Sentinels/Marauders, the new 4x DK?

[Mercbeast]

My first team to 50 was 2x Commandos. The single target burst they can put down range is absurd. How easily they are negated is equally as absurd. Gunnery Commandos entire rotation is based off of grav round, a 1.5s cast ability that if interrupted is locked out for 4s.

Mercenaries and Commandos hit hard, but they are too easy to lock down. So I decided to make a change. I made two Jedi Knights really for one reason and one reason only. Auto-follow sucked and charge was going to alleviate the auto-follow problem. It worked. By level 10 I knew I was shelving my Commandos.

I've PvP'd extensively with my Sentinels now and I am fairly certain that in both a 2 box, and a 4 box, the Warrior and Knight classes are the team to beat. The question then becomes, Sentinel or Guardian, Marauder or Juggernaut. Personally I feel that the Sentinel and Marauder trump the tanks, but only just.

However, I think the Sentinel/Marauder is the better team. Allow me to explain!

SURVIVABILITY

Self healing. A sentinel in watchman specialization heals for 2% of total heal every single critical dot tick, additionally they heal everyone in their party for 1% per dot tick whenever they use 30 centering with the Zen buff. Simply put this is a lot of self healing, and a fair bit of party healing. In a match like voidstar I will put out 350-400k damage per sentinel. I will also put out 100-125k healing. Yes, you read that right, a melee DPS putting out 125k healing. Now imagine x4. Over the course of a long match you will self heal your team for perhaps 400k.

Sentinels are hard to kill, Watchmen(annihilation) are especially so and have all kinds of tricks to get out of trouble.

1) Force Camouflage. When talented this is a 100% damage reduction for 4 seconds.
2) Transcendence. When talented this is an 80% run speed buff for 10 seconds in addition to a 10% melee/ranged defense buff.
3) Guarded by the Force. Trades 50% of your remaining life for 6s of 99% damage reduction.
4) Saber Ward. 12s of 50% melee/ranged defense and 25% DR on tech and force abilities.
5) Rebuke. Damage shield that reduces damage by 20% and reflects some back, can activate once per 1.5s but refreshes up to 6s per attack on you for as much as 30s.
6) Awe. This is a 6s AoE mez. This ability is insane when used on rotation.
7) Pacify. This is a 6s 90% blind. Players, bosses will miss 90% of their physical based attacks for 6s.

So Sentinels have a few defensive cool downs. With 4 sentinels, 2 sentinels could run Zen, and 2 could run Transcendence for near 100% 80% run-speed boost...The implications are insane.

Mobility

Nobody has mobility like the Knights and Warriors, and as a boxer without IWT, mobility is king. Sentinels in the watchman tree can talent their leap down to having no minimum range effectively creating a SECOND interrupt on top of their already super fast talented kick interrupt at 6s.

In the focus tree mobility is even better with Zealous leap a 10 yard leap attack that when talented increased movement speed for a short duration and transcendence has even better up-time than in Watchman.

Combat can run a flat 15% run-speed buff giving them an improved time on target as well.

With roots associated with leaps, Transendence which is almost ALWAYS up for a focus spec/rage Sentinel, almost always available for a watchman/annhiliation spec and can be saved for combat/carnage specs, Marauders and Sentinels have the best offensive mobility in the game.

DEEEEEEEEPS

Inspiration stacks.

Inspiration stacks.

INSPIRATION STACKS.

This is a 15s 15% damage buff for your group. Throw in dispatch for your 20% execute, and crippling throw, your 20% mortal strike and you have TWO medium ranged abilities to finish people off.

Let's look at exactly what each specialization has to offer.

Combat/Carnage

This spec is heavily proc based and has perhaps the highest single target burst of the three. However, it is heavily proc based, and your burst is based around windows. You have windows of opportunity to do your burst and this will be difficult to manage on multiple characters. For me playing a single sentinel, Combat is already the weakest. This makes it even less desirable for boxing so I don't. Difficult to execute burst DPS that isn't needed due to the nature of the team. This tree should probably be passed on.

Watchman/Annhiliation

Dots, dots, dots, more dots! Oh yea, and Merciless slash. This build POURS on the pressure AND the burst. Merciless slash kicks like a mule, and dots ensure what you hit usually dies shortly after it tries to break combat. Cauterize hits pretty hard for a dot. Overcharge saber hits REALLY hard for a dot. With 4 Merciless slashes up, anyone not exceedingly geared is going to die in one GCD. With 4 inspirations up, pretty much everything you do is going to kill a person in one GCD and if they don't your burns will a second or two later.

Focus/Rage

Watchman is the more difficult build to play as a soloist. As a boxer, this build is more difficult to play. But if you can do it, oh sweet baby jesus the pay off is insane. This is a one hitter quitter build. Literally.

