on such a mediocre DCD is ridiculous. 2. More PvP-situational DPS for Watchman. There are a myriad of ways to implement this, ranging from a damage bonus for each time the player is controlled (sort of like the Guardian's Gather Strength utility) or an attack is avoided, reintroducing Riposte, increased damage reflect on Rebuke, or many other possible methods. 3. Add a damage bonus to AoE. Again, there are a variety of ways to resolve the multi-target issue. I.e.: give Watchman's Twin Saber Throw or Force Sweep the Beat Down passive, give Sweep a proc (sort of like Accelerating Victory) to buff its damage or Focus cost once every ~8-16 GCDs (to make it temporarily more powerful than Slash), or rework DoTspread's mechanics to reapply DoTs more consistenly. I think these solutions are more than fair, and provide the developers ample room to tweak the changes to fit the existing TTK models for all gameplay modes. I also fully support additional protections for Combat's extremely vulnerable Precision window, but that is not the core focus of this thread. So long as at least 2 of the 3 solutions I have offered are met in some way, I will drop the issue and we all go happily on our ways.

Saber Reflect has a 1M CD. VGs get the shaft, I admit. Ops have Dodge with a base 1M CD, which is improved upon taking damage, and activates on stealth (per utility). Resilience is on a 1M CD, and you get it again with each stealth-out (per utility). What? Rebuke is 20% mitigation, and 50% is the maximum up-time. You must constantly take damage in order to receive the full effect, which is rare in operations. Smugglers have a shield probe (30 seconds or better!!), Troopers have Reactive Shield, Sages have Force Armor, Guardians have FD/Enure. Incorrect, Trans and SW overlap their hit/miss chances (as every DCD does), so your total MR avoidance is slightly over 60% (Base def. included). I double-dog dare you to try and cheese Underlurker's Rage Storm with that. And given that the majority of boss/class damage is FT, you end up mitigating slightly more than Reactive Shield does once every three minutes. Shadows also benefit from a reflect on deflection, and a full minute faster up-time (meaning significantly better CC immunity). Again, this is a 100% DPS sacrifice when available. A zero-sum gain, at best. It also does not actually remove anything without sacrificing one of your two best utilities to do so. I admit that this is one area that Sentinels truly have an upper hand over most classes. Their AoE/DoT reduction with Rebuke up is one of the best in the game. Fair point. Again, Sentinels' DCDs are entirely situational, and none of them can be overlapped without wasting mitigation, an issue unique to Sentinels. Our total mitigation up-time suffers tremendously in prolonged fights, and we sorely lack CC-immunity. I cannot stress that second part enough, and how important it is in PvP. And unlike Focused Defense, Shield Probe, Reactive Shield, Force Armor, self-heals, and many others, you will not get Saber Ward twice per round in a 4v4 match, and you'll be an extremely lucky Sentinel to see GBtF twice. You did not account for passive mitigation, or self-heals. Sentinels require such strong DCDs to offset the inherent armor weakness, and lack of a heal CD. Same way Consulars have tons of passives to reconcile their light armor. Rebuke exists to partly close that gap, but as you said, it has a maximum of 50% up-time, and we only have weak HoTs (which hover around ~40-60% EHPS). You also did not account for control abilities, which is the crux of my argument for PvP. I can agree that the Sentinels don't suffer nearly as badly in PvE for the aforementioned reasons, but beyond Awe, we lack the ability to control our opponents. And again, the only source of CC immunity we have while attacking is Zealous Ward, which has a 3.33% total up-time. I'd love for you to compare that to the other classes. You're even welcome to include Force Camo, if you'd like. Look, I agree that Sentinels have a large volume of DCDs, and each's mitigation is very good. But as I have demonstrated, we lack a hard heal CD, up-times are severely limited, and some of them exist solely to offset inherent weaknesses other classes do not suffer from. And while we boast some of the best AoE/DoT defenses in the game, we don't take FT damage well at all. We and VGs are by far the most healer-dependent classes in the game. I would encourage you to PvP more frequently, so you can understand just how important this and control abilities really are, and why I continue to make such a fuss about it. Also, I challenge you to duel any semi-skilled Slinger/Mando/Guardian/Shadow/Scoundrel as Watchman, and tell me how it goes. Bonus points: 2v2 (as Watchman) any class with a healer present. Try not to pull your hair out. On one last note, I stand by my initial criticisms of the class changes. I'm willing to drop PvE DPS if and only if the devs scale every class correctly, and they either provide us more AoE damage, or make more of it rotational like the other DoTspecs. My ideal solution to efficiently tweak the defensive and PvP issues would be a baseline Saber Ward CD reduction, and more situational DPS that affects PvP more than it does PvE. I made a thread about the second issue already. As soon as that is satisfied, I will be a happy camper, and will return to the shadowy abyss from whence I came.

