Sentinel's pacify is useless on most cases.

[James_Mcturney]

Only useful against guardians, snipers, other sentinels and commandos. Also it's good to note that only against a few of theirs skills, so if they are good players they know what's happening and can completely avoid the pacify's effect (6 seconds only) by using "counter" skills.

 

What about 50% miss chance on all atacks for 6 seconds, makes perfect sense, 1 min cd, 4 meter range, bleh... It's just very annoying to have bad skills that you "HAVE" to use because simply... you can use them (off gcd), they are filling the hotkey bar and making you have to work extra in the micro /decision making for something that might not even work.

btw before any accusations: i use pacify correctly all the time, it's just very frustrating when it can't work

No other class has a skill that may have 0 effect on enemies, even if correctly used.

 

Otherwise there will be matches where this skill is pretty much useless 100%, just a waste of a skill slot and maybe some related utilities that could have other effects if this skill didn't exist. Actually this is a better solution, remove this skill from the game and give sentinels, idk, 15% movespeed on combat baseline? stoic utility baseline? jedi promulgator baseline? any change is welcome.

 

Unless a major change in how defense/accuracy works for pvp, it is a pretty stupid mechanic as some classes also can simply ignore having accuracy in their gear (even though the vendor has lots of accuracy enhancements... very annoying when i was gearing my PT/VG) because most of their stacks are force/tech and players simply have 0 tech/force defense most of the time.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[MasterFeign]

I don't mind its limitations for attack type, what I don't like, myself is that there's a utility to make it 10m instead of its default 4m. With the difficulty for maras to stay in melee range already, having it at a default of 10m, and doing away with the utility would be great.

[teclado]

Don't forget about Shadows - 3+ white damage attacks. So that leaves Sages and Scrappers (concealment) that Pacify is completely useless or mostly useless against. Versus an AP PT, you have Rail Shot. I'll take it. Off GCD, 60 sec cooldown - I'll still use it on them to mitigate their burst a little bit. So we'll call that moderately useless. Everything else - moderately useful to very useful.

 

The effect is not obvious and is off the GCD. Good luck to anybody, in the heat of battle, noticing when it happens to avoid its effects. Nobody does consistently, "good player" or otherwise.

 

I think it's a good ability. I don't think we sents use it enough. I would not advocate for the removal of Pacify. Giving 10m range baseline for it would be nice.

[Romeugues]

sentinel's are useless on most cases

ftfy

[Serrowherrow]

It's easily one of the most useful abilities in a marauder's arsenal. The fact that its usefulness scales depending on what class you're fighting is irrelevant. By your line of logic, operative's auto-dodge bubble is worthless, as is saber deflection and other parry/dodge based abilities.

 

They're clearly not though - it just depends on what you're fighting. Sure that sorc you're beating on might not give a **** if you obfuscate him, but it's going to make that deception assassin really sad that you're parrying all of his mauls, or forcing a vengenace jugg to waste his entire ravage and an ability or two. The effect is also quite difficult to notice in the heat of battle, especially if you have a lot of other effects on you - I will say pacify is a lot harder to spot than obfuscate when it comes to this.

 

It all boils down to knowing what class you're fighting and when it's appropriate to use it. There are only a handful of defensive cooldowns in the game that are 'universally good' and usually manifest in the form of flat damage reductions. I'd personally take an ability that gave me a near 100% chance to outright negate someone's main attacks than an ability that reduced that same damage by 20% or so.

[alexsamma]

Pacify is an example of a very well designed dcd, it is very strong when used correctly but requires the user to know when to use it, it is also one dcd in a an array of dcds available to sentinels and marauders (which arguably have the best array of dcds available to any class in the game).

 

Force and tech attacks can miss, they changed this back in 2.0 (and in 3.0 even taunts can miss), you will generally only miss force/tech attacks if you are debuffed (such as sniper diversion) or the person you are hitting has a dcd up that increases their defense chance (such as ap pt aoe taunt), there are also talents in some specs that give you increased defense levels (such as shadowsight for KC shadows). Min-maxers typically ignore accuracy for tech only specs because your chances to miss outside of being debuffed or dpsing into a dcd are so low that it is not worth taking, for specs that have a combination of tech/force and white damage it is generally considered optimal to take some accuracy (this includes snipers and powertechs).

