1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

I play both watchman & combat quite active and from what i noticed is that most players don't like to play against that in a 1 vs 1 situation and will call for help.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Watchman: Great, love it for solo queueing when you can't rely on teammates to back you up.

Combat: burst is great. Overall damage is really good, but would be better if both skill tree talents 'Oppertune attack' & 'Saber Storm' would grant their buffs properly

I am a watchman sentinel.

1. I can only talk about PvE, but there a Sentinel is a good addition as a DPS class.

2. Playing a watchman sentinel ist great and has a great feeld to it. Of all the classes I've tried the Sentinel is most fun to play.

1. People seem to perceive all of the Sentinel specs as being overpowered.

2. I find the watchman spec to be a lot of fun, and to really be in a good place at the moment.

I play combat for my rated team, watchman if I ever solo queue, and don't really mess with focus.

1) Regardless of my spec I think the general PvP community considers Sentinels to be OP, but I also think that the majority of players don't know the difference between which spec they're facing and assume all Sentinels are 31/31/31. The higher end PvP community (high rated players - fellow 2400 teams etc) know how to properly shut the class down / use CC to its full potential / use swaps to get us to blow defensive CC's then swap back off, etc. We are a strong class that brings a lot of utility / damage to any team - but I feel like perceptions will be entirely based off the level of players both playing the class and facing the class.

2) I perceive Watchman as being extremely durable and hard to bring down. Capable of 1v3'ing undergeared players and really putting up a good fight in 1v2 situations against strong players. Team utility wise, it doesn't bring much to the table in a rated environment, but that's the tradeoff of the spec: less utility, better survivability. I'd almost argue that the survivability is a little too high, but I feel like that issue only really sticks out in non ranked Warzones (for various reasons).

Combat is extremely useful in a competitive / team play environment - the burst is great, but easily shut down by well coordinated groups (which is fine in my opinion, the more a team is focusing on shutting me down the less they're doing other things, opening my team mates up to basically mirror those tactics, etc). The survivability is lower than Watchman obviously, but definitely still strong with good cool down usage. All in all I think Combat is in a pretty good place, barring a couple of known bugs (Opportune strike doesn't appropriately apply the 10% damage bonus to the next focus spender, as well as Saber Storm not correctly applying the 30% bonus damage to Ataru Form procs (the latter of which hasn't been commented on at all by developers, but the former was recently added to the known issues list)).

I haven't PvP'ed since back before 1.2 so this is all from a PvE perspective.

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

Most people I have talked to/heard think that having a sentinel in a group is very useful, two is also nice for rotating Inspiration. They also think we do competitive dps on bosses and also like the speed boost/extra damage reduction we can provide in certain situations.

Some people seem to have this weird idea that only Watchman is good for dps in ops though.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I haven't done anything with Focus because it seems really PvP focused. I like both Watchman and Combat though I tend to prefer combat.

Part of the reason I think people believe Watchman is all around better than Combat is that everything lines up really easily with Watchman and you can get into a really effective rotation pretty easily and do a good job (not saying being a great Watchman Sentinel is easy, just being a good one is easy). For combat I find managing my Focus can be much more of an issue sometimes, also you have to line-up certain skills together correctly in order to get the most benefit from them. So it seems slightly harder to me to be a good combat Sentinel.

When people ask me to describe the two specs I say "watchman is about keeping your dots up on your target and is really good sustained dps, and combat is more about managing your focus and using skills together and is more of a burst spec".

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

PVE - watchman spec

1. From what I've seen, there are a lot of sentinels, and they're considered a strong class.

2. It's a movement-friendly melee class. The dot dps adds up while the group buffs and heals and such are helpful to everyone. On top of that, there are defensive cds, ccs (although only droids for significant time), and interrupts: lot of tools.

Hi everyone,

 

We’re looking for some specific feedback about each Advanced Class and spec. Your feedback here, along with other feedback we’ve been gathering and our internal metrics, may guide future class balance changes. Similar threads will be found in every Advanced Class forum.