With respect to PvE, I agree with most of your points. However, I disagree with your claims over survivability. Sentinels have solid mitigation on their DCDs, but lack up-time. GBtF has over twice the CD length as that of similar abilities, and Saber Ward (a mediocre DCD at best) has a 3 minute CD. Pacify doesn't do much in ops, and it's single target anyway. Rebuke only offsets the lack of heavy armor for as long as you can take damage, and none of the above can be used simultaneously without overlapping (wasting) your mitigation. Our only built-in CC immunity sacrifices DPS, and even our Legendary utility provides us a whopping total of 3.33% CC-free up-time. None of our abilities provide root immunity, either. The lack of immunities can be reconciled in PvE, but not PvP. Sentinels are one of the most vulnerable classes in the game because of this, and our weak up-time on our hard DCDs. Not to mention that all of our DCDs are reaction-based, rather than control-based, which further ups the difficulty. I'll illustrate what I mean. Guardians have a push, AoE mez, and can pop 3 of their DCDs without any overlapping mitigation. Shadows and Scoundrels can reset a fight in their favor with stealth + H2F. All three of the heal-capable classes can extend their TTKs through heals, kiting, and knockbacks. Slingers have unbelievably strong DCDs and CC immunity for unbelievably long up-times (many of which can also overlap). Most classes also enjoy true reflects now, too. Sentinels cannot employ their DCDs in the same cavalier manner that most classes can, because you waste your total potential mitigation, and you have far less total up-time with your hard DCDs. My point is that Sentinels lack both the abilities to control the flow of a fight (beyond an AoE mez), and resist being controlled. Not only are there more ways to make defensive mistakes on a Sentinel, but the price of that mistake is far higher in the long run due to atrociously weak up-times. This is why Sentinels must have either higher DPS, or better DCDs than other classes, and both advantages have been stripped from Watchman. I will concede that if all classes are eventually scaled in the way the devs envision, my complaints will be satisfied for PvE only. This does not resolve the fact that we hit like wet noodles in PvP, and it's nearly impossible to kill anything with a healer (or Sniper) present. Even when Conc was one of the worst disciplines in the game, there was a compelling argument that it was still better than Watchman because of its burst, immunities, and superior kiting tools. That remains unresolved, and there are plenty of viable ways to go about a patch. Returning Riposte to Sentinels and improving Saber Ward's up-time would go a long way, for example. Either way, I am not going to stop raising this issue until the devs are properly sick of me and finally fix the damn problem.

Which is completely ridiculous, since they *just* buffed it. And even if that (probably) happens, that doesn't change the fact that Watchman is simply outclassed by just about every DoT discipline in the game now, aside from Plasmatech. It was already sub-par in PvP prior to the nerf, and Combat is still considered the optimal discipline for the majority of ops fights. This completely invalidates using it for any reason. At least Vigilance has some burst and fast DCD timers. Ruffian straight-up out-DPSes everything (again), and Serenity has a placeable AoE and a true reflect, attached to strong DCDs with significantly faster cooldown times. Not to mention that most of them have AoEs (most of them with DoTspread) as part of their core single target rotations. This is utter nonsense, there was no reason whatsoever for this nerf.

That sounds fine and dandy until you realize that Concentration is hitting 10-10.6k, and Combat is still reaching up to 10.3... and those are burst specs. Also, I used to average ~10.2-10.5k on the dummy, peaking at 10.7. Now, I'm happy to get above the 10k mark, with my current best not even breaking 10.1. This is a very substantial nerf, as far as I can see.

