How are we underpowered?

[Ninja_Jedl]

My opinion and explanation of the entire debate:

 

It seems a lot of things are revolving around how people are able to get ontop of the leader board, and how people can't get anywhere near it. Just because you were on the top of the leader board once doesn't qualify as evidence that this class is perfectly fine. Nor does being at the bottom qualify as evidence that the class has something wrong with it. Some will do fine with the class, some won't. Some will complain, some won't. Its very simple. Let me explain the mentalities behind the complainers:

 

The Sentinel is considered a complex class in comparison to the other ones available, and rightly so. I'm not saying the complication is a bad thing, infact, I welcome it, but it is the cause for most, if not all, complaints that the class is broken. I ask anyone reading this to ignore these people, for they were unprepared for the demands of the class.

 

The Sentinel requires a large amount of micromanagement that can overwhelm some people who decide to make an attempt at the class, and many take to the forums and begin complaining. Little of their points are actually valid.

 

On the other hand, we have the people who find this debate a golden opportunity to boast. They continually attack anyone who expresses any doubt about the classes abilities, and express how well they do in everything in every part of the game with the class. These people are commonly known as the "Elitists". Though a small amount of their points, too, are valid, most are common boastings and trollings. Their defining trait is when one of them says "L2P!!1".

 

Then there are the "Fair-minded" as I like to call them. These people are the ones that actually have a decent amount of intellect, and calmly debate over the strengths and weaknesses of the class. They also actually consider opinions and arguments before replying, instead of brushing them off as inherently false, if they prove their own points wrong.

 

=-----=

 

My own personal opinion is that the Sentinel is slightly underpowered in comparison to other classes. The bulk of this is in PvP, and I find PvE, while occasionally difficult, is easy to conquer once you learn the requirements of the class and its capabilities.

 

However, in PvP, there is a significant disadvantage for this class. While some are able to fight the odds and scrape up a good standing on the leader boards, most fall victim to the classes prevailing weaknesses in PvP and end up near the bottom, or somewhere in the faceless middle.

 

This is because the Sentinel lacks one or two key utilities, of which once supplied, I believe will balance out the scales and cause the Sentinel to become a force to be reckoned with, and not one to be easily breezed by and trotted on. I think the Sentinel merely requires another short-cooldown Stun, or CC. Compared to other classes, the Sentinel has little to none. This would make it easier to survive and, more importantly, thrive in PvP.

 

-Ninjajedi

[Naroga]

My opinion and explanation of the entire debate:

 

It seems a lot of things are revolving around how people are able to get ontop of the leader board, and how people can't get anywhere near it. Just because you were on the top of the leader board once doesn't qualify as evidence that this class is perfectly fine. Nor does being at the bottom qualify as evidence that the class has something wrong with it. Some will do fine with the class, some won't. Some will complain, some won't. Its very simple. Let me explain the mentalities behind the complainers:

 

The Sentinel is considered a complex class in comparison to the other ones available, and rightly so. I'm not saying the complication is a bad thing, infact, I welcome it, but it is the cause for most, if not all, complaints that the class is broken. I ask anyone reading this to ignore these people, for they were unprepared for the demands of the class.

 

The Sentinel requires a large amount of micromanagement that can overwhelm some people who decide to make an attempt at the class, and many take to the forums and begin complaining. Little of their points are actually valid.

 

On the other hand, we have the people who find this debate a golden opportunity to boast. They continually attack anyone who expresses any doubt about the classes abilities, and express how well they do in everything in every part of the game with the class. These people are commonly known as the "Elitists". Though a small amount of their points, too, are valid, most are common boastings and trollings. Their defining trait is when one of them says "L2P!!1".

 

Then there are the "Fair-minded" as I like to call them. These people are the ones that actually have a decent amount of intellect, and calmly debate over the strengths and weaknesses of the class. They also actually consider opinions and arguments before replying, instead of brushing them off as inherently false, if they prove their own points wrong.

 

=-----=

 

My own personal opinion is that the Sentinel is slightly underpowered in comparison to other classes. The bulk of this is in PvP, and I find PvE, while occasionally difficult, is easy to conquer once you learn the requirements of the class and its capabilities.

