HOWTO: Jedi Sentinel Watchmen

[nbuskirk]

A couple people have been asking for something like this, so I figured I would write what I know so far.

 

Spec I utilize:

Jedi Sentinel Watchmen Raid / Heroic Build

 

Points of interest:

 

1. Inflammation seems to be a PVP talent. Initially I thought this might help unlocking the ability to use our bash/powerful strike when someone is slowed. Turns out you can't slow any bosses in heroic's (at least so far, so it's kind of wasted).

 

2. Reducing the time on pacify is essential. You will be on interrupt duty quite frequently.

 

3. Force Fade is great for semi-bugged encounters like the HK47 droid's stealth and garrote that he does. You can stealth and that will make you immune to his pokey that usually 1-shots people.

 

Word's about a semi-rotation:

 

You'll want to keep cauterize up as much as possible. This is the main point of the watchmen build. You want to overload saber, and keep those dots rolling constantly--as much to 100% uptime as possible for max damage.

 

I start a fight by usually hitting the 30 stacks of centering buff, into a transcendence for heroic's. This gives the tank extra speed, and defense.

 

Next, ill force leap to a non-champion/elite, usually a strong/whathaveyou, and then force sweep to stun any surrounding lowbies, then immediately followed by an AWE. This will give the tank enough time to pick up anything around him generally and get into position.

 

Now, once you are focused on a target, I will overload saber if i have the power, and immediately issue a zealot strike to bring the power meter back up. At this point cauterize. Next you should be able to do a merciless slash (possibly already resetting your CD on cauterize). If you did NOT reset the CD on cauterize, your next priority should be slashing. Slashes also have a chance of resetting the CD on cauterize.

 

You basically want to keep using zealot's strike when its off cd to get power, dump it on overload saber and cauterize, then next in line is resetting the cd on cauterize anyway you can.

 

I stay in Juyo Form always for DPS, and I always use Juyo's zen proc. At least for now, stance-dancing leads to too much downtime for me.

 

Mixing in thing's like force stasis is useful when you can actually use it. All bosses are immune to it, and most champion mobs as well.

 

Here is a trick to fast-tracking heroic's or flashpoints if you are of the nefarious kind--

 

SWTOR does not put invisible walls or bounds around any pit or chasm in the game. This can be to your advantage.

 

Force Stasis any mob you wish while next to a ledge. Then call for your awesome smuggler buddy/anyone to shove them. Later mob. (This plan was devised after understanding how to kill Darth Malgus btw). Figured we could retro-fit the strategy to regular mobs.

 

Sure enough, You can lift and knock back any regular/strong mobs into pits of doom. Pretty damn funny.

 

Stats / Gearing stuff:

 

You want Strength above everything. It buffs all of your skills.

 

Next, comes power. Power passively buffs your damage as well.

 

Next, is semi-debateable. Right now I shoot for accuracy and surge. Since all sentinel burns can be FORCED to crit using juyo's zen, there's no reason to really STACK crit chance. But, because you can force crits there's a decent arguement for stacking surge.

 

Will have to check meters, etc and see how the accuracy vs surge thing goes.

 

Any comments/questions that are sincere i will try to respond to

 

-Killahjedi

[bad Motivator Units]

Jedi Sentinel (Corellian Run)

[Maefly]

In your build I did notice that you are missing Close Quarters (the talent that sets Force Leap to 0 meters). I found that having a 0 meter force leap provides us the focus to use the overly expensive Merciless Slash. So our primary focus generators become Zealous Strike, Force Leap, and passive focus from burns.

 

Might just be a mistake but if not, I'm interested in how you generate enough focus to get a solid rotation going without those 3 from Force Leap.

[Bulbasaur]

also *** with Watchguard? Do you seriously use Pacify at all? Only benefit i can see is the shortened CD on force kick, but i already have 2 other interrupts i can bank on IF kick is in cooldown (Already short CD as is)

[Apocalypse-]

Not using Close Quarters is a huge mistake. It's an additional focus gen skill as well as a backup interrupt.

 

Steadfast is terrible, especially since your accuracy should be near 100% anyways (eliminating miss chance) and if you're directly behind the target they can't parry or dodge so no need to over-stack accuracy. Off-hand damage isn't a significant portion of Watchman damage, so it's not worthwhile to get that beyond the 77% it would be at if you had 100% main hand accuracy. Additionally, Overload Saber still applies on successful defenses but not when you miss entirely.

 

Put these points into Defensive Roll (massive help to your healers) and a point towards Insight.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRrRMfGzZhMMZo.1

 

^More damage, less strain on healers.

 

Next, starting a fight use Merciless before Cauterize Leap-Overload-Zealous-Merciless-Cauterize, the other way around forces you to put a strike between Cauterize and Merciless and shortening Merciless's cooldown 1 GCD earlier is better than a chance to re-use cauterize 4.5 seconds before you need to. Cauterize doesn't need to be off cooldown immediately, as it doesn't stack, and there's still a fair chance of resetting it from slash before as drops off the target anyways.

