Jedi Sentinel Feedback

[Dyne-]

Thank you. I did wonder. I don't PvP and haven't run Ops on a regular basis in a long while, so this is not a benefit I would know.

 

... which also makes the point for me that choice should be a thing. If I ever do choose to do PvP or again have the opportunity to run Ops, then it'd be a thing. When not partaking of this content, then, it makes sense that maybe another choice/config would be more beneficial.

 

I agree that choice should be a thing, but it should be to the benefit of the player and the class. I think the issue at the moment is the choice that Bioware is offering is between abilities that are class defining at worst, and game breaking at best.

 

Choosing between Guarded by the Force, Force Camo, or Blade Blitz is absurd. It would be more beneficial if Bioware created new abilities or augmented abilities that could be selected in lieu of current abilities. That is assuming that choice / player agency is something that they care about.

[TrixxieTriss]

I agree that choice should be a thing, but it should be to the benefit of the player and the class. I think the issue at the moment is the choice that Bioware is offering is between abilities that are class defining at worst, and game breaking at best.

 

Choosing between Guarded by the Force, Force Camo, or Blade Blitz is absurd. It would be more beneficial if Bioware created new abilities or augmented abilities that could be selected in lieu of current abilities. That is assuming that choice / player agency is something that they care about.

 

Combining some passives and utility choices and then making you choose between them would be a better system.

We should never have to choose between taking our current abilities in the game. They should be standard as they are.

[kylexnorton]

The abilities that i feel are unique to Sentinel are mainly Transcendence and Inspiration:

 

I take Ardor and Fleetfooted 100% of the time. It is a great mobility buff and the little bit of defense it gives does help too and I think it would really gut the class if we had to actively choose between Transcendence and Zen.

 

Making Inspiration a choice is annoying too, and my negative feeling about this is based solely around the current raid utility of a Sentinel vs what it might become. No Transcendence, which has a small amount of defensive buff as well as mobility, and possibly no Inspiration as well as other missing defensives could make burn phases impassable.

 

I don't want to swear this new system off. I was a little let down by what possible changes there are to Guardian, but I'm not a Guardian main. But removing some pretty key abilities in any class is going to lower our enjoyment of said class. A lot of these other choices are really cool sounding in all honesty as far as damage dealing goes. But these encounters we get into aren't 100% about dealing damage or 100% about staying alive, its a mix and a balancing act.

 

My hopes are that the Path A and Path B thing are just example builds, and that in the future we will be able to pick anything we want, limited to 1 of each tier or something. Maybe that's how it is and I am misunderstanding how the new system will work a bit.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I love the sentinel class and main a Watchman and I want to see it still have a viable place in raiding.

[Portus]

I left the game about 1.5 years after release and came back at the beginning of june 2021.

 

It took me some time to get back into the game mechanics but now I feel just like 9 years before. I realized that there are (even) more abilities than before. This is indeed a game with a lot of abilities, more than I can find reasonable key-bindings for.

If you take some time looking into guides for your class you quickly notice "I don't need all of these for my rotation" - so there are about 7 or 8 left that you have to use, others are cooldowns that you need to keep in mind to up your damage or defense.

In most cases there ARE damage abilities that are NOT needed in the rotation. These seem to be potential to be erased - maybe... but also I can just drag them out of my quickbar and have my peace.

 

And the defensive cooldowns and such? Well I have MAJOR fun with the fact that my vengeance Juggernaut is a high dps character that is also able to play with his defensive cooldowns, taunt the boss to save the tank for a second and so on. If you just go "Well choose between DEF and OFF skill" - this will disappear. No serious DPS will pass on an offensive ability to take the defensive one because he will loose DPS and thus "leaving his path" with the feeling the others are just stronger DPS than him now. This will lead ro the nice hybrid feelings of some classes in this game to disappear. Games did that before and the only players that learned to like it were those who were new to the game...

 

If you don't listen to this community VERY closely now, you will risk the next 10 years on this game! There is also not much trust in you to really listen if you talk to players here... Proove them wrong, in your own interest and ours.

 

kind regards

[Portus]

First, I am still confused about why these changes are being made. Both responses seem to contradict each other. You want to make the class easier to understand for new players AND you are upset that players are able to cheese mechanics.

 

I'm not sure how this helps new players. I did not play any mmos when I played swtor - yes, it was overwhelming. I could not understand why there were so many abilities. I used slash until my focus was full, then I face rolled until I ran out of focus, then repeat. Never watching when to interrupt, and always using a dcd too late. Then there was the big change (4.0?). Clases lost stances/cells/(not sure what else) and the tree was redone - and you know what I did? I used slash until my focus was full, then I face rolled until I ran out of focus, then repeat. I can tell you one thing for sure - that these changes will not change how new players play.

 

I am not sure how this helps players from bypassing mechanics. I understand some mechanics can be ignored due to dcds, and sent have about three stuns, but a lot of cheesed mechanics are in older content, it is dated - and cheesed by your upper level players mostly. And in lower content, they are not ignored by dcds, it is because the 'hit' does nothing today. While I mostly agree that story mode should be able to be facedrolled so that those players (old me) can just play the game and get the story - this gives the illusion that they can do harder content, and does not teach them how to play. There were ppl that could not pass Nathama story fps - these are the same ppl that stand in sweeping fire in hammer station - this is not an ability issue, this is a player issue. They know they can hit a kolto and ignore what is going on. You are only affecting your top players with this.

 

Feedback (Combat) Sent:

 

What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you?

