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SteveGarbage

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  1. I used Watchman and I use this build. Also note, I'm PVE only. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRrRMfsZhRMZM.2 Compared to your build, I take Watchguard instead of Force Fade. In PVE, the ability to have faster interrupts is way better than the useless Force Camo effect. Pretty much the only reason you should be using it as an emergency threat dump to your companion in dire situations. Minus two seconds of Force Kick is way better. I also take Valor instead of Recompense. That's a personal think. I took Riposte off my bar. I didn't like the situational activation and its 3 Focus cost screws up my focus management. Getting the extra Centering for more Zen usage, I feel, is way better than having Rebuke CD reduction. After the 31 in Watchman, the rest are up to your tastes. I like the AOE defense and the CD redux on Master Strike, because I like to mix in a lot when I'm fighting. I feel like three points in Insight for more Force crits are wasted, since Watchman doesn't really utilize Force (which are Force Sweep and Force Stasis - and maybe either Cauterize or Overload Saber, I can't remember). But I feel since I get auto-crits from Zen, which I'm using all the time anyway so that seems like 3 points wasted.
  2. Definitely Doc. Doc can pull you through just about any fight as long as you're not severely overmatched. And as long as you keep threat off of him, most Heroic 2+s are solo-able if you're at or above level. I preferred Kira over T7 until that point for story reasons, and I also felt her DPS plus my DPS was better than T7s average tanking ability.
  3. The biggest problem with Sentinel tanking is you have no mechanism to grab threat if someone else gets it off you. While your massive damage should be enough if you don't really have anyone else capable of outpacing you. But Sentinel does have good defensive skills and with some dedicated healing it can work. Just not ideal.
  4. I'm getting to the level where I need to be concerned about this. I'm a Marksmanship sniper and intend to stay in this tree as I level throughout. I read in a guide a long time back the MM snipers should probably avoid taking Snap Shot (insta-Snipe when entering cover) and/or Reactive Shot (reduces Ambush CD on Snipe crits), Rapid Fire (reduces CDs on Ambush and Series of Shots) and Alacrity in general. The main reasoning was that having these skills cooldown and/or activate faster was that it would screw with the Sniper's ability to adequately manage his energy without having to add additional regular shots in the mix to keep your energy level high and regen-ing quickly in sustained fights. That was probably eight months ago, though, and wanted to get an updated opinion from people. What if any of those MM skills should be avoided and why? Or was that some bad advice? It sounded logical to me at the time before I even started playing my Sniper significantly.
  5. Actually it would be nice if you could send them out and say, "I want 20 Corusca gems!" and then every hour Kira comes back and says "I got (X number) and I need more money." then just click that and auto send her out again. I hate running materials missions that may give you two different metals at the same level and you have to run it and run it and run it to get what you want. Kind of unrelated but made me think of it.
  6. Obviously crafting for a specific pre-fixed item is way more difficult than the linear path for mods and such. I think one aspect you're overlooking, however, is that these percentages are very low to try to brute-force through. The truth is there IS a lot of luck involved, because it's a RNG system, that, yes, has been talked about to death but still not changed. I don't have the game in front of my right now, but if I'm not mistaken, the chance to RE a schematic off a blue-grade item is 10 percent? Or is it only 5 percent when you get to those higher levels? Anyhow, from there, if you're specifically targeting one prefix combo out of five, you're setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. That means on top of a 1 in 10 chance or 1 in 20 chance to not RE anything, you're adding another 1 in 5 chance to get the one you want. As far as I'm aware, just because you already RE'd one of those last five schematics doesn't take it out of the pool. It's not like, "Oh you already have Expert, here's Vehemence instead!" It's more like, "You got Expert! Oh you already have Expert? OK then you get nothing." You mention the odds and yes, it is extremely rare to have a streak of so many failures in a row. But it's not impossible. The probability of REing at all is either 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 (again, can't remember) and then the conditional probability to RE the prefix you want is 1 in 5. So your overall probability of crafting that one specific prefix combo on any try is either 1 in 50 or 1 in 100. Again, those tries are all independent of one another. You don't gain anything by rolling multiple times. You odds will be 1 in 100 on try No. 1 and they will be the same on try No. 100. Your percentage chance to win isn't increasing with each try. You're not "due" to win eventually. That's the gambler's fallacy. So while the chance of failing 30 times in a row is whatever small percentage, the chance of you failing on each try is 99 percent, period. Crafting a specific artifact-grade prefixed item is horribly punishing. The numbers back that up. It's not a great crafting system and you're no the first person to experience this frustration (I had it trying to craft a purple-grade enhancement on my Sentinel and that's not even the prefixed kind of RE). But that's the way it goes. Math sucks sometimes.
  7. Through Artifice you can craft red, blue, green and yellow at any level. RGB come from Archaeology while yellow comes from Treasure Hunting. Orange is a color Artifice can begin crafting at high level (like 40+) because those materials begin dropping as Treasure Hunting rewards too. You can find low-level orange crystals in some drop or reward sabers on Republic side. Original subscribers can also get yellow-black crystals from a vendor on the fleet (basic ones for cheap, more powerful ones at higher cost). There are also some crystals available in the Cartel Market (orange something, orange-black maybe?) As for other specialty crystals, I believe you're mostly out of luck until higher levels. There is a schematic people can get to craft a Magenta crystal that is Lvl 30ish, otherwise many of the other are high-level rewards that come from PvP or special events. I was able to get a green-black from the Rakghoul event that went on in February or whenever that was, but that's a Lvl 50 crystal too.
