Hello fellow combat spec PVE DPS sentinels , and everyone else too

 

 

I'm Trying to maximize my PVE OPs DPS effectiveness on my Main Sentinel Combat Spec PVE for EC SM and HM.

Need some tips, discussion, etc still researching

I'll post some numbers but theyre from memory now, I'll try and get more hard numbers again later.

 

1. Main question is do I rip black hole mods out and put them in Rakata gear to keep the 4 piece set bonus or not? and in what order or priority? (do I loose armor rating?)

2. What are the next weapons after Rakata BH? Campaign? comms or token purchase?

(I'l look this up, looks like EC HM drops only for Campaign MH OH?)

Tanks drop OH Kephess drops MH

http://dulfy.net/2012/01/21/operation-loot-list/

How do you get BH weapons??? are there any?

3. Whats the ideal max stats for stregth, crit, surge, aim ?

4. How many BH pieces do I need before EC HM? 5? (screw it, Im going in as soon as I can)

 

best description I can find of BH v Campaign gear :

http://dulfy.net/2012/04/01/1-2-endgame-pve-gear-full-set-stat-comparisons/

 

As I change from Columi to Rakata to Blackhole irts hard to keep track of all the srtats.

My damage seems to have leveled or gone down a bit on the training targets on the Gay Dragon

I was getting peak 4K max single damage now back to 3.8K (need more surge?)

However average damage and survivability is getting better on OPs and FP's . finished EC SM , LI HM

Health is from 20-21K

Why does health seem to change like 1k all the time other than buffs?

I'll try and run morelogging with MOX again and proper analysis for some real numbers later.

 

So

I have

4 Foestopper Black hole pieces (not pommelers) ear piece, chest, ...

8 rakata but lost 4 piece set bonus only have 2 piece bonus. 2 rakata implants , 1 rakata relic (dailies Nova energy dmg) OH MH weaponns etc

2 relics green shard strength Matrix and Nova

14 augments MK-6 strength aprox: 12 strength 1 power 1 crit 1 surge

 

1850 str gone up

71% crit gone down

30% crit multi gone down

105% accuracy gone up again

 

Main hand base max dmg is 999 grrrr can get it over 1000

 

I think I need less strength and more crit and surge????

What are the points of diminishing returns

 

1. Get as much BH foe stopper gear as possible to replace rakata? (woot 25 more BH comms in the mail for transfer today!!!)

3. replace some strength augments with crit and surge? power?

 

Main question is do I rip black hole mods out and put them in rakata gear?

set bonus follows the shell for rakata?

set bonus follows the mods for Campaign?

Does the BH shell have more base armor than Rakata? I think so?

if so which is better all the armor or the 4 piece bonus? I think I'll keep 2 pieces rakata set until Campaign geared?

Whats best gear order maybe things that don't loose set bonus like implants?

I plan to get BH head piece tonight for 65 comms best stat increase for me right now.

 

hmm more I write the more it makes sense...almost lol.

Will post more details as i go.

Edited August 7, 2012 by DelphinHunter

The BH/Campaign itemization for Sentinels is so bad, it defies description.

 

You are going to need to shop for armoring/mods/enhancements on a slot by slot basis, usually getting one or two mods that are useless in order to get one that isn't.

 

For the armorings, some of the Guardian DPS pieces are better than Sentinel.

 

For the rest, you pretty much need to buy about half a dozen pairs of boots and rip the mod/enhancements out. Extremely expensive, slow, and annoying. If you have a lot of credits, you may also find someone to craft Deft Mod 26 and Adept Enhancement 26 with mats you buy, or if you are rolling in credits, you can just buy them off the GTN. Otherwise, you can look forward to getting boots, and more boots.

 

You certainly want the Rakata 2-piece bonus. The 4-piece bonus helps a little, but is considered optional by most Sentinels I know.

 

For the weapons, your choices are to get off-hands from Firebrand/Stormcaller Hard Mode and transfer the hilt to your main-hand, or to get a main-hand drop from Kephess Hard Mode. The main-hand is actually the less desirable drop, since all the hilts have high endurance and low strength...

