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8/2 Sentinel/Marauder Questions


KeyboardNinja

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Things look pretty close to me. Sentinels/Marauders can do about 3.15k on the high end, which is right in line with what Gunslingers/Snipers can do (at least within a few percentage points, given that Gunslingers/Snipers can inflate their numbers with an end-parse burnout). DPS.

 

Not sure this is any different than marauder's burning out with a second bloodthirst and blowing all rage at the end of the parse, but I agree that against a dummy it's pretty equal...but this does not equate to raid damage, where the handicap of having to constantly move and chase targets nearly always puts snipers over marauders as reflected in the endgame op statistics at Torparse. We have to work harder, and still will usually come in with lower dps than an equivalently geared sniper.

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The only time that watchman spec works for PVP is Voidstar defense.

 

Even then, combat is probably better for voidstar defense. Yes I can get 130k heals playing watchman on defense and focus on offense, but only because I'm using zen instead of trans. 80% movement speed and +10 defense rating 1/3 of the time is probably better for the team. Plus rooting their melee all the time.

 

Yes, Zen got 6 instead of 4 stacks now. But still, the major issue is the crit based self heal without active Zen after the extremely strong crit nerf hammer)

 

Zen has always been 6 charges :p Did you mean to say 6 Juyo stacks instead of 5?

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I haven't looked through enough parses to know what our full DPS mode average is, but currently the DPS difference between Carnage/Combat and Annihilation/Watchman DPS including the build up time is fairly minimal (at least on dummies) .

 

I think we want to keep them even somehow - thus if they do decrease the build up time, don't be surprised if they nerf something else while they're balancing.

Except that is not how it works in actual fights. You can not keep juyo/merciless up in most fights.

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We have to work harder, and still will usually come in with lower dps than an equivalently geared sniper.

 

Absolutely. Only that Snipers/Slingers are despicable cowards, hiding behind their pathetic portable cover screen instead of confronting the enemy face to face (ok, mostly face to butt) and fighting in the line of fire ^^

(...says the guy whose "main Alt" is a Slinger ;-)

 

But seriously, I still find it more rewarding to down a boss playing a melee class, there's just more action, regardless of DPS comparison...

 

BTW: It's true that some mechanics in the current content are anti-melee (and I agree that's not a sent specific topic), but people tend to forget, that some are melee friendliy: E.g. Ciphas will mostly strangle healers and range DPS, Kelsara rarely marks melee DPS for death...

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Zen has always been 6 charges :p Did you mean to say 6 Juyo stacks instead of 5?

 

yeah, exactly...

 

I hope this flaw doesn't weaken my point about the relation between the crit nerf and watchmen sustain in PVP!

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Would it be possible to ask about the current way you can activate Dispatch, then Precision Slash a fraction later to get both Dispatch and 3 more attacks in one window? Was that intended or is that something that would/should be fixed.
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Just a random thought, but with 2.0, two classes that required stacks for maximum effectiveness were changed to where they only need to apply that said stack once (Ars Merc, Immortal Jugg). So what if we do the same thing with Watchmen/Annihilation? This could be used for either the Merciless buff, or Juyo, or the Overload Saber. This would severely reduce the ramp up time to perform the max that this spec is capable of. Would either of these work?
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Congrats to Keyboard Ninja on the nomination hopefully the sentinel community can work with some changes for the better. Now to my personal response to some of the questions brought up in this thread as my sentinel is my main and I can do well on him in HM and Nim ops currently in both the combat and watchman specs with combat being my personal favorite, and an avid PVP player with plenty of warzone experience post 2.0 although I have not touched ranked very much. (have been focusing on progressing through operations)

 

Combat RNG

 

 

I have thought myself about this quite a bit and have pondered how can bioware minimalize the agonizing RNG of Combat specifically with Opportune Attack/ Execute procs without buffing an Already solid DPS parsing class (mind you, this is when the procs are generous we can pull our 3k parses and when they are not in operations they can make us fall under 2500 even) I feel like making it an equivalent to Sharpshooter gunslinger IE guaranteed OA/Ex proc after every 2 Blade Rushes might change the rotation to the point where people may start a rotation where there is a blade storm in each PS/Gore window and inside our buildup phase which would probably buff us too much. However, With the percentage of Ataru form hits right now giving an Opportune Attack/Execute proc, 15%, There are times when I will do plenty of blade rushes to get a proc (3-4 for example) and no proc will come up and that is unacceptable really.