So with this build what you are working with is:
Force Leap - Cool down 14s (12s) talented
Zealous Leap - Cool down 15s
Force Exhaustion - Cool down 21 (18s) talented
Force Stasis - Cool down 1m (50s) talented
Force Sweep - Cool down 12s (9s)

Basically the way it works is, in the focus tree you get a 100% crit chance on Force Sweep following a Force Leap or a Zealous Leap. By using Stasis or Exhaustion you get an additional 50% damage on your next force sweep via 4 ticks of +12.5%. Let me take a quick aside and say, Guardians and Juggernauts actually do THIS build better solo for a couple of reasons. They don't have to channel choke or stasis and they get another 30% damage through their other DPS tree.

So this is what you do. You charge into 5+ enemies. You force exhaust one guy. Then you wait for singularity to build up. Then you force sweep. With entry level 50 epics, you should expect to see 3.5k-4k per person you hit with just singularity. By throwing in consumables and relics, you can do in the 6-7k neighborhood. From two sentinels that is 12-14k. With 4 that is 24-28k. That insta-gibs 5 people instantly unless they blow cooldowns.

Here is why Sentinels are insane. Remember that ability Inspiration? +15% damage over 15s and it stacks. This will push your all out Force Sweep bombs I would guess to ALMOST 10k per character. Nothing in the game can match that.
Ultimately the specialization you choose would be largely influenced by how many characters you box.

If you are 2 boxing, watchman is probably the way to go. Higher single target DPS, and your AOE focus bombs won't be enough to just one shot people. Double inspiration + watchman = blender.

If you are 4 boxing, you will have 100% uptime on transcendence (50% movement speed buff, it's 80% as watchman) Your single target burst per character is less than watchman, but it doesn't matter, you're running 4. People are going to die. On top of that you have the ultimate AoE smash everyone around you ability in the game. The damage is absolutely insane. Even without blowing extra cool downs, 4 singularity auto crit force sweeps are going to 1 shot under geared players.

[Mosg2]

I agree with pretty much everything you posted--I just really dislike the aesthetics of dual-wielding lightsabers :)

[Mosg2]

Damn you Merc. I went to look at the trees some more and the abilities... I don't even want to play my Operatives now. Sigh. FML.

The self healing is insane if you use Berserk with everyone. It might be good enough to solo instances 4x without a healer.

BRB making 4x Marauders.

[Mercbeast]

They are pretty beast :)

[pinotnoir]

What class and spec would be easy to box 2 with? I don't want to do SI. That leaves Warrior, BH, or Ops to chose. Should I make them the same spec or do a tank and healer?

[Mercbeast]

Marauder or Sentinel x2 would work really well.

Jugg or Guardian would also work quite well.

I'd run watchman/annihilation for Sent/Marauder.

[Oatboat]

I agree with the merc heat seeking missle lock down.. .it seems like if i can stay back and just nuke unbothered they would be a beast... but most of the time you get interrupted more than you would like.

[Mercbeast]

I agree with the merc heat seeking missle lock down.. .it seems like if i can stay back and just nuke unbothered they would be a beast... but most of the time you get interrupted more than you would like.

Playing against bad people, Mercs/Commandos are INSANE. Against anyone good the biggest chunk of your DPS is getting interrupted. The other option is to run assault or firebug I think which is actually pretty decent.

[Lyonheart]

I'm just curious to how big nerfs will be in the future. Anything that seems "too good" gets nerfed at some point. I think its still a good idea to not "count" on things staying this way. But for now, if my damn PC would stop crashing, I would be doing the duo SWs for sure.

I do miss the leaping to targets when I play any other class. The PTs charge is nice, but you do not get it until later levels. In hutball, i have seen PTs dominate the game and win in minutes using leap from the pit area nearest the enemies line and charging up to someone above. its funny

So all the QQing in beta about how bad SW/JKs were in PvP has been fixed? or is this just a boxing perspective, rather than just the class its self?

[Mercbeast]

I'm just curious to how big nerfs will be in the future. Anything that seems "too good" gets nerfed at some point. I think its still a good idea to not "count" on things staying this way. But for now, if my damn PC would stop crashing, I would be doing the duo SWs for sure.

I do miss the leaping to targets when I play any other class. The PTs charge is nice, but you do not get it until later levels. In hutball, i have seen PTs dominate the game and win in minutes using leap from the pit area nearest the enemies line and charging up to someone above. its funny

So all the QQing in beta about how bad SW/JKs were in PvP has been fixed? or is this just a boxing perspective, rather than just the class its self?

Lot of people still think they suck. Only a little has changed since beta. It's just that in beta there were very few organized groups playing so a class that excels in an organized environment was going to be under performing.

