Combat Spec vs. Watchman. Which one is better?

[Darsolaran]

My name is Orochi in game and i currently play a 37 sentinel. This thread is not created for discussions on how "gimped" or "borked" the class is. Any sane sentinel knows better. I have been playing the sent during the beta through various builds and have almost excluzively used combat. The power to locking enemies with crippling throw and master strike and a 100% crit rate for Blade storm being the main focus points for my build.

 

PVP has been a blast playing sent and i have had major sucess with sent in pvp from lvl 25 and on. Past this level I have very rarely been below top 3 in dps unless I am tower ***** in Alderaan.

 

I have seen many posts coming up stating how powerfull watchman spec is and how it can do more damage than combat. After playing combat spec for so long i really dont see how this is possible looking at other sent damage in WZ aftergames and asking current spec.

 

So which spec is better for PVP?

 

Anyone have any opinions regarding this matter?

[Tazak]

I cannot stand the "Focus Dump" feel that Combat has, I love Watchman to death. I played Watchman to Valor R 46 in the beta and it was an absolute joy. It's a lot rougher to learn as the spec is very unforgiving if you don't use your abilities properly, but NO ONE can beat you in a 1v1 situation. I have yet to really be dominated by one specific AC as a Watchman.

[Darsolaran]

I can understand your pain in the dumping feel of the spec. With me the slow ticking of damage is not my way. But when it comes to pvp it doesnt matter how difficult a spec is to learn or master when I havent seen any players come close to my damage/objective score using watchman. In world PVP I can see the watchman having no equal. But in terms of WZ I dont see the hub-ub where you arent fighting just one ac at a time. Edited December 24, 2011 by Darsolaran

[Tazak]

Slow damage ticking away is a terrible way to describe it. You are constantly doing big bursts of damage in terms of Merciless Strike (I crit for about 4.2k with my Champion PvP gear), using Master Strike, and other abilities. You provide team healing as well with the use of Zen, plus a good amount of healing with our Burns. Applying 3 stacks of overload is not an issue at all either if that is a concern as well.

[Electroflux]

Why does nobody talk about Focus?

 

Marauders are using the equivalent (rage) and doing really well with it.

[SuperPancho]

i've been digging Watchman since i respecced. IMO dropping trash mobs doesnt seem to have changed, however once the Elites show up and ur dropping 'em twice as fast, u'll definitely be happy. if u pop Zen then u'll just see ur opponents health just drop, and urs go up if u put points into Righteous Zeal

 

Edit: Juyo (Ferocity Form) FTW

Edited December 25, 2011 by SuperPancho

[Xereck]

Focus is amazing in PVP dont get me wrong combat has great dps but Focus has some true PVP viability such as Second Wind, Zealous Strike and Force leap with Felling Blow speced guaranting a 100% crit on Force Sweep hits for like 800 right now at lvl 30.

 

When popping Zen your slash (focus cost is free amazing ability) will hit 2 players for 6 hits and the crit and base dmg is nice when you spec it, i will also being speccing singularity which will increase your next sweeps dmg by 50% remember its has a 100% chance to crit thats pretty solid damage.

 

My spec at lvl 30 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501ZhZGMRrzbo.1

 

the only major issue i have (and maybe it will change once i hit 50) is that blade storm and master strike dont seem to stun them as stated and even with unwavering focus my master strike has been interrupted and issue i raised with Bioware.

[Electroflux]

Like most MMORPGS they restrict certain abilities stuns for PvP by removing them all-together.

[BlownSi]

I am at lvl 31 right now and have been going up the Combat tree. Combat does deal with huge focus dumps, but the tree really seemed to me to blossom in the mid to high 20's. You start to get some talents that really help you build focus fast for continuous back to back dumps.

 

I will say this......everything I fight dies really fast as long as I pay attention to what I am doing. From lvl 1 to lvl 31, I have only died 3 times, and only one of those was on a class quest boss. All three involved me losing my place in my rotation or the Animation bug that is going on right now. Only one of those was on a class mission boss, which I promptly slaughtered him the second time.

