Annihilation | Watchman 4.0 Guide

[Lodinn]

I DIDNT MEAN IT D:

 

In all seriousness though, people hating on sents is dumb. Hell, i'm pretty sure that a sentinel is the second best MDPS for underlurker because of Rebuke - which should be up for every add wave, for the entire add wave. PTs don't get 100% uptime on Electro shield, and with enough DPS (see: any group I was in) the adds die too quickly for it to be up more than every other add wave. Whats more is until 4.0 dropped, VGs didn't have storm to bypass that damn slow during the adds in HM, whereas a sent not only had access to predation to give the whole team an easier time getting to the rocks, but could also jump straight to an add every wave.

 

Plus inspiration is awesome. In a raid doing ~30k dps for a burst window (not hard at all), popping inspiration is worth an extra 30k damage - or 100dps in the long run. The watchman changes should also be good for uptime in a raid, because for one you don't have to pray to RNGsus to have enough resources to even do the rotation, and you don't have to clip Blade Dance (RIP Master Strike).

 

Plus it was discovered that Bant was accidentally providing way too little armor for his calculations. He's running off the assumption of 35% DR without sundered (which equates to ~30% DR with sundered), when in reality its closer to 40% without/35% with. Napkin maths on Tactics vs Watchman nerfs Watchman to 6907 dps, but nerfs Tactics to 6774 dps - putting it ~125 dps lower than watchman (and yes, I did account for the reduced armor vs Rail Shot).

 

Watchman has the lead it needs. The issue is the perception problem of Pug groups, who all suck, still sore over the incident of 3.0 on the watchman rotation. Sentinels in Watchman spec are actually providing a ~225dps lead over Tactics, and have better AoE.

 

Now this isn't me being a sore loser about this - hell, if Im a sore loser over anything this raid tier its that we moved imp side and I lost my sweet Trooper Kel Dragon gear - but Personally i'd love it if our other PT went to his Marauder instead. He even planned on it, but like you, he's got the issue of needing to put time in to learn the new rotation. And I dont blame him.

 

TL;DR Watchman/Annihilation is definitely worth putting the time in to learn it, because you'll be better than everyone else.

I do appreciate that info coming from you, and as a great mara admirer (at least for the whole 3.*) I did realize that PT can have 200 more dps on boss - but mara provides said 100 dps in a long run for all 4 dps resulting in 400 raid dps increase. I do realize Predation was the only thing that could get us that kill (we pulled Lurker 43 times that night, I had 500 dps more than any other in our group (~3.6, anni always got me better numbers there unless adds died too quick) and we still were barely able to kill each wave in time, double predation in burn was an absolute must. I do realize you can't value a Marauder if you don't possess a vision of a raid group as a whole, working towards the same goal and being in that similar to tank mentality, which made the class/spec fun for me in the first place.

After certain point of 3.* I just felt getting tired of constant fighting over my place in the raid, feeling pressurized into competitive parsing etc etc just to prove (who?..) the point mara is perfectly ok for raiding.

 

I have to make a confession. It's my first big expansion, I didn't experience myself 2.10 maras or something. 3.2.1 changes felt strange but I didn't have to relearn everything about the class, rotation changed significantly - but not completely. Now with leap changes and nearly everything being put on 9s cd it's a huge change of playstyle - for example, newly introduced cooldown on Force Rend which is bigger than FR duration itself changes the skill very significantly. Now it's not a 10m skill which is to be used ideally with 100% uptime but without overlapping, BUT you could reapply it as you saw fit given certain circumstances like movement, resource management or rotation alignment - instead you just use it on cd nearly strictly. You don't dance around the boss anymore making those minor movements to dodge circles or something similar completely - instead you tend to just use movement keys to stick to the boss and manage your fillers carefully. How long will mara stay the same? A month? Half an year? It seriously leads to questioning life choices

Snipers are the same for the whole year long. In theory, maras should be treated exactly the same as that's the only other class with only dps specs - if you really really love core class skillset, you can sometimes shift to more viable role on all the other classes. Loving the spec hurts way more as it appears, lesson learned .

