My worries for the Sentinel class

[RocketeerRaccoon]

I've currently been trying to play a Sentinel and I ask about what build I should go with and it seems like Sentinels talent trees are just overall bad from what they make them out to be. Combat spec is said to have a really hard rotation and lack of survival skills despite the great burst damage. Focus used to be the go to spec simply because of it being easy but it's been greatly nerfed and it doesn't do much damage anyway. Watchmen is the only spec that gives you the chance to survive on your own but the damage is mostly DoT based which requires some management when applying to different players and it may need a little bit more tweaking.

 

I might as well not play the class if the talents are so bad like this.

It seems that there's no love for this class and everyone thinks Guardians are a better choice if you want to dps.

Edited June 29, 2014 by RocketeerRaccoon

[Adaliaya]

Watchman got buff on latest patch, and Sentinels are arguably top hounds for PvE mDPS due of their good selection of specs. Also note Focus nerf didn't affect PvE that much. (this is what I keep hearing lol, I'm not a pro)

 

On PvP there is better classes indeed but it's not impossible to succeed as Sent either.

[Vodrin]

I've currently been trying to play a Sentinel and I ask about what build I should go with and it seems like Sentinels talent trees are just overall bad from what they make them out to be. Combat spec is said to have a really hard rotation and lack of survival skills despite the great burst damage. Focus used to be the go to spec simply because of it being easy but it's been greatly nerfed and it doesn't do much damage anyway. Watchmen is the only spec that gives you the chance to survive on your own but the damage is mostly DoT based which requires some management when applying to different players and it may need a little bit more tweaking.

 

I might as well not play the class if the talents are so bad like this.

It seems that there's no love for this class and everyone thinks Guardians are a better choice if you want to dps.

 

Focus is still quite strong for regular warzones, especially when leveling once you are above level 29 (when you get the singularity buff). It's just single target burst now instead of AoE. I would not use it in ranked, but for regs it is fine.

 

Combat has very good burst and OK survivability compaired to other pure melee builds (only guardian/jugg is substantially better). But it does not have a true rotation and managing focus, positioning, and burst requires a good deal of getting used to. And the build can be quite lackluster if played poorly.

 

Watchman is also quite viable again for any realm of PvP. It's easier to play than combat, but nowhere near as simple as focus. Main problem with watchman is learning how to properly counter kiting so you can maintain your merciless and juyo stacks.

 

None are particularly bad right now, its just that none are inherently stronger than other DPS classes, and sent/mara has been on the front end of the power curve for most of the games existence. It has moved back to the middle now and many see it as weak because of the shift (although a rework of GBTF would be great).

Edited June 30, 2014 by Vodrin

[chillshock]

Playing my sent lately.... It's horrible compared to pt, jugg or smuggler... dear lord, is the sent squishy. So the most difficult part is... to not draw too many enemies attention. :/

 

Hit, run, hide, hit again... hide... pray for not-being-focussed.

 

Remember what was said about the sent/mara having the best defensive abilities?

Hydraulic Overrides + 10m Range so far has been the most powerfull 'defense' I know.

And the Juggernaut... damn: ED, Push, AE-Slow, Intercede, Reflect (Ward), ... God, if you rotate those you only die if you stand still for more than a ravage.

Smuggler: If you die as a smuggler in a Reg, you chose to. Or two assasins 2-globaled you.

 

Darn, the mara is squishy AND melee... Damnit.

 

I love hateing being the underdog.

 

I call my class choice "inverse fotm syndrome"

[Ramtar]

Watchman got buff on latest patch, and Sentinels are arguably top hounds for PvE mDPS due of their good selection of specs. Also note Focus nerf didn't affect PvE that much. (this is what I keep hearing lol, I'm not a pro)

 

On PvP there is better classes indeed but it's not impossible to succeed as Sent either.

 

Focus nerf hurt because the primary target has to remain uncloaked for Sweep to work properly.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Ramtar

[Vodrin]

Focus nerf hurt because the primary target has to remain uncloaked for Sweep to work properly.

 

But there is an upside to it. Sweep no longer ever misses it's primary target due to lag or a well timed knockback.