When I started I was asked 'how do you play' and my response was 'i run up and hit things really fast' - I was told to pick sent, but its hard to be good and easy to be bad and you will always be sad - they were not wrong and 10 years later she is still my main. People call sent/mara's glass cannons, but we are not, we are glass pistols - and, i am also ok with that, because we are fast and skillful. Sent/Maras do not stand still, always running, jumping, and moving to the next target. Even when we fight we jump and for no reason. Speed and agility and skill. We are flashpoint tanks and support in raids. We bring to the table what other classes cant. We zoom in open world and are trickster players. In lue of dcds, we have skill. We are clearly not Guardians - who hit like trucks and take a beating; Sents have to be smart to live and kill.

 

Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies?

I went to onderaan, and tho my companion was on heals (normally on dps) I was fine. but I only pulled one mob at a time and if I was in live I would pull two or three or more. Being that I had basically every attack ability, my only concern was speed and survivability and my tricks to save me. HOWEVER - you took only one fighting ability from combat sent (more below) - clearly i could still kill.

 

If you have feedback on the different disciplines and loadouts, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.

I disliked loadout a and b - i prefer the forum post of what choices I would get. Most of my feedback is based on that. (I personally would sacrifice dps and defense for my abilities back. Per fight I would rethink what I bring and would have to change it up...but my day to day play would be abilities. And, im not willing to change my setup fight to fight. I would rather do literally anything else with my time.)

 

I don't know if your intention was to hit the Guardian harder or feedback was taken into account, but Combat Sentinel clearly didn't get the same hit (sounds like the other sents did), but its not all roses. The choice for sent seem to be 'an ability or a passive' in most cases. I lose dps or defensive for the sake of an ability. Again, I say, as per guardian feedback, this is only nice for people who do nothing but parse.

 

All of the attack abilities are there (save leg slash, but even in pvp I barely cared and now can be added as a passive). Its the DCDs or its like that are gone. The class is still here, yes, but everything that pushes a toon to be able to clutch a fight is gone. And I find that the most fun.

 

The PTS nor the Forums were too helpful to be honest. I cant get the feel of what options I would have chosen on PTS. I ended up with a mix of passive and abilities. When I got to onderaan i lost an ability but I did not check my passives. The forum states there are two 'new abilities added-' but no ability name. I am guessing that is still in discussion, and I would think its one of the existing and just decisions have not be made yet? Which may leave the rest of my feedback off.

 

Ability changes that stood out

Transcendence vs passive choice: now I need to have the clarity? Transcendence relying on clarity makes transcendence terrible. Its really on borderline deal breaker - since I will have valorous call, I guess I can use that, and lose my buildup of centering - but I would rather lose valorous call (considering the other changes) and have transcendence not use centering.

 

Force Camo vs Passives: losing threat drops seem to be a theme. Threat drops are real in swtor today, and while that may be something that is changing the future the stealth and the dcd with it does come in handy. This is actually an ability done right to me. It is one ability with multiple uses, but not too many. There are three clear actions this one ability does. (not to mention, going into a force camo would lose some agro and would 'protect' you. This was just a cleaver ability to me always.) Then I could also have a passive to add a cleanse (example of the exception to my normal run that i would change for a small handful of flights.)

 

Guarded by the Force/Inspiration/Force Clarity:

 

Force Clarity: (among other that expac) is an example of 'we don't need new abilities each expac'. While for sent its at least not useless, this was about the closest ability to bloat you could get. While I liked the control to add more dps in my burst window, it was just 'one more click' in my burst window. Buffing other abilities would have been better than an extra ability that buffs abilities.

 

Inspiration: I saw someone mention just getting rid of raid buffs all together, and, well I cant say I disagree. And i am going to pretend I understand whatever you are trying to accomplish - If this is more raid specific, then make a pvp kind and an open world kind and then we choose between three of the same type.

 

Guarded by the force: Of course the best dcd is a choice.

 

Not Deal Breakers, but not happy (maybe the 'missing' abilities?):

Removed Force Status?: loss of second stun/interrupt. This is just fun. Every force user should be able to 'force choke' - sorry not sorry.

Removed Pacify?: loss of (kind of) dcd. underused, useless in raid bosses. great in pvp, open world, and solo play

Removed Awe?: loss of third stun/interrupt. underused, about useless in raids. great in pvp, open world, and solo play - this has saved me in open world more than any other ability.

 

Overall changes looks like our options are broken into three groups: more dps, more dcd, or more ability. Its seems to be getting clearer that there are changes for pvp - at least that is what it looks like to me.

 

My Complaint remains the same: I am having to choose abilities. This is not a class rework. This is not an ability bloat rework. This is not a play your way. This is not even a nerf. This is not even less confusing. Its just different for the sake of being different.

 

Choose between abilities, or abilities vs passives: Please explain what is trying to be accomplished by this? Is it to have multiple loadouts? per fight? I, and most, do not like changing specs per fight. I, and I think a lot, make multiple toons to just NOT respec (funny enough, because respecing is a pain - the thing we thought loadouts would fix). Passive choices are one thing, which is a general layout and for a small handful of fights a new set is used. This looks to be a loadout per boss per story vs hm vs nim vs trash vs pvp vs open world? How many loadouts does one need? Am I expected to ask the raid lead 'are you expecting a raid buff or transcendence? because now I have to know before we start' Do I ask the other sent 'do you want the guarded by the force and I will bring the raid buff?' - this is the deal breaker for me. I just want to jump into a raid and go - and, idk, just have everything I need.

 

What is the gain? Please, what are we gaining in this change? This is 'passives mixed with abilities that give you less options'. Even ppl who pretend like this is not terrible can not say what is being gained. And not that I think we should gain something each expac, i dont. But all this time is put into something and nothing is gained, and everything is loss. This is just loss.