Seriously, BW treats snipers the least and it's a total win-win choice. I see a clear connection here...

[WiththeForc]

Eh, I look at parsing more towards pushing the boundaries of the spec and seeing exactly how far you can push the class from boss to boss.

[Lodinn]

Beastfury, it's because you're that devoted to it. When you log to the game without any prior knowledge of ops you will run this evening, role you'll fill and so on... It's nothing even close to killing Revan 20 times on a same class getting better and better results. No, I killed it only once. All that people were interested in is killing it on alts. Same goes for great many encounters. Sometimes it's like "we need strong AOE to deal with turrets on torque" or "we need more floaters for m&b" or even "we need a healer so go and yolo it". I'd be very happy to kill more stuff on mara during 3.*. But that was apparently too much of a luxury.

 

I do realize I sound totally like a filthy casual here all the way along yelling #gameishard, but if you spend 10 hours on learning spec and then raid 20 hours on it - it's one story. If you raid 200 hours on it - it's another story. Seeking the boundaries of spec lies quite far on a learning curve, and that means learning not only spec, but encounter on this spec as well. If you don't have access to it, it quickly becomes really unrewarding. End of story.

 

That's the essence of my earlier posts. High-end raiding is good if you fill one specific spot in your (presumably stable) raiding group. Game changes, and pugs are far more accessible way to go. It's hard to efficiently pull performance other classes/specs achieve in fights as mara. Especially in a pug. Especially if dps is not your main role.

 

OK, it's time to man up, quit whining and finally start kicking ***, new rotation won't learn itself and my mara totally has to continue building a name, and a good one

 

Cya guys on cool mara vids on Youtube

[Bonzenaattori]

I've noticed also, that Zen with Juyo gives 0 damage amplification to burns, despite the fact it gives 100% crit chance to burns... someone do the math and check up on this for me pls... im too lazy

[Bugattiboy]

TL;DR Watchman/Annihilation is definitely worth putting the time in to learn it, because you'll be better than everyone else.

 

You sure Kwerty? It's just not the same as before.

 

I loved Watchman's 2.x playstyle and had played it exclusively since launch up until 3.0 launched then I dropped it for another class. Is the increased difficulty of Watchman really worth it when Tactics is so close in DPS (according to Bant's 224 gear calculations) and has an easier rotation?

 

Also, in your opinion, how close is it to the 2.x rotation?

Edited November 1, 2015 by Bugattiboy

[Lodinn]

OK, now I've done some parsing.

If you happen to post it (maybe partly/reworked) on dulfy or somewhere, i beg you to add a section with ability priority.

Otherwise it's really hard to follow in raiding circumstances.

 

This being said, add something like this please:

 

Core rotation: AN/MS-filler-RU/CAU-filler-filler-filler.

Ability priority:

If recovering from downtime, simply start over with AN and get back to rotating these cycles of 6 GCDs.

Filler priority:

1. Force Rend | Force Melt

2. Ravage | Master Strike (full duration, otherwise just delay to 3 filler block)

3. Vicious Throw | Dispatch (in execute range)

4. Dual Saber Throw | Twin Saber Throw

5. Battering Assault | Zealous Strike (unless capped on rage/focus, try to delay it until high-damage windows for set bonus)

6. Vicious Slash | Slash or Assault | Strike

 

Resource-wise it's easier to manage than before, earlier you had rage-builders and rage-spenders, now a big part of your rage spenders are Slashes which can be replaced with Assaults/Strikes without being crucial to rotation. The only thing that really requires special attention now is Deadly Saber/Overload Saber which is very annoyingly floating, which wasn't a thing in 3.*. Use it on cd and have spare rage for it.

 

With perfect uptime it results in 2 "Ravage/Master Strike" cycles and 2 "Saber Throw" cycles as it is in your guide already. Without priority it'd drive me mad to figure out on which cycle I'm in after some downtime and so on. I think it's better to have written in a guide rather than have people figuring it on their own if they need to (and most likely they will, I believe).