[Projawa]

In terms of PVE, I think combat needs a buff.

[Ramtar]

But there is an upside to it. Sweep no longer ever misses it's primary target due to lag or a well timed knockback.

 

Sweep shouldn't missed due to lag or knockback to begin with.

 

In terms of PVE, I think combat needs a buff.

 

Buff Combat for PvP will increase it for PvE. How would propose to buff Combat for PvE?

Edited July 18, 2014 by Ramtar

[CellPerfect]

In terms of PVE, I think combat needs a buff.

 

The only thing combat could really use is a quality of life buff by reducing some of the RNG; specifically, the reset to precision slash. Other than that combat is good on dps. It's a burst spec so it shouldn't have the highest sustained dps. It's much better for target swapping and AoE than watchman is so it's in a pretty good place really.

[Manweth]

"My worries for the Sentinel class."

 

OH RLY?

 

Don't PATRONIZE us, the others.

 

Guardians have been blasted back to the bottom of the barrel, and not even our forums has something this pretentious.

 

The indignity. Such travesty does folly your feeble fragile endurance.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

"My worries for the Sentinel class."

 

OH RLY?

 

Don't PATRONIZE us, the others.

 

Guardians have been blasted back to the bottom of the barrel, and not even our forums has something this pretentious.

 

The indignity. Such travesty does folly your feeble fragile endurance.

 

You have? Last i checked Vigi Guard was in like the top 5 DPS classes...

[Zeldoon]

The only thing combat could really use is a quality of life buff by reducing some of the RNG; specifically, the reset to precision slash. Other than that combat is good on dps. It's a burst spec so it shouldn't have the highest sustained dps. It's much better for target swapping and AoE than watchman is so it's in a pretty good place really.

I'd rather have slaughter proc when gore is on CD, besides that the RNG is fine imo.

[windogie]

"My worries for the Sentinel class."

 

OH RLY?

 

Don't PATRONIZE us, the others.

 

Guardians have been blasted back to the bottom of the barrel, and not even our forums has something this pretentious.

 

The indignity. Such travesty does folly your feeble fragile endurance.

 

Have you even played this game since 2.6? Cause I mean it's not that guardian is the best dps it's that it is impossible to kill a well played one with a healer backing him. But it's dps is still top of the barrel so nice try.

[Gnimish]

For pve, sentinels are fine, they are still number 1 pick for a melee class I play jug In my raid group I can beat marauder on most fights for dps some he wins, it's pretty even (cept nerfa and rancor he can be 200-300 dps ahead of me) between blood thirst and off tanking blood thirst wins cause it can be used every fight, off tanking is usually just a last ditch effort if some thing goes wrong, some times it saves a pull some times it doesn't (36k hit from raptus

 

Point being I've seen a lot of marauder crying lately and they aren't in that bad of a place.

 

Pvp idk I'll leave that to more qualified people. They still kill me

Edited July 18, 2014 by Gnimish

[Atlanis]

Well but only a handful of fullheart Sents remain in PvE hardly any new people comming up, they choose Ranged DPS or Guardians/Shadows over Sents mostly.

 

In PvP well, now I had 57 consequent Battlegrounds/Arenas without meeting another Sentinel. It is like 6 Sents and 4 Maras on JKS who still activly PvP. No the Sent class has the smallest Population by far, need PvP Survivability or Insane Burst DPS;-)

[Ramtar]

For pve, sentinels are fine, they are still number 1 pick for a melee class I play jug In my raid group I can beat marauder on most fights for dps some he wins, it's pretty even (cept nerfa and rancor he can be 200-300 dps ahead of me) between blood thirst and off tanking blood thirst wins cause it can be used every fight, off tanking is usually just a last ditch effort if some thing goes wrong, some times it saves a pull some times it doesn't (36k hit from raptus

 

Point being I've seen a lot of marauder crying lately and they aren't in that bad of a place.

 

Pvp idk I'll leave that to more qualified people. They still kill me

 

IMO, BW created Sentinel/Marauder for PvE: only. Since BW didn't develop KotOR II and they had zero knowledge on what this AC was suppose to BE.

