RayceUlrand Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 (edited) I have a 29 Sentinel and this has been lingering on my mind for a while. As pure DPS, are we the type to sustain that amount of damage, or do we deal it in bursts? For instance, would I be looking for crit rating to help with damage with my Slashes, or would I want Power? I am primarily Combat specced if that can help get this answered. Thanks. Edited January 20, 2012 by RayceUlrand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghingis Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 It depends more on your playstyle I'd say. Although the sustained damage of Sentinels is amazing, because of the fact that we never run out of our resource like other class do (Focus). I would personally always choose power over crit, because the base crit you get later on will land you at atleast a steady 30%, which is just fine. So I definately vote for Power I would also suggest Watchman for leveling, over Combat, because Watchman has more sustain and better damage output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayceUlrand Posted January 20, 2012 Author Share Posted January 20, 2012 I hear people suggesting Watchman but relying on burns seems iffy, and Combat has been working pretty well for me. I have a lot of crit on my gear right now and I love the strings I get from my attacks, but if no one can defend crit rating in place of Power I suppose I'll look into power as I level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghingis Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 I hear people suggesting Watchman but relying on burns seems iffy, and Combat has been working pretty well for me. I have a lot of crit on my gear right now and I love the strings I get from my attacks, but if no one can defend crit rating in place of Power I suppose I'll look into power as I level. In PvE/Leveling I'd always go for Power. Crit is more about PvP imo since you want the burst, in PvE sustained damage is better 99% of the time. About watchman, it is reliant on DoT's, but not as much as you could think. You only really have two different DoT's, one is overload sabers that you just use on CD's and it goes off automatically, no need to really worry about it since its pretty much a short CD buff that you use. Then you have Cauterize. Thats the two different abilities you have, so its not really a time consuming thing to keep track of. The self-sustain is just really good whilst leveling. Although I leveled from 1-50 as pure combat PvP specc, was abit frustrating at times but went decently fine considering I didnt even bother gearing up more then through quests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vibeth Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Technically, your dps as Sentinel should never drop as your resource is "infinite". Make sure you spam Zealous Strike when it becomes available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayceUlrand Posted January 20, 2012 Author Share Posted January 20, 2012 Technically, your dps as Sentinel should never drop as your resource is "infinite". Make sure you spam Zealous Strike when it becomes available. I rarely find myself starved of Focus unless I'm hell bent on dropping something. Thanks for the replies, and I will give Watchman some consideration. If anyone would like to counter any points made, please do so, a discussion on what would be better won't hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vibeth Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Watchman is great from my personal experience. The DoTs really hurt once you pop Zen and they also heal. Since they ignore armor (I think) they are even better, probably best for sustained damage (PvE). As for PvP it's awesome too and once you get your rotation down you have a very short build up time till you start dealing some real hurt. Also great for classes who like to kite or afterdeath kills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psybin Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Watchman does better damage than combat. But that's not really what makes it shine for PvP or levelling. Its the vastly improved interupts. Reduced CD kick, reduced CD leap and 0 yard leap all combine to mean if you are on someone/something they will not be getting many casts off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cooperal Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 One trait of all sentinels aside from dishing out damage is disrupting enemy abilities. Mostly by way of kicks and force stasis etc, helping to ensure they or their tanks are taking damage in smaller percentages than their enemy. I've heard various things about watchman and focus, being trees I've not gone down. Watchman sounds like it's made for the longest fights as they are able to self-heal off their DoT effects that are inflicted on enemies. Focus sounds like it's for raw damage spawned mostly from spending points on keeping cooldowns and focus costs lower than most. Combat is the one I've played with so I've got more to say about it. In PvE it focuses on delivering damage spikes in as quick of a skill rotation possible. For PvP, combat sentinels can also keep enemies immobilized for a far longer period than the rest. AoE becomes less efficient on them too despite their attempt to keep an enemy in one place because they have a passive to shrug off 30% AoE damage. Seems to have an advantage in 1v1 but should rarely gamble on it since they are extremely ill fitted to causing grief to multiple people at once, should conditions change. All are good for PvE but it's still commonly disagreed upon for which is the "best" PvP tree and will be probably until the end of the games lifespan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortalstakes Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Due to work obligations my sentinel is only at 32, and my first toon. I've leveled combat only. I'm not going to say combat is better than watchmen, or anything like that, since I've only tried combat. I see a lot of people saying combat is bad or inferior on the forums, and not really understanding it. Granted, I can't speak from an endgame point of view. My experience is confined to leveling and the random flashpoint. I have had a blast as combat, and have had no issues whatsoever with the issues people generally complain about. I haven't suffered from ability stuttering or survival issues while questing. Combat feels beastly to me tbh. From what I'm reading, and what I know from my own experience, I think the problem is one of two things. Many people ARE having the ability stuttering problem, it just hasn't happened to me. Combat's rotation is largely dependent on fitting certain attacks into short proc windows of opportunity (combat trance, precision slash, etc) and ability stuttering would significantly impact your damage output. Second, maybe some people just don't understand the synergy of all of our talents. From personal experience - I leap into a silver enemy. Zealous Strike, Precision Slash, Master Strike, Blade Rush (Combat trance has always been active at this point for me). That initial opening either kills an equal level silver or takes it low enough to finish it off with one attack. Gold enemies last a little longer, but not much. Haven't died to any class quests, and the rare death questing is because I screw up and pull way too many mobs. I have a lot of MMO experience, and like to learn my class well but am by no means think I'm an elite player or anything. I just think some people might not take the time to learn the basics of their class; and lets face it, a combat sentinel has a wide array of abilities at their disposal and if you don't understand the synergy between your talents and abilities you're going to gimp yourself. Just my two cents. If you like watchmen then rock watchmen. I'm sure I'll give it a shot at 50 just to see what it's like. At this point in the game, with no way to track damage and a high level of players having ability problems it's hard for me to agree one is significantly better than the other. But I don't think combat "sucks" by any means, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far. Make sure you keep your companion geared and you'll be fine. T7 is a beast if you keep him geared. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psybin Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Not being funny, but unless you've tried the various specs how can you give comparitive analysis on them? Seriously, the best thing to do is try each of them out and see which you prefer... In my experience, the statement "they are all good in PvE" is simply untrue.. Focus does insane AoE, watchman does awesome single target and pretty decent AoE and combat is basically lacklustre... Which is a shame, as for me the whole ataru thing "fits" my ideas of a sentinel far more than the other two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortalstakes Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Not sure if you were talking to me or not. If you were, I wasn't comparing them or analyzing the other specs, was just saying I have found combat to be fun for me and suggested a couple reasons why it might not be for others. By all means, op should try them all and decide what they like best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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