FupDup

Rad/Rad: Lots of PBAOE spam, very blappy Elec/Energy: Similar to Elec/Elec but with defense instead of resistance Water/Invuln: Very tanky but the ST damage was kinda pants (partly my fault for not proc'ing it) Beam/Bio: All around good damage and very tanky, mine was Crysis themed (Bio armor is literally perfect for the Crysis Nanosuit) AR/Fire: Also did this one, was mostly fine but Fire is kinda squishy for my tastes I'll give an anti-endorsement to Archery because it doesn't have the AOE of its other AT counterparts (the nuke normalization hurt it) and the ST is also pants against enemies with high lethal resist. And the lack of secondary effects means you can't lean on procs as much to fix it. So either take it with Bio to shore up the damage or lean heavily into the epic pools. Assault Rifle doesn't suffer the nuke normalization problem as much because you actually get AIM (unlike other ATs) and there's so much excessive AOE in the set that it's hardly noticeable.

Instead of adding a new power, the existing Build Up on Stalkers could just be replaced with a variant that had a larger buff. But really, I don't think such a change is really urgent right now. Stalkers are good, albeit somewhat specialized. More distinction/flavor would be nice but I think that there are other ATs that need help much more. Ideally they should be more significantly different, but as long as Scrappers and Stalkers are both good (which they are) then that's not a bad place to be.

One possibility for an AOE enhancement could be turning Refractor Beam into a true chain attack, because right now the description is a lie. It's actually just a standard 15 ft circular AOE attack like Ball Lightning, M30, etc. This would further distinguish the set from not only its other AT counterpart but also other blast sets (right now the only chain blast attack is in Storm Blast).

Shuriken Blast plz

Get as close to soft/hard caps for res/def/HP as possible depending on armor set (i.e. don't care about defense much if using a pure resist set, vice-versa), then pile on whatever extra stuffs I can like recharge. All builds try to maintain a certain amount of net recovery per second unless they have a clicky recovery power of some sort (in which case I can get away with skimping a little on the blue bar). Don't use Hasten very often, but when I do I make sure it's perma and usually pair it with Spiritual or Agility alpha (depending on armor set type) to make it perma much easier than otherwise. I slot full IO sets most of the time, occasionally frankenslotting for certain bonuses. Hamis are sometimes used for ToHit/End (i.e. Tactics) or Res/End (i.e. Tough).

It's not bugged, it's just weak.

Yeah, Sent epics are a lot more "optional" than most other ATs. You aren't plugging in a gaping open hole like you are on other ATs (i.e. adding armor to an armorless AT or ranged attacks to a pure melee specialist). The main thing Sent epics are there for is a strong ST melee attack (aka min-max). Psi also has the added ranged ST attack of Dominate, if you proc bomb it (without proc bombing it's not really impressive). If you have a primary like Storm or Ice, then maybe one of the immobilize powers would be useful too (because of the annoying afraid effect that patch powers create).

It's interesting how the primary and epic choices are largely agreed upon, but the secondaries are mostly wildly different (Bio barely winning so far).

I was comparing Sent vs. Sent. The Blaster ones don't have a consistent baseline because they have varying recharges. The Sent ones are mostly uniform so if there was an outlier it would stick out pretty hard. Overcharge: 56.7669 energy (inner radius) 137.8187 energy (outer radius) Thunderous Blast: 56.7669 smashing (inner) 137.8187 energy (outer) Atomic Blast: 56.7669 smashing (inner) 137.8187 energy (outer) Dreadful Wail: 56.7669 smashing (inner) 137.8187 energy (outer) Blackstar: 56.7669 negative (inner) 137.8187 negative (outer) Nova: 56.7669 energy (inner) 137.8187 energy (outer) Meteor: 56.7669 fire (inner) 137.8187 smashing (outer) Psychic Wail: 56.7669 psi (inner) 137.8187 psi (outer) Inferno: 56.7669 fire (inner) 137.8187 fire (outer) I stuck with the "single shot" nukes because those are easier to deal with than DOT stuff like Rain of Arrows, Full Auto, or Category 5. This covers almost all of them anyways so it should be enough to form a comparison. All of them share the same recharge. I don't see any outliers among these, at least not in terms of raw damage or recharge (secondary effects can be debated as to which might be better, animation times, other little nuances). If we're going to go with the conclusion of Sent Overcharge being OP, that means we would have to nerf EVERY other Sent nuke because most of them do the same damage with the same recharge. How is Overcharge too strong compared to other Sentinel nukes? And there's also the point that Blasters have a 16 target cap vs. Sentinel's 10, plus defiance, uniform nuke damage instead of inner radius stuff, larger AOE radius (Sentinel nukes are mostly 20ft, Blasters and others are 25ft) more damage granted from Aim, higher damage cap, longer range, Build Up in most secondaries, being actually appreciated by their teammates and the general playerbase...I think the Blasters will be fine.

Overcharge on Sents doesn't seem very out of line to me because it has identical damage stats as Thunderous Blast and most other Sent nukes. Sent nukes are really easy to compare for outliers since they all have the same recharge (other ATs are harder because many of their nukes trade recharge for upfront damage). Some examples: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.beam_rifle.overcharge&at=sentinel https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.electrical_blast.thunderous_blast&at=sentinel https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.radiation_blast.atomic_blast&at=sentinel https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.sonic_attack.dreadful_wail&at=sentinel If anything, I think this makes it look like the non-Sent version of Overcharge is undertuned rather than Sents being too strong. If we nerfed Sent Overcharge for the sake of Blasters' feelings, then it would be the shittier compared to other Sent nukes. And there's no way we're going to nerf every other Sentinel nuke down to the same level of whatever Overcharge would get smacked down to. And I don't think Sents need to be pooped on any more than they are already. Like seriously join the early daily Hamidon raid and there's almost always several people shitting on the AT as if they're griefing their own team worse than a petless Mastermind. Discord has a fair bit of it too. Let Sents have a W for once. Just this once. As a treat.

