Heya guys!! Welcome to the Combat/Carnage Leveling Guide for the Jedi Knight Sentinel & Sith Warrior Marauder. The goal is to expound upon multiple builds while leveling your character depending on your predilections towards Flashpoints, Warzones, and Questing.
For the TLDR crowd you can skip down below to get to the Talent Build section.
Note: Post last updated 1/6/2012.
Personal Preference
It is important to remember that while leveling up your character you should never feel pressured to follow specific cookie cutter builds if you do not want to. While there are stronger arguments for such behavior in top end content, leveling should be about fun more than anything else. If you see something you want and everyone tells you not to take it, then take it. You can always respec later.
Talent Calculators
There are two very good options available for your use at both Torhead and DB Darth Hater. I find I swap back and forth between their sites for every day use as their customizations vary from area to area.
It should be noted that by spending 31 points into Combat/Carnage 8 points worth of talents will not be taken. You will have to make more relevant sacrifices in this tree.
Combat/Carnage Talents
Talents are fully listed for cross faction purposes in case you are not familiar with every name.
Tier 1 Combat/Carnage
- Jedi Crusader / Cloak of Carnage
- Dual Wield Mastery / Dual Wield Mastery
- Defensive Forms / Defensive Forms
Tier 2 Combat/Carnage
- Steadfast / Narrowed Hatred
- Defensive Roll / Defensive Roll
- Focused Leap / Enraged Charge
- Temperance / Erupting Fury
Tier 3 Combat/Carnage
Tier 4 Combat/Carnage
- Combat Trance / Blood Frenzy
- Immaculate Force / Towering Rage
- Righteous Zeal / Enraged Assault
- Displacement / Displacement
Tier 5 Combat/Carnage
Tier 6 Combat/Carnage
Tier 7 Combat/Carnage
Talent Builds
You should note that Quick Recovery is probably the most “over powered” leveling talent available due to the reduced CD on Force Sweep while reducing it’s Focus cost to 1. Picking this talent up early at any point while leveling is a 100% viable option for PvE grinding.
Level 20:
PvE: 0/11/0
Jedi Crusader is not a strong pick because there is generally enough downtime between mob packs for Rebuke to fall off. Defensive Roll is a great talent for PvP and raiding, but you will find that it has next to no use while questing. If however you find yourself constantly in Flashpoints consider picking it up.
Temperance isn’t the best choice for end game, but it becomes very useful while leveling. Once you attain your Centering spenders (like Zen) you’ll see why. The fact that it synergizes with Defensive Forms only pushes it over the top. That is why you sacrifice Steadfast. As to Focused Leap, you will use Force Leap all day long while questing. It will benefit you so frequently that it becomes an auto purchase for leveling.
PvP: 0/11/0
Things change up for PvP in the 2nd tier. You absolutely need Defensive Roll as some classes’ strongest attacks are AoE. As to Steadfast, you cannot afford to miss your opponent even once. Inevitably you will be in a situation where you just need to land one last attack to kill someone before you die, and that’s when you will miss…
Level 30:
PvE: 0/21/0
The next ten levels are very straight forward. The only thing you skip out on is Displacement due to it being PvP oriented. As to previously skipped talents, they don’t really stack up against the ones that have just been opened up.
PvP: 0/21/0
When you get to the 4th tier you have to make your first meaningful sacrifice. You should opt to give up Righteous Zeal as it only affects the CD of Zealous Strike and not your CC or Burst output. While you can argue that Zealous Strike is a factor in burst output, it doesn’t stack up to a guaranteed immobilize on Crippling Throw or a guaranteed crit on Blade Storm.
Level 40:
PvE: 0/31/0
At level 32 you pick up Cyclone Slash. At this point you should consider picking up Quick Recovery again. This is an alternative option.
Due to Fleetfooted being situational at best you go back to finish off Steadfast. From there Debilitation is the only questionable decision in the build at this point. If you are not spending any time in PvP at all I would recommend finishing off Jedi Crusader instead.
If you followed the PvE build to the letter you will have lost out on on the following talents:
PvP: 0/31/0
At this point you could choose to sacrifice Righteous Zeal for Fleetfooted, but you will find that Force Camouflage is used far more often to escape bad situations or being focused. Everything else is essentially a mandatory pick.
If you followed the PvP build to the letter you will have lost out on on the following talents:
Level 50:
PvE: 5/31/5
It is easy to argue the value of Insight, and at this time I’ve not done extensive research to determine how effective this will be. You can consider moving these points elsewhere, though there is no talent that really stands out as a viable alternative. Outside of that one talent, everything else is mandatory.
PvP: 5/31/5
It is easy to argue the value of Insight, and at this time I’ve not done extensive research to determine how effective this will be. You can consider moving these points elsewhere. Stagger and Inflammation are both viable alternatives. Outside of that one talent, everything else is mandatory.
Level 50 Respec
Please do not forget, these are LEVELING SPECS. While they may not drastically deviate from an end game spec, they can/may deviate enough to warrant a respec at 50 once you begin to tackle end game content. Please keep that in mind.
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or track me down through my Contact page.
-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…
Love this site! I had a question though concerning the Combat tree. Does the 15% movement speed increase from ‘Defensive Forms – Ataru Form’ stack with the Sprint ability?
Not sure on the move speed bonuses yet, but I plan to test it once I have the game. Just having two people run next to each will put the question to rest.
Opportune Attack will be a higher dps gain most likely. Combat Trance/Opportune Attack specifically refer to the bonus attacks (procs) caused by Ataru Form.
Also, would you recommend taking ‘Opportune Attack’ or ‘Ataru Mastery’ first for a PvE leveling build?
Sorry for the spam questions, should have waited to post haha.
When talents such as ‘Combat Trance’ and ‘Opportune Attack’ state “hits from Ataru Form” or “Ataru form hits”, are they referring to the triggered/proc aspect of Ataru Form or ALL abilities used while IN Ataru Form? (ex: Focus builders/spenders)
Guide updated 1/6/12.