 

Here are the two questions that we’d like to ask (please only post about specific specs that you actively play, and don’t forget to tell us which one you’re talking about!):

 

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Please answer the post using the same format and in no more than 2-3 sentences per question.

 

This is not a discussion thread, so please do not debate others’ feedback – everyone gets to share what they think. Any off-topic or unconstructive posts (or any that do not follow the above guidelines) will be removed without warning.

 

Remember, this isn’t the only thread we’re looking at for feedback – if you have more feedback than fits the above guidelines, please feel free to post a discussion thread. We’re looking to get some specific insights here, but we are always reading the forums to gather feedback and player concerns.

 

Thank you!

1. Everyone wants me on their team and no one wants to fight me. I've got one of if not the best burst in the game and I'm the easiest class to play.

2. I love my Sentinel. I've leveled her up to 30 so far and I have yet to die on solo content. This is after pulling half a room and trying. She reminds me a lot of my Fury Warrior from World of Warcraft; I can kill anything that holds still long enough.

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

Pretty much irrespective of spec most other classes see me as a high burst, high damage death machine that has a range of defensive abilities that make it a steel cannon.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Deadly. With some great survivability depending on my cooldowns. Very hard to kite, hard to avoid and hard to beat.

Both Combat and Watchman in amounts where I can have some feedback.

1. In PvP, people rarely look at spec of Sentinel. I see from time to time "OMG selfhealing is op" or "OMG roots and transcendence are OP" ("7k Sweeps are op" happen too, but it's for some reason mostly about guardians), but nothing pointing people feeling more strongly about one spec than other. Generally they either appear terrified by even thinking about fighting Sentinel, or mockingly say that they can easly kill it, but in a way "I'm skilled", not "I kill it in my sleep". Obviously, most people that don't have any problem with class don't voice their opinions. It seems Sentinels are considered dangerous because they will be focused fast, but not considered easy kill because they are rarely focused first. So class considered either strong or balanced, but certainly not weak.

For PvE, very good damage dealer I guess? Only reason why you wouldn't want one more skilled Sentinel in your raid is if you need more ranged DPS. Outside of properly organized group people seem to forget about Inspiration, are afraid to ask, assume Sentinel knows best when to use it, don't know. But since it's our best baseline group utility, I expected people to show more interest in it.

Combat doesn't have any special features people could notice in PvE, Watchman has his self and raid healing, but it seems to be rarely considered or noticed.

2. Combat - great burst and fun, good mobility(Speed increase in Ataru Form really makes difference in PvP) and PvP utility with Transcendence and roots, less of a dueslist due to lack of healing and main trick(Precision Slash) being easly countered with CC. My spec of choice for PvE due to most fights inclluding considerable downtime on boss, and damage mostly limited by CD.

Watchman - my greatest issue with that spec was when while questing, I was killing groups of standard mobs in arund 15 seconds, and refreshing Merciless Slash buff required delaying finishing off one enemy, because looting and making it in time to next group before buff dropped was impossible. It's a very unfriendly mechanic for fights with lot of downtime. Focus management is also harder, as you can(and if possible, should) use up 7 focus (with 8 required for it, 66% of total resource pool) in single GCD. Self and raid healing is great, but fact that single short downtime can mess up your huge nuke, or lag/ability delay cause yout DoT to fall off instead of being refteshed with extra stack(lags are still here, situation with ability delay got a bit better) makes it less fun for PvE, where bosses rarely allow mele to stick to them. It's good it's a bit harder, it's not good that you have so often build up all those stacks over and over again from 0 in PvE.

Both specs have not-so-usefull AoE. Back in a day when their focus cost(talented) was equal 1 it was worth using Sweep between other skills for some extra AoE damage, or spamming Cyclone Slash to interrupt capture, or just for damage. Now when you need to use 2 Strikes just to have enough focus for single Cyclone Slash, and still have to face enemy, it's very rarely used skill, so decreased GCD and cost on Ataru Zen is bit out of place.

