[Guide] Sentinel PvP

[Siokai]

Gratz on Sticky!

[Mallyus]

If you want to troll each other and whine who is right about Guardians then go make another post. If you actually check the original post again (which you're probably too scared to do since your looking out for the "other guys" retort you will realise that this is a SENTINEL PVP guide.

 

Can we stick to the original topic and work from there please?

 

Now...

 

Regarding Force Fade, the jury is still out for me as I rarely found the use for it when pvping with my guild. However, I did indeed find it incredibly handy when running solo in warzones. So all in all I guess its the usual comment in that it depends how you prefer to play.

 

I myself am still on a learning curve in respect of maximising damage, but the rotations originally posted are indeed a good call for those new to the class. With practise you will be able to utilise it while also prioritising other required tasks of a sentinel's role in pvp.

 

Good post!

 

Some investigation into Focus would indeed be appreciated. Although I would find it hard to see that it would "out do" watchman spec.

[Anelyn]

Yeah, the ShiiCho talent for -cooldown seems to be incorrect on the tooltip. Seems to be the only talent that says "FORCE ABILITIES", when it really means only uh, Blade Storm and the Focus31 (Exhaustion?).

 

Everything else appears to work as expected, although the 6% crit to force powers is difficult to test.

 

Edit: I suspect they found out that it reduced the cooldown on Force Sweep and re-coded it to highlight specific abilities, but then forgot that Overcharge Saber was also a force power. That or they intentionally left it out. Dunno why though since that would be an awkward Focus build.

 

It affects blade storm, force sweep, Force stasis, Force exhaustion.

[Dekadez]

I'm trying to like PvP on my Watchman Sentinel, but I just can't. It feels like such a massive cluster**** where tunnelvision is encouraged that there's hardly any observable effect as to what I'm doing.

 

Aside from that I feel the melee combat just does not flow properly, maybe due to lack of auto attack. I just don't feel like I'm making any impression.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Dekadez

[Rankith]

I'm trying to like PvP on my Watchman Sentinel, but I just can't. It feels like such a massive cluster**** where tunnelvision is encouraged that there's hardly any observable effect as to what I'm doing.

 

Aside from that I feel the melee combat just does not flow properly, maybe due to lack of auto attack. I just don't feel like I'm making any impression.

 

Couple things here.

 

First, yes Watchman "encourages" tunnel vision. This is because it really is quite hard to do it well and demands alot of attention. Do your best to practice "leaning back" and not staring at your character so intensly, be looking elswhere as much as possible even if it screws up your damage a little bit to help break you of that habit, then focus back in on smoothing out your rotation and timings.

 

Watchman also seems like you don't do much damage as you dont see any big numbers at all. This is actually just really hard to overcome, I struggled with it for a while before I detached myself from the numbers and was just satisfied with my opponent dropping . You could try speccing out of Watchman for a bit and in another spec you will notice your damage more, but then you will also notice you have a much harder time bringing peoples health down consistently. Rest assured, watchman does hurt (unless your doing it quite wrong, which is another issue entirely).

 

And finally, melee combat currently flows quite suckily depending on how much that ability delay/not firing bug hits you.

[Spideyknight]

@exmode

 

http://www.swtor.com/fr/community/showthread.php?t=103780

 

That is the thread that contains the build I referenced. It is not a hybrid, it is a focus build that ignores all shi-cho talents. This is how I know you didn't read it. You essentially setup a strawman and just started raging at it. Which is fine, there's no reason to continue this discussion anyway. That build was trying to balance defense with offense but shield generators appearently are of limited use in pvp so 100% offense is the way to go.

 

A day late and a dollar short of relevancy, my apologies. Enjoy.

[studymuffin]

i have another question about damage dealing. When your off your rotation (when theyre on cd) what moves do you use? Like do you use blade storm, slash, master strike?

[Rankith]

i have another question about damage dealing. When your off your rotation (when theyre on cd) what moves do you use? Like do you use blade storm, slash, master strike?

 

Slash is the filler focus spender when you have nothing else better to spend it on. Master strike as Watchman is decent, but situational. Blade Storm will basically never be used except in a rare situation where they are at range and you have plenty of focus and nothing better to do.

 

That said, if all my good stuff is on CD, unless I need to burn my target right then I'm going to be Striking to build up focus for when all that comes off CD. In situations where I need more damage, or have plenty focus, I will either be Slashing or using Master Strike. Just depends on the situation.

[EasymodeX]

That is the thread that contains the build I referenced. It is not a hybrid, it is a focus build that ignores all shi-cho talents. This is how I know you didn't read it. You essentially setup a strawman and just started raging at it.

 

1. Originally, you referenced a Focus spec. Not a hybrid spec. You still haven't posted a link to the spec. Yet, none of that is relevant because ...