 

Well but only a handful of fullheart Sents remain in PvE hardly any new people comming up, they choose Ranged DPS or Guardians/Shadows over Sents mostly.

 

In PvP well, now I had 57 consequent Battlegrounds/Arenas without meeting another Sentinel. It is like 6 Sents and 4 Maras on JKS who still activly PvP. No the Sent class has the smallest Population by far, need PvP Survivability or Insane Burst DPS;-)

 

I started leveling up a Guardian and the difference between it and Sentinel is like night and day. Some of the Guardian's abilities could help with Sentinel's PvP survivability and burst damage. Hats off to Torhead.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Ramtar

[mastervalkar]

Just play a Vigilance Guardian (and/or Vengeance Jugg) and your issues float away. #truthbomb

 

I main a Guardian, have a Jugg and a Sent. Sentinels are so tough to play after you spend weeks, even months playing a Guardian first. While I can handle Combat, and love Watchmen, I like my Guardian's overall play-style and far superior defenses to ever play my Sentinel anymore. Matter of fact, my new Jugg officially took my Sent's gear last week, so the Sent's retirement is now complete

Edited July 22, 2014 by mastervalkar

[discosoc]

My biggest problem with sents is the high level of dependence on proc's. They don't have good visual cues, which mean you end up watching the buff bar for some 3 second buff to pop up. Really just kind of annoying. If they would fix that (either reduce the proc dependency or make the proc more obvious when it happens), I'd enjoy my sent much more.

 

It's worth noting, however, that the difficulty in noticing ability proc's is not unique to the sent class. It's actually an issue for a lot of classes, and it doesn't look like something Bioware plans ever fixing.

[chillshock]

Yes, that buff-bar is the bane of Sent/Mara play.

 

I'll still stay with my mara for now. Just because everyones abandoning that class and going ... anywhere, really - all classes have something going for them:

- Jugg (my 'main' but standing still because I hate being mixed with FOTMs): Mobility (unstoppable), Control-the-battle (push, slow, intervene, grip, ...) and by now good defenses (that ED is pretty well balanced now, I think.)

- Inqui... (Assasin or Sorc - both very VERY strong if the player dedicates)

- Agent... (Op heals anyone?)

- BH... (Pyro anyone?, Mercheals)

 

So I have high hopes for the Sentinel/Mara that there is going to be a pvp buff inc. Some time withing the next 6 Months. *cough* MAYBE I'll have made up my mind about what spec I like most. *g*

Rage(Fokus) -> Predictable, but the Jugg does that better (and it has a bad name, even though it's a pretty good spec still)

Anni(Watchman) -> Too slowboating & kiteable. Pure Melee with only one gapcloser that is needed for ressources and normal runspeed with everyone else having knockbacks, rolls, sprints, hydraulics, jumps, ...? I'd like the skills, but there is at least the 10m gapcloser on short CD missing. OR the runspeed & snarebreak. Or... something.

Carnage(Combat) -> Buff watching Hell without the hot devil-babes! Really... this spec needs PowerAuras! I could totally see this work if I would be allowed to configure that addon.

 

I think mara needs:

Something against the omnipresent CC (permaslowed is NORMAL in any combat situation and dying without any options in stun with no skill helping is BAD).

AND

Something to make Buff-Watching easier OR less Proc-Dependency OR Longer Proccs (not even counting trinkets).

 

It's pretty much: If you fight with a mara AND you don't get focussed by 3-5 ranged and plopp instantly (yes, mara is squish, they all know and they all go for the kill - I do too, when I'm a ranging) you spend A LOT of time with eyes on the buff-bar. Sometimes it feels like 60% of what my attention in combat demands is not cooldowns, not the enemy, but MY OWN DARN BUFFS!

I really wonder: If I could play the carnage without having to scan the buffs... would I die that much less, because I have the time to pay more attention to 'the big picture' of the battle - like if there are ranges that are preoccupied or closing in or waiting?

