Advice in certain situations in ranked arenas to perform as well as possible

[GAPPOJONES]

We've all been discussed the current broken state of sentinels, and I realize it's really not possible to get taken on a serious ranked team, at least until 3.1.1 comes out, and then who knows. So it's going to be a yolo experience until then and maybe more. I'd like to get the community's take on the following issues/situations so at least if someone sees me in an arena, they know that while I might not be the class of choice for a team member I'm at least going to pull my weight. I'll try not to make this a wall of text crit for 15k damage:)

 

Spec and Utilities

Decided to stick with concentration spec. Using the following utilties for ranked arenas only

 

Masterful Utilities: (1) Defensive Forms; (2) Increased duration and damage of Rebuke; (3) Master Strike root. I've experimented with taking the "generates 4 focus when stunned or slept" talent in favor of the increased duration of rebuke, but only in combat and don't feel there's a whole lot of choice in this tier

 

Skillful: (1) Definitely taking Incisor, where Force Leap and Zealous Leap slow the target for 6 seconds. Feel like this is necessary to deal with all the sorcs and assasins to help as much with uptime as I can. I've experimented with several others for the second one, as other than the reduction in cooldown of pacify and force kick, can all seem quite useful. I used to always take Defensive Roll (reduced AOE damage), but now I'm not so sure. Since I get stunned a lot, I like to be able to use Rebuke while stunned, so am currently taking that. But I also like the increaed duration of and movement speed of Force Camo, and a reduction in the cooldown of Force Stasis also looks intriguing. I've also even experimented with taking the talent where strike, zealous strike and leg slash all reduce the cooldown of rebuke. Thoughts?

 

Heroic: Fooled around a lot with these, but currently taking (1) Introspection charges centering and reduction in Awe cooldown; and (2) Increased duration of Guarded/Undying Rage by 2 seconds. Thoughts on this?

 

Burning down a called target vs peeling for our healer/support the focused target

In Yolos, I try to listen to players who I know have more experience, and pay attention to the target order they want burned. But I also realize everything is situational and can change based on the circumstances. Example: Both teams have healers. My team wants let's say the other team's powertech burned first. I'm burning the powertech with my other dps, and he's forced to pop his cooldowns. Meanwhile, the other team's concealment operative is stabbing the daylights out of my healer, and I notice this. I peel for my healer, attack/stun/choke him so my healer can get away and heal up. Am I right to do this, even though the operative was not the called target to be burned? I have also found myself peeling for a non-healer teammate who gets focused. Am I supposed to do this, or just blindly tunnel the first target my team calls to be burned until the match is over or he's dead?

 

A guarded target

 

Should I ever continue to burn a target that is guarded? Or always switch to someone who isn't?

 

If I am focused

 

As a sentinel, sometimes I will be the focus target of the other team. I have been chided in the past for blowing Force Camo too early, but sometimes feel as if I've got no choice. Example. The other team has 1 or more powertechs, and an assassin. I get opened on out of stealth or pulled by a powertech and here come all 7 or more shoulder missles. Although I would rather save camo till later, I feel like I have to use it when focused to reset the fight and force them to switch targets.

 

I also feel like I have to stun break in that situation or sit there and die. Camo at least forces them to switch targets and allows me to effectively use the damage reduction cooldowns like rebuke and saber ward for later when i might not be attacked by the whole team at once. When this first started to happen to me, i would panic and blow almost everything I had. Highly interested in the community's take on what to pop in what order if you get focused, and if there is a general rule of thumb on that.

 

Thank you very much

[llayles]

There's a reason everyone's harping on sent/mara so hard for PVP. They shouldn't be played. Period. You are actively detracting from your team until they get buffed.

[Aluvi]

There's a reason everyone's harping on sent/mara so hard for PVP. They shouldn't be played. Period. You are actively detracting from your team until they get buffed.

 

Awesome attitude to have towards someone who is legitimately trying to learn and get better - something that you only see extremely rarely these days.

[TitusOfTides]

While your first reply may appear discouraging and not at all helpful, I would like to start by stating that a well played Mara/Sent is truly a force to be reckoned with. People haven't quite caught up to the new gearing and playstyle of these classes, and until then you will hear a lot of trash tossed towards your class. You appear to be considerate enough of the variables to be in a unique position to prove these people wrong.

 

I will start with your skillful utilities, as you appear to have these in the right place. The only thing I would consider playing around with would be the defensive forms, and instead possibly take Stagger - just to keep those targets that will run right in front of you (if only just a little bit longer).