 

Finally, Crit > Surge because more than your dots can crit and more crits = more focus generation = more high damage abilities used. Surge effectively hard-caps at +50% (100% total) multiplier, so using a Surge Adrenal will move you to the 90-100% crit multiplier depending on your base surge chance/which adrenal you use, making stacking it inadvisable. You want to get your Crit to ~30% unbuffed (making it 35% buffed, 50% crit chance on dots), and then fill all other slots with power, noting that power hits progressively harder DR quite fast. As I said earlier about Steadfast, it's not worth taking Accuracy above 100%, so get that and then avoid it.

 

Since Crit/Power mods just don't exist, Using Crit/Accuracy and Power/Surge is the strongest combo, though Power/Surge rating 56 enhancements are hard to come by and rating 58 is nothing but accuracy/power*, so Power/Accuracy and Crit/Surge is what you'll have to work with once you get into endgame gear.

 

*They expected Combat to be more powerful than it is, as both 140 sets for Sentinel/Marauder are geared perfectly for Combat-spec.

[nbuskirk]

Not using Close Quarters is a huge mistake. It's an additional focus gen skill as well as a backup interrupt.

 

Steadfast is terrible, especially since your accuracy should be near 100% anyways (eliminating miss chance) and if you're directly behind the target they can't parry or dodge so no need to over-stack accuracy. Off-hand damage isn't a significant portion of Watchman damage, so it's not worthwhile to get that beyond the 77% it would be at if you had 100% main hand accuracy. Additionally, Overload Saber still applies on successful defenses but not when you miss entirely.

 

 

Just a quick question, how do you know this? What combat log/parse do you have to know that jacking up your offhand chance to land isn't worthwhile?

 

Currently I sit at 100.18% accuracy, and I see my offhand miss constantly on specials. Anything that strikes with both weapons I get dodges, and misses on all the time.

[-Jodea-]

IMO your suggestion for stacking power as the main secondary stat over say crit/surge is pretty bold considering we have no idea on dps returns via combat logs.

[EasymodeX]

Sure enough, You can lift and knock back any regular/strong mobs into pits of doom. Pretty damn funny.

 

Make sure the pit is actually infinite, or that the mob will actually die from the fall damage. Else, the mob will run back up random stairs and tunnels to find you, bringing along the other 4 trash pulls it found on the way.

 

This makes for a Good Time™.

 

 

Next, starting a fight use Merciless before Cauterize Leap-Overload-Zealous-Merciless-Cauterize, the other way around forces you to put a strike between Cauterize and Merciless and shortening Merciless's cooldown 1 GCD earlier is better than a chance to re-use cauterize 4.5 seconds before you need to. Cauterize doesn't need to be off cooldown immediately, as it doesn't stack, and there's still a fair chance of resetting it from slash before as drops off the target anyways.

 

Not a bad notion, but your comment on Cauterize is incorrect. If you reset Caut "late", then you will refresh Caut at the 9.0s mark after the last one. This means you're only gaining 3.0 seconds before it would have naturally refreshed anyways.

 

Ideally, you want to refresh the cooldown on Caut between 1.5-4.5 seconds after you use it. This means using Merciless after Caut.

 

Generally speaking, you're optimizing for a 1.5s advantage on Merc cycling once over the course of a fight.

 

I'd rather optimize for 25% higher Cauterize uptime. Just saying.

 

 

Finally, Crit > Surge because more than your dots can crit and more crits = more focus generation = more high damage abilities used. Surge effectively hard-caps at +50% (100% total) multiplier, so using a Surge Adrenal will move you to the 90-100% crit multiplier depending on your base surge chance/which adrenal you use, making stacking it inadvisable.

 

Crits != more focus generation.

 

Zen forces autocrits. You build Centering pretty fast in Watchman.

 

Both are general reasons why crit% is decent, but not BBQWIN for Watchman. Surge is pretty tight, but it isn't too hard to approach the softcap if you optimize for it. Generally, I would prefer 'maxing' Surge via stats, and using a Power adrenal, for PvE at least.

[dspinell]

Would this happen to be the same EasymodeX from RIFT rogue forums? Just curious.

[PinnyFox]

also *** with Watchguard? Do you seriously use Pacify at all? Only benefit i can see is the shortened CD on force kick, but i already have 2 other interrupts i can bank on IF kick is in cooldown (Already short CD as is)

 

Why wouldn't you use an ability that reduces the enemy's accuracy by 90% all the time? It's like an extra crowd control ability.

[FourTwent]

Why wouldn't you use an ability that reduces the enemy's accuracy by 90% all the time? It's like an extra crowd control ability.

 

all force attacks will still land though right?

