Watchman Sentinal Endgame

[Scoofer]

Watchman Sentinel

 

This guide is designed to help those who want to play more Watchman effectively in Endgame raiding scenario.

 

 

Spec

 

Two viable Specs that you could use are:

 

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/sentinel/#::f2ef17e5fe2fe8f10e3f6:

 

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/sentinel/#::f2ef2efef12e5fe2fe8f10ef8:

 

 

Watchman Tree

 

Tier 1:

• Focused Slash (3/3): This ability speaks for itself. Gain 1 force back each time you use Slash, Dispatch, or Merciless Slash. More focus = more damage. +Damage

• Valor (2/2): Gain stacks of Centering faster. More Centering = more Zen/Transcendence/Insperations +Damage +Survivability +Mobility +Raid Utility

 

Tier 2:

 

• Merciless Zeal (2/2): You heal for 2% of your max health when your burns crit. +Survivability

• Juyo Mastery (3/3): Your burns have a 3% increased crit chance for each stack of Juyo form. + 15% crit to burns. +Damage

 

Tier 3:

• Searing Saber (2/2): Burns that crit do 30% more.+Damage

• Overload Saber (1/1): DoT. +Damage

• Blurred Speed (2/2): Lowers CD on Force Leap. +Mobility

 

Tier 4:

• Focused Leap (2/2): Force Leap generates 1 extra force. +Damage

• Watchguard (2/2): Lowers Kick by 2 secs. Lowers Pacify by 15 secs. +Raid Utility

• Repelling Blows (1/1): Increase DD of Cauterize by 30% +Damage

• Close Quarters (2/2): Removes Min distance from Force Leap. +Mobility

 

Tier 5:

• Mind Sear (3/3): Slash and Merciless Slash have a 33% and 66% chance respectively to finish the CD of Cauterize. +Damage

 

Tier 6:

• Burning Focus (2/2): Burns have a 30% chance to generate 1 focus. +Damage

• Plasma Blades (3/3): Burns deal 15% more damage. +Damage

 

Tier 7:

• Merciless Strike (1/1): Hardest hitting ability. +Damage

 

Combat Tree

 

Tier 1:

• Dual Wield Mastery (3/3): Increase offhand weapon damage by 36% +Damage

 

Focus Tree

 

Tier 1:

• Master Focus (2/2): Lower CD and increase damage on Master Strike. +Damage

• Insight (3/3): Increase force crit chance by 6%. +Damage

 

Tier 2:

• Swift Slash (2/2): Increase Slash's crit chance by 15%. +Damage

 

 

 

Watchman Playstyle:

The Watchman spec is centered around having as much DoT uptime on the boss as you can. This requires a lot of attention being paid to the cooldowns, DoT timers and how much force you have. Out of all three specs this is the most complex in terms of number of things that you have to be aware of outside of if you are standing in fire or not.

 

Rotation:

Start the fight like this:

Force Leap > Overload Saber (mid-air) > Zealous Strike > Cauterize > Merciless Slash > Master Strike

 

After the initial pull its more of a priority system:

 

Dispatch (< 30%)

Merciless Slash

Overload Saber

Master Strike

Cauterize

Slash

 

 

Dispatch: Execute ability. Only usable under 30% health. Use it if its up.

 

Merciless Slash: This ability is our heaviest hitter outside of our execute. Use it whenever its off CD. Each time you use it the CD is reduced by 1.5 secs (Stacks 3 times) so it is very important that you have enough force to use it right away after the first stack so that you don't lose it. It costs 5 force so you need to manage your force around when if comes off CD. It also has a 66% chance to reset the CD of Cauterize.

 

Overload Saber: This ability is cool because it doesnt respect the GCD. So basically you can use it mid-air during a force charge or after using another ability that procs the GCD. It does interrupt the channel on Master Strike so use it before or wait till it is complete.

 

Cauterize: This ability is a DD with a DoT on the end of it. It has a 15 sec CD but Slash and Merciless Slash have a chance to finish the CD. If there is a Cauterize DoT up and the CD has been reset do not apply the new one until the old one has fallen off.

 

Slash: This ability is mainly used to dump extra force. It hits fairly hard and has a chance to finish the CD on Cauterize. You need to be careful that you dont use up too much force and force starve yourself. Make sure you have an adequate amount of force before using this ability.

