Sentinel Love, what can Bioware do to keep other players interested in our class?

[TheCourier-]

The primary reason that there are so many marauders on the solo queue list is because of rage spec. Carnage spec actually does very horribly at solo queue (it works decent for team ranked, but for solo queue, it does not work because of teams randomly tossing stuns all over the arena).

 

Once patch 2.7 is released, marauder will have no specs for regular WZs, no specs for solo queue, and only 1 spec for team ranked.

Edited March 2, 2014 by TheCourier-

[MasterHazar]

lol Its funny how now that other classes are getting buffed to keep on par with the pure dps classes the sentinel/gunslingers are angry that they aren't landsliding the other classes by 300-500 dps anymore. While it is true that Sentinel has a steep learning curve, a bad RNG combat Sentinal has the ability to do amazing in operations while a bad RNG class of any other DPS class falls flat if the RNG isn't almost perfect. In honest opinion combat is the BEST on demand burst you can get out of any DPS class in this game to date. The only real buff a sentinel tree needs is honestly watchman, it just fails too hard with the current endgame operations with the many adds and short dps phases that it can't compete with its other sibling trees.

[Omniscientearl]

lol Its funny how now that other classes are getting buffed to keep on par with the pure dps classes the sentinel/gunslingers are angry that they aren't landsliding the other classes by 300-500 dps anymore.

 

I think you misunderstood the nature of my original post. I'm not angry that we're not landsliding other classes by 300-400 dps anymore. The thing that's been disconcerting is that every time the devs roll out across the board balance changes, it invariably includes a buff to pretty much every other class while Sentinels and Marauders are often left receiving minor nerf after minor nerf. Much of the time it's not warranted, as most complaints about one class or another being overpowered is based mostly on the fact that the whiners don't understand how to play their own class.

 

While it is true that Sentinel has a steep learning curve, a bad RNG combat Sentinal has the ability to do amazing in operations while a bad RNG class of any other DPS class falls flat if the RNG isn't almost perfect. In honest opinion combat is the BEST on demand burst you can get out of any DPS class in this game to date. The only real buff a sentinel tree needs is honestly watchman, it just fails too hard with the current endgame operations with the many adds and short dps phases that it can't compete with its other sibling trees.

 

Not asking for a buff, really. It seems like, by and large, the devs are removing RNG from the procs that serve as the central point upon which any given spec is built. It would be nice if they could do that for each of the specs, including combat and watchman, to help bring dps into a more controllable platform than RNG can supply.

[Kindust]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

 

If it doesn't post my link there, then just Wikipedia, "argumentum ad populum." Just because "90% of the vet PvPer's on these forums agree with you," doesn't have any barring on reality. Also, I find it humorous that you even bothered to make up that statistic. Have you polled all of them? Do you work for BioWare and can run a search query of all posts ever made on their forums? No? Of course not. Now, stop being foolish.

 

Melee will never be stronger than ranged. Here, let me make it simple for you. At 1 meter, a ranged player and a melee player can BOTH hit an opponent. At 20 meters, a melee opponent cannot hit a target, but the ranged player still can.

 

One of the easiest tricks when you're fighting a melee DPS that is getting healed is just to continually run around an object. Breaks line-of-sight with their heal. Thus, little to no heals. Meanwhile, you kill them. Again, you can hit them at melee range even if you're a ranged class. See, ranged always has the benefit of... well, the ENTIRE range variable.

 

You make several statements, but you provide no evidence. Do you know how "knowledge" works? I don't think you do.

 

Here's a little example. So, when you have more than one healer in a Warzone, they can both heal the same target. There's no "debuff" for their action. Sages and Sorcs right now have a power that allows them to wipe out not 1, but TWO debuffs and it's on a two second cooldown!!!

 

You know what Sentinels and Marauders have to contribute to a Warzone? They have one power called, "Inspiration ("Bloodthirst" for the Maras)." It's on a THREE minute cooldown, only has a range of 40 meters (so it's not an entire Warzone group), and it applies a debuff to anyone affected that prevents them from being able to benefit from the same power again for 5 minutes! You do understand that that makes it worthless to have more than 1 Sentinel or 1 Marauder in a Warzone (as it pertains to that power), yes?

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/4tNoy3F/inspiration

 

That's evidence.

 

Sentinels and Marauders are the ONLY class in the game that has neither a push nor a pull, which means there is NO WAY for them to instantly kill an opponent in a Warzone. All of the other classes have an "I win button." Enemy grab the ball in Huttball? Force Wave and push them into a fire pit! You win! Such difficult!

 

They literally have no defense against that move. "A Sentinel could use Force Stasis on them while they're standing over a fire pit," Hypothetical Contrarian says.

 

You could. However, that still requires that they're standing on a fire pit to begin with, that they don't have their stun break available, that your Force Stasis (which a Sentinel always has to "channel") and is not on it's freaking ONE MINUTE cooldown (guess how long the cooldown on Force Wave is??? 20 seconds, just FYI). Also, guess what? Every experienced lag in the game? Trying to time a Force Leap onto an opponent standing on a fire pit, then moving off of it, then turning towards them (because, unlike most other class's, almost all Sentinel abilities are direction-specific), then using Force Stasis before they make their way off while not actually being lit on fire yourself... is WAY more prone to lag issues than just using Force Wave on an enemy or harpooning them onto a fire pit.

 

Guys... I get that you aren't thinking with your brains because for some odd reason your ego overlaps with the class that you play most in a game, but seriously, every class in this game currently has a greater potential to contribute to the success of a team in a Warzone than Sentinels or Marauders do.

