Lack of spec/skill viability and variety.

[BloodbathNBeyond]

Now that I've hit level 50 with my Sentinel, I'm feeling a little dismayed and I hope this will be remedied over time. And before you ask, I'm still having fun with the game, I just feel like I would have a LOT more fun if these things were remedied. Anyone else feel this way about:

 

1) The endgame tier armor for Jedi Knights looks GODAWFUL. I won't expand on this because it's been done to death, but I'm clinging to my modded-out Aspiring Knight's Vest as one of the few non-ridiculous looking pieces for this class in the game, even though it's not viable at endgame. Oh well, guess I'm piling more of a challenge on an already challenging class.

 

2) It would be nice if crafting would have viable, if rare endgame bonuses that can compete with tiered endgame gear. Make us do something with crafting other than crank out stuff to sell on GTN to finance our stim habit. I don't even bother with Artificing at 400 anymore, there's just no point, I can't craft anything that remotely approaches PVP/Ops gear.

 

3) Also regarding gear - the gear progression path at endgame is just too narrow. Not only there is really one choice per class (and the choices are butt-ugly to the extreme), but they are limited and uniform stat-wise too. Part of this issue is systemic; certain stats are useless to this class and that's a shame. Wish this would get reworked. For example, it would be awesome if Alacrity buffs gave viable bonuses to melee classes like JK/SW so everyone wasn't limited to stacking power/crit/surge (and even surge is going to feel the cold sting of reality after the rebalance, hope it doesn't make my sentinel useless - I get too much of that as it is).

 

4) Narrowness in build viability - This in particular seems to be endemic to Sentinels. For ages I struggled in PVP with Combat even though I studied it in and out and while I'm not the best player I developed a pretty deep knowledge of what works and what doesn't. At least on paper. Finally when I hit 50 and got some decent PVP gear in Warzones I was averaging about 140-150k damage with this build, all while listening to pretty much everyone else I knew who played a sent how much more effective Watchman was. I tried Watchman, didn't like DOTs-style play but finally gave up and respecced. Now, I have no idea what the Hell I'm doing (still learning the spec and how it plays) but my average wz damage spiked 30k. If I'm doing better with a spec I have no knowledge of, something isn't right here. Admittedly, I haven't really given a Focus build a fair shake yet so I may just be ignorant, but after several attempts at making Combat builds failed to measure up I'm calling that tree as untenable.

 

Thoughts? Solutions besides "Roll another class?" I've done that already, but I would kind of like to have more fun with this one.

[wtfimblue]

The armoring from daily commedations has more strength than the one built into the columi chest. Just so you know.

 

Stack crit, surge, and try again imo. I don't use my pvp gear alot of the time since i don't have the mods to go around, and still deal at least 250k+ damage per warzone as either watchman or combat. Not much advice i can tell you than to practice it. Also, i wouldn't try focus. Gimmicky at best.

Edited February 14, 2012 by wtfimblue

[SteveGarbage]

The truth of the matter is, at this point, it seems like Watchman>Combat. Combat looks good on paper but the truth is, in most cases, the damage just doesn't keep par.

 

While part of it is that Watchman is better in sustained fights compared to the burstiness of Combat, another part of it is that Combat just seems underpowered (or Watchman overpowered, although I shudder to think of what a substantial nerf to any Sentinel spec would cause...)

 

As to the other issues with crafting/end game gear/etc., my only notion at this point is, it's early. This game has only been public for what, three months now? We've got to believe that additions and expansions to level out these issues will be coming. Crafting especially outside of Biochem is pretty useless in endgame, and that's something that will likely need to be remedied, especially since GTN prices usually aren't worth the effort of crafting and trying to sell.

[LiveandDieinLA]

As you observed Watchman is a much easier spec to be successful with, however combat can work if you know what you are doing.

 

The real key is knowing how and when to use precision slash. Unlike Overload saber, its not off the gcd, and it has a very narrow window for using it. You need to make sure you a) have enough focus top use it and your bladestorm( which sometimes means having the focus to blade rush to get the combat trance proc as well.

 

It seems like the best combo to use after precision slash is masterstrike then bladestorm, I am still getting the hang of that rotation myself, but it puts out nice damage.

 

I have by no means mastred the combat build, but I do 350-450 on most voidstars and about 250-325 damage in the other two warzones. Not amazing but respectable, and equal to or better than most of the watchman/annihilation specs on my server.

[BloodbathNBeyond]

Thanks for the constructive feedback (particularly about Precision Slash - I was tending to use it before Blade Rush spams), all of you. Truth be told, there are two things I am missing terribly from Combat. Silly things like the Crippling Throw root and the enhanced combat speed. My biggest issue was the fact that I wasn't seeing big bursts with Combat but that's likely a l2p issue or a bug/lag issue (or combinations of both). I'll probably go back to it at some point once I'm a little more geared.