I fell in love with Watchmen spec (a guide)

[Alkolyk]

I see a lot of focus on the focus tree (hehe) here on the forums, but little about Watchmen and having played both for a while (I'm rank 36) I decided I'd share the build I fell in love with.

 

I feel that a lot of people who actually play watchmen have not yet gasped it's playstyle and it's biggest strengths, I hope this little guide will help some of you get more out of your Sentinels, enjoy!

 

Here's the build:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIrRrRrfGzZ0MZM.1

 

Key talents

 

Force Fade

Reduce all dmg taken from 100% while camouflage is active.

 

Focused Pursuit

+30% movespeed while transcendence is active, applies to your group.

 

Valor

Increase centering built by 2 when activating abilities that spend focus, also reduces the CD on Valorous call by 30s.

 

 

Watchguard

Reduces the CD of Pacify by 15 sec and Force kick by 2 sec.

 

It brings the CD of our kick to 6 sec instead of 8 and chops off 15s off pacify's CD often allowing us to use it twice in a fight.

 

Blurred Speed

Lowers the cooldown of force leap by 3 sec.

 

Instead of 15s it's 12. This one is debatable but I chose it because I wanted to have as much interupt power as I could and Force Leap is just that.

 

Close Quarters

Reduce the minimum range of force leap by 10 meters. This is a must, it basically turns your force lift into a reliable second interupt and I'll explain while this is a must further down.

 

Inflammation

Cauterize reduces target move speed by 30% while it is active on the target. (6 sec)

 

This talent is absolutely key, I barely use leg slash anymore and Cauterize is always my priority on a target as it's not only good damage but it is key to generating more focus through the burning focus talent which synergies with our centering generation through the valor talent. You really don't need a snare as strong as Leg Slash when you are spaming transcendence all the time and that you have reduced leap CD and that allows you to spam more damaging abilities instead of Leg slash.

 

General Playstyle

 

Transcendence > Zen

 

The build revolved around generating lots of centering through focus dump, allowing you to spam improved transcendence to your group, 80% move speed for 10 seconds is nothing to sneeze at and I have rarely seen such a strong ability in any other MMOs.. I mean a GROUP SPRINT that is FASTER than most classes sprint AND gives 10% defenseis huge... In hutball I have yet to NOT get the ball first. It allows for organised groups of 4 to get in position on the map way before the enemies and it increases the DPS and defense of any other melee classes in your group.

 

In pvp I basically spam transcendence all the time, Zen is only used in scenarios where I am far from everyone and I want to drop a target quickly. Remember the feeling you get when a melee class zips around you in all directions very quickly and you seem to lose a bunch of global cds because hes never in front of you. Well that's exactly what I'm trying to do in PVP.

 

I have the feeling that very few sentinels do that, everyone seems to think that since Zen increases our dmg, we should spam that. Seems to be mostly about the DMG meters in warzones yet you and your whole team do more damage in a situation where transendence is active. I've PVP'd for a full day with a Jedi Guardian and a Scoundrel and both couldn't believe it, the DPS spec'd Guardian gained tremendously because of that, it's the kind of thing that you have to experience and try to see how strong it is.

 

 

Camouflage with 100% incoming dmg reduction is awesome.

 

A strong sprint like trans combined with the ability to vanish AND AVOID ALL DMG while stealthed means that you can basically reset fights whenever you feel like it. Watchman sentinels have the most reliable Vanish in the game right now. It's not only disgusting in PVP but also in PVE.. 45sec CD that gives 100% immunity is very useful.

 

The only way I'm going to go down in pvp is if I'm not paying attention and I get chain CC'd to death, otherwise I get away from pretty much everyone. I see it that way; by the time I'm done chaining all my defensive CD's (Pacify, Rebuke, Saber Ward, Guarded by the force) I will always be maxed in Centering, allowing me to vanish + transcendence to safety.

 

Another cool trick in 1v1 situations is to load up your target of dots + use merciless slash (for the cd reduce on it) and then Zen + Force Camo. The targets HP will go down and yours will go up but more importantly you will have gained a lot of focus while theses dots ticked, allowing you to reopen on them as YOU are higher on hp and they are lower. That combined with defensive cooldown spam and tons of interupting power allows you to win against incredible odds.

 

I've won a couple 1v2s and one 1v3 by simply chaining cooldowns, using rakata medpack and making sure to focus the healers first and then outlasting the other opponents. There's also something satisfying about disrupting the cap on a point for a good 10 seconds against 5-6 opponents then force camo + trans away from them to safety.