 

Believe whatever you will and feel free to continue casting ad hominems my way. It won't make this class any better. If I was in a Warzone with 8 Sages or 8 Scoundrels, I'd think, "We're probably going to win this." If I were in one with 8 Sentinels I'd think, "Well, this is already a loss."

 

If any of you have specific evidence (not a claim, not an opinion, and not anecdotal evidence, but actual evidence) that supports your theory that Sentinels and Marauders are capable of contributing more towards the success of a team in a PUG Warzone, than by all means, please share it.

 

Oh, and Vodrin, if you can compile a list of every single post ever made on these forums concerning "vet PvPers" and "their opinions on ranged being at a disadvantage to melee," I'd like to see that too.

 

If you can't, then stop posting nonsense, get at least a bachelor's degree from a real university, and then come back and make posts without using anecdotal claims.

 

So, at this point I can't tell if you're serious or not, but for the sake of argument I will assume you are. When Vodrin said "90% of the vet pvp'ers" he was listing an actual supported statistic. Obviously. You unfortunately think yourself to be intellectually superior to every other player in these forums, and are trying to prove it by making him look like a fool. A simple wikipedia post doesn't achieve that goal either. It makes you seem like a complete and utter idiot without the mental capability to understand the difference between statements meant to be factual and statements meant to display exaggeration of facts. When Vodrin said 90% he was only trying to say that many people disagree with you, not literally 90% so get over yourself and stop making yourself look like a fool by asking for a list from him.

 

Now that that's over I'll give you a lesson on the sentinel and its mele capability over ranged classes along its utility overall. Since you stated earlier how you've played the class I'm going to assume that you will understand the simple nomenclature that I will be using for all of the sentinels abilities. Also because of the fact that I don't want to take the time to cover all three specs, I will only be covering players specced into PVP combat, one of the most esteemed burst specs. Lets begin. Addressing your statement about the limited range of the sentinel. Ranged classes may be able to target and begin attacking a sentinel from a long range and keep their distance, but a good sentinel knows how to counter this. We will cut that distance very quickly with our leap ability. We can keep your class in place with simple abilities such as FS or awe. Along with this we can prevent movement and kiting by using MS which immobilizes you during the course of the ability. If those abilities are broken and or already used, we can slow down your progress away from us with LS and or CT or TST. We can also speed ourselves up with camo and transcendence. This is all assuming you haven't already died within our 4.5 second burst window. That burst window is also so short by the way, so short that you don't have much room for error and most players that aren't experienced panic and fail to survive. You also brought up our lack of stun protection. We are a little weak in this area however we do have our main breaker, and you are right that that is on one minute cooldown, but you forget about our secondary breaker, camouflage. Which also make us invisible, and faster to make up for any lost ground. Many times all that we have to do is wait to use our main abilities while our opponents use all of their stuns and roots at once. We keep one of our DCDs up, and then we kill them.

Our utility doesn't come from only one ability either, yes we have inspiration which you greatly underestimate, but we also have transcendence speeding up our group and increasing their melee and ranged defense. We also have valorous call which allows us to immediately gain 30 stacks of centering. This means that the sentinel could use introspection gain 30 stacks go into a fight with transcendence for their group and then pop VC activate Inspiration and double their groups lethality. Finally aside from our very very good dps, which even with bad RNG rocks, we have arguably the best DCD. With rebuke being our main and SWa being our secondary. We also have our zen allowing for extreme burst windows, and our panic button GbtF. We are very very hard to defeat with a pocket healer and unstoppable with a great team for us to support and to support us. Even if your precious ranged class does kite a few meters away we have our ranged abilities like CT, TST, BS, and Dis. Class is over and hopefully you've learnt a little bit. Now if you'd please stop whining like a little b*** and get off of the thread that would be fantastic. If you do decide to be an even larger moron and post again, please put some thought into your argument.

 

P.S. I apologize to the community and people viewing this thread for the wall of text. I respect all classes and don't think sentinel or any others are unkillable either. Ranged classes are fantastic too, this isn't against them just this fool. If anybody disagrees with me or thinks I am wrong about anything in this post please say so. I love constructive criticism. Just dont be a punk about it.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Kindust

[SovereignConvict]

So... cool:

 

First off, to quote you, "We are very very hard to defeat with a pocket healer and unstoppable with a great team for us to support and to support us." When PUGging, Sentinels NEVER get a "pocket healer." If you refer back to my post that you have attempted to argue with, I'm specifically talking about PUGging.

 

Also, ANY class with, "a pocket healer" and, "a great team" to, "support and to support us," is, "unstoppable." Like... did you really even use that as an argument? Lol.

 

Anyway, your argument constantly falls back on citing powers that either require special circumstances to use (either having enough Focus built up, enough stacks of Centering built up, a certain tree specced, or for dramatically long cool downs to be off of CD) or are easily foiled by even the most moderately knowledgeable opponent. Your biggest flaw though is constantly addressing abilities that can ONLY be used if you're Combat specced as if they were ubiquitous to all specs.

 

Here is a short form for what you argued and the issues with it:

 

Force Leap - 15 second cool down. Multiple restrictions on distance (cannot be too close or too far away). Prone to issues with lag (falling through catwalks on Huttball, players being several meters ahead or behind you after you've successfully leaped to them even though they should have been directly "under" you).

 

Force Stasis - One minute cool down! MUST be channeled (Sentinels have no way to activate this and do anything else). Broken with stun breaker. Broken if Sentinel is "moved," such as with Force Wave [20 second cool down] or Grapple [45 second cool down]).

