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[Guide] The Watchmen and Combat PvE basics


BlznSmri

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The Sentinel Advanced Class is a Pure DPS Melee class with varying degrees of Operations utility depending on the spec. The Watchmen tree brings extra interrupts and a raid wide 6% heal about every 30 seconds if managed well and the Combat tree provides more spontaneous burst and increased Ops wide movement speed from the Transcendence Predation buff.

 

Unique Sentinel Mechanic:

What separates Sentinels from Shadows and Guardians (aside from the fact that Sentinels can't tank) is Centering which is built up by using abilities that spend Focus. At 30 stacks of Centering the abilities Zen, Transcendence and Inspiration become available and are your main raid utility abilities. Zen should be used nearly all the time because of how it affects each spec. Inspiration should be used at your raid leader's discretion, however it it most often used at the beginning of the fight (or shortly thereafter) for the possibility of being used later in the fight. Transcendence is mostly a Defensive/ Mobility skill that shines in PvP but has several uses during boss fights were mobility is key.

 

Watchmen:

 

The Watchmen spec is all about juggling cool down timers and making sure you have enough focus to use Overload Saber and maintain three stacks of Merciless from Merciless Slash whenever they are available. Juyo Form is the foundation of this spec. If you have reservations about how dangerously close Juyo Form can bring you to the dark side I suggest that you pick another spec, and if you try to play this spec without Juyo Form at all, well, then there's nothing I can do for you.

 

A general Watchmen build is 31/07/00 + 3. which gives you every major PvE damage, survivability and utility talent and leaves three points to spend where you feel is best for your group composition. The pure DPS approach to Watchmen Spec though would look something like this, a 31/3/7 build that sacrifices Defensive Roll (almost entirely unnecessary in TFB) to get an extra 15% crit chance with Slash, which if I recall correctly can amoun to around 12-15% of your total DPS.

 

For the Talents in the Watchmen Tree that I did not take Recompense and Inflammation are most useful in PvP environments since one, you should never be the target of the boss and thus Riposte should never be available for use, and two, the only NPCs that are affected by movement speed debuffs aren't bosses and usually only around in between boss fights. Better known as Trash. I also see Force Fade as more of a PvP talent with limited use in PvE environments because Force Camouflage acts mostly as an Aggro drop with the Stealth and Damage Reduction buff break when Direct Damage (anything not a DOT) is dealt to any target. That said, the movement speed buff and the damage reduction buffs are useful in certain fights (like Kephess), this alone makes it an Optional talent as opposed to a "Never take this talent for PvE ever" talent like the other two.

 

Optional Talents

Force Fade as mentioned above.

 

Insight:: Insight is great because your highest damaging abilities, your burns from Overload Saber and Cauterize, are classified as Force Abilities, and while you get a lot of Talented and Automatic (Zen) Critical chance, the more often you crit, the more damage you do and the more "self heals" you receive.

 

Steadfast:: Steadfast is excellent because it's free 3% accuracy that you don't have to itemize for, but getting to 100% Accuracy for Melee attacks is fairly easy (only like 150 rating is required). That's why this falls under optional.

 

Jedi Crusader:: For fights with a lot of AoE damage this is great because Rebuke procs off of any damage received, has a maximum duration of 30 seconds, is on a 60 second cool down and with the talent gives you an extra focus every three seconds that you take damage.

 

Swelling Winds: This for fights where extra AoE is desired, namely the Trandoshan phase of Kephess.

 

DPS priority list because rotations are lame.

1.Dispatch: When target is under 30% health. It's your kill shot. Go kill things with it.

2.Overload Saber: This is your highest damage burn, use it religiously.

3.Merciless Slash: Highest damage direct attack that had a 7.5 second cooldown at 3 stacks of Merciless, part of maximizing damage in this tree is making sure you always have 3 stacks of Merciless. Merciless Slash also has a 66% chance to reset the cooldown on Cauterize.

4.Cauterize: Use this off cooldown when available but only when Overload Saber and Merciless Slash are on cool down.

5.Slash: Used as a Centering builder and has a 33% chance to reset the cooldown on Cauterize

6.Zealous Strike: Use off cool down whenever your have less than six focus.

7.Force Leap: Focus Builder plus mobility plus interrupt. Use it as religiously or as sparingly as the current fight requires.

8.Strike: Builds focus. Nuff said.

 

As an aside: Master Strike may be used sparingly on occasions when you are completely out of focus and Zealous Strike and Force Leap have more than 2 seconds left on their cooldown. It is decent "free" damage over three seconds. I do not recommend that newcomers to the spec try to fit this ability in until they're comfortable with the flow, if you will, of the spec.

