Watchman seek/providing help

[ShadowTech]

First off, I've played and mained as a watchman since launch/early access. It's the spec that I love to play and I have played it since the beginning through all of it's rough patches. Now 3.0 comes along and suddenly things are not so shiny anymore. I'm posting what I've found with the new spec so far, so maybe other people having the same issues that I am can gkeen some new information from what I've learned.

 

So after doing some initial parsing with the new spec, I have to say that in, my opinion, the spec doesn't flow as well as it used to and it's actually kind of frustrating me right now. Cool downs don't seem to line up the way they should, Focus is more awkward than it used to be and to me it seems like you need a perfect connection to get things to happen at the right times. That being said, I'll write up what I have so far so people can see what I'm doing and either learn from it or help me figure out the piece that I'm missing that makes it all flow like Watchman used to. I plan on keeping it as my main spec for the time being in the hopes that things finally click and I can figure out how to make it deal the awesome numbers the way I remember.

 

First and foremost, this is still a DoT centered spec. You still need to keep Overload Sabers on cool down or you're doing it wrong. The defensive cool downs are untouched, Zen, Transcendence, and Inspiration all work the way they did before the patch came out. Zealous Strike, Merciless Slash, Dispatch, Blade Storm, Master Strike, Force Stasis, Slash and Strike are the same as well. So that's pretty much all the stuff that stayed the same. Now for whats different.

 

There are two really big changes to the spec (and they are the crux of my issues with it, I'll get to that later). First, Cauterize no longer has a cool down. You can do front flips with your sabers until you either run out of Focus, your target dies, or you hit your head on something. Also, the DoT component now lasts for 12 seconds instead of 6 (this is not as good as it sounds, at least I'm not seeing it yet) Second is the addition of a new Ability, Force Melt. Basically an 18 second DoT, no cool down, for 3 Focus.

 

Good news; Watchman can now AoE in a somewhat effective manner. This is due to two changes, the addition of the Burning Sweep talent, and the changes to the Mind Sear talent. Burning Sweep is the most significant so I'll cover it first. Targets hit by your Force Sweep (Smash) will also have Cauterize and the new Force Melt DoTs applied to them, provided at least one of the targets hit already has these DoTs on them. In short, Smash allows you to spread your DoTs to multiple targets more easily and effectively. With Cauterize no longer having a CD Mind Sear got re-worked. Instead of finishing the cool down on Cauterize, Mind Sear now makes DoT effect have a 20% chance to cause the next Twin Saber Throw do 100% more damage on an 18 second cool down (that will be important later). So when that procs, your frontal AoE hits like a truck. In my experience, with all three DoT sources ticking at the same time, the proc happens pretty quick when it's off cool down. You should only be using Twin Saber Throw with the Mind Sear Proc. Anything else is a waste of DPS potential.

 

Bioware finally addressed the long standing issue of Watchman ramp up time with the talent Accelerating Victory. Insert my happy dance. This talent has two effects. The one that directly affects Watchman ramp time is that Juyo and Merciless stacks now build 2 at a time. This has a huge impact on how long it takes a Watchman to reach full output. The second effect that that Merciless Slash also grants a stack of Accelerating Victory. This reduces that cost of Force Melt by one Focus per stack, up to three stacks. So at a full 3 stacks, Force Melt becomes free.

 

I can give you the opener that I've settled on, but that's about as far as I've gotten, because I can't quite figure out the rest of it. Force Leap with Overload Sabers > Zealous Strike > Merciless Slash > Force Melt > Cauterize > Twin Saber Throw** > Master Strike > hell if I know. I put Force Melt ahead of Cauterize because it has a longer duration and does more overall damage, so getting it up and running is my first priority. Master Strike comes at the end of the opener just as always.

 

For an AoE opener (like Daily Trash), this is what I've settled on. Force Leap with Overload Sabers > Zealous Strike > Merciless Slash > Smash > Twin Saber Throw** > clean up stragglers. I'm not using Cauterize here because I'm finding that doing so cause two things to happen. One, I don't have enough Focus to Smash and spread my DoTs to everything else so I have to use Strike for more. Two, because I've got another DoT ticking and had to use another attack to get enough Focus to Smash, my first target has died before Smash goes off, meaning that no other mobs have my DoTs going. Using Twin Saber Throw in this opener either kills things out right, or sets a lot of things up for dead with 1-2 attacks.

 

**I put Twin Saber Throw here because this is the point that I generally find it procing, but I use it as soon as the proc comes up, where ever that happens to be in the opener. Delaying it any means that the 18 second cool down on Twin Saber Throw and the 18 second internal cool down on Mind Sear no longer match up, leading to things being out of sync even more.**

 

Now to the bits that I'm frustrated with, not fully understanding, not sure why the devs did, and other wise not really thrilled with. If you look at the raw cool down times, not taking into account gcd or serve lag, things should line up perfectly; At full Merciless stacks Merciless Slash is on a 6 second cool down, meaning that you would refresh the 12 second Cauterize DoT after every second Merciless, and the Force Melt every third Merciless (which would line up with 3 stacks of Accelerating Victory, making it free), followed by a proced Twin Saber Throw 1-2 gcds later depending on how soon the proc happens. The rest is keeping Overload Sabers on cool down and filler.

