<LONG POST WARNING> I'd like to not only give feedback but if I may, suggest some things that might be beneficial to not only getting the sentinel right, but also the other classes. I don't want to yell at Bioware about how bad this is or how I'll cancel my subscription if they don't listen to me, because I don't think that's a strategy that works for most people to be honest, and I also think that for the goals the devs have, I think this is a step in the right direction. That being said, let's get into it. First off, the aims of this combat styles idea should be clearly stated. From what I gather, the goals are: - To reduce ability bloat, and from that, reduce overall survivability in things like PvP, reducing the TTK - To give players increased choices in terms of how they play their chosen spec - To make the game more friendly to new players who may be overwhelmed by the amount of abilities they get, and not know what they do - To retain class identities There may be other aims that I've missed, but I think that sums it up fairly well. Next order of business is determining what the players want. I haven't done extensive research into what every single reply to every single PTS thread demands, but in general I can see that existing players: - Want the current functionality of classes to remain - Want to not be impaired doing content that previously doable, ie, not being nerfed into the ground I know that Bioware has stated that "PvE encounters will be adjusted to account for the changes", but if I learnt anything from the nightmare that was scaling content in the 6.0 PTS, I'd imagine that would be kept to a minimum in an ideal world. Now that we have an idea of what needs to be achieved by this system, it's a lot easier to see what needs to be done. I'm going to be primarily addressing the Sentinel here, since it is my main class and has been since I began the game about 4 years ago. Please note that I am not a Top 3 ranked PvP legend or 100% NiM raider, so I am sure I could be playing the class more optimally and the reasons I dismiss abilities may not take into account this very niche circumstance, rendering my entire argument invalid. However, I'd say I am a fairly good representation of the playerbase, dabbling a bit in PvP and cleared most HM ops as a Sentinel/Marauder. The first thing is the current attitude towards builds. I understand that we will be given options for all the currently hardwired options in the A/B paths later on, but in my opinion, having the builds being either defense or attack focused makes a lot less sense to me than having a PvP/PvE option each time. I know that this could clash with the aim of giving players more choice regarding builds, but if implemented right it could definitely make a lot of players more happy with the choices. I mean, if you look at the current utility system, it's essentially "choose 3 PvE utilities" or "choose 3 PvP utilities", with a couple mandatory ones that should be baked into the spec as a passive. Secondly, I'd like to address some of the 'choices'. Right now the PTS is pretty buggy, and I understand that's normal, it's a test server, so some of what I'm going to say might not be relevant. I think a clearer post about how the choices currently work would be beneficial in this regard, because I find it hard to understand at the moment regarding the choices marked neither A or B. Enough waffling though: Transcendence and Force Camouflage, like so many are saying, needs to be a definite, not a choice. As so many have said before, Camouflage is the only threat drop us sents have, and really you need to have one as a DPS, regardless of whether taunts are being buffed or not, as I saw someone suggest. Tanks, like any other player, are going to make mistakes that DPS shouldn't have to pay for. Furthermore, part of the skill in tanking is managing aggro, and if taunts are buffed enough to make threat drops unnecessary, tanking is no longer going to be a challenge, only a contest of who can cycle through defensives most efficiently, which in my opinion would not be fun. Transcendence, on the other hand, is needed for class identity. When you think Sentinel, you think two sabers and speed, which transcendence is an integral part of. Sentinel would sluggish, not to mention having virtually no group utility without transcendence, thus putting it as a choice would either make them not as worth to play as other classes if not chosen, or suffering from a potential DPS decrease if chosen due to the passive not chosen. Once again, due to the bugginess of the PTS and the vagueness of the dev post, I don't know if these two are being relegated to choices, or if that is us the players misinterpreting it. Regardless, I would strongly urge Bioware to consider making them a choice. One thing I will say on this though, and sorry for the rambling sort of form this post is taking, is that I can understand why there two abilities might be put as choices, mainly in terms of PvP balancing, stealthing out and the Defel Spliced Genes tactical. But in the spirit of making suggestions, if Camouflage is going to be a choice regardless of the reasons the community puts out, at least consider making some other ability, eg Zen, a threat drop. I cannot stress enough how important it is for DPS to have one. The last ability I noticed missing from the PTS that I think should have at least some equivalent is Force Stasis. While not 100% needed in all content, there are instances where a stun is very important. Sentinels are already disadvantaged in this regard because they lack a knockback, so a stun is even more vital. However, I will admit that if severe pruning is what the devs are going for, it should be at least one of the 'PvP' options for a passive that buffs some other ability to give the same effect, although due to the long cooldown on most stuns, I'm not sure how that would work balance-wise. Something like this, though I think really illustrates what a choice of passives should be. In most cases, PvP players would choose the stun while PvE players would choose the increased damage or whatever it is. However, a PvPer might opt for more damage to burst through opponents quicker, while certain situations would require the PvEer to forgo the dps in favour of a stun, and encounters like those are the ones which should be balanced to reflect the changes. Next, I'm going to go through some of the abilities pruned on the PTS, and how to not lose their functionality, and for this section, I'll be mainly focusing on the existing player concerns. First up, Leg slash. Thank. You. So. Much. Leg slash is pretty much the only ability I can think of that can easily be disposed off while retaining functionality, because guardian tanks have already done that. Making this into one of the 'PvP' passive choices, where say, Obliterate/Merciless Slash/Lance gives trauma but costs extra focus is such a good idea it's ridiculous. Additionally, I feel like this is one of the more confusing abilities for a new player, I myself taking a good long time to fully understand what it does, so eliminating this kills two birds with one stone. Awe is another missing ability, an AoE soft stun (ie breaks on damage). I feel like this could be handled in much the same way as Force Stasis, with the ability to spec into some other ability producing the same effect, although it suffers from the same cooldown