FupDup

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.

The realism argument is silly because incarnate powers are given to us by a magical well anyways, and really just look around at other abilities in this game. Like how MM pets can summon anywhere despite their animations, i.e. robots and mercs descending from the sky even when you're in a sewer or thugs coming out of a manhole cover on top of a mountain. This is ultimately moot however because the devs have stated that they have no intentions of ever adding more incarnate powers to the game.

Another discrepancy in his post is that he said Bio has dead enemy clickies, which does apply to melee ATs but not Sents. And Sent Regen has lower clickiness compared to other ATs. He definitely had melee ATs in mind with his list.

If we're broadening the criteria of "defense" to mean any armor and not just literal defense-based armors, then Invuln is another top-tier hands-off choice and Electric is above average (like top of B tier or low to mid A tier).

Maneuvers is the other defense power you have that can hold an LOTG. As for Thunderous Blast, you could maybe 3-slot Annihilation for a bit of extra energy/negative resistance, or load it up with damage procs.

What I would suggest for freeing up slots would be to give up some of your defensive set bonuses, because Regen doesn't have any native defense and has zero DDR, which means trying to build for defense is very costly and can be deleted by any NPC with a defense debuff. Specifically, here are the trimmings I would make: 1. Drop the acc/dam piece from Opportunity Strikes (Lightning Bolt), making this a 5-slotted power instead of 6. 2. Drop Charge Up to just 3 slots, not just because of the defense thing but also because you don't need the extra recovery and the damage set bonus is too tiny to be noticed in gameplay. 3. You might also opt to remove the EndMod pieces from Stamina and/or Quick Recovery, because your recovery is going to be pretty good anyways. That would let you fully slot out Tesla Cage and then some (probably add another LOTG and finish slotting out Thunderous Blast). Also related to defense, I don't think the Reactive Armor is helping much for the same reason. I'd replace them with 4-slotted Titanium Coating for slightly higher resist bonuses. Another note is that you've hit the max set bonus count for the 1.87% HP bonus, meaning that one of those bonuses is wasted. This is mostly coming from all of the Preventative Medicines spammed throughout the build, so maybe replace one of the 3-slotted groups of that with a different set (probably just Doctored Wounds because Numina's will still hit the set bonus limit and Panacea's low tier bonuses don't help much here).

There's a few options for power picks: *Melee Hybrid incarnate power (only while the toggle is active, scales based on enemy count in 10 meters) *Rune of Protection from the Sorcery pool (180s fixed recharge) *Martial Combat (secondary set) has Inner Will Otherwise, you'd have to use consumables like Inspirations or Defense Amplifiers from the START vendor. You could try slotting the mezz protection ATO in one of your T1 or T2 powers so you can use it to break free while mezzed.

Radiation Armor is top tier. Radiation Blast is mid to highish tier depending on slotting (high proc slotting options). And they happen to have synergy together because both want to be in melee for their PBAOEs.

Maybe tie it to the alignment system, making Rogues treat civies as neutral by default while pure villains still treat them as target practice (if you wanna be a non-psychopath bad guy that's what Rogues are for, just like how Vigs are for morally grey or edgy "good guys" as opposed to pure blue heroes being the "boy scout" role models). There might be tech for this in the game already seeing how Loyalists and Resistance in Praetoria treat their own faction NPCs on the street as neutral usually, or at least I remember that being the case (haven't played goldside in a while, need to change that...). On the flipside, possibly allow Vigilantes to treat civies as neutral/targetable rather than friendly because one of the common themes in their alignment missions is directly or indirectly killing dozens of random people just to maybe kill one villain.

Storm is a weird set, almost like a blast version of Traps. By that I mean that it's a slow-moving, area-denial kind of set that works best when it has time to set up (protecting or attacking static positions) but can fall behind on fast moving teams. It has times when it shines but also times when it...doesn't. Another issue is that it's a bit "clicky" due to resummoning both Storm Cell and Cat 5 frequently.

Giving an AT different FX options feels weird and I can't really agree with it because it limits the fantasy of other classes, especially for such highly requested things as eye beams. If this was going to be a post about making the powers mechanically/functionally different, like how BR gets another AOE or Elec Armor gets higher Regen, that I would support 42069%. There are definitely some primaries and secondaries that would benefit from being made more mechanically different to suit the unique needs of the AT.

SR is definitely a great armor set, but I think calling it an off-tank might be pushing it a bit. SR is more of an all-rounder with a slight offensive edge due to the recharge boost it gives. DP/SR is a fine and extremely common Sent build because of the fantasy it provides, so if you want to run it then run it, as long as you keep your expectations grounded. Something really, truly tanky would be Dark/Invuln (one of the tankiest armors paired with a debuffing primary) if you're aiming for that specific gameplay niche rather than a Matrix/Tomb Raider/whatever character fantasy that SR provides.

My suggestion for Presence is to just add a toggle taunt aura as a second T2 power choice. This kills a few different birds with one stone: >Makes the T3 powers more worthwhile because the current T2 is pretty bad, meaning you effectively have to take a "wasted" power pick for them >Allows any AT to try to play as an offtank, which could be especially useful for things like MMs, Crabbers, and Kheldians >Helps alleviate player concerns with runners

We have water ranged attacks and support powers. We lack water armor and control powers, which may make it hard to fill in the necessary 5 power slots on certain ATs.

Power creep is anything I don't like.

A lot of it comes from the -res debuffs and/or +damage buffs supplied in their secondary support set. Of course, the amount of those buffs/debuffs can vary wildly between different support sets, with a few having either no -res or +dam at all.

What Lumi is referencing is a past statement by one of the power devs that Sentinels were designed as "ranged Scrappers" rather than an "armored Blaster" or whatever. This design philosophy is likely the root of most issues faced by the AT. Even with that supposed design philosophy, most people rightfully still compare Sents to Blasters and other ranged ATs because the entire reason Sents were created in the first place was to provide a ranged blasting playstyle paired with the safety of armor. Sentinel AOE power was already curved pretty massively by reducing their target caps to mirror those of melee ATs, so including the range reduction on TAOE's is just another layer of annoyance on top of that (multi-layered interlocking nerfs is a staple of Sentinel kit design it seems).

Since cones take the same TAOE enhancement sets, my brain lumped them all together. It looks like rain-type powers are only 60 feet on non-Sents but most of the others do tend to be 80 except for a few nukes (90 Meteor and Rain of Arrows, 60 Thunderous Blast and Blizzard).

Sentinels are an unpopular AT, so discussions about them tend to slip through the cracks unless those discussions are shitting on them. On to the topic, yeah it'd be nice for quality of life but the power devs seem to think that the armor secondary is super omega extremely powerful, which caused them to place a lot of extra limitations on their primary and inherent powers that most other AT's don't need to deal with. Another thing is that many of these AOEs do actually have shorter range even on the other ATs. Like Flamethrower and Buckshot are also 40ft on Blasters for example. Fistful of Arrows is 50 ft. Some go out to 60ft, some go all the way out to 80ft, it's pretty inconsistent. So if we normalized all of them to 60 on Sents, this would actually have Sents out-ranging the other ATs in some cases. To avoid that, I think the rule should instead be that they're allowed to share the same range as the normal version capped up to 60 feet max for most sets and 75 for Psi (because Psi has extended range).