 

Awe - One minute cool down! Only lasts for 6 seconds. Can be broken with stun breaker. Can be cleansed with a Sage/Sorcerer's TWO SECOND cool down Cleanse. Also, most Sentinels now play Focus spec. Guess what happens when the Sentinel that just used Awe happens by a Sentinel that uses Force Sweep, which is only on a 15 second cool down (less if they're Focus spec)? That's right, it breaks it.

 

Master Strike - You mention this saying that it, "immobilizes [enemies] during the course of the ability." Only if you're specced for it, which no Focus specced Sentinels are. Master Strike for anyone else is easy to just walk away from. Even if you are specced to allow it to immobilize an enemy, it is still broken if you're pulled or pushed during it.

 

Leg Strike - Cleansed along with one other debuff with a Sage or Sorcerer's Cleanse ability.

 

Crippling Throw - Cleansed along with one other debuff with a Sage or Sorcerer's Cleanse ability.

 

Twin Saber Throw - Cleansed along with one other debuff with a Sage or Sorcerer's Cleanse ability. However, this is otherwise a pretty cool ability. Nice damage, and the cool down isn't too long. Although it is still on a longer cool down than almost all other classes "non-super" abilities.

 

Force Camouflage - 45 second cool down. Only lasts for 4 seconds (unless specced to make it last a whole second longer). Broken with any AoE damage. Sentinels often cannot AoE damage other stealthers because Force Sweep (a Sentinels only real way to knock a recently stealthed opponent out of stealth) requires Focus, so unless you already have some, it's a no-go. You also mention that Force Camouflage is a "stun breaker." True in many cases, but not in all. For instance, it cannot be used if you have been hit with Electro Net (not technically a stun, but it might as well be).

 

Transcendence - Again, you always cite this power as if all specs can build 30 Centering by using Introspection. Only Combat can do that. Only lasts for 10 seconds. Along with Twin Saber Throw and Rebuke, this is one of the only two worthwhile powers Sentinels have to contribute to a Warzone they're PUGging in, but it's still not that great considering the need for 30 stacks of Centering.

 

Valorous Call - THREE MINUTE COOL DOWN!!! Lolz! Also, like all Centering (but oddly, not like Depression), it's "effect" goes away when defeated.

 

Rebuke - Pretty nice power. Nothing to complain about here other than it's need to be "kept up" with damage. Generally not common in Warzones, but sometimes a good opponent will leave you alone for the 6 seconds necessary to allow this power to wipe.

 

Saber Ward - THREE MINUTE COOL DOWN!!! Again, I lol. When you're focusing a team's primary healer and you're PUGging (so no one is healing you), you get instantly focused and this power does nothing but postpone your life for MAYBE 1 second. Maybe.

 

Zen - Also has a ridiculously long cool down! Also, it's bonus is different depending on what "saber form" you're in.

 

Guarded by the Force - This is actually the worst power for Sentinels now. So, it's on a 2 minute cool down! Lolz! Also, it consumes HALF of your health... wait for it... but not until AFTER the oh so useful 4 second duration of the power expires. Also, it "only" makes you 99% resistant to damage. So, since it consumes half of your health, the "best" time to use it is when you're at 1% or lower health. That way, you "lose" the least amount of health. However, since it's not 100%, you're often likely to be killed DURING the time that it's up! LOLZ! Also, if you do manage to survive until it expires, as soon as it does, you're basically instantly dead. Remember, you won't receive ANY heals during this time because you don't have a "pocket healer." And, if you try to use a medpac the second you use the power, like people would back in the ol' days, HALF of that is removed the second the power ends. If you try to "time it for the end" of the power, about 99.9999999999999999999999999% of the time (I'm using the same math you defended earlier, you can trust it, 90% of the people on the forums agree with it), you'll die before you can use it.

 

In fact, your comment about this one coupled with your ridiculous assertion about having a pocket healer (lololololololol!) makes me believe that you probably get handheld a lot. If that's the case, then you literally have no accurate ability to measure a class's ability to perform in a Warzone without the dedicated attention of someone helping you.

 

To address some of your other points:

 

"Opponents panic." - This can be said for any opponent in relation to any other opponent. However, it appears to be more common when someone is "confronted with melee action," so to speak. Well, guess what? Lots of times, ranged classes don't have to deal with being "confronted with melee action." You know who ALWAYS has to deal with it, though??? Melee DPS classes!

 

You also admit the Sentinel's lack of stun protection.

 

You also admit the inherent limitation of melee vs range abilities.

 

You make the claim that I, "greatly underestimate" Inspiration. Specifically quote from my original post any factual inaccuracies.

 

You cite using Introspection to gain 30 stack of centering. - Only Combat spec Sentinels can do this.

 

You make this claim - "This means that the sentinel could use introspection gain 30 stacks [again, ONLY if you're Combat spec] go into a fight with transcendence for their group and then pop VC activate Inspiration and double their groups lethality."

 

Transcendence is a 10% to melee and ranged defense for only 10 seconds which requires a 30 stack of Centering, so you can't just use it whenever you want, and it only lasts 10 seconds. Inspiriation is only a 15% increase in damage and healing and only to teammates within a 40 meter range, and only those that aren't already affected by the "Depressed" debuff. In most Warzones, you'll be lucky if you can use Inspiration TWICE, and half the time someone else uses it when you don't need it, thus preventing you from being able to benefit from it for another 5 minutes! Oh, the lolz!

