Focus Sentinel's Please Speak Up

[Beddo]

I'm the only focus sentinel that I know of on my server. We run KP and EV HM and I occasionally have to hold back sweep to avoid waking someone up, but I find it mostly beneficial in situations like Karragga's droids doing a 4500 force sweep and stun really helps the healers do their job.

 

In PVP the benefits are obvious since Slash and Sweep can devestate a small enemy group combines with increased defenses and near constant Transcendance.

 

Aside from the single target focus, and small healing capability, why is watchman that widely used? Is it easier? I was combat to 50 and Focus shortly after so I have 0 experience with Watchman other than what I read and see from teammates.

 

Anyone who has used both Focus & Watchman please let me know what I'm missing, or how I may be hurting my team by remaining Focus specced in PvE.

 

I PVP much more than I do ops, and I rarely see higher kills or dmg on Voidstar & Civil War.

[andrew_b_gross]

You answered your own question: it's single target DPS that matters in Ops. This isn't a "oh by the way" type of side-issue, it's a crucial and large difference.

 

Eternity vault: 0 bosses that have any use for AoE DPS.

 

Karagga's Palace: 0 bosses have any use for AoE DPS. (On the final boss, you can maybe get a tiny bit of use out of AoE DPS when the little mechanical mice come out, but the AOE from a Watchman spec is more than sufficient, so there's not real benefit to being Focus even on this boss.)

 

In addition to the DPS issue, there's the utility issue. Transcendence is a significant benefit in many fights, so the more often you can cast it, the more you're helping your Op. The Watchman spec builds centering significantly more quickly than the other two specs, so you can keep Transcendence up a much higher percentage of the fight. (Even in fights where you decide to use Zen, it provides healing for everyone, so being able to keep Zen up for more of the fight is also a non-trivial benefit.)

 

[Even in PvP, those gaudy damage numbers you're getting probably aren't helping your team win unless you're playing against bad players who stack up in a nice group for you to AoE down, and if you're playing against bad players, it doesn't matter what spec you use. Damage mainly matters if it translates into kills: putting 4 people at half health for a few seconds before they get AoE healed back to full wracks up a ton of damage done, while not helping your team win at all.]

[Ainianu]

Aside from the single target focus, and small healing capability, why is watchman that widely used? Is it easier?

 

Yep. (still harder to play a watchman sentinel than 'any' other advanced class imo, but its easier than focus/combat spec's to play mostly in awareness requirement to those 2 spec's that watchman is more forgiving on)

 

edit: being easier to play is not the only reason or even 'a' reason many play it though, it is a very good well balanced spec that is kinda good in all situations.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Ainianu

[Beddo]

Thank you both. I will have to try it out for myself. It just bugs me that the watchman tree is mostly about DOTing, I hear. And I want to do damage when I hit basically. Although I love to use Force Exhaustion a bit. This is why I chose Combat to begin and switched after I failed to make any progress in my output in PvP.

[andrew_b_gross]

The term "DoT" is a bit misleading. When most people think "DoT", they think of something that does a small amount of damage each tick over a relatively long period of time. But for Watchman, that's not the case: both Cauterize and Overload Saber only last for 6 seconds. That doesn't really "feel" like a DoT to me, in terms of needing to sit around waiting for the ticks to do damage. What it does do is make the possible rotatioins/combinations more interesting, because you can apply the DoT and then mess with modifiers, like Zen or adrenals or relics or whatever, to get overlapping effects on some or all ticks of the DoTs-- it can get complicated and I doubt if we actually know enough of the mechanics of the game (without logs) to say what's optimal in all situations.

[Beddo]

I know everyone that changed to Watchman from whichever other spec was pleased and I will ultimately have to check it out. I just fail to see how doing 4500 dmg to 3-4 people in voidstar to save a door is not contributing. The damage I do isn't necessarily reflective but I know where my strengths and weaknesses are as Focus.

 

I will respec and try it out to see what all the fuss is about so I can see what I am missing.

