Heya guys!! Welcome to the Focus/Rage 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 Focus/Rage only 6 points worth of talents will not be taken. You will get just about everything you could want.
Focus/Rage Talents
Talents are fully listed for cross faction purposes in case you are not familiar with every name.
Tier 1 Focus/Rage
- Master Focus / Ravager
- Insight / Malice – force attacks are denoted by yellow damage in game.
- Stagger / Stagger
Tier 2 Focus/Rage
Tier 3 Focus/Rage
Tier 4 Focus/Rage
- Inner Focus / Relentless Fury
- Felling Blow / Dominate – note the synergy with Felling Blow, Singularity, and Quick Recovery.
- Singularity / Shockwave – note the synergy with Felling Blow, Singularity, and Quick Recovery.
- Unwavering Focus / Unspeakable Rage
Tier 5 Focus/Rage
Tier 6 Focus/Rage
Tier 7 Focus/Rage
Talent Builds
Level 20:
PvE: 2/0/9
By picking up Quick Recovery early, Force Sweep only costs 1 Focus and can be used every 9 seconds once you pick up Zephyr as well. This is invaluable for questing with mobs typically coming in packs of two to four. Second Wind’s self heal may look tempting, but it is a sub standard choice when compared to everything else.
PvP: 0/0/11
In the next 10 levels after this you will go back to pick up Quick Recovery due to it’s synergy with Felling Blow & Singularity. Because of that you could drop 2 points out of Rage in order to pick up Quick Recovery early if you so choose. Second Wind’s self heal may look tempting, but it is a sub standard choice when compared to everything else.
You take Master Focus over Stagger, but it should be noted that dropping Master Focus for Stagger is a viable alternative because you won’t get Force Stasis until lvl 24. Keep in mind however that Master Focus will later synergize with Singularity and Felling Blow so if you don’t want to respec later then stick with Master Focus.
Level 30:
PvE: 2/0/19
After picking up Saber Strength you will find that you have 2 points to spend. You choose Pulse due to it’s synergy with Singularity. Used properly Force Stasis will allow you to use Force Sweep at +100% damage with a 100% crit chance.
PvP: 2/0/19
After picking up Saber Strength you will find that you have 2 points to spend. You choose Pulse due to it’s synergy with Singularity. Used properly Force Stasis will allow you to use Force Sweep at +100% damage with a 100% crit chance. From there you drop two points into Quick Recovery to round out your Force Sweep combo.
Level 40:
PvE: 2/0/29
While Gravity doesn’t do anything substantial for you until 6 levels later, it’s not worth a respec just to drop that point elsewhere until you get Force Exhaustion. Unwavering Focus is chosen because you have no true need for Inner Focus. Though you could put that one point into Second Wind if you really wanted to.
Also Agility Training isn’t really offering you all that much during the PvE grind. That makes it a perfectly viable alternative to pick up Second Wind instead for an emergency heal. By level 42 you will finish off your Focus tree picking up Force Exhaustion. If you followed the PvE build to the letter you will have lost out on on the following talents:
PvP: 2/0/29
The only times you should use Master Strike is when your target is already CC’d by someone else. Because of that Unwavering Focus is useless. Transcendence however can be situational to powerful in PvP, so you drop your 1 extra point into Inner Focus.
By level 42 you will finish off your Focus tree picking up Force Exhaustion. If you followed the PvP build to the letter you will have lost out on on the following talents:
Special Notation
At this point you may have noticed that the PvE and PvP specs are nearly identical, which is decidedly odd imo. I did go back and check on changing something, but outside of listing viable alternatives these specs are at their strongest as they stand.
Level 50:
PvE: 5/5/31
Focused Slash, Quick Recovery, and Dual Wield Mastery are invaluable DPS talents making them pretty automatic purchases. And by that point you’re not left with too many viable alternatives. I personally suggest Defensive Forms as it’s still useful while leveling.
PvP: 5/5/31
While it may be tempting to pick up Inflammation, it’s a bad call because Cauterize falls out of your rotation as Rage once you pick up Swift Slash, Focused Slash, and some Surge rating. Defensive Forms becomes a must buy due to how much you will get focused as a melee combatant in PvP. And while I personally prefer Dual Wield Mastery, you could choose to drop 2 points into Jedi Crusader instead.
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…
I followed you since before DKs became live and often found out you excelled at unearthing original builds that happened to be superior to more notorious ones coming from EJ. Since, last swtor build, Rage tree caught my eye for levelling purposes.
I am happy to see you saw the same potential in it.
Glad to follow you again SJ!
Didnt see this noted. The enraged slash talent in the Annihilation tree makes vicious slash and other attacks refund one rage when used. It will however refund one rage for each of the six free vicious slashes that you get from berserk when in Shii-Cho form. That means 6 additional rage at the end of using all 6 vicious slashes that also hit 2 opponents. Since rage is the only tree that uses shii-cho form does this change how to weight your talent selection?
Jacob, I have not personally tested that in game though I did take that talent myself. As it says refund I’d imagine it would give you no benefit while in Berserk, but I will test that.
Guide updated 12/30/11
Guide updated 1/6/12
I’m just curious what your main rotation is with this in pvp and pve thanks!
I have not posted yet on rotations or priority systems mainly due to the discovery in Annihilation how skewed some of the numbers are. I need to sit down to do some testing before I can really talk intelligently about the matter to be honest with you. I will be putting out end game specs, priorities, etc… Just remember that in PvP you always want to combo your Charge/Obliterate with Choke/Crush to then follow with a Smash. You can do this twice in a row for 2 Smash’s at 100% dmg and 100% crit chance.
Have you got any suggestions on preferrred companions while leveling? Thanks
Great info. Can’t wait to see the endgame specs and rotations.