How do the advanced classes play?

[Sarielle]

I searched and found a lot of threads asking which does more DPS, guardian or sentinel, but I'm not especially interested in that (though I have no desire to tank). I'm loving my merc healer but wanted to try a Jedi for the occasional change of pace.

 

So, how do they "play"? Does one do more DoT damage, reflective damage, AoE? Does one have better control options? Better mobility? And finally, does either have a skill that just makes you feel plain awesome while you're playing?

 

DPS role isn't my preference for grouping, so this is mostly for just playing through the story for me. I'd appreciate any insight other than, "Well do you want 1 lightsaber or 2?"

[Ryat]

The best DOT damage is Sentinel Watchman. It also has the best survivablilty with the ability for its DOTs to self heal you when they cirt plus you can pop Zen and do a group heal in FPs/OPs.

[Sarielle]

Oooh, group heal huh? Spot healing definitely appeals to the main healer in me. Thanks for posting! That's likely what I'll go with unless someone posts something else very compelling.

[Elyxin]

the group heal isn't anything to shake a stick at. at high levels of runs, its almost virtuatlly unnoticeable. it's there, and for solo work and smaller groups its a nice thing to have, but don't use it as a determiner of what class you play. I run as a healer on 2 of my characters, and I certainly enjoy having the sentinels healing ability, but I also don't miss it hugely when it's not there. It's like many other special abilities...nice when its there, but not game breaking when it's not. Her's a brief generalization of the two AC's:

 

Sentinel:

dual wield, skills are fast and flashy. more sporadic (and controllable) mitigation then the guard. lots of DoT damage 9Vigilance guard fits into this category now too though). ONLY does DPS.

 

Guard:

One saber, hard and heavy hitting skills (less flashy, but more powerful looking). This class can also TANK, and has more overall mitigation then the sentinel, but its mostly passive.

 

thats pretty much about it man. individual rotations and skills are different, but overall they both have procs to watch out for, bleed damage to keep track of, and special abilities that benefit the group. As an example, the guard doesn't have a heal that hits the group, but they do have the ability to taunt mobs off other players, push them around allot (even off bridges and such), and they can even off-tank in DPS form if needed in emergencies. so both classes have a ton of versatility, it really depends on which playstyle you like the most.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Elyxin

[Sarielle]

Thanks for adding a bit more depth! I haven't leveled to the point of choosing yet, so it's appreciated. Flashy sounds good, though, haha. I don't usually play DoT-heavy classes either. While I'm stepping out of my comfort zone already, I might as well.

 

EDIT: I've read a few places that Watchman spec/rotation is pretty complicated ... would you say that's true? I'm all about healing at maximum efficiency but once I get to DPS, I find it pretty hard to care if things get too complicated (which is why I don't usually play DPS classes, lol). I don't intend to run hardmode anything as a DPS, but I probably will do flashpoints to see the story from Republic side so I'd prefer not to suck, in the interests of not dragging the group down.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Sarielle

[Mattmonkey]

Guardian self heal (focus defence) heals for 30% of total health. if you want you can spec into another that heals for 10% more. stop spreading misinformation about sentinals Edited April 22, 2013 by Mattmonkey

[Mattmonkey]

i found watchman pritty easy to pick up - not sure where that idea has come from. but vigilance as it is in 2.0 and watchman are ruffly same difficuilty

[Sarielle]

i found watchman pritty easy to pick up - not sure where that idea has come from. but vigilance as it is in 2.0 and watchman are ruffly same difficuilty

 

OK, thank you. Mostly got that impression from reading the recent changes threads. Good to know

[Elyxin]

Guardian self heal (focus defence) heals for 30% of total health. if you want you can spec into another that heals for 10% more. stop spreading misinformation about sentinals

 

Not sure how your directing that accusation at, it seems very out of place in this thread as no one indicated that the guard has no self heals. If you read my statement, I specifically say the guard has no group heal, which is what the initial comment in support of sentiniels was. Plz read and understand what people are saying before you accuse them of misleading others. The Guard has no group heal, though we do have a group wide "mini-bubble" as a new talent in the defense tree that is totally awesome. but it still is not a group heal.

 

and to be completely accurate, Focus defense isn't a regular heal. you can't just trigger it and get 30" of your health back. you have to get HIT, and every time you are HIT you gain back a small amount of health. Which really puts it as a mitigation skill, not as a "heal". if you trigger it at the end of a fight, you will get zero health back (and waste 4 focus).