 

2. You still haven't admitted that you were incorrect when you claimed that taunt required Soresu. This fact has zero relation to the choice of Soresu or Shii Cho.

 

3. Not using ShiiCho makes a 3% difference in damage. You are still significantly incorrect on your original damage estimates.

 

4. The other arguments had no relevance to Soresu vs. Shii Cho. You can farm medals using either a Focus spec or a hybrid spec, since your spec does not stop you from swapping to Soresu. Etc.

 

 

So, grats on continuously throwing up random "straw mans" while the original points still stand.

[firesprite_ea]

As many seem to be favouring Watchman spec I do hope ppl will be able to explain a bit this.

 

Merciless zeal gives you 2% on crits. Then Zen gives you 100% crtit and 1% heal per tick. Now my questions are:

1) do healing dots stack? (1+2) or do they overlap? One negates the other?

2) With Zen active you have 100% dot heal. Yet last I heard cauterize and overload sabre function separately (place 2 independent dots). Can someone pls confirm this? If these stacks are separate (and in case healing from crits does stack) do you get 1%+2%+2% to a total of 5% of heals per tick (so that is 6 seconds - 30% of your hp)

3) Some ppl comment that heals from watchman crits are not affected by pvp debuff. Others say they are. Anyone can actually give some final info on this?

4) I am currently combat specced and I still do not understand the situation with root on master strike. Seems like it just does not root the target 50% of time. In most cases they just run away

 

 

P.S. Oh and thank you for a very nice explanation on quite a lot of things.

[Apocalypse-]

As many seem to be favouring Watchman spec I do hope ppl will be able to explain a bit this.

 

Merciless zeal gives you 2% on crits. Then Zen gives you 100% crtit and 1% heal per tick. Now my questions are:

1) do healing dots stack? (1+2) or do they overlap? One negates the other?

They tick individually (1% and 2%), but they do tick simultaneously.

 

2) With Zen active you have 100% dot heal. Yet last I heard cauterize and overload sabre function separately (place 2 independent dots). Can someone pls confirm this? If these stacks are separate (and in case healing from crits does stack) do you get 1%+2%+2% to a total of 5% of heals per tick (so that is 6 seconds - 30% of your hp)

Close, but no. You only get 6 dot ticks total, if both Cauterize and Overload Saber are up, you get 3 auto-crits on each, 6x 3% for 18% of your health in ~3 seconds. Zen used to be 2% to the group, so it'd be 24% in 3 seconds, but I do not expect them to un-nerf that anytime remotely soon.

 

3) Some ppl comment that heals from watchman crits are not affected by pvp debuff. Others say they are. Anyone can actually give some final info on this?

I believe they are, though expertise counters this and nets you only -20% healing with a full set of Champion gear.

 

4) I am currently combat specced and I still do not understand the situation with root on master strike. Seems like it just does not root the target 50% of time. In most cases they just run away

Extremely buggy skill is extremely buggy. That's basically the only explanation on this.

[Rankith]

As many seem to be favouring Watchman spec I do hope ppl will be able to explain a bit this.

 

Merciless zeal gives you 2% on crits. Then Zen gives you 100% crtit and 1% heal per tick. Now my questions are:

1) do healing dots stack? (1+2) or do they overlap? One negates the other?

2) With Zen active you have 100% dot heal. Yet last I heard cauterize and overload sabre function separately (place 2 independent dots). Can someone pls confirm this? If these stacks are separate (and in case healing from crits does stack) do you get 1%+2%+2% to a total of 5% of heals per tick (so that is 6 seconds - 30% of your hp)

3) Some ppl comment that heals from watchman crits are not affected by pvp debuff. Others say they are. Anyone can actually give some final info on this?

4) I am currently combat specced and I still do not understand the situation with root on master strike. Seems like it just does not root the target 50% of time. In most cases they just run away

 

 

P.S. Oh and thank you for a very nice explanation on quite a lot of things.

 

1) Yes they stack (both work), you will get an 18% heal when you pop Zen

2)Seems like you slightly misunderstand Zen. Zen makes your next 6 dots crit and heal your entire party for 1%. So if you have both OS and Cauterize on a target, the next 6 dot ticks will crit and heal your party in addition to yourself. So it could be 2 OS ticks and 4 cauterize, 6 cauterize, etc.

3) Think so, on list to test/confirm im just lazy and playing too much to do testing haha.

4) At first, my guide said it was bugged, I later tested and it seemed fine. However, it does still appear to be buggy and sometimes simply not apply the root regardless of resolve etc.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Rankith

[firesprite_ea]

Heya!

Thank you for the explanation!

Hmm... if heals are getting this pvp i dont really understand how ppl get this insane healing in warzones (seen some SS with 450-500k dmg and 100k+ heal). This does look very nice, so even though I enjoy playing combat i will try watchman to see how plausible this is. But then again, I do not want to pvp that much untill patch 1.1 is out and lvl 50 are removed from warzones into the special braket.