Also both specs I consider 'duelist' for PvP - great at engaging enemy 1v1, both specializing in different kinds of fight - Combat for fast kill before enemy can kill him, Watchman for outlasting enemy by constant, steady damage, good ability to stay on target and selfheals. Some tool to set up those duels inside warzone(move enemy away from his group) would make this even more fun, but well, we've got tools to ignore his group(defensive CD) or CC for a while (AoE mezz), so it's fine.

I'm a watchman sentinel

1. It's hard to say how others perceive my class. From the conversations I have had people seem to think watchman are OP for pvp and others still seem to think that sents are to glass cannon for PVE stuff.

2. I love my sentinel and I love watchmen. I generally don't like to play melee classes in these games, I'm usually a caster or healer type but I found a total niche in the Watchmen. I love watching and keeping up my dots. I find the rotation is a bit "heavy" and feel that one or two abilities could be merged together to help free it up. As it is now often times I find my fingers all over the keyboard which is great in some ways bad in others. It's certainly not boring as I basically always have something to do but sometimes it can be a little overwhelming especially for new players. I would also like to say that some combat animation issues still persist with the sentinel. Abilities will trigger the GCD but not actually go off, animations will stutter or simply refuse to cast. Another gripe I have deals with the first post. Alot of pve abilites punish melee in this game and sents feel to soft. They have multiple abilities to stop dmg mind you and I feel that I constantly have to chain them together to live and help out my healers. Also the merciless slash effect (where every use of merciless slash reduces the cooldown of the next one) is a neat mechanic but it's a bit to punishing. It's far to easy to lose the buff and have to start over again. It's good because it rewards players for using it but it's a bit to reliant on you have the correct force power and the correct time and being in position to hit the boss at the correct time.

All that aside however my sentinel is one of the funnest characters I've played in an MMO. Force Leap is probably the greatest thing in a video game ever.

Watchman Spec

PVE perspective

How others perceive:

My guild thinks it is super overpowered. I play Sentinel as an alt, and walked into a raid with full Recruit PVP gear and a Battlemaster mainhand and pulled competitive DPS, beating out some people in Rakata/Campaign. A well played Watchman Sent just does ridiculous damage compared to most other specs (note that I do have better gear now; an even mix of Columi and Rakata).

How I perceive it:

Watchman has perhaps the most complicated "rotation" in the game, using 10 different skills on a priority system, plus cooldowns. Your average skilled player pulls good DPS, but highly skilled players spiral out of control, doing way more DPS than most other specs in the game. I like the high skill cap, and would prefer other classes were made more like Watchman.

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

I think people seem to think its overpowered which is a carry over from old 1.2 days maybe, they understand its downsides in pvp and most groups do not fear it and consider something like a gunslinger to deliver much more dmg.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I love it in pve, but in pvp watchman simply doesnt do any dmg. Also attacks arnt the same as a gaurdan or in pve they are very strict on you getting the target directly in front of you not on top of you or slightly behind which in a fight or messy fight in pvp is hard you simply arnt allowed to fire off shots. Therefore the small dps which builds over time isnt applyed. Yes we have defensive cool downs and resolve which are fine for pve but in pvp the cooldowns are too long and im only really good once then im rubbish for 3 mins. Its also very hard to get in close to actually deal dmg with a 2min cooldown on resolve i spend all my pvp time stunned... sentinal is my main but i never use it for pvp any more... guardian or sage is more enjoyable as guadian attacks can fire off even if they are behind me not like the anal sentinals attacks. Sentinal has to be in a ranked group else its basically owned by all and deals very little damage. Becuase of the harsh melee restrictions when fighting sentinal should be a big damage dealer not out classed by others, espcially by ranged which have it easy all the time anyway.

I can play as my ranged trooper with half the gear of sentinal and breeze through ops...

Sentinals simply not OP enough considering what its meant to embody.

Watchman Spec lvl 50 PVE mostly

1) people tend to view Sentinel as good situation dps and what pvp I did do it appeared people didnt like to 1 vs 1 him.