This is an honest question, not just hyperbolic post-nerf wailing. What is the point, functionally, of a discipline when another discipline outperforms it in virtually every way? Concentration was already competing with Watchman for the top Sentinel parse (and all parses, for that matter) before the nerf. It has superior burst, an easier, less RNG dependent rotation, built-in CC immunity, more opportunities to employ our AoE mez without breaking it with DoTs, benefits more from utilities (such as Jedi Promulgator, Force Fade/Hidden Advance), comparable AoE, and better tools for maximum enemy uptime. Not only does it have all-'round superior utility, Conc now has better burst and sustained DPS. It seems to me that the only thing Watchman offers that Conc doesn't is a few meager raidwide heals, and now even Combat is competing with Watchman's sustained DPS. So, why, in any game mode, should anyone play Watchman anymore? Furthermore, it's exactly as I said in other threads. The only benefits a DoT Sentinel traditionally offered over other DoT classes were superior single target DPS, Transcendence (which only breaks roots, no actual immunity even for the user), a slightly more powerful raid buff (with a 3.33% uptime), and slightly better AoE damage reduction. No pushes nor pulls, no self-heal DCD, and horrendously bad uptime for our big DCDs in PvE. Watchman Sentinels were *designed* to out-DPS just about everything they encounter, and the only period in the game when they didn't (3.X), they were absolutely terrible. If Watchman isn't going to be allowed to be top sustained DPS (even among its own discipline trees), its needs better utilities. And don't you dare take this as an endorsement to nerf Conc, because it finally got the buff it rightly needed. Either reverse Watchman's nerf, or give us something new to let it somehow remain relevant. Again, if a Dev happens upon this, I have a completely honest question. Do you even play your own game? Seriously. As players have outlined in other class threads, this latest round of nerfs were atrocious, with few exceptions. I implore you to reevaluate your philosophy surrounding class changes, and if you refuse to do so, at least do us the courtesy of rolling out utility changes sooner than later. I honestly want to believe that you are trying to do right by the player base with your Roadmap, but by God you are making it difficult.

I think the proposed changes as you have them are a bit overpowered, but I like the spirit of the changes. Crippling Slash just isn't worth wasting a utility point on for the added effects, and Saber Ward has a horrendously long CD for being such a moderate DCD. I've been calling for this since 2.X, and it's high time for a buff. Guardians can have a 1.5M CD on a H2F ability and benefit from heavy armor. Shadows have a *reflect* on their version of mini-saber ward, better CC immunity up-time, and a full minute faster CD. Our DCDs' mitigations are fine, but the lack of self-heals and total uptime on our big defenses compared to other classes is atrocious. The only areas Sents have over the others, defensively, is slightly more consistent mobility, and being able to tank all varieties of massive damage for a very short period of time. It's time Sents get some love in the defensive department.

No, I will not stop with the pure dps "nonsense", because there is an element of truth to it, and your ignorance of that fact does not change reality. The devs designed it this way. The hallmark of the Sentinel has *always* been their pure dps, and the only time it wasn't (3.X), they were absolutely terrible. Sents and Slingers are locked into their roles, where other classes still naturally offer utilities from their alternate forms (such as taunts, guards, and self-heals). Sentinels are a dps-only class with no pushes nor pulls, nor any particularly special mechanics that other classes don't have better versions of. This is the crux of my entire argument, and your failure to acknowledge that in no way provides any constructive criticism to my proposal. Transcendence is the most unique Sentinel ability, which doesn't say much. It's certainly useful in PvP, and at best a convenience (or detriment for platforming) in endgame PvE. It doesn't affect output in any meaningful way, and other classes have root immunity on their boosts. As for Inspiration, again. It's nice to have. But a slight raid boost with a 3.33% uptime isn't much. It isn't even available in Arenas. I will happily take Guard/Taunt or self-heals over those any day. As for their DCDs, Sentinels have superior *burst* defenses over Guardians, because they lack self-heals. You also forget that Guardians have significantly faster CDs on their DCDs, and they benefit from heavy armor. Sentinels only get anywhere near that base mitigation with Rebuke up, which requires continuous damage to keep. Sentinels only defensively outclass Guardians with the ability to tank very short, massive bursts, and avoiding "standing in stupid". That's it. The whole point of reintroducing the move to Sents is because the only true advantage it has ever had, by design, is their DPS. Riposte is more than a fair compromise, because it's only a very slight DPS increase, and it gives them an exploit mechanic that other classes can't use the same way. If Sentinels can't have Push, Pull, self-heals, true stealth, multiple hard stuns, heavy armor, taunts, nearly full 10M rotations, true reflects, or any other mainstream ability, then they need something to stand out with. The devs have always functionally made that edge..... their DPS, and gave them the tools required to deal it. Riposte does this by keeping base damage in line with other classes, while letting Sents bypass some of the very mechanics *they lack*. How is that not fair? Okay, tell you what. If not Riposte, then what solution do you have to offer Watchman and Combat after the nerf wave ends, and both are left outshined by other disciplines that do everything they can do, but simply better and with more variety? I have clearly demonstrated why Sentinels rely on DPS to stay in the game, but that can change with better utilities, for example. What reasonably implementable contribution would you suggest to the devs to re-enshrine some kind of hallmark for Sentinels?