 

Master Strike: This is one of the more unique abilities. It is a channeled ability that costs no force and a 30 sec base CD. Even though it is a channeled melee attack it does have a fairly large distance that it can still do damage. It is very important that you don't clip the last tick because it does a lot of damage. If you stop the cast before the channel is done there is a lot of damage lost.

 

Zealous Strike: This move is the best way to get a lot of force fast. It is on a 15 sec CD so you should use it when it comes off CD. Just make sure you wont waste force. I would recommend when you have 5 force or less.

 

Strike: Your basic force building attack. Of you need more than 2 force you can substitute a force leap instead. Just make sure you wont need it for the next 12 secs.

 

How to use Centering:

 

When you use an ability that spends force you gain stacks of Centering. When you have 30 stacks of Centering you have the choice to use one of three abilities: Zen, Transcendence or Inspiration.

 

Zen: If you are using Juyo form (Which you should be) your next 6 DoT ticks will be critical hits and will cause you to heal your party for 2% of their max health per burn. You will be using this almost exclusively when focusing on damage.

 

Transcendence: This boosts your party's speed by 50% and increases their ranged and melee defense by 10%. Good for moving large groups of people placed quickly.

 

Inspiration: Basically a heroism without an external CD. This means multiple Sentinels can use it during a fight. It doesn't stack if used at the same time though.

 

Valorous Call: Instantly gives you 30 stacks of Centering. Use this if you want to pop Inspiration and get a Zen off right after or if you really need to use Transcendence to get your party somewhere fast.

 

Defensive Abilities:

 

Rebuke: Flat 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. This refreshes every time you get attacked but cannot exceed 30 secs. 60 sec CD.

 

Saber Ward: Range and Melee defense increased by 50% and damage from tech and force attacks are reduced by 25%. Lasts 12 secs. 180 sec CD.

 

Force Camouflage: Lowers threat on all enemies, increased speed by 30% and gives a 50% damage reduction for 4 secs. 45 sec CD.

 

Pacify: Lowers target's melee and ranged accuracy by 90% for 5 secs. Sadly not usable on Operation Bosses but is usable on a lot of adds and trash.

 

Guarded by the Force: Spend half your current health to gain 99% damage reduction. The ultimate "oh ****" button. 90 sec CD.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Scoofer

[Stealios]

While I agree with most of the things you put in this guide, and appreciate the effort, I'm using a little different build

 

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/sentinel/#::f2ef2efdf12e5fe2fe8f11ef7

 

I found that by putting 2 points in steadfast (which requires 2 points in defensive forms, so you'd lose master strike dmg + slash crit chance) gave me the options to change up to 2 mods for power surge ones instead of accuracy.

 

Also I tend to use master strike not that often during raids. Usually at the start as you suggest, but once you get the coodldown of MS (merciless slash) down to 7.5 secs, I rarely find the time to spend 3 secs on masterstrike. because in those 7.5 secs i usually reapply cauterize or overload and have to make sure i have enough focus for the next MS.

 

What I tend to do sometimes is let the first 2 hits of master strike hit and then go on with the rest of my abilities. ( the first 2 hits hit within the first 1.5 secs (so just the GCD) usually)

[Scoofer]

By not letting your Master Strike finish you are losing a lot of damage. Ive tried parsing both ways and i have not come up with a higher dps by skipping the last tick of Master Strike.

[Ryat]

It seems that while 32 points in Watchman and 3 in Dual Mastery are a must the rest can be different.

I found a lot success with this build myself.

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/sentinel/#::f2ef2ef13de5fe2fe8f10ef5ef2

Edited May 7, 2012 by Ryat

[Spungey]

1. nice effort

 

2. as a watchman your wasting 2 points in swift slash. You shouldn't be using Slash enough for that to even be considered useful. Out of 1000 attacks Slash should make up for no more than 100 of those.

 

3. Defensive Forms is a must. You get hit plenty in Operations for it to be considered worthy of the 2 points over swift slash.

 

4. Insight is over-rated. It only increases force critical. That being said, Most End Game wathcman sentinels will already be sitting close to 45% crit rate for your burns with Juyo form.

 

thats my 2 cents...maybe not your play style. Like the guy said above..Placing points into Steadfast gives you the option to use Power/Surge enhancements.

 

In Denova, having 2/2 in Defensive Roll also helps alot since we are speaking about end-game and there are tons of AoE damge in there.

