Jedi Sentinel – A Primer

[GhostriderHawk]

I haven't seen an answer to this question above, so I apologize if there has already been on a post on the matter.

 

For a Combat-spec'd Sentinel, I am having trouble seeing why 3 skill points should be placed into Insight (increases crit chance of Force attacks by 2% per skill point) under the Focus tree.

 

For a Combat Sentinel, our Force attacks are limited: Blade Storm, Force Sweep, Force Stasis, Opportune Strike, Pommel Strike, Rebuke, and Ataru Form (attacks?).

 

Having an increased crit chance for Blade Storm is moot as you should almost always be using Blade Storm when Combat Trance is up, giving you 100% crit chance anyways.

 

I find myself rarely using Force Sweep against both mobs in PVE and groups of players in PVP, as it lacks the punch that other abilities have. It has simply been more efficient for me to single-target and clear mobs one at a time. Not that it Sweep doesn't have its usefulness, but outside stopping groups of imps from capping a turret on Civil War or planting a bomb on a door in Voidstar, Force Sweep seems to be rarely off its CD.

 

Force Stasis is a decent ability, but it does not seem to merit 3 additional skill points for an extra 6% crit chance on its DoT. While Force Stasis both stuns the target and deals approximately 2500 damage (I believe that is the level 50 equivalent), its has a high CD (50 seconds if spec'd properly), its stuns you as it is a channeled stun, Force kick is a much better interrupt, and every player has the potential to escape form the stun and shrug off the damage.

 

Opportune Strike and Pommel Strike also tend to be used rarely as the target must be either slowed/immobilized or incapacitated for these abilities to work, respectively. Pommel Strike also has a 45-second CD, limiting its use against mobs in PVE as I seem to be able to mow through 2-3 mobs before Pommel Strike is off its CD, and even further limited in PVP as other players do not seem to be incapacitated long enough or often enough for frequent use. Similarly with Opportune Strike. While 15 seconds is a nice, short CD, its damage seems rather low and on par with Blade Rush and Blade Storm.

 

Finally, the Ataru Form Attacks, if those actually benefit from Insight, seem to be the only viable Force attack worth an increased crit chance for. However, that being said, is spending 3 skill points to increase the crit chance of 1 ability that is already on RNG worth it?

 

Now my follow-up question, should the aforementioned argument be persuasive enough would be: Where to place those 3 last skill points, assuming your talents are something like 3/33/2 (taking Fleet-Footed and Displacement)? Defensive Roll seems like a nice pick for both PVP and PVE, but that is still only 2 points, leaving one last point hanging.

[Ravrohan]

One way to look at it, is even if you only put one point into it (and for me Ataru form procs alone are worth it when Blade Rush figures in) that's less over all crit you have to worry about from other sources, allowing for slightly more stat diversity.

 

But lets consider that Blade Rush is a combat spec's main skill, anything that boosts it is a good thing. It'll already receive a +30% surge bonus from talents, so more crit, and solid % at that, can make it go a long way. As dps, anything that boosts your damage is a positive thing.

 

Now if your world revolves around PVP, maybe its different, I don't claim to know much in that field. If something is keeping you alive longer to do that damage, great. But if you have no where else to place a few points, Insight if nothing else, is icing on the cake.

[-Professor-]

Cool, thanks for the update.

 

 

 

The following may sound crazy, but might be something to think about.

 

I experimented with mapping the numkey pad to the quickslots and so far it works perfectly. In combat, I let go of the mouse and the numkey pad becomes a kind of 'battle mode' console. It has the benefit of being able to group skills in rows and giving you lots of keys to bind.

 

Top row: single target attacks, middle row: aoe / higher cost attacks, bottom row: heals and defense. 'Numkey 0' is leap attack on my jedi or cover on my sniper and '+' is medpack. The left hand number keys are great for quick reflex interrupts (and leftover skills) because it feels like it's a separate process or console as at the same time the right hand is working on the main skills sequences.

 

So far, the drawback would be in using the keyboard for turning which I've been told is a no-no. But there may be some other keybinds/options to use as a way around that if I spend time looking at it some more. Turning in combat didn't seem like much of an issue on my sniper since because with the long range and stationary cover, it meant having your enemies in a frontal-cone ahead almost all the time without moving yourself.

