Are sentinels viable dps in end game flashpoints and operations? I know they are viable for their 'bloodlust' ability however i'm not too fond of being the 1 sentinel in the raid as a buff stick. Are melee consistently not being brought in because they're a sheer inconvenience?

 

I'm a very skilled player however if its a giant limitation being a melee-oriented dps it would be in my best interest to reroll. Any opinions are welcome, thanks!

Considering commando/merc sage/sorc deal more dps regardless and at range it's a problem yeah. But the damage in watchman or combat is high enough, and the encounters not impossible to work in as mdps, so it could be worse. (why do you think BW gave maras/sents the buffs anyway )

Sentinals are awesome for DPS. Fact. It's not about what the "best" class is for DPS, it's about Rotation, and blowing the right moves at the right time.

 

I spent about 20 minutes the other day actually going through each skill I had, planning a rotation, planning what sequence the moves can be blown in, and also back-up sequences.

 

In the end, I ended up having to use two skills bars, and I have two layouts for my moves, one for PVE and one for PVP.

 

If your sentinal, be proud, your part of a small community.

Sentinels do extremely high damage when played well (correct priority system, good focus management, not clipping Cauterize, etc) but the problem is that they're ultimately a melee class, which automatically makes their survivability worse than ranged, especially in SWTOR where almost every boss (even trash mob packs) have built in anti-melee mechanics. The best example I can show for this is the 2nd boss on Battle for Ilum, who puts up a reflection shield whenever he spawns adds. If any melee swings at him while this shield is up, they take massive damage (enough to kill you outright if you're under 12k HP) while ranged DPS is completely unaffected by it.

 

So, are they viable? Sure. Are they optimal? Not really. However, I'm sure many operations groups will probably still take 1 at minimum just so they have Inspiration.

 

And no one knows for sure which class does more damage than another at this point (most are just eyeballing damage), and we won't know until a combat log is released which will enable offsite parsing.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Exertim