 

As you can see, my priority list is different from yours "damage per ability activation" (mostly because it's more important to keep dot on the boss flowing and delay Ravage or even Annihilate by 1 GCD rather than delay Force Rend by 2).

 

Just suggestin'

[Ardarell_Solo]

Is the increased difficulty of Watchman really worth it when Tactics is so close in DPS (according to Bant's 224 gear calculations) and has an easier rotation?

 

 

I'd say no. Tactics will outperform you in many actual boss encounters for reflect and better range. The gap has gotten smaller as compared to 3.2.x. but it's stil there.

 

It's basically the same since 3.0. imo: You only play Sentinel if you do it for the love of the class itself and its lore. If you're looking to max your efficetiveness as DPS vs. difficulty it's certainly not the #1 way to go.

[Lodinn]

It's basically the same since 3.0. imo: You only play Sentinel if you do it for the love of the class itself and its lore. If you're looking to max your efficetiveness as DPS vs. difficulty it's certainly not the #1 way to go.

Raid utility man

 

Oof, your rotation is a lie.

Know why? You don't need that force leap anymore to build rage in opening. In fact, you can now use DS with FR like you used it with leap and later AN. I mean, you can actually come somewhat close to boss and either camo to him or just run or whatever or worst-case scenario is leap and then do all the same just to relief yourself of dancing cooldowns.

This being said, core rotation will become something like

 

AN | AN | AN | AN

FR | __ | __ | __

RU | RU | RU | RU

Rav | FR | Rav | __

Rav | DST | Rav | DST

__ | __ | FR | __

 

with FR tied to DS. Rest is the same as in your guide, just 1 less thing to track. I found it quite convenient. Besides, for 3.0 rotation admirers it's easier to keep track of cycles as well.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Lodinn

[TACeMossie]

I'd say no. Tactics will outperform you in many actual boss encounters for reflect and better range. The gap has gotten smaller as compared to 3.2.x. but it's stil there.

 

It's basically the same since 3.0. imo: You only play Sentinel if you do it for the love of the class itself and its lore. If you're looking to max your efficetiveness as DPS vs. difficulty it's certainly not the #1 way to go.

 

Its a little more complicated, based of a number of factors, such as the size of the raid, and which specific raid it is.

 

In general though, if its 8-man, PTs are the safe bet, though bringing a single sentinel/marauder shouldn't hurt.

If its a 16-man, make sure to bring at least 1 sent/marauder, because of how damn powerful Inspiration/Bloodthirst is with 70k+ raidwide DPS, though diminishing returns start happening when you add a second Sent/Mara.

 

Oh and to max DPS/Effectiveness, go with the engineering sniper

 

Raid utility man

 

Oof, your rotation is a lie.

Know why? You don't need that force leap anymore to build rage in opening. In fact, you can now use DS with FR like you used it with leap and later AN. I mean, you can actually come somewhat close to boss and either camo to him or just run or whatever or worst-case scenario is leap and then do all the same just to relief yourself of dancing cooldowns.

This being said, core rotation will become something like

 

AN | AN | AN | AN

FR | __ | __ | __

RU | RU | RU | RU

Rav | FR | Rav | __

Rav | DST | Rav | DST

__ | __ | FR | __

 

with FR tied to DS. Rest is the same as in your guide, just 1 less thing to track. I found it quite convenient. Besides, for 3.0 rotation admirers it's easier to keep track of cycles as well.

 

but but but

 

putting DS 2 GCDs before FR means that you get an extra tick of 2-stack DS per application, which adds up to a LOT of damage.

Combining it with FR though means no extra ticks, so no extra damage.

Edited November 1, 2015 by TACeMossie

[gunte]

Raid utility man

 

Oof, your rotation is a lie.

Know why? You don't need that force leap anymore to build rage in opening. In fact, you can now use DS with FR like you used it with leap and later AN. I mean, you can actually come somewhat close to boss and either camo to him or just run or whatever or worst-case scenario is leap and then do all the same just to relief yourself of dancing cooldowns.