 

Stat Priorities

Accuracy to at least 100%. That is the "safe-zone" when it comes to your always hitting the target with your Main Hand "special" attacks (Attacks that cost Focus).

Critical Multiplier (Surge) to 75% from Rating (about 325)

Critical Chance to around 30% from Rating and Strength (the difference is variable depending on how much strength you have)

Strength > Power.

 

 

Combat:

 

The Combat spec is all about hitting your target as hard and as frequently as possible. Ataru Form is the foundation and centerpiece of this spec as it directly affects 5 of the 17 talents in the Combat tree. The way the tree works out is to make sure that you have Combat Trance procced when you use Blade Storm preferably while the buff from Precision Slash is up, making your Blade Storm critically hit and completely ignore armor. Blade Rush helps ensure that the Combat Trance proc is up by automatically proccing the extra damage from Ataru Form. Zen also provides extra burst when used in Ataru Form because it allows you to get Blade Rush off six times in six seconds (depending on latency and the amount of focus you have) for relatively no cost, and when Blade Rush is used in conjunction with Precision Slash it hits, for lack of a better term, hard. But lets not forget Master Strike because by it's self it does a large amount of damage, but when used with Precision Slash it can hit for 30-50% more.

 

If you hadn't grasped it yet, Precision Slash, is really important and should be used all the time, but I'm not at the priorities part yet.

 

 

A good spec for Sentinels with a few points to spare is 05/31/2 as it includes all the necessary damage, utility and survivability talents required to be successful, while still giving you the ability to tweak your build to meet your raid's needs.

 

For the talents in the Combat Tree that I did not take, Stagger and Debilitation have almost zero usefulness in Ops environments since there is no noticeable benefit to keeping Trash mob or Add that spawns during a boss fight in place for a second longer. The same essentially applies to Displacement because there simply aren't enough situations where snaring an Add or Trash mob is required in raids and that there will rarely be a time when an encounter will necessitate the use of Pacify outside of melee range.

 

Optional Talents

Insight:: Insight is nice but almost unnecessary in Combat spec because your only Force ability is Blade Storm which ideally should only be used when Combat Trance has been procced.

 

Swelling Winds: This for fights where extra AoE is desired, namely the Trandoshan phase of Kephess.

 

Priorities, because, once again, Rotations are lame.

1. Precision Slash: The armor penetration buff from this ability is just too good to pass up. Use it on cool down.

2. Dispatch: Use off cooldown, preferably after Precision Slash

3. Master Strike: Use only when the Precision buff is up.

4. Blade Storm: Use ONLY WHILE Combat Trance is up. Should also line up with Precision Slash nicely.

5. Blade Rush: This effectively replaces Slash and it procs Combat Trance, Opportune Attack, Ataru Form, builds Centering and when used with Zen provides an excellent amount of burst.

6. Zealous Strike: Use off cool down whenever your have less than six focus.

7. Strike: Once again, builds focus.

 

Precision Slash and What to do After It.

So with Precision Slash you have two main "Cycles," or Priorities that alternate every 15 seconds.

 

The First is universally agreed upon:

1. Blade Rush: For the Combat Trance buff.

2. Precision Slash

3. Master Strike

4. Blade Storm

 

The Second Cycle is not as universally agreed upon, with one main difference.

 

The way I prefer is as follows:

1. Blade Rush: For the Combat Trance buff.

2. Precision Slash

3. Blade Storm

4. Blade Rush

5. Blade Rush

 

The other suggestion is:

1. Precision Slash

2. Blade Rush

3. Blade Rush

4. Blade Storm

 

The reason for the differing Opinions is that there is a reportedly slight delay after Blade Storm, as in after the GCD depending on your Latency your next ability might take something like .1 or .2 seconds longer to activate. Why this matters is because some people (using the second suggestion) try and squeeze in a third Blade Rush before Blade Storm while the Precision Buff is still up. The problem I have with this is that an Auto-Crit Blade Storm that ignores armor hits 40% harder (on average) than a Crit Blade Rush that ignores armor, and there is no guarantee that Blade Rush will crit. Another thing is that it takes a lot of skill and good latency to be able to effectively squeeze in a third Blade Rush without Zen.

 

Another little tidbit is that if you are comfortable with the Combat spec, I have noticed that I have gotten a DPS gain when I used Cauterize off cooldown, ideally after a Precision Slash cycle, so that you don't risk Combat Trance falling off before your next Blade Storm. I don't recommend trying this for someone who has just picked up the spec.