2) I feel of the 5 50s i have that the Sentinel Watchman Spec is about the all around best. In fights where i can stay on the boss I can put out awesome dps but over the course of an op, I am pretty much on par with the gunslingers and dps sages for average dps.

Sentinel Focus PVP only

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

I play Sentinel Focus spec. I think most other classes think the focus spec sux. Everyone I talk to prefers watchman or combat.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I would like to see a little more aoe dmg with focus spec. It's survivability compared to watchman is horrid. Balance self healing with more offensive dmg.

I have abandon my Sentinel a long time ago, as the rotations in FPs and OPs simply bored me,

and found my self watching TV while nuking bosses.

He has no "tricks", and isnt really open to creative players, like shadows or even guardians have.

Loved my shadow as tank, till it became useless, now im on my guardian again.

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

Really good member of a group. Good damage, good survivability has a few nice tricks against droids. Welcome in any group looking for a main dps or a second dps/tank

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Enjoyable, simple. I like the spec only issue I have is that it seems to lack anything special. Its all about the damage and if I can not out damage the mob I am probably going to die.

I have 4 Empire characters and Sentinel will be my first (and probably only) Republic one.

The char still has to grow a bit but always having Marauders in my group I'd give some feedback anyway.

1. Annahilation widely considered to be the best at everything - damage, utility, PvE, PvP. I personally believe this to be true, but to get to the specs potential you need very good timing and overview of your cooldowns and what's happening during the encounter.

Carnage is almost where Annahilation is an Annahilation is considered the top spec for any occasion. The class has more utility than any other class with it's group buffs on top of that.

Usually my guild wants to have at least one Marauder for each 8 people in the raid ... with the group buffs not being limited to 1 Marauder buff per cooldown period there is some concern that class stacking might be the future if content progressively gets harder.

The defensive CDs are widly known as being ridiculous in PvP ... we usually joke about it as no one expects a fix anytime soon, the more hardcore PvPers among my friends just gave up hope on any balance here.

I heard some people say being melee is a downside in general.

2. I chew through things while leveling ... faster than with my assassin, juggernaut, sniper or merc. Yes, not 50 yet and I already have a higher kill rate.

For some time I pondered about switching to Marauder full time for all it's perks.

However I do not want Annahilation to be nerfed, on the contrary other specs (including Carnage) should brought up to the same level in terms of both damage and utility. First is actually quite easy as it's just tweaks to non-broken classes. However the second part will be a bit harder to achieve and as much important.

In PvP the class doesn't have a knockback or a real stun, but two short CD interrupts are very dangerous for all healers and ranged classes you target ... in itself this part of the ability set seems balanced.

Defensive wise the cooldowns are extremely potent and more than enough make up for beeing a melee with medium armor ... the class is a butcher in PvP and if your cooldowns are up you are the hardest class to kill above all ... which feels like a juggernaut (the word, not the class ... still ironic though) rolling over your enemies.

The animations are imho not as pretty as the single-sabre cousin's though.

I don't think melee is bad thanks to your charge and the ability to do 100% DPS while moving within range of your target.

In short:

Annahilation is the spec that should be targeted for buffing all the other classes and specs in both regards, utility and damage.

PS: I'm sorry for the Empire terminology ... I'm just that much more familiar with it ... in fact even my Sentinal is called 'H'tisami', wich is I'm a sith backwards. :>

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

Both 8 mans in my guild that have cleared content run with anywhere from 1 to 3 sentinels (depending on who they're rotating in and out, it's a really long story) and several people almost feel that a GOOD sentinel is a necessity for progression raiding. Several seem to favor Watchmen because of the "Sustained" dps they provide and the 6% heals every 20-30 seconds or so for Ops, and in regards to PvP the three snares and lololol 80% Transcendence bring more favor to Combat. We don't speak of Focus. It does not exist.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Having extensively played both Watchmen and Combat spec I favor Combat because it's Direct Damage and has great on demand burst, though I feel it would be totally awesome if Saber Storm and Opportune Attack were fixed.

i think the community perceives Sentinels as OP cause of our many defensive cooldowns...

