Sentinel – Ur doin it rong

[MostlyHarmls]

So, I think we’ve all read the sob stories by now – I died 500 times on Valis! I sold my first born to get more credits for repairs on Sand Demon! I can’t sleep at night because I’m terrified that Sith Harrowers will rend my soul! After dying 40,000 times on the last boss, I uninstalled the game, broke the DVD, smashed my computer, then burned down my house!!1one Etc, etc.

 

I’m not going to sugar-coat it – if this sounds like you, you don’t know how to play your class.

 

Why are these fights so hard?

 

To put it simply, the class quests are tests. Of what, you ask? Of your ability to play your class, to put it bluntly. As a Sentinel, you have a number of abilities that allow you to avoid damage, either by preventing your opponent from hitting you, or by reducing the damage you take. If you know how to use these abilities, the class fights are fairly easy. If you don’t, you will die. It’s that simple. Getting more levels isn’t going to help. Getting better gear won’t help (much). You need to L2P.

 

By making these fights hard, the developers ensure that players who complete them are prepared to take on Flashpoints and Operations where these skills will be needed. This helps to prevent what I like to call the Huntard Syndrome (from that *other* game). This happens when a class has a brainlessly easy path to the level cap. When they are finally required to use their abilities in high-level content, they have no idea how, because they were never challenged while leveling up. Eventually, this class develops a reputation for being full of awful players and people don’t want to bring them along. Don’t let this happen to the Sentinel class! Learn your class!

 

Are you just going to insult me?

 

No, I’ll actually explain how to beat each of these fights. But I’ll throw some mockery in too, because if you need this guide, you need to L2P. Hopefully you’ll do just that! But you’ll probably just get mad that I called you bad.

 

Valis:

He has 4 abilities:

Force Grip: Will stun you or your companion for a while

Force Slam: Knocks you back, slows, and stuns you for a few seconds. He will always cast Energy Blast after this.

Energy Blast: Does a huge amount of damage. He will always cast this after knocking you back.

Lightning Strike: Does a moderate amount of damage. He will spam this.

 

Strategy: The key to this fight is interrupting Valis. You can miss a Lightning Strike or two, but missing an Energy Blast will probably kill you. Whenever you get knocked back, Force Leap back to Valis to interrupt Energy Blast. Whenever Valis casts Lightning Strike, use Force Kick. You can also use Force Stasis if you have it, but it’s not necessary. Rebuke and Saber Ward are backup in case you miss some casts.

 

And that’s it. If you do damage and interrupt his casts, you will win easily. Incidentally, Angral and Praven work the same way. Interrupt casts, DPS, collect lewts.

 

Sand Demon:

Honestly I thought this guy was just another random Elite until I saw all the crying on the forums. He’s is a chump. The only thing he can do is hit hard, so there aren’t any tricks on this fight. Just use Rebuke, Pacify, and Force Stasis , and you will win easily. Again, Saber Ward is backup and not needed unless you’re struggling.

 

Sith Harrowers:

This guys actually require some strategy to defeat, so it’s not surprising that many players are completely unable to beat these guys. They don’t use any spells so you won’t need interrupts, but they hit HARD. At 20% health, they become immune to attacks and get a huge buff to their damage and attack speed. There's no way you can withstand their enraged attacks for long, even with Rebuke & Saber Ward. To beat them you need to prevent them from hitting you, which means using Pacify and Stasis.

 

When they Enrage, run back to enable Force Leap and wait for them to come after you. Then use Force Leap, Pacify, and burn them down. When Pacify runs out, use Force Stasis. When that runs out, use Saber Ward. If that’s still not enough, you need to do more damage. You can ponder how to do that as you wait to respawn.

 

The Emperor:

I haven’t gotten this far yet. I’ll edit the post when I do.

[taproot]

hahaha youll be in for a treat when you try emperor by yourself...

[Maefly]

Information is decent, the tone of the post is a real turn off tho. I think many people will skip out on some good knowledge simply because you come off as a tool.

[Vobnash]

And now instead of seeing more sob stories, we're seeing more and more posts by people telling everyone else how bad we are, and how pro the poster is.