[Mokoi]

OK, well I made 4 of these, as Mosg2 and you convinced me I should start playing finally, and to hell with work haha.

I have to say, so far the 4x Marauders are BEAST! They need the healing from the annihilation / watchman tree for PvE, but even as a lvl 10-11 group, I was able to complete Black talon, in mostly the starter gear and a couple of greens I picked up on the way. I am confident now with the reusable epic health potions that you can easily make for lvl 8-16 that with that, and the talents which heal you in annihilation, instances will be a breeze.

Thanks again guys for your hard work, and thanks for turning me onto SWTOR again, I haven't played since Beta.

[Apatheist]

So, if I understand correctly . . . your alts follow you, you follow the target and the in-game "auto-face" mechanic creates a ghetto IWT?

Or, for PvP, I suppose you could keymap your forward hotkey into your spam keymap so your alts would run through/towards the target and then turn whenever you use an ability? I guess it would look similar to the way DK's run in circles around targets in WoW.

Also, just a point of interest, it appears that the Watchman spec requires 30 points of centering to activate both Zen and Transcendence. From reading, it takes 15+ seconds of combat to generate 30 centering. So, can you really maintain enough centering to keep both Zen and Transcendence up during PvP? It seems like you'd have to choose one or the other.

[Mercbeast]

So, if I understand correctly . . . your alts follow you, you follow the target and the in-game "auto-face" mechanic creates a ghetto IWT?

Or, for PvP, I suppose you could keymap your forward hotkey into your spam keymap so your alts would run through/towards the target and then turn whenever you use an ability? I guess it would look similar to the way DK's run in circles around targets in WoW.

Also, just a point of interest, it appears that the Watchman spec requires 30 points of centering to activate both Zen and Transcendence. From reading, it takes 15+ seconds of combat to generate 30 centering. So, can you really maintain enough centering to keep both Zen and Transcendence up during PvP? It seems like you'd have to choose one or the other.

Per character no. But, two characters running transcendence can give you almost 100% up time in combat, while 2 more can give you decent self healing.

[Apatheist]

Per character no. But, two characters running transcendence can give you almost 100% up time in combat, while 2 more can give you decent self healing.

Looking at the talent list, it seems like you could build a viable hybrid Watchman/Focus build. Go far enough into Focus to get the Felling Blow and enough in Watchman to get the self-healing stuff, increased centering generation and buffs to Cauterize (snare). Make a priority keymap with Zen > Cauterize > Slash > Force Leap > Zealous Leap > Force Sweep > X

Anyone that tried to run would get charged twice and have a constant 30% snare. No need for the run speed buff. This way you could just macro Zen at the top of your priority list and with the bonus centering generation you'd have nice group healing and massive AoE burst after every charge.

[Mercbeast]

Looking at the talent list, it seems like you could build a viable hybrid Watchman/Focus build. Go far enough into Focus to get the Felling Blow and enough in Watchman to get the self-healing stuff, increased centering generation and buffs to Cauterize (snare). Make a priority keymap with Zen > Cauterize > Slash > Force Leap > Zealous Leap > Force Sweep > X

Anyone that tried to run would get charged twice and have a constant 30% snare. No need for the run speed buff. This way you could just macro Zen at the top of your priority list and with the bonus centering generation you'd have nice group healing and massive AoE burst after every charge.

The stuff at the top of watchman is way too good to skip. Merciless slash is AMAZING. 80% runspeed is AMAZING. The top talents for watchman are by and large amazing.

[SideWays]

Damn.. I have been trying to figure out which team I should 4-box first for week(s) already, but that thread finally brought an end to my search, thanks =)

[Apps]

OK, well I made 4 of these, as Mosg2 and you convinced me I should start playing finally, and to hell with work haha....


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Ive got an all melee team as well. Added bonus (I believe) with my toons names all starting with "A" and the same, I rarely run into "Aaron" in Warzones. Ive started to see a trend lately. When them haters see me joining, the opposition isnt engaging me... they run. So depending on the warzone, I could end up just camping a spot or alternating between spots, for the win.

I wonder how long it will be, before people start complaining that the all melee 4 boxer in a WZ is OP...

[Apatheist]

The stuff at the top of watchman is way too good to skip. Merciless slash is AMAZING. 80% runspeed is AMAZING. The top talents for watchman are by and large amazing.

Guess it comes down to how good the healing from Watchman is. 2% from crits plus 6x4% whenever you can generate 30 centering. Is it enough to keep you up in instances/PvP?