 

Stat Priorities

Accuracy to at least 100%, the Combat Tree provides 6% accuracy just from Talents and being in the correct form.

Critical Multiplier (Surge) to 75% from Rating (about 325)

Critical Chance to around 30% from Rating and Strength (the difference is variable depending on how much strength you have)

Strength > Power.

 

 

Defensive Cooldowns/ Abilities:

 

Force Camouflage: This is your aggro dump, it also puts you in a temporary stealth, reduces damage taken by 50% and increases movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds. Usually, save it for if and when you pull aggro, for Sentinels it's usually within the first 10-15% of a Boss fight unless your tank is really on top of his game, otherwise it can be used when you have to navigate through areas of heavy AoE damage (like Gift of the Masters on Kephess).

 

Rebuke: Six seconds of 20% reduced damage that refreshes the duration once every three seconds for up to 30 seconds. It also reciprocates a little bit of damage once every 1.5 seconds each time you take damage. Now, I realize that this is all in the description, but I wanted to emphasize how amazing this cooldown is when it can be used every 60 seconds. It has a potential 50% up-time, making it easily the best defensive in the game. Use this when you expect to take AoE damage from bosses, Gharj's and Toth's stomps namely, also good for the trandoshans during the "Shield Phase" of Firebrand and Stormcaller.

 

Saber Ward: A very powerful defensive cooldown as it not only increases your chance to avoid Kinetic and Energy based attacks, it also reduces incoming Tech and Force damage (this includes attacks like Lightning and Tracer Missile as well as Elemental (Burns) and Internal (Bleeds) damage). Use in situations such as Toth's Berserk, Gharj's Frenzy, or when your tank is down and waiting for a Battle Rez.

 

Guarded by the Force: This is the very last defensive you should ever use, and only when the **** has completely hit the fan, you're one of the last people up and you're sure you can kill the boss within the five second duration. While the 99% damage reduction is very nice, the cost of 50% of your current health prevents it from being used frequently. When you do use it, I would advise that you use a medpac if you haven't used it already during the fight.

 

Transcendence: A great ops-wide mobility buff that is best used in situations such as Gift of the Masters on Kephess and Gharj's Frenzy platform switches in EV. The only prohibiting factor of this ability is that it requires 30 stacks of Centering, but that is easily placated with the use of Valorous Call.

 

 

Additional Rating Information

 

In regards to the suggested stats there are a few things I should mention those are simply baseline suggestions. The people that are much better at applied math than me figured all these ratings and stats out and the details are as follows.

 

Augments:Without question use Strength augments over Power. Having 14 Strength Augments as opposed to 14 Power augments translates to a loss of like 5-7 raw damage, but an increase of about 1% Critical Strike Chance. The difference is really minute, but Strength gives a better all around benefit (damage and crit) than Power.

 

Now, if you're wondering which of the four ratings (Accuracy, Surge, Crit and Power) are the most important then I've got an answer for you. Neither. This is because none of the talent trees have anything that improves DPS from a Crit proc, nothing specifically requires certain levels of Surge or Accuracy, and Power is just the wonder boy rating improving damage across the board. On to specifics.

 

Accuracy and Surge:These two ratings are roughly 1:1. One point of Accuracy is worth one point of Surge. That said Accuracy beyond 100% is your gear budget being wasted. After 100% Accuracy you should shoot for Enhancements that have Surge on them, the reason being is that while Surge does start to hit it's Soft cap at around 75% it doesn't stop adding to your DPS.

 

Crit and PowerCrit and Power are roughly 1:1 as well. After an extensive bout of like 40 different parses it has been determined that the difference in DPS with 164 Critical Strike Rating and 328 Critical Strike Rating is within 1% for both Combat and Watchmen (Focus wasn't tested on the account of it being the red headed step-child that doesn't compete with Combat or Watchmen in terms of DPS) when exchanged with Power. Simply put. within a reasonable extent, it doesn't matter how much Crit rating you have so long as you offset it with Power.

 

 

A few gearing and modification tips.

 

Armorings/ Hilts: Always go for the Strength heavy armorings and hilts. Always.

 

Mods: When looking to increase your overall damage the mods you should use are the Deft Mods (just plain 25, 26 and 27) and the Potent mods.

 

Enhancements: Each enhancement should be the 27 End/ 41 Rating A/ 57 Rating B and their counterparts depending on which of the Secondary stats you're working on.

 

Basically what I'm getting at here is that if your mods have more Endurance than Strength or Secondary Stats you're wrong and should feel bad.