I disagree. Amidst the nerf bats, Sents (Watchman, particularly) absolutely needs a new niche to distinguish itself from similar melee classes, and I simply feel Riposte is one of the easier solutions. A pure DPS class *must* have the upper hand in pure DPS to maintain its position in the meta-game. As for Combat, I agree that they need more burst protection. However, the devs haven't done that; they just nerfed and moved on. The Rail Shot-esque system is just a suggestion to guarantee some damage for a class that is most vulnerable to interruption, using a mechanic that already exists. As for using it inside precision, why not? If it is made to be only about as powerful as a Blade Barrage, that's nothing. BB alone is only marginally more powerful than Blade Rush + AF anyway, what's the issue with having one more ability like it? This hardly affects base DPS at all, if done properly. It just gives Combat more utility. I will grant you that Concentration probably needs it least. However, Sents as a class still need some kind of competitive edge over other melee, and that used to come in the form of raw, or *unmitigated* damage. As for the Focus refund on Slash, there is no reason that Riposte cannot also have a passive yielding the same net focus cost. Also consider that Riposte was always a single-saber ability for Sents. And like with Combat, Conc's Slash (or BR) has a special damage bonus, meaning Riposte's base damage is marginally stronger than Force bonus-buffed Slash. You are incorrect in comparing Push's potency to that of Riposte. Assuming one uses Unyielding Justice, there is less than a ~300 damage (2-4%, gear pending) difference between Push and Riposte, and Push costs nothing. Riposte is only ever the better option if you are about to overflow your resource pool with a Focus builder, or want to delay a CC move in PvP. Otherwise, there is little reason and too few opportunities to use it. Even Saber Throw deals comparable damage, and it *generates* focus. Now compare that to the signature Sent rotations. Watchman is guaranteed 1-3 filler abilities with which to juggle Zealous, Strike, and Slash every 6-turn cycle. Night and day filler difference compared to Vig, where you get maybe 1-2 every 2 Vig Thrust cycles. And Combat is a 5-turn button mash followed by a 3-second burst window. Vig is chalk-full with power moves, where Sent disciplines rely more on passive damage between fillers, and Offhand misses make it far more available. Because of this, I maintain that Sentinels are still better built to use Riposte than DPS Guardians are, hands down. All this to reiterate my main point: The devs are going to make all melee DPS classes equal to their burst/sustain counterparts on the dummy. This is really, really bad for Sentinels, because other classes offer superior reflects, self-heals, armor, stealth, push/pulls, hard-stuns, and a myriad of class-specific gimmicks that Sents lack. A raid buff with a 1/30 uptime and a raid speed boost *do not compensate* for this enormous weakness. The only traditional advantage for Sentinels has been their raw DPS, and Riposte offers some of that back outside a dummy. If Sentinels won't be allowed to out-DPS enemies on paper in the future, then they *require* a new comparative advantage to keep them competitive with other melee classes.

