Update on Sentinel and Marauder

[Kyuuu]

Yeah I am the only marauder that raids in my guild and I am feeling like its not fair on them to have to worry about my mdps.

 

As for PvP I used to by I wouln't even bother as things are at the moment for carnage. Last thing I want is my own team to hate me and the enemy side being so happy easy kill marauder was there to bonus their kills.

 

Any high kill rate is only cause people ignore marauders cause their damage is so low they can then snipe some kills where others have done the main work.

 

So please BW stop judging everything but metrics cause they are in this case not telling you the full story. The few people left playing this class are telling you its bad. The numbers in end game raids and PvP should tell you the same story.

 

 

I could probably get away with playing my marauder in my guilds lackluster hm progressive runs. cause I one of the few dps in the guild that actual put out consistent numbers. across all my dps toon, but that dont work well when others are being carried, and my jugg and sin put out higher number by far compared to the marauder and those number on the jugg and sin, pale in comparison to range numbers cause how unfriendly the new ops are to melee.

 

And the terrible part about that is i get same crappy frames rates i get in pvp which is 15-20fps if not lower as i do in these new ops. i could only imagine what i could do if i actual had stable framerates.

 

I would kill at this point for just unstoppable for force charge

Edited April 6, 2015 by Kyuuu

[Aldael]

So basicly you are saying "Sents are fine...."

 

Well your argumentation is flawed by a long run. I will take my time to show how exactly you cherypicked the stattistics:

Hey folks,

 

I know that some of you have been waiting for a status update on Maras/Sents, especially for PvP. Here is some info from the Combat team.

 

 

Hello everyone,

 

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss Marauders/Sentinels and their present state in the game. To do so, we wish to start by outlining the rotational design philosophies of the three Marauder/Sentinel rotations.

 

Carnage/Combat: Low Rotation Difficulty, Moderate Burst and Moderate Sustained Damage

Annihilation/Watchman: High Rotation Difficulty, High Sustained and Low Burst Damage

Fury/Concentration: Moderate Rotation Difficulty, High Burst and Low Sustained Damage

 

Marauder/Sentinel PvP Viability:

As it presently stands, Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are performing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked PvP, respectively. We target a 50% win rate for each Discipline in PvP, and Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are slightly above this ideal win rate.

Carnage/Combat is the seventh most effective Discipline (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is right on target. Annihilation/Watchman is ranked seventh in Solo Ranked PvP (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is equally on target.

Clarification required what Win rate do you mean? The 1v1 Situation Winrate can´t be meant as internal guild testing has shown that none of our 2 Sents who still try to PvP was able to hit near 25% against any of the represented ACs. Gunslingers and Scoundrel DPS weren´t represented most other classes were represented by at least two players. Maybe our Sentinels are just bad, but this over 3 years or 2 years of experience and generally beating the **** out of 50% of the other players in PuG PvP (due to other Players normally not learning all other 7 ACs Skills and trying to estimate enemy behaviour 4-6 GCDs beforehand) in terms of DPS and Goalpoints.

 

So I assume you mean the winrate of SoloRateds with a Sentinel/Marauder in their team. Then the following points would be interesting how much did the Sentinel contribute to the win in terms of medals earned/damage dealt compared to the other 3 teammates in their respective roles (for tanks medals earned/damage negated; for heals medals earned/healing dealt). As our internal record shows, I have a Marauder on TOFN and talked to a lot of people when coming up with my most recent suggestions over the last months, normally looking at "what did he contribute" Sents lack behind by a far bit sometimes as going to the point "they weren´t relevant for the win" aka the match would have been won even without them probably. Given the Nature of Solo Rated, aka as we germans call it "Trottelloto" (english description "Blind Date with Random Idiots"), in average the winrate for the majority of all participants should end up at a break even as at some point due to the matchmaking system idiots will be matched up with evenly bad idiots and pros will be matched with pros on high pop servers during the prime time. So you number say practicly nothing.

