drbuzzard

I doubt it but you never know.

Jim Butcher.

While I almost never start mission teams, I very often start TFs- 2 today so far in fact.

As I said, there has to be some justification for being a glass cannon, and that's the AOE caps more than anything else. Any damage boost power from the secondary is made moot by a kinetics player on your team (which any high end team WILL have). The blaster secondaries (and primaries really) vary all over the place in quality. People act like every blaster is better than every sentinel, and I believe that to be counter factual. Sentinel primaries are better balanced across sets. There will be examples where a sentinel will be better than a blaster, as every blaster is not fire or ice. At the top end of the AT blasters will be appreciably better damage dealers, but at the bottom, a sentinel is probably better because of the more narrow dispersion of the quality band (this is on single targets). The 60% greater target cap can't be worked around however, and that's where sentinels will fall behind. As to the nukes, yes the sentinel nukes don't hit as hard, but if you do the math they hit harder per recharge time (except AR and archery which are deliberate anomalies) than the comparable blaster nuke.

A thought in general however, if sentinels were any closer to blasters in damage, there'd be little reason to put up with being a glass cannon. The main place where things end up blurring is because IOs make it easy to make yourself more sturdy, but don't necessarily pump damage as hard (I don't want to step into the proc swamp here).

About the only thing I didn't like about the upgrade is that vulnerability does not stack from multiple sentinels. If it did you could have some very mean sentinel superteams.

I am not as expert as this topic as some, but when I looked into the numbers on these things I noticed some curious things about blaster numbers. The Trapdoor times allow the blaster to run the defensive buff from P2W (for status protection), and the pylon times often seem to have someone else holding the aggro. Funny that. In the case of Trapdoor it would make for some fun times without that buff since there's all those mezzes being tossed around. I know blasters can deal with the attacks from a pylon though, but then it's about tradeoffs to get that sturdy. I don't try to enter into those competitions as I know my limitations. I don't play hardcore enough to be competitive, and honestly I don't care enough.

I've played them all to 50 (a few times in some cases). SR is the most durable of the 3, but it takes more investment to really get good, so I'd probably favor one of the other 2. Regeneration is what I would prefer over willpower. They both fairly similar though in effect. I think regen is easier to get good on the cheap.

If you're talking dirt poor, a super reflexes tank is pretty hard to beat. Combine it with dark melee and you'll have a heal and endurance recovery. Nice thing about an SR tank when you're dirt poor is you can softcap defense for all positions with just SO or common IOs if you take weave from fighting pool. To also stick up for sentinels, electric/regeneration is a very nice combo, and regeneration doesn't really demand set bonuses to be pretty sturdy.

The guide isn't that old. This is the current state of storm and there's no sign of a change on the horizon. Personally I think removing the repel in hurricane would do a lot to help the set, but I imagine there's current users who like it.

Since someone wondered about softer things than tanks and stalkers (not that stalkers are all that durable, but whatever), I figured I'd do sentinels since those were mentioned as soft soloists (which belies my experience, but again, whatever). Took a lvl 50 electric/regen sentinel through a number of CoT missions in PI. First run was sentinel decked out with full on optimized build (few places probably could have been improved, but it was close, I was lazy). Incarnate powers were all T4. Took them into a CoT run at +4x8 bosses on. I was able to clear single spawns, but had to use incarnate powers (barrier and judgement mostly). I died two times in there, once when I was out of healing options or barrier, and too much damage was incoming. I wasn't using inspirations as much as I should have, so I could have done better. Second time was aggroing a second spawn and that was that. The mission did get finished without any huge hiccups, as I just had to wait for second wind to recharge. Made a second build with SOs. Ick. I'm so used to making sentinel IO builds, this just felt a bit odd. Nonetheless off I went to vanquish foes. Set things for +1x4( w/bosses) with no incarnate powers in my tray (so just T4 alpha core musculature, and the auto power part of hybrid assault). I was able to beat up the groups easy enough. I think it was easier than on the tank. The ability to drop the nuke on a spawn before they know you're coming does a nice job of cleaning up the riffraff. When there were too many spawns in close proximity I would pop some lucks. Overall, there were no complaints. Again if we assume +0x4 is a reasonable balance point for SOs, things are working as intended.

I think the bosses were on, though I should check. I've got a sentinel or two on test I could try out as well. I think they would fare OK if careful. Granted tar patch and hover blasting does not mix so that could be trouble.

OK, I gave in and made a SO version of the tank (kept the T4 incarnates because I was too lazy to remove them, but didn't use them much at all). After the rebuild (2nd build) I don't think I capped any resistances (best was toxic in the 80s). Took him for a test drive with the +4x8 settings. He melted in the first group. OK, maybe it was a bit tough for a solo tank. Let's try +1x4. This went well enough with me fighting each spawn effectively and not getting into extreme trouble. I'd have to pop heals, but overall, it was no bid deal. I did get whacked when I aggroed 2 groups at once. So are these balanced for SOs? Depends on what the balancing point is, but a tank without any support could do +0x4 (I was incarnate shifted) without inordinate trouble. On a team with some support it would be doable. Given how many sets offer bonus resistance these days (sonic, thermal, pain dom, electric, nature) it would be pretty smooth sailing. Though I've not had much luck finding teams on test to find out for certain. Clearly it is not balanced for +4x8 with SOs, nor should it be.

When looking at the character screen, there's an icon at the top with arrows. That will transfer characters to other servers. You have a limited number of uses per week. You could also lose the name.

I never play on SOs, and really don't want to have to think in those terms, so I'll leave that testing to others.