 

The other issue of Combat Sentinel is the Hand of Justice/Slaughter Proc. I personally feel as though this Isn't as big of an issue as some people make it out to be as long as you only put one strike or zealous strike/assault or battering assault in between your PS/Gore windows and I actually like that I have to always keep that in mind and avoid losing a PS/ Gore window. However, I am aware that sometimes even if you spam PS/Gore right after you leap+ZS/BA there will be times that HoJ/Slaughter will proc too soon and that is completely obnoxious I agree. It would be nice if that could be avoided as well as sometimes even when you only put once GCD in between your PS/Gore windows you will still sometimes get the early HoJ/Slaughter proc. I would like if anything to see a way where a combat sentinel is still rewarded for being very strict with his priority system to avoid wasting a PS/Gore window (because I find a priority system that has a consequence like that for failing to follow it) while also not having to worry about getting an unavoidable HoJ/Slaughter proc in the opener or even when you are doing everything right to minimize getting an early HoJ/Slaughter proc it will still punish you. That being said, I would prefer this proc stay as it is now then to become a guaranteed proc where for example after using a precision slash for 5s you have a 100% chance on successful ataru form hit to reset the cool-down on PS and can use dispatch on any health target free of focus. I feel like that would make our rotation extremely static.

 

In response to the whole dispatch right before PS thing while still getting it in the PS window I think they just need to make that damage instant on ability activation because I would rather it actually fit at the end of the PS window like it's supposed to then added for free granted you can spam the button fast enough and your setup has great latency

 

 

Watchman

 

 

I completely understand the concerns with this spec however I do not like the idea of changing how often you have to refresh the merciless buff I believe the best fix/alteration to this class was mentioned earlier in this thread where you change the maximum amount of juyo stacks to 3 with the same damage to get rid of some of the ramp up time as well as have merciless slash stacks fall off one at a time perhaps with a built in system where they fall off faster for each time you miss the refresh maybe cut the time to refresh in half each time. This will not oversimplify watchman but will make it where it won't kill the player to have too short of a pause in attacks but it will still be up to the player to try and always be in melee range of a slashable target in an ops setting that requires quick transitions. I don't really see an issue with the burst damage on the DoT's because they are much shorter for example than those of a balance sage or shadow for example , so I believe the only real issue is the ramp up on Juyo for and merciless stacks

 

 

Focus

 

 

I see nothing wrong with this spec in PVP very viable but not to the point where it is overpowered. I would advise against adding extra damage to this class as it would disturb that balance. However, to make it more viable in a pve environment I would suggest greater aoe in PVE that doesn't apply in PVP and make this a class meant for clearing adds and applying on command burst in an ops setting. This would make it different than combat in burst because combat has a strict priority to follow and can't really burst on command. Focus spec would be great with very little damage increase as long as they could provide burst on command to the ops group.

 

 

I am not an expert of focus so I may be wrong on several points there but I stand firmly behind what I've talked about and suggested on the other 2 specs

Edited by ATGII
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Even then, combat is probably better for voidstar defense. Yes I can get 130k heals playing watchman on defense and focus on offense, but only because I'm using zen instead of trans. 80% movement speed and +10 defense rating 1/3 of the time is probably better for the team. Plus rooting their melee all the time.

 

 

I use annihilation spec for Voidstar defense because I despise carnage spec. Carnage spec is probably better for Voidstar defense than annihilation spec.

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I use annihilation spec for Voidstar defense because I despise carnage spec. Carnage spec is probably better for Voidstar defense than annihilation spec.

 

I am usually very successful with rage spec in Voidstar because of the ability to aoe everyone that herds at the door but killing healers as carnage spec in voidstar I find very successful the only time I can easily kill healers in annihilation when I can interrupt all their healing channels. This fails a lot on scoundrels and operatives who have big instant cast healing

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I am usually very successful with rage spec in Voidstar because of the ability to aoe everyone that herds at the door but killing healers as carnage spec in voidstar I find very successful the only time I can easily kill healers in annihilation when I can interrupt all their healing channels. This fails a lot on scoundrels and operatives who have big instant cast healing

 

I was talking about ranked, not regular WZs. I usually don't respec during regular WZs. I usually use corruption spec when playing my sorcerer, and rage spec while playing my marauder.