 

I'm not a big fan of Razer, but the Razer Naga mouse will enable you to do what you suggest much more effectively. It has 12 buttons along its left side that can be mapped either to the numbers on top of the keyboard or to the numeric keypad. If you bind the Naga to the numeric keypad, you can incorporate all the skills you suggest and still be able to move around with the mouse.

 

As I said, I'm not a big fan of Razer, but I've been using the Naga mouse to good effect in SWTOR. Using buttons along the side of the mouse takes a day or two to get used to, but it might be worth the price.

[Maefly]

I haven't seen an answer to this question above, so I apologize if there has already been on a post on the matter.

 

For a Combat-spec'd Sentinel, I am having trouble seeing why 3 skill points should be placed into Insight (increases crit chance of Force attacks by 2% per skill point) under the Focus tree.

 

Combat has quite a few preference points as mentioned in the Combat build discussion. Most end game combat players tend to put points into defensive roll and the more quest / daily oriented players are putting those points into Temperance. If you pvp, Stagger and Fleetfooted are good spots.

 

Bottom line is those last 3 - 5 points are playstyle oriented.

[andrew_b_gross]

I tried asking this question in a seperate thread and didn't get an answer:

 

Does damage you suffer from AoE trigger Rebuke/Jedi Crusader? What about Defensive Forms?

 

Thanks!

[Ravrohan]

I tried asking this question in a seperate thread and didn't get an answer:

 

Does damage you suffer from AoE trigger Rebuke/Jedi Crusader? What about Defensive Forms?

 

Thanks!

 

I meant to post there and forgot which thread it was, sorry about that.

 

Yes, AOE does keep Rebuke going, though I don't have Jedi Crusader to know if that still works. You however still get the bonus from Defensive forms when hit by AoE.

[andrew_b_gross]

Thanks for the answer.

 

Another question that I'd like to get a definitive answer to (and I believe the first page should be updated to reflect the answer): how much accuracy do we really need for Ops?

 

I read on another thread that every ability other than "Strike" is considered a Special Ability, and that bosses (even in Ops) have 5% parry chance, so what you want is 105% Special Accuracy if you're willing to live with Strike missing 5% of the time. When I re-specced last night I took points out of accuracy and also changed some of my mods to get down to 95% accuracy and 105% Special accuracy, and I can confirm that when running solo and doing heroics, I'm not ever missing with any special attacks. HOWEVER I didn't have a chance to do a HM FP, and I won't be running Ops until Friday night. I'd hate to be missing bosses during the Ops, so it would be great to get confirmation that this is correct even for raiding.

 

If this is correct even in Ops, then lots of Sentinels have way too much accuracy and should find that they have 3 talent points they can free up to play with, so I think it's pretty important to get a definitive answer.

Edited February 1, 2012 by andrew_b_gross

[flowqz]

current theorycraft says its need 8% - 10% hit.... its not set in stone yet cause we dont have a combatlog, which means testing it is very difficult (aka frapsing the numbers and watch for a miss)

 

i would gear for 8% hit

Edited February 3, 2012 by flowqz

[andrew_b_gross]

current theorycraft says its need 8% - 10% hit.... its not set in stone yet cause we dont have a combatlog, which means testing it is very difficult (aka frapsing the numbers and watch for a miss)

 

i would gear for 8% hit

 

I don't understand this answer. Can you put this in terms of the actual accuracy number we need (base and/or special)? I don't know what "gearing for 8% hit" means, as our accuracy is influenced by which talents we take and what our STR is, in addition to gear.

[Solik]

Ignore this post. I moved my question to it's own thread. Edited February 3, 2012 by Solik

[magecutter]

all the way around an exceptional thread. my sentinel has always felt a bit squishy and now I know why. will respec and try the "OS" ability chain the op suggested - many thanks

[Boulis]

I have to agree an excellent thread that has helped my overall gameplay. For whatever reason, most likely because I'm not very good, I have found playing my Sent alt quite difficult and a real challenge. This guide has helped me smooth out the rough edges. Thanks, and let's keep it updated!

[TxAstarte]

I'm just finishing up with Tython, and wasn't really sure what the advanced classes offered.

 

Very happy to find this thread. thanks again.

[Kmana]

Thought it was a good guide til I saw that you were the 5th best sentinel.

 

http://i39.tinypic.com/14bm8wn.jpg

 

Out of 6 who played..in this one match

Edited February 14, 2012 by Kmana

[sd_fuller]

Thank you so much for the guide. It does a great job of providing a number of details!!

