FupDup

It's especially weird because normal healing enhancements also some bundled with absorption, so the way alphas are set up creates an inconsistency/confusion point. There are a few Sentinel unique absorb powers to add to that list (Regen, Invuln, SR, and Ice armors all have one), but otherwise yeah it's pretty uncommon.

That last .6 saved us from sure destruction by making it 4 sixes instead of just 3.

I wish that VEATs had something like Body/Energy Mastery, at least in regards to the endurance sustaining auto powers (I feel indifferent towards the laser eye beam stuff, maybe replace with shurikens or something). This would be on-theme for the highly trained human soldier thing they got going and fill a gameplay niche that none of the patrons really touch on.

Correct, the Absorb component doesn't do anything. Alphas only enhance your existing powers, they don't give you new stats in a category (i.e. a character with no defense powers won't gain any defense from a defense-based Alpha power). Dull Pain's max HP would only be enhanced by a healing Alpha like Vigor or Spiritual (but Spiritual's recharge messes with proc rates, if you're loaded up with them).

Sents have a much smaller variety of melee powers to choose from and have to wait until epic pools to get them, so Blasters still (rightfully) pull out ahead of them in that aspect. Then there's Defiance, damage caps, weaker sniper replacement powers (where applicable), AOE target caps...The rationalization still holds up in that example.

On one hand I get the logic of Pacify and Confront being opposites and never wanting to be taken together... But on the other hand, Pacify does fulfill an important role as an easily accessible Placate power. The only other generic Placate is Misdirection, which is a T3 power with a very slow recharge time. Maybe Pacify could be moved to become an extra T1 choice for Concealment, but that might be stretching the definition of what constitutes a "stealth" power. I think the easy way around that issue is to just not arbitrarily limit ourselves to keeping pools at only 5 powers each. There are lots of neat ideas for more pool powers in existing pools, and we shouldn't have to play a zero sum game to get them (for example, I'd like a taunt aura in Presence as a second T2 choice).

Blasters having a high melee scale is appropriate because they're an AT that is supposed to be the glassiest of glass cannons. The only issue here is that there are several ways to undermine the "glass" part of that equation while keeping all the "cannon." Tanks on the other hand are the beefiest thing in the game, so it's kind of silly for the biggest slab of beef to reach similar melee damage as the bleeding edge glass cannon class.

Brutes are kinda weird because they sit in-between two other ATs (Scrapper, Tanker) rather than being a "pure" AT specialized into one job. And it's also kind of hard to go away from that because being a bruiser/offtank is a part of their identity, and it's a common archetype in games like these so it really should exist in some form (not everything needs to be a holy trinity specialist). For now I'd stick to some light to medium tune up changes rather than reinventing the wheel. Namely: 1. Increase the base armor modifiers and base HP to sit between Scrapper and Tanker more properly, rather than having equal armor mods to Scrappers and only a tiny bit higher starting HP. For armor, given that Scraps are 0.75 and Tanks are 1.0, I think that 0.85 is the highest we could go without stepping on Tankers' toes too much. For HP, Scrap starts at 1339, Brute is currently 1499, and Tank is 1874. Brute could probably nudge up to the mid-upper 1500's range. 2. Fix the ATOs to ignore level difference, and probably just replace the +Fury ATO entirely (Smashing damage proc?) because of how easy Fury is to build/maintain. Or, maybe reduce the proc rate but make it give a really high value, so that we could actually push our Fury over the standard 80% cap once in a while. 3. Tanks probably shouldn't have 95% of the melee damage of a Blaster, so we could nudge their melee modifier down to 0.9 (currently 0.95, Blasters are 1.0) to make the damage gap between Brute and Tank a little bit wider without crippling Tanks or making Brutes into upgraded Scrappers.

Do the following things. 1. Expand their max level range up to level 50. 2. Reduce their minimum level in some cases because it's pretty silly how stuff like ATOs, Winters, and PVPs can be equipped starting at level 7 but some of these lowbie sets need you to be mid-level to start using them, at which point they're already beyond obsolete. 3. Improve their set bonuses, prioritizing characteristics that are underrepresented in each category (i.e. S/L defense and resistance in ranged damage). I would prefer to handle this as giving these lowbie sets two tiers of weak bonuses instead of having one tier of strong bonuses like good sets have (for flavor/differentiation), but I won't get too picky here. 4. Somewhat optional, fill up the sets to 6 pieces, adding unique/spicy procs where possible. Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Let's go with Volley Fire because why not. Here is the current version of the set that is virtually useless: Here is a hypothetical prototype of what a buffed version could look like:

Do keep in mind I'm not trying to steer anyone away from the AT, quite the opposite even. I just wanted to set the record straight and explain all the fine details so people can make informed decisions. For Electric Blast in particular, that set is a very extreme outlier that is almost flat out better on Sentinels than Blasters. Not only because of the Tesla Cage thing, but also because Zapping Bolt actually has higher DPA than the Blaster quicksnipe (Storm Blast is the only other case like this). And I could argue that the fast nuke normalization benefits Thunderous Blast more than most nukes because it normally has a very slow recharge on other ATs. Unfortunately, while some sets got some nice unique toys like that, some are kind of just meh and some are downright shit (i.e. Archery, Ice). I wish that all primaries and secondaries got the unique treatment we see in Elec Blast, SR, and Invuln.

Yes and no. For most attacks, the base damage is indeed very similar because the Sentinel ranged damage modifier is only slightly lower than the Blaster one. Specifically, you only lose 2.5% DPA on most Sent powers compared to Blaster versions (snipe replacements and nukes have more variance). However, Blasters do have a few tricks to make the gap wider. They've got a stacking damage buff via Defiance, a higher max damage cap (admittedly not a super common thing to hit even with the lower Sentinel cap), stronger snipe attacks on average (most Sent replacements are a fair bit weaker, but Elec and Storm are actually stronger in this regard), and a wider variety of melee attacks to supplement their ranged attacks with. To be fair, Sents do have Vulnerability and their stun/mezz attacks actually do damage (unlike most Blaster versions, i.e. Tesla Cage), but that's not enough to stop the gap from widening. So really, the moral of the story is that Blasters are generally going to do more damage than the Sentinel using similar sets, but the Sent's damage is still high enough to be a viable and fun experience outside of pinnacle sweatlord stuff like HM*4.

The advantage of Pistols over Dual Wield is having higher DPA out of the gate, but the slower recharge on DW can help it proc a bit better (but probably still not great because it's not that much slower).

The chance is 100%. That formula just figures out how much damage it does. An example of a similar power with a chance lower than 100% (in this case, 80%) would be Sentinel Fire Armor's Molten Embrace (it also does lower damage too, because lol). https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.molten_embrace_proc&at=sentinel

This is something that was requested during closed beta testing for the set, but unfortunately the devs took a hard stance that they want it to be this way and that's final. In fact, it was originally going to have a much slower recharge time to make it harder to resummon in lower levels but we managed to miraculously get that aspect improved at least. I wish I had better news. 😐

Storm is a set that wants your constant attention to maintain Storm Cell and power up Category 5. Thus, a more "passive" feeling armor like SR would make more sense here (Regen isn't as active on Sents as other ATs but still more active than SR). Electric Armor is another mostly passive choice that would work with it, and its good endurance management comes in handy since Storm can be a bit thirsty at times. Not to mention it also fits a similar theme too with the lightning/electric stuff.