 

However, in PvP, there is a significant disadvantage for this class. While some are able to fight the odds and scrape up a good standing on the leader boards, most fall victim to the classes prevailing weaknesses in PvP and end up near the bottom, or somewhere in the faceless middle.

 

This is because the Sentinel lacks one or two key utilities, of which once supplied, I believe will balance out the scales and cause the Sentinel to become a force to be reckoned with, and not one to be easily breezed by and trotted on. I think the Sentinel merely requires another short-cooldown Stun, or CC. Compared to other classes, the Sentinel has little to none. This would make it easier to survive and, more importantly, thrive in PvP.

 

-Ninjajedi

 

I agree with your post. I think we need one of two abilities. Either 1) An ability that grants us short term immunity to CC and Snares and/or 2) Another ability that keeps the target in range.

 

I apply the 50% movement speed debuff on all of my targets, yet they can still kite me due to their own movement speed debuff / stun / slow / knockback. The amount of times I'm stuck staring at my incapacitated / snared character are numerous.

[SpirtikusTor]

I only see rebuke, riposte doesnt work so its only one defensive shield

 

Reposte is not a defensive shield...

 

You have Rebuke and the Saber Ward + Pacify which can be pretty effective if you know how to use it.

 

Im currently Lvl 28 and Im owning anything in the PvE, Iv never had trouble with any questline.

 

Maybe just add another stun ability for the Sentinel, or something like that.

Edited January 6, 2012 by SpirtikusTor

[CorganNW]

As a level 50 combat sent I think things are fine as is (for PVE no PVP experience). If they made us more powerful then things would be waaay too easy. I had little to no trouble with all content from 1-50 with the exception of the final story fight. I always used Kira and things were dead fast. If we are underpowered next to the other classes then the other classes should be made weaker or if they make us stronger then increase the difficulty of all PVE encounters.

[StyxzieWaterz]

My opinion and explanation of the entire debate:

 

It seems a lot of things are revolving around how people are able to get ontop of the leader board, and how people can't get anywhere near it. Just because you were on the top of the leader board once doesn't qualify as evidence that this class is perfectly fine. Nor does being at the bottom qualify as evidence that the class has something wrong with it. Some will do fine with the class, some won't. Some will complain, some won't. Its very simple. Let me explain the mentalities behind the complainers:

 

The Sentinel is considered a complex class in comparison to the other ones available, and rightly so. I'm not saying the complication is a bad thing, infact, I welcome it, but it is the cause for most, if not all, complaints that the class is broken. I ask anyone reading this to ignore these people, for they were unprepared for the demands of the class.

 

The Sentinel requires a large amount of micromanagement that can overwhelm some people who decide to make an attempt at the class, and many take to the forums and begin complaining. Little of their points are actually valid.

 

On the other hand, we have the people who find this debate a golden opportunity to boast. They continually attack anyone who expresses any doubt about the classes abilities, and express how well they do in everything in every part of the game with the class. These people are commonly known as the "Elitists". Though a small amount of their points, too, are valid, most are common boastings and trollings. Their defining trait is when one of them says "L2P!!1".

 

Then there are the "Fair-minded" as I like to call them. These people are the ones that actually have a decent amount of intellect, and calmly debate over the strengths and weaknesses of the class. They also actually consider opinions and arguments before replying, instead of brushing them off as inherently false, if they prove their own points wrong.

 

=-----=

 

My own personal opinion is that the Sentinel is slightly underpowered in comparison to other classes. The bulk of this is in PvP, and I find PvE, while occasionally difficult, is easy to conquer once you learn the requirements of the class and its capabilities.

 

However, in PvP, there is a significant disadvantage for this class. While some are able to fight the odds and scrape up a good standing on the leader boards, most fall victim to the classes prevailing weaknesses in PvP and end up near the bottom, or somewhere in the faceless middle.

 

This is because the Sentinel lacks one or two key utilities, of which once supplied, I believe will balance out the scales and cause the Sentinel to become a force to be reckoned with, and not one to be easily breezed by and trotted on. I think the Sentinel merely requires another short-cooldown Stun, or CC. Compared to other classes, the Sentinel has little to none. This would make it easier to survive and, more importantly, thrive in PvP.

 

-Ninjajedi

 

I'm inclined to agree with you on some points here, but not all.

 

I'll say I do not believe we should get another CC move for two reasons.