 

Sentinels/marauders are probably one of the most balanced AC's in the game, they are a top tier dps class in the hands of a talented player and roadkill in the hands of a poor player (on another note, they excel at killing sorc healers, so you've picked a good class considering how much you seem to hate sorcs)..

[Wikar]

which arguably have the best array of dcds available to any class in the game

holly s.... are you SERIOUS?

 

Let me give you a flash of what best dcd pack is:

- 5 sec reflecting back all ranged\force\tech attacks (literaly everything, but melee hits) on a 1 min CD.

- heal to full (a honorable second life) on a 1min 30 sec cd

- +30% HP and +20% damage reducing for 10 sec every 60 sec

- +20% damage reducing and immune to ANY controll (pull, push, knockback, stun, incapaciate etc.) for 4 sec every 15 sec (and this 15 sec cd is reduced every time you get attacked)

- 50% defence against melee ranged (chance to completely avoid this attacks) and 25% absorbing damage from any tech/force attacks on a 3 min cd.

 

This is what i call "good dcd pack" compared to a 3 seconds of -99% damage taken every 3 min

Edited December 21, 2015 by Wikar

[Romansonesix]

Sentinels have more than pacify, you also have;

-guarded by the force - %99 damage reduction

-transendance- 10% defense plus movement (try combining this with wz adrenal and concentrated slice buff)

-saber ward-25% damage reduction (utility gives cc immunity)

-camouflage- stealth and damage reduction

-concentration force exhaustion has cc immunity buff

[Hiro_Wildfire]

Let me give you a flash of what best dcd pack is:

- 5 sec reflecting back all ranged\force\tech attacks (literaly everything, but melee hits) on a 1 min CD.

- heal to full (a honorable second life) on a 1min 30 sec cd

- +30% HP and +20% damage reducing for 10 sec every 60 sec

- +20% damage reducing and immune to ANY controll (pull, push, knockback, stun, incapaciate etc.) for 4 sec every 15 sec (and this 15 sec cd is reduced every time you get attacked)

- 50% defence against melee ranged (chance to completely avoid this attacks) and 25% absorbing damage from any tech/force attacks on a 3 min cd.

This is what i call "good dcd pack" compared to a 3 seconds of -99% damage taken every 3 min

 

just to chip in, this is all assumeing you're on Shien spec and have certain utilities and tallents.

Otherwise

-saber reflect only lasts for 3 seconds

Enraged defence is on a 2 min cooldown.

That +30% hp is lost at the end and there's no Extra DR.

Theres no extra DR on leap or the immunity to any control.

Charge's cooldown isn't reduced without the utility.

 

if you're going to compair the sentinel's cooldown's at the bare baseline, with no utilities? It might be fairer to do the same with the jugg's.

[SeanFM]

Actually this is a better solution, remove this skill from the game and give sentinels, idk, 15% movespeed on combat baseline? stoic utility baseline? jedi promulgator baseline? any change is welcome.

No!!!! Sure the ability has its limitations but please don't remove it from the game! This is a terrible idea!

 

Pacify is the reason we can fight snipers. They're channelling Penetrating Blasts at you? Pacify them and suddenly they're tickling you instead of taking a huge chunk out of you're health. They're casting Ambush and you have no way of CC'ing or getting out of their LOS? Use pacify and they'll miss most of the time. You've just saved 20k of you're health.

 

And it's not just amazing against snipers. Pacify can single handedly win you fights against so many specs. Just because there are a couple of specs that it doesn't work against doesn't mean it should be removed. If anything it's one of the few well designed DCDs in the game.

 

Pacify is the difference between an average Sentinel and a good one. Please don't dumb the class down.

[DerSchneider]

holly s.... are you SERIOUS?