Seismic Blast's nuke is a good contender for the biggest ball you can throw around, and since it comes from the sky you can pretend you're dunking a basketball or something. Sentinels give up a bit of upfront damage and target cap on nukes, but they can use it faster so you could substitute quality for quantity of balls. Somebody claims to have gotten the recharge on Meteor pretty damn short because of the set's mechanics combined with the AT's shorter base recharge time on T9s.

It's a similar situation as Brutes where the ATO procs are mediocre but the set bonuses are pretty swanky. As for Opportunity Strikes, I normally 5-slot that one for the 10% recharge (there are other places to get that, sure, but it's fairly convenient to finish off the set if you're already invested) and sometimes 6-slot if I need the extra defenses. Since Energy Aura is a typed defense set, the extra 5% E/N defenses at 6 slots might be useful to save slots elsewhere.

The main thing to look forward to is getting your nuke every 30 seconds or less once the build has sufficiently matured, and it's especially nice on Beam since the set is known for its extreme lack of AOE on every other AT. The ATO set bonuses for range also help with QOL a lot.

Before I log off I like to drop an Ouros portal so that somebody who doesn't have it unlocked on that alt yet can grab it.

I usually end up using Flight the most because of the sheer versatility and control it offers. Having several LOTG mule powers doesn't hurt. Second most used is Super Speed because wheeeeeeeee, and Super Jump is third because it just doesn't fit a lot of my toons' themes but I don't dislike it. I used Infiltration once for theme and it was kinda slow but I don't totally hate it. Teleport is the only one that I outright avoid because I tried it once on a Fire/Shield Scrapper and my endurance bar was begging for mercy while going across large zones. I could maybe consider it again if paired with an armor set that came with high recovery by default, but not with an already thirsty set like Shield. No other travel power requires endurance slotting for basic functionality (the others can just mule a Winter's Gift proc and call it a day), and with the extra attention needed to operate it, I just feel like the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I'd rather take Mystic Flight or Speed of Sound as a compromise.

We could alternatively go in the other direction and let the cone extend a bit further and/or make it a little bit wider so it can hit multiple targets more consistently. This would unfortunately result in lower procs rates so the ST damage would suffer a little if you proc'd out the power.

Well, a part of the problem is that a lot of these extraneous things and systems might not need to have existed in the first place. IMO there's a lot of bloat in the system. TO's already got taken out (good riddance) and DO's probably should too. As for SOs vs. crafted IOs, IMO only one of the two really needs to exist to fill in the niche of a cheap filler if you can't slot proper IO sets or something due to either lacking resources or the power not being eligible (i.e. can only put generic recharge in Hasten, generic endurance in Assault, etc.).

SOs work fine as cheap filler pieces up until the tipping point where crafted IOs start to take over. Not every power can take the prestige enhancements (i.e. armor or support stuff), and if you've got a bunch of attacks those 5 won't be able to cover everything by themselves.

The Malta sapper beam.

All I know is that when I played back on live in the days when VEATs were still brand new, leveling was so, so, incredibly sloooooooooooooooooooooooow. It took freaking forever just to gain even one notch on the XP circle. Homecoming with no XP boosters, patrol XP, etc. is leaps and bounds much faster than my distant live server memories. Maybe this boost came on the live server sometime after I stopped playing, or maybe it was introduced by HC, IDK which.

Upgrade Malta. They acquired Battle Maiden and her nanomachines (son!) and I wanna see how that plot point pans out.

Attuned PVPs can be very useful in leveling builds (unless you want to keep unslotting and replacing them every few levels), but when you reach level 47+ then the crafted variants are indeed superior.

No. What they did with Fire's rez is let you use it while you're still alive for weaker effect. For Regen's rez power, Sentinels already did a similar thing in that using it while alive will boost your max HP. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_defense.regeneration.second_wind&at=sentinel

The "problem" to fix is that the sets are basically useless, similar to what Training Origin enhancements used to be. If you have the money, you can use any of the level 10-50 sets. If you don't have the money, you can use the free P2W prestige enhancements and/or SO's. The poop sets don't have a niche. There are already yellow sets that can compete with oranges and even purples to an extent so yes, I do think that it would be good for build variety if the existing worthless sets were improved to have kind of application, even if niche. And there are also some rare sets that are trashed on by uncommons, like Tempest for instance which only scales level 15-30. Compare it to, say, Thunderstrike, and it's an absolute joke. Rarity does not equal power for the most part (purples are almost always good but yellows and oranges are all over the place).

I'm going to repeat a part of my post because you seemed to miss it. At these levels, people can ALREADY use powerful sets like ATOs, Winters, PVPs, and Overwhelming Force. These sets all can be slotted at level 10, while there are some so-called "early" sets that can't even be slotted until 15-20 while being drastically weaker in power than those aforementioned 10-50 sets. The only way that buffing currently useless sets would make the early game easier is if they somewhere were made to be more powerful than those sets like ATOs. That's a very high bar to clear and thus very unlikely. I just can't see stuff like Bonesnap or Salvo truly posing a threat to stuff to the 10-50 sets.