I myself think the sentinel is right where it should be... what all those that perceive sents as being op fail to remember is that sents must fight in the thick of things and have no ranged abilities, we also have no knockbacks,.... all and all the sent is pretty balanced at least until another class is made to be op or we are nerfed to death

Watchman spec.

1. How others perceive Sentinels.

They perceive it as a OP class.

1. How I perceive it.

I perceive Sentinels as Over-Powerd class, especially Watchman spec.

Sadly most people doesn't know how to play Sentinels, that's why they don't notice how OP they are.

But, WHY most of people changed to Guardians/Juggernauts and Sentinels/Marauders from they original characters?

BECAUSE THE SENTINELS ARE OVERPOWERED, IT*S LIKE 1 MAN ARMY!!!

You know, people who plays Sentinel or changed from other character to play Sentinel says that Sentinels aren't OP, because other people still kills them.

But it's not a matter of being killed that means that class is not OP, it's the way you die

and here, it just that most Sentinels doesn't know how to play!

and it just that people found a way to kill the Sentinels/Marauders, which is:

To Kill Sentinel/Marauder, 1 vs 1.

1. it must be BAD Sentinel/Marauder.

or if not

2. You stun him, slow him and not let him hit you EVEN once for 4-5 seconds.

That also means not to let him jump you!!!

3.Then you can pound him for around 4 seconds, and again run away. from him.

4. In the end he probably would be less health than you,

You either stunn him before he uses the 99% damage reduction and kill him.

or damage him , and stunn him at the same time when he uses 99% damage reduction!!

5. But it still comes to, if you got MedPack on you or your healer comes to heal you (if its good Mar/Sen),

Because AT The END, Sentinel poped the 99% damage reduction!!!! and you wait eternity while your DOTED then

you die by the DOTS, while waiting!

and he got healed by his DOTS and goes to kill another helpless guy!

If it would have been of course good Sentinel/Marauder, most of them don't know how to play so of course I (WE) kill them.

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

1. Combat spec is perceived by most others as being inferior to Watchman in sustained damage output for PvE.

2. I enjoy playing Combat spec, but I perceive it as incapable of performing up to its potential due to bugs in the Opportune Attack (does not increase damage) and Saber Storm (does not increase Ataru critical damage) talents. It is a difficult spec to play, being very dependent on procs and with the UI providing zero help (hotkey overlays, other visible feedback) in keeping track of them.

1) Very overpowered dps that everyone agrees needs a nerf.

2) Horrible class that I absolutely hated in pvp so much that I deleted a lvl 23 and rerolled guardian. Waiting for skills to build up to use was definitely not my game.

Watchman

1. How do you think your Sentinel spec is perceived by other classes?

Phenomenal dps and survivability. Difficult to play.

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Extremely high dps and survivability ceiling. Massive slew of interrupts. Best melee class in PvE or PvP. However, there are a lot of abilities to balance, and it does require more skill than most classes.

1. How is your class percieved by others?

Coming from a pve perspective I think that others view the class as very useful to have in the ops group. They see inspiration as a very nice buff for the group. Our other dps love me for it too.

2. How I perceive my class?

Again, this is coming from a pve perspective. I have played watchmen spec since launch. I did dabble in combat when 1.2 hit but after a day of raiding I switched back to watchmen. I kinda felt that combat felt "clunky". I think that not only do I bring excellent dps to the group I also have great group utility for ops. I get the trickle heals everytime zen is up, I have the six second kick, and the aforementioned inspiration. I think that I take just a bit of pressure off the healers because I can reliably keep myself topped off on health.

I would really like to see a debuff filter on targets though. I think this applies to every dot based spec in the game. Yesterday my guild ran nightmare pilgrim and I think we had 4 watchmen sents in the op group. It is very hard to keep track of my own cauterize and overload saber stacks on target. Its not class breaking but its just one of those things that would make life easier for me.