 

Now, to address your conclusion about "lethality." A 15% increase to damage and healing, and a 10% increase to melee and ranged defense, even if it were to everyone in your party (which it generally isn't), would not, "double their group's lethality." Unless you're the worst at math ever and are assuming that 15% to damage, 15% to healing, 10% to melee defense, and 10% to ranged defense for a total of 10 seconds (Inspiration lasts for 15, but Transcendence only lasts for 10) somehow constitutes a cumulative, "doubling of lethality." It constitutes 10 seconds of you and your group running towards the Huttball and is gone about 2 seconds after you get there. And you won't be able to use Inspiration again for 5 minutes.

 

Go play ANY of the other classes. The vast majority of their cool downs aren't 3 minutes long. Most of them aren't even over 10 seconds. They're almost all more likely to get heals in a PUG or guarded by another player. And, if you wanted to compare other powers that are gained post-level 50, Twin Saber Throw is NOWHERE near as useful as Scamper, Electro Net, or Force Barrier. Which, Force Barrier is infinitely better than Guarded by the Force ever was (same cool down timer, doesn't consume half of your health, player can be specced to actually gain health while channeling it, provides complete 100% immunity to damage, stuns and other immobilizing effects, and the player cannot be pulled or pushed while channeling it).

 

If you made a spreadsheet with all the abilities each class gains and added up the length of cool down timers, the range of the ability, how many people it affected, whether it can be cleansed or not, if it can be used without directly pointing your character at the opponent, whether or not the resource it takes to cast is available without prior conditions being met (like having to build Focus or Centering), and all of the other variables, I'm sure you'd find that Sentinels, regardless of spec, simply do not add up to being as useful as any of the other classes in a PUG Warzone.

 

I've now specifically addressed all of your points and did it with infinitely less ad hominems than you did. I'll assume you'll remain "convinced" of your opinion no matter what the facts actually are. The second you want something from the truth, is the moment you'll never actually know it.

 

Edited March 3, 2014 by SovereignConvict

[Kindust]

First off, know it.

 

 

1. The only reason that I exclusively used combat for my argument, was because it is the sentinel's main PVP spec. Watchman as of right now is very lackluster and easily cleansed, not really meant for PVP either as it is more useful in solo PVE or raiding. Focus is easily countered and after 2.7 will be nerfed quite a bit in PVP. Its is a one trick pony in PVP and not worth using anymore. If you look at any of the sentinel forums with players complaining about the nerf you will see plenty of players explaining how there is no change because they plan on sticking with what they've always used, combat. That's the reason I only talk about combat's abilities. It wouldn't make sense for me to explain any other spec.

2. Yes my arguments do rely on the fact that you have enough focus to use them, and yes many of them have special circumstances. Any good player knows how to manage their focus and have enough of it to use in an emergency. You can't just assume that every player is going to walking around with an empty focus bar in PVP. I have a feeling that you've played this class and done that. Maybe theres no point in trying to explain this, but you have to actually learn your class and learn when to use abilities and learn how to manage focus if you're going to be good.

3. When I brought up team play and partner play, it wasnt meant to be a core argument. Thats why it was only two sentences at the end of a much longer argument before it. For some reason your eyes glued to it and immediately thought everything that I had said before relied on a team being with yourself. Thats completely incorrect. All of the abilities I listed don't need a team. The small section I talked about to show how to make a sentinel even better. If we are however playing alone we are still fine.

4. We do have cooldowns on every ability. We also have something like 25+ abilities to keep track of and use. Proper performance from the class requires that the player doesn't pop all of their abilities at once and get screwed. You act like I'm going to be stupid and use every stun breaker, root, snare, stun and DCD at once, and then sit there for five minutes while I wait for them to come off of CD. The point of having so many to use is that you use them during the best time possible. Not all at once.

5. You can list any ability for any class and explain how they can be countered. THATS THE POINT. There isn't supposed to be a god mode class that has all of the abilities and no cool down. The point of my argument was that sentinels have no lack of these abilities. The point was that they have plenty of ways to perform as a class. Yes if we are confronted by a group of 4 players focusing us then we are going to be destroyed. Hopefully you're smart enough as a player to not let that happen. If we are facing a player 1v1 then our success rate greatly increases. You yourself even listed 14 separate abilities in the sentinels arsenal and basically argued that every one can be countered, which is true and a good thing. You cannot assume that a sage facing us (and I say sage because most of your counters rely on a sage/sorc cleansing or breaking) has enough resources to counter every one of our abilities while simultaneously putting out good dps, and managing their own resources. It does happen sometimes but not all the time.

6. Again you're so literal. I'll correct myself. By using that centering duo you ONLY gain 50% more speed, 15% to damage, 15% to healing, 10% to melee defense, and 10% to ranged defense. ONLY, I mean thats not much or anything!

7. Finally, all other classes may not have as long of cooldowns on their abilities, but they also don't have as many abilities as us. Go and make that spreadsheet and you'll see how many more we have.

 

There are plenty of sentinel on all the PVP leaderboards and plenty of us in the PVP shout outs. No I will not post a list of these boards either. Go and look for yourself. No I will not post links to the forums with combat sentinels in them, again you should look yourself. If you are going to post in a community at least read up in that community. Hell you obviously dont play a sentinel so I don't honestly know why you're even posting here. The OP obviously wanted to talk to other sentinels in our community, not some whiny sage that gets his *** handed to him in PVP.

