GunnerGore Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Hello everyone! After using my level 50 Shadow for many many months, I decided to take the plunge and create an alternate character. I decided on creating a sentinel. However, I am pretty new to the sentinel class and have been working my way through (currently level 45) using many of the excellent posts in this forum....I have what I believe is the proper rotation (at least it seems to work for me and all keys are mapped to a razer nostromo). When playing in the PVP world, the highest damage total I have to date is 225K and the biggest hit is 2.2K...those seem low, but I'm not sure...also my DPS ranges between 187 - 225.....with that being said, is this normal for the sentinel until you get to the BattleMaster \ War Hero gear ? I have read many discussions on getting to the soft cap on strength, getting accuracy to at least 99.7, crit to 30 and mutliplier to 75..then cram everything into power...but at level 45, the mods don't seem to support those numbers easily...So, here are all the details, any advice is greatly appreciated!! Watchman tree Combat tree Focus tree 29 7 0 Force Leap Overload Saber Zealous Strike Cauterize Master Strike then others as needed My specs: (all unbuffed) Primary: strength = 1020 presence=360 aim=52 cunning=48 endurance = 856 willpower=108 expertise=17 Secondary: Main hand weapon = 225 - 338 Off hand weapon = 225 - 338 Melee: Damage Primary = 487-600 damage secondary= 149-223 bonus = 262.2 power = 199 accuracy = 96.94 crit = 23.07 (212 total) crit multiplier=61.11 % Surge= 60 Force: Bonus damage = 502.7 bonus healing = 196.5 accuracy = 106.94 crit = 24.04 crit mult = 61.11 activation speed = .65% Sorry for so much information, but not sure what everyone needs to help! Thanks! Gunther!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alyssis Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Well, the first thing you should do is get merciles slash...! Second, its all about gear.. my sentinel is lvl 45 as well, and running around with 1314 str, a good 29% crit, and 74,6% crit multiplier.. (surge) I did 370k dmg yesterday, and my biggest hit so far is a bit over 4k..! I pretty much own everything in warzones atm, and i havent even gotten dispatch yet either.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstergar Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 Drop 2 in the Combat tree and get Merciless Slash pronto. It's one if the biggest hits and you need it. Also, how much are you maximizing your Valorous Call and Zen? Zen is really the heart and soul of the Sentinel's burst damage. Most sents refer to the watchmen build as the "sustaining damage" build and combat build as the "burst build". I think that referal is relative to what you consider as "burst" damage. In my opinion, in either watchment or combat build, the true burst damage of a sent is coming from when you pop Zen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerGore Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 thanks for the ideas!! I'd be interested in how you got 1300+ strength...I have modable armor and every chance I get, I upgrade the armoring, hilts, mods, etc...for more strength and acc...power...crit etc...but there just arent that many that have mutliple stats... And the idea on merciless slash, I'll respec today and see how that goes...now with the Zen and others, I need a little more coaching in those areas....I try to pop Zen whenever I see it..but not sure I have got that down... So thanks for the input, but if you can elaborate on the Zen etc. that would help greatly as well as the mods to pick for sentinel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Yui- Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 (edited) The idea of Zen is pretty simple. It gives an auto-crit for 6 ticks of DoTs (meaning if you have Overload Saber and Cauterize at the same time, that's 2 ticks). To maximize this potential, you try to get 2-3 stacks of Overload Saber and Cauterize before popping Zen. At highly geared 50s PvP you can hit more than 2k per tick. It's really your only other burst other than merciless slash + master-strike. For mods, try to get rid of the mods that have "A" after its name. For example, get rid of Advanced Deft Mod 25A and put in Advanced Deft Mod 25. A rule of thumb is to choose the lower endurance mod if given two choices of equal level. Edited August 27, 2012 by -Yui- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerGore Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 thanks for the info on Zen and the gear guide help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerGore Posted August 28, 2012 Author Share Posted August 28, 2012 I re-speced last night and now have 31/5/0 and that gives me merciless slash...and just without making changes to my armor, I had hits of 2.8K and 3.2K!! wow...big difference...now, to learn how to use Zen and Valorous call properly!! Just curious, but why not the 25A, 26A, etc...