 

The lockdown on casters

 

The advantage of Watchmen over Combat and Focus is also it's ability to lock down a casting target, we get a lower CD kick along with no min range on leap interupt. When I notice that there is a healer healing my current target I'll apply cauterize to my target and then finishi building up my focus to 8-10 through slashes or zealous, keeping merciless slash up and the next heal that the healer starts to cast I activate Overload saber and go:

 

Leap (Interupt + 1 stack of dot) ---> Cauterize (3 stacks of dots) ---> Merciless strike (4 stacks, maxed) ---> Force statis (interupt + build focus) ---> master strike/dispatch.

 

During that whole rotation you can insert a kick to interupt their next spell and don't worry too much about not having the focus to kick as the burning focus talent will bring in that extra focus due to the dots rolling on the target. Also, don't worry too much if they land a heal through that, it will still pressure the healer so much that the target of your allies shouldn't be getting heals.

 

Another plus for transcendance spam is that if the healer vanishes or punts you away you'll still get right on their face again in much less time, increasing the pressure and your killing power.

 

Gear + Crew skills

 

Biochem is my favorite for a couple of reasons.

- Rakata healthpack for 5k heals

- Str + power flask

- HP + def flask

 

The crafted gear is pretty nice but you can get better through pve and r60 stuff, therefore the "only" way to boost your stats when fully geared is biochem as their flasks are superior to what you can buy.

 

Also our healing scales with our hp, my prediction is that with a lot of expertise combined with the hp+def flask might allow for some pretty sick survivability as our crit rating increases along with our hp our heals will start getting better and better, allowing for some clutch play.

 

So.. I'm running out of time, I'll leave it there, feel free to critique or ask questions, I'll be active through the thread.

 

Cheers!

Edited January 9, 2012 by Alkolyk

[Sereglin]

Nice post. Pretty informative. Ive been playing a combat sent but im curious for watchman.

[Maefly]

Here's the build:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIrRrRrfGzZ0MZM.1

 

I know you're not 50 yet so I can understand the difficulty in trying to craft a build when you can't use all the talents. That being said, your build is far to weighted on the Watchman Tree and as such, you pass up some pretty necessary talents for an end game build.

 

You have 2 points in Focused Pursuit which are simply wasted points. This talent really belongs in the Focus tree if its going to be anywhere but taking it as watchman gains you nothing.

 

You took both Inflammation and Merciless Zeal when you really only need either one and in a pure end game PvE build should only have Merciless Zeal.

 

You took Master Focus which lowers the cooldown on two of our lower dps abilities. I find myself trying not to use either Stasis or Master Strike simply because we almost always have extra focus and all of our other abilities do more damage / second than those channeled abilities.

 

At the same time you didn't pick up Dual Wield Mastery (say what you will about off hand damage, a damage increase is an increase) and Steadfast which let's us itemize gear stats better by not allocating so many points to accuracy.

 

I know the current trend on these forums seems to be everyone making their own guide on how to play their favorite tree, but its starting to spread some misinformation and non-ideal rotations / builds.

[Guardianbuzz]

Did you even read his post? Did you see anything in there about PvE? I didn't. I for one second the use of Transcendence in PvP.

[Alkolyk]

I know you're not 50 yet so I can understand the difficulty in trying to craft a build when you can't use all the talents. That being said, your build is far to weighted on the Watchman Tree and as such, you pass up some pretty necessary talents for an end game build.

 

You have 2 points in Focused Pursuit which are simply wasted points. This talent really belongs in the Focus tree if its going to be anywhere but taking it as watchman gains you nothing.

 

You took both Inflammation and Merciless Zeal when you really only need either one and in a pure end game PvE build should only have Merciless Zeal.

 

You took Master Focus which lowers the cooldown on two of our lower dps abilities. I find myself trying not to use either Stasis or Master Strike simply because we almost always have extra focus and all of our other abilities do more damage / second than those channeled abilities.

 

At the same time you didn't pick up Dual Wield Mastery (say what you will about off hand damage, a damage increase is an increase) and Steadfast which let's us itemize gear stats better by not allocating so many points to accuracy.

 

I know the current trend on these forums seems to be everyone making their own guide on how to play their favorite tree, but its starting to spread some misinformation and non-ideal rotations / builds.

 

 

I'm lvl 50, I was the first Sentinel on my server to ding 50.

 

We've dropped most hardmodes.

 

This thread was mostly about PVP, sorry for the confusion.

 

You obviously did not read the thread as I commented on several of the things you are saying.

 

Dual Wield Mastery is terrible, do the math, it's somewhere around 2%-4% dps. etc.. etc..

[Vildiil]

Did you even read his post? Did you see anything in there about PvE? I didn't. I for one second the use of Transcendence in PvP.

 

Agreed, also by Rank 36 I'm fairly certain he meant Valor rank not level.