If not for the heals, I think I'd prefer Guardian with full focus and 3 points in Swelling Winds. All the other abilities are fluff compared to being able to charge and one shot a stack of people every 9 seconds :D

[Darkmod]

I have been 4 boxing a group of Marauders almost 30 now. They are not! Good at all in PVE verses mutable “strong – Elite” NPCs. I have skipped 99% of the heroics while leveling. Even later in the build tree I don’t have the healing needed for PVE. I can see their potential in PVP or single targets, but I don’t see them as a good PVE group and very pain full to level up. Then again it could just be me for now I’m going to hold off on them.

Darkmod

[Mokoi]

I have been 4 boxing a group of Marauders almost 30 now. They are not! Good at all in PVE verses mutable “strong – Elite” NPCs. I have skipped 99% of the heroics while leveling. Even later in the build tree I don’t have the healing needed for PVE. I can see their potential in PVP or single targets, but I don’t see them as a good PVE group and very pain full to level up. Then again it could just be me for now I’m going to hold off on them.

Darkmod


I am almost lvl 20 on my team, and so far, I have had no problems completing heroics, and heroic areas. If i come into a pack of really difficult mobs, I just team up on two teams of two, with my healers or DPS out, and it's a lot easier to either do the quest twice, or just clear to an objective.

I'm not sure about heroics, but as for healing, I have the epic reusable medpacks, which help a lot. i have found that if you get aggro on your main, you can turn around and run away from the mob while your alts continue to DPS, and they will eventually get aggro. This works well for most packs, and even some bosses.

It's not perfect, and there are problems, specially in PvP, I feel a lot like 4 warriors in WoW, where I have very little healing other than some minor self-heals, but I do a crazy amount of dmg.

I dont think SWTOR is even close to the boxability of WoW, but neither was WoW on release. It will get there.

-Mcwrathy

[Mercbeast]

I am almost lvl 20 on my team, and so far, I have had no problems completing heroics, and heroic areas. If i come into a pack of really difficult mobs, I just team up on two teams of two, with my healers or DPS out, and it's a lot easier to either do the quest twice, or just clear to an objective.

I'm not sure about heroics, but as for healing, I have the epic reusable medpacks, which help a lot. i have found that if you get aggro on your main, you can turn around and run away from the mob while your alts continue to DPS, and they will eventually get aggro. This works well for most packs, and even some bosses.

It's not perfect, and there are problems, specially in PvP, I feel a lot like 4 warriors in WoW, where I have very little healing other than some minor self-heals, but I do a crazy amount of dmg.

I dont think SWTOR is even close to the boxability of WoW, but neither was WoW on release. It will get there.

-Mcwrathy

Marauders and Sentinels seriously blow until 40+. The majority of their class changing abilities come post 40. It is where all the survivability is. It's also where they start to scale. While 4x anything is probably not exactly ideal for 8 man WZ's. 4x Marauders will be SCARY period. You will kill people so fast that it really shouldn't even matter.

[Pyro_box]

4x Marauders will be SCARY period. You will kill people so fast that it really shouldn't even matter.

4(x) "insert class here" running PvP will completly distroy any period. By the time folks figure out that you are a multiboxer, they will be looking at their corpse. .... Ah the good times I use to have with my 5-box team in AV holding down towers making it impossible for the Alliance to succeed; folks run in >>>>BOOM >>>>

[Apatheist]

My issue with Warzones is that they're a lot smaller in terms of players than WoW's BG's. A person 5boxing in WoW took up at most 1/3. In this game, it's 1/2. A smart team would learn to simply avoid you and crush the rest of your team 2v1 at the other objectives.

That's why I'm trying to figure out how to 3box without the macros/group slots messing up. Maybe one extra player isn't going to make or break the game, but boxing 2 characters seems pointless to me, so it's a compromise. I'll box a 4th for PvE stuff and just drop out the tank or healer when I PvP.

Still not entirely convinced that melee is the way to go. A hybrid build Sage can do solid burst and still has a solid shield, hot, casted heals and nice CC. Without the hassle of trying to stay within melee range of people that will learn to kite you. Would be nice if anyone has both teams relatively equally geared at 50 could comment.

[Mercbeast]

My issue with Warzones is that they're a lot smaller in terms of players than WoW's BG's. A person 5boxing in WoW took up at most 1/3. In this game, it's 1/2. A smart team would learn to simply avoid you and crush the rest of your team 2v1 at the other objectives.

That's why I'm trying to figure out how to 3box without the macros/group slots messing up. Maybe one extra player isn't going to make or break the game, but boxing 2 characters seems pointless to me, so it's a compromise. I'll box a 4th for PvE stuff and just drop out the tank or healer when I PvP.

Still not entirely convinced that melee is the way to go. A hybrid build Sage can do solid burst and still has a solid shield, hot, casted heals and nice CC. Without the hassle of trying to stay within melee range of people that will learn to kite you. Would be nice if anyone has both teams relatively equally geared at 50 could comment.

