I don't think we're playing the same class.

[Skeptical]

I leveled a Guardian to 38 and it was not fun solo. I had a blast tanking for Flashpoints and stuff but it just didn't do it for me.

 

Then I leveled a Shadow with the intent to tank. I leveled as Infiltration and tried to switch to Kinetic but I just couldn't let go of the burst. I hit 48 on my Shadow and it started to get lame. Sure I could do damage in spurts but the survivability was horrible when all of my cooldowns were popped.

 

I was looking through talent trees and saw the Sentinel's Combat tree. It looked really nice but after reading about the class and Combat being tooltip pretty I decided to roll a Sentinel and spec Watchman.

 

Now, I'm only level 14 but I feel like a killing machine in Warzones. My first Warzone at level 10 I came in 2nd for DPS and was tied with the first place guy for medals.

 

Sentinel is amazing and the way I see it, it can only get better with the use of more skills.

 

I also read that Sentinels don't come into their own until post level 20. Is that true? I'm really not feeling gimped at all. I consistently get way more kills in Warzones on my Sentinel than my Shadow.

 

Honestly, I wish someone had told me to roll a Sentinel when I decided to roll a DPS Shadow.

[Zalena]

There's a huge difference in the sentinel at different level brackets. At the level range you're talking, Sentinel is indeed awesome, and at L20 you pick up some pretty key talents. Once you hit Tatooine however, and especially Alderaan the difficulty really steps up, and we start to have a pretty rough time in terms of survivability. This pretty much continues until you get Doc in my opinion, at which point you become a crazy killing machine once more. 25-35 is just pretty rough.

 

This seems to me to be a huge problem with how the sentinel has been reported. Everyone below 25 and above 35 thinks they're awesome, and everyone stuck in this level range finds them awful.

 

Not denying there are some issues at endgame, but those a mostly (As far as I'm aware) issues affecting all melee classes or due to ability stutter.

[Skeptical]

Thanks for the heads up Zalena. I'll keep that in mind and push on through if I find myself feeling like that.

 

In comparison to my Guardian though, I've ripped through content that I kind of stumbled through on my Guardian.

[Xilrasis]

Part of what you're experiencing at level 14 is also due to the way bolster functions. A level 14 in all level 14 gear w/ appropriate mods etc is going to deal more damage with the same ability (talents aside) than a level 45 wearing gear with 35-40 mods and implants/earpieces/etc from a few levels below. It compensates very hard for those empty slots on a level 14 and they actually hurt you dearly later on if you don't keep them absolutely up to date, which can become prohibitively expensive since there aren't really progressive PVP rewards.

[SteveGarbage]

I still think the best cure for having trouble with Sentinel is to overlevel a bit. Put in some daily space missions, pick up your bonuses, run a couple flashpoints an extra time.

 

Three to four levels over the content can make a HUGE difference, especially when some fights like the Sith Harrowers after Chapter 1 which are really tough even when you are overleveled. And I get the bonus of being able to solo most Heroic 2+.