 

Two big things I see that has made this tree work, at least for me, is upgrading Kira and also going for Sent gear with +Crit. Kira hits as hard if not harder than I do right now, and the criticals I am landing just tear through mobs. Normal and Strongs die so fast there is really no time for a DoT to even have an effect. I usually only get one cauterize on an elite before he goes down.

 

I could see a Combat/Focus build being successful in PVP for sure, though I have not done any PVP yet in this spec. It is all going to come down to play style I think more than anything.

Edited December 25, 2011 by BlownSi

[McDaniels]

Combat = More burst damage, really more damage overall...

 

Watchman = sustained damage, not way less than combat, but noticeably less. Can heal your team a little bit but to be honest its pretty negligible.

 

Overall right now I prefer combat, but i think watchman could be good if you stack surge and use surge adrenals in conjunction with zen to put out huge crit dots... i'll have to test it more.

 

Combat is also a bit easier to play.

Edited December 25, 2011 by McDaniels

[Edgedy]

Restrict stuns from PvP?

 

Have you been knocked down by an Imperial Agent and backstabbed 3 times before you can react? Oh but we get force leap... which stops you from moving for 3 seconds. Yay.

[Unpleasant]

Combat = More burst damage, really more damage overall...

 

Watchman = sustained damage, not way less than combat, but noticeably less. Can heal your team a little bit but to be honest its pretty negligible.

 

Overall right now I prefer combat, but i think watchman could be good if you stack surge and use surge adrenals in conjunction with zen to put out huge crit dots... i'll have to test it more.

 

Combat is also a bit easier to play.

 

Watchman's healing is not negligible. If you spec right, your dots have a 15% extra chance to crit, which for me is 1/3 of the time total, and each crit gives me 2% of my max health back. Even if I only get 10 crit dots (30 ticks total) in a fight, that's healing me for 20% of my health, which has saved me numerous times in PvP. Coming back from the brink of death and killing some Empire guy at the same time is an awesome feeling as a non-healing class. And plus if you pop Zen while in Juyo form you can easily heal much more than that... not to mention that each dot crit is a critical hit on the enemy.

[RamzaBehoulve]

To be honest, they are both viable. They just have a completely different way of dealing the pain.

 

Combat is designed as a focus dump which means an enormous burst at key moments. Basically, the damage is not steady, it's done by chunks of huge direct damage hits.

 

Watchman on the other hand is about keeping your burns going, keeping a steady amount of DoT damage going for as long as you can.

 

Going by these observations, you can see how Combat is supposed to be the superior PvP spec of the two (burst > DoT to counter healing), unfortunately the buggy PvP we have now does not allow Combat to shine as much as it should, giving the edge to Watchman as it only needs a few sec in melee to apply its full damage for the next 10s (and get some healing going as well).

 

In PvE, Watchman is obviously superior as the fight goes on which means it is extremely effective on boss fights. However, it is inferior to combat for the trash cleaning on the way to said boss and leveling (but if you are under leveled or taking long to kill stuff, you might consider watchman instead).

 

And then you have Focus, a very fun spec to play that particularly shines on AoE fights and is a bit tankier than the other two.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I think Bioware did an outstanding job making the 3 trees so different from each other while mostly keeping them balanced versus each other.

 

Of course, there are a few tweaks here and there that would make all of them even better, maybe mostly Combat as it suffers a lot more from lag and buggy abilities than the other two, but rest assured it's perfectly playable still.

 

Overall, choose your way of doing damage and don't listen to what people think is "best". They will often mix facts with their particular personal feelings towards a specific tree.

Edited December 25, 2011 by RamzaBehoulve

[gunslinger]

To be honest, they are both viable. They just have a completely different way of dealing the pain.

 

Combat is designed as a focus dump which means an enormous burst at key moments. Basically, the damage is not steady, it's done by chunks of huge direct damage hits.

 

Watchman on the other hand is about keeping your burns going, keeping a steady amount of DoT damage going for as long as you can.