 

Interesting would be the Average Sentinel Rating (maybe split by Specs) compared to other Classes average rating. This would show for solo Rated an Average far lower then all other ACs, Gunslingers should be slightly above. Arguably only people with 20 or more matches are included. Yes the winrate is fine but the average rating is lower then expected. If you go by the assumption all ACs have an equal distribution of player skill. Still internal records show that Sents in this distribution lack behind on all fronts. Top Sentinels lack behind Top players of the other ACs in all matters, yes they outperform 80% of the players but so do the top players of other classes. So Top Sentinels lack behind a far amount in terms of rating and total distribution to a win in solo rated compared to all other ACs in the relevant markers for a DPS: Damage Dealt/Medals earned.

 

(The above assumption is not true as people who main a Sent or have main a Sent are normally far mor skilled due to the class having been nerfed consectuvly since launch and having little to no counters to play compared for example to a Sage with his godmodebubble. Sent players were always required to memorize the most important enemy skills and predict enemy movement to major in pvp even during the times of smash monkeys aka incompetent people flooding to Sent class due to people standing together a lot. Sniper AoE was far better back then then the smash monkeys, oh I am derailing nevermind. )

 

Taking into account that the Sentinel population dropped, which you ignored or didn´t mention. For PvE on JKS we are down to the NiMable Sentinel Mains (Main meaning the prefered sometimes singularly played Class of a player for PvE Endgame Raiding Hardmode and above) who are concentrated in 1 guild. All other Guilds who were relevant in the last NiM Content or will be in the next have removed any Sentinels from all Raidgroups. From the good two dozen Sentinels on Repulic who cleared at least 50% of the old NiM Content on that Server only 3 remained. As far as I know there are no Marauders who are currently allowed to run Hardmode Progression on Jarkai Sword some from roundabout lets say 50ish Sent/Maras who ran DF&DP NiM before 3.0 only 3ish Sent/Maras remain as of 3.1.2. thats a decline by more then 90% in the Servers Top Tier Sent Players. Feel free to correct me as I don´t have the Devtools to get the real Raw Numbers.

 

In PvP we had a drop on the Server not talking about Rated for Jarkai Sword as it is to small a Server for balanced Rated PvP Enviroments aka to small pool for the quoe. In General there are half a dozen Sent/Maras left who regularly can place in the Top 2 of any 8man PvE Match, well as these half a dozen Sent/Maras are the only Sent/Maras who list for Endgame PuG PvP regularly (give or take 10 Sent/Maras for total numbers over the course of a week Conquestpoints are also gainable by loosing;-)) the quota will be quite high.

 

Same for Rated on ToFN, yes the winrate is quite high as all the not-topnotch or not-neartopnotch Sent/Maras have long rerolled to another AC for PvP measures and most Progression PvP Guilds have done the same. So you numbers are twirked.

 

It would be nice to see how Sent population (aka people playing a Sentinel for 4hours+ a week (aka two raid evenings an nothing else) or regularly) has changed since 2.9. up till now. Srry but your numbers are polished so you can tell us the class is fine.

 

Everyone, almost everyone says Sents are ****. Even the few players like me still clinging to the class. All relevant indicators show that Sents are useless and you are going on about how the 6 Combat Sents running round in team Rated got a 87% winrated. Buyah. What about the 600 Combat Sents who quit game on the same server since 3.0.?.

 

 

 

 

Additionally, Carnage/Combat is currently in one of the top 5 Group Ranked PvP class compositions, and this composition has an 82.6% win rate. While win rates are not the sole variable that we balance PvP performance from, these numbers provide evidence of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman viability in broad PvP scenarios.

 

What I want to say, go away from you stattistics and take yourself a week or so get some people from the combatteeam to play a Sentinel for 50matches in PvP, Solo PvP and Rated PvP each. If you still believe the Sentinel is fine please tell us what 99% of the playerbase maining a Sentinel is doing wrong and what missassumption most of the Raidleads and Ratedteamleaders have befallen stating "No Sentinels allowed."

