With the new set up for Utilities, I've been struggling to decide which ones to invest my points into. Currently I'm running Skillful: Celerity/Avoidance and Lambaste/Lambaste; Masterful: Misdirection/Obfuscation and Force Harmonics/Audacity; Heroic: Shadowy Veil/Insulation and Egress/Emerson; and Legendary: One with the Shadows/Phasing Phantasm and Mind over Matter/Disjunction.

 

While playing through the continuing story, I played around with switching Lambaste/Lambaste for Pinning Resolution/Oppressing Force and Shadowy Veil/Insulation for Containment/Haunted Dreams. There were things I liked and didn't like about it. Obviously, without the armor boost I was pretty squishy. However, in most instances, by locking down all or most of the members of a mob, by the time it broke I was facing one or two opponents anyway. The CCing was fun, but it also made me pretty hesitant to use Whirling Blow/Lacerate or Force in Balance/Death Field, which are, of course, two of the main abilities of the Discipline. Reducing my willingness to AOE felt counter intuitive to the Discipline and really haven't used this combination outside of when I was playing with it in story.

 

I was wondering if anyone else experienced with Serenity/Hatred had/have tried either of the Utility combinations I described above, or some other Utility combination you have tried, and what your thoughts about them might be. Now that I've finished the continuing story, I'm particularly interested in combinations that prove highly effective in FP/Uprising, and even story mode Op, level group content.

 

Any insights will be most appreciated.

First of all, you really don't need to name the utilities for both factions. Democracy is nice and all, but it's legitimately hard to read through your post that way.

 

To the point, here are the ones I'd take for PvE:

 

Mental defense - AoE DR is amazing, the new story is filled with it and so are ops.

 

Celerity/Lambaste - Always celerity, the 5 seconds CD reduction on force speed is once again huge thanks to the restored 20 seconds CD on it. Lambaste only if you know you're going to be spamming it because of lots of adds.

 

Force harmonics - the extra potency charge is a direct DPS increase, nothing better here.

 

Misdirection - a matter of preference. I prefer having a reliable 15% speed increase over a 50% rotational one, because I can't control the use of Squelch without nerfing my own damage. If you'd rather have higher average speed, go for kinetic acceleration.

 

Shadowy veil - this seems to be bugged. If you guard your companion they'll build stacks of shadowy veil (as it would for tanks pre-5.0). Even without that, it's 30% armor increase, as well as reducing damage of a sapped target for 10 seconds for a nice bonus.

 

Egress/Cloak of resilience - if there's lots of slows and roots, take Egress. If you need an extra DCD, take Cloak of resilience. The latter is less useful in solo PvE since stealthing out resets the fight, but it's good for ops.

 

Mind over matter - more Resilience, more force speed and the ability to slow junk down. Nothing bad here.

 

One with the shadows/Avenging grip - the first option is great if you need another DCD, say in solo PvE (let's say a boss is giving you trouble in veteran difficulty). The second one is great for ops, assuming your healers can keep you up and you know what is reflectable. Up to you.

Thank you for your insights. They have allowed me to do some interesting testing of my own.

 

I had hoped to provoke more of a discussion about Utility combinations that were fun and effective without necessarily being "the best". But it seems as though that discussion has been taken up on other threads.

 

Thank you again.

Thanks for typing both classes instead of one so I could understand what the discussion was about and what skills were being talked about as I have only played 4 or 5 months and do not have them memorized for other faction.