 

Going by these observations, you can see how Combat is supposed to be the superior PvP spec of the two (burst > DoT to counter healing), unfortunately the buggy PvP we have now does not allow Combat to shine as much as it should, giving the edge to Watchman as it only needs a few sec in melee to apply its full damage for the next 10s (and get some healing going as well).

 

In PvE, Watchman is obviously superior as the fight goes on which means it is extremely effective on boss fights. However, it is inferior to combat for the trash cleaning on the way to said boss and leveling (but if you are under leveled or taking long to kill stuff, you might consider watchman instead).

 

And then you have Focus, a very fun spec to play that particularly shines on AoE fights and is a bit tankier than the other two.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I think Bioware did an outstanding job making the 3 trees so different from each other while mostly keeping them balanced versus each other.

 

Of course, there are a few tweaks here and there that would make all of them even better, maybe mostly Combat as it suffers a lot more from lag and buggy abilities than the other two, but rest assured it's perfectly playable still.

 

Overall, choose your way of doing damage and don't listen to what people think is "best". They will often mix facts with their particular personal feelings towards a specific tree.

 

excellent read. thanks for posting.

[Coramac]

To be honest, they are both viable. They just have a completely different way of dealing the pain.

 

Combat is designed as a focus dump which means an enormous burst at key moments. Basically, the damage is not steady, it's done by chunks of huge direct damage hits.

 

Watchman on the other hand is about keeping your burns going, keeping a steady amount of DoT damage going for as long as you can.

 

Going by these observations, you can see how Combat is supposed to be the superior PvP spec of the two (burst > DoT to counter healing), unfortunately the buggy PvP we have now does not allow Combat to shine as much as it should, giving the edge to Watchman as it only needs a few sec in melee to apply its full damage for the next 10s (and get some healing going as well).

 

In PvE, Watchman is obviously superior as the fight goes on which means it is extremely effective on boss fights. However, it is inferior to combat for the trash cleaning on the way to said boss and leveling (but if you are under leveled or taking long to kill stuff, you might consider watchman instead).

 

And then you have Focus, a very fun spec to play that particularly shines on AoE fights and is a bit tankier than the other two.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I think Bioware did an outstanding job making the 3 trees so different from each other while mostly keeping them balanced versus each other.

 

Of course, there are a few tweaks here and there that would make all of them even better, maybe mostly Combat as it suffers a lot more from lag and buggy abilities than the other two, but rest assured it's perfectly playable still.

 

Overall, choose your way of doing damage and don't listen to what people think is "best". They will often mix facts with their particular personal feelings towards a specific tree.

 

The problem is... Watchman does better burst. It has better utility also. Combat has... combat has... ummm...

 

Right.

[Silverward]

I can see why combat is very peaky in dps but you can smooth it out a bit with blade rush. I just use that whenever you have bladestorm off CD and you don't get an ataru form proc and it gives you both a % increase in dmg and a crit bladestorm. I agree it is a bit of a dps race but I don't see it as being a bad tree for pve especially if there is an enrage at X% health or when you get a boss where you can only attack in a certain window of opportunity. Edited January 1, 2012 by Silverward

[FourTwent]

i've been digging Watchman since i respecced. IMO dropping trash mobs doesnt seem to have changed, however once the Elites show up and ur dropping 'em twice as fast, u'll definitely be happy.

 

 

 

this ^

[tausra]

I enjoy watchman more than combat. The damage is more reliable (in my opinion) as I'm constantly ticking away at the enemy health. Against bosses the DoTs really shine, though against mobs.. not so much. Keeping up the DoTs and Zen does take a little management but it's a far cry from micro-management.

[Apocalypse-]

The problem is... Watchman does better burst. It has better utility also. Combat has... combat has... ummm...

 

Right.

 

Combat is easier to play and performs better in a "cleanup" role as the damage can be spread out to multiple targets easier.

 

However, damage output, survivability, utility, and solo-ability all favor watchman over combat. Absolutely full endgame gear (with enhancements properly moved around) where you're comparing a full accuracy/power set for Combat and similarly a crit/power set for Watchman may change this, but without it Watchman is undeniably the superior tree.