 

Honestly, these changes mostly slow the game. Picking up multiple mobs is more deadly. Lack of DCD and CC is a concern that maybe my comp needs to go back to heals instead of dps or I have to stop and heal more often. And I'm not convinced I would not have to change builds per fights per raid lead's expectations. Its really just becoming more of a pain.

 

The question you have not asked in these feedbacks in ‘how do you play swtor?’ and ‘does this feel like swtor?’. I dont play swtor to be a second job. I dont play swtor for it to be a pain. I play swtor because it gave me something fun to learn and to get better and better at. I can faceroll and do story. I can learn to be better and do harder content. I can play as easy or as hard as I want that day. But i knew one thing - everything was right there for me at all times - nothing to change, no different loadout, its was just there. If I messed up and pulled too many mobs I knew I just had to ‘play smart’ not ‘well, I guess I chose the wrong load out’. Chose passives, not abilities. And, no, this does not feel like swtor: where im a jedi/sith that does not die because I pulled two mobs. jedi/sents didnt leave their guarded by the force at home and brought force clarity instead. If I wanted to play a slow game, GW (loadouts) is free and FFXIV (which gives me all my abilities) is gaining players by the day. I play swtor because its fast, i can play what I want how I want, I can be just as bad or as good as I want that day. And I can change my mind at the drop of a hat and not have to ‘hold on, I have to change everything to do this fight’. Or worse, in a fps with three carries and now I dont have everything I need to carry. Now we just wasted everyone's time. Maybe that is fun for someone, but not to me - and I play swtor first of all for fun.

 

I was going to try the other specs, but, I dont see why. It is the same feedback, but a different spec. Maybe if the classes were being reworked, not the game play, I would have done more.

 

And, just in case you cant see it: You are hitting your skilled players because they are skilled. You are taking away what puts them above the average. This isnt about new players dont understand, they never will if they dont learn. This is not about mechanics being bypassed, though I agree with the statement, removing abilities is not that solution - and your combat sent changes are proof of that.

 

Open World/Solo play is hit the hardest with Combat Mara changes - where this class shines the best if im honest. Its still a Combat Sent, but lost all the clutch, which to me was all the fun.

 

pretty much all of this ^

[KnightTyler]

What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you?

 

Primarily Twin Saber Throw, Force Camouflage, Guarded by the Force, Rebuke, and Pacify. However I do want to mention I think having an ability "Pacify" that specifically says its not usable on OPs bosses is poor design. Should just make it so you get the Zealous Judgment effect all the time if used on Ops bosses. A class kit should be designed to work in all content in my opinion.

 

For Watchman: Cauterize and Force Melt feel good. The animation for Merciless Slash has always felt a bit basic to me and I wish it had more "oomph". Regular Slash looks more flashy with the swordplay than Merciless Slash does lol. Overload Saber effect is fine but its a bit bland and boring. I absolutely love spreading the DoTs with Force Sweep and the Mind Sear TST proc.

 

For Combat: Clashing Blast is awesome. Lance feels good. Blade Rush is literally the same animation as Merciless Slash, minus the Ataru Strike, but without a cooldown so it feels better to use. If it would weave the same animation attacking from the left side as well as the right it would feel even more exciting to use. Precision is the same animation as Overload Saber which is a bit bland. 100% armor pen helps to make Precision feel more worthwhile because you can notice the effects instantly compared to Overload Saber taking time.

 

For Concentration: Zealous Leap, Force Exhaustion, Concentrated Slice, & Focused Burst all feel good. I personally have always liked this tree (Focus) for Sentinel ever since the game launched, even before it became OP with "smashmonkeys", and I still like it somewhat now. However, I switched to Watchman on my Sentinel after 3.0 primarily because it always felt like it had more survivability with the heals and its also cool to heal the group in small amounts with the DoTs. Its fun to make jokes to Healer buddies about outhealing them with a Sentinel lol (not that its possible).

 

Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies?

 

Yes they all feel "effective" (damage wise) but its not simply about feeling effective. We want to feel effective AND feel cool doing it. We want to feel iconic to the class and spec we are playing, not just "oh this works/regular 9-5" but "my character is a beast/did you see that?!" moments. "I'm hitting like a truck!" "My character is weaving in attacks left and right" You need to capture these feelings AND make it effective.

 

In harder content, Sentinels will NOT feel effective having to choose between Force Camo or Guarded by the Force. Its just not reasonable to ask that of a medium armor melee class.

 

Take 4 minutes to watch

That's what a Sentinel should FEEL like ^

 

If you have feedback on the different disciplines and loadouts, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.

 

Having to choose between Force Camouflage, Guarded by the Force or Blade Blitz is just wrong. Force Camouflage is an iconic Jedi Sentinel ability, and its a unique form of stealth that doesn't take you out of the fight. Guarded by the Force allows the Sentinel to stand their ground long enough to finish their fight or to even Tank for a short few seconds. No reason this ability should be a choice its almost mandatory to stay alive as a Sentinel if a Tank dies.

 

Centering. Originally made to ensure a class with only DPS as a role would always be welcome in groups... Valorous Call, Inspiration, Transcendence and Zen. Ardor utility is usually taken to get Transcendence off the centering table. So now we spend 30 Centering to activate Inspiration, a raid wide buff that lasts 10 seconds then makes everyone Depressed for 5 minutes, unable to receive effects of the buff... and the rest of the time we spend it on Zen. It makes you wonder why does Centering even exist in its current form? When it was originally made, the game had skill trees. You could switch between Juyo and Shii-Cho Form, even Ataru Form if you specced for it, and Zen would grant different effects. People take the bypass and get the Contemplation talent to stack Centering then just respec anyways, so how is this mechanic rewarding or interesting for the Sentinel?

