Sentinel 'Solution'

[SarimRune]

I was going to put this in the suggestion box but wanted to suggest it here, first.

 

Get some feedback.

 

I'm one of the many who feel that Sentinels need some love. I don't think we're hugely UP. But I don't think I should be having tons of trouble against 2 Strongs when I have a BH buddy that can solo two Elites or one Champion. There is just something a little off.

 

My thought was this:

How about a Passive DMG bonus that in inversely proportionate to our Health?

 

that's basically it. All damage increased when you have crap for health. Kicks in around 50% or less. Damage bonus to be fine tuned in testing.

 

Thoughts?

[McVade]

Here's my solutions:

 

* All Procs now FLASH BRILLIANT COLORS when they are available.

 

A UI that actually gives me information would rock. Thanks.

* A sexy female Satelle Shan voice tells me "You Need More Focus" when I need more Focus.

Thank you. As it is now, I would absolutely love to watch the game, but I'm too busy staring at my Focus bar. Now that Satelle's telling me **** with my ears, my eyes are free to look at other stuff.

 

I frowned upon it before, but I actually think it's warranted now.

 

And, now, the elitist tear bringer:

* Make Rebuke a passive buff like Force Might.

Elitist Knee Jerk Reaction: "PLZ DONT DUM DOWN OUR CLAZ. I DO 6000K per WarFrOnt. JUST L2P!!!"

 

Yes, I know, you feel pro the split second you push it when you enter battle. The stupidity of it is we're balanced in PvP to always have it up. It's always the right decision to push it the split second someone looks at you funny.

 

So, really, what's the point of it? It's not a defensive cooldown as much as it is a manditory GCD tax that, if you don't hit the split second you take your first point of damage, you're doing it wrong. It's not an interesting ability and our survivability is a joke when it's down. So, what the hell's the point of it? To paraphrase Ghostcrawler:

 

"An ability that doesn't offer you a choice is just boring and redundant."

Edited January 26, 2012 by McVade

[Oxegenn]

In other games we would do the most dps or burst damage of other melee classes. We need to out dps our target to survive. In this game everyone does similar damage regardless of spec. Ranged classes also have no minimum range. We compensate for this by hopefully sticking on targets like glue and popping survival cooldowns.

 

I do beleive in a world of spammable guard, ranged classes have a decent advantage over target switching the guard.

 

I think our main advantage is our survival Cooldowns. I would like a root snare removal adjacent our cc breaker 45sec cd. But that would be wishful thinking and combat spec

[KilllerRock]

Buffs that the sentinel need....

 

 

Watchman: The burns should not be able to be cleansed. The 2 DOTs from this tree are what give it all its damage, and heals already in this game are hard to dps through, DOTS are easier damage to heal through anyways, but being able to remove half our damage with 1 cleanse is ridiculous. Other than that, this tree is fine.

 

 

Focus: Increase zealous leap to 15-20m range, and adding a 0.5 second root to it.

 

 

Combat: Precision slash so many times doesn't get any benefit as MS can get interrupted or i can get knocked back/CCd while the 6 second buff is up. I would prefer having the buff just make my next 5 hits have 100% armor penetration.

 

Also increase blade rush or ataru proc damage by 100-200 base so combat can be on par with the other trees damage.

 

Sentinel: Increase crippling throw to 30% heal debuff instead of just 20% as a passive ability for sents

[Lethemback]

In my opinion, Focus and Watchman are "fine" as they are now (not OP, and not very UP either). What I would do is modify Combat:

 

- Dual Wield Mastery should give more than 36% max extra bonus damage to off-hand. Combat lacks the survivability or sustained damage that the other trees have, and it doesn't do enough damage to compensate. The current off-hand damage is laughable, even with that 36%. Another option is to just buff a bit the Ataru form.

 

- Rebuke or Force Camouflage, with Fleetfooted, should also trigger a temporary CC resist buff (30 secs max working like Rebuke but with CCs received?). The class lacks CC abilities when compared to others, and it only has one and half CC breaking skills. It's specially fun when playing Huttball (I call it Sentball), because you can see sents flying around without being able to do the same to their rivals.

