f13.net

I played the Sentinel (and Marauder) for nearly 9 months during beta, with some side time in the DPS trees for Guardian and Juggernut.  It gets a bad rap as being way to mushy and subpar in damage output.  The general...whine...was since all they could do was DPS that they should be significantly better than other DPS classes.  There were (and still are) a couple or three problems with the class:
* Develops later in the progression than other classes.
* Itemization KILLED it for a good while.
* Requires quick thinking and reaction - best comparison I've come to for it is speed chess.  You cannot faceroll it, and you can't approach every target/situation the same

It's also hamstrung in that you have to play each tree in somewhat of a specific way.  You have to think fast, and react faster.  It's a highly mobile class, without much/any lock down crowd control.  But it makes up for it in terms of gap closing ability and skill interrupts (most of any class, and shortest cooldowns).  You can effectively lock someone down and make them not be able to do ANYTHING of any importance or effectiveness, and if you manage your defensive abilities (Rebuke, Saber Ward, Pacify) in the right way, you're damn tough to bring down.  They're great for PvP, but in high end PvE raiding they really don't have a place.  If I were putting together a group for PvE content, I'd take a DPS spec guardian/juggernut over a Sent/Mara every time.  Their DPS is lower, but their utility to switch stances and tank in a pinch is extremely valuable in case your main tank goes down.  This changes, however, if you are adept at monitoring your Centering stacks and associated abilities.

Most people give up on it way too early.  The class doesn't really flesh out until way late...24 to 32, to be completely honest.  And I really wouldn't try PvPing with them until 18.  Some classes develop way early (Sorc/Sage, for example) and Sents/Maras develop way late.  Sorc/Sages develop early, and are extremely powerful with lots of utility, but that evens out in the 30s and onward.  The Sent/Mara is really the yin to the Sorc/Sage yang.  You can make them pretty impotent once you get to about 24 or so, by using your interrupts to block anything they try and do.  That said, it can get a bit spammy at times which leads to players trying to do too much.  What I generally see is that players think that just because they have an ability, it MUST be placed on the toolbar, and they MUST be able to use it in every fight.  At L50, I used MAYBE a toolbar and a half.  The other half was medipaks, sprint, fast travel, and other non combat things.  You set your stance according to tree and forget it.  

The other thing is players instinctively go for damage increases on their talents, but ignore the reductions/refunds.  Having all the damage modifiers in the world doesn't matter if you lack the focus/rage to execute it.   I never had an issue of lack of focus/rage, and by the time I reached L8 or so, I had the base default attack completely off my toolbar and never touch it again.  If you're at such a point that you need your piddly base attack to build focus/rage, you deserve to die.  Further to that, once you get your healer companion, your DPS abilities have really fleshed themselves out and you basically turn into dual saber wielding whirlybird of non stop death.   You have zero downtime, your focus/rage stays halfway full or more, and the only real limiter is your CDs.  Up until I got your my healer companion, the best strategy for PvE was to send in my companion first, then immediately follow them in combat.  I keyed my companion attack to the ` key and just made it part of my attack rotation.  Use your companions as an ability and part of your rotation.  They're really nothing more than that.

I know Sent terminology better, so that's what I'm going to use here:
Combat: More direct damage than anything.  Blade Storm/Rush heavy.  Probably the easiest and most accessible of the three trees.  Ataru form/proc dependent.  
Watchman:  More DoT specific, and built around Cauterize/Merciless Slash.  Somewhat geared towards hit and run tactics and letting your DoTs do the work (which ignore armor mitigation).  Great for sustaining DPS in boss encounters, but also good  for 'splash' or white damage in PvP.  Juyo form/proc dependent.  
Focus:  I only recently started playing much in the Focus tree, but found it pretty satisfying in terms of focus reductions, crit chances, and movement reductions/escapability.  Shii-Cho form/proc dependent.  