[mastervalkar]

My idea how to help Combat would be to place some built-in (Passive) Armor Penetration into the skill tree. I know that Focus has it in that tree, but Combat to me needs it more. the 30% AP Focus gets would be a great start, and would take the pressure off of those that have a really hard time with uptime of their 100% AP windows and/or using the right procs during windows.

 

Maybe add the passive AP into Ataru form? or have it as a requirement or off-shoot of Precision Slash.

 

Food for thought

Edited July 23, 2014 by mastervalkar

[Tevzz]

So I have high hopes for the Sentinel/Mara that there is going to be a pvp buff inc. Some time withing the next 6 Months. *cough* MAYBE I'll have made up my mind about what spec I like most. *g*

Rage(Fokus) -> Predictable, but the Jugg does that better (and it has a bad name, even though it's a pretty good spec still)

 

Not to be rude, but I disagree with that entirely, a well played Focus sentinel will bring much more utility to a team that a Focus Guard can ever dream of, 6% dmg increase on force attacks is about the only advantage DPS wise that Guardians have over sentinels, and sentinels make up for that increase in force by pumping out larger DPS on all other attacks. Not to mention Focus guardians are much squishier than Focus Sentinel and without Focused Defense they just melt, their passive survivability is terrible and they still lack a viable way to escape focus fire.

 

Let's not forget that sentinels have a healing debuff along with a pretty sick DMG/Healing buff and Force Camo, which is a godsend for escaping focus fire.

[chillshock]

Not to be rude, but I disagree with that entirely, a well played Focus sentinel will bring much more utility to a team that a Focus Guard can ever dream of, 6% dmg increase on force attacks is about the only advantage DPS wise that Guardians have over sentinels, and sentinels make up for that increase in force by pumping out larger DPS on all other attacks. Not to mention Focus guardians are much squishier than Focus Sentinel and without Focused Defense they just melt, their passive survivability is terrible and they still lack a viable way to escape focus fire.

 

Let's not forget that sentinels have a healing debuff along with a pretty sick DMG/Healing buff and Force Camo, which is a godsend for escaping focus fire.

 

I'm sorry if I sounded like "Guardians are doing it a hell of a lot better". They certainly don't and there are things that a sent is good for.

But: They have about the equal cooldowns. They escape via intercede (although that takes practise) and their group utility has way shorter cooldown (ae-damage-reduction for everyone "ae-taunt") and redundancy (single target taunt) to further help someone. Maybe 'better' was just me benig used to guardian. I do like rage a lot. Somehow I do mostly better on anni. *shrugs* The differences are mostly in experience, I'd say. Way less than the spec itself.

[Ramtar]

IMO Sentinel/Marauder should be a Guardian/Juggernaut wearing medium armor using a 2nd lightsaber instead of a generator.

 

Sentinel/Marauder can be remove from this MMO and people won't miss the AC. BW didn't develop KoTOR II and they didn't created how a Weapon Master/Marauder would play in a game.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Ramtar

[Tevzz]

I'm sorry if I sounded like "Guardians are doing it a hell of a lot better". They certainly don't and there are things that a sent is good for.

But: They have about the equal cooldowns. They escape via intercede (although that takes practise) and their group utility has way shorter cooldown (ae-damage-reduction for everyone "ae-taunt") and redundancy (single target taunt) to further help someone. Maybe 'better' was just me benig used to guardian. I do like rage a lot. Somehow I do mostly better on anni. *shrugs* The differences are mostly in experience, I'd say. Way less than the spec itself.

 

I don't know, I find the Slash animation on sentinels really cool looking, I just cant stand Vicious Slash though, so maybe that's why I'm biased towards sentinel but I feel like it just has MUCH better passive survivability. Not to mention how Intercede can often fail as en escape mechanism depending how far exactly your allies are, if you can't get out of the enemy's range or if you're rooted, Intercede is pretty useless, whereas Camo is a complete Target drop.

[chillshock]

Camo is a complete Target drop.

 

But camo only purges movement impairing effects when specced combat/carnage. Yes it is a good dcd, and one that would totally not fit the guardian/jugg. But 50% of it's function is in ONE tree only and the cd is ... well, lets just say this game doesn't really need any more roots/slows/stuns.