 

On your masterful utilities, I definitely agree with you on Incisor. Slowing them down and keeping them close to you is going to be a big help, whether you are focusing an opponent or chasing down a straggler. For your second point, I would consider either trying the 30% AoE reduction. There are enough complaints about AoE damage these days, and this puts you in another great position to show these people how weak their attacks really can be.

 

The Heroic utilities you have chosen are good, but to get more synergy out of your choices I would recommend trying out Fleetfooted (to make sure you maintain your close proximity when the enemies try and slow you), and Zealous Ward. Another good combination could be Force Aegis and Enduring. This second option doesn't really specifically synergize with the other utilities you've chosen, but it will give you about 6s of immortality every 30s (at the expense of your health, however). With the amount of roots/slows your prior utility options give you, I would be more inclined to use the 2nd option of Heroic utilities I presented. Already having force camo, this will effectively give you 2 "outs" if you happen to be focused (which while people think this class is worthless, might give you a free pass until the regular players catch on to your new effectiveness).

 

 

Usually, it is good to focus on 1 target altogether with the team - but sometimes you have to make a judgment call during the process. Occasionally splitting off from the group focus (if its proving to be a fruitless effort) can be a good call - especially if you see an untouched enemy on the opposite team. This can sometimes throw off the whole group dynamic. Another random note, is on healers: They will often focus healing on their focused teammate - spreading out your DPS on the fly to another teammate, or even themselves, will cause them to adjust their plan or die. Most healers, when pushed, will get very selfish with their heals and heal themselves at the expense of their teammates. Also, focusing a target and then pushing the healer away or stunning them when you get an incline that a heal will be coming to them soon can sway the tide of the battle. Follow your instincts and let the force guide you on this one

 

On the guarded target scenario, it does differ. If you are focusing the guarded individual with another teammate, it can be good to keep the pressure on them - or split the focus between the guarded and the one guarding. This is usually decided on a case by case scenario, and (like the last paragraph) letting your gut feeling push you on what to do in each situation is usually the best way to go - especially since you have a few 'predetermined options' to switch between on a moment's notice.

 

When you are focused, however, you have a couple options to fall back on. I would either Force Camo out, or use Guarded by the Force. Sometimes, you might see great returns if you are being constantly focused by using Guarded by the Force, and then before or after it wears off hitting Camo immediately. Try to save your stun breaker for the last possible moment, and just eat a stun or two every now and then if you think you can take it.

 

One another note, get some Alacrity - as much as you can. It seems to be the new hidden gem stat, and not many people have caught on to this yet. My recommended stat priority would be as follows: Alacrity > Alacrity > Alacrity > Power > Crit > Surge > Strength (did I mention Alacrity? lol). Switching to this would give you another opportunity to show everyone that these classes are not broken - they just require a new mentality when playing.

 

 

Edit: Also, if I forgot anything or you have any other questions please feel free to ask!

Edited February 10, 2015 by TitusOfTides

[Aluvi]

I agree with going Concentration / Fury for right now. It currently does similar or better burst damage than Carnage and has similar if not better sustained output, without requiring you to utilize gore windows, which are very susceptible to damage prevention by ranged classes or anyone with a stun / cc.

 

Utilities: Skillful (think you meant that for where you said Masterful)

Defensive Forms, Master Strike root, and increased duration on Rebuke. I take all of these as well. I feel like the root on Ravage is needed, because Ravage is not an optional part of our rotation in Concentration, and it can hit quite hard.

 

Masterful: Incisor (Interceptor) is a must. This was extremely helpful for Rage spec to help stay on target. Aoe Damage reduction is always a plus. There are some arguments for other utilities here, but those are the two I choose for right now. AOE isn't as big of a deal as it used to be, but death field, death from above, and even force storm is quite painful.

 

Heroic: My feeling for ranked is that the Centering building one is not worth it currently, because the only time you actually need that extra Zen (berserk) is to use Bloodthirst (or w/e it's called pub side), or predation. And then, it's a one time thing. For regular warzones, absolutely take it - every time you die you want to come out with a berserk to get full stacks and immediately burst. But for arenas I don't feel it's worth it. the Undying Rage buff is also somewhat mediocre. When they buff UR, this might be more worth it, but as it is, Ur is simply a "live 4 more seconds" ability. Adding 2 seconds, or 1 GCD, will probably not be the deciding factor of a match. I might feel differently about it in group ranked once they buff UR though. Additionally, the cooldown reduction of Undying Rage is also not very desirable currently, since especially in Yolo ranked, you're just going to die after using it - you won't get to use it multiple times. Even with the buff it's ridiculously unlikely that you'll need to use it twice in an arena given the time limit. The Crippling Slash one, even once it's buffed, is still not really needed for Focus spec, and it's going to be a waste of a GCD.