[Lancerx]

So, I think we’ve all read the sob stories by now – I died 500 times on Valis! I sold my first born to get more credits for repairs on Sand Demon! I can’t sleep at night because I’m terrified that Sith Harrowers will rend my soul! After dying 40,000 times on the last boss, I uninstalled the game, broke the DVD, smashed my computer, then burned down my house!!1one Etc, etc.

 

I’m not going to sugar-coat it – if this sounds like you, you don’t know how to play your class.

 

Why are these fights so hard?

 

To put it simply, the class quests are tests. Of what, you ask? Of your ability to play your class, to put it bluntly. As a Sentinel, you have a number of abilities that allow you to avoid damage, either by preventing your opponent from hitting you, or by reducing the damage you take. If you know how to use these abilities, the class fights are fairly easy. If you don’t, you will die. It’s that simple. Getting more levels isn’t going to help. Getting better gear won’t help (much). You need to L2P.

 

By making these fights hard, the developers ensure that players who complete them are prepared to take on Flashpoints and Operations where these skills will be needed. This helps to prevent what I like to call the Huntard Syndrome (from that *other* game). This happens when a class has a brainlessly easy path to the level cap. When they are finally required to use their abilities in high-level content, they have no idea how, because they were never challenged while leveling up. Eventually, this class develops a reputation for being full of awful players and people don’t want to bring them along. Don’t let this happen to the Sentinel class! Learn your class!

 

Are you just going to insult me?

 

No, I’ll actually explain how to beat each of these fights. But I’ll throw some mockery in too, because if you need this guide, you need to L2P. Hopefully you’ll do just that! But you’ll probably just get mad that I called you bad.

 

Valis:

He has 4 abilities:

Force Grip: Will stun you or your companion for a while

Force Slam: Knocks you back, slows, and stuns you for a few seconds. He will always cast Energy Blast after this.

Energy Blast: Does a huge amount of damage. He will always cast this after knocking you back.

Lightning Strike: Does a moderate amount of damage. He will spam this.

 

Strategy: The key to this fight is interrupting Valis. You can miss a Lightning Strike or two, but missing an Energy Blast will probably kill you. Whenever you get knocked back, Force Leap back to Valis to interrupt Energy Blast. Whenever Valis casts Lightning Strike, use Force Kick. You can also use Force Stasis if you have it, but it’s not necessary. Rebuke and Saber Ward are backup in case you miss some casts.

 

And that’s it. If you do damage and interrupt his casts, you will win easily. Incidentally, Angral and Praven work the same way. Interrupt casts, DPS, collect lewts.

 

Sand Demon:

Honestly I thought this guy was just another random Elite until I saw all the crying on the forums. He’s is a chump. The only thing he can do is hit hard, so there aren’t any tricks on this fight. Just use Rebuke, Pacify, and Force Stasis , and you will win easily. Again, Saber Ward is backup and not needed unless you’re struggling.

 

Sith Harrowers:

This guys actually require some strategy to defeat, so it’s not surprising that many players are completely unable to beat these guys. They don’t use any spells so you won’t need interrupts, but they hit HARD. At 20% health, they become immune to attacks and get a huge buff to their damage and attack speed. There's no way you can withstand their enraged attacks for long, even with Rebuke & Saber Ward. To beat them you need to prevent them from hitting you, which means using Pacify and Stasis.

 

When they Enrage, run back to enable Force Leap and wait for them to come after you. Then use Force Leap, Pacify, and burn them down. When Pacify runs out, use Force Stasis. When that runs out, use Saber Ward. If that’s still not enough, you need to do more damage. You can ponder how to do that as you wait to respawn.

 

The Emperor:

I haven’t gotten this far yet. I’ll edit the post when I do.

 

Blunt, but true. Maybe this will offend some people, but sometimes the truth hurts. I often wonder if I am playing the same class as others. I never struggled leveling, and though the class quests was challenging but still was able to clear them all without more then a death. Maybe we don't run around one shotting elites, but we are able to level all the way to 50 without struggling at all. I speak of course about pve only, as I have no pvp experience currently. But PVE you should be able to go all the way to 50 having fun, not struggling, soloing champion and multiple elites and even sometimes feeling very powerful. If not then you are probably doing something wrong. Which is of course good news, since you can fix it, and improve your game play.