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So, tomorrow is the day. What do you have so far, KBN?

 

I'll be updating the OP on this thread with full question drafts. It sounds like the major issues are essentially what I outlined, though a lot of color has been added (especially on the Watchman/Annihilation in PvP issue).

 

Anyway, I'll be updating the OP a bit later (traveling).

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OP has been updated with draft questions. They're a bit long-winded and could use some editing, but I think this is what we're going to go with. As I mentioned in the OP, I would really love to bug the developers about the Inspiration/Bloodthirst and Transcendence/Predation buffs blocking Centering/Fury build up, but we simply don't have that many questions and the Combat/Carnage issued garnered more community attention.
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OP has been updated with draft questions. They're a bit long-winded and could use some editing, but I think this is what we're going to go with. As I mentioned in the OP, I would really love to bug the developers about the Inspiration/Bloodthirst and Transcendence/Predation buffs blocking Centering/Fury build up, but we simply don't have that many questions and the Combat/Carnage issued garnered more community attention.

 

I will not quote the questions for now, and I feel the questions are in good place. However, I do have one concern which is that questions 1 and 3 branch into actual solutions for the underlying problems. I think it would be better to hint in the questions that we have as a community a series of well thought solutions that can help instead of bloating out the questions. This well help keep them short and simple.

Edited by znihilist
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Combat/Carnage spec is one of the most RNG-dependent DPS specs in the entire game. A large number of procs at comparatively low odds introduces a highly random element to the gameplay. Due to the significance of these procs, this can represent a DPS loss of 10-15% even in the hands of the most skilled player, simply as a result of a series of bad coin flips. Some procs can happen too early (e.g. Hand of Justice / Slaughter procing on opening moves such as Leap/Charge), or even not happen at all (e.g. Hand of Justice / Slaughter failing to proc after the ICD is up even after repeated Blade Rush / Massacre usage, or Opportune Attack / Execute failing to proc before a natural Precision Slash / Gore window). This can be extremely frustrating, since no amount of skill can fully compensate in these scenarios, and it makes the spec feel a bit like a complicated slot machine. Would it be possible to give this spec some more control over some of these procs? Perhaps a guaranteed proc on Hand of Justice / Slaughter following a double Blade Rush / Massacre use if the ICD is expired? This could be balanced by reducing the natural proc chance from Ataru hits, which also helps with the "unintended proc" problem.

 

 

One comment from my side playing Sentinel main in PVP on Combat for the last 3 months:

Besides the random nature of Opportune Attack and Hand of Justice, it is extremely annoying that I have to watch my buff bar carefully to register if any of these two buffs are available. I already increased my buff bar on 1.2 in the interface editor to be able to exactly track the proc moments. But the icons in the character buff bar are also not ordered. So it is sometimes really hard to find these buffs in the forrest of icons.

Edited by keeroo
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Your last statement brought to mind a question of off-hand accuracy. Methinks we Combat spec sentinels could probably live with all the existing RNG if there were a skill to buff off-hand accuracy to parity with primary accuracy. This would reduce off-hand miss chance significantly; the resulting dps increase would more than make up for dps loss due to RNG.

 

Cheers. :cool:

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OP has been updated with draft questions. They're a bit long-winded and could use some editing, but I think this is what we're going to go with. As I mentioned in the OP, I would really love to bug the developers about the Inspiration/Bloodthirst and Transcendence/Predation buffs blocking Centering/Fury build up, but we simply don't have that many questions and the Combat/Carnage issued garnered more community attention.

 

That is indeed an interesting point. The community want what it wants, and I'd personally recommend keeping the questions which are directly related to these posts... that said, I'll remember this idea and post it when the time comes for Marauder ideas.

