Are your sentinels running Spiteful Saber? Because bet on that tactical getting nerfed or removed, since it doesn't work with their new sacrifice aoe for st ability in Force Fracture. If spiteful goes live, the games got way bigger problems than just watchman is op.

Man's not wrong. Though also bring smash back, it wouldn't be op in the era of dot spreads.

Your posts don't seem to be agreeing with each other, "This needs to be baseline vs these two options aren't as compelliing". A lot of classes have choices that are pretty cut and dry, operatives choosing stun for pvp, sorcs choosing phase walk, Maras getting undying, etc. It is a consequence of existing utilities being pressed into direct competition with each other (though those harpoon talents are kinda weak). A class shouldn't have better range, mobility, and defensives than all its cometition. It has to have something it lacks that you have to play around. VG as is has too much of everything and needs to lose something.

That's why you got 10 meter abilities, more standoff distance as a trade off for poor gap closers. And it's not like VGs weren't one of the best pve classes before storm was baseline in 3.0 either. p.s. since the other passives suck you just take storm in that row almost every time anyway, who cares.

Everyone has tough choices to make. Snipers choose between stun and evasion, Maras between Undying and Camo, Sins between shroud and lift, etc. The point isn't about choices, but what finished product there is after you have made your choices. Merc still can have shield heal, super kolto, reflect (or stun), net, a mez, and double rocket out. Compared to gutting every other class got, that's absurd. If any class in the game needed abilites removed to reduce bloat, it was Merc. But that didn't really happen. If this is Bioware realizing they shouldn't go so bold, and make a pass to smooth over earlier classes, we don't know. All we can and should go off of is what have, and what he have is some ********.

Funny part is you had to channel choke back in the day for as long as you stunned the target. Making it so Mara can't stun and burst something is also "what made marauder what it was." And back then it was arguably the best pvp class.

So Mara feels, pretty terrible. You have to choose between your best defensive (undying) and best way to escape getting targeted (Camo), which were the most iconic mara defensives. You lose Obfuscate and Ruthless Aggressor, so your best peel and way to deal with force/teach damage is gone. You have to choose having Predation which costs Fury again, doesn't go to 80% move speed, and doesn't purge snares. You don't even have a choice of getting a mez or stun. Spec specific stuff: This class is just non-viable unless if did so much damage it left everyone else in the dust, but I doubt that'd happen for pve balance reasons. If 30s 80% snare purging Transcendence was baseline with Obfuscate minus RA taking its place, combined with undying going baseline with fear taking its place would go a long way to fixing the class imo.

With Sin and Sorc being out and getting a better idea for how classes across the board look, I have to say this class really doesn't feel like a Sentinel. Not having a stun or mez does takes away from the utility of the class, which could be good and interesting if Sentinels still had say, pacify to peel and were baseline very tanky. But they have to choose between their best way to escape being focused (Camo) and their best way to survive focus (Guarded by the Force), on top of losing pacify and so Ruthless Aggressor, which was their best way to survive yellow damage (even if it is bugged and doesn't consistently give the reduction it should and gets away from the point of the ability, peeling). A lot of this could be fixed by giving some pruned things back as choices and making some choices baseline. Like baseline Transcendence and putting Pacify in its stead, or making guarded/camo baseline and putting Inspiration or Awe there. The 3 most iconic sentinel defensives are easily, Guarded, Camo, and Rebuke, and choosing between 2 of the 3 isn't very fun. Also, for PvP the class feels even more pigeon holed into playing Concentration at all times. Conc and Combat do single target burst damage, so the CC immunity means you just play Conc all the time. While the AOE on Focused Burst means Conc now does aoe pressure better than Watchman, on top of watchman's new damage passives being terrible. Speaking of Watchman, the 30 tier feels terrible. Flaming Wave gives you the damage of 1 cyclone slash, and you target who you want to die the least to make it work the best. In other words, you get an overly complicated Cyclone Slash replacement, an ability people rarely used anyway. Cauterizing Focus might as well only give trauma (which tanks do already). The only thing to give something useful is Force Lash, but it takes away your main dot for dot spreading (when aoe pressure is the one thing dot specs excel at), and always conflicts with Zealous Strike and Merciless Slash. I don't know what to take here because I don't want to take anything. If Spiteful Saber replaced Force Lash, and Malmourral Mask replaced Flaming Wave (detonating off Cauterize instead of Melt) I don't think anyone would have any issues with that. Melting Center works well enough when paired with Burning Center, usually getting Zen off every Force Melt. Burning Zen would be cool, if those tiny hits didn't consume Zen charges.

