Take Heart Young Padawan

[Morn]

You know what "bothers" me is that people judge a class at mid 20s or 30s. I am pretty sure that if you LIKE the class and invest some time on it by learning its abilities, pros and cons you will be better. Be patient and give it time

[DuriZap]

You know what "bothers" me is that people judge a class at mid 20s or 30s. I am pretty sure that if you LIKE the class and invest some time on it by learning its abilities, pros and cons you will be better. Be patient and give it time

 

It bothers me that some people are satisfied with improper midlevel balance, as long as the endgame is balanced.

 

It's an argument people have used over and over. And it's absolutely invalid in my oppinion. The classes should be balanced all the way, I don't think that's unfair to expect from any MMO.

 

Compared to my lvl 21 sentinel (which is on standby atm)l, I absolutely owned the warzone with my trooper when he was lvl 11 ! Hi-lvl sentinels were piece of cake to take on.

 

I expect a fix in some way. Either nerf all other classes or buff sentinels. Must be the latter, as the first is too much work, and can easily create all kinds of new problems.

Edited December 27, 2011 by DuriZap

[Arkerus]

I love the Sentinel so far. My combat build is very fun to play and I don't see any glaring issues. Combat is very fun to watch and learn. I like trying to keep the focus spenders ready when I need them and build when I can. Its a very "interesting" spec to play.

 

The only minor problem I see is that I am literally running out of room on my screen for abilities. I believe that in time some of the sentinel combat abilities could be streamlined for more effective gameplay.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Arkerus

[Echuu]

I love the Sentinel so far. My combat build is very fun to play and I don't see any glaring issues.

 

hi, you must be lvl 15?

[Venator-Falco]

So…

It is now a couple of levels later I am Now L45, and what have I learned.

By the Time I hit Balmorra I was definitely having to work using Kira, and then came along… Doc

 

Suddenly Taking out Elites was not a Stress. Suddenly That tiny little bit of downtime you sometimes experience (And it is tiny) just went away. Suddenly I had to remind myself that Call on the force was there I used it so rarely.

 

At this point I was also getting some help for the End of Chapter class quests, But then again so were two people I know on Guardian and one on a Sage, So this was not a Sentinel specific issue, it was just that the stakes were higher and the game was tougher. Yeah the missions would have been doable solo… But they would have taken more deaths than I was interested in at the time to sort out.

 

I can confirm that My DPS was greater than a DPS Specced Guardian, So the endless whinging about us not being able to put out damage is not entirely accurate. Matched up against a Gunslinger I was struggling to keep up with the DPS, so yeah maybe there is a little bit of balance to be sorted hear. But then again this could simply come down to fixing the off hand damage issue (Yep a bug but not a gamebreaker).

 

So Once again, I will say to all of those playing the Sentinel, it Is Viable, it can be a lot of fun, and yes it takes a little bit of learning to make the most of it.

 

As I have said before if you are using all of your cooldown buffs for all fights then it will be crap, but between Saber Ward, Rebuke, Pacify, and Zen, you can keep one Buff up for every encounter. Yes you will want ward plus something else for an Elite or even a strong, but That isn’t a major killer. If you play it right you can come out of fights with a strong at all but full health and chain up the next encounter with No downtime. Now where this starts to go wrong is when you have multiple Mobs above normal. The sustained Damage you are receiving is an issue, but you are not a tank, so this is not a surprise. Just remember that if one is a Droid you can just put it out of commission for a minute with Disable Droid

 

The Complaint about Resolute being on a 2 minute cooldown I will back, a lot of Sith mobs will force choke or the like more often than you can break it, and it is just pure frustrating.

[Venator-Falco]

I am going to add another Chapter to my Sentinel Story at this point, one that I’ll have to say surprised me.

 

Last night I really screwed up. I saw a pair of L44 mobs in a ruin that had a quest target and fired off my Force Leap, Blade Storm Pommel Strike to send the first one Crashing to the ground, Tab over to mob number two and see the Gold Halo around the portrait… (Didn’t expect that) Then noticed another mob behind it, so flicked over and started ripping into that thinking O.K. This is about to get a little tough. Swapped back to the Elite and started settling in for a solid Fight when I notice that Doc is getting chewed on. Mousover on his Advisory and Note it is also an Elite.

At this point I pop all my cooldowns, and Take Both Mobs down (Yep I lost poor doc in the Process)

 

But the upshot is I took down 2 Standard and 2 Elite Mobs unprepared with a Sentinel. (I will Grant they were one level down on me)

It can be done.

[Ninja_Jedl]

A very sensible post. However, I do disagree on one point.

 

I love playing Sentinel. Absolutely love it. It provides a higher challenge - it requires a sort of "finesse" to it. At first it seems daunting, but once you get the hang of it its like instinct. I don't really have any trouble in PvE. Nothing provides an absolute stalemate or anything like that, even if I screw up my rotation or its a boss. Usually I'll have to put it another try or two to finally get away alive.

