Sentinels CANT RAID.

[McDaniels]

Hey fellow sentinels. It's already been brought up that sentinels get screwed HARD by the mechanics of many of the boss fights in this game. In eternity vault, gharj's pounces, slams, etc keep us out of melee range for significant portions of the fight while ranged dps can continue pounding on the boss. On a fight like gharj, however, we are still very useful for our heroism buff, and we can use leap as a gap closer to compensate slightly for the mechanics that screw us over.

 

That said, my guild is now on hard mode soa as an 8 man, and I am going to have to duck out of the raid despite the fact that I am one of our top dpsers and one of our most geared players (rakata legs, rakata boots, champ belt, columi gloves, columi chest, energized weaponmaster helm, battlemaster ear/implants, columi bracers, rakata relics)

 

To explain, I am useful in the first two phases of this fight because I am able to dps the boss freely for most of these fights minus a few times when lightning balls come through the middle of the fight.

 

HOWEVER, the real challenge in hard mode soa is phase 3, and in this phase sentinels are virtually useless. For those who haven't experienced soa, in phase 3 he is invulnerable to damage for the majority of the phase. A floating pyramid will spawn in the air and slowly move downards toward the raid, the tank must position soa underneath the pyramid. When the pyramid falls, it will stun soa making him vulnerable for about 10 seconds, however it will also deal about 50% damage to any players underneath the pyramid.

 

While the boss is invulnerable he continues to spawn mind traps (traps that make a selected player useless) dpsers, including myself must burn these traps VERY quickly so that all dps is available to be on the boss when he is vulnerable, and so that healers are up to keep the raid topped off, these mind traps spawn randomly and can spawn far away from the raid.

 

NOW FOR THE PROBLEM: On 8 man ALL DPS MUST BE FOCUSED ON MIND TRAPS when the boss is not vulnerable. YOu have 5 dpsers in your raid, if 1 is mind trapped and 1 is flung in the air from the other bosses mechanic, you are down to 3 dpsers, so it is critical that mind traps are dealt with quickly. Sentinels are useful in this respect, we can charge the mind traps and quickly begin dpsing them. THE PROBLEM IS THAT if the mind trap spawns far from the boss which it does 75% of the time, then we cannot transition quickly to the boss when he enters his vulnerable stage BECAUSE LEAP DOES NOT WORK ON THE BOSS when he is vulnerable, for some reason Bioware decided to make sentinels useless and take away our only gap closer. What this means is that I need to walk from a mind trap all the way to the boss and this usually takes 7-8 seconds, leaving me 2-3 seconds to dps the boss... That just doesn't cut it on hard mode, you need dps on the boss for his 10 full seconds of vulnerability or he will enrage unless you are getting insane dps from your ranged and they can carry you through.

 

10 seconds is a very short window, and to take away a melee classes only gap closer and force them to run that distance is simply insane, i don't know what bioware was thinking but we just can't be useful without leap, Sure i can pop heroism for one of his vulnerability phases, but 15% damage in one phase doesn't compensate for essentially being short a dpser on all vulnerabilities.

 

The only solution is for me to not worry about mind traps and simply stay near the boss to be fully effective, but this is impossible because if I am not on mind traps, another dpser gets mind trapped, and a dpser gets tossed, then we have 2 dps to deal with traps and that just isn't enough to keep up with their fast spawns in phase 3 of the fight.

 

TLDR: Sentinels have no role in soa hard mode 8 man and its depressing to have to duck out of my raid despite being a top dpser and one of our most geared players because Bioware designed a **** that just completely screws our class over via mechanics that clearly weren't thought out.

[FobManX]

Man that sucks. I haven't started raiding yet but it was something I was looking forward to doing. Now I'm not going to be hardcore raiding, just casual with friends, but I played melee in WoW and it sucked how bad melee were screwed in that. I was hoping BW would come up with more unique raid mechanics instead of just "spread **** around" or "run away from AOE" and any other usual screw over melee mechanics.

[RamzaBehoulve]

Almost sounds like you never played a MMO as a melee character before.

 

In all fights with AoE and anti-melee characteristics, we are all screwed, not just Sentinel. If your raid leader prefers using only ranged, you can't do anything about it for that particular fight. Ah, yes, you can, change guild or play with friends that won't bully you.