 

1. None of the classes need more buttons to press, already plenty of them.

 

2. We are balanced to not have the CC of other classes because we can survive longer (generally) than other classes. I say this because of our arsenal of defensive cooldowns and escapes. We have many ways to completely avoid damage or mitigate it. We are also the only class that provides the trauma debuff (MS for those familiar with WoW).

 

They give us more CC, on top of the above, we could be considered overpowered. I dont think any of us want that.

 

I'll admit, it sucks that we were the ones that had to get the droid CC, but someone had to; the humanoid one was already taken. In pve our droid CC is quite valuable since there are so many droid mobs in the game. It is pretty "eh" in pvp.

 

Anyway, I do agree that the class is generally fine. The things that make playing a Sentinel rough have less to do with class design (minus too many buttons) and more to do with UI/combat bugs.

 

I mean, yeah, I'd like to see bloat removed from our trees and have some moves merged so we dont have so many buttons on the bars, but every class has to live with issues in these areas. The game will eventually grow from them (took WoW 6 years to revise talent tree design at all).

[Leekae]

We are underpowere in one way. While all other classes, to my knowledge, have front-end loaded bars, we are stuck building up to that point with our focus bar.

 

This means we must build up to our bigger skills while other classes have them available from the beginning of a fight. It can be good and bad. Once we build up our focus we can do well, but we spend it very quickly for the results we do get.

 

Long term fights we prevail, but in shorter fights we are on the short end of the stick, aka in warzones especially.

 

I found PVE to be especially easy for the most part all the way through to 50, with the lone exception of one boss fight where you travel to the space mine. I figured out NOT to interrupt one of his skills and he went down the first time after that.

 

Playing a melee dps class can be frustrating, this latest version in Swtor can be from time to time as well, and that's coming from someone who's been highly regared as a melee dps class player across three games and with almost ten years experience doing so.

[Ibuki]

Sentinel is pure crap without a healer. Other classes can do well without receiving healing in warzones but Sentinel is dead within seconds when being attacked. When I see a Marauder in a warzone, I attack him first because I know he'll go down instantly if not healed. For me that's the biggest proof that something is wrong with this class: My mirror class is the weakest possible enemy.

 

Rebuke is the biggest faildesign of the Sentinel: If you don't have the cd ready, you're screwed. Rebuke should be weakened slightly but passive. Additionally the cooldown of Saberward should be lowered dramatically. I'm not sure if Pacify is buggy but it doesn't seem to work at all in pvp: I inflict it on my target but he hits as if nothing happened. Combat Stealth and Guarded by the Force are our best Defensive Abilities but they are pretty useless when nobody heals us since it only gives us seconds to live longer. All in all the survivability of this class is horrible. I start a fight and go down like nothing even though I use all of my cooldowns.

 

Sentinel class is no fun to play right now. Any other class stuns, shields, or is a tank in a passive way but we lack all of this. We have cooldowns that buy us time but they can't win our fight in a typical warzone situation. Warzones seem to be a random-zerg and we can't compete with other classes in this terrain. We are a pure 1n1 class.

 

Sure, I can be top-DD in a warzone and I can kill people, but only when nobody attacks me! When I'm being attacked I'm dead.

[acidpoptartz]

All i know is i have fun playing the class even tho i don't make it on top of the leader boards i do agree that our class is kinda squishy but u got bubbles to help you out. I just think we should have another range attack or lower the cost of our rage attacks. Just a ideal. I doubt the game makes even read these forums.

[BishopEightFour]

Sorry, but when you endure extra complexity, you expect to get something in return. I was honestly pretty bitter about my Death Knight for a long while, what with having to deal with the most complex tank mechanics in World of Warcraft *and* be the squishiest tank in the game at the same time, but having played this class through just level 30 so far, I've decided my DK is sitting pretty. I mean, hell, at least I can do my job.

 

When what you get in return for the additional complexity of your class is... Additional headaches and more deaths, well, that's a problem. I'm not saying that you can't play the game as one of these medium armor MDPS saber-wielders. I'm just saying that it's going to take you longer than if you had played it as something that doesn't suck.

[Atralis]

My Sentinel is my alt, with my main being a Commando and I can say with full confidence that.......... sentinel is underpowered.