!!! DO NOT RE OR TRASH YOUR FIRST SABERS !!!  They hold 4 mods, and you can upgrade them and use them all the way to L50.  That is, if they don't change it in the RC.  It is DAMN hard to get a saber, much less two of them, with the mod capability of the first sabers you get.  

Questions?

So, basically, they break out like rangers did in EQ. Only they don't die in a stiff breeze.  :awesome_for_real:

I think my second character is going to be a Sentinel or Marauder. Glad to know they are not as completely gimped as everyone on the forums says.

Ranger down!

Heh.  Never really thought about it that way but...yeah?

But really, the key to Sent/Mara success is using the right ability at the right time and always having a plan.  You have to know your opponent and not just 1, 2, 3, 4, rinse repeat it.  I like to think it's one of the most difficult classes to play well to help sidestep the inherent popularity of it.  That said, I was one of the few people that stuck with Sentinel/Marauder and actively feedbacked on it that wasn't ZOMG BIOWARE SENTS MARA SUCK.  But from L10 to L50, I had no problems breaking into the top 5 DPS in warzones and a pretty high number of kills.


Well...To be completely honest, because of much of the Sents/Maras inherent if/then reactionary abilities, if you don't play it often, you're probably going to suck or at least be very average.  They're not gimped, they just develop late and they're tough to play well versus the other classes (SI/JC, Trooper/BH).  

Planned on playing a Sith Marauder. Did I just pick another goddamn Ret paladin??  :mob:

Do you think that once they start getting geared up with "epic" level weapons that they might become more viable? How gear dependent are they?

Why am I always drawn to the hard to play characters?

Just once, I'd like to be able to faceroll to victory.

Yes, yes you did.


I have not PLAYED a Sentinel, but just from watching them in groups, or better yet, watching them try to solo quest and inevitably having to save them again and again...  :why_so_serious:

Gear is/was an issue, no doubt about it, but mostly in terms of your sabers.  No class is THAT gear dependent, but when you're scratching for every advantage possible, the fact you have to have TWO of them doubles up your needs.  

The thing is, a group didn't have much use for Sents/Maras.  However, in the last balance pass for them they received a pretty significant upgrade for groups with the whole 'Centering' thing.  With Centering, you get stacks to spend on Zen (mostly for your Sent), Transcendence (increases party movement speed by 50 percent and melee/ranged defense by 10 percent for 10 seconds), and Inspiration (increases damage and healing by 15 percent for 15 seconds).  That's pretty freaking huge.  People are still trying to adjust to it - and it makes it ONE MORE THING that Sents/Maras have to monitor.  

All that said, I still somewhat prefer, in a PVE situation, to have the Guardian/Juggernut utility.  But at the same time, my playtime with the Centering mechanic is somewhat limited at this point.  I have a feeling that I'll lean more towards Centering after more playtime in group situations.  I definitely see their value in PvP, especially with Transcendence. 


Anecdotal, but most people tended to play Sents/Maras wrong.  They focused too much on using Slash/Vicious Slash instead of Blade Storm/Force Scream, and they tend to totally ignore Master Strike/Ravage entirely.  In your typical trio of standard conned mobs/npcs, Master Strike/Ravage is basically a one hit kill and Blade Storm/Force Scream takes away 50 percent or more of their health.  So, best rotation tended to be Force Leap, Force Sweep, Blade Storm, dead, Master Strike, dead, Strike, Zealous Strike, dead.  That is core rotation for a Jedi Knight in PvE.  Once you get Saber Throw and Zealous Leap, along with cool downs/reductions, Sent/Mara becomes easy mode.  Force Sweep/Smash is also stout as hell as part of your openers.

I was planning on playing a Sith Marauder.  This post was great, thanks SnakeCharmer.  I love mobile classes, and I love classes that are tough to play well as it keeps things interesting.  So it sounds like I've made a decent choice with this one.  I doubt I'll ever get into end game raiding anyways, so no worries if they aren't fantastic there!