 

Oh and one more thing. We usually play in group: my wife (shadow), me (sentinel) and my friend (sage). So we always get a dedicated healer. Well as "always" as can be in the somewhat hectic tempo of of the pvp battles. With this in mind, I find the idea of using combat for pvp somewhat more attractive. After all, a set of precision slash + blade rush+blade storm+ blade rush+blade rush usually takes out huge chunks of enemy's HP. And with ZEN the cost for BR is basically 1 focus so after PS you can land ant 4 of them for a lot of dmg and finish off with BS.

[Apocalypse-]

Heya!

Thank you for the explanation!

Hmm... if heals are getting this pvp i dont really understand how ppl get this insane healing in warzones (seen some SS with 450-500k dmg and 100k+ heal). This does look very nice, so even though I enjoy playing combat i will try watchman to see how plausible this is. But then again, I do not want to pvp that much untill patch 1.1 is out and lvl 50 are removed from warzones into the special braket.

You mean like http://s856.photobucket.com/albums/ab129/apocalypse32100/?action=view&current=swtor_2012_01_04_00_10_20_013.jpg ?

Look at my alt+4 (top left), it's about 40% Zen/Dot crits and about 60% Rakata Medpac.

 

Oh and one more thing. We usually play in group: my wife (shadow), me (sentinel) and my friend (sage). So we always get a dedicated healer. Well as "always" as can be in the somewhat hectic tempo of of the pvp battles. With this in mind, I find the idea of using combat for pvp somewhat more attractive. After all, a set of precision slash + blade rush+blade storm+ blade rush+blade rush usually takes out huge chunks of enemy's HP. And with ZEN the cost for BR is basically 1 focus so after PS you can land ant 4 of them for a lot of dmg and finish off with BS.

Level with watchman for a bit, learn the rotation (it is very far from straightforward), and you'll quickly find that the kind of burst that PS/Zen Combat combo does is the standard fare for Watchman.

[firesprite_ea]

O_o lol. I can hardly fathom how you can get THIS much dmg. Insane. Though as I am lvl 42 atm (and I do NOT plan to level up more till 1.1 ) i do not have access to rakata (though my wife crafts me some nice lvl 40 medpacks) the amount of dmg alone (even if I ignore heals) is simply overboard.

 

Ok, so here is then another question or two:

1) OS places burns on your next three melee attacks. Cyclone slash is a melee strike to up to 5 targets. Soooo.... When OS + CS do you burn 3/5 targets or is it counted as 1 attack (that sticks burn to 5 though).

 

2) Do you place all your dots on target as fast as you can? (i mean jump, OS in flight and then 3 melee + cauterise as fast as you can). Or, as some suggest (though it seems possible for pve only), you try to delay it (and extend it) by mixing some force attacks in between melee ones?

[Apocalypse-]

O_o lol. I can hardly fathom how you can get THIS much dmg. Insane. Though as I am lvl 42 atm (and I do NOT plan to level up more till 1.1 ) i do not have access to rakata (though my wife crafts me some nice lvl 40 medpacks) the amount of dmg alone (even if I ignore heals) is simply overboard.

That wasn't even that spectacular of a match, that was just the highest healing I had of the few screenshots I already uploaded. I've done over 500k well over 10 times, biggest issue with it is that it requires a full-length voidstar with neither side finishing early.

 

Ok, so here is then another question or two:

1) OS places burns on your next three melee attacks. Cyclone slash is a melee strike to up to 5 targets. Soooo.... When OS + CS do you burn 3/5 targets or is it counted as 1 attack (that sticks burn to 5 though).

It applies it to the first target it hits, and it sweeps left to right. OS can only apply once every 1.5 seconds.

 

2) Do you place all your dots on target as fast as you can? (i mean jump, OS in flight and then 3 melee + cauterise as fast as you can). Or, as some suggest (though it seems possible for pve only), you try to delay it (and extend it) by mixing some force attacks in between melee ones?

There was a debate on this only a couple days ago. Letting OS drop off is more damage because we don't have powerful force attacks on short enough cooldowns to not lose raw damage output from the attacks we would do otherwise. Also, the loss of the final tick of Overload Saber being simply refreshed is a huge hit (700-1600 at 50 w/ gear) that we don't let happen. Without combat logs, best bet is to let it clear off the target though throw a force attack in between raising it from 2 to 3 stacks.

[Sprgmr]

Could you explain that last segment a bit more?

I'm currently a 50 Watchman, and find I am doing lackluster in WZs. Part of this is due to gear and experience, but I also haven't quite figured out the best way to maximize my damage. I know i need to keep OS on someone for as long as possible, but i have so few options that aren't melee.