OMG thanks a million, so I'm not crazy.

The sentinel gear not only looks like crap some of the stats actually perform like crap too.

I feel so much better now. LOL

Yeh I kept looking at the stats between foestopper and pommeler dps and was like hmmm err huh??

As well as Rakata vs black hole??? power crit surge??

/scratches head

So yeh it will take a little work and some credits and some customization.

Some great ideas on how to get the parts. Thanks

I also saw another post from a guy that didnt think they dealt any more dps after moving to BH and Rakata gear from Columi?

 

Edit results:

Yeh so I got the Black Hole head piece last night and got my crit and surge back up for some improved max damage on the training targets. 33% crit 77% crit bonus (buffed) 4200 K peak every so often on saber storm

But master strike seems nerfed no big crit finish anymore???

 

I will likely rip my ugly BH chest piece and put the mods in my Rakata chest piece with no loss of stats and regain the 4 piece bonus by doing the boots or something also. (all armoring stat moves with the mod im told)

Going to buy BH implant tonight as the implant and earpiece are lvl Cap pieces. then run EC HM if I can find/form a group:)

The 2 Campaign weaponmaster light sabers are both the top level str hilts. I saw the MH one at the vendor with low str high end hjilt, *** I just wont get that one if I get the token drop.

Edited August 8, 2012 by DelphinHunter

I would also say to ditch the matrix cube and get a BM Power relic and the On-use (clicky) Power Relic (Campaign or Rakata, whichever). It's helped my DPS a lot.

Question: On my commando, for whom about half my damage is weapon damage, I found it very beneficial to upgrade from my columi barrel to a War Hero barrel because of the significantly higher damage on the highest tier barrels and because the Tech Power basically slightly outweighed the Aim loss by switching to the PVP barrel.

 

Now I'm still leveling as a Combat Sentinel at the moment, but would the same approach be a good idea for Sentinels as well till you can get Campaign drop? I haven't looked at the damage difference but certainly a nontrivial amount of damage seems to be weapon damage, but at 30 this may not be true (off the top of my head I don't know what kind of damage Blade Rush is).

Yeh sounds good to me. Im not a big PVP er.

I used recruit and battlemaster PVP gear to get to Tionees/Columi PVE gear.

Often a high level PVP piece will outstat a low lvl PVE piece.

Though some people whine real bad when they see pvp gear in pve.

Shouldnt be an issue for a new lvl 50 but i wouldnt try it in LI or EC etc.

First off I wanna say that I havent really been running as combat for a very long time, but I think that I have a decent enough understanding to comment.

 

What everyone else has said about the bh/campaign gear being horribly optimized for sents is absolutely correct. When I was gearing I had to buy guardian dps pieces for the might 26 armorings and other pieces for 1 mod or enhancement. I found that it is best to know the stats ratings for accuracy, crit, and surge and gear on a mod by mod basis to maintain the percentages that you need to hit. Yes it does take longer but with the horrible itemization on bioware part I think that it is necessary. I also only keep the 2 piece set bonus. I dont find that a 15 second reduction to valorous call is a game breaker.

 

 

Here is a link to my mrrobot armory http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/b1bfa711-57bd-4f77-88fb-8bd176432c5f

 

tldr

 

buffed w/o stim

strength 1992

accuracy 228

crit 153

surge 342

power 1014

 

I found that when I switched the adept enhancement in my legs to an initiative enhancement my dps went up in every parse that I ran in watchmen spec, however in the spreadsheets that I have used it suggested that I could have less accuracy and more surge for combat. I havent really had time to sit down and parse the difference, but If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be great.

 

Any input from the more experienced combat sents would be greatly appriciated.

 

edit i can confirm that the campaign main hand has the might 26 hilt in it as i got the drop from kephess toay. I believe the vindicator mh has the guardian hilt in it.