Get to know your audio and visual clues for your if/thens (Riposte, Centering, Combat Trance, Opportune Strike, Pommel Strike, etc) and be able to quickly recognize the difference between stunned, immobilized, rooted, etc.  I'm talking no more than 2 seconds to recognize what is what, and respond accordingly.  It plays fast and can sometimes be a bit overwhelming because you have so many options.  My best advice is to artificially limit your options with what you put on your hotkeys to save yourself from paralysis by analysis.  In warzones, where there is SO much going on, it helps to simplify your strategy and just go with what you know and what you can react to the fastest.  In open world PvP (Nar Shaddaa, Tat, etc), you have a bit more time to react so you can do more.  However,  I tended to slow things down and be more reactive than proactive in what I did, mostly in terms of my interrupts.  I can only imagine how absolutely frustrating it must be to have someone stopping you from doing everything you want to do repeatedly.  Have your Force Kick at the ready; if you see a progress bar?  Force Kick the bastard.  Little to no damage done, but holy hell, when you can stop a Sorc from popping their force bubble and their heals, as well as their lightning strike, they're extremely easy to take down.

That and proper grouping of your abilities on your hotkeys.  Don't be afraid to leave a spot blank, even on your top row.

But yeah, facerolling really isn't an option.

I only got my beta Mara up to 16, but I was already spending a LOT more time looking at my toolbars to see what cooldowns were up instead of at the mob. I didn't try the PVP for that reason, kinda hard to kill someone that way unless they're AFK.

Solo questing I didn't have many problems with. I got the blue saber from BT and knew enough to keep my sabers as upgraded as possible.

Centering sounds interesting, at least that way I could contribute to a raid. I suppose I could go Juggynut but I like the dual saber style, and I dont even know what AC's my guildies are doing yet. NEED AC SWITCHING!

Edit: Last build the mods didn't affect the base DPS of the sabers. Wouldn't green sabers with a sufficiently higher base DPS be better that the old blue ones?

That seems entirely likely yea. Shit people couldn't figure out the god damn Trooper half the time and the class can be summed up as USE GUN ON MAN!


But like, whenever I saw a fellow Republic dude in trouble, because he was being overwhelmed, or he couldn't handle a gold elite or whatever. It was 9 times out of 10, a dual sabre Jedi.

"You need some help with that?"
'YESPLZ XD XD XD'

Yeah, I figured it would be something like that. Which is cool, because I've always liked that heavily interactive toons. I was consistently one of the highest output damage dealers on Prexus back in the EQ days. I look forward to getting up there again on TOR.

Thanks for this Snake. It has made me very tempted to try that AC now.

Dual sabers, man!  Totally worth it.

A Marauder was my first attempt at playing this class.  I hated it because I was rage starved all the time and I had just come from playing a Sorcerer.  Last beta I tried a Sentinel now that I know the systems better and started loving it in the high teens.  It really is a late bloomer.

Really good tip on the sabers.  Your first real weapon on all characters is worth hanging on to because they're all upgradable.

If you don't know what you're doing, they suck.  Badly.  If you understand how they work though, they can put out some impressive damage.

Also, for Sentinels, T7 shouldn't be overlooked.  He can hold enough aggro to let you go to town without taking much, if any, damage.

Except on .. well hell that's a spoiler. 

I had ... problems.. on the final quest boss.  T7 and I died 2-3 times before I finally worked it out.

If you can do it, I really recommend changing up your UI for the Sent/Mara...Because of the reaction/speed nature of the class, you need your abilities within fast reach.  You will use 12 plus abilities in bigger boss fights and PvP, especially since they added the centering mechanic and rebuke/retribution.

I actually changed to ESDF movement, then SDFC, and still trying to get used to it. 
S = strafe left
D = forward
F = strafe right
C = backpedal

Primary abilities now go 1-5 (plus shift) and QWERT (plus shift), with anything else going on my Naga.  Also, crafted grenades (AWESOME) are keyed to G and shift G.  I'm not a keyboard turner or clicker.  For different GUI window activation, I change EVERYTHING to control plus <whatever>.  I am notorious for occasionally spazzing out and hitting a bunch of extra keys which opens up a bunch of windows which causes me to freak out and die.

