Which spec for 50 PvP?

[RamzaBehoulve]

I disagree with you too. Its much easier to put up big numbers in Watchman spec.

 

Lol, give Watchman to a player who never used it prior and we'll see how high the numbers are.

 

By the time someone understands how Watchman works and becomes good enough at it, he'd have time to master both Focus and Combat.

 

Watchman might be better in most situations, but it requires to be good at it, not just switching to it and hoping for the best.

Edited February 5, 2012 by RamzaBehoulve

[Blaaat]

Not talking about PvE, combat is actually viable there. In PvP, poorly playing Watchman is notably easier to do than poorly playing Combat. Two roots, a snare break, run speed boost, ect. just make Combat more... "idiot-proof" where the "poorly played" mark is actually higher than the "poorly played" mark of Watchman. Either way, if you're bad, only tree you're going to do decent in is Focus.

I was talking about PvP as well. As for Combat being more... "idiot-proof"? Erm let's take a look at Watchman shall we? Watchman has more survivability thanks the two heals (talented and zen) furthermore it has an extra slow, an extra damage mitigation ability (100% even), extra interrupt (charge), shorter CD on your interrupt (no wonder so many Watchman players uses pacify as a way to get your dot ticks going, meanwhile Combat have to safe that skill for an interrupt) and faster transcendence.

Versus two roots and faster base movement speed and yet Combat seems more idiot-proof... right. Are you actually serious?

It's people do better as Watchman because it's simply more effective than Combat

And it's also easier to be more effective as Watchman, which is the point I'm trying to make.

Those two roots let players who are bad at melee classes in general perform far better than the constant motion required of Watchman.

Seriously if a combat player uses crippling throw in order to stand still and DPS then he's as bad as someone who uses leap prematurely. Let me inform you that of the two roots one of them is a requirement other wise it makes Combat's hardest hitting move (Master Strike) completely unusable in PvP (unless the Combat player teams up with someone who can stun) and said move can still be interrupted. The other one is used when an enemy player is trying to kite Combat by standing in the "sweet spot" (5-9m) basically in between melee's range and charge's minimal ranged.

However, the 0-range leap is exactly why Watchman punishes poor players more. Poor players will use it as a focus builder and then complain when they get knocked away.

While Watchman has less tools than Combat (and focus) to get out of this situation Watchman is also the only spec of the three that can still do great damage while not being in melee range thanks to their dots. So this scenario isn't as bad as you make it out to be and as long as the poor player has put dots on his target he should be doing fine.

[Apocalypse-]

I was talking about PvP as well....

And it's also easier to be more effective as Watchman, which is the point I'm trying to make....

So this scenario isn't as bad as you make it out to ...

I do believe we're talking about two different levels of player. I put "well-played" at ~80% and "poorly played" at ~20%. At 20%, we're talking people who don't know their skills and are clicking (sadly, this probably goes out to 35-40%). Watchman is all about using off-GCD skills (OS, Zen, Transcencence) , something that simply falls short for clickers.

 

Bad players do worse as watchman, not better.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Apocalypse-

[Blaaat]

I do believe we're talking about two different levels of player. I put "well-played" at ~80% and "poorly played" at ~20%. At 20%, we're talking people who don't know their skills and are clicking (sadly, this probably goes out to 35-40%). Watchman is all about using off-GCD skills (OS, Zen, Transcencence) , something that simply falls short for clickers.

 

Bad players do worse as watchman, not better.

When I first read your post I thought to myself "what's a bad player?" and I answered to myself "he does things badly, he make mistakes" and between Watchman and Combat, Combat is more unforgiving for mistakes because you lose a good deal of damage and I posted that and you thought I was talking about PvE.

Fair enough my line of thought applies to PvE as much as it does to PvP (even though doing damage is the most important thing we do in PvP). After that you moved the goal posts "Combat is more idiot-proof! Because it has 2 roots and increased movement speed!" and then I pointed out that Watchman has double the amount of things that makes it more "idiot-proof" than Combat. Guess what happens next? You moved the goal post again! Now we're talking about slow players, clickers.