 

Let me give you a flash of what best dcd pack is:

- 5 sec reflecting back all ranged\force\tech attacks (literaly everything, but melee hits) on a 1 min CD.

- heal to full (a honorable second life) on a 1min 30 sec cd

- +30% HP and +20% damage reducing for 10 sec every 60 sec

- +20% damage reducing and immune to ANY controll (pull, push, knockback, stun, incapaciate etc.) for 4 sec every 15 sec (and this 15 sec cd is reduced every time you get attacked)

- 50% defence against melee ranged (chance to completely avoid this attacks) and 25% absorbing damage from any tech/force attacks on a 3 min cd.

 

This is what i call "good dcd pack" compared to a 3 seconds of -99% damage taken every 3 min

 

Not all jugs run vengeance, just saying. That blind hatred of juggs causes big misunderstanding.

On fury mara I have:

10s (1/3 uptime) of predation (10% DR)

6s (2/3 uptime) of 10% defence chance after furious strike

up to 30s of 20% all damage reduction

15% of damage reduction by adrenal

 

Without mentioning hard cooldowns I can get pretty solid damage reduction without any drawbacks

Also I have saber ward that can be specced into 6s of CC immunity+6s of gravity manipulation = 12s of cc immunity non stop.

Undying rage (that lasts up to 6s) is arguably better than saber reflect because it does crap damage.

Force camo can be used to escape and h2f or just as nice ohshi* button.

[alexsamma]

holly s.... are you SERIOUS?

 

Let me give you a flash of what best dcd pack is:

- 5 sec reflecting back all ranged\force\tech attacks (literaly everything, but melee hits) on a 1 min CD.

- heal to full (a honorable second life) on a 1min 30 sec cd

- +30% HP and +20% damage reducing for 10 sec every 60 sec

- +20% damage reducing and immune to ANY controll (pull, push, knockback, stun, incapaciate etc.) for 4 sec every 15 sec (and this 15 sec cd is reduced every time you get attacked)

- 50% defence against melee ranged (chance to completely avoid this attacks) and 25% absorbing damage from any tech/force attacks on a 3 min cd.

 

This is what i call "good dcd pack" compared to a 3 seconds of -99% damage taken every 3 min

 

There's a reason maras/sents get picked over juggs/guardians for team ranked, and it's not a huge disparity in damage output.

 

Juggs have amazing cooldowns that allow them to stay in the thick of combat, but their escapes are fairly atrocious.

 

Enraged Defense is superior to Guarded by the force/undying when you do not have a healer, but inferior in the presence of a healer and juggs have nothing that even begins to touch force camo or predation/trance (which is a group wide speed buff, root breaker (if talented), and provides 10% increased defense chance); with cloak of pain up (50% uptime) mara's have 50% (or more, depending on spec and talents) passive DR and then can spec into 30% aoe damage reduction.

 

Between force camo, undying, mad dash, and predation it is very easy for a marauder to completely negate damage and recover from over-extending or being pulled or pushed away from his team.

[Wikar]

There's a reason maras/sents get picked over juggs/guardians for team ranked, and it's not a huge disparity in damage output.

 

Juggs have amazing cooldowns that allow them to stay in the thick of combat, but their escapes are fairly atrocious.

 

I agree that sentinels/marauders have much better escape abilitys and even group utilites, like 10% defence + speed literaly without cd and pacify, they are indeed better for ranked, but in terms of pure dcd, Jug is far better. if we could say "+ healer" than sentinels for sure, but not because of their dcd pack.

[James_Mcturney]

Pacify is the difference between an average Sentinel and a good one. Please don't dumb the class down.

 

Hehe, might have been "dumbing the class down" by removing one skill, while many other classes do better with less skills (looking at you PTs, juggs and sorcs dps), but it would be an awesome buff, one that sentinel still requires, they could use like 1-2 utility points extra to be equal with the top tier classes imo, specially in ranked, other classes seem to outdo sentinels so easily, guardians simply have twice as many hitpoints they have, with very similar DCds+overall absorption.