 

And another pointer for a poster. Those 2 points into Master Focus are well worth it. Master Strike should be used as soon as it comes off CD...It should be your 3rd highest DPS contributor when in raid. Burns are about 40% of your damage followed by Merc Slash then Master Strike. It's free damage and it hits like a truck.

[Funick]

I highly recommend defensive roll, if you are under geared it will help you survive. if you are over geared well you are already stealing agro you don't need to do more damage. the reduction in damage taken will help your healers out a lot.

 

yes you can avoid many aoes but many you can't.

[Scoofer]

I don't think that Defensive Forms is as important as you are making it out to be. Its 4% damage reduction for Elemental and Internal damage. As a Dps class your main focus should be putting out as much damage as possible. I do realize that living is important but I have never had issues with taking too much damage that 4% reduction would have made the difference. There is a lot of avoidable damage if you pay attention.

 

Insight was merely a way to get to swift slash. I originally had my points into Steadfast but there is too much accuracy on gear as it is so there was no point in going over 100% accuracy.

 

Too put things in perspective I have cleared 8 man EC every week since it came out in 8 man.

[Wuzan]

Overall i think you've written a solid guide. I disagree with the "you should be this spec" part though, I think theres a bit of variety that can exist amongst sentinels. Also, regarding master strike.

 

If you use a combat parser and examine a boss fight... (at least 5 min long+), burns are number 1, merciless strike is 2, and master strike is 3. Since the last patch, master strike got a HUGE buff. 2 Points in that as a damage increase is huge... considering you're looking at a minimum of 6k damage for non crits (and no focus)..... and much higher with crits. I dont see why you're using slash that much = between merciless, cauterzie, overload, etc... theres not a huge amount of extra focus to go around. My thoughts.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Wuzan

[SteveGarbage]

I have to agree with other people - I think Defensive Forms and Defensive Roll are much more useful in endgame. Both add to your defense a little bit and Defensive Forms also helps you generate centering faster for more Zens.

 

I do like Master Focus for two of the last three, then dump the final point either into Insight or Steadfast.

The Slash critical is nice, but as was said, you shouldn't be slashing THAT much and I think three whole points into Insight is a waste.

[Psychosis]

Excellent post Scoof.

 

Personally, both groups are correct. Scoof is looking at our primary role, DPS.

Maximizing that to the exclusion of all else is what we should strive for.

 

However, not everyone has the same group make up or players.

I had already come up with the spec Scoof posted on my own, but my healers are undergeared for now.

So I run with Defensive roll, as they get more gear, i'll move closer to Scoof's.

 

Part of being a good DPS is understanding what's happening in your raid and making it work.

[witelightnin]

Personally, both groups are correct. Scoof is looking at our primary role, DPS.

Maximizing that to the exclusion of all else is what we should strive for.

 

Part of being a good DPS is understanding what's happening in your raid and making it work.

 

And a LARGE part of being a good DPS is not getting yourself killed and not being a drain on your healers. Go do Denova on 8 man hard, nightmare, or 16 man and tell me defensive roll isn't worth it. Yes there are other skills that might SLIGHTLY increase your DPS, but at the expense of 30% more AoE damage. Unless your raid group is completely decked out in Black Hole gear already, that AoE damage reduction is HUGE.

 

Yes, DPS is our primary goal. But you can't DPS when you're dead, and healers can't focus their efforts on keeping tanks alive when your a sponge... so stop being a selfish DPS and just take defensive roll. We already do insane DPS anyways, that .5% increase does NOT merit 30% more AoE damage.

[Scoofer]

And a LARGE part of being a good DPS is not getting yourself killed and not being a drain on your healers. Go do Denova on 8 man hard, nightmare, or 16 man and tell me defensive roll isn't worth it. Yes there are other skills that might SLIGHTLY increase your DPS, but at the expense of 30% more AoE damage. Unless your raid group is completely decked out in Black Hole gear already, that AoE damage reduction is HUGE.

 

Yes, DPS is our primary goal. But you can't DPS when you're dead, and healers can't focus their efforts on keeping tanks alive when your a sponge... so stop being a selfish DPS and just take defensive roll. We already do insane DPS anyways, that .5% increase does NOT merit 30% more AoE damage.

 

The point of this post was to help maximize Dps for those who are looking to push Endgame content. As a Sentinel who has cleared 8 man hardmode everyweek i thought that i would throw up a short guide that might help those who wanted it.