It is as the thread name states, and there are some good reasons for it, if the reader (hopefully a dev, too? ) gives my argument a chance. I'm going to speak in Pub terms just for length's sake. For all disciplines: Sentinels can use Riposte better than DPS Guardians do. Vigilance doesn't really have a place for it in its rotation beyond unicorn scenarios. Even post-Freezing Force nerf, Force Push and Saber Throw are more useful fillers than Slash/Riposte is in most cases. Offhand misses ensure it is more available to Sents than to Guardians. Watchman and Combat have far more filler opportunities to utilize it to its fullest, but I'll get to that. For PvP: Watchman. With the upcoming nerf to Watchman, there is very little (beyond Transcendence and slightly better AoE protection) that Vigilance and Serenity can't do better, and they benefit from their main AoE abilities being part of their *single target* rotations.The only comparative advantage Watchman ever had over other dot-specs in Ranked was the superior single target dps, and Watchman has far more filler opportunities to exploit this ability than any other Knight discipline. Having a free, guaranteed move to damage an opponent with a hard defensive up helps close some of the gap Watchman loses with this nerf. Combat. It's no secret that Combat is the red-headed stepchild of PvP. It's too easy to shut down due to the majority of its damage being unloaded inside Precision. They're too predictable, and Concentration, Focus, Scrapper, and Infiltration outclass it in just about every way. Imagine giving Combat Sents a Riposte that receives some kind of stacking buff. Let's say, for example, it can receive 1 stack of a damage boost for every time Ataru Form is procced or the Offhand misses, up to 3-5 stacks (mechanically, exactly like Rail Shot works with Tracer Missile). At the max stack, Riposte does almost as much damage as Lance or even just Blade Barrage. This means that Combat Sents now have an answer for opponents if their biggest burst is down. If it's inevitable Precision will be interrupted by a skilled opponent one way or another, the least Combat can have is a small filler damage bonus. This just makes sense. Concentration Focus already uses it as a core part of its rotation. Need I say more? For PvE: Watchman. Riposte can act as a functional substitute for Slash. As I said, there are plenty of filler opportunities for this discipline to use it, and it situationally closes the dps gap lost by offhand misses. Furthermore, there are very few instances in which Accelerating Victory is ever used to its fullest extent. Using Riposte in place of Slash provides the player more opportunities to use AV to its potential, without having to play the Focus Roulette game with risky Blade Storms. Otherwise, AV rarely, if ever, reaches its full potential as a passive. And, as I said in the PvP section, this just offers Watchman one more comparative advantage over other DoT-specs. If our AoEs are going to remain sub-par, then we might as well have a small, situational single target DPS boost the other classes either don't have, or can't capitalize on. Combat. With the suggested stacking buff system outlined above, this provides more variety for the Combat Sentinel to experiment with in and out of Precision, should they choose to. It makes absolutely no sense that the spec's 3 power abilities are all used at the exact same times in every other cycle for optimal DPS, but have entirely different cooldown rates. A Riposte with a stacking buff system that reaches near-BB/Lance level damage offers the player more ways to cycle Clashing Blast and Lance on cooldown (instead of waiting for precision) without disrupting the Focus/Centering-per-cycle balance at all. It would at least provide the player some variety during the 5-turn lull of Blade Rush spam. Also consider that maintaining the BR window is only ever a point of concern when coming in and out of the burst window. Otherwise, that mechanic is completely pointless during the "lull-phase". Riposte offers the player a new, minor challenge during this phase, and raises the skill ceiling on the most boneheaded portion of any rotation in the entire game. Riposte was originally *made* for Sentinels, and the same still holds true today. Sentinels also do not suffer the same ability bloat as that of other classes. In fact, Combat's quickbar is by far the skinniest of any spec for any class, and every Guardian discipline has at least one more offensive ability to activate than that of its Sentinel counterparts. It offers the class one very minor advantage over others that it used to have anyway, and it provides them just one more way to remain relevant in PvP, in spite of its lack of a push/pull or self-heals. If Sents can't control their opponents as they please, they should at least be allowed to exploit enemies with hit/miss-based defenses active. Since the devs are intent on making all disciplines the same dps-wise, this completely eliminates any advantage a pure-dps class has over others with superior utilities. Sentinels need some kind of standout if all classes of similar type are to have the same target DPS rates. It's already written into the game's code, and it would hardly disrupt the existing rotations, or the overall DPS balance in PvE. This, in my view, is a completely reasonable compromise for the nerf bat Watchman and Combat are taking.

What you fail to account for here is PvP. Watchman already suffers from a total lack of ability to kill anything supported by a healer, much less a single Sniper, Jugg, or Sin. Aside from the self-heals (which are also nerfed with these changes) and a raid-wide speed boost, there is nothing this spec can do that Vig, Conc, and Serenity can't do better in every other way. Their DoTspread already trails behind even most melee disciplines, and unlike Vig and Serenity, you actually have to regularly disrupt your single target rotation to implement it. Just like in 3.X, the only comparative advantage keeping this spec afloat in PvP is the pure single target dps, and that is being taken away.