Yes you're right Watchman clickers are awful (I've seen them myself) I mean a clicker has 15 seconds to click on three attack skills in order to put on three OS dots, a clicker has 30s to put on dots if he's slow with Zen, a clicker has 15 seconds to click on Merciless Slash. Guess what? This is worse for Combat clickers, they only have 6 seconds (that's less than half the time for Watchman players) to get their Blade Storm crit or to get most out of their Precision Slash buff.

 

Honestly I think it's time Apocalypse- that you just admit that a poorly played Watchman > poorly played Combat. Watchman is more forgiving, it's more "idiot-proof", it's easier to do good damage with it and time is less of an issue.

 

And personally I have to say that LiveandDieinLA still used the best argument on why poorly played Watchman > poorly played Combat:

There are countless threads on this forum of people talking about how they switched to watchman and now they are doing so much better. There is a reason for this, the same reason why the majority of Sentinels spec watchman: because it's easier to play, and it garners more success to un-skilled players.

QFT.

[Dharagada]

Again I disagree, watchman is not a harder spec to play, its much easier.

Over load saber affects your "next 3 successful attacks", where as in combat precision slash last for 6 seconds. Watchman has more interrupts, and an "idiot proof" (your words) force leap. Furthermore you don't have to stay on your target to continue doing damage to it (DoT), and you self heal.

 

There are countless threads on this forum of people talking about how they switched to watchman and now they are doing so much better. There is a reason for this, the same reason why the majority of Sentinels spec watchman: because it's easier to play, and it garners more success to un-skilled players.

I do however agree that focus is by far the easiest of the three specs.

 

What you are saying doesn't suggest combat is the more complex tree for the more skilled players, your argument suggest that Watchman is the superior tree with better/more tools than combat.

 

Just saying.

[Apocalypse-]

When I first read your post I thought to myself "what's a bad player?" and I answered to myself "he does things badly, he make mistakes" and between Watchman and Combat, Combat is more unforgiving for mistakes because you lose a good deal of damage and I posted that and you thought I was talking about PvE....Guess what happens next? You moved the goal post again! Now we're talking about slow players, clickers.

I put the lines at 80/20, and always have when I talk about good/bad, because between those lines assumptions fail. I have seen people that, while not great, are not bad, only to find out they're clicking, struggling with relatively fast GCDs. I've also seen players that can masterfully keybind every ability they'd ever need, making them great in PvE, but just aren't good at PvP movement. Between the 20-80 marks, you just can't really say where the shortcomings are in general. If you even want to attempt to say "average", you've got to have so many qualifiers that you'd spend longer defining average than actually talking about anything else. At the "average" mark, the player that's not great with keybinds is going to be be better off with Combat, as it doesn't require multiple keys in the same GCD except for the defensive ones, while the player that's bad a PvP movement would be better at Watchman, as you don't need to stay glued to your target quite as hard. Which one is average? It's just not viable to debate between those lines.

 

Yes you're right Watchman clickers are awful (I've seen them myself) I mean a clicker has 15 seconds to click on three attack skills in order to put on three OS dots, a clicker has 30s to put on dots if he's slow with Zen, a clicker has 15 seconds to click on Merciless Slash.

The inital window from cooldown to buff loss for MS is 3 seconds. That's the shortest window of anything for any class. If you don't reliably catch that window, your DPS isn't going to be that solid. It's also only a 5 second window to get 3 3-stack OS and 3 cauterize ticks on a Zen.

 

Guess what? This is worse for Combat clickers, they only have 6 seconds (that's less than half the time for Watchman players) to get their Blade Storm crit or to get most out of their Precision Slash buff.

Difference is Combat relies on fewer skills, and that "6" second window is open more often than it's closed. As for Precision slash, it's not like you need to use a different skill every GCD, making it easier to click when you've got repeated skills.

 

Honestly I think it's time Apocalypse- that you just admit that a poorly played Watchman > poorly played Combat. Watchman is more forgiving, it's more "idiot-proof", it's easier to do good damage with it and time is less of an issue.

 

I still disagree. Watchman requires far more multitasking, which is usually the hardest thing on new-to-MMO and/or bad players.

 

 

What you are saying doesn't suggest combat is the more complex tree for the more skilled players, your argument suggest that Watchman is the superior tree with better/more tools than combat.

 

Just saying.

Heh, read a couple more replies. We're not debating what's tops. We're debating what's on the bottom

Edited February 6, 2012 by Apocalypse-