Here is what I have.

2x Commandos in full Champion +2 piece Columi.

2x Sentinels in full Rakata + Champion gear to 7.8ish% expertise.

The Commandos bring the pain, are hard to kill and bring the pain. That said, moving around the map is not as fluid as the Sentinels, and Commandos have the inherent flaw that Gunnery is so easily shut down. I haven't played with Assault spec (I think that is what it is called) that would be more like balance/madness Sorc/Sage as most stuff is instant or channeled.

The Sentinels blow people up perhaps a little bit slower when compared to 2x grav/grav/demo or HiB. However, the pressure you can apply is higher overall, your survivability is very good, but different than Commandos. Your mobility is far superior and this applies to any other class. The only classes who have similar mobility are Powertechs and Juggers.

I have plenty of friends in high end gear that play Sorcerors as well. Obviously it will work, and it will work quite well. However you are going to be a turret kiting will be less than optimal. Even though you have plenty of instant cast abilities, to get the most out of the class you need to be mobile and many of the abilities do not lend themselves well to staying mobile while multiboxing. Playing a single Sorc you can get the most out of your class.

What melee does is allows you to play the class much closer to its potential due to the mechanics of melee in this game. Basically, any ranged ability in this game limits your overall mobility as your character will stop moving to use the animation, and to break the animation you have to use an animation that breaks it which breaks your follow for a half jiffy.

[Apatheist]

Cheers for that, Merc. Do you have problems staying on top of people with your Sentinels? Seems to work well in PvE, but without IWT or some way to auto move towards your target, it seems like it'd be very easy to kite/cc and get your alts stuck on things.

[Mercbeast]

Cheers for that, Merc. Do you have problems staying on top of people with your Sentinels? Seems to work well in PvE, but without IWT or some way to auto move towards your target, it seems like it'd be very easy to kite/cc and get your alts stuck on things.

Not usually. The over abundance of CC is a hindrence, but that is applicable to any class that has to melee to do its damage, multiboxing or not. Honestly the only REAL pain in the ass is a sorceror/sage with the root on their knock back. This is a complete cock block and a good Sage/Sorc has so many tools to get away that you are better off just ignoring any Sorcs with that talent and dumping your DPS into someone you can stay on.

Getting stuck happens occasionally, there are a few areas in warzones I can identify as problematic for autofollow.

1) The scaffolding that supports the ramps up on either side of the center of the huttball map. When you run from the sidelines and cross into the middle area where the ball spawns, your follower will often get stuck on that support/scaffolding structure, going in or going out.

2) The first door on Voidstar. You won't path through it.

3) The bridge on Voidstar. You won't path over it and in fact if you autofollow while on it, your follower(s) will run back to the far side.

4) The flame grates on Huttball, you will not autofollow over those.

Part of the reason why I really like Sentinels, is that their leap in many ways counter acts many of these slight mobility hiccups. You can leap across the grates, you can leap up onto the catwalks on Huttball. You can leap through the door on Voidstar, you can leap most of the way across the bridge, or autorun half of it and leap the rest of the way off it. The cool down on leap is short enough that you rarely lose contact for long.

Additionally Sentinels and Marauders have a 50% run speed buff they can put up that can be talented to 80%. With two characters you can achieve almost 100% uptime in PvP.


4(x) "insert class here" running PvP will completly distroy any period. By the time folks figure out that you are a multiboxer, they will be looking at their corpse. .... Ah the good times I use to have with my 5-box team in AV holding down towers making it impossible for the Alliance to succeed; folks run in >>>>BOOM >>>>

Maras/Juggs will just do it better.

[Lyonheart]

I just got my 4 SWs to lvl11..looking at all the abilities, could you guys share how you have each ability placed, what hotbar/keybind? I'm doing the "longest cooldown to shortest" for my spam bar. I'm just wondering which abilities are a waste and should not be used..etc.. There are a ton!

[Apatheist]

I'm thinking 90% of the time my points will be used on Zen rather than the run speed buff. With Watchman spec you already get a static 30% snare and 11 second charge. I can't imagine I'll have trouble staying on top of people, provided the lack of IWT isn't an issue. Being able to AoE heal 18% health every ~15 seconds plus the 2% on every DoT crit is pretty boss.

The only issue I have with the group is Sentinels can't tank. I wonder how much of a damage loss it would be swapping one Sentinel for a Guardian.

[Mercbeast]

I'm thinking 90% of the time my points will be used on Zen rather than the run speed buff. With Watchman spec you already get a static 30% snare and 11 second charge. I can't imagine I'll have trouble staying on top of people, provided the lack of IWT isn't an issue. Being able to AoE heal 18% health every ~15 seconds plus the 2% on every DoT crit is pretty boss.