 

Watchman is not fine, there is so many things you did wrong about it in all terms with the final version of 3.0. changes. I mained the Class for all the time since launch, I can estimate with a 60% propability the next 3 moves of my opponent. Still I find myself outgunnned in 75% of the fights indifferent to which CDs are ready and having Healer/Tank Support.

 

Fury/Concentration is in the lower half of the PvP spectrum. Like other classes that are underperforming, this is, and shall continue to be, addressed in upcoming class balance updates.

 

While we plan to adjust Marauders/Sentinels in future updates, we do not expect to see any Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines receiving significant damage output increases. Each of the Disciplines is presently performing at our desired DPS markers, and we plan to focus on Utility in the future. Specifically, mobility and self-healing improvements are currently being tested. We’ll keep you up to date on changes in the coming weeks.

 

I hope you rather hardly think about bringing the CDs of our two medium tier Def CDs (GBTF and Saber Ward) in line this the medium Tier Def CDs of all other ACs, 60s - 120s, or buff their baseline effects to commendate for a 180s CD. I might remind you other Classes got their Godkeys on a 180s CD.

 

It should be noted that PvP success is continually changing as updates reach live and the community learns new strategies with their classes.

Looking forward, we will continue to incrementally improve the status of Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines that are not performing to satisfaction. This is the perspective that we hold for all Disciplines across all classes.

 

We will continue to collect constructive feedback from the threads, concerning all classes, and apply improvements through our continual class balancing updates.

 

-The SWTOR Combat Team

 

 

Srry, give us the Raw numbers the following are required to understand you numbers or to put them in the right light:

 

- Average Rating of all ACs sorted by Discipline

- Role Relevant Average Numbers for Win and Looses for all ACS (aka DMG Dealt/Medals earned for a Sent)

- Population Numbers for the Sentinels and developpment of the average playtime for Sentinels

- Win/Loose Ratios for ALL ACs for all PvP Modes

 

I would like to make my own mind, can´t hurt if you give us the numbers can it? Otherwise expect me to go by my assumptions and tell you that your statistics are polished so that Sents look good, you might proove me wrong by giving us ALL the numbers.

 

100% agree to all he said

[Ld-Siris]

Hey folks,

As it presently stands, Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are performing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked PvP, respectively. We target a 50% win rate for each Discipline in PvP, and Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are slightly above this ideal win rate. Carnage/Combat is the seventh most effective Discipline (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is right on target

-The SWTOR Combat Team

 

This by far is the stupidest post I have ever read. Not only does it indicate your data is false and you don't play the game, but the quote I put is straight up false. In fact, in contradicts itself.

 

There are 5 Marauders that are tier one. #1 is 1884 and on the shadowlands where no one even plays. 2nd place is at 1709 with the other 3 in the 1600s. I cant believe the combat team feels this way as it is complete rubbish. I may cancel my sub after this utter and complete disregard for the class.

[AdrianDmitruk]

I don't even HAVE a sentinel or marauder. This is one of the only two ACs in the game I've never rolled, the other being sniper.

 

Even *I* read this dev post as, "Marauders must play defensively and make them pay for trying to kill you. The skill level required to play the marauder class may be higher than what some players are capable with. We do however acknowledge that marauders, unlike sorcs, cannot heal to full."

 

^^And I main sorc heals in PVP--that is a comparison with which I'm very familiar LOL

[Theshadowbehind]

Hey folks,

 

I know that some of you have been waiting for a status update on Maras/Sents, especially for PvP. Here is some info from the Combat team.

 

---

 

Hello everyone,

 

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss Marauders/Sentinels and their present state in the game. To do so, we wish to start by outlining the rotational design philosophies of the three Marauder/Sentinel rotations.