 

Why not make it so Centering now acts as a "mini-enrage" for all Sentinel specs. The Sentinel deals damage to build Centering, then they "Enhance" all their other attacks while Centered. If an enemy dies within so many meters, it could refresh the duration of being Centered. Being Centered could enhance how abilities operate? Or just combine all 3 versions of Zen's effect into 1? Inspiration would remain the same allowing Sentinel to consume their Centered effect to buff the whole group. You could free up a slot for Zen by making the effect automatically take place when Sentinels become Centered. Could also free up Valorous Call. Heck you could even incorporate Rebuke into the "Centered" state, so once the Sentinel is "Centered" he becomes enraged, which could automatically activate the effect of Rebuke and Zen without having the abilities as slots. Refreshes duration while attacked.

 

Merge Transcendence effect into Blade Blitz. Or even make a new ability like turning Defensive Roll into an active ability that causes the Sentinel to leap backwards with the force, resetting the cooldown of Force Leap, and granting the effects of Transcendence to the Sentinel and his/her group. Sentinel having leaps to get out of AoE's and ways to quickly re-engage will be a big help in fulfilling class fantasy while making the Sentinel feel unique. Sentinels should feel mobile and fluid.

 

Leg Slash effect can just be merged into another ability. Perhaps on Blade Barrage, Twin Saber Throw, and/or Blade Storm. It'd be best to have the effect on a couple abilities that way there is room for Trauma to be applied regardless of what's going on mid-rotation. Its already spammable as is so putting it on a few abilities with cooldowns shouldn't really matter regarding debuff uptime, dependent on the abilities its granted to of course.

 

I still think Force Clarity is mindless and boring. Yes everyone likes more DPS but the effect could literally be a passive and no one would notice. An active ability should feel impactful to the class when you use it. I vote delete. Especially if its holding you back from releasing a way cooler ability...

 

Awe and Force Stasis are vital to the Sentinel because its the only true form of CC they have. A melee class needs CC. This is something that should not be removed. I honestly think Twin Saber Throw should function like Force Push on the primary target if used on an enemy less than 10m from you. It would also be cool as heck if the sabers stuck in the primary target if they are more than 10m away from you, then it Force Pull's the target with your sabers back to you. I just wish Bioware would make abilities awesome like this. Get some freaking animators lol.

 

Overall, Sentinel changes don't look as bad as the Guardian's but regardless Bioware you still need to think about class identity and spec identity. Don't prune and force us to choose between stuff we've had for a decade.

[birbandhooman]

In my opinion, Transcendence and Force camouflage shouldn't be the choice. Sentinels wear lighter armor than Guardians so they can move fast. Transcendence portraits that concept. Since sentinel is melee class, it's also important for mobility. And Force camouflage is one of the abilities that makes sentinel unique. I'm not sure how to explain it though. I feel like Snetinels are not only good at using lightsabers, but also can use the Force to defend / buff themselves as well(see their defensives - Pacify, Guarded by the Force, Force camouflage, Rebuke, they also have very powerful buff - Inspiration).

 

Transcendence should come with 30s cooldown and should be usable without centering(one of current utility choice). Zen(which consumes 30 centering) is very important for damage so it's hard to use Transcendence without that utility. Force camouflage should have self cleanse effect(one of current utility choice).

 

I can't answer the second question since Onderon missions are not what I usually do. I think we need more ways to test classes. Especially something more challenging.

 

In current PTS, sentinels don't have Pacify, Force stasis and Awe. Are you going to remove these? Or it will be added back? I talked to the droid a lot of times and they're still missing. I'm afraid if they will be removed on sentinels. I don't think they need to be removed. Those skills were there since 1.0(according to TORCommunity database). Without those, sentinels even don't have any stuns. In addition, Force stasis and its imperial counterpart, Force choke is very iconic move. It would feel lost to have a Sith warrior without Force choke.

 

I'm little worried how sentinels will perform with this little defensives in PvP. Also contents like veteran mode flashpoints, where we don't always have healer and tank, defensives are important for even DPS.

 

Lastly, cc breaker and interrupt should remain as same as now. They really don't need change. I don't want them to merge into attacks or something. Even if they merged, people will not use it as attack anyway. Interrupt and breaker is important things and they're worth remain as independent form like now. They should be. Also Force kick has very cool animation that fits well with Jedi Knight class.

 

I like new passives that upgrades our abilities. They look fun. But I don't want to lose defensives and classes' identity. I hope you listen to our feedback and make it better than current PTS when 7.0 comes out.

English is not my first language but I tried my best. I hope you get what I mean.

Edited August 2, 2021 by birbandhooman

[deecrisbacher]

So once again I will admit that as of yet I have not had time (or space on my computer) to test out the PTS. I hope to in the coming days but regardless I wanted to give some feedback since my current main Republic character is a Concentration Sent. I’m by no means an expert at this class as I main an Assassin Tank.

 

What makes the Sent class feel special?

I really love how mobile this class is, I love spinning/jumping attacks such as the various leaps, blade barrage, blade blitz all make this class feel very agile, elegant and acrobatic which I really enjoy about this class. It has a really good flow once you learn your rotation so you build up focus well it becomes a really fluid class even if you don’t *really* know what you are doing.

 

Regarding the choices this time around…I personally feel they overall at least aren’t as bad as the Guardian. To be ultra clear - ‘not as bad’ does not mean ‘good’. I think choices like those at Lvl 15 and Lvl 30 can actually be quite fun so long as it ends up being balanced well. Choosing between passives or ways to augment active abilities I think is okay. I *do not* like having to choose between active abilities (like Lvl 70) at all.

