How do I get better?

[Vodrin]

First off I applaud the OP for making this thread. Good form sir.

 

Warning: Wall of text to follow.

 

A few things to add to what others have posted from a guy that's been PvPing in MMO's since Ultima Online.

 

For situational awareness make sure you are scrolling out with your camera, and consider increasing the max zoom distance as was said previously in the thread. Then go into a PvE zone and practice circling mobs while tracking them with the camera as you fight. You might pull a few more than you can handle running around like that, but it's fine. The idea is to get used to tracking you target even when you cannot face them (if you are CC'd etc.).

 

Also as stated previously, make sure you are augmenting every piece of gear you can. For shells you are going to replace (like your non- matrix cube relic, your earpiece, and implants) use MK-7 or MK-8 augments to save resources, but use orange shells as much as possible to allow you to get MK-9 augments in prior to getting obroan gear.

 

As for advice on ability usage for a combat sentinel. First off you can use meditation to stack centering prior to a game to allow a double proc to open. Use transcendence to allow you to get to nodes/huttball quickly at the start, then use valorous call to pop inspiration once the fighting starts. Unless there is a compelling reason to rush in after a respawn. I will stack centering again to have trans or zen on call when I initiate fighting again. Don't do this unless you are very aware of the node situation though. There is nothing worse than losing a node in alderan because you paused to stack centering.

 

Remember also that zen, as average a buff as it is, is still your ticket to your max burst damage. And zen also feeds off of centering stacks. Your should use it anytime you have 30 centering and do not need trans or inspiration. Zen also allows you to reliably fit master strike inside of a precision slash window. My best advice for doing good damage is to try to tailor your attacks to maximize your ability to survive. You can't do damage while dead. Be aware of where enemies are and if they are likely to try to turn on you. You need to develop a sixth sense of when to disengage in order to survive. Pulling back behind friendlies for a few seconds to heal up and go back in is entirely acceptable.

 

As an additional thought to that, force cammo is amazing for any combat sent that takes the talent that makes it clear snares and roots. It is literally your best defensive cooldown and has so many uses I cannot name them all. Use it liberally.

 

Remember that you are one of the most effective tank killers in the game because your burst is not mitigated by armor. Identify the tank that is guarding a healer and kill it while the team is focusing his healer.

 

Know how hand of justice works, how opportune attack works, and what the buffs look like. You need to be able to tell when these buffs come online without losing your target. Making your buffs larger helps with this. With HoJ you have two precision slash windows per attack run, and the second will proc randomly off of your ataru strikes. Use blade rush during the first precision slash window. This will do decent damage while maxing the chance of procing OA and HoJ.

 

If OA is up use make sure you get a bladestorm off during the window, and never use bladestorm without OA (there are a few exceptions to this, but it is near universal so I will leave it there for the sake of simplicity). You are hoping to get an OA buffed bladestorm off during a precision slash window, but don't delay bladestorm past OA to get a PS window.

 

I usually use bladerush during my first PS window as I will usually get CC'd by decent players the instant they see the PS animation. What I am looking to do is hit them with a Zen and PS buffed Master Strike. To land it I need to get my target to burn a hard CC first, or watch for someone who is not paying attention. I also do not spec the root on master strike so using leg slash before PS is necessary to land all three hits on MS. Your big hit combos are PS>BR>BS>Dispatch with zen, or PS>BS>Dispatch without zen, or the MS combo above. With my current gear 12K to 16 K damage is possible with these combos assuming lucky crits, and 10K is a near guarantee. Best thing is those damage numbers do not change with better armor. All targets are equally squishy during that burst cycle.

 

I hope this information is helpful, and I wish more republic players with PvP interest had your attitude. Also, try to find some active PvPers on your server and see if you can group with them a time or two. It's one of the best ways to find a group you would not mind joining, and one of the best ways to get pointers.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Vodrin

[Jadescythe]

Thanks for this - I'll keep those in mind. I never really thought of the speed boost being transcendence. Now that I'm re-reading it on swtor.wikia.com, it totally makes sense why that guy got mad at me for not using it at the start of the match. I kept thinking; this only lasts for a short while, shouldn't I save it? Obviously I was wrong on that.