[cs_zoltan]

Awe - One minute cool down! Only lasts for 6 seconds. Can be broken with stun breaker. Can be cleansed with a Sage/Sorcerer's TWO SECOND cool down Cleanse. Also, most Sentinels now play Focus spec. Guess what happens when the Sentinel that just used Awe happens by a Sentinel that uses Force Sweep, which is only on a 15 second cool down (less if they're Focus spec)? That's right, it breaks it.

 

lol, smashers always make me laugh.

[DayHiker]

IMO Sents are still the best tank and spank class in the game, the problem is very few bosses are tank and spank. ALL the difficult fights are designed in such a way that punishes melee and benefits ranged. Sents are also smacked in the face by not having a self cleanse.

 

The class should get a little dps love,

Some suggestion is have watchman's heals converted to damage once the sent is 100% life or give them another stack of juyo.

 

combat could get another extra second on their precision slash and shorter cd, as the idea behind burst is down adds.

 

focus, just need Guarded by the force fixed.

 

how about inspiration cleansing the entire raid, this would add a new mechanic and complexity to the skill.

[DayHiker]

If only Sents had the ability to buff the entire group with a damage/healing boost or extra speed...

If only Slingers could drop a 20% damage reduction bubble over their teammates...

 

Inspiration Can only be done by sents every 5 mins regardless of their number and it greatly hurts their individual dps as the great centering cost.

Slingers can stack their reduction BACK to BACK and have a 3 minute cool down and it costs them NOTHING. If you have four sents in a 5 minute fight you get ONE inspiration at a HUGE COST for the sent. If you have 4 gunslingers in the same 5 minute fight you get EIGHT scrambling fields at NO COST to the slingers.

 

thanks for pointing out where sents come up short again.

Edited March 3, 2014 by DayHiker

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Ok, i have thought of a couple of ideas to increase the Utility and possibly the DPS of this class. 2 of which are new abilities. Ill start with the abilities.

 

Centering Strike - Costs 1 Focus Has a 10 second CD. Grants a buff depending on Saber Form. Shii-Cho Form Increases the damage of your next Blade Storm or Force Exhaustion by 5% Ataru Form Reduces the focus cost of your next 3 abilities by 100% Juyo Form Increases the Critical chance of your next 5 Melee abilities by 10%. Obtained at level 30. at 55 deals ~1000 - ~1100 damage

 

Second Strike (Combat only) - Costs 1 Focus, has 8 second CD and is off the GCD. Every time you activate Blade Storm or Riposte you will be granted a Second Strike which within 5 seconds if you hit the Second Strike ability you will deal an extra strike after your first. Deals ~2000 - ~ 2500 at 55. Obtained through Talents at the level ~20 range, replaces Ataru Form in the tree. Reasoning behind Second Strike? Well, i like the Sniper's Followthrough, and Ataru Form already does a followup type slash, so why not add an ability? ill get behind why Riposte is one of the abilities that can proc it in a bit.

 

Ataru Form is moved to a buyable ability, obtained at level 14 like Juyo form.

 

Combat additions and changes.

 

Combat Trance - When you hit with an Ataru Form attack or Second Strike, you have a 100% Chance to go into a Combat Trance increasing the Crit Chance of Blade Storm by 100%. This cannot be granted more than once every 5 seconds

 

Opportune Attack - When you hit with an Ataru Form attack or Second Strike you have a 30%/45% chance to be granted an Opportune Attack, increasing the damage of your next Blade Storm by 10%.

 

Saber Screen - When you hit with an Ataru Form attack or Second Strike you have a 50%/100% chance to obtain one stack of Saber Screen which increases your Ranged and Melee defence by 1%/2% stacks up to 4 times.

 

Immaculate Force - When you use Combat Trance you have a 50%/100% chance to gain Immaculate Force which makes your next Riposte usable and cost no Focus and have 10% more damage. Riposte also resets the Cooldown of Second Slash

 

Watchman Changes

 

Inexhaustable Zeal - Juyo Form can now stack up to 6 times, Merciless Slash and Overload Saber now stack up to 4 times.

 

Repelling Blows - Increases the Duration of Guarded By the Force by 1 second, and Pacify by 2 (moved to Tier 5)

 

Searing Slashes - Increases the surge of all attacks that hit a burning target by 10% and increases the damage of all DoT's by 1.5%. (Replaces Repelling Blows)

 

Focus Changes

 

Pulse - Force Sweep has a 30%/45% chance to have an aftershock, also Force Crush has a 30%/45% chance to tick twice. (Moved to Tier 6)

 

Swift Slash - Increases the Critical Strike Chance of Slash, Centering Slash, Zealous Slash, and Dispatch by 5%

 

Saber Strength - Increases the damage of Slash, Zealous Slash, Centering Slash, Zealous Leap, and Dispatch by 3%/6%

 

Reason for Combat Changes - Well, Combat is suffering from high amounts of RNG for it's DPS. these changes would keep some RNG, but also add more filler, but also you may have to bind Riposte, and some other abilities to other keys than the main 1 through =. Combat isnt really lacking in Damage, it's just on alot of RNG.

 

Reason for Watchman Changes - Some minor QoL changes and a bit of increased damage overall Watchman is in a good spot.

 

Reason for Focus Changes - this would bring Focus more in line with the other specs on Single Target damage, and reduce the useless talents, giving way to more useful talents. Pulse was a very useful talent because Force Choke/Force Stasis was used often because it was needed to get stacks of Singularity/Shockwave. But now, it's kindof a useless talent, this change would increase the Single Target damage of Force Crush, and give a chance for a Second AOE from Force Stasis.