 

Despite it being better than what was presented for Guardian, I still personally think that this is totally not what was advertised on the livestream which got everyone so excited... instead of more flexibility and choice we are getting restricted and false choices.

 

I know some argue that these are ‘meaningful choices’ and sure - they are. It’s like if you lived in a studio flat - so a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. It took some time to settle in, but you’re comfortable now…and your landlord tells you that you can move to new studio flat. However, your landlord says “I am going to give you more choices - you can have a flat with a bedroom, a kitchen *or* a bathroom! Look at all those meaningful choices!”. You wouldn’t be too happy. Sure, it’s a meaningful choice because you have to think okay am I going to choose kitchen and just sleep on the floor and bathe in the sink? And sure, it’s ‘easier’ to maintain one room rather than three…but we once had all three.

 

Again I understand that it can sometimes be overwhelming for new players…but even just button mashing you can do most content and you learn as you go. I do not think stripping so many abilities is the way to go. I’m cool with combining abilities and getting rid of some. Or maybe re-designing the abilities tabs so passives are all in one section so they don’t get confused with actives. Maybe re-color coding the abilities so heals are green (light/dark green for single vs aoe), red (light/dark for single/aoe) for damage, yellow for stun, purple for cleanses/stun breakers, blue for defence cooldowns, orange for taunts…or something like that? Or *maybe* even making a PVP or PVE path.

 

Or maybe a little instanced doorway where there are little tutorials for how to use abilities…like how a lot of games have training areas (Fallen Order had flashbacks, Force Unleashed had training sessions) where it’s like ‘use this ability 3/3 times successfully’ to pass the training so people can go back and learn what abilities do. I get this would take time…but I also think gutting classes and having to rebalance for every potential combo players choose will also take loads of time. I don’t know, I think there are just better ways. I still hope they reconsider what they are showing on the PTS.

[casirabit]

 

I can't answer the second question since Onderon missions are not what I usually do. I think we need more ways to test classes. Especially something more challenging..

 

There are ways around this.

 

I have tested the Chapter, dailies and some solo flashpoints.

 

In case you need your ship and for some you do but the flashpoints and dailies shouldn't really require it but I haven't tested that due to the fact I select Chapter 1 for a particular reason and that was to get to Odesson and acess the vendor there to be able to get the fragments I needed to get the gear I am used to on live.

 

Once you access Chapter 1 you have access to your ship and therefore it shouldn't be a problem for you to test your classes, except in the case of Operations if no one is doing a group for those.

[Stellalunacat]

Okay, so I've tested all 3 sentinel specs on the pts.

I've played all 3 specs before on live server, though the sentinel isn't my main character. I mostly do progression raiding, but also story and some pvp.

 

First thank you for fixing comps and including stun breaker and interrupt in this build.

Made testing less annoying all in all.

I got 306 gear this time around by buying and equipping gear till I reached 306 rating. Why not just put 306 gear on vendor? Would make testing easier and less annoying. Think I wasted almost 1h just getting gear.

While gearing up I noticed that almost all set boni including the now bis Descent of the Fearless set are going to be useless once 7.0 hits. Most of the abilities boosted by the sentinel sets are either gonna be removed or optional.

Not sure how you are going about new set boni, when there are going to be some very different builds.

 

So abilities I consider unique to the sentinel are transcendence, force camouflage, double saber throw, valorous call, zen, inspiration, rebuke and guarded by the force.

Force stasis, awe and blade blitz are abilities that are for me characteristic for the jedi knight.

 

I tested out concentration A build, watchman B build and combat A build. With the concentration and watchman sentinel build I did Onderon dailies and I did the Spirit of Vengence flashpoint in solo mode with the combat sentinel.

 

All 3 builds were effective in combat and the core rotation seemed to be unchanged from the live server. The watchman sentinel was a bit slower on trash mobs, but that's probably due to it being mainly a dot spec. Combat seems to be a little stronger than on live server, while concentration seemed mostly unchanged from live server.

 

I noticed that according to the forum post the concentration A build should get blade blitz, but I got force camouflage and no blade blitz at all.

 

All three builds had no crowd control abilities, both awe and force stasis were missing. I use both mostly in pvp which I didn't test out on the pts, but also on trash mobs when I'm taking to much dmg. They also have uses in ops on some bosses with adds. No idea really what you're trying to accomplish with this, guess it's a pvp thing.

Leg slash and pacify also seemed to have been removed completly, think they could be optional for a pvp build or combinded with other abilities. Seemes a slow on slash is optional which should be alright.

 

Transcendence is one of the abilties that is great in ops at least on some bosses where a lot of mobilty is needed, sometimes it's the only reason to bring at least one sentinel for certain fights. Also great in vet fp, it can help someone get to the healing station in time.

Now on the pts Trancendence is a choice at level 20 and requires all stacks of centering, there is no longer a utility or passive that makes it possible to use it without centering with a cool down. So by picking trancendence, first you loose out on a passive that makes you do more dmg, then when you want to use it you'll loose out on using zen instead which also impacts your dps. In conclusion no one is gonna pick Trancendence which provides gread raid utility, as a dps in ops you always go for whatever makes you do more dps.

 

Like with the guardian the choice at level 70 seemes to be the most problematic in my opinion. Choosing between force camouflage, blade blitz and guarded by the force when you might need all 3 to survive.

Force camouflage is the aggro drop of the sentinel and also can provide a selfcleanse, it should not be optional but base line. Not only essential in ops but also vet fp without a tank. Also helps skipping some mobs, specially in combo with trancendence. The selfcleanse is also very much needed in ops. Some boss mechanics drop debuffs on whole group, which can't be cleansed just by the healers. Are you gonna remove cd on cleanse for healers? Or are you just gonna remove boss mechanics? Making fights less interesting and more boring in the process?