 

Cheers.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Lethemback

[SteveGarbage]

I mentioned this in a thread a long time ago and I COMPLETELY AGREE. It's essentially the Reaver specialization from Dragon Age. People complain about Sentinels's damage and defense, so a skill like that would totally fit into the Sentinel mix.

 

I love Sentinel. I don't have issues with it. But I really think that the damage to health lost inverse type of skill would be a perfect fit.

[Dawginole]

One of the major weaknesses I'm discovering as I hit 32ish and started more PvP and have had more PvP encounters in world in general is that as a melee only class against every other class that has ranged weapon or force abilities I'm burning up half my HP just to close the gap to be within range to do damage.

 

Then being that the class seems to be a paper tiger and isn't doing as much damage as it should, by the time I arrive at the enemy player I don't have the time to build a damage flow to even take out the baddie. Much less if their are two players even significantly lower than me.

 

Now we have these two abilities to close the gap, Force Leap being one, and the one that relieves us from a stun/hold/slow/etc (can't remember the name). So those do help close the distance, but the CD on them is so long that while they world pretty flawlessly in PvE, they are sort of needles in the haystack in PvP that I get to use once every 4 lives. The other times I'm either getting range killed closing or running away.

 

One solution to this may be not only a buff in damage output to close the gap to the other classes, but to also see some adjustments to abilities so that certain abilities have different effects, CD's or attributes in PvP only.

 

Just my .02.

[Venator-Falco]

Sorry to say, but of all the “improvements” I have seen suggested for the Sentinel this is probably the worst.

Basically you are just saying hey let’s make the Sentinel behave like a poorly designed PvE encounter. McVades first two suggestions are pretty good, I personally think they are un-necessary, but they would ease up some of the concentration (Though jest getting a feel for the class means you can count your way through and don’t need them but they don’t take anything away from the class)

I am not so big on his third suggestion. Passive permanent rebuke is making us more of a tank… I’m not sure that really fits the sentinel design.

My personal view is make some of our existing stuns work on Strongs and above (Including in PvP)

And maybe give us force push and/or throw so that we aren’t as dependent on range setting (For PvP)

The last thing is making the off hand damage work properly.

After that… Just the interface bugs (Delays and Action Stutter) and it is all done.

Or damage looks a little low, but not particularly, so working on that offhand damage will sort it, and otherwise it is Just PvP that causes any real grief.

Lethemback has said much the same sort of thing I note. The Sentinel is not broken, in PvE it is pretty solid. It just needs a little tweeking

[thepilk]

Having a reverse damage damage boost would be really annoying as it would require Sentinels to be in constant communication with healers to know when they are actually needing heals or when they are just trying to "coast" at lower health to keep DPS... some healers would just heal you out of habit, others might let you die trying to let you pump out more damage otherwise. Would just be a pain all around.

[MEHColeman]

Bioware won't fix this class, because they don't think its broken. Probably best to reroll or unsubscribe if you don't like it; it won't get fixed.

[lerodark]

Just an Idea:

 

Talent: After killing an enemy you get "minor" in combat health regeneration and "major" out of combat health regeneration for you and your companion.

 

In Pvp it would give us a little breather to get away or get healed more easily and in solo pve it would make large mob groups a little easier while also removing the problem to have 20-30% > 100% downtimes after every mob group when you would rather use kira for example instead of doc.

 

And all that without touching actual damage or defense and the danger of making us op during the actual fight in pvp or boss encounter in pve compared to other classes.

 

A little rough idea but perhaps a start.

[Cooperal]

The class lacks CC abilities when compared to others.

 

And this is exactly where Combat pulls itself back up, maybe if even above the others soley for PvP. With 15% increased combat movement, a 12sec cooldown on a 3sec root for crippling throw and another for the duration of master strike, combined with the other CC that all knights get, as well as the extra 45sec/cast CC break, the combat sentinel sticks to their enemy like glue and isn't wasting any time attempting to resolve the issues of kiters and circle strafers.

 

I find its main problem to be purely PvE where the work of keeping someone still is done for you and it's all about flat-out damage.