 

Give some thought on these ideas, i personally like them all because it would bring more DPS to the Sent/Mara.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Kaos_KidSWTOR

[Kindust]

Ok, i have thought of a couple of ideas to increase the Utility and possibly the DPS of this class... i personally like them all because it would bring more DPS to the Sent/Mara.

 

I definitely agree with all of these suggestions. I think putting all of them in might put us a little over the top as a class, but bioware should be able to add some of them at least. :D:D

[Vodrin]

Sovereign I think you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on the relative PvP strength of the sent right now, particularly combat spec. I play solo 90% of the time so I am playing in a way you say is non-viable. Despite that I am regularly one of the most effective DPS in the warzones I play. I will usually be one of the top few in damage and lead in killing blows. This to me is objective evidence you are having a different experience with the class than I am.

 

You keep talking about the sorc ability to cleanse many of the debuffs a sent puts out, but I have very rarely seen this in practice as it uses a global cool down that sorcs frequently cannot afford to use for it. And lets also not that lag affects sorc/sage CC's just as much as other classes. I almost never get knocked into a fire pit because I use superior mobility and good positional sense to prevent it from happening.

 

You speak of an inherent advantage that ranged have over melee in MMO's. It is pretty much negated in SWTOR because of all the gap closers melee have. The current ranked leaderboard is objective evidence I am correct. PT/vanguard, and mara/sent dominate the leaderboards right now, with only sorcs being well represented among ranged classes. Merc/mando and slinger/sniper are almost absent here. A good indication that the sent is much stronger than most ranged classes in arena formats.

 

8v8 seems to play similarly for me. A ranged player may be able to hit me from 30 meters while I need to be at 4m, but I never have to be beyond 4 m as I just have too many tools to quickly close the distance and stay close once I am there. For every CC/cleanse that a sorc has, I have another root/snare/speed boost. And incidentally transcendence can be kept up 70% or more of the time if you are not using centering for heavy zen damage bursts or inspiration. It makes combat almost impossible to kite.

 

Combats one weakness is that the precision slash windows are so short and can be interrupted rather easily if you are too predictable with them. Most players will CC you shortly after attacking if you snare them and start hitting them. Once they do it once you are free to unload on them and they have to eat it or white bar you which guarantees your burst cycles, and nothing can survive a full double PS window from a combat sent, nothing.

 

The reason I take the time to post these things and the reason I stated things so strongly in my previous post is that I do not want new players to get the idea that they are going to have a better experience rolling a DPS sorc than a sent or mara when that will probably not be the case for them.

 

I also have some thoughts on Kaos's suggestions and will comment on them later in another post. I do appreciate him taking time to think out those suggestions and post them.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Vodrin

[thatPERSON]

didnt read anything after this frist page but oh well.

 

Sents could use a little love (not a whole lot. just some tweaks here and there). i love my sent/mara to death but its gotten to the point where playing melee in raids is almost obsolete. its gotten so bad since my guild started doing hardmodes that i geared up my merc. there are so many mechanics that just make playing this class pointless (basically any mechanic in the Dread ops). its just gotten painful most days.

[DayHiker]

So, at this point I can't tell if you're serious or not, but for the sake of argument I will assume you are. When Vodrin said "90% of the vet pvp'ers" he was listing an actual supported statistic. Obviously. You unfortunately think yourself to be intellectually superior to every other player in these forums, and are trying to prove it by making him look like a fool. A simple wikipedia post doesn't achieve that goal either. It makes you seem like a complete and utter idiot without the mental capability to understand the difference between statements meant to be factual and statements meant to display exaggeration of facts. When Vodrin said 90% he was only trying to say that many people disagree with you, not literally 90% so get over yourself and stop making yourself look like a fool by asking for a list from him.

 

Now that that's over I'll give you a lesson If you do decide to be an even larger moron and post again, please put some thought into your argument.

 

just this fool.t.

 

I think you are the pot calling the kettle black. Your post is so ironic I had to point out just a few of the examples.

[Vodrin]

I appreciate the direction that Kaos is attempting to go, but I have a slightly different idea on some simple talent changes that I think could make all 3 trees viable in both PvP and PvE.

 

Watchman: the main problem I see with this tree is that damage takes too long to ramp up, and the spec is a bit too easy to kite. I suggest the following changes.

 

1. Focused leap- In addition to generating extra focus, it also will have a 50%/100% chance to add a stack of Juyo and merciless on force leap

 

2. Blurred speed- In addition to lowering the cooldown of force leap it will also make force leap remove roots and snares.

 

3. Zealous Ward becomes Zealous Rebuke- The heal effect is now attached to Rebuke and in addition will cause being attacked while rebuke is active to add a stack of Juyo and Merciless every 1.5 seconds.

 

Combat: Combat is really in a pretty good place right now. The only real problem is that the spec is difficult to use due to the precision slash burst windows being so short, and good burst being otherwise proc dependent. I would suggest the following.

 

1. Change precision slash so that it has a 15 second duration and makes the next 2 or 3 direct damage attacks (and any resulting off hand or ataru procs) have 100% armor penetration. It would buff 3 attacks only if activated while zen was active. This keeps damage potential the same as currently on live but makes the burst much harder to interrupt and easier to apply.

 

Focus: Focus is about to get less effective due to incoming nerfs in 2.7 patch as most who read these forums know. I'm not as certain about these changes because I am unsure of how severely nerfed the spec will feel after the incoming changes. In any case bioware has stated several times that the spec is intended to be the sentinel spec that uses force powers for primary damage as opposed to the melee damage focus of Watchman and Combat. As such, this is what I suggest:

 

1. Swap Si-Cho mastery with Pulse. Pulse is removed and becomes Blade Echo, a two point talent that gives a 25/50% chance of having blade storm proc a second hit at 50% of normal damage. It will also place an uncleansable debuff on the target called resonance, a 15 second debuff that is consumed when the target is hit by force lash.