Blade blitz is not just a dcd but also increases moblitiy, which is essential, guarded by the force can save you when tank goes down or in vet fp when you often end up jumping in and face tanking cause no one else is doing it.

 

My recommendation would be to make a choice between a dps increase passive for an ability, an aoe dmg passive on an abilitiy or a pvp ability like a snare, slow or stun. So you'd end up with a pve single target build an aoe build or a pvp build. Or depending on choices a hybrid build like aoe pvp build or something like that.

Please don't make trancendence a choice, for me it is a core sentinel ability and it shouldn't require centering.

Force camouflage is also essential. Can see there being a choice between guarded by the force and blade blitz, although I still wouldn't like it.

 

Not sure how your thought process works, but I assume you had a lot of meetings with a lot of talking and you somehow decided to attract and keep new players you'd have to reduce the amount of abilites. I can see how you came to the conclusion, but don't really agree on how you go about it. The way it is now on the pts, it makes the combat less interesting and more boring. To balance the changes to the classes you probably need to rebalance all pve content, likely by removing mechanics also making ops and fp more boring.

The choice you talk about is mostly none, one option will always be best for certain content.

Hope you'll rethink some of your decisions.

 

So far my raid team is mostly concerned about these changes, hoping you'll change stuff somewhat so it wont be as bad or hoping you'll realise you can't get it to work and scrap it alltogether. Not sure I'll still have a raid team if this goes live

[Kass]

Hated it - Played all of 10 minutes of it.

 

Next time enable Level 5 Speeder bike training _embarrassed :

[bryanskrantz]

I'm a little worried about not being able to chose the abilities now as with the Guardian which is why I'm playing the story first. once we're able to test out everything as it's intended to I'll give full feedback.

[HecticWolf]

I left the game about 1.5 years after release and came back at the beginning of june 2021.

 

It took me some time to get back into the game mechanics but now I feel just like 9 years before. I realized that there are (even) more abilities than before. This is indeed a game with a lot of abilities, more than I can find reasonable key-bindings for.

If you take some time looking into guides for your class you quickly notice "I don't need all of these for my rotation" - so there are about 7 or 8 left that you have to use, others are cooldowns that you need to keep in mind to up your damage or defense.

In most cases there ARE damage abilities that are NOT needed in the rotation. These seem to be potential to be erased - maybe... but also I can just drag them out of my quickbar and have my peace.

 

And the defensive cooldowns and such? Well I have MAJOR fun with the fact that my vengeance Juggernaut is a high dps character that is also able to play with his defensive cooldowns, taunt the boss to save the tank for a second and so on. If you just go "Well choose between DEF and OFF skill" - this will disappear. No serious DPS will pass on an offensive ability to take the defensive one because he will loose DPS and thus "leaving his path" with the feeling the others are just stronger DPS than him now. This will lead ro the nice hybrid feelings of some classes in this game to disappear. Games did that before and the only players that learned to like it were those who were new to the game...

 

If you don't listen to this community VERY closely now, you will risk the next 10 years on this game! There is also not much trust in you to really listen if you talk to players here... Proove them wrong, in your own interest and ours.

 

kind regards

 

 

This....Its true....All of it

[Kiesu]

-I was clearing nim ops before 3.0 was even a thing. NIce try. Also saber reflect was there since 1.0 so ops were already balanced around that.

 

-Or maybe give the feedback that certain abilities are necessary under certain circumstances and should not be touched instead of coming up with terrible frankenstein substitutes.

 

-I tanked ops before didnt lose aggro, try having better tanks.

 

-I already made my suggestions, if they wanna remove useless abilities they should remove the last ones they introduced. Press this yet another button to do 10 per cent more dmg without situational awareness or any type of decision making involved is as uninspired as it gets in terms of abilities, even more than giving everyone a reflect or a teleport, instead they remove abilities that have been in the game since 1.0

- Yeah, I've played from beta. You know, back when exactly one class had a raidbuff? Nice try indeed my mate. We cleared stuff fine without any.

 

- Make a better one.

 

- Wow you've tanked ops before? You must be the only person ever who ever tanked anything therefor you're the only one who knows how threat drops are completely useless abilities haha. Come be out better tank, I cant wait to see you be absolutely epic at everything. (I know you wont come. It's easier to claim to be the best than be the best. We internet anons are always best at everything after all, amirite)

 

- So your only suggestion is to remove one ability when they're trying to remove five? Ok, so you didnt suggest anything worthwhile. It's easy to be negative nancy and say no to anything and put no effort into trying to make better alternatives. I could also have just said no to everything and leave it at that, but that wouldn't help them alternate decisions they're clearly goning to make anyway no matter if we negative nancy everything or not.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Kiesu

[OrionSol]

What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you?

 

Double saber throw, short cloak, blade blitz, tons of dps,, some great defense, when properly applied ABILITIES

 

Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies?

 

Effective, ok. Fun? NO. Boring. boring,. boring

 

If you have feedback on the different disciplines and loadouts, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.

 

DO NOT TAKE AWAY ABILITIES. Make more.

[KinAster]

• What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you?
  
• Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies?
  
• If you have feedback on the different disciplines and loadouts, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.
  

!

 

Abilties that I feel make the Sentinel Unique:

Twin Saber Throw - One of the new additions to the class that really made me fall in love with it way back in ROTHC. This is also one of the few abitlies we have that can be used at range beyond the 4m - 5m that most of our abilties have.

Rebuke - One of the few DCD's that isn't stupidly OP *cough* God Bubble *cough* that still provides a minor attack back at whomever is attacking you.