 

 

 

Yeah - I definitely suspected this. I played three sentinels in the watchman spec and got to a point where I was very comfortable in PvE but it was painfully obvious how much that comfort level did not translate in PvP. Heck, I still find myself running circles around mobs in PvE, just out of habit. I'll keep that in mind, though.

 

 

 

This reminds me of another question. I do regularly scroll out as much as I can, but I would swear I've seen some youtube videos where the guy seems to be further zoomed out than that. Is there some other setting I might not be noticing, other than the mouse wheel down (or, in my case, [ctrl]+wheel down)?

 

 

 

I was afraid of that, then. The suckage is all me But yeah; got the guild thing down, although it's a question of trying to get others to join my guild (see the Fight Club thread in my sig). Had an idea for helping people get better at PvP, which turned into, "great idea, why don't you form a guild?" Um... But yeah; our focus is all about the practicing and helping noobs get better. The not-so-secret secret of that is I'm the one I wanted to help the most with that.

 

You can adjust the distance from your character that the camera can zoom out to in your preferences, but I don't remember the exact drill down. The default max range isn't even close to the possible max range.

 

As for guilds, I would strongly discourage creating a new guild. You may be a great player someday, but you don't have a strong grasp on game mechanics at the moment and having a strong guild around you can help you grow. The most competitive guilds don't recruit, but those aren't necessarily the best guilds for you right now anyway. Try some of the guilds on POT5 that have a large population and that you see in PvP quite frequently. They may not have the BEST players, but there isn't anything the #1 ranked player can teach you as someone unfamiliar with PvP that the #100 ranked player can't teach you.

 

Feel free to find me on any of the toons in my sig or, if you joined, find me on the POT5 FB group. I'm happy to help you out, although Combat/Carnage definitely is not my forte.

[Seireeni]

I have, but it never seems like enough. I'm thinking maybe there's some setting I'm missing. Is the mouse wheel down button the only option?

 

Have you changed the max camera distance from preferences? It's under "controls".

[Uber_the_Goober]

So I'm reading this to mean I should be a bit more discriminating and not CC an enemy just because it'll let me kill him (or kill him faster), but save them for when I need to kill him to help cap a node?

 

Yes. CC is a utility ability. It's better to CC someone who is running towards a node that your ally is capping, than it is to try to kill that enemy. He'll just run past you and interrupt the cap - no nodes = lost warzone. If you CC him, or root him, that's more useful to the overall objective of the warzone.

 

Good to know. Noob question; what is a "hard stun?" I'm assuming there's another type of stun as well ("soft stun?"); what is that?

Hard Stun (AKA Stun) = Complete immobilization. Usually 4 seconds in length, though some classes have other skills of different lengths. Can't move, attack, or do anything until it wears off or you break it with your cc breaker. Never do this, unless you are resolve capped and have a full white bar of resolve. Then BREAK THAT BABY AND PROCEED TO OWN WITH IMPUNITY!

 

Mezz (AKA Soft Stun) = Complete immobilization. Usually 6 or 8 seconds in length. Breaks on damage. Can't do anything until it breaks, wears off, or you hit your CC breaker. Only do this if someone put one on you and is trying to cap a node while you're mezzed. Seriously, don't break it even if you're resolve capped. Just let someone's damage break it, or wait it out. You'll still have the full 12 seconds of immunity from resolve whitebar even if you wait it out.

 

Root = Target can't move, but can still use abilities. DO NOT EVER USE YOUR STUN-BREAK ABILITY TO REMOVE THIS EFFECT

 

Slow = Target has decreased movement speed, and can still use abilities. DO NOT EVER USE YOUR STUN-BREAK ABILITY TO REMOVE THIS EFFECT

 

I thought focus target was what was used when four DPS's all hit the same guy at the same time? Is that not the same? Because whatever that is, it definitely seems to work really well.

"Focus Target" is a UI Feature, pre-bound to Alt+F, that will place your target as a special "Focus Target" portrait on your screen. No matter who or what else you target, that person's character pane will remain visible to you. Helpful for a healer keeping an eye on one person in particular. You will need to enable this in the UI Editor. Everyone else uses "Target of Target". This also needs to be enabled in the UI Editor. If someone in the warzone is calling targets, you can click on them in the OPS frame, and see who they're targeting. Then you just click on their target and BAM...you're on the same person, doing double duty damage

 

The little icons on top of someone's head, this is called "Target Marking". It's different. It's so you cna keep track of certain enemies, like healers, or a really painful DPS who is blowing you up. Just tell the warzone group what the target is for if you mark them.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Uber_the_Goober

[Vodrin]

Good to know. Noob question; what is a "hard stun?" I'm assuming there's another type of stun as well ("soft stun?"); what is that?