[Mercbeast]

also *** with Watchguard? Do you seriously use Pacify at all? Only benefit i can see is the shortened CD on force kick, but i already have 2 other interrupts i can bank on IF kick is in cooldown (Already short CD as is)

 

Pacify works on at least some bosses.

 

This is an emergency "Oh poop" button when your healer has fallen behind as it stops 90% of damage coming through.

 

Pacify may be one of the best abilities sentinel gets both in PvE and PvP.

[Apocalypse-]

Just a quick question, how do you know this? What combat log/parse do you have to know that jacking up your offhand chance to land isn't worthwhile?

 

Currently I sit at 100.18% accuracy, and I see my offhand miss constantly on specials. Anything that strikes with both weapons I get dodges, and misses on all the time.

Look at your tooltips. Overload saber and Cauterize both only use the main hand accuracy. Our only offhand hits are on Strike, Zealous Strike, Slash, and Merciless, and even then it's only ~20% of the damage from those abilities. At 100% accuracy, you have 77% offhand accuracy and being behind a mob you don't benefit from > 100% accuracy on main hand attacks. Assuming that Cauterize/Overload Saber/Dispatch do only 33% of our damage (a very low estimate), moving that 77% to 100% could only boost your lowest damage runs by 3.33% (1/4 miss chance on 20% of 2/3 of your damage) and it would boost your highest damage runs by less than 1%. You get greater average returns from every other offensive rating simply on paper.

Not a bad notion, but your comment on Cauterize is incorrect. If you reset Caut "late", then you will refresh Caut at the 9.0s mark after the last one. This means you're only gaining 3.0 seconds before it would have naturally refreshed anyways.

Not true Assuming you follow Leap-Overload-Zealous-Merciless-Cauterize-Strike (1-2 free focus by now having had 5 chances at 30%)- slash, you've got a fair chance of getting a refresh 3 seconds before it drops, your next slash (unless lucky with dots granting focus) will come as it drops, at which point it's likely to have reset.

 

Generally speaking, you're optimizing for a 1.5s advantage on Merc cycling once over the course of a fight.

 

I'd rather optimize for 25% higher Cauterize uptime. Just saying.

 

Actually, I'm moving luck out of it. By putting Merciless after Cauterize, you are forced into one of two things- either A) Traiting Focused Leap for the extra Focus gen off leap or B) relying on one of two ticks from overload/cauterize to tick and give you an extra focus to have merciless ready immediately after Cauterize, otherwise, you've got to put a strike in there moving your hardest hitting skill 3 seconds behind starting with it. 25% higher uptime in the first 10 seconds of the fight does not mean 25% higher over the course of the fight. We ARE talking about meaningful PvE here, aren't we?

 

Crits != more focus generation.

My mistake on this, I still regress and think that Burning Focus was changed from 50% on burn crit to 30% on burn damage like it was before centering. I also regularly revert to thinking Pacify still has a threat drop attached.

 

Zen forces autocrits. You build Centering pretty fast in Watchman.

At best, it takes Centering 5 GCDs (7.5 seconds) to build. That's being hit every GCD and using a focus spender every GCD. Both are unrealistic in most fights, when not getting hit and still using a spender every GCD it takes 8 GCDs (12 seconds). Using nothing but spenders for 8 GCDs is impossible unless you're only using Cyclone Slash, which already crippled your damage anyways. Assuming a 3:1 ratio of spenders:gainers (still very hard to maintain), best you can manage is 10 GCDs, or 15 seconds between Zens. Additionally, it's a minimum of 3 seconds to burn off Zen and begin centering generation again. That's 3 out of every 18 seconds that Zen is up (Only 16.66% uptime in a perfect world), and Zen only auto-crits two abilities that don't make up more than 50% of our damage.

 

Both are general reasons why crit% is decent, but not BBQWIN for Watchman. Surge is pretty tight, but it isn't too hard to approach the softcap if you optimize for it. Generally, I would prefer 'maxing' Surge via stats, and using a Power adrenal, for PvE at least.

 

You're optimizing for 17% of <50% of our damage doing more damage. Even if you've got 100% surge, that's a 4.25% dps boost over 0 Surge from Zen if our dots are exactly 50% of our damage (50x.17x.5) as you've got a base 50% multiplier. However, for the 800 Surge you just stacked to get 100% crit multiplier, you could have had 8-10% crit chance or 5% crit chance /15% surge. My PvE set has significantly lower surge than my PvP set (65% vs 83%) and using the Surge adrenal takes me to 95% crit multiplier PvE but only 98% in PvP gear. A small amount of Surge does a lot (2-3 48 surge enhancements puts you at +15%) but quickly sees DR, so overstacking it is wasteful, you can get 7-8% crit from crit rating before it starts getting heavy DR. Power is a great stat, but like Crit, there is a limit to how much it'll really do. Balancing the DRs on the different stats gets you the most for your money (guess in this case "most for your focus"?).