For all the hatred that I see about the sentinel class, and about how they are broken, I figured I would try to make an informative post here.

 

First, this is my own experience with live TOR, and this is my opinion.

 

Sentinel is not a broken class. It's how you are playing it. Let me start by telling you what a real sentinel can do-

 

1. You can kill any target, regular, strong, elite, or champion by yourself. (Companions are required for champions but that's about it).

 

2. You can freely use any companion you want for whatever circumstance you want. (I am currently sitting around level 41, never slowed down yet).

 

3. You can tear through quests nonstop with very little downtime.

 

Now you may be saying, but killahjedi, how do i play my class then? Well, this is where you learn something-

 

 

Onset of combat-

 

You will buff yourself with Sprint, Juyo form (We paid attention to #3 right?), and Force Might.

 

Now, this isn't warcraft, so you actually need to think for ONE second before pressing that Force Leap ability what it is you are fighting.

 

If this is an elite or higher, you will ABSOLUTELY need your Saber Ward up, and possibly Call on the Force to reset the counter if its a long-drawn out fight.

 

In combat-

 

With the Watchmen spec, you need to burn the **** out of your target. You do this by stacking cauterize. Cauterize does a truck load of damage, and you can keep applying it. Elemental/Burn damage is the whole trick to taking down champions/elites that have a ton of life. You apply dots, refresh them, and watch the damage keep pouring off of them.

 

How i approach regular mobs/packs-

 

1. Overload Saber immediately before fight if i have power.

2. Force leap into the middle of a pack, then force sweep + stun the lower/lesser mobs.

 

At this point, a main trick to this, is deciding whether or not you are taking massive damage instantly, if you are, generally it's the smaller guys around you, take them down instantly, leaving the "strong" in the group up until the end. Generally you can interrupt the strong, or force stasis/choke his *** to stun also.

 

You can pretty much do whatever here to regular mobs, I prefer to single-target them down. It seems the sentinel AOE ability seems a little weak.. even at 41 im hitting for like 500 damage on it?? Seems terrible.

 

Approaching elites/champions:

 

1. Saber Ward

2. Force leap -> pt builder

3. Cauterize. (This will be buffed by your talent choices. You can reset the CD on this, plus it's initial burst damage). This gets the dot rolling on the hard guy.

4. Force Statis/Choke -> let that damage from cauterize do it's thing while he can't move.

5. You should have enough pts left to slash a few times. If you are really lucky, you can slash once, reset the CD on cauterize, and re-apply it again. Keeping this dot ALWAYS rolling is key.

6. About by now your saber ward might be falling, you can use your other defensive CD to negate damage(again forget the name), or call on the force, and re-use saber ward again.

 

7. He will most likely be casting some nasty **** this entire time--Beit force lighting, circle of death, FULL AUTO if its a gunner, all of these skills can/ and should be kicked. YOU NEED TO INTERRUPT.

 

The entire key to taking down harder mobs for sentinels is all about control. You apply your dot, slash a few times to get some burn damage up there, then stop him from attacking-Through choke/statis, force sweep, blade storm, or kick, all of these things get you out of trouble.

 

By about level 40, all of these things start flowing naturally, and elites just aren't a challenge at all. I can solo them without companions JUST using the self-heal from Juyo form, with all defensive CD's.

 

If anyone wants any more advice i'd be glad to provide it, im surer this post is all over the place

 

-Killahjedi

Jedi Sentinel

[bad Motivator Units] - Correlian Run

I just wanted to add stats, and gearing which i think people might have a problem with also.

 

1. Stack Strength always. It buffs all of your skills. Use STR whenever you can.

2. After Strength, comes power. This buffs your base damage with both hands.

3. After Strength, it's a little up in the air currently, but I have strong reason to believe that accuracy is the key here.

 

I have geared up to 40 like so-

 

Might Armoring for all armor slots.

Might Mods for all mods.

Rage Enhancements to 35.

 

Post 35, Rage enhancement changes into Initiative Enhancement I think it is, the one with End/Power/Accuracy.

 

Might Hilts like always.

Nice post. It's good to see someone, for once, not qq'ing about how a good class is bad.

 

Personally I'm a combat spec so I just replace power with crit/surge.

Can you post your spec please?

 

Thank you

I could have written this guide myself, as it is near exact how I play my Sentinel. Do I succeed at doing what I want to do? Yes. But fact is, this is still all 10x more that you have to do and you have at least twice the downtime as any other class in the game. Which in any other forum for any other class in this game, or other MMO is the very definition of underpowered/unbalanced.

Yes please post your spec spread. I currently am at 34 and have just about every point in Watchmen. When would someone recommend branching out to the other trees? After watchmen is full?