 

edit - beaten by the op :x

Edited January 9, 2012 by Vildiil

[Fascion]

Transcendence > Zen

 

The build revolved around generating lots of centering through focus dump, allowing you to spam improved transcendence to your group, 80% move speed for 10 seconds is nothing to sneeze at and I have rarely seen such a strong ability in any other MMOs.. I mean a GROUP SPRINT that is FASTER than most classes sprint AND gives 10% defenseis huge... In hutball I have yet to NOT get the ball first. It allows for organised groups of 4 to get in position on the map way before the enemies and it increases the DPS and defense of any other melee classes in your group.

 

In pvp I basically spam transcendence all the time, Zen is only used in scenarios where I am far from everyone and I want to drop a target quickly. Remember the feeling you get when a melee class zips around you in all directions very quickly and you seem to lose a bunch of global cds because hes never in front of you. Well that's exactly what I'm trying to do in PVP.

 

I have the feeling that very few sentinels do that, everyone seems to think that since Zen increases our dmg, we should spam that. Seems to be mostly about the DMG meters in warzones yet you and your whole team do more damage in a situation where transendence is active. I've PVP'd for a full day with a Jedi Guardian and a Scoundrel and both couldn't believe it, the DPS spec'd Guardian gained tremendously because of that, it's the kind of thing that you have to experience and try to see how strong it is.

Did you see anything in there about PvE? I didn't. I for one second the use of Transcendence in PvP.

I'll third that.

 

I was really beginning to think I was the only one that felt this way. Even if a non crit-focused build (such as that which is given to you by default with the PVP gear) we should be sitting pretty at a 25-28% chance to crit, so Zen is only really guaranteeing, statistically speaking, crits on 4-5 of your Cauterize ticks. At 50, with my stats (1358 STR, 376 CritRate, 206 Surge, 234 Power,) that means in the ballpark of 600-850 additional damage. That is roughly equivalent to, absolute best case scenario, 1/20th of a well gear'd opponent's HP. It is also equivalent to half of what any number of our other attacks would do. Transcendence allows us to shrug off knockbacks, snares and other tricks that some opponents would employ to buy time for help to arrive, affording us additional time spent wailing on them. If they aren't using these tactics (but who doesn't when they have us right in front of them?) then sure, Zen is going to be better DPS... but had they just after you popped Zen, then you my friend might have just lost that fight, or at the very least allowed them to escape. In certain situations, it is easy to see how Transcendence could mean thousands, if not tens of thousands more damage done on opponents compared to a mere guarantee of 600-850 on one lone target.

 

Listen, I'm not saying Zen is bad... it just isn't as useful as Transcendence (in this man's opinion) 95% of the time. Never once have I popped Transcendence in PVP and later thought, "you know, I really wish I used Zen instead." With Zen, I question it's use every other time.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Fascion

[Maefly]

I'm lvl 50, I was the first Sentinel on my server to ding 50.

 

We've dropped most hardmodes.

 

This thread was mostly about PVP, sorry for the confusion.

 

You obviously did not read the thread as I commented on several of the things you are saying.

 

Dual Wield Mastery is terrible, do the math, it's somewhere around 2%-4% dps. etc.. etc..

 

I thought it might be more about PvP but when I looked at your build you were still missing stagger and why on earth would a watchman build lack stagger? It's a free root every 12 seconds that doesn't affect Resolve.

 

And yes, for PvP dual wield master is garbage for PvP no argument here.

[Maefly]

Did you even read his post? Did you see anything in there about PvE? I didn't. I for one second the use of Transcendence in PvP.

 

Saw a lot of "In PvP I do" type statements and nothing about PvP only in the title or the post. I read through it and found a lot of statements that applied to both PvE and PvP. The build didn't make sense for either PvE or PvP.

 

I apologize for assuming the build was PvE. Generally when people make a PvP guide they specify it's a PvP guide since things like "locking down a caster" and "100% reduction on camouflage" apply to both.

[Alkolyk]

I'll third that.

 

I was really beginning to think I was the only one that felt this way. Even if a non crit-focused build (such as that which is given to you by default with the PVP gear) we should be sitting pretty at a 25-28% chance to crit, so Zen is only really guaranteeing, statistically speaking, crits on 4-5 of your Cauterize ticks. At 50, with my stats (1358 STR, 376 CritRate, 206 Surge, 234 Power,) that means in the ballpark of 600-850 additional damage. That is roughly equivalent to, absolute best case scenario, 1/20th of a well gear'd opponent's HP. It is also equivalent to half of what any number of our other attacks would do. Transcendence allows us to shrug off knockbacks, snares and other tricks that some opponents would employ to buy time for help to arrive, affording us additional time spent wailing on them. If they aren't using these tactics (but who doesn't when they have us right in front of them?) then sure, Zen is going to be better DPS... but had they just after you popped Zen, then you my friend might have just lost that fight, or at the very least allowed them to escape. In certain situations, it is easy to see how Transcendence could mean thousands, if not tens of thousands more damage done on opponents compared to a mere guarantee of 600-850 on one lone target.