 

Carnage/Combat: Low Rotation Difficulty, Moderate Burst and Moderate Sustained Damage

Annihilation/Watchman: High Rotation Difficulty, High Sustained and Low Burst Damage

Fury/Concentration: Moderate Rotation Difficulty, High Burst and Low Sustained Damage

 

Marauder/Sentinel PvP Viability:

As it presently stands, Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are performing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked PvP, respectively. We target a 50% win rate for each Discipline in PvP, and Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman are slightly above this ideal win rate. Carnage/Combat is the seventh most effective Discipline (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is right on target. Annihilation/Watchman is ranked seventh in Solo Ranked PvP (out of 24 Imperial/Republic total Disciplines) with a win rate that is equally on target. Additionally, Carnage/Combat is currently in one of the top 5 Group Ranked PvP class compositions, and this composition has an 82.6% win rate. While win rates are not the sole variable that we balance PvP performance from, these numbers provide evidence of Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman viability in broad PvP scenarios.

 

Fury/Concentration is in the lower half of the PvP spectrum. Like other classes that are underperforming, this is, and shall continue to be, addressed in upcoming class balance updates.

 

While we plan to adjust Marauders/Sentinels in future updates, we do not expect to see any Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines receiving significant damage output increases. Each of the Disciplines is presently performing at our desired DPS markers, and we plan to focus on Utility in the future. Specifically, mobility and self-healing improvements are currently being tested. We’ll keep you up to date on changes in the coming weeks.

 

It should be noted that PvP success is continually changing as updates reach live and the community learns new strategies with their classes.

Looking forward, we will continue to incrementally improve the status of Marauder/Sentinel Disciplines that are not performing to satisfaction. This is the perspective that we hold for all Disciplines across all classes.

 

We will continue to collect constructive feedback from the threads, concerning all classes, and apply improvements through our continual class balancing updates.

 

-The SWTOR Combat Team

 

Tl;dr : We don't care about this class and we are not planning on fixing it.

[Strlder]

tl;dr

 

we're complete idiots and have 0 clue what we're doing

 

sub cancelled, thanks friends

 

game wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't star wars

 

craptastic job bioware

[Projawa]

So, difficulty-wise it's supposed to be carnage < fury < annihilation? Is this for PVP or PVE?

 

While all the specs are easy, I'd say in reality it's more like carnage > annihilation > fury. Carnage is also the most fun.

 

Make it so that Ravage can be channeled while moving. That would be a great utility/QOL change.

 

 

It would be great if you devs could talk about the state of the ranged dps tax and how it currently does not exist. Please don't rely solely on metrics/statistics to justify your position as those can easily be tunneled and manipulated to support any claim.

 

What are your thoughts about the playstyle/rotation of annihilation that everyone is complaining about? If you think it's ok, say so and tell everyone that it will not be changing. If you plan to revert it in 4.0, say so.

 

Are your plans for addressing marauders in PVE something like having the ops team work on more melee friendly mechanics, nerf dps outliers so marauders are indirectly buffed, and give marauders utility/mobility enhancements? Then say so.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Projawa

[Bruceme]

I wonder if the EA/BIOWARE stats take into consideration win trading. Best decision i ever made was to retire my Mara when the expansion came out. Sorc heal, Madness Assassin, even Merc are much better. No point in playing a Mara. Roll Jugg, you will live longer and do more damage. doubt these guys have ever played a Mara, and if they are doing so its fully augmented/geared out in optimal conditions (i.e.pocket healer) only reason to play your mara is for OPS and Roleplay. Edited April 6, 2015 by Bruceme

[Atlanis]

Wel post #56 has the real numbers showing biowares numbers are fake^^

[Aldael]

Does anyone have the same picture of a dev when working on sents/maras as me?

 

MWAHAHAHA (evil laughter)

Edited April 6, 2015 by Aldael

[MorgenBlue]

This is the 2015 version of Heal To Full.