You guys got it all wrong, my man up here has a point, I mean look how squishy and easy to kill sorc is.

So with full trees available, I tried out some talents we couldn't use before - Flaming Wave seems to work by having the first dot tick after using cauterize, make the dots on targets near you tick. The thing is watchman does its best aoe by spreading its dots back and forth between its targets and not reapplying them. So is the idea manually apply dots then spread them every 9 seconds? Or every 12 with FM? Just do the normal thing but tab spam cauterize on different targets? It also makes you want to attack the enemy you want to kill the least, to do more damage to the ones you want to kill the most. The base idea of attacking a target makes you do extra damage to enemies you have dots on is really fun and interesting. Just wondering if it could be implemented differently, like using Merciless Slash on a target with Cauterize on them does damage to any enemies near you with dots on them. - Is Critical Zen intended to be a passive for Concentration still? Because it can be kind of overpowered when used with either of Concentration's autocrits.

Guardian DPS and Sentinels didn't have a 4 second stun until 3.0. All they had was a 3 second channel that also stunned the target and they were fine, the game was honestly better with less stuns. Mercs didn't have an interrupt until, when, 1.2? I don't get the interrupt and stun break points since they are still there.

Losing Pacify, Choke, and Awe takes away almost all utility sentinel had in pvp. Is the idea Sents are damage machines with strong mobility and defensives that get setup by other classes? Or are other classes going to be also barebones on utility? Either way the class is going to need strong damage to make up for a lack of utility. Combat and Watchman are put in a really tough spot choosing between Camo and Guarded by the Force. If there were any iconic Sentinel defensives, it is those and Rebuke. If Concentration doesn't have to choose it will end up being default pick in pvp and the other two will be even less competitive than they are now. With 10m crippling slash and the Force Melt & Clashing Blast snares gone, watchman doesn't have any way of getting a 10 meter ability to stop someone from kiting. If other classes lose a lot mobility, this may be fine. But Concentration benefits from having Force Exhaustion and Zealous Leap and Combat gets Driving Lance. Watchman: Force Lash doesn't feel very good to use. Is the idea hit merciless slash, deadly saber, and force melt and then just spam Force Lash until the dots run out, and then you have two gcds to recover? Merciless Slash having a 9 second cd and Zealous Strike having a 15 second cd in a 12 second system doesn't help. It didn't seem very compelling to use personally, especially since it seems to be the standard single target choice in that row. Cauterizing Focus seems like a pvp talent based on applying trauma to train one person down, but doesn't work with the tactical designed for that (spiteful saber doesn't work with quite a few new mechanics). It also falls off where Anni shines in pvp, which is smashing its dots between two targets and not applying them manually. If it applied trauma on dot application regardless of source, it could be pretty compelling. I like the cool thematic changes of additional burn damage on Melee hits in Zen and Blade Barrage dealing extra burn damage. They fit in well with making Zen and BB more fun abilities to use. But can the hits not consume Zen charges? They individually hit for 1/3 the damage of even Cauterize and Force Melt ticks, so the old feel of of watching 3 stack of overload saber crits roll off your target is effectively gone. Melting Center is really fun to use, giving you some nice burst damage in Zen, but is also really awkward to use. Do you save Zen for it come off cooldown after using it (which happens a lot with it generating 10 centering) or do you hold one of your main dots and focus generator for Zen? With how quickly Zen gets used up now you'll rarely see the two line up. If it applied to any hit of force melt damage but only one hit, and the burn hits didn't consume Zen it'd be a fun talent. Combat: Zen Lance letting you spam Lance could probably be pretty annoying since it prevents people from using barrier or escape abilities, but is an interesting mechanic in a way. If it became the standard pve choice it may not be fun coordinating pooling a lot of focus before Zen to spam Lance, but that depends on tuning. Concentration: has absolutely nuts cleave with Unstable Focus. With double Charge (which I like as a addition) it will be easy for to keep proccing auto crits for both Sweep and FB. AOE in the game atm comes in the form of dot spreads or spam aoe like suppressive fire, which require time to be felt. Having hard hitting single aoe abilities will be nuts in pvp. While I love the idea of old smash being back, i don't know if that is what you want it to end up being. Critical Zen gives Conc an absolutely nuts burst with its inherent autocrit. Since the damage is also applied to the aoe on unstable focus, I think this would be much better balanced if it only applied to the next direct weapon attack. Force Meditation don't seem very compelling. Getting more focus may allow you to trade a Zealous Strike for a Slash every so often, but that doesn't seem like a compelling bonus. All in all, lots of things rough around the edges, which is to be expected. But lots of things that look really fun and interesting.