Sentinel PvP: How do I pressure Snipers, Healers, Mercenaries?

[Chaosmagistrate]

****Did not realize I dumped this in the generic JK forum.

 

Good afternoon,

 

As usual, for my posts, I try to keep to the topic, and keep things in context.

 

First of all, I am a lvl 50 Jedi Knight Sentinel with roughly 349 expertise, 3200 armor(22.43% DR, 14% Bleed DR), 1150 str, 1329 End. These numbers are self-buffed.

 

I have played both Watchman and Combat specs at level 50 PvP, but I am Watchman at the moment.

 

My current crew skills are Art/Arch/TH.

 

For the record, I did search the first seven pages of this particular forum, and did not find anything that pertained to this specific topic.

 

My main question is how do I apply sufficient pressure on similarly-geared Snipers, Healers, and Mercenary Bounty Hunters to get them to move and break their casts?

 

This is entirely in a PvP context and in warzones.

 

What does this even mean?

 

For the record, I am not asking to win all 1v1s, or duels, or one-shot anyone. I am simply asking for some assistance in figuring out how to get these specific classes to move.

 

For example, currently, if I Force Leap a Mercenary BH on open ground from behind, and begin DPS uptime, I generally get knocked back, and then slowed, and the BH begins casting Tracer Missile. I tend to slog closer until I get close enough to Force Statsis to buy myself time for the slow to wear off. By the time Force Stasis finishes, I will get stunned, and the BH will go back to Tracer Missiles. At this point, hopefully my Resolve Bar will fill up, and then I pop Resolute and finish closing in. I will pop Rebuke and Saber Ward as I finish closing in. I get to melee range. I then begin uptime.

 

From here on in, the Bounty Hunter keeps casting Tracer Missile. I get Cauterize up and Overload Saber from the Focus I have from the previous Force Stasis and leap. I Zealous and then Merciless Slash. I will Force Leap again to cut off one of his Tracer Missiles casts. I will Force Camoflauge in one of his casts to break his targeting to interrupt one of his casts. At this point, I'm usually losing in the HP department and pop Guarded by the Force at around 4k of my to bring myself down to 2k and 99% DR. At this point, I have 5s to win. And I usually will lose.

 

Another example, against Snipers. As we all know, you cannot Force Leap a Sniper in cover, so I will walk up behind them so they don't get a defensive bonus and start off with Zealous Strike to get Focus and then get Force Stasis up to break them out of cover. I will put up Cauterize, and Overload Saber and use Merciless Slash. Hopefully, I can get at least two DoTs up before I get knocked back with Cover Charge and rooted for 5s. The Sniper will pop up, and then turn around and go back into cover to reset their defensive bonuses facing me. By that time, Cover Pulse will wear off, and then I will get hit with Leg Shot to immobilize me. The Sniper will begin to cast Ambush - I will Force camoflauge to break his cast and finish closing in. I will pop Rebuke and Saber Ward. At this point, the Sniper knows what's coming, and will Entrench and Ballistic Shield. I pop out behind them to negate the defensive bonus. I begin DPS uptime with Zealous and DoTs and Merciless Strike. The Sniper chain asts Ambush even though I am behind him, and it becomes a DPS race, that I inevitably lose as I am unable to DPS him down in time or even come close.

 

Just so peope realize where I am coming from. I want it to be clear that I am not asking for auto-win against 1v1. I am asking for advice on applying pressure on these specific classes such that they will not stand in one place and beat me with one or two abilities.

 

Here is some context from other games. In Warhammer Online, I played a Bright Wizard to well over 65+ Renown in the first four months. I only really played for four months. I also played a Warrior Priest, a Shadow Hunter. When a Witch Elf popped on my Bright Wizard, I woke up and created distance between myself through knockbacks and slows and tried my damn best to kite the Witch Elf, which is a Operative/WoW Rogue type. When a Chosen(Guardian equivalent) bowled his way toward me, I created distance. When a Marauder leashed me and started whaling away, I created distance and kited.

 

I played a Mage and Hunter from Vanilla through S1-S3(TBC). I played pretty competitively in GM farm teams, and 2300+ arena brackets. As a mage, when a rogue or warrior closed, I made sure to create distance and kite.

 

I also played a Druid and Resto Shammie, and when a Warrior with a Storm Hearld or Wrold Breaker was in my face, I made sure to keep him as far away as possible.

 

I played a DK and Marksman Hunter in Cata(excuse my or your opinion on that particular expansion), and as a hunter, I created distance when melee closed in and kited them.

 

In these two particular MMOs, when melee got close to a ranged class, they hit hard, and usually the ranged classes didn't wear plate or heavy armor, so ranged classes had to make sure melee stayed away through smart positioning and kiting. In this game, it feels like melee hits are so weak, unless you are a Scoundrel or Infil Shadow, that as a ranged class, it's better to go toe to toe with melee, face to face.

 

Now, in TOR beta, I played a Sniper, and when melee closed in on me, I used all of the stuns and snares to create distance and move cover and kited them. That is until I got cover pulse and discovered that unlike other MMORPGs, as ranged, it was better to just stand still and spam cast DPS and win.

 

So, do any more experienced Sentinels have any constructive suggestions on how to force Merc BH, Snipers, and Healers from their positions.

 

I don't mind being kited to death, because that shows a level of skill. Standing still and chain casting Tracer Missiles to victory is pretty lame. I can't even say L2P, because it is the best way to play right now.

 

Thanks for your time.

[Wotch]

You seem to have it pretty well thought out. The only thing I would change would be to not Force Leap in and save it. As Watchmen you have the 0 range leap as a second interrupt anyways so I would save it for then and use it as your first interrupt.