This being said, core rotation will become something like

 

AN | AN | AN | AN

FR | __ | __ | __

RU | RU | RU | RU

Rav | FR | Rav | __

Rav | DST | Rav | DST

__ | __ | FR | __

 

with FR tied to DS. Rest is the same as in your guide, just 1 less thing to track. I found it quite convenient. Besides, for 3.0 rotation admirers it's easier to keep track of cycles as well.

 

Sounds like a bad idea since you lose the 2nd 2-stack tick of Overload Saber and the "free" focus from leap meaning you're working the same rotation with less starting focus basically.

[oofalong]

*snip*

If you happen to post it (maybe partly/reworked) on dulfy or somewhere, i beg you to add a section with ability priority.

Otherwise it's really hard to follow in raiding circumstances.

 

First off, the opportunities to maximize DPS in raid environments is the most engaging part of the spec for me. Maximizing DPS is a function of the fight mechanics, adds, downtime, etc. It's also dependent on your comp to some degree. Plus, given 40+ relevant bosses a guide would be much longer than the tome I've already written here. It's out of scope for what I am interested authoring too. That said, there are a few generally applicable tips I do plan on adding.

 

 

Oof, your rotation is a lie.

Know why? You don't need that force leap anymore to build rage in opening.

 

Wow, that's a bit harsh. Do you know why you use Force Charge | Leap at the beginning?

 

• To leap into melee range without risking pulling the boss before the tank does.
  
• The current rotation and opener have Force Rend | Melt placed 2 GCDs after the use of Deadly | Overload Saber which means we will delay adding a 3rd stack to the target, and benefit from an extra 2-stack tick, which is greater DPS.
  

Edited November 1, 2015 by oofalong

[Lodinn]

My bad here, sorry guys. Was too hasty in the morning, didn't manage to pull out enough testing.

It's just i got like ~150 dps increase after switching to what I proposed. Must be RNG/me being bad at memorizing things *shrug*

 

Apparently found out I read guides too much yolo-way, got used to old rotation and applying 1st DS stack with AN too much (and presumed 1st stack of DS is applied the same GCD it's written on except for Leap in opening). It has nothing to do with a guide, it's perfectly written in that regard but my mind is somewhere else :-[

 

Appreciate the fact there're 3 guys pointing me errors in my ways so fast

 

Sorry Oof if I offended you in any way

[Bonzenaattori]

• To leap into melee range without risking pulling the boss before the tank does.
  
• The current rotation and opener have Force Rend | Melt placed 2 GCDs after the use of Deadly | Overload Saber which means we will delay adding a 3rd stack to the target, and benefit from an extra 2-stack tick, which is greater DPS.
  

 

I tend to place overload saber off my blade dance clip into merciless, blade dance builds two stacks and merciless building the third... that way it gets full smouldering duration, combined with zen and 6 stack juyo (from opener), you have max damage amp on your first merciless with crit off 6 set bonus and beat down included.

Best damage set up i've goten so far and it shows. Delaying your merciless off the blade dance doesn't hurt your rotation in the slightest, as smouldering still fits in the entire duration of both melt and cauterize, meaning you get all 3 dots uptime with smoulder on merciless usage.

 

Any other way imo is not even remotely optimal.

 

As for the Force Leap opener... well i dont do it and would never recommend anybody to do it (even a tank) unless they're super lazy.

If you wana be lazy, dont expect good parsing. Nuff sed

Edited November 2, 2015 by Bonzenaattori

[Ardarell_Solo]

I tend to place overload saber off my blade dance clip into merciless, blade dance builds two stacks and merciless building the third... that way it gets full smouldering duration, combined with zen and 6 stack juyo (from opener), you have max damage amp on your first merciless with crit off 6 set bonus and beat down included.

Best damage set up i've goten so far and it shows. Delaying your merciless off the blade dance doesn't hurt your rotation in the slightest, as smouldering still fits in the entire duration of both melt and cauterize, meaning you get all 3 dots uptime with smoulder on merciless usage.