 

 

Your ability Awe is a soft stun or mez. It breaks on damage. A hard stun is something like the Sin ability Shock. It does not break on damage. A sent does not have a hard stun, something many players complain about, but that would make the class extremely OP if they had it.

[Uber_the_Goober]

Keybinds, though... that reminds me of yet another question. I spent literally 2-3 weeks just getting that down to being vaguely usable in a PvP environment. I already had a Razer Black Widow and purchased a Mad Catz MMO 7 mouse, but the keybinds/UI have consistently been a bit challenging. I'll post a screenshot later, but at present I have five of my bars at the bottom with one on the side, and am still having challenges with noticing when things are coming off CD and, more than that, keeping track of buffs. There's not a tremendous number of guides on the subject on the forums or elsewhere, and everything seems to be going in different directions. My underlying philosophy has been to try and group similar skills together (AoE's in one area, CC's in another, etc.) and that seems to be working, but the buffs/debuffs... ugh. Max scale on those and they're still very challenging to notice. Any kind of advice on how to set that all up?

 

OK, here's what I do. I use a Razer Nostromo gamepad, and a Razer 12 button mouse. My keyboard is for chat ONLY. I use the Nostromo's thumbstick for movement.

 

I laid out my quickbars to roughly mimic the physical placement of the keys on these devices. You can change their shape to be blocks instead of bars.

 

For example, I have 4 rows of 3 buttons for "Quickbar 1". This mimics my 12 button mouse. I place abilities on it, and when I see for example the top center ability is off cooldown, I had a much easier time locating it on my mouse to activate it again.

 

Same with the nostromo - it's 3 rows of 5 with a funny little bar to the side to represent the scroll wheel.

 

Given a few week's HEAVY practice, and now it's basically an extension of my own fingers. No thinking required. Glance down, see ability is off cooldown, and my finger moves to the correct key immediately.

 

Try it. You can even lay out your quickbars to mimic the physical placement of the keys on your keyboard if you have no gamepad, and leave the WASD ones blank, so your eyes can see on the screen very easily which abilities are right next to which fingers.

 

The only clunky thing is identifying which quickbar slot you're assigning a keybind to in the preferences. Not the best use of menus and windows by Bioware.

 

Regarding buffs/debuffs - adjust their size in the UI Editor. Helps a ton.

[Lord_Masty]

Your ability Awe is a soft stun or mez. It breaks on damage. A hard stun is something like the Sin ability Shock. It does not break on damage. A sent does not have a hard stun, something many players complain about, but that would make the class extremely OP if they had it.

 

The inquisitor hard stun ability is actually called Electrocute

[JabstJaif]

Yeah; that's one I should use more often (Crippling Throw), in that I know in my mind that it applies a healing debuff, but it's one of those I don't see obvious results from. IIRC, though, I don't think it roots. I think the root move is the leg slash.

 

In the combat tree it is your move called *Displacement*. It immobilizes them for 3 seconds. You can use leg slash too but that slows them, if I recall.

 

Does the stim not drop off after your first death?

 

You must buy the Prototype Nano-Infused Might Stim. The prototype stims are better stats and don't fall off when you die. They last for 2 hours as well.

 

With regards to the gear, I've been following this thread:

 

Guide: Sentinel Combat/Focus PvP Min/Max for 2.0

 

Is that a good one to follow? Fwiw, I've got the first four pieces he recommends; Challenger's Gloves & Leggings, along with Weaponmaster Headgear and Boots, ripped all the mods out, and put them into orange augmented shells. My first two PvP gear purchases (pursuant to another guide I read somewhere else here) were my relics. Expertise is being bolstered to 2018 in each match.

 

It looks like a good outline for gearing. I can tell you basically all that I do in the end is make sure I have steady stats across the board. I like having crit at about 25% buffed. This is just to crit more. Most people complain about crit and stay away from it to do power/surge, but surge is useless unless you crit and combat only gives 1 proc for auto crit.

