I can't actually believe the devs thought it was a good idea to remove Crippling Throw. At first i gave them the benefit of the doubt, but now, truly, i believe they do not give a crap about pvpers in the slightest. congrats every ranged class with a slow, mara/sent is now incredibly kiteable. Honestly, make the grouped up ability the throw instead of leg slash.

It certainly seems so. I think Gore was put on the GCD to end the trick of hitting Vicious Throw > Gore.

 

BW also forgot to mention that execute damage bonus and Scream/Massacre crit damage bonus were also nerfed. And Scream will only get 1 rage reduction instead of 2. So Scream will cost 2 rage with execute buff instead of 1 rage.

why are Mara's nerfed and Sorcs/***'s clearly buffed?

This is my thinking exactly. Its frustrating that a team of ranged classes could very easily wreck a melee class team already. Now we lack the tools we NEED to keep them within melee range. Really worried about these changes.

 

All specs are still good for PvE DPS. But Marauder won't be able to keep up in mobility in PvP.

In two word :

 

total bullsh**

 

//

 

Watchman / Annihilation

 

more dot to burn you down !

 

Combat / Carnage

 

look like it has been thrown into a black hole

 

Concentration / Fury

 

so you do realised it as useless since you nerfed it ?

 

//

nothing for defence abilities, it stinks for pvp in most of the cases

All specs are still good for PvE DPS. But Marauder won't be able to keep up in mobility in PvP.

 

Exactly. It feels like Bioware didn't intend for Marauder/Sentinel to be used in PVP. We're useless in Huttball and now we can't root and DPS enemies unless we hit them TWICE with a Leg Slash or Leap to them.

BW also forgot to mention that execute damage bonus and Scream/Massacre crit damage bonus were also nerfed. And Scream will only get 1 rage reduction instead of 2. So Scream will cost 2 rage with execute buff instead of 1 rage.

 

I think other classes got the same crit dmg bonus reduction percentage as well.

Exactly. It feels like Bioware didn't intend for Marauder/Sentinel to be used in PVP. We're useless in Huttball and now we can't root and DPS enemies unless we hit them TWICE with a Leg Slash or Leap to them.

 

The Leg Slash root is a heroic utility, as is Expunging Camouflage. Brooding is also heroic. You can only pick 2 heroic, so you would not pick Leg Slash because snare break Camou and Brooding are too important to miss.

 

Unbound (Predation buff) is heroic also, so Carnage will lose that too.

Lol for cyclone slash in combat discipline.No one uses this ability its so useless,do you even play your own game?Also you forgot to mention that master strike got nerfed as well as screwed by the force duration,you have to waste a utility to gain extra duration,just lol.I dont care if i get a warning or if i get banned,the full package for sent/maras is cr@p...Anyway,on a side note,is this blog out of date cause last i heard gore was off the gcd again with a 12 sec cd...if thats the case then(what else?)LOL again... Edited November 18, 2014 by giorgo

I think other classes got the same crit dmg bonus reduction percentage as well.

 

No, Mercs and PTs didn't get them. Deception Sin and Lightning Sorc didn't get them either.

First, let me say that my Sentinel is still leveling and I just play her casual/solo PvE, so I may be Doing It Wrong when I play. But what stands out to me here is the removal of an ability I like and sometimes find rather convenient (finish off that last mob that's running over to my companion!), and giving its debuff to a skill that I tend to forget exists.

 

Well . . . maybe it works nicely overall. I'll have to try the changes out when 3.0 launches.

Lol for cyclone slash in combat discipline.No one uses this ability its so useless,do you even play your own game?Also you forgot to mention that master strike got nerfed as well as screwed by the force duration,you have to waste a utility to gain extra duration,just lol.I dont care if i get a warning or if i get banned,the full package for sent/maras is cr@p...Anyway,on a side note,is this blog out of date cause last i heard gore was off the gcd again with a 12 sec cd...if thats the case then(what else?)LOL again...

 

Actually Cyclone slash buff is needed for PvE. There are a lot of op bosses which spawn a lot of weak adds that need to be taken down quickly during the fight. But the PvP aspect of Combat/Carnage did get screwed hard.

The removal of Crippling Throw is going to hurt Combat/Carnage a lot in the PvP setting. I never use Leg Slash because it's melee range - does crap damage, just slows them, uses Focus, and takes a GCD. There are other ways to slow (such as cauterize, or the slow of Zealous Leap and Force Leap and Exhaustion if Focus spec'd. Not that many ways to immobilize.

 

Not a fan of this change. Plus who's going to use it 2x I'd like to know. That sounds dumb. I don't want to use it 2x in a row.

Changes look good to me. I'm interested in seeing how this will play out in pvp when the expansion hits. I'm curious to see what the top tier marauder players think of the changes. I'd be more inclined to hear what they say than random people claiming that the class is so nerfed that its no longer viable in pvp.

My advise, use Sents for PvE.

But what stands out to me here is the removal of an ability I like and sometimes find rather convenient (finish off that last mob that's running over to my companion!), and giving its debuff to a skill that I tend to forget exists.

 

I agree. Not only that but it is an awesome animation, and for me that is a large part of what brings me to a class. Why couldn't the leg slash have been rolled into the throw instead of the other way around? I almost never use leg slash, whereas throwing a lightsaber is so iconic and is classic Star Wars (not to mention more useful.)