 

Now, as for Focus. It's not a bad tree, but it's not filling the same role (ST damage) as the other two trees and thus isn't suitable for a direct comparison. Focus is all about setting up your team and clearing groups. The sad part is that guardians get a significantly better version of Focus simply because they've got a 30% damage boost to Sweep (from the bottom of Vigilance), which is what the entire focus tree is built around.

[AeetesSixFive]

Its a lot of preference, but Ive found that watchman does more damage than Combat. Watchman has more sustain on long fights which is what youre gonna run into if youre a PvE player. Combat is a little harder to maintain a really tight rotation for good dps, which I kept most of the time, and long fights felt like Watchman came out on top. Now this is going on what people I consistently group with and do lvl 50 heroic 4s and flashpoints.

[Xereck]

Restrict stuns from PvP?

 

Have you been knocked down by an Imperial Agent and backstabbed 3 times before you can react? Oh but we get force leap... which stops you from moving for 3 seconds. Yay.

 

I know an IA Operative on the Space Slug server that can kill you before you can get up from her hidden strike knock down spec.

 

So i again ask? BW please make Sentinel's stuns viable in PVP those stuns are key to survivability.

 

And, if you can't. Then you need to take all stuns away.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Xereck

[dathraz]

Watchmen is alrite, tho i like combat more it have a better flow. Dont have to spam my focus regen attacks as much as i do in watchmen.

 

And i think the dots from watchmen is on for a to short peroid of time. I think that the overload blade should be mixed in to mersiles strike. Coz refreshing "bleeds" 3 times every 12 sec is a bad design.

 

Maby do it more like WoW Rogue, one dot from your weapon like deadly poison stacking slowly up to 5 or more stacks, and the other should be reaplied every 10 to 12 sec.

 

I realy dont like the concept of having to reaply my "poison" on my weapon every 12 sec. When most other classes get the dot damage from their "stans" even if its not as strong its still a easier concept.

 

Or ATLEAST make Overload blade do damage on the target when you use.

[RamzaBehoulve]

The problem is... Watchman does better burst. It has better utility also. Combat has... combat has... ummm...

 

Right.

 

This is the perfect example of what I pointed out at the end of my post in regards to feelings and facts.

[thanealpha]

I believe Combat is fine for PvE in the hands of a skilled player.

 

HOWEVER, I also believe it's not as powerful as Watchman in the hands of a skilled player.

 

In fact, Combat's deficiency + the nature of our build up then release damage focus mechanic = exactly why people are experiencing Sentinels as underpowered relative to other classes.

 

Add in the fact that our PvP stun/mezz/snare suite of skills is FAR under most other classes and it can lead to feeling pretty gimped.

 

Add in the fact that our PvP movement skills (just force leap and a 4 sec invis) are FAR under most other classes and it adds to the stack of things that makes us feel underpowered.

 

The issues with Sent aren't that we can't do anything. It's that we have a sum of small deficiencies that add up to being underpowered relative to other classes.

 

Watchmen will experience this to a lesser extent in PvE...but IMHO there's a lot of room for improvement for BOTH builds in PvP.

 

Last but not least...IMHO...we're often behind the curve because we require at LEAST one global cooldown to use on defensive skills prior to any real attack...this puts us behind 1.5 seconds...add in the necessary focus building to ramp up our damage and we're often 3-6 seconds behind other classes when it comes to finally really putting the hurt on someone....3-6 seconds is HUGE in PvP.

 

---

 

As for focus...if you want to use the Focus tree, then re-roll and play a Guardian. Their version of focus is far FAR better. Hopefully this is something BW will address soon.

Edited January 3, 2012 by thanealpha

[thanealpha]

I know an IA Operative on the Space Slug server that can kill you before you can get up from her hidden strike knock down spec.

 

So i again ask? BW please make Sentinel's stuns viable in PVP those stuns are key to survivability.

 

And, if you can't. Then you need to take all stuns away.

 

A lot of this is happening, and it's hard to tell if this is the class or the level/gear issues we're seeing with fully geared 50s.

 

Enough expertise and the hits are HUGE and the ability to survive those encounters for someone not L50 with the right gear are nearly zero.