 

I am not so sure where the DRs (dimishing return) values are for the gear now, but it used to be surge at 70%. This just means that after this point, the more surge you add the less it adds to you actual surge rating. Power doesn't have a DR and Strength used to be around 3000. So you'll be good on those areas. I personally like Alacrity since it lowers your global cooldown. Of course I don't stack it, but I like having a few pieces to help bump up my speed. On top of that augmenting your pieces which it sounds like you have will help you enormously.

[JabstJaif]

Keybinds, though... that reminds me of yet another question. I spent literally 2-3 weeks just getting that down to being vaguely usable in a PvP environment. I already had a Razer Black Widow and purchased a Mad Catz MMO 7 mouse, but the keybinds/UI have consistently been a bit challenging. I'll post a screenshot later, but at present I have five of my bars at the bottom with one on the side, and am still having challenges with noticing when things are coming off CD and, more than that, keeping track of buffs. There's not a tremendous number of guides on the subject on the forums or elsewhere, and everything seems to be going in different directions. My underlying philosophy has been to try and group similar skills together (AoE's in one area, CC's in another, etc.) and that seems to be working, but the buffs/debuffs... ugh. Max scale on those and they're still very challenging to notice. Any kind of advice on how to set that all up?

 

Tip: Preferences > User Interface > About 2/3 of the way down there is a option for Cooldown Text. It gives you a big number on top of your move for how many seconds left you have on CD. I freaking love this. I have it on all my toons as it help in every aspect.

[cashogy_reborn]

Dont waste money on a gamepad. It does nothing that your Keyboard cannot do.

[Uber_the_Goober]

Dont waste money on a gamepad. It does nothing that your Keyboard cannot do.

 

If you remap movement to the thumbstick, it leaves 4 fingers free to activate abilities. I love it, and at least for SWTOR and the zillion abilities it has, I won't be going back to keyboard anytime soon.

 

I'm genuinely surprised at how good some people can get with just a keyboard. My brain just doesn't work that way. I've tried.

[Banderal]

Up until know I'd just been assuming the operative is the healer, along with the sorcerer,...

 

That's right. My sorc is DPS - so just quit attacking her! You can safely leave her alone over there in the back row, just doing her thing.

 

And to (try to) contribute to this thread a bit - one thing about "focus target" that I think no one has mentioned, is that you can use it to target without resetting your target. That is, along with the focus target keybind (alt-f), there is a focus-modifier keybind. I forget what the default is (home - or something?), but you can change it to whatever you want in your settings.

 

The way it works is, lets say you have that healer over there set as your focus target, and your "normal" target is some poor sorc DPS who is annoying you - you have the sorc almost finished off, and you see the healer is casting a big heal. You click your "focus modifier" key and hit your interrupt - the focus modifier makes the interrupt go at the healer, and his heal is ruined. Let up on your focus modifier key, and you are back to your "normal" target without having to go: tab, tab, tab, crap I just went past 'em, tab tab tab tab.

[JabstJaif]

without having to go: tab, tab, tab, crap I just went past 'em, tab tab tab tab.

 

Lol. I had to just say that I love this. I do this too many times in warzones as it is

[warstory]

I havent read through all the comments ...

 

trans use this to

1.get you or your group to objectives faster (example get inside the center point of hyper gate to bottle neck the enemy at the entrance so you can line of sight them and make it hard for them to get to your healers)

2. there is a ranged/melee defense bonus on this skill it helps keep your tanks alive and helps your ranged aviod attacks.

 

inspiration use this skill to give your team a 15% dmg bonus

 

target priority

there is 2 ways to play offensive and defensive

 

offensive: your target priority are not mobile classes/specs (anyone that needs to cast to put out dps or heal), healers, ungaurded targets. your spec has tons of roots so you can lock a target in place so your group has a easier time of helping u take them out.

 

defensive: protect ranged , if the other group gets the advantage in terms of positioning on the battle field sometimes it is better not to leap ahead especially if your group is mostly ranged because they will not be able to support you and u will die quickly.

 

awe aoe stun, choke, roots (so your sages for example can escape and heal to full.