 

That leaves Blood Ward (heals for up to 36% of your hp during Saber Ward), a mediocre watered down self heal that is only barely useful in it's current form, and Expnging Camouflage. They actually made the Camo talent work now - it removes roots, so it is quite useful. Those are my two choices for solo ranked. For group ranked with a proper healer and tank, I'd probably go Expunging Camo for the root break and Undying Rage duration - primary reason being that a 6 second UR gives your healer time to get you up after being CCed and the team hard switches to you. It's a shame we can't use it while stunned, or get some kind of damage reduction while stunned.

 

OK now onto your strategy questions...

 

Burning down a called target vs peeling for our healer/support the focused target

In Yolos, I try to listen to players who I know have more experience, and pay attention to the target order they want burned. But I also realize everything is situational and can change based on the circumstances. Example: Both teams have healers. My team wants let's say the other team's powertech burned first. I'm burning the powertech with my other dps, and he's forced to pop his cooldowns. Meanwhile, the other team's concealment operative is stabbing the daylights out of my healer, and I notice this. I peel for my healer, attack/stun/choke him so my healer can get away and heal up. Am I right to do this, even though the operative was not the called target to be burned? I have also found myself peeling for a non-healer teammate who gets focused. Am I supposed to do this, or just blindly tunnel the first target my team calls to be burned until the match is over or he's dead?

 

Absolutely peel, but preferably do so in a way that allows you to switch back to your primary target. A good example would be to leap to them and then use your aoe fear on the operative. This gives your healer 6 seconds of breathing time, assuming no one else is on the operative, which is more than enough. Immediately switch back to your primary target... or don't! It's a situational judgement call. If the PT is at 50% or higher hp and has all cooldowns up, you won't be killing him any time soon, and even staying ON him with Hydraulics up is going to be nearly impossible. Getting him to blow his cooldowns and putting him on the defensive is good, and at that point it might be a good idea to just switch to the operative full time and snare / root / dps the crap out of him - make him hit you instead of the healer. It's absolutely a judgement call, and Yolo ranked with various team makeups can make this very difficult to decide. In group ranked, protecting people is the tanks job, however that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't help when the tank gets mezzed and the other team hard switches to your heals. You absolutely should, and having the situational awareness to do so is the mark of a good player. Just remember, you're 50% of your teams dps, and you won't get a kill in group ranked without both halves of the dps. I tend to save my Intimidating roar defensively, unless we have a hard switch call coming up. I may use it then, but other classes have a much easier time doing so.

 

 

Should I ever continue to burn a target that is guarded? Or always switch to someone who isn't?

 

Again, it's a judgement call. Against a really good tank in team ranked, you're going to find that you don't really have a choice. That is why hard switch comps work so well - you can mez the tank, dps hard switches to a non guarded target (preferably a dps) when they have all their burst up, then they make sure to stun / cc the tank and heals for as long as possible (your heals and tank help here as well) to try to kill a dps. Once one dps dies, the match is effectively over, since one dps will not get a kill vs a full tank + healer 4 man group. Another strategy, especially against dot / cleave groups (ie, 2 sadness sins or sorcs or a combo of both), is to split your teams dps to both the healer and one dps. This guarantees that 50% of your teams dps damage is getting through unhindered by guard. Eventually one of them is going to get low (50% or less), at which point you can switch whichever dps is not on that target to it and try to burst it down. Ideally your tank should be on the dps being focused with one of your dps, to taunt. Constantly switching targets by who is not guarded can turn into a tug of war between you and the tank that you will never win. While it isn't bad to try to switch, doing so every other GCD can get quite annoying. Also, many tanks will do "focus target guarding", meaning that they will set you as their "focus target', then constantly hit their "target focus target's target" keybind to see who you are tagretting, and then guard that person. When this happens, it's damn near impossible to switch guard targets without a cc / mez on the tank and hard swap called in voice chat. It's better to split dps here and try the above mentioned strat. There's also tank tunneling, but that seems less effective given the nerfs to Carnage, which was the staple for bursting down tanks, and buffs to tanking in pvp.

