Zerethon

This, combined with the rest of your post. So much. If i had access to the tools the devs do, i could probably make a ridiculously complex scatter-chart and average out things relating specifically to sentinel based on things like the number of active sentinels and the "K/D" Ratio of them compared to other classes. Or i could make an equally massive DPS Graph using community data..., but there's so many variables it's hard to do true solid testing, because everyone has a different baseline they test by (Clear times, pylon times/dps, hardest solo-able content, etc) and a different methodology (Full IO's, full IO's + Incarns, Proc/nonproc builds, SO's, unenhanced, etc.) The real data itself is effectively, anecdotal evidence at best. You can base your OPINION of an AT on your own experience, but someone else can build the same AT with the same combo and have a completely different experience, this leads to bias (I'm happy with my Tri-elec doing around 150dps solo and greatly enjoy nuking endurance, someone else might think it's trash because it doesn't instagib 5 hamidons at once, we agree to disagree) You can't even set a STANDARD, if we're being honest here. Fire might do the highest DPS overall....when we're talking an enemy with no resists to any damage type, but if they have 50% Fire res and 0 Energy res, well, energy-based sets will do more DPS now won't they (assuming roughly equal base damage) And thus, the problem in our discussion, we're talking about potential tweaks to an AT as a whole, but we're all using a different ruler to take the same measurement.

And that was the point, you CAN balance parts of the game around the most broken available metric...to a point, WoW and many others have EXTREMELY STRICT metas for the hardest endgame content, this drives the overall meta of the game toward that because it's the pro way If you don't have enough "Slip" in the hardest content, you screw up ALL the content, and that was never CoX. WoW Only stood the test of time because people were willing to put up with it's constant BS and sunk-cost/sunk-time fallacies and they advertise the hell out of it while pushing the actual difficulty and creativity of the game down so even a shrimp could play it well after a couple hours. I've been around long enough to remember when IO's didn't even exist. Want the "Best Gear"? Go raid hami. But EVEN BLOODY HAMIDON never required a super-specific meta, it was built around the idea of having CC+RDPS+MDPS And some flavor of support, there were "Optimal" combinations, but even a relatively rag-tag group could take him out and i feel this has been lost to time as IO's and Sets and things have been added. CoX is still the only MMO where you can take basically any combination of 8 random chars into a TF and have a solid chance at beating it. level 50 or not. But, semantics and politics of game-balance and design aside, this is the sentinel thread and not an overall balance thread. Point is, we're talking about the balance of the SENTINEL throughout the ENTIRE GAME, not just what it should or shouldn't be able to do at max level. Discounting SO/DO/Basic IO based testing around the idea of "Only level 50 numbers matter" or whatever is, well, arbitrary. Assuming you haven't already, go make an alt account, make a sentinel, and then play the game without using ANYTHING from P2W, no XP Boosts, no vet powers, no nothing. No PL's or anything cheeky either, entirely organic gameplay. Notice something? At lower levels without an SG Base stocked with IO's of every level range and a bunch of respec recipes, and a few easy mil from your farming, those first few levels as a sent are about as slow as being a solo tanker. no NR or vet attacks means you have a LOT less options at the low-end of the game, and the clunkiness of the current passive becomes scary clear. This data point matters just as much as a veteran player who knows how to build toons and already is established. Why? Meet James McNoob the 3rd, he decided to come check out homecoming because his friends told him CoX was amazing, and he decided to roll a sentinel because he liked the sound of it. He's also never played CoX and barely understands the wiki, so he's winging it. THESE PEOPLE are the "Squeaky wheel" we mention about, or joke about sometimes. "Just git gud" isn't a proper response for the new-player experience. I Spent nearly the first half-year of HC avoiding making sentinels because they seemed "Broken" and not in a good way, it wasn't until i said "Ah t'hell with it" Came here, read these forums, and spent a few more months derping around with builds and stupid ideas before getting the hang of them and forming a solid opinion that they're basically "Fine, but clunky, could use some QoL" We can agree to disagree here, but having to know all the tricks about farming merits and basically how to print money with them, how to build properly using IO sets, how combining procs work, etc. should not affect the basic new-player experience. And we should ALSO be able to agree on this: No AT, not a single one, should ever actually need IO sets to function properly and be fun to play. Not saying sentinels are in that camp (They're actually pretty fine up to +2 with just SO's/BaseIO's) but all content shouldn't also be based around some arbitrary build-target at 50 either, nor should an entire AT.