 

being skiled is very important to know now and get good now gear will support that even further (ie die less kill more)

[Vodrin]

The inquisitor hard stun ability is actually called Electrocute

 

Correct, my bad. The rest of the post is accurate.

[georgemattson]

In the combat tree it is your move called *Displacement*. It immobilizes them for 3 seconds. You can use leg slash too but that slows them, if I recall.

 

Oh yeah... missed that one.

 

Tip: Preferences > User Interface > About 2/3 of the way down there is a option for Cooldown Text. It gives you a big number on top of your move for how many seconds left you have on CD. I freaking love this. I have it on all my toons as it help in every aspect.

 

That kicks a lot of ***. Just enabled it.

 

You must buy the Prototype Nano-Infused Might Stim. The prototype stims are better stats and don't fall off when you die. They last for 2 hours as well.

 

Well, dang. And here I have a biochem crafting alt that I never bothered to get above the low 300s, skill-wise. Time to pull him out of mothballs and get him cracking.

 

That's right. My sorc is DPS - so just quit attacking her! You can safely leave her alone over there in the back row, just doing her thing.

 

And to (try to) contribute to this thread a bit - one thing about "focus target" that I think no one has mentioned, is that you can use it to target without resetting your target. That is, along with the focus target keybind (alt-f), there is a focus-modifier keybind. I forget what the default is (home - or something?), but you can change it to whatever you want in your settings.

 

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I wasn't doing any significant damage to her anyway

 

Seriously though, that is pretty cool. I've been thinking on several occasions that it would be nice to be able to target the "target of focus target" without releasing my target. Of course, I never really was using the focus target ability in the first place anyway, but I can see how this will be really helpful.

[georgemattson]

You can adjust the distance from your character that the camera can zoom out to in your preferences, but I don't remember the exact drill down. The default max range isn't even close to the possible max range

 

Oh my dear lord...

 

Controls / Camera / Camera Max Distance. It was set to 19%.

 

As for guilds, I would strongly discourage creating a new guild. You may be a great player someday, but you don't have a strong grasp on game mechanics at the moment and having a strong guild around you can help you grow. The most competitive guilds don't recruit, but those aren't necessarily the best guilds for you right now anyway. Try some of the guilds on POT5 that have a large population and that you see in PvP quite frequently. They may not have the BEST players, but there isn't anything the #1 ranked player can teach you as someone unfamiliar with PvP that the #100 ranked player can't teach you.

 

Um, yeah... Too late, I'm afraid. After seeing all the QQ on the forum and encountering a number of rather obnoxious individuals in WZ PvP, I started the Fight Club thread, where I suggested getting a group of people together to do more civilized PvP. The idea was we'd all get together, both Imp and Pub, teach each other how to play, and generally just be a lot nicer and friendlier with each other. Figured I'd volunteer to pay for the VoIP server, with opposing teams on opposite channels, but with the ability to get together on the same channel for after action reviews or just general socialization. Got a bunch of responses, with a lot of, "hey, that sounds great, I'm in!" Only after I'd gotten all these people interested did I realize I'd unintentionally volunteered to lead the guild.

 

So at this point, I'm leading the guild. Kinda stuck my foot in my mouth there, but then again, I am dedicated to the idea of helping people put together a casual PvP guild that will teach noobs to enjoy themselves and do PvP with at least some skill.

 

Hard Stun (AKA Stun) = Complete immobilization. Usually 4 seconds in length, though some classes have other skills of different lengths. Can't move, attack, or do anything until it wears off or you break it with your cc breaker. Never do this, unless you are resolve capped and have a full white bar of resolve. Then BREAK THAT BABY AND PROCEED TO OWN WITH IMPUNITY!

 

Mezz (AKA Soft Stun) = Complete immobilization. Usually 6 or 8 seconds in length. Breaks on damage. Can't do anything until it breaks, wears off, or you hit your CC breaker. Only do this if someone put one on you and is trying to cap a node while you're mezzed. Seriously, don't break it even if you're resolve capped. Just let someone's damage break it, or wait it out. You'll still have the full 12 seconds of immunity from resolve whitebar even if you wait it out.