 

I'm sure we'll eventually see some fights appearing which are anti-range to compensate.

 

Wish you had called your thread melee can't raid instead of Sentinel. Now you'll have all kind of people coming in and confirming Sentinel sucks because in one raid fight we can't melee with 100% uptime.

Edited January 7, 2012 by RamzaBehoulve

[Apocalypse-]

Leap not working on Soa is a BUG, and it corrects itself if the knight is sucked into a mind trap and then re-spawned onto the same plane as the boss, at that point you can leap to him again. Also, Transcendence isn't a bad stand-in.

 

For Gharj, save just use rebuke or traited Force Camo to just ignore the pounces. The knockbacks hit a lot of people, and leap makes it a 1-2 GCD penalty at best.

 

Saying Sentinels can't raid is a bit sensationalist at best.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Apocalypse-

[Alkolyk]

I feel you, I am a sentinel working on SOA hard mode too and I find it totally stupid that you can't leap him.

 

Often I'm throw in the air by his ability and I land as he's stunned, yet I have to run across half the room and can barely land a blow before he becomes immune again.

 

I have yet to see a fight where ranges aren't advantaged.

 

Heck I picked Sentinel BECAUSE it felt very strong on paper due to the group buffs... reality is they are pretty lack luster and I should have rolled a range DPS class with heals instead. (commando)

 

The few things I like about the class is Guarded by the force and the Force Fade and Force Pursuit talents in Watchmen. It's forgiving to have two cooldowns (45s and 1min30s) that can completely mitigate any boss abilities, yet it is not required at all to kill bosses.

[Klerke]

i haven't started raiding yet and don't plan too but i've got a suggestion for a work around until they fix it.

 

i don't know if it works

but get a sage to get closer to the boss and use "rescue" on you, might get you some more seconds of uptime on the boss

[Apocalypse-]

i haven't started raiding yet and don't plan too but i've got a suggestion for a work around until they fix it.

i don't know if it works

but get a sage to get closer to the boss and use "rescue" on you, might get you some more seconds of uptime on the boss

 

Do NOT use Rescue before phase 3 for any reason though. You'll simply fall through the stage 1/2 platforms to your death and no one will be able to get a revive on you 90% of the time.

[McDaniels]

In response to several comments:

 

A. Use transcendence? Nope... Even if I use that, hell even if i Have the 30% increased speed from talents, its still not worth it and it doesn't fix the problem.

 

The base 15% speed saves you what? 1 to 2 seconds? The additional dps you would get from those 2 seconds probably doesn't even equate to what you're sacrificing by not having zen up, furthermore inspiration NEEDS to be used in one of the vulnerability stages, so you can't rely on transcendence in that situation.

 

And no, not all melee classes are shafted. I know shadows have a gap closer in the form of their speed boost, dont know the abilities name. I don't know about scoundrels though, not very familiar with their abilities.

 

Glad to hear that leap is bugged though not purposely disabled... Really hope they fix that soon.

[Apocalypse-]

In response to several comments:

 

A. Use transcendence? Nope... Even if I use that, hell even if i Have the 30% increased speed from talents, its still not worth it and it doesn't fix the problem.

 

The base 15% speed saves you what? 1 to 2 seconds? The additional dps you would get from those 2 seconds probably doesn't even equate to what you're sacrificing by not having zen up, furthermore inspiration NEEDS to be used in one of the vulnerability stages, so you can't rely on transcendence in that situation.

 

And no, not all melee classes are shafted. I know shadows have a gap closer in the form of their speed boost, dont know the abilities name. I don't know about scoundrels though, not very familiar with their abilities.

 

Glad to hear that leap is bugged though not purposely disabled... Really hope they fix that soon.

 

Transcendence is a base 50% run speed for your whole group. Compared to not being in melee range to get Zen going, it's definitely worth it. You can use Valorous Call to get Inspiration when you want it. You can peel off Mind Traps a second or two early as well, there will be overkill damage done to it regardless. Also, try the suggestion to use rescue to fix the bugged leap, it could possibly fix it. No idea if it works, but I won't likely be back in to EV until next week to try.