 

Anyway, it's really annoying and stupid that some classes are simply immune to this skill because how they are badly designed. You think bioware thought :

"hey lets give sorcerer/sage* 100% force attacks because it looks cool, and like, all their powers seem to be" (X)

"hey lets give sorcerer/sage* 100% force atacks because it would be balanced from a mechanical PoV" (_)

 

Change* it for smuggler/powertech/shadow dot spec (i know they can use meele atacks, but they can also dot you u and kite in many survival situtations, specially against meele).

 

What about 50% miss chance on all atacks for 6 seconds, makes perfect sense, 1 min cd, 4 meter range, bleh... It's just very annoying to have bad skills that you "HAVE" to use because simply... you can use them (off gcd), they are filling the hotkey bar and making you have to work extra in the micro /decision making for something that might not even work.

btw before any accusations: i use pacify all the time, it's just very frustrating when i simply chose to not use it because it won't work. No other class has a skill that may have 0 effect on enemies, even if correctly used.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[AngusFTW]

Pacify is an amazing cd. You just have to have a good knowledge of/played the other classes to utilise it correctly since it only works on white dmg.. Most just derp pacify sorcs, healers and concealment operatives then cry.... ;_; Edited December 21, 2015 by AngusFTW

[James_Mcturney]

Not all jugs run vengeance, just saying. That blind hatred of juggs causes big misunderstanding.

On fury mara I have:

10s (1/3 uptime) of predation (10% DR)

6s (2/3 uptime) of 10% defence chance after furious strike

up to 30s of 20% all damage reduction

15% of damage reduction by adrenal

 

Without mentioning hard cooldowns I can get pretty solid damage reduction without any drawbacks

Also I have saber ward that can be specced into 6s of CC immunity+6s of gravity manipulation = 12s of cc immunity non stop.

Undying rage (that lasts up to 6s) is arguably better than saber reflect because it does crap damage.

Force camo can be used to escape and h2f or just as nice ohshi* button.

 

What 10s (1/3 uptime) of predation (10% DR) LMAO.

It's 10% defense, MEELE/RANGED ONLY. IT SUCKS, there still are lots of pts/sages around laughing about this skill effect.

the 6/9 furious strike is supposing you are not cc'ed/following the target to use it... also did you take taht 6 sec immune? it's only good on 4v4 dps yolos, because otherwise it's a 6/180 cc immune skill, that forces you to pop this very important cd on the very first seconds, because thats when people always cc you 1x at least... This utility is even worst against stealthers that can cc you from stealth =/

Also why mention adrenal? xD Didn't know only sents could use adrenals

 

Pacify is an amazing cd. You just have to have a good knowledge of/played the other classes to utilise it correctly since it only works on white dmg.. Most just derp pacify sorcs, healers and concealment operatives then cry.... ;_;

It's awful to have a skill that simply doesn't work against specific cases, and maybe a whole match, because that class is badly designed, it also adds insult to injury because these same classes are currently above the others.

Also white damage = not the same as meele/ranged accuracy fyi. Type of damage and type of atack are 2 different things.

Cauterize/rupture are meele atacks that deal elemental damage (yellow damage), if it misses, the target doesn't get the dot.

Edited December 21, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[alexsamma]

Hehe, might have been "dumbing the class down" by removing one skill, while many other classes do better with less skills (looking at you PTs, juggs and sorcs dps), but it would be an awesome buff, one that sentinel still requires, they could use like 1-2 utility points extra to be equal with the top tier classes imo, specially in ranked, other classes seem to outdo sentinels so easily, guardians simply have twice as many hitpoints they have, with very similar DCds+overall absorption.

 

(

 

Sentinel is top tier in group ranked, upper mid tier in solo, and top tier (borderline OP) in regs; I would be very careful when asking for any buffs to sentinels/maras because it would be extremely easy for them to go from balanced to broken.