 

Listen, I'm not saying Zen is bad... it just isn't as useful as Transcendence (in this man's opinion) 95% of the time. Never once have I popped Transcendence in PVP and later thought, "you know, I really wish I used Zen instead." With Zen, I question it's use every other time.

 

 

Agreed,

 

And I get the "feeling" when playing that the 10% range/melee defense might not be as negligable as we think it is.

 

I wonder if some spells are affected by that?

[ErisktheRed]

Saw a lot of "In PvP I do" type statements and nothing about PvP only in the title or the post. I read through it and found a lot of statements that applied to both PvE and PvP. The build didn't make sense for either PvE or PvP.

 

I apologize for assuming the build was PvE. Generally when people make a PvP guide they specify it's a PvP guide since things like "locking down a caster" and "100% reduction on camouflage" apply to both.

 

You can infer after a while it's just PVP by his key talents; but doesn't specifically say this build is for PVP only, and I myself was waiting for PVE insight because the guides stated as a general watchman build and you think both PVP/PVE... but it's clearly a PVP guide.

 

It's a great PVP guide for Watchman imo. BUT obviously PVE will differ. Inflammation is a skill you could dump for PVE, and you'll use Zen more obviously solo and in groups depending on things tho transcendence is really awesome in PVE too, depends on the situation (group make up, mobs, etc).

 

But PVP totally agree I've found trans > zen usually tho I've used the zen one on one and certain situation PVP. Esp Hutball lol the speed boost is really crazy.

Edited January 9, 2012 by ErisktheRed

[Alkolyk]

I thought it might be more about PvP but when I looked at your build you were still missing stagger and why on earth would a watchman build lack stagger? It's a free root every 12 seconds that doesn't affect Resolve.

 

And yes, for PvP dual wield master is garbage for PvP no argument here.

 

Well, leap already roots a target down and I feel like I don't need that extra second of root, it's def debatable tho.

 

Saw a lot of "In PvP I do" type statements and nothing about PvP only in the title or the post. I read through it and found a lot of statements that applied to both PvE and PvP. The build didn't make sense for either PvE or PvP.

 

I apologize for assuming the build was PvE. Generally when people make a PvP guide they specify it's a PvP guide since things like "locking down a caster" and "100% reduction on camouflage" apply to both.

 

Well, that's your opinion but I find that the build makes perfect sense for PVP and I'm having a lot of success with it. It's also very fun.

 

As for PVE, I agree that the build isn't optimal, I'll see if I can edit the title to reflect that it's a PVP build.

[DanChart]

Nice post. I'm a 50 Watchmen and have always used Zen because of the extra damage and healing but you've convinced me to try out Transcendence with the +30% speed talent.

[Alkolyk]

Nice post. I'm a 50 Watchmen and have always used Zen because of the extra damage and healing but you've convinced me to try out Transcendence with the +30% speed talent.

 

Glad you like it, let us know your experience with trans and +30%.

[Stalzy]

I'm force spec. But I CONSTANTLY spam Transcendence! 10% Def to your entire group and 50% run speed is OP. Spec into Defensive forms and you can literally pop this every 10s-20s. Give's everyone else the edge around you.

 

Love Transcendence.

 

I need to try Watchmen spec soon. With a pug healer I'll average around 300-400k dmg. With a pocket healer I can break 500k. If we are still ******** the bed I'll still break over 200k dmg.

 

But I'm not a dmg whore. I will always go after the objective and the healers.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Stalzy

[Alkolyk]

I'm force spec. But I CONSTANTLY spam Transcendence! 10% Def to your entire group and 50% run speed is OP. Spec into Defensive forms and you can literally pop this every 10s-20s. Give's everyone else the edge around you.

 

Love Transcendence.

 

I need to try Watchmen spec soon. With a pug healer I'll average around 300-400k dmg. With a pocket healer I can break 500k. If we are still ******** the bed I'll still break over 200k dmg.

 

But I'm not a dmg whore. I will always go after the objective and the healers.

 

Pretty cool,

 

The inner focus talent in focus is awesome for Trans spam.

 

About the damage, I'd say that focus can provide more dmg if followed by a healer. But Watchmen provides much better tool to solo and be self sufficient.

 

In solo queue I average 250-350k or so which might not sound much in itself but I barely ever die and I`m always disrupting everyone and dragging 2-3 enemies on my tail while doing so. =D