 

I do believe we don't have enough CC in comparison to other classes though; and in that aspect we are underpowered. We just don't have the utilities we should, and I realize that this class is mainly a DPS. Despite this, it is extremely hard to climb that ladder in PvP and reach somewhere near the top, simply because we do infact lack one or two utilities that the other classes have access to and use to great effect.

 

In conclusion, there is nothing really wrong with the class in PvE (and I put forth a little doubt since I may later be proven wrong) as far as I can see. However, in PvP, the Sentinel does hold a disadvantage. A few tweaks and maybe one more skill would go a long way, and I think it would end this hot debate at last.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Ninja_Jedl

[Ninja_Jedl]

I am going to add another Chapter to my Sentinel Story at this point, one that I’ll have to say surprised me.

 

Last night I really screwed up. I saw a pair of L44 mobs in a ruin that had a quest target and fired off my Force Leap, Blade Storm Pommel Strike to send the first one Crashing to the ground, Tab over to mob number two and see the Gold Halo around the portrait… (Didn’t expect that) Then noticed another mob behind it, so flicked over and started ripping into that thinking O.K. This is about to get a little tough. Swapped back to the Elite and started settling in for a solid Fight when I notice that Doc is getting chewed on. Mousover on his Advisory and Note it is also an Elite.

At this point I pop all my cooldowns, and Take Both Mobs down (Yep I lost poor doc in the Process)

 

But the upshot is I took down 2 Standard and 2 Elite Mobs unprepared with a Sentinel. (I will Grant they were one level down on me)

It can be done.

 

The people that say this class is difficult are correct in some aspect, since it requires a significant amount of micromanagement. However, though it is a little daunting and some people who roll this class are completely unprepared for it and unfortunately begin complaining, if you put in the relatively short amount of time necessary to learn and really begin enjoying the class, its a blast. And the rotation begins to become instinct and things become easier - not to mention that small rush of adrenaline that comes when taking on and finally defeating that particularly tough mob.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the people who complain about the class being broken weren't prepared for it and most likely aren't going to put the time into the class. Those types of people deserve to be ignored and the fair-minded people don't need to prove anything to them.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Ninja_Jedl

[Ninja_Jedl]

The meain issue it seems is not that we are bad but is that EVERYONE else is much better at pve and pvp. The starange thing is we get the hardest quests as far as i can see to....

All we need is a stun tbh. A close range melee stun. Like everyone else gets.

A challenge? Fine most people dont want a face roll class

Generally cra at everything compared to others? Not so great.

 

Thats the only thing we need. Some sort of CC, or stun. Something to balance out the scales. Besides this, the class is perfectly fine.

[AstralProjection]

Thats the only thing we need. Some sort of CC, or stun. Something to balance out the scales. Besides this, the class is perfectly fine.

 

I think one knockback move (Force Push anyone?) or getting Force Pull again, and perhaps a slight buff to offhand damage would be the only things on my wish list.

 

That being said, I think we're pretty close to okay the way we are. I've played Combat all the way and the tree could use some love, but it's not completely broken, only feels that way at low levels. It's awesome higher on. We suck when teaming with certain companions if they're geared in green quality items, but even that can be overcome pretty easily, and playing with Doc is kind of EZ-Mode, honestly.

[EStarfall]

Sentinel is not hard, you just can't run into a group of mobs and faceroll the keyboard which is what some people expect.

[Ninja_Jedl]

Sentinel is a complex class, and some think because of that the class is hard. Edited January 5, 2012 by Ninja_Jedl

[WarlordGrego]

I whole-heartedly agree with OP.

 

I used to think that Sents were underpowered. I have since changed my view. The last boss I had trouble with was Angral (mainly because I am used to T3 tanking for me). I haven't lost to a gold mob since then. I think this is mainly because the combat tree (which I use) really comes into its own around level 30, but also because I just got better at playing the class. My MMO experience is limited to LOTRO (great game, btw), where I was also a DPS spec character (champion ftw). It, however, was a different sort of DPS. Mainly, it was an AoE DPS class, so I found myself becoming a bit overwhelmed when I tackled multiple mobs. You just have to learn to use prioritize targets (kill weaker mobs first, since they're shooting you while you're attacking the guys who are harder to kill). Usually, when I fight a boss with guards, those guards can be killed in one or two attacks. If you wait to kill them, they're going to be hammering you.

 

Also, use Doc. Seriously. While we're not tanks, we do have some decent tanking abilities (pacify, ward, rebuke)...so a tank character isn't really necessary. We're melee spec, so melee companions aren't needed either. What we lack is healing capability, which Doc provides. I just got my hoth companion. He's a cool dude. I have no intentions on ever using him in combat.

 

I had trouble with Valis, Paven, and Sand Demon....after that, I pretty much whooped all comers. I do decent in PvP, even though I kinda suck and am not an experienced PvPer (which, it seems, Empire all are )

 

Advice for people having trouble rolling a sent: Practice. You will get better, and your class becomes more effective in mid-game. You have to know your skills, and their applications in combat. I've fought elite mobs who never even got a hit in on me because of effective CD rotations. Also, Hybrid speccing doesn't take full advantage of each skill tree. Whatever you spec, remember that you get more effective the deeper you go into the tree.