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I like the way the questions are phrased, one suggestion I still make if for HoJ/Slaughter to reduce the CD of gore/PS this would give combat/carnage the fluidity it had pre 2.0

 

It finishes the cooldown. You want it to apply a buff that reduces the static cooldown of the next PS/Gore (similar to Merciless/Annihilate)? It's a cool idea, but it would increase DPS by a *lot* while simultaneously making focus/rage management nearly impossible (since you would have a lot less time to build focus between PS windows).

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It finishes the cooldown. You want it to apply a buff that reduces the static cooldown of the next PS/Gore (similar to Merciless/Annihilate)? It's a cool idea, but it would increase DPS by a *lot* while simultaneously making focus/rage management nearly impossible (since you would have a lot less time to build focus between PS windows).

 

Yes an static reduction of the CD of the PS/gore window. It may not necessarily increase dps but I would allow players to be more consistent with their dps. As it currently stands there are 2 PS/gore window every ICD of the Slaughter/HoJ proc that is a 9 second window of PS/Gore every 20 sec if the CD of PS where 9s instead of 12s then it would achieve the same effect. That way you would have phases, a 4.5 second window of focus/rage building and 4.5 sec window of focus/rage spending. Also a 9 sec CD would allow to time it with BS/FS.

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I think the strengths and weaknesses adressed here are simply meant to be like that and I find them to be quite well balanced: With Focus you have one specc that shines brightly in PvP and the AoE department, if it were competitive in PvE as well (where you need stong single target DPS), that specc would be OP.

 

Combat does highest DPS in PVE plus enormous initial burst both in PvE and PvP. If DPS peaks were not dependent on RNG at all and you could deliberately control burst DPS it would be totally OP.

 

Watchman is quite a bit easier to play than Combat, fair enough that you can't pull the highest DPS with it. Dots are a very convenient play style as your target takes continuous damage even if you don't do anything, so you have to make it a littler harder to keep those Dots running.

 

I do agree Gunslingers are probably a little too strong since 2.0 but I'd rather give them a slight nerf than push Sent speccs...

 

Couple of things. Each tree need to be balanced for ALL environments. Also, PvE wise there are no evidence supporting that combat does better than watchmen. Most parses are split among them and each has its strong and weak points PvE wise. Finally, tree complexity is not correlated with damage output, plus none of the trees is complex for all the classes.

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Couple of things. Each tree need to be balanced for ALL environments. Also, PvE wise there are no evidence supporting that combat does better than watchmen. Most parses are split among them and each has its strong and weak points PvE wise. Finally, tree complexity is not correlated with damage output, plus none of the trees is complex for all the classes.

The problem is that there are many fights (Titan 6, Kephess, Dread Guard, Operator IX, etc. etc) where Combat is significantly better than Watchman, but few or none where Watchman is significantly better than Combat. So there really is no big benefit being Watchman compared to Combat, but there is for being Combat compared to Watchman. Also, I personally parse at between 3.5-4k in Combat on NiM Kephess, compared to 3200-3500 in Watchman. So yeah, there is some evidence.

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Just a few points I've been wondering about myself:

 

One of the many failings of Watchman in PvP are the dots. While strong, they are easily cleansable. What if their typing was changed to Force instead of Physical? As it is, every healer spec can cleanse Physical effects, but only Sorcs/Sages can cleanse Force effects. Scoundrels/Ops could still remove it with Dodge, but Sorcs would remain the only healer class that could cleanse them from other party members. As such this wouldn't be a big enough alteration for it to begin affecting team structures, but if the dots were additionally considerably stronger (with other attacks weakened?) the threat of the other team having Watchmen would necessitate at least the other of your healers to be a Sage.

 

In battles where there is a lot of movement (boss moving fast) there are times when a Combat sent is out of melee range, Force Leap is on CD and PS is off CD and free to use, but you cannot reach the boss to initiate it. The fact that PS is a melee attack is what confused me the most when I began to move from Watchman to Combat. Its functionality within the spec is pretty much the same as that of Overload Saber, yet OS is an activated buff. PS as an attack is negligible, so it could be reworked to act solely as a buff as well. An added bonus would be the ability of using TST and BS within a PS window outside melee range while pursuing the boss. The problem is, the ability should probably be renamed as it wouldn't be a Slash anymore. :p

Edited by Memo-
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