 

In the Event that Torhead's talent calc is bugged, here are the links to the builds I've posted from another calc.

 

Watchmen:

31/3/7

31/7/0 + 3

 

Combat:

5/31/2 + 3

Edited by BlznSmri
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Thanks. We've been missing a decent PvE guide.

 

*Edit*: Also, I don't think anyone is going to razz you about not having a Focus section, since Focus is almost exclusively PvP currently.

 

**Edit**:

Also as a general rule of thumb, when it comes to augments always stack Strength over Power because while Power does increase damage more-so than Strength the difference is marginal (like .23 > .2 per point from what I've read) and Strength increases Critical chance as well, meaning you have more room on your gear for Power Mods and Enhancements.

 

From the theorycrafting articles that I've read that is true. Strength gives ~.20 and Power gives ~.23 (both of those are rounded to the nearest .00). As you said, Strength also adds to Critical Chance (linearly instead of logarithmic [diminishing returns], I believe). The even bigger bonus which you didn't mention is that the bonus to strength is "double buffed." With both Force Might and Force Valor, Strength actually provides a larger average damage (which includes critical chance) than Power for any attack with a large damage Coefficient (basically all attacks with the exception of strike). Note: If I find the article again I'll link it.

Edited by Xiij
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I leveled as Combat and while I was able to burst down targets fairly quickly I find Watchmen having to use their OOC heals less. Either one will work well though so it's up to you.

 

\From the theorycrafting articles that I've read that is true. Strength gives ~.20 and Power gives ~.23 (both of those are rounded to the nearest .00). As you said, Strength also adds to Critical Chance (linearly instead of logarithmic [diminishing returns], I believe). The even bigger bonus which you didn't mention is that the bonus to strength is "double buffed." With both Force Might and Force Valor, Strength actually provides a larger average damage (which includes critical chance) than Power for any attack with a large damage Coefficient (basically all attacks with the exception of strike). Note: If I find the article again I'll link it.

 

That's actually great to see, if you do find the link let me know and I'll include it on the post.

Edited by BlznSmri
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I think your recommended Critical Rating of 350 is too high. I have calculated exact stat weights for every ability, and in BH/Campaign rating gear, the optimum value of Critical Rating appears to be more like 150-175 (this is with about 1950 Strength and 800 Power, unbuffed). Both Combat and Watchman have talents that cause key abilities to proc autocrits; when significant amounts of the spec's damage comes from auto-crit procs, that tends to favor Power over Critical Rating. If I were to follow your suggestion and increase my Critical Rating by 175-200 points by trading Power, my average damage would go down by almost 1%. Edited by LagunaD
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I think your recommended Critical Rating of 350 is too high. I have calculated exact stat weights for every ability, and in BH/Campaign rating gear, the optimum value of Critical Rating appears to be more like 150-175 (this is with about 1950 Strength and 800 Power, unbuffed). Both Combat and Watchman have talents that cause key abilities to proc autocrits; when significant amounts of the spec's damage comes from auto-crit procs, that tends to favor Power over Critical Rating. If I were to follow your suggestion and increase my Critical Rating by 175-200 points by trading Power, my average damage would go down by almost 1%.

 

I'll change that, really what you want to shoot for is around 30% crit from Rating and Strength, around 35% with the Smuggler buff, and I haven't actually looked at ratings since I made a stat-weights thread (on my guild forums) back in like... May...

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I think your recommended Critical Rating of 350 is too high. I have calculated exact stat weights for every ability, and in BH/Campaign rating gear, the optimum value of Critical Rating appears to be more like 150-175 (this is with about 1950 Strength and 800 Power, unbuffed). Both Combat and Watchman have talents that cause key abilities to proc autocrits; when significant amounts of the spec's damage comes from auto-crit procs, that tends to favor Power over Critical Rating. If I were to follow your suggestion and increase my Critical Rating by 175-200 points by trading Power, my average damage would go down by almost 1%.

 

I'd have to agree. I've been debating with other Sentinels in my guild about this, but the thing we often forget to take into account is when you use your relics it adds critical rating, surge rating or power rating (assuming you use the active ones); and if you already have 350 CR then you activate your relic, most of the "benefit" of the relic is lost to diminishing returns. In addition, LagunaD makes a solid point about auto crits. Both specs have auto crits and CR points are essentially wasted at that point, better to spend them in SR or PR.

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I'd have to agree. I've been debating with other Sentinels in my guild about this, but the thing we often forget to take into account is when you use your relics it adds critical rating, surge rating or power rating (assuming you use the active ones); and if you already have 350 CR then you activate your relic, most of the "benefit" of the relic is lost to diminishing returns. In addition, LagunaD makes a solid point about auto crits. Both specs have auto crits and CR points are essentially wasted at that point, better to spend them in SR or PR.