  8. I am a habitual crafter and as such I am almost always broke early on. The main problem is as you're trying to level your skills to a point where you'll be able to craft appropriate items for your level, you'll find that you've quickly drained your cash reserves. If you're trying to run missions and craft while leveling, you'll probably find by the point you hit the the end of Dromund Kaas or early Balmora that you're now out of creds. The main problem is the egregious price and low returns on the mission skills you need for upgraded craftables (like Treasure Hunting or Underworld Trading). And even the basic ones (like Scavenging) eat up a lot of cash. The most important mods to consider with agents are barrels, which will keep up the base damage of your rifles (and also your combat knife although that doesn't really make sense) and armoring, which controls the base armor level in armors. For Sniper, I would suggest Cybertech, Scavenging, Underworld Trading for the following reasons: You'll be able to craft armoring, mods and earpieces (and to a lesser extent grenades). This will give you the ability to fill two spots on your armors and one spot on your weapon as well as cover earpieces, which rarely drop from enemies or as quest rewards. Armstech, while allowing you to craft barrels, isn't really that useful because the only other thing you craft out of it is guns, which you'll probably never use because an orange-grade item with modifications is almost always superior. Artifice would give you crystals and enhancements, but lightsabers hilts have no use to you. Armormech has no mod piece crafting and only has armors, which, like armstech, are generally useless because an orange-grade with mods is almost always better. Synthweaving is totally useless because it's like armormech except for Force users. Biochem is still generally useful for anyone in both PvE and especially PvP respects, but I've just never rolled with it since I prefer to have at least some type of mod piece I can craft. While crafting early, I would suggest only focusing on crafting green-grade stuff since trying to RE and then craft blue and purple grade is a money sink and generally not that beneficial early, because you level so fast. As you get higher - maybe 30+, you can then try to start focusing on crafting some of those higher order pieces because you'll be better able to afford it.
  9. Hmmmm, I'm vaguely remembering this set, which I think I have in my ship storage (not complete). If I'm remembering correctly, tackling the Voss or Belsavis bonus series may also yield a few pieces. Can't exactly remember.
  10. The biggest problem with Sentinel is that there is a huge gap between getting Kira and then getting Doc. Doc is, with a pretty much consensus vote, the best companion for Sentinels. I used Kira while leveling for these reasons: 1) T7 is a droid and therefore uses droid parts (which as far as I can tell NEVER drop from mobs) as well as blasters. Therefore he is either using crappy quest reward items (which generally lag behind statwise compared to the content you tackle) or I have to invest a lot to keep his gear up. 2) T7's tanking ability is very low if he doesn't have good gear. Also as you start to hit some of the harder planets like Alderaan and Tatooine, he doesn't hold up very well in a fight. 3) Kira uses people clothes and sabers. Since I was artifice, I was able to provide her with blue-grade hilts, crystals and enhancements in her armor (bought her the all-orange ceremonial garb on Coruscant) and only had to worry about keeping up her armoring and mods to a lesser extent from commendations or GTN. Also occassionally you'll get a good drop from mobs that will help improve her overall stats too. 4) Kira is damage and I am damage. Since the Sentinel doesn't have an extremely wide array of defensive options til later levels, I found it was easier to just try to blow through mobs as fast as I could, and Kira helps more with that than having T7 standing there getting pummeled. Most times Kira was able to finish off one or two weak grade enemies while I was working on someone stronger. 5) I preferred having Kira around for story purposes, so I wanted to make sure she was getting all the approval and not T7. Also I preferred being able to manage her weapon and clothing apperances as opposed to T7 who has a static model that doesn't change with gear, even though that has no direct effect on the gameplay.
  11. Just because you wield two sabers and pour out a lot of damage doesn't mean you have to give into rage/anger/fury to fight. It just means that you use two sabers instead of one and are attack-focused. In the Watchman spec you utilize Juyo form, which is also known as the Ferocity form. According to Wookiepedia: "A Form VII practitioner was said to maintain a calm exterior appearance, but they were also stated to experience significant internal pressure, while using the Ferocity Form." Ataru form (for Combat spec) is also probably the most offensively-focused of the lightsaber forms as well. While taking an aggressive combat approach will likely put more strain on a Sentinel to maintain his balance with the Light Side, it's not impossible. Although he's not in the same vein as a Sentinel or an aggressive fighter, look at how much combat Obi-Wan was able to go through during the wars and still maintain his balance. I support the person before me who stated that the essence is even built into the mechanics of the class: Focus, Centering, Zen, Transcendence. That's the challenge, being able to maintain control while still being a killing machine. You know, sometimes the best defense is a good offense and all that stuff.
  12. None of the specs really shine at such low levels. Combat actually takes a while longer to really start hitting well for Sentinels (kind of like Engineering and Lethality are better at 30+ for Snipers). Until you can get up higher in the tree, Combat is kind of lackluster, but piles out good damage later. You may take a little time to get warmed up in Combat, but as you get Ataru and a couple skills that support its use, you'll start clicking fine.
  13. Yup tell me about it. I'm working my way through Nar Shadaa now and it's Breach then smack them around with Double Strike until I proc a PA then Project. Not very scintillating going from Sentinel to Shadow, but I'm looking forward to later levels when I actually have some more skills to manage in tougher fights.
  14. I have to agree. The insta-damage is what I wanted before I got it, but now I miss the smooth animation of lifting it up and throwing it. If we're going to do insta-damage like that, the skill might as well be changed to like Force Wave or or Turbulence, where you're just projecting a wall of Force to hit them.
  15. Both of those last two are correct. They're not orange grade like you would expect, but you can find moddable green techblades for Qyzen. There's one available through the commendation vendor on Coruscant and as you can find them later from weapon vendors. They're out there and they're upgradeable so you should never need a new one once you get one.
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