 

My Commando through the whole leveling process could vaporize whole groups of non-elite mobs in a few seconds (Mortar volley is insanely powerful, hail of bolts, plasma grenade, sticky grenade, etc. an OBSCENE amount of AoE).

 

Single target dps the Sentinel is nice, but he doesn't really outclass the commando there either, especially a high level commando.

 

Stack on top of that the fact that I can heal, I'm wearing heavy armor (less squishy), I've got long range, I've got two different knockbacks, I've got a CC ability that can be used on anything (not just droids).

 

Need I say more? Trust me. Start a Trooper and before you even choose your starting class you will not have any doubt which is the stronger class.

 

That being said the Sentinel is a fun class to play.

[Csdabest]

Not underpowered. Just other classes are currently better equip. Like inquis can do somehow do better healing and better damage at the same time with amazing stealth. If Bioware would correctly scale the offhand dmg for a sent then it would be alrght. But seeing your main hand do like high damage while the off hand still does 70 to 120 dmg is mind boggoling. when you strike with both sabers. You should STRIKE with both sabers. Percentage in dmg taking off would wrk but right now it isane

[Cliffhoof]

other classes like Sages and inqusitors can solo kill elite mobs that are 2 or 3 higher level than you are while we Jedi Guardians/Sentinels cant and Guardians suppose to be Republic's best Tanks but we aint that either :s Edited January 8, 2012 by Cliffhoof

[Gerudan]

As a sentinel you should rather think about all the problems, you'll get, playing in groups. Never mind having problems to quest on your own.

[pherball]

Seriously, just macro the damn class already. It's not against the ToS. The class is not difficult to play, nothing in this game is.

 

Sents have the biggest utility in the game. It's just disguised as a DPS class.

[MBirkhofer]

Sentinel is pure crap without a healer. Other classes can do well without receiving healing in warzones but Sentinel is dead within seconds when being attacked. When I see a Marauder in a warzone, I attack him first because I know he'll go down instantly if not healed. For me that's the biggest proof that something is wrong with this class: My mirror class is the weakest possible enemy.

 

Rebuke is the biggest faildesign of the Sentinel: If you don't have the cd ready, you're screwed. Rebuke should be weakened slightly but passive. Additionally the cooldown of Saberward should be lowered dramatically. I'm not sure if Pacify is buggy but it doesn't seem to work at all in pvp: I inflict it on my target but he hits as if nothing happened. Combat Stealth and Guarded by the Force are our best Defensive Abilities but they are pretty useless when nobody heals us since it only gives us seconds to live longer. All in all the survivability of this class is horrible. I start a fight and go down like nothing even though I use all of my cooldowns.

 

Sentinel class is no fun to play right now. Any other class stuns, shields, or is a tank in a passive way but we lack all of this. We have cooldowns that buy us time but they can't win our fight in a typical warzone situation. Warzones seem to be a random-zerg and we can't compete with other classes in this terrain. We are a pure 1n1 class.

 

Sure, I can be top-DD in a warzone and I can kill people, but only when nobody attacks me! When I'm being attacked I'm dead.

rebuke is totally fail design.

 

I mean look at it. Lets look to the . zomg more buttons is more complexity crowd. Uhm is it? Name one situation where you don't want rebuke up every fight, and pop it as you charge in, in every fight? it lasts 6s before dropping without damage. So, even your own stuns basically can't make it wear out. save awe. I've never tested it, but I assume sabreward/trans, and pacify MISS, dont cause rebuke to not refresh. If that does happen, omg, fail... Anyway. no there is no reason for this skill to not be automatic, and not be passive. there isn't even a reason for it to not have a 100% up time.

 

the mega moves you can at least argue are last stands, sprints, etc. get out of jail free cards. But rebuke isn't. That makes no sense, to not be up all the time. Its another button to press atm, and its another example of sents being viable 50% of the time, and terrible the rest. We sure aren't op with rebuke up. So that only leaves underpowered when its down.

[TheoNJ]

If you dont mind, i would like to say a few words.

 

Today I was, for the first time, doing pvp.

and one thing keep me thinking i was underpowered. and not because i couldnt do damage.

the damage was ok. I wasnt the best but i was often between the 3 first more damage.

i had some hard time with pushbacks and CCs. I felt like the other classes have much more CC and pushbacks. It made me fell useless because they can put MY CHAR where THEY WANT! and i can NOT, but im not experienced. so im not gonna say much about it.

