Sentinels/Marauders, the new 4x DK?
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.