 

I'm finding that this is rarely the case. /headdesk

 

The gcd, any slip ups in timing or refreshing abilities, and any, literally any, server lag that throws off timings makes all of that worthless. From what I was hearing from people on the PTS (I opted out, for several reasons and I may be misremembering some things) the idea was Merciless Slash > Cauterize > 2 gcd > repeat, with alternating your 2gcd windows between Master Strike, the proced Twin Saber Throw > Force Melt, and filler/Focus builders. With Cauterize now having a 12 second DoT instead of 6, that theory goes out the window as well. And to me it seems like I'm only getting about 1/3 Force Melts for free. The Accelerating Victory stacks just don't seem to line up with the DoT refresh timings for me.

 

I'm finding that with Parsec timers running for both Cauterize and Force Melt, I can keep track of everything, but it feels clunky and forced. And the Focus goes to crap when you get below 30% and start throwing Dispatch in as well. So if anyone has noticed anything that I may have missed, that would be great, because I still love the idea of this spec, but I'm just not seeing it work right now. And hopefully I've helped someone else understand it more.

[ShadowTech]

After a little more playing around with it, and finding a setting in the UI that lets me more easily see my DoTs, I'm finding it a little easier to play a watchman in 3.0, but I still don't think it's as smooth as it used to be. Anyone figure out anything more useful about this discipline than I have?

 

/shameless selfbump

[ML_DoubleTap]

Overload saber and cauterize line up perfectly. If you activate overload saber and apply cauterize back to back every time both will have max uptime. Outside of the first application of force melt you'll also have the 3 stacks from merciless and force melt lining up well. The second application will need to be delayed one gcd if I remember right.

 

My opener is just a bit different.

Leap-zealous-overload+cauterize-merciless-melt-master strike-twin saber throw. At that point leap is back up and you'll have a spot for either strike or slash depending on force. Then OS+cauterize again and merciless.

 

I find that it really flows nicely now actually and dot tracking is easier. You know you'll always apply cauterize when overload is up and melt whenever it's free from merciless.

[ShadowTech]

Thanks, I'll give it a try

[TheShadowWolf]

Overload saber and cauterize line up perfectly. If you activate overload saber and apply cauterize back to back every time both will have max uptime. Outside of the first application of force melt you'll also have the 3 stacks from merciless and force melt lining up well. The second application will need to be delayed one gcd if I remember right.

 

My opener is just a bit different.

Leap-zealous-overload+cauterize-merciless-melt-master strike-twin saber throw. At that point leap is back up and you'll have a spot for either strike or slash depending on force. Then OS+cauterize again and merciless.

 

I find that it really flows nicely now actually and dot tracking is easier. You know you'll always apply cauterize when overload is up and melt whenever it's free from merciless.

 

I'll have to give this a try. I'm with the OP here. I'm finding Watchman quite miserable now post-3.0. I'm a nightmare progression raider, and have been playing Sentinel since Launch, and parsing quite well usually. This update has totally thrown me for a loop and playing Watchman hasn't been "fun" and dynamic like it used to be :\

 

I'll try this and feedback, but my hopes have been dashed quite a bit after the back and forth of changes on the PTS and the feedback given by the testers largely ignored by the end of it.

[Delta_V]

From what I've found, the key to maintaining Focus generation is getting free Force Melts, which means getting three Merciless Slashes between applications. On tank-and-spank fights, this is doable, and Focus generation seems manageable, but as soon as you have any downtime that keeps you from getting three Accelerating Victory stacks before Force Melt expires... it just sucks.

 

This also makes Watchman pretty bad at target-switching, unless you can spread your DOTs to the next target with Sweep. Because if you have to apply Force Melt without three stacks of Accelerating Victory, you end up Focus starved in a hurry.

 

What sucks is that we finally got the duration of Merciless stacks buffed a while ago to keep the spec from getting screwed over by downtime, but now it screws us over for a different reason.

[ML_DoubleTap]

I'll have to give this a try. I'm with the OP here. I'm finding Watchman quite miserable now post-3.0. I'm a nightmare progression raider, and have been playing Sentinel since Launch, and parsing quite well usually. This update has totally thrown me for a loop and playing Watchman hasn't been "fun" and dynamic like it used to be :\

 

I'll try this and feedback, but my hopes have been dashed quite a bit after the back and forth of changes on the PTS and the feedback given by the testers largely ignored by the end of it.

 

I hope it works for you. I'm parsing just above 4k on the 1.5mil dummy currently. I'm not sure what's good at this point but might give you a reference at least.

 

Depending on the fight I'm swapping between watchman and concentration in ops. I'm enjoying concentration too.