On that note:  The Naga is AWESOME.

Maybe different for guardians, but I don't know how you could ignore blade storm. Low hanging fruit makes it free after force leap. So all trash fights went: force leap, sweep, storm (for no focus cost).

Damm you for this thread. Now I am not so sure I dislike the Marauder anymore. Do you think he is superior to the Juggernaut in PvP (since that's what I will probably be doing for an "endgame") ?

I don't know.  It's hard to say really.  The J/G has a bit better survivability, even in a DPS spec, thanks to the heavy armor.  My PvP play with the DPS J/G is somewhat limited, but I did find it less spammy.  The DPS drop off from a S/M to DPS J/G isn't that significant that you would ever miss it.  The ace in the J/G pocket is that through a simple talent respec and regear, you can go from DPS to tank.  The S/M is dps only, it just matters how you do it.  So, if you feel like playing a different style, or your guild needs X instead of Y, you have that option.

All things being equal, the S/M has a targetted 5 percent more DPS advantage over the DPS G/J. 

From an aesthetic side, I think the anims for the single saber J/G flow much better than the dual wield S/M. The S/M can be a bit...I don't know...jerky?  erratic?  in its transition from one attack to the next.  Plus the Guardian heavy armor is the best looking armor in the game, IMO.  I'm not a fan of the huge ass angled pointy shoulder pads the Sith (Warrior, Consular) wear.  And you don't have to worry about outfitting/maintaining two sabers.

I'm bored so I came up with some builds.  Let me know what you think.

1)  "Look at my Charge, my Charge is amazing." http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIMRMRrfrzZRMbZ0M.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIMRMRrfrzZRMbZ0M.1) (PVP)

2)  "Everyday I'm Ravaging, Everyday I'm Massacring."  (Force Screaming too) http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100MZGMbrddMRrsZG.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100MZGMbrddMRrsZG.1) (Solo PvE)

3)  "RAAAAAAGE" http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bcMZZhrRrdrMdGR.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bcMZZhrRrdrMdGR.1) (PvP)

4)  "Poopsocking to victory"  http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIbRrRMcGzZhRr.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIbRrRMcGzZhRr.1) (Raid PvE)

5)  "A wild hybrid appears"  http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIrRMRRfZZur0rz.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100bIrRMRRfZZur0rz.1)  (A PvP build based on mobility, vicious slash spamming, and rupture)

6)  "LOL Force Scream"  http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100ZGGrM00rRMcZhMRrz.1 (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#100ZGGrM00rRMcZhMRrz.1)  (A silly build which gives a 1 rage cost force scream with good crit and 6 sec cooldown.  This one was PvP oriented but you can make a PvE oriented one too.)

They're not bad.  A few wasted points, but nothing that would seriously hamper you.  You REALLY want to get the top tier ability though.  

The builds I used the most.  May change as I experiment more with Centering after live:
Combat (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#5010cZrMbrddMRrsZRM0M.1)
Watchman (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#501bIbRMRrcGzZG0oZMM.1)
Focus (http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#5010cZhMZGMRrdrRdGo.1)


Personally, I've really grown to love the focus/rage tree because of the healing deficit that Force crush/exhaustion puts them in.  Force crush/exhaustion is unbelieveably awesome in PvP which is what I tend to focus on.  To that point, the three trees play differently, and this is the way I play them.   YMMV.  Keep in mind that I don't care about leaderboard totals (damage, kills, killing blows, healing totals) or how many times I die.  I just want to win the objectives/warzone, target their healers/big time nukes and keep them occupied out of the fight.