[Gathius]

Focus is superior for pvp, since it's burst is insane compared to watchman. Watchman is superior for pve though. You can do well in pvp as watchman anyways, but still the damage reduction is worse than focus but it's compensated little bit by a watchmans zen crit heals. In pve you won't do more damage as focus comparing to watchmans constant target damage and insane merciless slash crits for about 5k+ full rakata gear and this constant dot damage output of watchman.

[deemod]

I have screens at home of many 500K damage games running focus against war hero/bm games. To each his own spec wise they all perform well if your playing your class correctly. Focus bombing is bursty and thats usually what you need in pvp.

 

I have spent over 1 million credits on respeccing back and forth and i have to say focus statisticly does much better in warzones. It also feels like im doing much more damage and killing more oponents.

 

 

Dont get me wrong i've eaten up big named imp warriors with watchmen spec before at terrible odds for me. I just like decimating groups of people trying to cap my node, kill my healer, or defuse my bomb.

 

 

Dreadmortus - Battlemaster - Darth Malak

[mnihan]

I have really enjoyed playing Focus so far. I love the burst especially in PVP. I suppose when I get more into OPs and such I will switch over to either combat or watchman, but for the time being, Focus has my attention.

[Psybin]

For PvE:

Watchman does higher sustained single target DPS.

 

For PvP:

Watchman is far better for locking down healers. Which is our main purpose in pvp. Bring a jugg/guard for aoe bombing whilst you smash their healer up.

[Gathius]

healers arent supposed to be locked, they just supposed to die fast =), what focus is exacly capable of doing with them ;p Edited March 13, 2012 by Gathius

[Pyldrvr]

I leveled up to 50 as combat, switched to watchman for a good while and am now focus specced, so I have gotten to play all specs. They are all three quite fun in their own playstyles but I have settled on focus for now. I mostly do pvp and the focus spec is great in warzones and even open world situations. If I start doing more pve I will probably switch back to watchman for the tergeted single mob damage. combat was probably the most fun to play though. Any way you slice it, the flying ninja monkey is a fun class to play.

[Raansu]

Focus is fun to mess around in and I'd definitely go back to it when dual spec's are introduced. Aside from that it's not a very good spec. Yes yes, the stacking up for one big sweep every 9-12 seconds (depending on where you put your points) is awesome to see, but overall the down time in between is just not worth it imo. My merciless slash hits almost as hard as my big sweep crits did and I'm also stacking dot's as well as healing myself. The sustained dps/survivability is just better imo.

 

As for pve goes, I feel its the same thing. The burst is nice, but the dps in between isn't all that great, plus in large crowds you have to be very careful with where you throw out your sweeps due to having parts of the crowd mezz'd and waking them is a big risk, thus you are losing out on pretty much the main attack of your build. It's too reliant on one technique.

 

In the end though, play with whatever spec you think works best for you and your group. If focus is your thing, great, it works well enough in pvp to scare the piss out of 3 or 4 people who just got hit with 4k crits and its funny to watch them scatter. But ya, I personally don't think it's a very good tree. But again, thats just my opinion/experience, do what works for you.

[Mal-Sharran]

I personally feel gimped as Focus as a Sentinel. Without the 30% base boost to Sweep, a Guardian just has a major advantage over what I'd ever be capable of doing. AoE damage is great, and it ISN'T worthless, but you can't AoE a crowd to death. Your main attack just happens to be AoE. Everything else you do is single target, so your Sweep is really no different than my Merc Slash (which I easily do 5-6k with in PvP, it simply lands as two hits so I don't get the 5k PvP medal).

 

That's why I'm leveling a Guardian now, with the sole intent of going Focus for PvP. I ran into the first good Focus Jug (whatever their Focus tree is called) the other day and he was SCARY. But I still beat him 50% of the time as Watchman, it all came down to my inexperience facing that spec and learning how to counter it. Crazy 5800 sweeps against me in Champion gear...

[Soybombz]

Focus is superior for pvp, since it's burst is insane compared to watchman. Watchman is superior for pve though. You can do well in pvp as watchman anyways, but still the damage reduction is worse than focus but it's compensated little bit by a watchmans zen crit heals. In pve you won't do more damage as focus comparing to watchmans constant target damage and insane merciless slash crits for about 5k+ full rakata gear and this constant dot damage output of watchman.

 

Thanks for the laugh