If you are having trouble on a sent, you need to rethink how you play. Sent is absurdly powerful if used right. Wrecks everything.

Yes Sent wrecks everything, but every other class wrecks everything easier.

 

You people keep failing to realize the importance of this fact...

 

It is a simple and logical step to make the connection between that fact, and the fact that IN COMPARISON Sents are underpowered in regards to other classes. Now does this mean that Sents are underpowered? or does it mean that other classes are overpowered? This is a question worthwhile to debate. However the answer to that question depends on what the devs intended difficulty level of the game is.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Saetun

Melee is ALWAYS more difficult than ranged. That is never going to change. If the class can wreck everyone, why cry that it takes a little skill?

Thing is, the other melee classes in this game are not more difficult. In fact they are just as easy as the ranged to play. Sentinel/marauder is the only melee class that is more difficult. Edited December 27, 2011 by Saetun

Sentinel is broken

Honestly I felt that fighting sents as a ranged was more difficult than sent against anything else. Granted I'm more used to a sent.

Yes Sent wrecks everything, but every other class wrecks everything easier.

 

You people keep failing to realize the importance of this fact...

 

It is a simple and logical step to make the connection between that fact, and the fact that IN COMPARISON Sents are underpowered in regards to other classes. Now does this mean that Sents are underpowered? or does it mean that other classes are overpowered? This is a question worthwhile to debate. However the answer to that question depends on what the devs intended difficulty level of the game is.

 

Yeah, obvious post is obvious. Its kind of like, duh, use your skills. Probably some people need it, but telling people that go a DoT spec to use their DoTs? Comeon? Telling people to pop defenses when going up against elites? Comeon? Why not add in a line telling people to make sure to equip that second lightsaber...

 

Sentinel is underpowered comparatively and more work intensive comparatively. It has the inherent problems of melee and a building resource mechanics that most other classes do not have. Its a double whammy. Lack of CC...triple whammy.

 

The main issue I have right now are that CCs are out of control, and we dont have one...well, force stasis, kindof. Im cc'd an inordinate amount of time. If you are going to have a melee class without CC, or the same kind of CCs that many other classes get, then our cooldown for our CC break needs to be HALVED. Either that or the resolve system needs to work or be tweaked ig it is "working" now.

 

I like melee dps classes, and sentinel has some pieces that are fun. Force camo, 90% acc debuff, etc. Force stasis is nice, since it is perhaps the only JEDI like skill. But they are all VERY short. Very short. And they dont seem to balance out with the endless CCs you run into.

I want somebody to explain that to me, if the actual class doesn't have a problem somewhere :

 

I willingly decided to keep the SAME GEAR after level 30. Why you say ? Because I wanted to experiment something (and because I hate the hood and jedi fat butt so meh I kept one that had no problem).

 

Tatooine, Alderande, that was hell. HELL.

 

Then I got on Balmora, it was cake easy. I didn't even need a companion here. Note, SAME GEAR, exact same rotation, play style.

 

Now, I'm level 34, on Quesh, taking out level 37 mobs, with same gear.

 

I have tons of screenshots in case you guys don't believe me.

 

So how exactly is that even possible ? Since I play the same, I got the same gear, and while I was owned by lower level mobs on tatooine, I'm now ****** mobs 3 levels higher.

 

How can anybody deny the fact that there's a problem SOMEWHERE ?

 

So sure, now, I don't feel "lame", but I'm pretty sure it's gonna turn into hell sometimes in the 40s.

Good day, nbuskirk:

 

Can you please share your spec along with advice as to what to get in what order by level?

 

Thank you!

Anything the Sent can do, every other class can do better. This is why Sentinel is broken.

 

Your "answer" of, "If you use all of your cooldowns you can succeed in PVE" is not relevant or helpful.

 

Lastly, success is not binary. You can be *more* successful, or *less* successful. Even if it is true that we can "succeed" using every one of our long duration cooldowns does not mean that we are in a good place. We can be *more* successful to the point of it not being painful.

Anything the Sent can do, every other class can do better. This is why Sentinel is broken.

 

Your "answer" of, "If you use all of your cooldowns you can succeed in PVE" is not relevant or helpful.

 

Lastly, success is not binary. You can be *more* successful, or *less* successful. Even if it is true that we can "succeed" using every one of our long duration cooldowns does not mean that we are in a good place. We can be *more* successful to the point of it not being painful.

 

Very well said. It is all comparative...people play the other classes, then play sentinel, and start head scratching.

Just to add, you forgot to mention Rebuke. 1min CD for flat 20% damage reduction and it returns damage to the attacker. Has a short duration but is refreshed to full duration when you're hit up to a max of 30 seconds.

This is a very good post and your information is very well explained, for attacking a single target, using your build. that much however does not seem to carry over when you have to attack several and you cannot down them all before your defense buff expires, at which point you are quite vulnerable and will probably die.