 

 

As a sentinel, sometimes I will be the focus target of the other team. I have been chided in the past for blowing Force Camo too early, but sometimes feel as if I've got no choice. Example. The other team has 1 or more powertechs, and an assassin. I get opened on out of stealth or pulled by a powertech and here come all 7 or more shoulder missles. Although I would rather save camo till later, I feel like I have to use it when focused to reset the fight and force them to switch targets.

 

Nonsense. Force camo is currently our best DCD and it's on a 45 second cooldown. Chances are very high that you'll have it up again when you need it. You can opt to "tank" the burst if you want, but that's usually only a good idea if you do it on your own terms - ie, you know you will be focused first and you pop your cloak, saber ward, and/or adrenal after charging in. This gives your team time to do damage while you take the brunt. You can force camo out after the stuns wear off and medpack. then get on whatever target your team has gotten low at that point. I don't really recommend this in YOLO ranked, because if you're any good, you're often going to do 2-3x more dps than your teammates, and that means that you want to be alive as long as possible, using your other, lesser skilled teammates as meat shields to let you get some kills in before they die.

 

You should just try to avoid getting pulled in general though. See a PT on enemy team? Remind your team to make sure they line of sight whenever / wherever possible on the engagement to avoid getting pulled. Not getting that initial charge off is very annoying, as it means you have to obliterate before you can use Raging Burst.

 

Remember that your grenade (and you should have grenades for ranked) is also a DCD if needed, either for you or a teammate. or it can be an offensive tool. I almost always save it for defense in YOLO, because if there's one thing you can guarantee, it's that pugs will break your mezzes, even when there are 4 dps around your healer, and your healer is stunned and at 10% hp, and you just gave your heals a 5 second window to heal up and get out. Healer almost dead, enemy dps mezzed around him? Better aoe them. Pugs are smart ya know.

 

I also feel like I have to stun break in that situation or sit there and die. Camo at least forces them to switch targets and allows me to effectively use the damage reduction cooldowns like rebuke and saber ward for later when i might not be attacked by the whole team at once. When this first started to happen to me, i would panic and blow almost everything I had. Highly interested in the community's take on what to pop in what order if you get focused, and if there is a general rule of thumb on that.

 

Again, this is a judgement call. Ideally you would pop cloak of pain when you start taking damage, then add saber ward if you are still losing health fast and you notice 2+ people focusing you, and finally adrenal / medpack (assuming you don't have a healer - if you have a healer, medpack should only be used as an emergency heal). However.. unlike some other classes, we don't have a damage reduction on being stunned, which means that once you start taking a good amount of damage, you could be looking at 8 seconds of stunlock. Everyone, I don't care how good they are, has had the following scenario happen:

 

You start taking damage, you use one DCD. You get stunned and are taking a LOT of damage, you break stun and try to use other DCDs - but you're stun a milisecond later and you can't get your saber ward / adrenal / medpack off. You die before the second stun wears off. This is ESPECIALLY true vs dual PTs who's burst is currently very overpowered, and thankfully being nerfed. In a 4 vs 4 dps game, you can literally be killed in 1-2 GCDs from full hp if you only have cloak of pain up. So while some people might chide you for using everything at once, sometimes if you try to be conservative you will end up dead, not having half of your DCDs.

 

There is no good answer for this. It's an experience / judgement call, and split second decision making is required. This is one of the things that separates mediocre players from great ones, but the good ones would be lying if they said that the above scenario never happens to them. Someone was kind enough to point out that I am a "terrible player" because they saw it happen to me. Sometimes you just get screwed. Sometimes the RNG stars align, and you end up dying in one GCD in a stun before you can pop anything in a 4v4 dps match with extremely good players. In WoW, the time to kill is higher (takes longer to kill a person and burst to health gap is higher) to make sure that this doesn't happen, but in SWTOR, it can and does happen all the time. When I do regs with friends, we rarely focus healers in warzones first, because they are harder to kill. It is infinitely easier to burst down a few dps first.

 

Some final thoughts:

 

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about ranked and pvp in SWTOR in general. It's true that there are some REALLY awful players still around, but the ones that are good tend to be extreme veterans who have thousands of hours of play time on their main toons, hell, thousands of hours of play time just in ranked warzones alone. The level of competitiveness and brutality of the pvp in this game at the highest levels rivals that of any other game, and the learning curve can be brutal.

 

It's nice to see someone genuinely trying to improve and asking the right questions though.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Aluvi