The only issue I have with the group is Sentinels can't tank. I wonder how much of a damage loss it would be swapping one Sentinel for a Guardian.

Guardians in Vigilence deal pretty solid damage. The reason why transendense is useful is that 50% or 80% runspeed makes you unkiteable. The passive snare on your dots is imho a waste of talent points. Use your melee snare!

Running the guardian is not a bad idea and I'd consider it strongly if I ran 4 accounts. Basically what you give up is some group healing, a little bit of DPS, and your Inspiration buff. What you gain is an AoE snare, the ability to guard, single and aoe taunt. Here is the thing though, the Guardian in PvP is easier to kill than a Sentinel is, primarily because they don't have all the tricks that a Sentinel has. A Guardian will be slightly more difficult to kill at any one time and the Guardian cooldowns are designed to prolong death rather than to escape it. That said, guard+aoe taunt+aoe snare is going to add much utility to your group. This is also why 4 Guardians is a pretty hilarious team. As far as I know AoE taunts stack. Jump into a group of people and blow 2 AoE taunts and the enemy is doing 60% less damage to anyone they attack that isn't you. Blow 4 and they should be doing almost no damage for 6s. Or rotate them for almost 50% uptime on -30% damage.

If you go the Guardian route, in PvP I would probably take one of the Sentinels out of the Zen/Trans rotation and sit on the 30 focus. Save that focus for a transendence so you can use it when needed to escape combat. Drive with the Guardian and setup a click window over your party frame that guards on a click. The passive healing coming in through Zen/Crits will help to offset the spike damage on any of your Sentinels.

[Apatheist]

Guardians in Vigilence deal pretty solid damage.

What about 4 Guardians? You could daisy chain Guard and there's a hybrid Shield/Vigilence spec around that does pretty solid damage and makes your AoE snare and Force Sweep both free to cast.

[Mercbeast]

What about 4 Guardians? You could daisy chain Guard and there's a hybrid Shield/Vigilence spec around that does pretty solid damage and makes your AoE snare and Force Sweep both free to cast.

Like was said earlier, 4x anything is going to kill people. I think however that in terms of raw face melting potential, Sent/Marauder trumps the Guardian/Jugg.

[Mosg2]

My 4x Marauders are at 34 right now. I agree that they melt face pretty bad. I've played Operatives, Juggernauts, Sorcerers and Mercenaries so far and the Marauders have them beat hands down.

That having been said, my major concern is that all of their healing is based off of being in melee with a target. Perfect for PvE but it concerns me in PvP. Later on this week I'll probably post a mini-manifesto for my setup and how it works.

Oh, and thanks for the suggestion Merc :) I never would've looked at these guys without your post.

[Mercbeast]

My 4x Marauders are at 34 right now. I agree that they melt face pretty bad. I've played Operatives, Juggernauts, Sorcerers and Mercenaries so far and the Marauders have them beat hands down.

That having been said, my major concern is that all of their healing is based off of being in melee with a target. Perfect for PvE but it concerns me in PvP. Later on this week I'll probably post a mini-manifesto for my setup and how it works.

Oh, and thanks for the suggestion Merc :) I never would've looked at these guys without your post.

My biggest healing match as Sentinels ever was about 130-136k healing per character. They can put our decent healing in PvP, one thing about running 3 or 4 however is that you can sacrifice Berserk on one character to run Predation. Those 10s of 50 or 80% run speed can really make a huge difference in PvP in maximizing time on target.

[Korruptor]

This sounds very tempting but my hardware constraints block me from running more then 2 clients (with good graphic settings) I think. I'm sure it's doable but I wonder about the real viability of just playing 2 marauders, like in H2's and flashpoints since we don't get a healing companion right off the bat.

Can anyone with experience playing just two using the method in this thread share some tips on viability?

Edit: Machine specs added.
AMD Phenom II X4 940
Geforce 470 GTX SLI (x2)
8GB RAM

[Pyro_box]

Your downfall is the amount of RAM available; running (2) accounts my usage averages just under 6.5 G-g. If you want to run (4) account I would think 12-gig at a minimum, and 16-gig would be optimal.

[Bloodcloud]

8 MB is indeed on the low side.

i run 4 clients smooth on:

Intel Core i7 950 - 3200Mhz (non overclocked)
Asus Rampage II Extreme
Radeon HD 5870 399Mhz
12 MBytes corsair DDR3 Memory

[Korruptor]

Thanks for the hardware info Blood & Pyro... I made the mistake of injecting two different subjects in my post :D

So back to the viability of playing only 2 marauders with the melee heal...

How practical is it with only 2 and would the healing be enough for flashpoints and H2's? Or is 4 really the minimum to make this build work?