 

To this is added a weird bug Im having that when I press skills with my mouse (specially defense skills which I set on the lower bar) they sometimes do not activate, even with multiple presses plus as a combat build, I seem to sometimes have trouble building up focus to continue attacks, Im currently lvl 29 and this is the build im going for

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#5010cZGGbbddrRrsZzM.1

Edited December 27, 2011 by ChaosMatrix

50 Sentinel here.

 

I thought people were crying about Sentinels for no reason, cause it was a breeze to level, people are simply not using their cooldowns correctly.

 

BUT...

 

In pvp...

 

It's TOTAL UTTER CRAP!

 

- Guardians do everything we do, better and they take much less dmg.

- Range classes in Heavy armor do MUCH more damage than we do.

- The game is also bugged for melees, abilities don't work all the time.

 

Look.. I have to pop 2-3 CDs, bash a target for a couple seconds in order to be able to focus dump or pop Zen.. Other classes simply pop a CD and nuke away from range for MORE DMG.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a very competitive player, I've played CS competitivly, reached 2.3k in WoW, released tons of pvp videos in AoC/WAR. I am very very good at playing theses games and I tell you, sentinels are a piece of **** in pvp.

 

I can't think of a single role that other classes fill in much better.

 

Heck I've had my overgeared lvl 50 sage friend follow me around in warzones and heal me. Reached 280k dmg; meanwhile my scoundrel friend did 350k without healing assist.

 

Now.. As for PVE.. the class is very strong SO FAR.. we'll see once they give us combat logs and parsing.

I just wanted to add stats, and gearing which i think people might have a problem with also.

 

1. Stack Strength always. It buffs all of your skills. Use STR whenever you can.

2. After Strength, comes power. This buffs your base damage with both hands.

3. After Strength, it's a little up in the air currently, but I have strong reason to believe that accuracy is the key here.

 

I have geared up to 40 like so-

 

Might Armoring for all armor slots.

Might Mods for all mods.

Rage Enhancements to 35.

 

Post 35, Rage enhancement changes into Initiative Enhancement I think it is, the one with End/Power/Accuracy.

 

Might Hilts like always.

 

Speaking from a PVP point of view, it might also be handy to stack endurance a little bit aswell. Having a high health pool in pvp is always a good thing.

The issue, as many have said, is not that the Sentinel is "broke" per se, it is that it takes a lot more effort to get the SAME results that other classes are capable of.

 

A class that is more demanding should reward the player with an advantage if played to its limits, and as designed the Sentinel really doesn't.

The issue, as many have said, is not that the Sentinel is "broke" per se, it is that it takes a lot more effort to get the SAME results that other classes are capable of.

 

A class that is more demanding should reward the player with an advantage if played to its limits, and as designed the Sentinel really doesn't.

 

"more effort to get the SAME results that other classes" Is a statement that does not even come close to the actual reality of the situation. Same would imply some kind of equality, which even people who do not complain about sentinel per se, state that there is none.

50 Sentinel here.

 

I thought people were crying about Sentinels for no reason, cause it was a breeze to level, people are simply not using their cooldowns correctly.

 

BUT...

 

In pvp...

 

It's TOTAL UTTER CRAP!

 

- Guardians do everything we do, better and they take much less dmg.

- Range classes in Heavy armor do MUCH more damage than we do.

- The game is also bugged for melees, abilities don't work all the time.

 

Look.. I have to pop 2-3 CDs, bash a target for a couple seconds in order to be able to focus dump or pop Zen.. Other classes simply pop a CD and nuke away from range for MORE DMG.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a very competitive player, I've played CS competitivly, reached 2.3k in WoW, released tons of pvp videos in AoC/WAR. I am very very good at playing theses games and I tell you, sentinels are a piece of **** in pvp.

 

I can't think of a single role that other classes fill in much better.

 

Heck I've had my overgeared lvl 50 sage friend follow me around in warzones and heal me. Reached 280k dmg; meanwhile my scoundrel friend did 350k without healing assist.

 

Now.. As for PVE.. the class is very strong SO FAR.. we'll see once they give us combat logs and parsing.

 

By chance did you finish your story line? Did you succeed at the final fight?

By chance did you finish your story line? Did you succeed at the final fight?

 

I solo'd the last fight due to info from other Jedi teammates that allowed me to gear the right companion for it.

 

I leveled as watchmen and it was a breeze, the self heal is very strong.

 

Heck once I got doc I solo'd a 72k hp elite4+ boss by chaining defensive CDs, heals from watchmen spec and medpacs. I was astopnished that I managed to do that.

 

I thought I was going to be a BEAST in pvp... boy was I mistaken.