[Bishidoblade]

I would love to see them add some cool talent to keep DoTs rolling. They are such an important part of our rotation/ and survivability to a point that it could make a big difference. Maybe something like once caut is up, using OL LS will reapply the dot(or maybe some other ability). Not that its overly hard keeping DoT up, but would def ease some of the stress keeping it up as close to 100% of the time as possible.

 

I have only really played watchmen fully, lvled to like 40 as combat, but most of my time has been spent watch - so I can really only comment on that. I'm one of the few who think we aren't all that bad off really. Yes some issues do exist but some people make it seem worse then it is i think sometimes - though tweaks need to be made for sure.

 

I have not played very long on other classes, so I suppose that I could be missing out on how ridiculously easy it is to do similar to higher DPS as other classes compared to sent. Sent are def more technical then other classes I briefly messed with - so I guess the fact I have not lvl'd one to 50 makes it hard to measure the difference.

[WarlordGrego]

While I don't want to compare the Sent to other games, it does remind me a bit of LOTRO's champion.

 

I have rolled a champ in LOTRO for years, so I was drawn to the Sent as an analgous class. The champ has only one healing ability, if you want to call it that. Champs have a high-cost, high-cool down attack that returns HP back to the champ. I think it starts off as something like ten percent, and usually is only available once per fight (15-30 sec cool down). In boss fights it is available maybe twice, and in raids it is hardly used because we have healers.

 

Another suggestion would be to slighly reduce the CD on force kick. I think it is 8 seconds now, reducing it to 6 would greatly increase survivability. I've interupted attacks only to have the mob start casting immediately after. I understand the purpose of using a cool down, but it has to be approached with some common sense. I am thinking of the fight on Corellia with Lord Thanos. What should have been an easy fight was made difficult by his constant cast spamming that alternated between heals and a highly damaging attack (around 40% HP IIRC).

 

I don't really want to see a drastic change to the class. I love being a combat sent, but I do see some issues that make it difficult for people who, like me, prefer to quest solo.

[Novastinger]

And this is exactly where Combat pulls itself back up, maybe if even above the others soley for PvP. With 15% increased combat movement, a 12sec cooldown on a 3sec root for crippling throw and another for the duration of master strike, combined with the other CC that all knights get, as well as the extra 45sec/cast CC break, the combat sentinel sticks to their enemy like glue and isn't wasting any time attempting to resolve the issues of kiters and circle strafers.

 

I find its main problem to be purely PvE where the work of keeping someone still is done for you and it's all about flat-out damage.

 

 

Let's take a look at your points one by one:

 

15% increased combat movement: It's okay, but you're going to be almost permasnared most cases

 

a 12sec cooldown on a 3sec root for crippling throw: 3 focus cost is pretty expensive and it has a measly range of 10m

 

and another for the duration of master strike: this tree item is totally bugged, and does not work as advertised

 

extra 45sec/cast CC break: the force camouflage add-on only breaks movement impairing CC (root, snare), not to mention you lose the ability to use it as a get-away when choosing to use it for snare/root break

 

 

So while I don't have problems with the class in PvE or in general, I'd have to disagree with your points regarding our ability to stay within melee range of opponents in PvP. We're too easily kited/CC'd imo.

[McVade]

Going to add another:

* Riposite inflicts 30% more damage and now costs 1 focus.

 

Give me a reason to put this back on my bar, please. And combine it with my first one, so I actually know when it procs.

[Bishidoblade]

While I don't want to compare the Sent to other games, it does remind me a bit of LOTRO's champion.

 

I have rolled a champ in LOTRO for years, so I was drawn to the Sent as an analgous class. The champ has only one healing ability, if you want to call it that. Champs have a high-cost, high-cool down attack that returns HP back to the champ. I think it starts off as something like ten percent, and usually is only available once per fight (15-30 sec cool down). In boss fights it is available maybe twice, and in raids it is hardly used because we have healers.

 

Another suggestion would be to slighly reduce the CD on force kick. I think it is 8 seconds now, reducing it to 6 would greatly increase survivability. I've interupted attacks only to have the mob start casting immediately after. I understand the purpose of using a cool down, but it has to be approached with some common sense. I am thinking of the fight on Corellia with Lord Thanos. What should have been an easy fight was made difficult by his constant cast spamming that alternated between heals and a highly damaging attack (around 40% HP IIRC).