[ronniehenlau]

Wel post #56 has the real numbers showing biowares numbers are fake^^

 

It's important to note that biowares numbers are wrong - they're just being read in a poor way. They're going off of percentages of wins / class, but dont take into account the overall. So if 10 marauders/sentinels are playing, and they have a 60% win ratio, that means that maras/sents are slightly above target. But if 200 sins/shadows are playing, and they only have a 40% win ratio, that means that sins/shadows are slightly below target. While this might seem silly, it's the way they have decided to do balancing, and knowing them, it's probably the way they plan on continuing.

[Serpenttt]

Been playing my sentinel since beta, has and always will be my main, but for pvp you guys at Bioware are just dead wrong. As everyone is saying the damage is fine, leave the damage the **** alone, we need movement impairing immunity of some kind. Transcendence is good, sure, but it's not enough. Why not give us what guardians have with the immunity on force leap? Why do they need it more than we do?

[EenVooral]

Seriously, reading that "Anni/Watchman" is basically "working as intended" in Solo Ranked is the funniest thing I've ever read on these forums. I have PVP'd since the first week of this game on my Sent, and since 3.0, I HAVE NEVER seen a Sent/Mara in Watchman/Anni spec in Solo Ranked! To run that spec in Solos would amount to some of the greatest trolling (of your own team) there can be in a WZ. With no real burst in that spec since 3.0 (thanks for that, btw), Watchman/Anni is useless in Solos unless que-syncing w/ a healer and tank. In Grouped Ranked, w/ a dedicated tank & healer, you MAY put up decent numbers but still won't be as effective, if the objective is to actually kill something, as the other specs.

 

From the post, you give us a "broad" statement that Watchman/Anni & Combat/Carnage have a "50% win rate as intended," yet how many players, per spec, is that based on? Some arbitrary "sample" will not give a clear and accurate representation of how these specs, and in fact this entire class is performing (as evidenced by the Ranked Leaderboards).

 

I won't reiterate everything that is wrong with this class as others already have (along w/the 47 pages of suggestions the community provided to the Devs pre 3.1.1 that was summarily ignored - "working as intended" I guess), but will just say that it continues to be extremely disappointing and disheartening to me that the Devs continue to ignore the community that has so much dedication to a class that prior to 3.0 had finally recovered from the massacre that was Patch 1.2, to now find ourselves in a much worse condition.

[Bruceme]

the sample size hardly qualifies as a scientifically reasonable analysis of the data. what about adjusting for win trading?

[giorgo]

It's important to note that biowares numbers are wrong - they're just being read in a poor way. They're going off of percentages of wins / class, but dont take into account the overall. So if 10 marauders/sentinels are playing, and they have a 60% win ratio, that means that maras/sents are slightly above target. But if 200 sins/shadows are playing, and they only have a 40% win ratio, that means that sins/shadows are slightly below target. While this might seem silly, it's the way they have decided to do balancing, and knowing them, it's probably the way they plan on continuing.

Yeah,they have been balancing with this way for quite some time now.They gave sents a similar answer a while ago,that their survivability was fine because their win/loss ratio was more than 50/50.

Interpretation : We are so ****in lazy to look at numbers in depth so we just picked the win/loss ratio to make our lifes easier because we dont give a damn and we are bad at our jobs.

TL;DR When there will be only 1 sentinel still playing the class and said guy plays a game and wins it,sentinels will have 100/0 win loss ratio,so they will nerf the class

.

Edited April 6, 2015 by giorgo

[DarkDisturbed]

This is the most pathetic post I have ever seen from a dev bar freakouts from indie devs threatening to kill Gabe. There is such a disconnect between reality and what the devs believe. Of course when only the most elite dedicated sentinel players are playing the class in ranked the win ratio will be decent. Nobody else can even stand 1 match. Your players that have played Watchman Sentinel or Anni Mara since launch are telling you that it is no fun, even burdensome to play. There is no reason for you not to believe them, take a look at how many sents/mara are actually competing in PvE and PvP instead of flawed statistics that miss the point.