[Lancerx]

hahaha youll be in for a treat when you try emperor by yourself...

I found none of the class quest impossible. Fun?... yes, Challenging?... Yes, but dieing multiple times? ....never.

[Ninja_Jedl]

I'll admit, when I first started this class I absolutely had no idea what I was doing. My basic rotation consisted of: Force Leap, Zealous Strike, Slash, Slash, Strike, Strike, Slash. In that order. I didn't even have more then one quickslot, and Cauterize, Overload Saber, etc weren't in there.

 

Then I started looking around on the forums, wondering why I was doing so bad. Looked at some posts and guides and switched some things around. Then I went and tested my new rotation in the game.

 

I'm rolling along quite well - I rarely die unless I mess up my rotation or miss an interrupt. I only died once on Valis because I did the latter, and then I creamed him. The Sand Demon got me down to around 20% health before I finished him off, too.

 

However, despite all this, I do feel the class is underpowered in comparison to others. We simply have a smaller library of utilities, and that factors in greatly in PvP.

 

Besides PvP, nothings really wrong. Except for the odd bug, of course, like the UI lag and the Off Hand Damage Issue.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Ninja_Jedl

[Inayat]

Also note that if you often do warzones in between quests.

You tend to be higher lvl than the area, wich makes it a lot easier.

 

Havent died once in all the above.

Allways use my T-07, and when i had to do Angral.

I just equipped Kira with some greens and only died once cause i did not use a medpac.

 

Second time he died easy.

 

But like I said, due to warzone spamming I was usually 2-3 lvls above the mobs lvl.

 

OP may have put it blunt, but i agree with what he says.

 

Doing these fights really makes you think before you just press a few skills.

And "teaches" you when to use your skills.

 

Warzones is also a good learning base. Knowing what to do under pressure.

 

Often have i encountered siths, who would just panick when you attack them.

[Saetun]

I have beaten emperor, I am doing hardmode flashpoints. Your point might have some validity if fp's were even hard and required you to play at some amazing level of skill but they aren't.

 

Sorry come talk to us again when you are actually done with your class quests and doing endgame.

[Ninja_Jedl]

I find Kira very effective. I use her almost exclusively, and I find that I'm taking down bosses and mobs twice as fast.

[Elyons]

This helps to prevent what I like to call the Huntard Syndrome (from that *other* game).

 

I know it does sound harsh, but Me and my guild mates had already become accustomed to calling sentinels that.

 

 

Did boarding party today with 2 Guildies and a sentinel (He was a great guy, really fun to be around.) But when it came to Cc breaking, interrupting attacks, dps rotations, and damage mitigation... We'll just say he truly needed to read this thread

[Scralotos]

To be completely honest, if you`ve got to go to the forums to learn how to get to lvl 50 then you should prolly just uninstall the game, as being a Sentinel should be out of your league when you get to 50, along with the so called "ban" the class has gotten because of "bad dps and horrible survivability" in end game.

 

But if what the poster says about not wanting this class to be like Hunters in wow is true, then this post is helping the people he claims he doesnt want playing "our" class in getting to the level cap. Which in turn show that this guy either is a complete tool, or wants to somehow seem like "the guy" who can teach the masses.

 

I had no real Problems that took me hours of retrying to get past, though I`ve played rpg`s since i was about 8 years old, and have picked up most of the "know how" to read talents and abilities to get a decent amount of knowledge of that certain class to be average and not a complete hack.

 

In my opinion fix your tone, start giving out solid advice on which abilties are your bread and butter, which abilities are situational and try to "teach" how to think on the spot and boost reaction time instead, and it should help a long way of being constructive help that can spawn good discussions on class mastering and getting a nicer tone in the "sentinel community" instead of the overlaying "im better than your so **** and listen to what I say" tone that this post has atm.

 

Giving people straight up "guides" on how to beat certain bosses give you nothing but a way to get all those people that you dont want playing, an easy way of getting past situations that they should be learning and progressing in class proficiency from instead.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Scralotos