Pacify - Very few people seem to use this in PvP, it's a great way to negate the insane burst that a SS Slinger/MM Sniper dishes out, or other Sent/Mara's running Conncetration/Combat

Camouflage - Not as rediculous as straight up stealth, but one of the key 'Oh shoot!' abilities Sentinels have when things go south, doubles as a threat dumper and cleanser if you take the utlitiy.

Trancendance - A favorite speed buff, though it wasn't available from the choices I was using during the PTS testing. This should be baseline for all Sentinels, not a choice we have to make/sacrifice for. As it stands there is way too much mobiltiy for Range DPS classes compaired to melee. I feel baseline should be the 30s CD and root breaker, not costing Centering.

Guarded by the Force - Another key DCD that we have, again another aibltiy that wasn't available from the selectoins I was using in PTS. While it did provide us a way to 'cheese' certain mechanics in FPs and the like, I still feel it is a very important DCD to the Sentinel toolkit.

Inspiration - One of the best Raid Buffs in the game, the one that only existed for the better half of the games life till other classes were given Raid wide buffs as well.

 

From what I tested in the PTS, I was still able to deal damage, and the mobs on Onderon went down decently enough. I felt my mobility was lacking without transendance, especially in the Conncetration spec.

 

Overall I'm somewhat concerend about the changes coming, taking away abilties that make the Sentinel unique, wihle forcing us to pick between one of two abitlies or passives that are important to the overall class. It doesn't look good, and I know this is just the early first look, but it is still concerning.

[TevosisHot]

- Yeah, I've played from beta. You know, back when exactly one class had a raidbuff? Nice try indeed my mate. We cleared stuff fine without any.

 

- Make a better one.

 

- Wow you've tanked ops before? You must be the only person ever who ever tanked anything therefor you're the only one who knows how threat drops are completely useless abilities haha. Come be out better tank, I cant wait to see you be absolutely epic at everything. (I know you wont come. It's easier to claim to be the best than be the best. We internet anons are always best at everything after all, amirite)

 

- So your only suggestion is to remove one ability when they're trying to remove five? Ok, so you didnt suggest anything worthwhile. It's easy to be negative nancy and say no to anything and put no effort into trying to make better alternatives. I could also have just said no to everything and leave it at that, but that wouldn't help them alternate decisions they're clearly goning to make anyway no matter if we negative nancy everything or not.

 

Devs asked for feedback on how the changes felt my feedback is that I don't like the changes and I dont' want them.

 

Nowhere in the dev post does it say that users need to armchair develop alternatives for abilities that's is your own imagination, and if you really think that they are just gonna go with a frankenstein idea someone posted on forums then I have a bridge to sell to you.

[Sir-steve]

Overall - did not enjoy.

 

Compared to the Guardian, I actually felt the DPS sentinel had better survivability but is still dying too quickly to trash mobs. 3 NPCs, not a problem....1 silver and 1 basic, end the fight with half health. 1 silver and 2+ basics, questionable outcome. Honestly, with these changes I feel like our characters couldn't reliably survive a bar fight let alone 'save the day' - they DO NOT FEEL HEROIC.

 

Whereas on the Guardian I'd fire all my abilities and then have nothing but a basic attack while I waited on CDs, with the Sentinel at least the CD ended quickly enough to not have excessive 'down time'. That said, now we have fewer abilities in the rotation there are less animations (some of them pretty dull) which leads to visual fatigue/boredom i.e. it's not interesting/entertaining to watch a fight.

[woganator]

i'm dum and don't know how to load the uh loadout thingers... i tried pushing K and P. K doesn't work. Clicking on trainer doesn't work. P shows abilities with a note saying see trainer. so, can't really test it atm until i un-dum myself and figure it out...

 

i have read everyone's comments on testing and kind of losing hope on this. if all the dcd's are being removed and you have to choose between current key features... my only real hope is during their pruning that they ditch the 12,000,000,000 stinking stun abilities.

 

if / when i figure out how to do the thing i'll update my comments on the actual testing. thanks.

[Ardarell_Solo]

This is what I have been waiting for. I've been a Sentinel since Beta. I know this class. I'm very good at this class (high end PvE here). I've been through Sentinel PTS changes before and helped fix things as best as I could (anyone else remember how Force Melt was first introduced in 3.0?) ... I love this class... it's my main and literally the only character I truly care how the story plays out. <b>snip</b>

 

Hey, so good to see you!! :-)

 

I haven't tested this and I might not manage to do so, but here's my quick 2cents from reading the new design and feedback: I do like the idea of mixing up abilities and playstyles and creating unique personal specs. It will very much depend on how good the balancing between available paths and abilities is done to avoid one certain path being declared the only viable one for endgame pve/p and thus maintain that idea of personal choice. Since the current build is a preliminary one, I don't expect this to already have happened.

 

As for choice between defensive and offensive abilities: Ability bloat had really become a problem. I can see how you want to get rid of too many defensive options and off GCD abilities. That being said, the remaining ones might need to be buffed, to still make incoming damage heavy encounters doable.

 

Also I expect old tacticals and set bonuses to become invalid once you reach level 80. So the first step will probably be to get the base mechanics of the specs to work and then develop tacticals and set bonuses to further enhance what has been established. So thinking about how the changes described here interact with current tacticals and set bonuses will propably not be of concern.

 

As far as I understood, Inspiration is only available to Concentration? That would be problematic, it should either be available to all three specs or to none of them.

 

One thing I haven't quite understood yet: How are we going to be able to use Guardian or even Sage abilities on our Sentinels? I haven't figured out how that's going to work as said in the dev stream.