 

What I though really weird was the healers.

 

Often, and i mean, most of the time, the winner in damage in the whole game was some sage, and then you may say, well, he is dps. whats wrong with that?

and than you check his healing. and besides kicking my damage, he also heal for like 70 k.

 

Im used to see healer heal and that ok, but how can he deal so much DAMAGE and HEAL??

I CANT DO THAT!

 

when im target and noone is healing me, or i have CD in my ghost, thats it, im dead.

but other classes just SEENS TO ME that they can keep healing and healing.

 

TO ME, a dps should do dps, a healer should heal and a tank , tank.

Yeah, i know. im weird like that.

 

May the force be with you .

[Zero_Mercy]

For me, The micromanaging and focus mechanic makes the sentinel class the most fun.. I have a level 16 sage that does tons of dps in warzones. I feel like sitting back spamming the same rotation over and over is the most boring thing. I will say you have to do some work to get the amount of dps I tend to get in warzones on my sent, but it is what makes the class fun.

When you are 1m away and can't use abilities, because the system says one thing but means another. Like the person is actually 10m away rather than 1m. (I have a nice PC and good connection so its not on my end)

 

I have the same problem. Although for sentinel it isn't that horrible. For my assassin though, i cant stun someone if i want to successfully land a maul in their back.. the out of range **** happens everytime

[Vibeth]

I like the class because it's far more complex to play than my Bounty Hunter and am quite experienced with it, but anyone who has tried another class (like Bounty Hunter / Trooper for example) knows that we are underpowered compared to other classes.

 

We are mega squishy and die in seconds, we need to monitor a ton of cooldowns and use a ton of different skills and we do pretty much the same dps as other classes (only single target dps mind you, our AoE is rather weak) who have more survivability and utility.

 

This, my dear Jedis, is a formula for underpowered.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Vibeth

[Lancerx]

I honestly don't see it... Sure the focus mechanic might be harder to control than spamming attacks on most rdps classes. I go into lots of Warzones getting the highest dps... Isn't that our job? To DPS?

People whine about the lack of cc's... It might be nice to have one more yes. but look at our defensive abilities...lol. We have pacify, and our two defensive shields. Those are just as good as cc's. I'm watchman so I also have the heals combined with that which is pretty nice to have for the whole team.

Im just confused at how we are underpowered. I doubt im that good and I doubt my server is filled with horrible pvp'rs.

 

I don't think we are underpowered at all. I think bioware could do a few things to make the class a bit simpler perhaps because of so many people struggling to play this class well. That being said, I think combat tree could use a little buff because it is a little behind watchman.

[HollowVamp]

basically, we cant spam 5k crits like every other class, we have a big ramp up time, and with how much CC is available to every other class in the game, we're dead before our ramp up starts to even begin ramping up, however, if your sneaky enough, you can get in, take someone out camo out, and pick a new target, but when some specs get a 6 sec root knockback on top of their knockback with a snare, on top of stuns, it makes us feel extremely underpowered, they need to mess around with CC in the game, or give us more ways around it, but if they dont focus fire us down, we can easily top the charts, its a mix of luck and skill, not underpowered, just.. not entirely balanced, id gladly replace crippling throw with a force pull back, or some other tradeoff, but, we'll see where if bioware insist on dragging this into the ground or actually make improvements, its only been a few weeks, but I have seen little to 0 effort of them trying to fix huge pvp issues, not just balancing, mechanics and delays too

[wolfnorthwind]

What we need IMO is an advanced class passive that seriously reduces the cooldown on our cc breaker.

 

One of the best counters to enemy CC is getting your CC in first. We don't have that counter and so we need to rely on breaks. We get a couple, if we're specced right, but our baseline could be passive buffed for more frequent use.

 

That would even give us a role in PvP opposing the major CC classes such as the Sorcerer, who would view us as a more dangerous target if he can't root/stunlock reliably.

[Gouzukai]

sentinal is imo an 1o1 destroyer. He basically kills any class in a 1vs1 (all cds ready and with some little exceptions). So when you get stunlocked, it is mostly because there are more than 2 people on you and at this point you can't decide if a class is underpowered, because the fight wasn't balanced to begin with. People often mistake that for being actually underpowered rather than lack of skill to play the class right and see that there is more than just jumping in and hoping for the best.