 

Defensive Roll is by no means a terrible skill. That being said, I dont think that it merits two skill points that could be used in squeezing out more damage. To elaborate: Defensive roll reduces the damage from the types: Internal and Elemental by 4%. Assuming you take the talent and get hit by a 5k elemental AoE you would effectively be taking 200 less damage. Now Watchman Sentinels in full Rakata gear have roughly 19k hp buffed. On top of the constant chance to heal ourselves with our burn crits we have an ability that allows us to heal for 2% max health for the next 6 burn crits. Thats 380 per tick (assuming that we have 19k health) for a grand total of 2280 healing.

 

And yes Defensive forms does help build centering stacks. When you attacked. Sure its an added bonus but you should never be on the receiving end of an attack. If you are tanking for any amount of time you either need to have a talk with your tanks or make use of that threat drop. Heck, I have to wait 10 secs to allow my tanks to get a head start so i don't pull right away.

 

I do understand that having under geared healers can make taking too much damage a problem in raid but beating enrage timers is also a huge issue once you have mastered not dying to boss mechanics.

 

Also a small side note: There is no Nightmare mode out for Denova currently

[Reinholt]

I am sorry but some of the spec ideas originally posted are just misinformed.

 

This Point Is where you need to make a choice on what area you want to spend your two points, in a pure PvE build I would go with this, but the two points are all closely PvP related and up to you.

 

Explaining my offspec choices. Our stat priority in this spec is Power, Surge, then Accuracy. Obtaining Accuracy should always be first and foremost, you can get 1% from companions, and 3% from talents, allowing for using Deft Mods, and Adept Enhancements because you will only need four pieces with Accuracy to hit cap.

 

Explaining the rest of my offspec choices is easy after explaining stat priority, increased crit on Force attacks is not for the watchman spec because our bleeds are technically physical or at least the combat log is saying so. Either way crit is unimportant because we aren't stacking it due to our Zen, 100% crit on our bleeds which is our only yellow damage ability makes stacking crit or taking crit talents unimportant. Taking Swift Slash is debatable and still a very good talent but you can see above that I make a good argument for not taking it.

 

Also you place Master Strike too low in the priority system, after 1.2 it is as much damage during a fight as Merciless Slash. Everything else is good information I personally would make some edits and if you would like to compare numbers feel free to PM me or message me on my stream and I will send you my logs over google docs or something.

[KarethRiker]

Agree with witelighting. I would love to have insight and swift slash, but defensive roll is just too good for me to pass up in Denova. Our DPS is more than enough without swift slash to clear any of the HM Denova content without hitting enrage timers, so I'd rather ensure I survive through tank, healer and a few of my own missteps with the damage reduction abilities.

 

I toyed with the idea of taking points out of master focus to buff up steadfast a few more points so I could replace more accuracy mods, but can't justify it.

[Funick]

The point of this post was to help maximize Dps for those who are looking to push Endgame content. As a Sentinel who has cleared 8 man hardmode everyweek i thought that i would throw up a short guide that might help those who wanted it.

 

Defensive Roll is by no means a terrible skill. That being said, I dont think that it merits two skill points that could be used in squeezing out more damage. To elaborate: Defensive roll reduces the damage from the types: Internal and Elemental by 4%. Assuming you take the talent and get hit by a 5k elemental AoE you would effectively be taking 200 less damage. Now Watchman Sentinels in full Rakata gear have roughly 19k hp buffed. On top of the constant chance to heal ourselves with our burn crits we have an ability that allows us to heal for 2% max health for the next 6 burn crits. Thats 380 per tick (assuming that we have 19k health) for a grand total of 2280 healing.

 

that's defensive forms, defensive roll lowers aoe damage 30% so a 5k aoe gets reduced by 1.5k which is HUGE.

 

defensive forms you are correct is meh but defensive roll is huge, the difference in damage taken is night and day,

[Spungey]

I don't think that Defensive Forms is as important as you are making it out to be. Its 4% damage reduction for Elemental and Internal damage. As a Dps class your main focus should be putting out as much damage as possible. I do realize that living is important but I have never had issues with taking too much damage that 4% reduction would have made the difference. There is a lot of avoidable damage if you pay attention.

 

Insight was merely a way to get to swift slash. I originally had my points into Steadfast but there is too much accuracy on gear as it is so there was no point in going over 100% accuracy.

 

Too put things in perspective I have cleared 8 man EC every week since it came out in 8 man.