 

Crit and Surge "On Use" relics are a waste because of how easy it is to hit 30% Crit and 75% surge, you're pretty much better off to just use the BM/ WH Power relic with the On Use Power relic, getting all your Crit and Surge from Gear.

 

And while both specs have Talents that Auto-crit certain abilities, but there are only 3 abilities that auto-crit (Cauterize and Overload Saber burns with Zen, Blade Storm with Combat Trance) and they aren't "Auto-Crittable" often enough to make up for the impossible amount of power you would otherwise have to stack to counter the loss of dps from not having 30% crit chance unbufffed.

Edited by BlznSmri
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Crit and Surge "On Use" relics are a waste because of how easy it is to hit 30% Crit and 75% surge, you're pretty much better off to just use the BM/ WH Power relic with the On Use Power relic, getting all your Crit and Surge from Gear.

 

I was under the impression that on use relics of the same type share a cool down; is that not true?

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And while both specs have Talents that Auto-crit certain abilities, but there are only 3 abilities that auto-crit (Cauterize and Overload Saber burns with Zen, Blade Storm with Combat Trance) and they aren't "Auto-Crittable" often enough to make up for the impossible amount of power you would otherwise have to stack to counter the loss of dps from not having 30% crit chance unbufffed.

 

The average damage each ability does based on your stats, including crits, DR, etc, is just a big formula, and the formula says 300+ Critical Rating is not optimal. Only about a 1% worse than optimal, but not optimal.

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I was under the impression that on use relics of the same type share a cool down; is that not true?

 

The BM/ WH relics are Static (+103 power or +113 power). You don't have to click them to activate.

 

The average damage each ability does based on your stats, including crits, DR, etc, is just a big formula, and the formula says 300+ Critical Rating is not optimal. Only about a 1% worse than optimal, but not optimal.

 

1. This thread is titled Basics. Not really worried about "Optimal" especially when "Optimal" is such a minuscule difference.

2. If you're wiping because you're 10-15 dps (1% of median Sentinel DPS range) short, you've got other things you need to look at such as group composition, healer gear and ability, tank gear and ability, and what's going on with the other three to eight DPS in your group.

Edited by BlznSmri
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The average damage each ability does based on your stats, including crits, DR, etc, is just a big formula, and the formula says 300+ Critical Rating is not optimal. Only about a 1% worse than optimal, but not optimal.

 

This is off topic but I saw you had posted a very handy graph where the extreme ends were basically what would happen if you could exchange all your power for crit and vice versa. I was wondering if you had a similar graph for power vs expertise as I'd love to see that. (Theoretical math is much more my bag than applied).

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This is off topic but I saw you had posted a very handy graph where the extreme ends were basically what would happen if you could exchange all your power for crit and vice versa. I was wondering if you had a similar graph for power vs expertise as I'd love to see that. (Theoretical math is much more my bag than applied).

 

I'll reply by PM to avoid taking the thread off on a tangent.

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Nice work but you may want to address your description of the Insight skill under Combat, we do have more than the one Force-based attack that you have listed. Again, nice guide.

 

No there isn't. Not an ability that's part of the Combat priority list, everything is considered a Weapon Based or "Physical" hit (or "White" damage), not counting Blade Storm which is "Yellow" damage. The exception is my comment about Cauterize which isn't a priority and only something I use when fighting a boss that moves around frequently (Toth, Kephess, certain Fabricator strats). Force Sweep, another Force based attack, once again "Yellow" damage, is used infrequently, usually only during certain phases in which there are multiple adds that need to be AoE'd down (Trandoshan bubbles on Kephess, dogs on Gharj) and the long CD and relatively low damage (Highest I've done in Combat is around 2.4k crit) puts an axe in it in terms of usefulness. The only other Force based attacks that I can think of off the top of my head are Opportune Strike and Pommel Strike, which can only be used against enemies that can be snared or stunned, which, with the exceptions of adds, are rarely stunned and more effectively AoE'd down by your Ranged DPS.

 

 

But if your group is weird and runs with four melee, effectively making content harder on you, you can throw those last two sentences out the window.

Edited by BlznSmri
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Ataru procs.

 

Those are "Physical" now. White damage ever since 1.2.

 

 

Let me put it simply.

 

If it does "White" damage, it is not a Force or Tech based attack.

If it does "Yellow" damage, it IS a Force or Tech based attack.

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