 

I don't really want to see a drastic change to the class. I love being a combat sent, but I do see some issues that make it difficult for people who, like me, prefer to quest solo.

 

You can reduce the cast time of kick to 6 sec via the Watch tree. You can take the deadzone out of FL, giving you another stun (12 sec) + your kick (6 sec) and you should have 0 issues dealing with interrupts, period. You might want to reconsider going WM instead of CB. If you possibly had an issue using both stuns, which would be silly, you have many options (including another stun via stasis) as well as countless other ability's that if used correctly make life quite easy, not just for a quest/solo person, but anyone.

 

Just my 2c anyways.

[iLuv_MauiWowie]

The problem is the lack of damage on the secondary swing it's like 30% of mainhand.... Makes me wish I never picked sentinel .... U think a real jedis offhand is that weak compared to his mainhand

[rakuenCallisto]

Bioware won't fix this class, because they don't think its broken. Probably best to reroll or unsubscribe if you don't like it; it won't get fixed.

 

Have you heard/read this anywhere?

 

Literally 70% of the Sentinel forums are threads consisting some complaint about Sent's shortcomings.

 

It would be pretty ignorant for BW to ignore all of these threads, especially when the game is so new.

Edited January 27, 2012 by rakuenCallisto

[Stath]

not sure if it was already said, but i think that the offhand damage should not be reduced damage. change the offhand damage talent then to something useful. Other ranged classes don't suffer any penalty for offhands. You can say that well it is a blaster. A light saber doesn't "loose" damage depending on the hand it is in, hell it cuts though almost everything right

 

This would bring up our damage and wouldn't be OP.

[BlackBaronUK]

Ataru form could function like the Zen does for Shii-Cho form. Since it's an 'acrobatic' style, doesn't it make sense that our attacks should have a chance to hit an additional enemy nearby? That would give all 3 trees even more individuality, and I wouldn't feel nearly as bad about the low survivability of Combat when I knew I could scatter groups like that.

 

Perhaps add a 5m AoE to Blade Storm too high up in the tree. Force Blast, or something not as goofy

Edited January 27, 2012 by BlackBaronUK

[Dawginole]

and otherwise it is Just PvP that causes any real grief.

Lethemback has said much the same sort of thing I note. The Sentinel is not broken, in PvE it is pretty solid. It just needs a little tweeking

 

This is what I said. Just a little tweaking on the PvE side. Lots of tweaking on the PvP side. Which is why I think just adding a PvP only addition to the enhancements of the abilities we already have solves most of the issues.

[Alkic]

Sorry to say, but of all the “improvements” I have seen suggested for the Sentinel this is probably the worst.

Basically you are just saying hey let’s make the Sentinel behave like a poorly designed PvE encounter. McVades first two suggestions are pretty good, I personally think they are un-necessary, but they would ease up some of the concentration (Though jest getting a feel for the class means you can count your way through and don’t need them but they don’t take anything away from the class)

I am not so big on his third suggestion. Passive permanent rebuke is making us more of a tank… I’m not sure that really fits the sentinel design.

My personal view is make some of our existing stuns work on Strongs and above (Including in PvP)

And maybe give us force push and/or throw so that we aren’t as dependent on range setting (For PvP)

The last thing is making the off hand damage work properly.

After that… Just the interface bugs (Delays and Action Stutter) and it is all done.

Or damage looks a little low, but not particularly, so working on that offhand damage will sort it, and otherwise it is Just PvP that causes any real grief.

Lethemback has said much the same sort of thing I note. The Sentinel is not broken, in PvE it is pretty solid. It just needs a little tweeking

 

 

I'm gonna echo this. If we hit harder we'd live longer. It's that simple. We would be able to afford taking damage like we do even with Doc around because we'd be ending threats faster. Please BW, take this suggestion seriously and ignore all others asking for more defensive viability. GEEEVE US DA DPS!!

[bevelian]

a simple solution for frustrated players is to come off your sentinel and roll another class. when the sentinel gets sorted out you can go back on it and enjoy all the new benefits. no idea when that will happen but you probably wont care because youll be having too much fun on your <insert your alt/new main class here>.