 

Since Sentinels don't have a prescribed rotation, what are your priorities in PvP? Also, whats a typical opening?

 

 

Also, on an unrelated note, what's everyone's thoughts on Combat? The more I look at it, the more it seems like the way to go for PvP. The 100% ArPen and the guaranteed crit on BS would allow for major damage, and gives us an option to really abuse the current Surge stacking.

[Rankith]

Could you explain that last segment a bit more?

I'm currently a 50 Watchman, and find I am doing lackluster in WZs. Part of this is due to gear and experience, but I also haven't quite figured out the best way to maximize my damage. I know i need to keep OS on someone for as long as possible, but i have so few options that aren't melee.

 

I wouldn't worry about keeping OS on someone. When you use OS just get its 3 stacks up on your target.

 

Since Sentinels don't have a prescribed rotation, what are your priorities in PvP? Also, whats a typical opening?

 

From a dps standpoint its basically just OS->Cauterize->Merc Slash. A typical starting rotation is something like: ZS(6)->OS(3)->Leg Slash(1)->Strike(3)->Cauterize(1). Obviously if you force leap this changes.

 

Also, on an unrelated note, what's everyone's thoughts on Combat? The more I look at it, the more it seems like the way to go for PvP. The 100% ArPen and the guaranteed crit on BS would allow for major damage, and gives us an option to really abuse the current Surge stacking.

I really think its inferior to Focus. If you want burst, just go focus, its more, and its aoe. If however you are looking for a little more utility I could see Combat as decent with 2 extra immobilize.

[Sprgmr]

I just don't feel like I'm doing any damage as watchman. I could be all me and my gear. But I look at the the and how it plays, and know that the longer a fight goes, the better my chances should be, but because of the pace of PvP, it juts doesn't seem to work. I think this is partly because as Watchman, I don't have enough useful attacks that don't apply OS, so it goes up, then burns down fast. And considering that is my major source of consistent damage...

 

I feel that if I had more options so I could keep OS up longer, without sacrificing damage, It might be a different story.

[Rankith]

I just don't feel like I'm doing any damage as watchman. I could be all me and my gear. But I look at the the and how it plays, and know that the longer a fight goes, the better my chances should be, but because of the pace of PvP, it juts doesn't seem to work. I think this is partly because as Watchman, I don't have enough useful attacks that don't apply OS, so it goes up, then burns down fast. And considering that is my major source of consistent damage...

 

I feel that if I had more options so I could keep OS up longer, without sacrificing damage, It might be a different story.

 

Again dont worry about OS staying up longer, it does its job.

 

Feeling like you don't do any damage as watchman is pretty common, even if you are doing a good job. This is a terrible thing to base it on, but what damage are you typically ending up with in a normal length WZ?

 

Its hard to notice your damage sometimes since it comes consistently and doesn't have big numbers .

[RistarSonata]

This guide has made a great difference in my understanding of the sentinel class. I'm still trying to get use to proper movement and remember where my keys are (console gamer), but this guide gave me a lot to work with and I'm seeing a big difference. Thanks a lot for taking the time to make this.

[Erudain]

Question for all since I haven't found it anywhere.

 

Are there sent ligthsabers for centurion/champion tokens?

 

I'm at my job so I can't check it in game now, but if I my memory works fine, all those ligthsabers/offhand saber had way more endurance than strength.

I remember cause my actual orange saber has +86str and neither the centurion or champion sabers seemed to have more str than that.

 

They do have more base dmg tough

[Surimaya]

Why you don´t have talent in Inflammation... In Watchmen build?

[Rankith]

Question for all since I haven't found it anywhere.

 

Are there sent ligthsabers for centurion/champion tokens?

 

I'm at my job so I can't check it in game now, but if I my memory works fine, all those ligthsabers/offhand saber had way more endurance than strength.

I remember cause my actual orange saber has +86str and neither the centurion or champion sabers seemed to have more str than that.

 

They do have more base dmg tough

 

AFAIK they just have more endurance and thats how it is.

 

Why you don´t have talent in Inflammation... In Watchmen build?

 

Inflammation is not good (imo). The slow is less then several other slows in the game and at 6 seconds its very short. If you don't apply your other slow (leg slash), it will go away after those 6 seconds and you will be getting kited. Even before then, the slow is less then other slows in the game, so if you are also slowed your opponent will gain distance on you quite often. I had it at first, but I found myself regretting not using leg slash in almost every case, so I ditched it and just use leg slash.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Rankith

[Apocalypse-]

Why you don´t have talent in Inflammation... In Watchmen build?

 

It's actually not as helpful as you'd think it would be. This is mostly because 3/4 people don't know how to kite, so once the 50 bracket is in it'll likely (hopefully?) have notably more value.