issues. Ultimately, though I understand it is sometimes really important in PvP, it isn't as necessary as a hard-stun in my opinion, so making it into a passive is justified in my opinion. Pacify/Obfuscate is the last flat-out mission ability, I believe, and with it I want to get to how to make balanced choices between abilities. I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but I believe abilities should be made choices when there is another ability with roughly the same effect for the same time and similar cooldowns. That means that offensives should NEVER be paired with defensives, and one-sided choices like saber relfect/saber ward in the guardian paths shouldn't be there. In terms of the sentinel, I have a couple of potential choices as well as a few other suggestions. The first of these choices is Pacify and Guarded by the Force (GBTF). Both basically make you immortal for a short time, have long-ish cooldowns and in a lot of cases can be substituted for each other. I can already see the hate from this, but before people say what an unbalanced choice this is for X and Y reasons, note that I am anticipating some balancing in regards to timing to make this more equal. Additionally, it offers a choice players will have to think about. Obviously, in operations pacify is almost useless, but barring that, the choice comes down to whether players want to emphasis group utility by reducing the damage dealt by one enemy to everyone (or just themselves), or having another DCD to reduce damage taken from everything. In my opinion it is a really interesting choice for players to make, one that is balanced assuming the timings for the abilities are slightly adjusted and there is some solution for operations. This is what an ability choice should look like. The second option for a choice is a no-brainer for me, but might have issues I've overlooked. Essentially, the choice between Cyclone Slash and Force Sweep. The reasoning behind this is that I've observed that no current spec uses both in either the main or AoE rotation, so one of them is always relegated to some other hotbar. I understand that having a spammable AoE with limited range, and a 360 AoE on cooldown can be advantageous, and may be nice for new players, but let's be real, those are mostly theoretical advantages and is not going to severely impact how players play the spec. I also like the idea of having different buffs both of these in the form of the passive choices, so either is viable but both are not needed. My last radical suggestion is to do with Bladestorn/Saber Throw, and even I'll admit that if it went live, I'd be a little bit sad, not to mention it being a nightmare to make equivalent to other classes. Essentially, the suggestion is to have Bladestorm, Saber Throw and Clashing blast to be a new, 5th skill gained from the respective discipline (Concentration, Watchman, Combat). If we're talking in terms of the current PvE meta, which is where I have most of my expertise, nothing would really change, although for PvP the slow from saber throw and stun from Bladestorm might need to be added as optional passives for different abilities. That being said, both abilities are iconic to the Sentinel, so I'd fully understand this being rejected. To finish off, I'm just going to be sharing my thoughts on everything I haven't already discussed. First off, saber ward. I spent a long time thinking about how to turn this into a balanced choice like Pacify/GBTF, but couldn't think of one. My solution, if it really needs to be nerfed by introducing a choice, is to have the bonuses it provides nerfed a bit, but to be honest, it seems like it is fine at the moment. Similarly, Mad Dash is troublesome to balance. My only suggestion is to shorten it's cooldown drastically to make it like the operative roll, and have a choice between it and transcendence, but seeing as the roll is likely to be nerfed drastically, I don't see this being viable. Thus, I think the best option is keeping this as a high-level ability, say, 70 or 75, and trusting in the fact that new players will know the class well enough by the time they get there to be able to handle one unnecessary skill, which I think is entirely reasonable. Regarding Force Clarity, that's an interesting one. Because it is a pure DPS increase, I see this as being a choice with a DPS increase passive if it were going to be a choice, a sort of skill thing: you can either get a flat increase, or have the option to control when you get a bigger increase for a limited time. This is of course disregarding the Descent of the Fearless set bonus, which is currently BiS and relies on force clarity. Seeing as there is going to be a massive overhaul of combat, though , I see it as reasonable that the current bonuses will either be redesigned or abandoned entirely in favour of new ones to account for changes like this one. The last 'ability' is actually 2: valorous call and Inspiration (Raid Buff). One suggestion from a commenter I saw somewhere is actually surprisingly reasonable considering how absurd it is: remove raid buffs entirely. While I understand that this will reduce the skill involved in some fights, as well as make others really hard, I would imagine this is where fight balancing would occur to account for this, and it additionally removes all the problems around balancing raid buffs, some of which are next to useless (cough, cough, commando). Otherwise, another solution I have though of is giving players access to raid buffs only while in, say, warzones and operations, with some kind of temporary ability-like implementation. There are, of course, a lot of issues with this approach and I'd welcome any suggestions, but honestly, if it wasn't for the whole accounting for new players, for which the raid buff is undoubtedly quite confusing, I'd just leave then as they are. As to Valorous Call, I see this as an offensive cooldown, and one which can't really be presented as a choice with another offensive cooldown, so seems like it should just remain as is. Oh, and CC and interrupts are a necessary part of the player experience, something I think Bioware got enough of during the guardian testing, but more importantly, I'd argue that they are by necessity separate from other abilities, due to the varied nature of when they are needed and thus combining them with another ability is going to cause problems in certain situations. That's all the feedback and suggestions I have regarding the future of SWTOR combat, in particular the sentinel. I did not address passives because I'm fairly sure they are going to be changing a lot over the PTS cycle, and quite frankly much more analysis and I think I'd go insane. So to sum up and answer the original questions: What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you? Transcendence and speed in general, a Sentinel should play fast, but not be without defensives. Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies? For the most part, yes. While some need tweaking in terms of quality of life (transcendence), they all feel, from my experiences so far, really fun and fresh. Thank you for giving Combat some love by the way. Ultimately, I am super hyped for what is to come next and hope some of this feedback is incorporated. If anyone managed to get through this monster of a post, please let me know if I've missed something or if you have any suggestions of your own.