Edited August 12, 2012 by mmerry

Well I have to say, your totally on the money with that set up for most sent trees including watchman the blackhole gear is almost as badley speced as it is to look at for sentinel. I've gone pretty much the same route as yourself and do well from it.

buffed w/o stim

strength 1992

accuracy 228

crit 153

surge 342

power 1014

 

I found that when I switched the adept enhancement in my legs to an initiative enhancement my dps went up in every parse that I ran in watchmen spec, however in the spreadsheets that I have used it suggested that I could have less accuracy and more surge for combat. I havent really had time to sit down and parse the difference, but If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be great.

 

Yes, that's too much Accuracy for Combat. Depending on whether you have the 1% bonus from companion affection, you want either 86 Accuracy Rating or 117 Accuracy Rating. In practice, it is hard to get those numbers exactly, but 228 is much more than you want. Despite the DR, Surge Rating is probably 2-3 times more effective than Accuracy above the cap, with your current stats. Of course, because neither stat is all that great, the difference will be very small.

So now I have 9 soon to be 10 BH pieces all foestopper.

My stats still suck.

I have legacy belt and bracers but cant put armor in them yet . All rakata armor is not for belt or bracers. Saw 1.5 - 2 mil price on GTn for Might Armoring 26 ugh.

I hear some 26 armor drops on EC HM....someday... cant ever find a group to go with ....ever....grrrrr...ever

SO I think I should have gotten some of the pummelers gear to get better dps ie the Gaurdian dps gear.

Still need to find the right mods pieces etc. My buddy already got a few Campagn pieces for his sent....jeolous...

we are going to run Mox key to compare all our dps/heal stats on some of our guild ops this week.....

need more research...better gear and starts grrr....

Thanks minerry I have to load my build into Mr Robot too.

One guild requires it for any EC HM runs.

Edited August 23, 2012 by DelphinHunter

I have legacy belt and bracers but cant put armor in them yet . All rakata armor is not for belt or bracers. Saw 1.5 - 2 mil price on GTn for Might Armoring 26 ugh.

I hear some 26 armor drops on EC HM....someday... cant ever find a group to go with ....ever....grrrrr...ever

25 armor drops on EC NM, and it's only 7 str less than 26. If you can't get any drop armorings, buy daily ones, as even with them and 26 mod modable bracers/wrists should be better than BH.

Thanks guys. All very helpful.

yeh i saw Might armoring 25 on GTN also, for 500K, I might get one there if I don't get a drop tonight on EC NM.

Then I think boots had the cheapest Modification with crit that I want. So if i get all 20 BH comms on EC NM tonight with 30 I have I'm good to go for bracer build.

I wish I never got the BH belt.

I wish I got one pommelers implant instead of 2 foestoppers.

I'll have to shop more of the pommelers gear (Guardian DPS medium armor) too for mods etc??

Dulfy says pommelers gar is heavy armor but its not!!! I just sort by usable.

I think once I get my bracers and belt together I should be happy with the specs.

Were running mox raid data again tonight so we shall see how I do.

So once and for all is it not true that you can put together all the gear other than the 2 weapons with black hole pieces and mods and Rakata shells and legacy belt and bracers that is just as good as Campagn????

Is it not the same total numbner of points and same set bonus???

Edited August 24, 2012 by DelphinHunter

I'll have to shop more of the pommelers gear (Guardian DPS medium armor) too for mods etc??

Dulfy says pommelers gar is heavy armor but its not!!! I just sort by usable.

(...)

So once and for all is it not true that you can put together all the gear other than the 2 weapons with black hole pieces and mods and Rakata shells and legacy belt and bracers that is just as good as Campagn????

Is it not the same total numbner of points and same set bonus???

From memory, at least chest and head BH for guardian has better stats than for sent. It is heavy, but since you're using Rakata shells it doesn't matter(mods don't have armor types)

 

Pure Campaign also has armorings that are focused toward endurance instead of str, so by assembling your gear by pulling mods from proper BH pieces you will come quite close. You can also change mods in weapons, so whole difference will come to hilt and base damage.