 

2. Increase the base damage on Force Lash by a factor of 5 and have damage of force lash increased by 100% when used on a target suffering from resonance.

 

The exact numbers on these new abilities may have to be tweaked, but this will keep the purpose of the spec while significantly buffing single target damage and creating a well defined damage rotation for the spec.

 

Any thoughts?

[Alec_Fortescue]

I would roll Sent/Mara permanently if I could wield a single lightsaber. Just a cosmetic thing that doesn't affect stats.

 

Restrictions imposed on classes are too archaic and restrictive. They need to loosen them as they did with adaptive armor. It will also be lore friendly as Shadows, Assassins, Sentinels etc. were not restricted to a certain type of a lightsaber.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Alec_Fortescue

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

I would roll Sent/Mara permanently if I could wield a single lightsaber. Just a cosmetic thing that doesn't affect stats.

 

Restrictions imposed on classes are too archaic and restrictive. They need to loosen them as they did with adaptive armor. It will also be lore friendly as Shadows, Assassins, Sentinels etc. were not restricted to a certain type of a lightsaber.

 

This will never happen, besides you have Guardian to fufill your single saber needs, you even get higher damage than most of the Sent specs (Watchman and Focus) if you play Vigilance.

[Tevzz]

I appreciate the direction that Kaos is attempting to go, but I have a slightly different idea on some simple talent changes that I think could make all 3 trees viable in both PvP and PvE.

 

Watchman: the main problem I see with this tree is that damage takes too long to ramp up, and the spec is a bit too easy to kite. I suggest the following changes.

 

1. Focused leap- In addition to generating extra focus, it also will have a 50%/100% chance to add a stack of Juyo and merciless on force leap

 

2. Blurred speed- In addition to lowering the cooldown of force leap it will also make force leap remove roots and snares.

 

3. Zealous Ward becomes Zealous Rebuke- The heal effect is now attached to Rebuke and in addition will cause being attacked while rebuke is active to add a stack of Juyo and Merciless every 1.5 seconds.

 

Combat: Combat is really in a pretty good place right now. The only real problem is that the spec is difficult to use due to the precision slash burst windows being so short, and good burst being otherwise proc dependent. I would suggest the following.

 

1. Change precision slash so that it has a 15 second duration and makes the next 2 or 3 direct damage attacks (and any resulting off hand or ataru procs) have 100% armor penetration. It would buff 3 attacks only if activated while zen was active. This keeps damage potential the same as currently on live but makes the burst much harder to interrupt and easier to apply.

 

Focus: Focus is about to get less effective due to incoming nerfs in 2.7 patch as most who read these forums know. I'm not as certain about these changes because I am unsure of how severely nerfed the spec will feel after the incoming changes. In any case bioware has stated several times that the spec is intended to be the sentinel spec that uses force powers for primary damage as opposed to the melee damage focus of Watchman and Combat. As such, this is what I suggest:

 

1. Swap Si-Cho mastery with Pulse. Pulse is removed and becomes Blade Echo, a two point talent that gives a 25/50% chance of having blade storm proc a second hit at 50% of normal damage. It will also place an uncleansable debuff on the target called resonance, a 15 second debuff that is consumed when the target is hit by force lash.

 

2. Increase the base damage on Force Lash by a factor of 5 and have damage of force lash increased by 100% when used on a target suffering from resonance.

 

The exact numbers on these new abilities may have to be tweaked, but this will keep the purpose of the spec while significantly buffing single target damage and creating a well defined damage rotation for the spec.

 

Any thoughts?

 

I like those but why should Precision Slash only grant 3 stacks while Zen is active? Wouldn't having it grant 3 stacks no matter what be better?

[Vodrin]

I like those but why should Precision Slash only grant 3 stacks while Zen is active? Wouldn't having it grant 3 stacks no matter what be better?

 

I forgot that PS does not engage the GCD. It should generate 3 stacks regardless and 4 with zen active to be the same as what we have now on live with less of an interrupt chance.

[TheCourier-]

Bioware would actually have to care about sentinel/marauder for the class to get buffed. Go look at the marauder questions and answers.

[JamieKirby]

Vote for this, IMO Sentinel should be maybe 2-3% ahead of other classes because of that simple reason they aren't able to tank or heal. Also our best build should not be hybrid build, they should make Watchman superior for long fights like raid bosses, Combat for burst damage and Focus for PvP and AoE damage good for add DPS. We should not have to mix builds to get our maximal DPS

 

Or, this is just a suggestion, make all 3 builds equally as good at dps, but in their own ways, instead of forcing players into specific builds and please don't say its not what you mean, but if bioware made one spec better, everyone will spec it and those who don't will get passed over.

 

It happens in every mmo out there.

[SovereignConvict]

Well, at this point, there are two things working against most of the ideas that people have advocated for. One is that people don't like change. Even if the change is an improvement, there will always be a percentage of the customer base that cancels their accounts because of it. The second is that to change any one variable leads to unforeseeable changes, so the more changes made, the more drastic the outcome.

 

Although, JamieKirby, you're correct that if all specs are focused around direct amage, then the one that does the most will always be the one most people use.