Removing Crippling Throw does seem like a huge step back, more so with the extra mobility the range classes seem to be getting. It's like they wanted to 'streamline' the healing debuff, but completely forgot about the Combat root. Now instead of a nice 10m root, I get a 4m snare. Fantastic! I guess there's also a snare on Twin Sabre Throw, so I guess don't PvP with Combat Sentinel until 51+?!

 

Put the snare and healing debuff on Crippling throw (12s CD, 12s snare work nicely for me!), and put a passive* in Combat to make the first 3s a root.

 

* A passive would be great because, as others have pointed out (rumours/data dumps), Combat already seems to be losing what are currently 'baseline' utilities - Camo purge, Transcendence +30%, Introspection Centering - as they're becoming 'Heroic'...pick 2 (and miss out on any new ones).

 

I'm not doing very good out of Disciplines so far!

 

Shieldtech PT - No new abilities, one replacement.

Infiltration Shadow - No new abilities, one replacement.

Combat Sentinel - No new abilities, one replacement, 2(?) removed, less utilities.

Operative Healer - Fearing the worst!

The changes listed on the blog post there don't bother me much for my Sentinel's build (Combat) minus the loss of Riposte. I use Riposte whenever my Rebuke is active so I can lower its cooldown. Hopefully they make up for that somehow.

 

The other changes listed seem fair, making Precision Slash on the GCD would only be a problem if they didn't add to the duration but they did. So that's a fair trade off, plus alacrity changes helps with that as well. The passives seem interesting and I do actually use Cyclone Slash when I'm in battles that call for it (weak adds in a large boss battle that are all clustered together). So that buff helps. Looking forward to seeing how things work come 3.0

Speaking from a pvp perspective here...

 

I love the burst damage that combat sentinels have, but it's just way too easy to interrupt master strike, root them, stun them, knock them back. Their burst can be negated for the most part, meaning that they will typically end up with mediocre damage numbers.

 

Comparing the sentinel to the guardian, the sentinel has more theoretical burst, but less survivability. Sentinels have Guarded By the Force, which is pretty sweet...but taking 50% of the remaining health at the end means that it's really only useful when you are almost dead, which can sometimes be tricky to hit that sweet spot. Guardians have focused defense, saber reflect, heavy armor, unremitting (basically gives uninterruptible master strike). All of these things considered, I can generally do more damage on my guardian than on my sentinel because I can stay alive longer (guardian basically gets two lives with focused defense).

 

Here's some love that I would like to see sent/mara get: Guarded By the Force does not take 50% of current health when it expires and can be used while incapacitated. I understand that it used to not take 50% of current health, but then it was changed back at some point (for reasons that I don't understand). If you're worried about sentinels having too much damage with survivability...don't worry, it's not there yet.

 

Another idea: something to grant an occasional uninterruptible master strike, like guardians have. In fact....unremitting for combat sentinels plz? Maybe that would be totally OP...I dunno.

 

^^Maybe that's not the right solution, and I haven't really played with watchman in about a year, but I think that something along those lines would really help. I know it's a real balancing act between PVE and PVP. All I know is that as my combat sent is now, it is the most frustrating class to play solo. Hence, I don't play it very much, and that makes me sad.

 

Thanks for reading!

The thing that bugs me the most is your removal of crippling throw.. At least remove leg slash, and put the slow into crippling instead

 

Agreed. Sentinels need more ranged abilities, not less. Especially with all the other classes gaining more mobility

All i see from this is that i lose rupture, deadly throw and retaliation who all were good abilities that broaden my options when fighting vs different enemies and different DCDs. This including the gore now on cooldown and no good utilities only leads to the conclusion that maurauders or atleast carnage marauders are going to be less fun and not as viable as many other classes who have excellent utilities.

 

Thanks bioware for constantly disappointing me,.

And its actually a slight nerf to put Gore ON the GCD because now players have a second to react to the armor pen.

so,every class is getting more mobility,while maras are loosing their long range root and get gcd on gore( funny thing though, gore gets some extra duration,but with gore getting in gcd and with lattency above 50ms we prolly wont be able to land a full extra hit lmao).

gj BW, but u could just remove the pvp Q button from maras,would be as subttle as the class changes

Well, I definitely have some reservations about the changes, like everyone else. This will change the core rotations of all 3 specs quite significantly. But I think I'd like to playtest these for myself before I start with the doom and gloom hype.

 

Also, props to the devs for realising the overall uselessness of riposte, and for combining crippling throw and leg slash. Very good ideas here.

Shame they chose the wrong ability to keep around, however. Crippling throw's appeal far outweighs that of leg slash since, as was already pointed out, it's usefulness is against enemies who are *already out of melee range*.

 

Looking forward to the discipline preview on Dulfy after the livestream to see what new passives are there, and if they make up for any of the changes shown in this preview.

I have the same reservations as most everyone else. I main a combat sentinel and a carnage marauder, and am upset about losing crippling throw. It's great in PvE situations when you're chasing enemies the tank is pulling to a spot (and leg slash is nothing in end game content, never used). A loss of utilities will be saddening. Finally, I see fewer bursts and no DoTs as a kick in the groin. I like to be open, but this has me worried.