 

Any other way imo is not even remotely optimal.

 

As for the Force Leap opener... well i dont do it and would never recommend anybody to do it (even a tank) unless they're super lazy.

If you wana be lazy, dont expect good parsing. Nuff sed

 

I see how you might think this is superior but you should always check your logs and calculate dps values of both versions. Yeah, that's even more work and even less for "lazy" people ;-) but it prevents you from following false assumptions. I can assure you that delaying Merciless is always a dps loss and that the small 5% dps boost from Smoldering is never worth delaying core abilities like Merciless and even less so Overload Saber.

 

How high do you get with your method? Because doing what you do should cost you about 350 DPS compared to Oofalong's rotation. On the 1.5 Mio. dummy I'm getting 6750 consistently with it, best at 7020. (220 gear with some "bad" stuff, one 198 relic).

 

Opening with Rend is a bad option cause you need to use Rend to get extra ticks from Overload Saber as Oofalong explained. I cross tested that as well. Plus you don't win anything because putting Rend in the spot in the opener will force you to delay either Rend or Annhilate or Cauterize later.

 

You generally want to aim at seemless Dot application without delaying Merciless or Blade Dance - ever! Not for one GCD. While placing Overload in a spot in your opener that assures you will have it in spots in the rotation that allows Rend to prolong Overload's ticks throughout your whole combat.

 

Any rotation that doesn't achieve that will be a dps loss that can't even remotely be matched by Smoldering or any other small buff.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Ardarell_Solo

[Hawk_IV]

Hey Oofalong

AWESOME GUIDE! THANK YOU GOOD SIR! You are an amazing dual-sabered theory-crafter.

 

Do you know if it'll increase our dps if we parse using the 2.5mil dummy instead of the 1.5mil dummy because of a longer burn-phase? (below 30%)

 

btw, you have Blade Blitz and Mad Dash added as a new ability for Patches 3.2 and 3.2.1 as well as 4.0.

Just a quick fix. ^^;

[oofalong]

Hey Oofalong

AWESOME GUIDE! THANK YOU GOOD SIR! You are an amazing dual-sabered theory-crafter.

 

Do you know if it'll increase our dps if we parse using the 2.5mil dummy instead of the 1.5mil dummy because of a longer burn-phase? (below 30%)

 

btw, you have Blade Blitz and Mad Dash added as a new ability for Patches 3.2 and 3.2.1 as well as 4.0.

Just a quick fix. ^^;

 

Thanks for the compliment and thanks for catching the error. I am actually going to do a round of edits on the guide today.

[Thufir_Hawat]

Love your work as always Oof.

 

When I use your model I get a slightly better result by keeping the default gear's tertiary stats (1, Alacrity, 3 Accuracy and 3 Crit), then using ears and implants to add 1 accuracy and 2 crit.

 

This results in 1 Alacrity, 4 Accuracy and 5 Crit. For Augments I'm running with 9 Alacrity and 5 Crit. Just getting a tiny, tiny amount more dps from your model then the suggestion in your guide.

 

You end up with a touch under 110% accuracy this way, I think 110% accuracy is the baseline assumption for the other model which might explain the slight difference.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Thufir_Hawat

[oofalong]

Love your work as always oof.

 

Thanks Hawat.

 

When I use your model I get a slightly better result by keeping the default gear's tertiary stats (1, Alacrity, 3 Accuracy and 3 Crit), then using ears and implants to add 1 accuracy and 2 crit.

 

This results in 1 Alacrity, 4 Accuracy and 5 Crit. For Augments I'm running with 9 Alacrity and 5 Crit. Just getting a tiny, tiny amount more dps from your model then the suggestion in your guide.

 

You end up with a touch under 110% accuracy this way, I think 110% accuracy is the baseline assumption for the other model which might explain the slight difference.