 

So it's actually a bit misleading to say that you can heal yourself for 30% of your total health. It's up TO 30%, and your still getting hit, taking damage, etc. Its almost better for it's Damage reduction ability then anything else (which is really only beneficial when talented in the Vigilance tree). Oh yeah, did we mention the threat dump? great if your DPS, horribad if your trying to hold threat on something. whereas most heals actually increase threat.

 

Not to mention that fact that it costs you 4 focus up front, and one more focus for each hit you take that returns 3% of your health So in reality, it's much safer to say that you can mitigate up to 30% of your health through healing when hit. at the cost of 5+ focus, or something along those lines.

 

Overall the Sentinel ability is far better...but our passive mitigations balance that out really. I just wanted to make sure that the critical details here weren't lost. Focused defense isn't a healing ability. it's a high cost damage reduction ability that uses both passive DR and reactive healing for the mitigation, at a cost of 3/4 or more of your focus bar.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Elyxin

[grallmate]

Not sure how your directing that accusation at, it seems very out of place in this thread as no one indicated that the guard has no self heals. If you read my statement, I specifically say the guard has no group heal, which is what the initial comment in support of sentiniels was. Plz read and understand what people are saying before you accuse them of misleading others. The Guard has no group heal, though we do have a group wide "mini-bubble" as a new talent in the defense tree that is totally awesome. but it still is not a group heal.

 

and to be completely accurate, Focus defense isn't a regular heal. you can't just trigger it and get 30" of your health back. you have to get HIT, and every time you are HIT you gain back a small amount of health. Which really puts it as a mitigation skill, not as a "heal". if you trigger it at the end of a fight, you will get zero health back (and waste 4 focus).

 

So it's actually a bit misleading to say that you can heal yourself for 30% of your total health. It's up TO 30%, and your still getting hit, taking damage, etc. Its almost better for it's Damage reduction ability then anything else (which is really only beneficial when talented in the Vigilance tree). Oh yeah, did we mention the threat dump? great if your DPS, horribad if your trying to hold threat on something. whereas most heals actually increase threat.

 

Not to mention that fact that it costs you 4 focus up front, and one more focus for each hit you take that returns 3% of your health So in reality, it's much safer to say that you can mitigate up to 30% of your health through healing when hit. at the cost of 5+ focus, or something along those lines.

 

Overall the Sentinel ability is far better...but our passive mitigations balance that out really. I just wanted to make sure that the critical details here weren't lost. Focused defense isn't a healing ability. it's a high cost damage reduction ability that uses both passive DR and reactive healing for the mitigation, at a cost of 3/4 or more of your focus bar.

 

In PvE, Focused Defense is purely a threat drop. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that it continues to drop threat, provides a small boost to DR in Vig and heals for a small amount when hit make it a slightly better threat drop, but when you have to pay to drop threat that's what you expect.

 

Heavy vs Medium armour isn't relevant in PvE as a DPS. You're either taking CD amenable damage or very low constant raid wide damage (or derping it up and getting cleaved). On the CD amenable front, the Sentinel wins but if a tank goes down, the Guardian can swap to Soresu, taunt and pop Saber Ward to buy time for the tank to be rezed. If the Sentinel is top of the aggro table they have the CDs to survive until the tank is up but that requires them to be the top of the threat table.

 

Play style wise, I've only played the Combat and Focus trees for Sentinel and I've tried all 3 for Guardian but I mainly tank on my Guard. Focus Sentinel feels clunky while the Focus Guardian feels a lot smoother, I chalk this up in large part to the difference in Singularity stacks generated by Zen vs. Combat Focus. Guardian also starts combat with more Focus to burn and feels like it generates it more easily. I also find the Guardian trees to compliment each other better than the Sentinel ones do.

 

Combat Sentinel is all about building up Focus and then dumping it in burst windows. Its a very fun, direct damage play style but it does take some getting used to and feels pretty clunky until you get into the high 30s. It's also quite easy to stuff up Focus management and doesn't have a "reset" button when you do, which is one of the things I really like about Guardians: Combat Focus.

 

Vigilance is pretty cool. Lots of good damage abilities with DoTs attached and plenty of ability resetting procs. Its fun and if you're a little trigger happy on your leaps, Unremitting is awesome.

 

If you want to tank, Guardian is your only option and its a LOT of fun since 2.0 but if you want to DPS then it's kinda moot.