 

Ever tried to play a sentinel with 2 healers on his side? This is basically godmode. Try it!

 

Also the point most people don't see is that sentinal has an insane melee output and the possibility to lock down caster esp healer hard. Why? Because we have kick, force stasis and crippling throw. Theses combined and the caster will die for sure without being able to pressure you or heal himself effectively..

 

so long

[Zero_Mercy]

sentinal is imo an 1o1 destroyer. He basically kills any class in a 1vs1 (all cds ready and with some little exceptions). So when you get stunlocked, it is mostly because there are more than 2 people on you and at this point you can't decide if a class is underpowered, because the fight wasn't balanced to begin with. People often mistake that for being actually underpowered rather than lack of skill to play the class right and see that there is more than just jumping in and hoping for the best.

 

Ever tried to play a sentinel with 2 healers on his side? This is basically godmode. Try it!

 

Also the point most people don't see is that sentinal has an insane melee output and the possibility to lock down caster esp healer hard. Why? Because we have kick, force stasis and crippling throw. Theses combined and the caster will die for sure without being able to pressure you or heal himself effectively..

 

so long

 

any dps with two healers by their side should be godmode lol.

[kernall]

Someone else said it earlier, but I'll reiterate what I feel is the problem in PvP.

 

1. Too many stuns and roots - To be fair, this is a problem with the overall game design, but it's most painful for Sentinels. Nothing frustrates someone in PvP then not being able to do something with their character... This hurts the Sentinel the most because even just a root is enough to remove them from play given the short melee ranges

 

2. No assets - Unlike the rest of the DPS classes we start at zero resources and build up to full. In a long term fight, this isn't an issue, and is why Sentinels tend to do well 1 on 1. However, most fights aren't long term and we lack any real first strike ability. Since other classes start high, and spend down, it puts them in a superior position over shorter fights were burst is important. Woe to the opponent that lets us build focus however.

 

3. Too many abilities - PvP is ultimately about speed, and the current design limitations of the game itself prevent us from doing some things easier. Macros would be a good first step to solving this. To be fair all the classes have too many abilities

 

4. Incapacitate - Too many of our abilities require incapacitated targets. Unfortunately, we have no way to incapacitate our own PvP target.

 

5. Confused Design - I think the Sentinel suffers a bit from Guardian holdovers. So many abilities feel like "Tank" abilities and it muddles the class a bit. For example, Rebuke. A Damage Shield is typically a tank ability to help with Group aggro. The same could be said of Riposte.

[EasymodeX]

Current issues with Resolve/CC:

 

1. Knockbacks give very little resolve.

 

2. Many, many roots give no resolve or very little resolve, or ignore resolve.

 

3. Resolve does not activate until the player is freed from all stun/mezzes. This means you can be chain stunned and mezzed several times in a row as long as they keep using them before you are free. E.g. the immunity does not activate while you are CC'd -- it activates after the CC expires. I had a fun time testing this on a guy who was running the Huttball -- waited till he had a full white bar of Resolve from a teammate's stun, waited 2 seconds, then Force Choked. Lo and behold, the Force Choke worked and the guy's Resolve immunity didn't activate until afterwards. I've been chain stunned for over 10+ seconds in PvP before, and now I have a better sense where and why it happens.

 

4. Some stuns exceed 2 or 3 seconds. Ironically, BioWare seems to have missed the obvious conclusion from other games (WoW, Warhammer, Rift, others) that have already ridden the CC rollercoaster: stuns should never exceed 3 seconds. Roots should never exceed 5 seconds. KBs should give significant CC immunities similar to stuns and mezzes. Shrug. BioWare will learn after the playerbase cries long enough.

 

5. Immunity needs to last longer. When CC was finally ironed out in Warhammer, immunities lasted 10x the duration of the CC. Stunned for 3 seconds? Immune to stun for 30 seconds. Current Resolve gives about a 10 second immunity after getting CC'd a half dozen ways.

 

Me, I'm not overly surprised. This is BioWare's first MMO and they're riding the IP. It'll take some time and lost subs before they get serious about some of the tuning and detailed mechanics. I give it about 4-6 months before the Resolve+CC system is improved to a workable state, and another 2-3 before it gets solid.