 

I generally really like the concept and if it's designed and balanced as intended and in the end we get a number of viable builds with different playstyles, it might even make me come back

[amazingwhales]

*for context, I play a lvl 75 concentration sentinel. I tested concentration loadout a. I also tested out the guardian for the first time but I won't comment on it here, my opinions on it are similar to the sentinel*

 

Going in, I had seen the guardian pts release, and had seen all of the unhappiness with it, which upon watching videos of playthroughs on the pts and explanations of the new system being tested, I agreed with. Upon testing the sentinel, it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still wasn't very happy.

 

Having no blade blitz and no combat clarity (which the best set bonus is built around) tripped me up, there was no straightforward long-term stun (other than force sweep, which stuns a little bit) but the lack of stuns compared to the game now tripped me up as well. Overall, it felt like a shell of the class, like my character was level 40 or something. This did not feel like a level 75 sentinel.

 

But to answer the questions, force clarity, force camouflage, zen, inspiration, the concentration abilities (concentrated slice, etc) make the sentinel the sentinel for me, and at least half of those were missing. To reiterate, this did not feel like a level 75 sentinel, but rather a hallowed-out level 30-40ish sentinel. The available abilities were able to get through the Onderan dailies, but would definitely not stand up in harder content like pvp, ops, and harder fps. I'm a half-decent player I'd say, and without those abilities, I would not last a second in pvp and other harder content.

 

I was originally very excited for the premise of the combat update, but you said we would have more choice (e.g. being a lightening marauder, which I understand is still a work in progress and this part hasn't been included in the pts to my knowledge yet), but so far the 'more choice' is basically choosing which abilities to keep at the cost of others. This is pretty much the bare minimum to have a pve story player have a half-feasible rotation, which will not cut it in really any content outside of story. If the pts where it is now were to enter the game, ops and pvp would just be a shell of what it is. If it is do-able (which I understand it may not be) I would highly suggest having pvp, flashpoints (especially vet and master difficulty) and maybe some smaller ops to do with these abilities, which I think would really demonstrate the cuts you are making.

 

If you continue down this path of making the other classes like this, I guarantee you that you will lose a significant amount of your player base (the people threatening to leave aren't kidding!). As for me, I haven't been playing this game for long (since Onslaught), but I have really grown to love it. I have put so many hours into this game and have very much enjoyed learning the class combat and refining my skills, and I honestly don't see a need for a change. But if the update come out with combat long these lines, I think I will sincerely have to rethink if I want to play this game or not - I will honestly be heartbroken if you reduce the classes to a hallow shell of what they are now.

 

Please listen to us - there are literal thousands of people voicing their opinion on this, which is what you asked us to do! If you don't, I think you can imagine the loss in both profit and player-base you will experience.

[NorseWar]

Overall the it feels like a Jedi Combat Sentinel. It seemed weaker than my current character, but hopefully that is just gear.

I don't know that I understand why some of the skills were removed, like Awe. As a solo player, I don't use it a lot, but it useful when I accidentally agro more enemies than I was planning.

With the Loadout A and B, it didn't really change the rotation that much, so it seems unnecessary to remove skills that can be useful for solo play.

I don't understand how Force Clarity works as a passive. Do I need to active Valorous Call to get Force Clarity?

[Unagi]

What abilities make the Sentinel unique to you?

I don't really ever play Sentinel/Marauder on live so my feedback doesn't come from any source of great authority on the topic . I get that Sentinel is sort of class-defined as a damage dealer that dual-wields lightsabers along with some combination of mobility, DoT/bleeds, and AoE attacks.

Do these ability paths feel effective against enemies?

I played Combat spec, A and B loadouts. This round of testing felt far more effective when doing Onderon dailies than the first round of Guardian testing did - and I was able to complete the Onderon weekly in one shot without wanting to /ragequit - perhaps due to the addition of a higher-level companion along with the restoration of the JK stunbreaker and interrupt abilities. Tacticals and Set Bonuses seem a bit screwy and unaligned with the default loadouts and some of the default loadout A/B choices seem rather arbitrary (not to mention controversial). But I was able to engage and whale upon multiple targets at once with two lightsabers and lived to tell the tale, so yeah: Pass.

[AdjeYo]

For me the fact that Transcendence isn't baseline is a huge problem. Sentinels bring two things to a group besides from their damage. Transcendence and Inspiration. This is such a key part of the Sentinel, it should not be optional.

 

Also, there should at the very least be an option to make Transcendence not cost Centering, but have a cooldown instead. Maybe make Transcendence baseline and instead make the option you can pick give it a cooldown, as the utility currently does. Or make it have a 30 second cooldown and not cost Centering baseline, as almost everyone picks that utility, and for good reason. For Combat and Concentration specifically, Zen is required for the rotation to flow properly. So using your Centering stacks for Transcendence often isn't an option.

 

Apart from that, only the removal of Force Stasis really baffles me. I can understand wanting to cut down on the amount of CC in PvP, so I can live with not having Awe. But not having a hardstun feels rough.

 

For Concentration specifically, it kind of boggles me how Focused Burst still exists. You want to prune abilities, yet we can't go back to just having Force Sweep being part of the single target rotation like it was before Focused Burst? Just bring up its damage a bit, now that Vigilant Thrust exists having autocrit smash with high damage really shouldn't be that much out of line. And that way you can get rid of another ability, on one of the specs with the most abilities.

Edited August 6, 2021 by AdjeYo

[Nepthen]

One thing I haven't quite understood yet: How are we going to be able to use Guardian or even Sage abilities on our Sentinels? I haven't figured out how that's going to work as said in the dev stream.

 

Pretty sure this isn't a thing. You'll be able to essentially respec to Guardian or Sage and back to Sentinel but you're not going to have, for example, Turbulence while running as a Sentinel.