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KruelhandJorb Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Rotations are always subject to the situation at hand. But throughout a wz you should get plenty of chances to rotate full on a target... do this... leap, when you're flying towards your target you have enough focus to pop Overload saber, when you land hit Zealous Strike (that is 1 stack of OS) then Cauterize (2 stacks) then Merc Slash (spec for it asap) then pop zen. That is the ideal rotation. IF Merc Slash is on cooldown, use regular slash or Masterstrike. Masterstrike should be (in watchman) saved for when you have little focus or that target is rooted in place. Use Zen whenever it's available. You want to talent to gain max Centering and use that Zen when you have 3 stacks of OS and Cauterize on a target. At lvl 45 you should be hitting around 3k crits on Merc slash on lower level targets or otherwise low mitigation targets like an Operative, with Inspiration or a WZ adrenal 4k is possible. Masterstrike will be your hardest hitting move (the last tick of it) but it's completely unreliable in Watchman. Dispatch should hit around the same as Merc Slash, but it's not an "anytime move" But yeah like everyone said, you need to respec and ditch the points you have in your 2nd tier of Combat for Merc Slash. Defensive roll is great but pick that up when you hit 50. Lvl 40 Sentinels should be able to out DPS anything, and your only real competition is a free casting Gunslinger or a commando that gets lucky with his AOE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Yui- Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Just curious, but why not the 25A, 26A, etc...? Sorry for the late reply, your post got mixed in with all the others : \ The reason is the ones with "A" affixed to the end give lower damage at the benefit of higher health. As a DPS class we want to output the highest amount of damage possible, so it would be better to use the ones without the A's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawginole Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Second, its all about gear.. /thread This job is entirely gear dependent. Your stats pale in comparison to someone in WH. Get ready to grind to WH. And then get ready to grind out essentially a second set of WH for full customization. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerGore Posted September 19, 2012 Author Share Posted September 19, 2012 Well, I have upgraded several times and I have noticed as my strength increases, so does damage. However, I have also noticed a different correlation. Healing. If you have 2 or 3 good healers, than even on my worst day, I can hit 250K. But, without good healers, like yesterday, we had none, nobody on our team could even hit 150K!! I wonder how many objectives, lower damage, and other issues happen because of no healing? Just a thought! Thanks for all the advice! I'm in the slow grind to War Hero gear....and customization! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstergar Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Well, I have upgraded several times and I have noticed as my strength increases, so does damage. However, I have also noticed a different correlation. Healing. If you have 2 or 3 good healers, than even on my worst day, I can hit 250K. But, without good healers, like yesterday, we had none, nobody on our team could even hit 150K!! I wonder how many objectives, lower damage, and other issues happen because of no healing? Just a thought! Thanks for all the advice! I'm in the slow grind to War Hero gear....and customization! It's a snowball effect really. If your team doesn't have a healer and the other team does, then you end up wiping in the initial node battle. What happens then is now your team gets split up and ends up streaming into the node instead of all at once which makes for an even quicker death. When you spend 45 seconds sitting in a spawn and running back to the node just to die in 10 seconds, you end up with some pretty crappy damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earthtoearl Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 This job is entirely gear dependent. Your stats pale in comparison to someone in WH. Get ready to grind to WH. And then get ready to grind out essentially a second set of WH for full customization. Good luck! Can you please explain "a second set of WH for full customization". I have full WH already. To improve on it would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawginole Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Can you please explain "a second set of WH for full customization". I have full WH already. To improve on it would be great. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=525404 Need to get the armoring out of the WH Vindicator set and then start min/maxing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerGore Posted October 2, 2012 Author Share Posted October 2, 2012 I am now working my way up to Valor 70....a very slow go with the way pubs are losing lately....however, I noticed that even with adding some of the new gear and my strength being nearly 1700 (with buffs), my acc is at 103, my crit is at 72....I can rarely break 200K. Of course, I believe that is in direct correlation to the fact that in most WZ's I'm in we are lucky to have a single healer so a lot of all our time is spent dying and coming back, thus losing valuable time.... I can repost my specs, but my rotation for watchman is the standard here: which is force leap>OS>Cauterize>MS>MS then Strike and others as fillers, rinse and repeat....I try to pop Zen when its available... any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WooliestWorm Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 If you've just hit 50 recently it's entirely possible valor is to blame. A lot of people you're fighting will be ahead of you in the grind to min/maxed WH and the valor alone from a base set of war hero really does make a big difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuntersPoint Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Don't you need to hit Zen before you go for your rotation? I mean isn't it better to get crits from all your dot attacks? the idea is to get the most out of your dots and heals not from master strike as it is not a dot attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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