Hoooly crap i missed a lot while i was at work: @Frostweaver and a couple others, Yeah, there's a reason i never said "The game is balanced around SO's" because that hasn't been true since jesus walked the earth. Rather, i do my testing WITH only SO's because things like procs & PPM mess with my numbers, i'm fully aware of how insane proc builds can get, but i generally don't build for pure DPS in most cases (My Elec/Elec i always bring up uses Agility alpha for more end drain paired with preemptive....for more end drain, because it's fun and still powerful) BUUUUUT you also can't balance the game and content around the idea of what classes are capable of at max level + levelshift + "most optimum MLG pro gamer random latin phrase 700 procs and a taco" build #584 either. This has been the death and downfall of SO MANY GAMES AND PROJECTS. You have to find the middle ground between the bottom rung and that, and then balance content to one side of that middle or the other (Easy content on the low side, harder content past it to varying degrees) Push it too far up, and you start forcing specific combinations of very specific builds because it's the only way to beat it. Push it too low and your better players won't feel challenged by it and complain. (See: GW2 raids and meta, that is a cesspool) Where does sentinel fall in this then? At a baseline of SO's/Non-set IO's pretty comfortably in the middle, practically any combo can do extremely well Solo or teamed, but you become several orders of magnitude scarier to heavy targets when you have a team with a couple big DPS AT's in it I Don't feel like after a year they'd honestly completely abandon the AT, it's far too popular If they REALLY want to push it as a "Ranged scrapper" i'd honestly go more "Ranged brute" which i've laid out before in one form, but basically just convert the gauge into a fury bar. More bar = More damage, and if we're above say, 75% "Fury" we get the passive heal/end/"Damage proc" of the current opportunity The problem is, to make up for the SERIOUS drop in effectiveness on teams (No more debuff) the damage % per point of "Fury" would have to be pretty high and/or Aim would have to be replaced by build-up (More damage, less Tohit) My biggest issue then becomes, why play a blaster? If sentinels could do just as much damage while being several times harder to kill, that defeats the purpose. Sure we can't be a blapper, but that's a niche thing. And thus, the circular argument repeats itself. My PREFERRED solution to this problem/argument is just to modify the class to be more like a VEAT/HEAT with a ton more options. VEAT's are soldiers who become more like squad leaders, with team-focused buffs and toggles that are superior versions of the leadership pool, which makes them a similar asset to a sentinel (while they're not super destructive as a scrapper or blaster might be, they provide a huge boon to the team) HEAT's are Jack of all trades, they get various boons for being on a team, and can be built to fill any necessary role at a moments notice going from Pure DPS, to DPS/support to straight tank even as the moment arises. Or they can be built to focus entirely on one or two of those roles So, what would the sentinel actually be, then? Well, here goes nothing: New inherent - "Opportunity" (Was going to change it, but meh, i kinda like it) As a Sentinel, you are extremely adept at taking advantage of and pointing out flaws in the strategies of your enemies. You attacks have a chance of striking a target with opportunity, allowing you and your allies to gain advantage over them in combat. Attacks you make on vulnerable targets do increased damage Sooo, what does this do, exactly? Well, it works like an unresistable debuff (but can be avoided, it requires attacks to hit still to be applied) that causes the enemy to release a buff pulse when hit, more or less, the buff it applies to allies is: ~5% Damage, ~10% Recovery, ~10% Regen - Stacking up to 3/4(more?) times, lasts for 10(15?) seconds, refreshes all stacks when applied But why? One, it makes the skill entirely passive, no more skill dependency here. Two, it strengthens the team-buffing side (by now giving all allies the buff to heal/reco) while not nerfing the damage, per se. and Three, it makes it interactive Basically, a scenario: I throw out a Zapping bolt, it procs "Vulnerability" on it's target, my tank hits that target with foot stomp, triggering my vulnerability and applying a stack of "Advantage" to all allies within say, 100ft or so, followed by the target dying to a crit from a stalker, but triggering a second stack to be applied At no point did i have to look for a target, i just do DPS and my passive takes advantage of that and the tankiness of sentinel in general to make sure i can keep sticking those debuffs and getting those stacks on everyone. The current "Targeter" becomes the indicator for the new debuff, the buff wave doesn't need a visual effect, and it doesn't even need to apply a visible effect to teammates For the sentinel, you get the current "Offensive" opportunity when hitting targets you've made vulnerable, just much stronger, we're talking probably 20-25%+ harder not counting the buff stacking on you. The spirit is still the same, ranged DPS with scrapper-esque bursts of damage, but it keeps that unique flair that sentinels have (scary solo, monstrous in teams or together)