[James_Mcturney]

I don't mind its limitations for attack type, what I don't like, myself is that there's a utility to make it 10m instead of its default 4m. With the difficulty for maras to stay in melee range already, having it at a default of 10m, and doing away with the utility would be great.

 

You just gave me another idea, maybe it could stay how it is, but we could get the displacement utility baseline, people always ask for some utilities made baseline, this one is a midtier-garbage utility that could fix a few of sentinels UP problems like being burst from stealth/cc and also improve pacify a bit.

[SeanFM]

Hehe, might have been "dumbing the class down" by removing one skill, while many other classes do better with less skills (looking at you PTs, juggs and sorcs dps), but it would be an awesome buff, one that sentinel still requires, they could use like 1-2 utility points extra to be equal with the top tier classes imo, specially in ranked, other classes seem to outdo sentinels so easily, guardians simply have twice as many hitpoints they have, with very similar DCds+overall absorption.

 

Anyway, it's really annoying and stupid that some classes are simply immune to this skill because how they are badly designed. You think bioware thought :

"hey lets give sorcerer/sage* 100% force attacks because it looks cool, and like, all their powers seem to be" (X)

"hey lets give sorcerer/sage* 100% force atacks because it would be balanced from a mechanical PoV" (_)

 

Change* it for smuggler/powertech/shadow dot spec (i know they can use meele atacks, but they can also dot you u and kite in many survival situtations, specially against meele).

 

What about 50% miss chance on all atacks for 6 seconds, makes perfect sense, 1 min cd, 4 meter range, bleh... It's just very annoying to have bad skills that you "HAVE" to use because simply... you can use them (off gcd), they are filling the hotkey bar and making you have to work extra in the micro /decision making for something that might not even work.

btw before any accusations: i use pacify all the time, it's just very frustrating when i simply chose to not use it because it won't work. No other class has a skill that may have 0 effect on enemies, even if correctly used.

I understand you find it annoying that it doesn't work against some classes/specs. I get the frustration. But this is how lots of defensive cooldowns in the game work. Force Shroud only protects against Force/Tech attacks. If a shadow is up against a Concealment Operative it's a godlike dcd. If they're up against a Marksman Sniper and just use Force Shroud, they get shat upon. The dcd is situationally good. It's the same deal with Evasion, Saber Reflect and Pacify.

 

Some defensive cooldowns are meant to give straight damage reduction, some give immunity to a damage type, or roots, or stuns. Defensive cooldowns are different, and that's good! This makes the game more intricate. If everyone had a button to press that worked in all situations and had no draw backs, the game would be beyond dull. Just think about rock, paper scissors. Some things are more effective than others in certain situations.

 

Pacify may only work against the less common damage type, but it's extremely effective at what it does and I hope it doesn't get changed. If you want Sentinels to have some buffs here and there, fine. Make some suggestions like you have been doing about utilities. But please don't give BW any ideas about removing Pacify!

 

No other class has a skill that may have 0 effect on enemies, even if correctly used.

Sorry, but this is just incorrect. There are plenty of abilities in the game that give you a percentage increase in chance to dodge/resist etc an attack. Assassins have Deflection: Increases your ranged and melee defences by 50% for 12 seconds. Warriors have Saber Ward which does the same thing except it also absorbs 25% of Force/Tech damage. You can use these skills at the perfect moment and not dodge the attacks you needed to. Pacify is virtually the same. It only works against a single target but it gives you a much better chance of your opponents attack missing.

 

The game mechanics work around rng. Maybe the healer would have died if that attack crit. You won the 1v1 with only 300hp left. If the other guy had rolled higher on one of his attacks he might have won. If the sin hadn't dodged the final tick of your Blade Dance with Saber Ward you would have killed him. You get the picture. The game revolves around these mechanics. Don't complain about something only working some of the time, especially when the percentage is as high as 90%.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

As for my comment about dumbing the class down:

It wasn't just a throw-away comment. I was being serious. Correct usage of Pacify requires a good knowledge of the class and discipline you're up against. You have to use it at the right time and not a lot of people know when that is. Taking away a skill that can't just be pressed whenever you feel like it to gain the benefits and replacing it with a flat defensive increase is dumbing the class down. Pacify is a very important and much overlooked part of Sentinel defence and I'd very much like it to stay in the game.