Spoilered to avoid wall of text:

Hmm I only played sent to 18 and sith assassin  to 25 .The stark contrast is - sentinel has only piddly snares for cc and no ranged  attacks. He gets kited to death eternally. SA? - I get CC to wazoo (inlcuding ranged stun and whirlwind), I have 30m ranged finishers which deal quite a bit of damage.  With only 1 cc breaker how can you play melee class in this game

That's part of the problem with Sents and Maras.  You have two get out of jail cards and two gap closers but you don't have both of them on your toolbar until...mid 30's?...if I recall right.  And even then, you have to spec into certain trees to take advantage of them.  So, for a looong ass time, you're without some seriously class defining abilities.  As a S/M you have some decent ranged attacks (heh, for a melee class) such as saber throw (15m), blade storm/rush (10m), zealous leap (1-10m), force leap 10-20m), and a couple others, but by and large you're kinda fucked for a long time.  AND you have to chose a specific tree to have them.  Zealous and Force Leap are only loosely defined as ranged attacks, however...It's a bit of a stretch to call them that, admittedly.

I went back and forth for months with the dev in charge of the JK class, and we just never could see eye to eye.  The thing that most people argued for (more DPS) wasn't what the class needed.  It needed some group utility (got it, Centering) to make it worthwhile to have in your group, something to make it less squishy (got it, Retribution), and some additional means to get out of CC and CC others (somewhat has).

Resolve definately needs work, however....

You could write that piece about knights for almost any class as far as I can tell.

They all seem to need more interesting utility.

No, not really.  Before the Centering thing, there was simply no need in taking a Sent or Mara in a group and in fact they were a liability.  Until the 30's you don't get access to the dps buffs and abilities that you need, and beyond that other classes could do DPS and <something else> in a pinch if needed.  All S/Ms can do is DPS, and not that well - until the 30s.  They could do ok, but there was no real need for them when others could do it (DPS) just as well and in some case much better (depending on level).

It's a very late bloomer, and as such didn't get alot of playtime.  Testers played it to 20 or so, compared to Y and 20 or so and said it sucked.  And they were right, but at the same time, they didn't give the class time to flesh out.  But that's more of a problem with the design than the players.   Classes are balanced at 50 and the S/M didn't get much playtime by very many people at 50.  I only had a few weeks at 50, so even my playtime with them at max is somewhat limited.  It can be a frustrating class to play up until you get your healer companion on .  It's at that point the class REALLY becomes fun, an upswing in power begins as a result of your chosen tree really adding some much needed oomph to your abilities.  By the time you get to Hoth, it's a radically different (better) experience.

I almost think the difficulty of the class was done on purpose to keep JKS and SWM numbers down.   :tinfoil:

Mr. Snake, how would you describe the differences (in playstyle/feel) between Sentinel/Marauder and Guardian/Juggernaut? Disregarding the obvious major difference of a tank-specced guardian or raiding.

DPS G/J is probably easier, less spammy.  Better toolset in PvP.   Slower paced/less hectic but still packs a punch.  Assuming all things being equal, the DPS G/J does ~5 percent less damage than the S/M.  But it's equal to all other DPS classes/builds.  Still suffers from the same late bloomer problem and pretty much requires you to go to the top of your chosen tree before venturing to the others.   Assuming things remain they were in the last beta I played and live, I would go with this 5/32/4 (http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIGbR0uddhRZMM.1) build.

I am probably going to DPS Guardian on live my main despite knowing Sentinel backwards and forwards.  One saber means less gear to worry about upgrading, better looking armor, better toolset for how I like to play, and the ability to simply respec/regear and be a tank if I ever get tired of DPS.  Can't do that with the Sentinel, which is just DPS, DPS, or DPS.  Better animations, too.  They have some serious oomph to them.  The Sent/Mara anims feel a bit disjointed at times and don't flow as well. 

But I've waffled back and forth so many times it's not even funny.  9 months in beta and I still am not 100 percent sure what I'm going to roll for my main.  Hell, part of me still wants to go IA for my main.  Or smuggler.   :uhrr:

How do you know this? They've made significant changes since combatlogs were disabled.