[Pyro_box]

I very much doubt you could run a flashpoint at "level" with (4) Marauders let alone (2). Yesterday night my Marauder/Sorcerer team hit level 20 and completed Balmorra; I decided to try the Heroic (2)+ when you first arrive on Nar Shadda.

The only way I was able to pull this off was using my CC whirlwind on the Elite, burn through the hard's and then go after the Elite; many times I needed my Sorcerer to bubble and heal as some pulls have (2) Elites.

Perhaps if you WAY out leveled the Flashpoint to the point of why bother 2-boxing it would it then be viable

[maxcom]

Has anyone been able to 4box sentinels/marauders and do the flashpoints at level? I saw Mosg's video and he outleveld it by 8lvls (was 28 in a lvl 20 instance) and still wiped a few times. I'm almost 20 and hammer station looks tempting but I thought I'd save myself some repair bills and ask if I should even try.

Edit: I confused hammer station for mandolorean raiders, woops. Looks like hammer at 20 is doable.

[OldRod_KS]

This weekend, I tried 2-boxing Hammer Station with my Sage/Shadow combination. I've been able to do Heroic 2+'s with this combo on Coruscant and Taris, and could do some Heroic 4's before they greyed out. One Heroic 4 on Taris I was one level grey before I could do it.

Hammer Station is a level 17 flashpoint according to the quest log. At level 19, I couldn't even get past the first area - the 2 giant battlebots dished out too much damage. At level 21, I couldn't get past the first boss (the mining droid). At level 24 I could do everything except the final boss, but the flashpoint goes grey at 23 so I wasn't getting any experience for the majority of it.

Probably could have done it lower if I could keep the companions from breaking CC and could keep them focused on one target. I would CC one mob and immediately one of the Qyzens would do an AE attack and break it, then they seemed to change targets all the time... and on the final boss, he keeps spawning commandos to fight for him - the companions were all over the place.

I think with the pets under control and if I had my healing setup actually figured out, I could have done the entire zone at 21 or so.

[Korruptor]

I did the "Terminal Injuries" H2 as soon as I had arrived at Nar Shaddaa with my duo without a single death (or even close) and we were level 24 at the time.

Ok, I will then stick to my dual BH's with their respective Mako's as the better thing for me right now. Being an Armstech and Armormech helps keep them all geared up well, including Mako which keeps her heals up.

The BH's are now nearly 29 and even though I've got the next companion (Gault) they were sent right to their respctive ships in favor of keeping the Mako's.

[Apps]

2 Boxing a FP is going to be a feat just short of epic. "Could" it be done? well, Im sure at some point, someone will work out all the fight timings, and custom make a boxing profile that is perfectly efficient. However, given the current state of the game, lack of macros, lack of FTL, lack of IWT, Healing being a custom job, companions being so heavily gear dependent, I would steer clear of FPs at level. Now, I did take a couple near level 30 toons and a third level 12 through BT, and completely smashed faces until the level 12 is geared with all options from the FP. That definitely made things easier when I moved on with the level 12.

Point is, there are ways of making things happen, just depends on how much effort and time a person wants to invest into doing it for the sake of "doing it".

[maxcom]

On a semi-related topic, what is considered a "burn DOT"? Just Cauterize (http://www.torhead.com/ability/e0WvPob/cauterize) or is there more?

[Lyonheart]

I think the idea of 4 SMs is more world stuff and PvP. The only teams that will be able to do normal mode FPs, at level, and without a lot of wiping, are teams with a tank/heals and dps.

For two man teams, i think the duel BHs and the duel Sorcs are great. I was able to solo some +2 heroics, at level with my solo Merc in heal spec, healing Blizz ( your first tank pet ) I'm sure with another BH i could have done several of the +4s due to having two CCs. lots of healing etc. But if you want to do FPs and all heroic+4s.. make a team with tank..heals and any dps.

[Pyro_box]

I am seeing this game scale in difficulty as the character increases power; post level 40 stuff hits very hard, and our characters have better ways to deal with it. Playing my Jugg’s solo I have pretty much given up on using any companion save my healing one due to the significant amount of incoming damage. Sure, with my dps companion I can usually get through it, but not without medpacks, post fight heals, ect. With my healing companion I solo most 2+ heroics, albeit slowly and not without defeat; no possible way could I do this with a dps companion.

With boxing the same will be true trying to attempt 4+ heroics with (4) accounts; the higher level you get the more difficult it will become without leveling and gearing you characters way over the base level, and flashpoints seem to be harder than world heroic encounters.
(( upping my memory this next week to 16-gig so I can bring on (2) more accounts; feeling very good about having all the basics necessary at this point with my (2)…))

[Mercbeast]

I am seeing this game scale in difficulty as the character increases power; post level 40 stuff hits very hard, and our characters have better ways to deal with it. Playing my Jugg’s solo I have pretty much given up on using any companion save my healing one due to the significant amount of incoming damage. Sure, with my dps companion I can usually get through it, but not without medpacks, post fight heals, ect. With my healing companion I solo most 2+ heroics, albeit slowly and not without defeat; no possible way could I do this with a dps companion.