 

However, think about if they changed the idea behind the trees (and yes, I realize they won't do this because it's "too much change"). Let's take something like the shared Focus tree, and let's say that they just cut the damage it did in half, but they also made it so that if you specced up the whole tree, that your Force Sweep applied an unwipeable debuff to all those in the affected that for a few seconds that made it so that all "healing" received from a friendly player to that target (your enemy that you hit with the debuff), actually caused an equal amount of damage instead.

 

Then, you make this ability have a duration that "stacks" with others (up to a maximum, of course). So, let's say it lasts for 3 seconds when you're hit with it, but if a second Sentinel hits you with it, it adds 4 seconds on top of whatever is remaining, and a third would up it another 5 seconds (making it compound) to a maximum of 12 seconds (meaning that no matter when you get hit with the second and third stacks, the debuff would have to expire before it could be renewed again).

 

Something like this, though it doesn't directly damage an enemy, would be hugely advantageous in Warzones, would help combat the "everyone just makes a healer" trend, would actually provide a reason for why it would be good to have more than one Sentinel in a group, and would make being tactical with your decisions much more significant (needing to keep a distance between you and your teammates, for instance, or having players that have to remove heal over time buffs that would be damaging them during this time period, or that if you were this spec, you wouldn't go after single, non-healing targets because you'd have no way of efficiently killing them).

 

There are an infinite number of ways a skill tree could be modified to present alternatives to "direct damage" that may end up being more useful in a Warzone or Flashpoint.

 

But sadly, I doubt they're going to just go in and completely restructure a class's skill tree.

[Atlanis]

Hmm, nice Idea so I would give the Watchman something similar but different instead of the Current Heal we get through Saberward. It is just a crazy complex idea^^

 

The Talent is changed to "Inspired Retribution"

- "Merciless Slash" now applies the "Forced Light" on a Target with a 33/66% Chance. The Debuff lasts for 3s and is cleansable. During the uptime the target recieves a 50% healdebuff addititionaly it turns the incoming heal on the target into elemental damage. Upon hitting a Target with the "Forced Light" Debuff active there is a 33/66% Chance of retrieving up to 3 Stacks of "Spirit Generation" which each return 0,25% of your HP every 1,5s over a duration of 12s.

 

 

Pros for implementation:

- Forced Light is Deadly on a target receiving healing but useless on targets which are not healed. Overall it wouldn´t be a big buff on the DPS, but a buff on DPS on certain targets. Plus the ability nerfs itself due to the healdebuff acitve and given that maybe another 20% healdebuff would be active at max 50% of the heal would come through and be turned into damage. Due to the short uptime and proc dependancy it would be a "Heal blocking" ability rather than a "KILL ALL" ability.

- The Spirit Generation is a bit of a defensive buff, but very proc dependant, quite powerful when all 3 stacks have been aquired. Almost unnoticeable if not all Stacks are up.

- Spirit generation would work like Juyo or Merciless stacks, if 12s are over the stacks get removed alltogether. By applying a new stack the timer is reset.

- With four Stacks of "Merciless" the "Merciless slash" got a CD of 6s due to the Proc Element it would only apply the debuff in two out of 3 hits. Given that in a PvP Enviroment you rarely have the optimal 4 Stacks of Merciless up all the time it seems reasonable to stretch the "Spirit Regeneration" Buff over a long period due to the two Random Proc Elements playing a role in receiving a Stack.

- To receive a Stack of "Spirit Regneration" first "Forced Light" must Proc and then you must hit the target with anything in the next 3s and must also have the luck of a Proc. One could say this Talent or Change would be useless, but keeping in mind the other talents we have the wholeness of the combination would make it more interesting.

 

Cons:

- With 3 Stacks up "Spirit Regeneration" Heals 9% over 12s, that seems quite powerfull when by 6 Stacks of Zen a Watchman gets 12% of his HP back when his DoTs are up and running. But when we move this to total HP we see that 12% (= 3600 HP given 30k HP) is just a normal low to medium damage ability healed away every time Zen is ready which is about every 30s or so. (In case of the Sent this would be the Damage of Slash if crittet or Merciless non-critical)

- "Forced light" would kill anyone with low HP receiving a big heal in the 3s, yes. It would be not always there only 33% of the fight on the training dummy and only roundabout 20% in a PvP Enviroment. Note that some abilites don´t count as heal *looks at the sage over there" and that it can be cleansed. It would hinder heal to full greatly and could easily knockout a Sage pulling his selfheal with all buffs ready at 5k HP.

- It will be deadly for new and bad players. True anyone will die when he has the buff and has like 4 heales full on him during that time. One could tweak it a little bit maybe 70% heal reduction during uptime and then turning that heal coming through into damage would make it less deadly to newbs and bad players.

- It be hard to programm:p

Edited March 26, 2014 by Atlanis

[SovereignConvict]

I like it.

 

Then again, I just like the idea of a "heal inversion debuff."

 

I play all the advanced classes in the game. I like them all. But currently, healing is WAY too advantageous in Warzones. Also (other than stealth gameplay), most Warzones are focused around "damage/healing."

 

This, and other creative inclusions into the game, would go a long way to providing far more strategy rather than "just brute forcing" wins.

[Vodrin]

I like it.

 

Then again, I just like the idea of a "heal inversion debuff."

 

I play all the advanced classes in the game. I like them all. But currently, healing is WAY too advantageous in Warzones. Also (other than stealth gameplay), most Warzones are focused around "damage/healing."

 

This, and other creative inclusions into the game, would go a long way to providing far more strategy rather than "just brute forcing" wins.

 

I've played two other games that had something similar and in both cases it got quickly nerfed into near uselessness due to rabid outcries from the population.