 

Root = Target can't move, but can still use abilities. DO NOT EVER USE YOUR STUN-BREAK ABILITY TO REMOVE THIS EFFECT

 

Slow = Target has decreased movement speed, and can still use abilities. DO NOT EVER USE YOUR STUN-BREAK ABILITY TO REMOVE THIS EFFECT

 

Okay - definitely have questions about this. Mezz I understand. Hard stun, though; would you not break this even if 1-2 enemy are unloading on you and about to kill you? I'm assuming all of these are subject to the caveat that "if the enemy will cap if you don't break the CC, then break, regardless," but a hard stun seems like a death sentence if you have a DPS on you. Or is the reasoning that you can heal and/or respawn and return before your allies really need you?

 

Ditto with root and slow - I assume both of these are "don't break unless the enemy would cap if you don't?"

 

Your ability Awe is a soft stun or mez. It breaks on damage. A hard stun is something like the Sin ability Shock. It does not break on damage. A sent does not have a hard stun, something many players complain about, but that would make the class extremely OP if they had it.

 

Actually, if I understand correctly, Force Stasis stuns a target for three seconds and leaves them immobile. Also, there's an ability within the Combat tree called Debilitation which immobilizes a target during an entire Master Strike sequence.

[Banderal]

Oh my dear lord...

 

Controls / Camera / Camera Max Distance. It was set to 19%.

 

Yep, definitely a "PvE default", isn't it. I had the same problem when I first started PvP. I was like, why the heck do I have to change this in two different places? Bad UI design, IMO.

 

Um, yeah... Too late, I'm afraid. After seeing all the QQ on the forum and encountering a number of rather obnoxious individuals in WZ PvP, I started the Fight Club thread, ...

 

You know, if you see one of my toons in game, send me an invite if you want (the only one not listed below is a lowbie (mid 30s) Imp-side sorc name "Neggative"). You'll probably have to PM me first, because I have auto-decline guild invites set, because I don't like blind invites. I'm not an uber-great player, but I think I have some of the basics down. And at least I'm (usually) friendly. I'm usually playing Neggative or Imagynary these days. Although, this excellent thread has me thinking about dusting off my Sent (Rhandom).

 

Okay - definitely have questions about this. Mezz I understand. Hard stun, though; would you not break this even if 1-2 enemy are unloading on you and about to kill you?...

 

Well, I think when to break Cc is always situational, and, as you've pointed out, there are lots of different situations where you **might** use it. I don't think there are really any hard and fast rules except, yeah, if they are about to cap, you have to break it. At other times, remember that it doesn't reset on death, so if you are mobbed, and about to die, you use your breaker - you die anyway - and now your breaker is on CD probably through your next 2 deaths. On the other hand, if you are rooted in the fire pit with the ball and the flame is about to go off, you might want to use your breaker to escape even though it's only a root, in my opinion.

 

There's a "murphy's laws of combat" thread floating around. If it's not already there, it should be added that "as soon as you use your CC breaker, you will get into an even MORE desperate situation which you should have saved it for".

 

And another tip - one thing I got caught at recently - if you are "stuck" guarding, especially in AHG where the cap time is only 6 seconds, and your Cc breaker is on cooldown - SHOUT this to your team. If they are paying attention, someone will come to replace/assist you at least until your breaker is back up.

[georgemattson]

You know, if you see one of my toons in game, send me an invite if you want (the only one not listed below is a lowbie (mid 30s) Imp-side sorc name "Neggative"). You'll probably have to PM me first, because I have auto-decline guild invites set, because I don't like blind invites. I'm not an uber-great player, but I think I have some of the basics down. And at least I'm (usually) friendly. I'm usually playing Neggative or Imagynary these days. Although, this excellent thread has me thinking about dusting off my Sent (Rhandom).

 

Cool As long as you're okay with your guild leader sucking *** at PvP, we'd be delighted to have you. We're also looking (eventually) to get an Imp guild together as well, as most of us have Imperial toons. One of the other ideas, aside from being a "PvP academy for new players" was to also provide our own matchmaking at some point. If you're interested in that, I'll add you to my friends list and look for you when I log on there.