With boxing the same will be true trying to attempt 4+ heroics with (4) accounts; the higher level you get the more difficult it will become without leveling and gearing you characters way over the base level, and flashpoints seem to be harder than world heroic encounters.
(( upping my memory this next week to 16-gig so I can bring on (2) more accounts; feeling very good about having all the basics necessary at this point with my (2)…))

Marauders and Sentinels are not a flashpoint team. That said, my Sentinels only had to skip a few Heroic 4's, and my Marauders which are now 41 are the same, just a few Heroic 4's have been skipped.

If you intend on duoing Flashpoints, you will want to run a healer + a tank and keep your DPS companions geared the heck out. In beta when I completed most of the flashpoints in the game with Merc/Merc and Assassin/Operative the mechanics were slightly different. Now most FP's run enrage timers on bosses. Additionally, companion tanks got a +60% armor buff in their guard stance which actually allowed them to effectively main tank. This is not the case now.

I feel like Powertech is going to be the best tank you can run for one simple reason, it has charge + pull + it can tank at range if needed. This means that you can, and should drive as much as possible with the healer. In movement sensitive encounters you can quickly set pets to passive, have your tank follow, set companions to attack, move yourself and recharge with your tank. If the mob is out of contact with the PT, the PT can still tank via ranged abilities.

[pinotnoir]

I just want to do flashpoints boxing 2 dps with pug tank and healers. I hope at some point I can figure out the leader issue so my alt can assist and follow me instead of someone else in the group.

[Mercbeast]

I just want to do flashpoints boxing 2 dps with pug tank and healers. I hope at some point I can figure out the leader issue so my alt can assist and follow me instead of someone else in the group.

Use Chazz's system, he describes it, or use mine.

Chazz uses the variable target function recently added, he has a walkthrough on how to use it. I create 4 new keymaps, each keymap can be toggled off or on. Each keymap has an assist macro and a follow macro that corresponds to party slot 1 through 4. Then when I follow, I call all 4 follow macros, when I assist I call all 4 assist macros. However by toggling them off or on I only send one of them.

If I am playing in a group I just cycle through my party target hotkeys until I find which party slot my characters occupy. Usually they occupy the same slot for each other, so if they are in party slot two, I turn off assist/follow for slots 1 3 and 4.

Chazz's system is easier to implement I think, as it cycles the assist/follow target through a single key as opposed to my four toggles. Either way will achieve what you want, the ability to quickly change what slot you are assisting and following with your alt.

[chazz]

Chazz's system is easier to implement I think, as it cycles the assist/follow target through a single key as opposed to my four toggles. Either way will achieve what you want, the ability to quickly change what slot you are assisting and following with your alt.
Actually my system uses three keys in total now in 'Version 2' (for a triple-boxer), but it allows for setting it up in a few seconds once and then be able to instantly switch Lead by switching character. I got myself a third account because of this.

[Multibocks]

This weekend, I tried 2-boxing Hammer Station with my Sage/Shadow combination. I've been able to do Heroic 2+'s with this combo on Coruscant and Taris, and could do some Heroic 4's before they greyed out. One Heroic 4 on Taris I was one level grey before I could do it.

Hammer Station is a level 17 flashpoint according to the quest log. At level 19, I couldn't even get past the first area - the 2 giant battlebots dished out too much damage. At level 21, I couldn't get past the first boss (the mining droid). At level 24 I could do everything except the final boss, but the flashpoint goes grey at 23 so I wasn't getting any experience for the majority of it.

Probably could have done it lower if I could keep the companions from breaking CC and could keep them focused on one target. I would CC one mob and immediately one of the Qyzens would do an AE attack and break it, then they seemed to change targets all the time... and on the final boss, he keeps spawning commandos to fight for him - the companions were all over the place.

I think with the pets under control and if I had my healing setup actually figured out, I could have done the entire zone at 21 or so.


This is easily fixable. Go to companion abilities and turn off anything that is AoE. Downside is that they won't hold aggro on everything.

[Riiker]

This whole post just blew my mind! I'm going to have to read this over and over until I've figured it out. I'm new to MMOs and multi boxing. Just got my 4 knights to 11 and have gone sentinel with all of them. I think I'm going to stick to a group of only one class until I can get a handle on all of the abilities and stats.

Edit: just finished hammer station with my 4 sentinels at level 18. I'm pretty impressed by them.