[James_Mcturney]

OOHH yeah actually got me there on the shadow buff, saber reflect also (does it reflect the first dot of force melt?! imagine if it reflected the whole skill O.O) and some others... i was going to say that resilience still gave the shadow immunity to sniper's cc's, as well as everyones ccs... lol Anyway, shadow has 1 big DCD against meele/rang and one big DCD against force/tech... whelp... Still, what you said proves my argument wrong. Which actually makes me happy because, i really thought it was the only broken skill that no one had noticed (felt like big injustice) and i really wanted it to be changed, now actually i like this skill more. *delete thread* xD Edited December 22, 2015 by James_Mcturney

[Devilk]

Remove the skill? No way. I use pacify/obfuscate all the time to avoid big hits. You're out of your mind to want it removed, not to mention, the only classes it has no uses against are ops/sorcs. So 2 out of 8 it's not effective against. Instead of asking for it to be removed, perhaps you should have asked for the accuracy debuff to be changed to include force/tech accuracy. Edited December 22, 2015 by Devilk

[Grue_Hunter]

Only useful against guardians, snipers, other sentinels and commandos. Also it's good to note that only against a few of theirs skills, so if they are good players they know what's happening and can completely avoid the pacify's effect (6 seconds only) by using "counter" skills.

 

What about 50% miss chance on all atacks for 6 seconds, makes perfect sense, 1 min cd, 4 meter range, bleh... It's just very annoying to have bad skills that you "HAVE" to use because simply... you can use them (off gcd), they are filling the hotkey bar and making you have to work extra in the micro /decision making for something that might not even work.

btw before any accusations: i use pacify correctly all the time, it's just very frustrating when it can't work

No other class has a skill that may have 0 effect on enemies, even if correctly used.

 

Otherwise there will be matches where this skill is pretty much useless 100%, just a waste of a skill slot and maybe some related utilities that could have other effects if this skill didn't exist. Actually this is a better solution, remove this skill from the game and give sentinels, idk, 15% movespeed on combat baseline? stoic utility baseline? jedi promulgator baseline? any change is welcome.

 

Unless a major change in how defense/accuracy works for pvp, it is a pretty stupid mechanic as some classes also can simply ignore having accuracy in their gear (even though the vendor has lots of accuracy enhancements... very annoying when i was gearing my PT/VG) because most of their stacks are force/tech and players simply have 0 tech/force defense most of the time.

 

A lot of the debuffs have been rendered useless or have been weakened since 4.0. Sniper's legshots and movement slows are useless when so many classes have the ability to be immune to movement impairment. Stuns cause toons to regenerate health. Your pacify issue is just one of many...

[Kakisback]

Force and tech attacks can miss

 

Ok but pacify only debuffs melee and range accuracy. Nonetheless I find the OP to be mostly whining. Shadows don't complain that deflection (baseline) doesn't do anything vs sorcs and conc ops, or jugs qqing that reflect doesn't do **** vs anni maras and stuff

[alexsamma]

Ok but pacify only debuffs melee and range accuracy. Nonetheless I find the OP to be mostly whining. Shadows don't complain that deflection (baseline) doesn't do anything vs sorcs and conc ops, or jugs qqing that reflect doesn't do **** vs anni maras and stuff

 

The op's statement made it sound like he thought hat force and tech attacks could not miss.

[RodneyMcNeely]

Sorry for the minor necro, but I just dusted off my Combat Sentinel recently and am trying to fine-tune his PvP chops.

 

Does anyone have a quick primer on which classes/specs Pacify and Obfuscate work against? I have a pretty good sense of which Knight/Warrior specs and Consular/Inquisitor specs, but I'm still really fuzzy on how to use this in a 1v1 situation against Bounty Hunters/Troopers and Agents/Smugglers.

 

Thanks in advance, y'all!