[DynamiCtagez]

It's important to note that biowares numbers are wrong - they're just being read in a poor way. They're going off of percentages of wins / class, but dont take into account the overall. So if 10 marauders/sentinels are playing, and they have a 60% win ratio, that means that maras/sents are slightly above target. But if 200 sins/shadows are playing, and they only have a 40% win ratio, that means that sins/shadows are slightly below target. While this might seem silly, it's the way they have decided to do balancing, and knowing them, it's probably the way they plan on continuing.

 

Anything you have to say about that Bioware?

[Lord_Kavar]

Reallly? are u *********** kidding me?

If you think Marauders/Sentinels are performing well, you have literally no *********** idea at all. Do you guys even look at your official Leaderboards for ranked PVP? Because if you did, you would see that the TOP RANKED sentinel/marauder is currently at rank 110. That is the BEST marauder in the entire game and he isnt even in the top 100 players! How can you say that a class is fine if that class isnt even in the top 100? His rating in solo is 1884, which is much lower than any of the other class's top ratings.

We got very big problems with knockbacks, snares, roots etc.... we need inmunitys like others melees and we need a lot of self healing or better defenses.

[Costello]

What I find really nice from the community team is the two way conversations.

 

I don't know where there metrics come from the encounter team have set a dps check on the raid encounters and I would be amazed if carnage speced marauders could make it.

 

But please prove us wrong take 4 marauder or sents into the hard mode ops and from Bulo or Storm squadron onwards show us the metrics of the damage and what the encounter team believe are the desired ones. Cause I don't get where your getting your figures from. Check it out in game as players are experiencing it and not from some table that don't give you a clear picture of how the game is playing.

[Bruceme]

would be better for them just to admit that their plans for the class do not involve increasing viability, rather than insult our intelligence with stats that form no basis to reality.

[Sudo]

would be better for them just to admit that their plans for the class do not involve increasing viability, rather than insult our intelligence with stats that form no basis to reality.

 

I believe this is what's really getting us riled up.

 

Anyone with a few working brain cells can see the flaws in the post Eric made, but instead they'd rather keep insulting our intelligence and hiding behind "metrics".

 

Of course someone already provided quite a bit of data that disproved Eric's post.

 

Long story short.. don't expect anything from this team with dev responses like that...

[Jboath]

Well, guess I can retire my sent and focus on my sage.

 

You had a thread on sent/mara feedback and apparently listened to ABSOLUTELY *********** NOTHING.

 

"We plan to focus on utilities on a later update."

 

So MAYBE we have a chance for viability in the next season. Whereas sents utilities needed to be completely overhauled for pvp 3 months ago.

 

Not that I do anyway in ranked with my laptop graphics card.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Jboath

[giorgo]

What I find really nice from the community team is the two way conversations.

 

I don't know where there metrics come from the encounter team have set a dps check on the raid encounters and I would be amazed if carnage speced marauders could make it.

 

But please prove us wrong take 4 marauder or sents into the hard mode ops and from Bulo or Storm squadron onwards show us the metrics of the damage and what the encounter team believe are the desired ones. Cause I don't get where your getting your figures from. Check it out in game as players are experiencing it and not from some table that don't give you a clear picture of how the game is playing.

 

Or take 4 marauders against 4 of any other AC ,all equally skilled,and then tell us what the win/loss ratio will be.Even snipers who are arguably the second worse class for SR is a complete counter to maras and completely destroy them.And mercs,who are also bad for SR,would destroy maras in a 4 vs 4 setup because of 4 e-nets.

[Atlanis]

So I am interested who is gonna ask Sent questions next Community Cantina, lets make sure we block the Q&A sections of the cantina with only Sentinel questions and calling names^^