 

One thing I thought of that could make it even better is a brief high-level summary of each of the talent trees playstyle. This would help a new person decide which one to learn more about, such as Combat focuses on DOTs /bleeds (this is an example and not accurate).

 

I am enjoying playing the class, but as I am only lvl 16 I am still in the "spam" phase and am looking for information to determine which tree to focus on and if the class will continue to be fun to play in the mid/end game.

 

Thanks again for your post!!

 

Scott

[Morticoccus]

I'm definitely going to try your rotation the second my alt hits the sweet spot for stasis, I'm playing watchman (What else? =p) And the thought of just setting my DOTs down, lifting the enemy off the ground and watch them melt face is immensely satisfying.

 

Anyhow, onto my question: At the first tier I specced into shortening rebuke CD using riposte, but following your advice I should respec as riposte is such a bad ability for sentinels.

 

My question is this: Does the CD reduction on our primary standard damage mitigation CD ability make riposte worth using or should I just reset and go for the other tier 1 talent?

[DelphinHunter]

Thanks a million!!!! I rearranged my slots last night on Alderaan and smoked 2 sith in a row like I knew what I was doing with smart rotations. First time I actually got zen to work too I suppose I could have read all the documentation but this guide made a huge difference immediately for sentinel specific combat. Thanks again. It really helps to group like abilities, have good rotations planned and understand what each ability does on target(s), on you, on group, on companion and on stacks etc. Way fun.

Also huge help to use things you know you will use early so they go through cooldown and you can reuse before you die. Like med pack, sabre ward.

Two week ago I didnt know what AOE, CC, DPS, rotation, stacks, adds, etc were, lol but post by all you helpful players makes this much more fun. Thanks again to all.

Edited February 17, 2012 by DelphinHunter

[bezerkk]

can antone tell me what lvl sentinals can dual wield? and is it a quest or is it learnable at the trainer?

 

i'm watchman btw.

Edited February 20, 2012 by bezerkk

[TxAstarte]

as soon as I picked Sentinel as an advanced class, the training was available, iirc.

 

Then, it was just a matter of equipping the off hand.

[Fomorii]

Have to agree here. There is no reason to use Blade Storm in a Watchmen rotation unless your soloing for quests as it hits hard. Nothing in the Watchmen tree adds to Blade Storm. Other than that decent write-up. As a side note however, I will say it is next to impossible to manage 100% uptime on dots so if anyone is having problems doing so, do not worry. All your dots have shorter duration times than the length of the cooldown (barring a Merc. Slash proc on Cauterize which cannot be counted on since it is a proc).

 

Some fights involve CC'd mobs, so Force Sweep isn't always viable. Rolling Overload Saber stacks requires a force attack to keep dps up while delaying application of OS stacks. Force Stasis has a CD and Force Sweep is an AoE. Blade Storm becomes the only real option if you want to keep 3 stacks of OS up.

[Cuaarl_Hosmi]

can antone tell me what lvl sentinals can dual wield? and is it a quest or is it learnable at the trainer?

 

i'm watchman btw.

 

If you are Watchman that means you have already chosen Sentinal as your Advance Class and therefore should already be able to duel wield as its an automatic passive ability. You should also have got a bag put into your inventory, open that up and you should get a second Lightsaber

[ErocSolo]

Great post. Helped me drastically. Edited February 24, 2012 by ErocSolo

[PegasusHoplite]

This may be a stupid question regarding the theorycrafting of Overload Saber.

 

Does frontloading all three stacks of overload saber for 9 seconds of DoT and 3 seconds of cooldown actually diminish the amount of damage you do? While the second stack resets the timer, it doesn't override the first stack (you'll notice a number 2 next to the burning effect icon). This could mean you would still have the same 402x3 burning damage, just over nine seconds as opposed to spread out over some 15 seconds. If this were true that the damage is the same regardless of how you apply it, Overload Saber would be a little more fire and forget because you wouldn't have to worry about the order of the rotation as much.

 

That being said, I don't know if that's true.

[DerWildeWolf]

Thank you very much for that guide. It really helps a lot. I still am very confused about which talent-tree i should use for leveling though. I get the point about the pvp-tree, but the pve-part is a little unclear to me. I often hear people saying stuff like "the sentinel is totally underpowered. It doesn´t matter which tree, they´re all weak". Even though, i really would like to play him because of his nice style. And i actually cannot imagine that the class is THAT useless after all...and it seems you´ve got a very similar opinion, don´t you?

[PatT]

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