 

First off, I know the model doesn't do a great job calculating less than 110% Accuracy as it assumes that 99.75% (or whatever percent of the damage) is actually done when in reality no damage is done if you miss. This would be particularly noticeable on DoTs. Still, a miss would only happen once every 10,000 or so attempts.

 

That said, I'm not surprised that the model predicts slightly higher amounts of damage with other builds. In the guide, I erred on the side of simplicity, but I will look over it again. I wonder if fixing the relics will slightly increase the value of Alacrity some. We'll see

[Reno_Tarshil]

I felt my Sentinel's performance was pretty poor when 4.0 launched after reading this guide last night and making the necessary changes and updates, I feel like my damage output is back to normal, so thank you for this helpful guide.

[PallyHk]

My only problem is the annihilate's CD increase. It took what little non-boss usefullness you had away.

 

Also, Force charge should not have a minimum range. Assassin's charges doesn't have it, why do warriors have to get the short end once more?

[Bugattiboy]

why do warriors have to get the short end once more?

 

Because most of the devs play Inquisitors.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Bugattiboy

[Ailaria]

Amazing work as always, oofalong!

 

I have one question (which was posted earlier in this thread but seemed to go unnoticed): have you considered using the old 2-piece and the new 4-piece rather than the new 6-piece? The 2-piece from two different sets stacks, essentially making Battering Assault/Zealous Strike increase damage by 4% rather than 2%.

 

So essentially my question is, is the 2-piece or the 6-piece better? And roughly how big is the difference (i.e. is it worth losing mastery for)? Some quick fiddling with your spreadsheet gave me 5247 damage per minute for the 6-piece and 4116 for the 2-piece, but I may have done something wrong there.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Ailaria

[WiththeForc]

Amazing work as always, oofalong!

 

I have one question (which was posted earlier in this thread but seemed to go unnoticed): have you considered using the old 2-piece and the new 4-piece rather than the new 6-piece? The 2-piece from two different sets stacks, essentially making Battering Assault/Zealous Strike increase damage by 4% rather than 2%.

 

So essentially my question is, is the 2-piece or the 6-piece better? And roughly how big is the difference (i.e. is it worth losing mastery for)? Some quick fiddling with your spreadsheet gave me 5247 damage per minute for the 6-piece and 4116 for the 2-piece, but I may have done something wrong there.

 

I am unable to test it to tell you for sure so take this with a grain of salt, but as far as I know the two 2-piece set bonuses do not stack. This is what others have said as well as the fact that Bioware fixed a problem with this type of thing back when 2.0 launched and mercs could stack their 2 piece dread guard set with their 2-piece underworld set bonus giving an unintended +30% crit chance on tracer missle instead of the intended +15%. So basically I'm putting faith into Bioware that this is still the case

[Ailaria]

I am unable to test it to tell you for sure so take this with a grain of salt, but as far as I know the two 2-piece set bonuses do not stack. This is what others have said as well as the fact that Bioware fixed a problem with this type of thing back when 2.0 launched and mercs could stack their 2 piece dread guard set with their 2-piece underworld set bonus giving an unintended +30% crit chance on tracer missle instead of the intended +15%. So basically I'm putting faith into Bioware that this is still the case

 

I know for a fact that having two 2-piece bonuses at least gives you two buffs from it, as I just tested that earlier when someone was asking if it does stack. I haven't verified that the damage increase works correctly, but I'd say it's very unlikely that you'd get the double buff without getting the benefit from it.

 

Also, do keep in mind that putting your faith in Bioware is often a bad idea.

[Ardarell_Solo]

I know for a fact that having two 2-piece bonuses at least gives you two buffs from it, as I just tested that earlier when someone was asking if it does stack. I haven't verified that the damage increase works correctly, but I'd say it's very unlikely that you'd get the double buff without getting the benefit from it.

 

Also, do keep in mind that putting your faith in Bioware is often a bad idea.

 

I just tested it and it looks like the buffs do actually stack and "correctly" increase damage for the time they are up. But I am also seeing a slight DPS loss in the end (about 50-80 or so).