 

defensive forms isn't even about the damage reduction. everytime your hit you get 2 stacks of centering, can occur every 1.5 seconds. Thats a good bit. For first boss fight in EC...having Transcendence up to pop before the prior one has worn off is excellent for the fight, or healing your group for almost 2k each in a few seconds is clutch in case your healers are having a tough time.

 

If you raid EC, then make sure you are running a Parser or checking out your logs. 1/10th of those attacks should be Slash..Just doesn't seem like a decent way to spend 2 points.

[Spungey]

just to clear this up. Almost every fight in KP, EV and EC you are going to get hit regardless if your a tank or not.

 

and most people pvp in some form, yes this is a pve guide, and i'm not about to respec. Regardless I'll take my faster centering built over 15% slash crits.

[elmergosh]

The specific wording of Defensive Forms says "Builds 1 Centering when attacked." Does this include general AoE dmg? Or only when you have threat and are being actively attacked?

 

If it's only when you have threat then I'd beg Bioware to put Steadfast on Tier 1 so I can skip Defensive Forms but still take useful points to get to Defensive Roll. However, if it builds Centering from AoE attacks, it's probably worth taking on its own merits.

 

My current build (maybe a duplicate of someone else's....didn't bother looking at them all):

 

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/sentinel/#::fe2f2efcf12e5fe2fe8f10ef8

[Spungey]

everytime you are hit means you build 2 centering with 2 points in it.. can occur once every 1.5 seconds. can be a dot, can be aoe can be anything.. soon as you take damage it builds it. faster you build centering stacks the more damage you will manage and the more utility you will bring to an Ops group.

[Anrew]

Great guides and ideas guys. I personally am a fan of defensive roll since my main is a healer and since its so much easier to heal ranged in ec then tanks (SM anyway). Honestly spend more time healing the group then the tank it seems. I am kinda curious about parsers is there a thread where people have posted some of different specs and such? Really good things all the way around. 13 lvls to go on my sent

[Lanja]

Hi all, I've found this to be a very interesting conversation. I'm playing a Watchman Spec'd Sentinel.

 

I've got roughly 2 points I'm still cheweing on where to spend, and found this end-game perspective quite useful. I'm currently running with only Master Focus (2) in the Focus tree. In Combat I've got Dual Wield (3) Defensive Forms (2) - for the centering bump, and Jedi Crusader (1) which over 30 sec seems to pretty much guarantee me a bigger focus boost than Focused Leap (2) in the watchman tree. (Though admittedly at the opening.)

 

I'm playing PVE, so in my primary (Watchman) tree, I've opted NOT to take Infalammation. Nor do I use Riposte enough to make Recompense seem worth it. (Though I wonder sometimes if one could make Jedi Crusader (2) and Recompense (2) into a focus generator + defensive worthy of the 4 pt cost.) I flipped a coin between Force Fade (2) and Focused Leap (2) and came down on Fade for the greater utility. (Again, I'm not having too much trouble with focus generation (albeit at lvl 46) - and initiating most of my fights with Rebuke up and Jedi Crusader (1) seems to keep it that way. I have (or will have) everything else in the Watchman tree maxed out.

 

That leaves me with 2 points to play with. My current plan is to drop both in Defensive Roll for that 30% guard on AOE.

 

Steadfast (2) would certanily make sense. I could also put it in Focused Leap to ensure that extra bit of focus, but that's not a lot of bang for 2 pts. (Please disabuse me of that misperception if that's not the case!)

 

Some argue for Swelling Winds (2), but I don't make a ton of use of Force Sweep or Cyclone Slash outside of clearing out trash.

 

I suppose I could gimp Force Fade 1 pt, and try out that Jedi Crusader (2) + Recompense (2) option - if anyone's found that to be particularly useful. The thing is I've heard that having 6 seconds of Force Cammo with +20% speed can be very useful in endgame fights.

 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts. Thanks in advance.

[DarkDisturbed]

everytime you are hit means you build 2 centering with 2 points in it.. can occur once every 1.5 seconds. can be a dot, can be aoe can be anything.. soon as you take damage it builds it. faster you build centering stacks the more damage you will manage and the more utility you will bring to an Ops group.

 

This. It's not just being attacked, it's anytime you're being inflicted with damage. You can test on a fight like Soa, where you are taking internal damage while platforming, you gain centering. It's a huge boost to centering, and therefore dps.