Thanks......I guess. I am torn between Sorcerer, Juggernaut and Marauder and your answer makes it even harder. :)

*le sigh*

Stated design goal, I'd guess.

Everywhere else I've seen them talk about goals, the goal is for all dps specs to be on par.

They'd have to be monumentally stupid to say "we think spec X should do 5% more damage than spec Y".

WoW said that for years!  :why_so_serious:

Why would you play a DPS class over a tanking or healing class if they did the same damage?

Because you don't want to tank or heal, and you like the playstyle of the DPS class. Crazy, I know.

Also, pure DPS classes typically have better CC / utility (combat tricks, buffs, etc) and offer more varied gameplay. If you want to dps as a hybrid class, you'll probably have one viable option that may not fit your preferences; if you want to dps as a 'pure' class, you'll have 3 options that are all viable.

I suppose.. I didn't care for the "pull out a shotgun of knife" part of the scoundrel or operative. But... the min/maxxer in me....

I am almost certainly going to play both my smuggler and my IA as the pure DPS spec, because the DPS option in the healing tree is stupid. Straight up.

For Sentinel in PvE which of the three trees is the least "twitchy"? Or to put it another way which one is most forgiving if I'm only half paying attention? Survivability is also more important to me than killing as fast as possible.

Focus is the most forgiving and least buttony, IMHO, but also takes the longest to develop.  Combat is middle of the road, and watchman is the most difficult / twitchy.

Cool, thanks!

I love the playstyle of annihilation (watchman).  It does remind me of playing starcraft 2 than a MMO though:  I have to use 15 hotkeys intelligently and regularly at level 27.  I like this, but I think many people won't.

I think retaliate is the best dps ability we have, being off the GCD.  Nothing like a good retaliate/force scream burst damage combo.  Might be different at 50 though.

It gets worse.  You're going to pick up another half dozen or so abilities you'll (think you) need to work into your repertoire.  You'll need to start paring stuff down otherwise your brain might explode.

Glad I picked up that Razer Naga then. 17 buttons should do it.  :awesome_for_real:

Only if you use those buttons with modifier keys. Alt and Ctrl work well.  :why_so_serious:

*Edit*
While I am sort of joking above, I currently have 30 keys bound to my mouse for SWTOR.

Ok, my Sentinel is 41 right now, I just wanted to complain about the insane amount of abilities that I have (and I still have more coming I can see). My first 50 was a Sorcerer which fooled me into thinking all classes had that amount of abilities. I was horribly wrong.

Yeah, SW/JK button proliferation is pretty ridiculous.

I don't know what I'm supposed to be using as a JK at level 33. It's too much!

Not so bad yet at 40.  Got some useless abilities I never use.  I still basically am set with two full bars, but I mean FULL bars.  Getting any new abilities at this point have to go to the side bars.  :(

Still love the class though.  I've had no desire to respec:  Annihilation (watchman) is very fun!

While levelling, Combat is currently considered to be the least forgiving, judging from talking to people in-game over the last couple of weeks. I've spoken with several Sentinel players and Watchman seems to be by far the most popular spec, and seems to cope with Story-based missions with less need of a level advantage. I've found that playing as Combat, if I'm not 2-3 levels higher than my Story bosses, I'm likely to get stuck.

If the skill is condition based or won't work on anything higher than a silver ranked mob, you don't need it. That should free up about 3 slots at 33!

I agree about the one that is based off of snares but the one off of stuns is really really useful when soloing, it speeds up kills on silvers a lot.

I may have to revise my opinion on that one since the last patch supposedly made combat flow a lot better; I might actually be able to make it actually go off for the first time, ever. Up to this point, it has never worked. It's been off my bar for a while...

Sentinel was so ability bloat clogged that it really legitimately started to hurt my fingers. I figured earlier that I might just stop and wait for macros, but I went ahead and went all third party on it instead. The class plays really, really well with macros. It's .. haha, a huge client side stealth buff.

I assume there's some kind of EULA violation involved though?