 

Also I did not see you mention Crippling Throw or Pacify? Both of which are very powerful if timed right.

[Chaosmagistrate]

Under Watchman, I generally don't use Crippling Throw unless it's a healer, but I think you are right, I probably should, in case they medpack. I totally understand if I cannot beat healers, as from WoW and WO, it was generally a hopeless cause as DPS, but all I really want to be able to do is apply pressure on them so they move. In a competitive environment, forcing ranged DPS and healers to move is a huge advantage.

 

And sorry, I tend to use Pacify just as I close. I missed stating that. One thing I didn't state and have been working on is using my Activatable relic more. I tend to forget that as it's bound in a weird spot for my thumb, which I should probably re-bind.

[PantsOn]

One pro tip: do not leap in to engage. Run up to them and only leap in after they bounce you. Good luck, man. Edited January 9, 2012 by PantsOn

[EasymodeX]

My main question is how do I apply sufficient pressure on similarly-geared Snipers, Healers, and Mercenary Bounty Hunters to get them to move and break their casts?

 

1. Make sure you are spec'd Watchman with the cd reduction on the interrupt and the 0m force leap.

 

2. Do not open with Force Leap where feasible. If it takes you another 2-4 seconds to get to the target because you are hoofing it from a blind side, so be it.

 

3. Your longest consecutive interrupt chain is: Interrupt, Leap, Interrupt, Choke, Interrupt, Leap, Interrupt, Awe, Interrupt, Leap, Interrupt. That's 11 casts, plan accordingly. Not all those will take effect depending on what opponent you are targeting and how quick they are.

 

4. Mentally split up your abilities into "MODERATE PULSING BURST", and "OMEGA BURST". E.g., you have a segment of your attack sequence where you can "threaten" the target to make them do something. Then, you have a segment of your attack sequence where you are seriously trying to kill them. Playing the first card will cause the enemy to blow some defensive cooldowns so that you can properly load up for the finishing sequence.

 

Note: do not use your long cooldown interrupts (STASIS, AWE) during the prep phase. You use them during your real attempt. Just use your casual interrupt and force leap to force them to blow cooldowns.

 

Note: always be watching for a second target to mess with while the target has major defensive cooldowns.

 

Watchman note: Watchman has the poorest selection between moderate and major burst. Watchman pretty much only does halfway between moderate and major burst, and you want to use OCS and Caut on cooldown. The only "heavy burst" is from Merc Slash off of Master Strike.

 

5. At any point in the fight where the TRACERWHORE or SNIPESPAMSCRUB target actually stands there and tries to shoot you (or will knock you back and try to spam you), use Pacify -- both Ambush/Snipe and Tracerlol are range attacks (not tech attacks), so they will flat out miss you nonstop.

 

Note: This means do NOT USE REBUKE if you plan on using Pacify. Missing you for 6 seconds with any level of enemy ****/kiting = REBUKE WILL EXPIRE.

 

6. Sniperfags do have a ****ton of CCs to disengage with, no question. Unless they are terribad, they can usually RUNAWAY/live long enough to get serious teammate assistance by the time you can finish pounding their face in. It's usually a better idea to LOS them and go smash something else (while keeping in mind they now hate you) unless you can get an ally to help smash the Sniper. Two enemies will exponentially reduce the Sniper's ability to survive / escape. The current "metagame" issue is that most players do not respect Snipers, so they do not feel like a Sniper should be focus fired. This creates an exponential problem -- when you face a good Sniper, you cannot shut them down by yourself.

 

Subnote for double teaming a Sniper: Do NOT both stack on his face. Both his knockback from cover and the mez grenade are small AOEs. So just let your buddy hump his leg for a moment while you act threatening with a 10m heal debuff and maybe Blade Storm (even though your Blade Storm sucks). Hell, throw a Force Sweep 15 meters away from him to look scary. Let the sniper blow an AOE CC, THEN run in and kick his face in while he blows his CCs super fast.

 

7. TRACERLOL. This is pretty easy. You just interrupt the first tracer while dropping a snare and pacify, and run back to smash their face in when they knock you back. There's pretty much no chance for them to get damage off. When you reconnect, interrupt again. When they do something queer, break the CC and then make sure you wait for a castbar before you Force Leap.

 

Also, use Rebuke at this point. They will randomly plink you with randomly weak nonTRACER ****. But you officially don't care because the damage is weak. The instant they castbar, nail it with Force Leap if you are at a distance, and pound their face in. If worse comes to worse, you can fall back on Stasis or Awe for a clutch "WHATTHE****ANOTHERINTERRUPT".

 

As your final castbar break, you can Force Camo into them -- doesn't matter if you break the stealth half a second later; it makes no difference to you as long as you broke their 15th TRACERLOL. This, however, should be the last resort.

 

Sents have literally 87 ways to interrupt the TRACERLOL or make it useless (hell, I didn't even use Saber Ward in the above set). The key things to remember:

 

- Do not waste the Force Leap when the target is not doing something useful. Wait a half second for the tracer, or just walk up to them if you have Pacify on them.

- Make sure you stagger your cooldowns. There's almost 0 reason to have multiple cooldowns active against a BH TRACERLOL unless you are being targeted by multiple opponents. Honestly, BHs are in a bad spot against a Sent: a Sent can pretty much nullify their main, and almost "only" damage vector for what seems like "forever".

 

8. Personal note: After every fight where you die, while you wait for the gate, look at your hotbars to see any ability that you didn't use, and think of how you should have used it. Also, remember what buttons you rollfaced a little too fast and should have held back a moment for a better opportunity.