[windogie]

As everyone knows bolster is messed up enough so that my sniper with 35k health has 1300 bonus damage in pvp. This being said the time needed to learn a spec is the time you take from level 1 to 55 you normally should have a ok knowledge base of the spec as long as your ability priority. It takes longer to master specs however and you normally won't be anyway near that until you've spent a long time on a class. Even without knowing the spec however having nice gear will be your biggest goal. Having PVE gear in pvp is almost the worst thing you can do for your survivabilty this is why it's looked down upon. This being said I'm a paint licking über noob who has a endurance stacking engineering sniper so take it with a grain of salt.

[windogie]

Btw if you wish to get a good grasp on what gear does what go to askrmrrobot.com and use the character builder it will give you most of what you need to know on how stats effect your character an you spec.

[Rilok_Singz]

Link for the breakdown on CC. Do's and don'ts when it comes to breaking CC

http://www.ezpvper.com/#!cc-fundamentals/cgq0

[Uber_the_Goober]

Link for the breakdown on CC. Do's and don'ts when it comes to breaking CC

http://www.ezpvper.com/#!cc-fundamentals/cgq0

 

Pretty good summary.

 

As long as you remember that the stun break doesn't reset on death, and has a LOOOONG cooldown, you'll be ok. Only use it when you have no other option, and don't use it if you're going to die anyway. Don't ever use it unless you have full resolve, and there is only one exception to this - if you're the last defender at a node, you have teammates incoming, and you were just stunned with a stun that will last long enough that the enemy can cap the node. Sound overwhelming? Well...practice...just sit there and ride out a few stuns/mezzes, for practice, even if you intellectually know it's not the best choice. It'll get you practice on identifying the different stuns/mezzes, and you will not be as afraid of what will happen during the stun. You'll learn when it is a lost cause because the enemy will nuke you, and when the enemy just stuns you and ignores you. Point is, you'll learn. So run a few warzones with your cc breaker completely off your quickbar. It'll be fun

 

For example. You and one enemy on a node. He 4 second stuns you (gotta learn the abilities to know this). Why would you break that? The cap takes 6 or 8 seconds. The stun will wear off before he can cap. Plus, if he's capping, he's not attacking, so it doesn't hurt to sit there and ride out the stun.

 

What if he mezzes you for 8 seconds, and you're about 20 meters from the node? This is a problem. Even though the cap time, and the mezz time are the same, you still have to get close enough to him to attack. There's another 1 or 2 seconds it'll take. So you need to break that, or else he'll cap and you'll be the defender everyone cusses at for losing the node.

 

Pro-Tip === Don't, as a sentinel/marauder, ever volunteer to guard a node by yourself. Worst node guarding class EVAH. You just don't have the tools; it's not your fault. Guard it if you have to, but if you go sit there of your own volition, I will come take it from you, and it will be very easy. (Operative) If I can't manage to stun you and cap it while you watch, I can just kill you and cap it after you're dead. Bring a buddy, and guard it with 2 people.

[Vodrin]

Okay - definitely have questions about this. Mezz I understand. Hard stun, though; would you not break this even if 1-2 enemy are unloading on you and about to kill you? I'm assuming all of these are subject to the caveat that "if the enemy will cap if you don't break the CC, then break, regardless," but a hard stun seems like a death sentence if you have a DPS on you. Or is the reasoning that you can heal and/or respawn and return before your allies really need you?

 

Ditto with root and slow - I assume both of these are "don't break unless the enemy would cap if you don't?"

 

 

Remember you can talent force cammo to break roots and slows. That should be your go to move to counter those as the cooldown is short. Also, once your gear is decent, one or even two DPS beating on you through a hard stun is not going to kill you unless you were almost dead anyways, so just eat it and save the stun break for when you have resolve. If there are more than two DPS on you and you get stunned, chances are you are going to die shortly anyways, so unless you are about to kill someone important or prevent a cap, eat the stun and die. There is nothing worse than blowing your stun break and dieing anyways.

[Uber_the_Goober]

remember you can talent force cammo to break roots and slows. That should be your go to move to counter those as the cooldown is short. Also, once your gear is decent, one or even two dps beating on you through a hard stun is not going to kill you unless you were almost dead anyways, so just eat it and save the stun break for when you have resolve. if there are more than two dps on you and you get stunned, chances are you are going to die shortly anyways, so unless you are about to kill someone important or prevent a cap, eat the stun and die. there is nothing worse than blowing your stun break and dieing anyways.

 

qft..