I hope not, my Razer Naga has built in macros and they are partnered with swtor.

Assassin/shadow also benefits greatly from 3rd party macros.  Having the ability to pair attacks depending on force need and position reduces the need to look at the UI while circle strafing to get positionals off.

Macro = crutch.

You suck, l2p.

I don't know SWTOR's specific policy, but usually the way it goes is if it's hardware provided it's fine, but if it's software mucking up with the game itself then you could be in trouble.

I'm trying to figure out how you'd do a 3rd party hardware macro that takes in to account positionals & what buffs are up and I'm not seeing a way of doing it.  Am I missing something here?

Have it activate two keys in reasonably rapid succession by priority.  If the first key can activate, it will.  If not, the second key will activate. 

Isn't a hardware macro really just a third party software macro talking to the hardware through its driver?

The only thing I really want to macro is strike/sundering strike. Maybe slash/guardian slash but they have different focus costs...

I want to macro those two "cant use these in pvp" abilities, pummel strike, and umm, savage kick I think. I want to set them to my main abilities so that they always fire when ready. I am sick of watching my bar for them to light up.

Personally I haven't macro'ed, but I've multi-keyed buttons.  Specifically, I hate having the bottom center bar visible, but the keybinds assigned to it don't work if the bar isn't visible, so I've programmed the keyboard to do:  switch-to-bar-2, ability x, switch-back-to-bar-1, as a work-around.

I use autohotkey for all my macro needs on my Anni spec Mara.  I use Retaliation whenever possible to maximize uptime for Cloak of Pain (2/2 in a Cloak of Annihilation, 2/2 in Cloak of Carnage).  I was able to cut my keypresses down by about half.

For example, my Force Charge + Deadly Saber + Cloak of Pain.  This ensures that Deadly Saber and CoP are always up when I start a fight, and it refreshes it when in extended fights since Force Charge is apart of my rotation.  And if FC is on CD but I need to refresh DS and/or DS?  Press 1 again instead of v and b or v or whatever.
$1:: ;
Send {1}  <---Force Charge
Sleep 150
Send {v} <---Deadly Saber
Sleep 50
Send {b} <---Cloak of Pain
return

Rage builders, Retaliation proc
2:: ;
Send {2} <--Battering Assault (if available)
Sleep 50
Send {1} <--Slash (always available)
Sleep 50
Send {c} <--Retaliation (procs if available)
return

Rupture, Retaliation
3:: ;
Send {3} <--Rupture
Sleep 50
Send {c} <--Retaliation
return

Annihilation, Retaliation
4:: ;
Send {4} <--Annihilation
Sleep 50
Send {c} <--Retaliation
return

Defensively, I worked in a combo that does Obfusciation, then 6.25 seconds later hits Saber Ward.  Really handy in 1 vs 1 PvP or against elites, champions.

If I'm on my Smuggler Gunslinger, I use AHK for any ability that requires cover.  So, it activates cover and the ability with 1 keypress instead of 2 (or 3).  So, for example with Cover + Smugglers Luck + Charge Shot, I can do 3 actions by simply pressing the 2 hotkey - puts me in cover, then activates the Smugglers Luck buff for 100 percent crit on Charge Shot.  Same for Aimed Shot, Sab Grenade, etc.  And if you're already in cover, you'll just get some red text telling you that you're in cover.

How much of an increase in dps is the 36% extra offhand damage talent? There are WAY too many things in annihilation i want and i need the "heal on cc breaker" talent from rage to milk healing medals in WZs so the only thing i can give up are those 3 points in carnage.  36% offhand damage seems like a heck of a lot to give up, specially if it applies to skills that use both sabers.

If there is, I can say I honestly do not care a whit, and will continue to do this until warned once ever about it or until they put macros in the game.

So... what are you doing ?

I have to agree that sentinel+macro's=happy gamer  :heart:   

At lvl14 I had already freed up 4 keybinds...

Can anyone please give a macro template for auto hotkey please that we can change the buttons in