I Know, but this is the internet, i have to poke at it. The "SO Vacuum" is a very legitimate comparison, not everyone has 500 quintillion influence and a personal farming account to PL their own toons, so comparing SO-slotted builds means more to me than the absolutely IO'd right to hell L50 builds when i'm looking at class power or issues. After all, it's not like the AVERAGE PLAYER who decides to make a sentinel is going to hit level 20, and then partial slot all their non-50 sets and expand the slotting of them every time they get more slots. Not to mention, a LOT of people, including several of my friends hardly use ATO or purps in their builds, because they don't feel like putting hundreds of millions of INF into a single alt....when they have a couple dozen or more alts to build out, heck, half of them don't even use Mid's And, again, you hit it on the head. Sentinels aren't really blaster-tier DPS, even as broken as you can get with incarns and a procmonster build, you're still only doing about 50% of a blasters damage....at BEST. Compared to a Crab/Fort/Def/Corr though, your damage is a lot closer or better, but you also have the survival. The proper "Big three" here, would be Sentinels, Crab Spiders/Fortunatas (Ranged VEAT) & PB/WS - Ranged primary offense with Durable secondary sets/melee options. We're a lot tougher and have a really solid debuff, but we don't have the same tier of team buff as the VEAT's or the sheer options a PB/WS has. But more appropriate to actual GAMEPLAY to compare sentinel to those classes. Blasters are the "Extreme" side of ranged damage, but there's literally 4 other "Ranged attack + Defensive secondary" AT's that aren't sentinels.

Even with high defense and resist, you're STILL going to have that one random streakbreaker hit be a nuke or a hold, and then it's naptime.

You're right, but you're wrong. you DO include the debuffs the sentinel applies when talking about the sentinels damage contribution. Because it's not like i magically do 20% less damage when i apply my debuff to a target. I do exactly the same base damage just now that target takes increased damage. In no scenario does my PERSONAL contribution not go up in debuff state I might only do another ~30-40 DPS personally, but we can't just say "The sentinels debuff doesn't count towards their own damage contribution because everyone else does more damage with it" So my contribution on the deathmarked target goes up by the same % as everyone else, it's just that ~20% boost is SO MUCH better for the blasters/scrappers/whatever on the team, because they have a higher base damage and boost their own damage far harder than i boost my own even with Aim Thus, my PERSONAL contribution on debuff state is lower (Sub-100DPS typically) but across the TEAM that can become hundreds. we're still only counting the debuff once here. Just considering it the same as any other damage-boosting debuff. a sonic/sonic defender won't do a ton of damage, but their damage contribution to the team still includes their own damage. So, edge cases like this do not factor into my ideas of "Balance" or anything in the slightest, my comparisons are all made with the same SO Combo for 5/6 slotted offense powers. They also do NOT include buffs from incarnates or anything of the sort as well. What happens if you go do a Posi TF? No more epic pool, no more incarnates, etc. happens. (Seriously, i've seen people posting builds that don't have travel powers until like level 44+ because they ONLY do level 50+ content) When we look at the BROAD range, L1 to L50, sans sets/incarns/whatever sentinels will never touch blasters in damage at all, but blasters will also drop like rocks down a well. The line blurs a lot once you add sets, and NEARLY vanishes once incarns come in, but sentinels will still endure longer and tougher fights easier But the blaster will also notice the sentinels presence, because the moment they target that boss with the marker on him, they're a god. Pretty much, highest single target ranged vs highest single target ranged. And i'm SO AWARE of how powerful procs are, i know i can break so many powers by just proc'ing them all to hell and back and getting accuracy/rech/end reduc from other sets in other powers. And i staunchly refuse to do so, i will OCCASIONALLY do triple-set slotting (Proc + 2pc + 2pc or 2+2+2 or something) Because of bonuses, but i try to avoid stacking too many procs in things (Other than health/stam). just because it would be SO EASY for that to be nerfed away and break everything. Main point still stands though, regardless of slotting, increasing the sentinel scaler as a band-aid fix for reliability in the long run doesn't do NEARLY as much as people think it would. It would indeed make solo sentinel stronger, but it doesn't solve the mechanical or build-dependent issues the class actually has

So, we've talked about the issue with "Just up the scaling" before, but let me break this down in a stupidly oversimplified form: On my Elec, my hardest-hitting non nuke attack does about 315dmg, and on my Elec/NRG Blaster, my hardest hitting (no defiance) attack does 678dmg (!) and these are both with no buffs or debuffs Lets say they do that much damage to an enemy through their base resists, for the sake of simplicity and argument. so combined, if those 2 attacks hit, they do 993 damage (Not counting Aim, build up, defiance, etc, that's just base smack in the face damage) Now lets say i spike the guy with opportunity, dropping his resists to our damage by 20%, so now we hit 20% harder (Roughly, this part is pretty hard to explain fully but "20% more damage" because -20% resist can actually vary wildly because of how the game works) Now i do 378dmg, and the blaster does 814 (!) for a total of 1192 damage Both these attacks are roughly 3s CD (2.9 and 2.4s) so 993/3 = 331dps, 1192/3 = 397.3dps from just spamming those 2 attacks, not even a rotation. Now if we went extreme and bumped the scale to 1.125 same as a blaster, that's a 17.5%+ increase, so it becomes 370base/444 debuffed which yeah, is still only like 66% of a blaster while in opp on a debuffed target but with nearly complete impunity (innate self healing, end return, status protection, damage resistance....) Remember, we can buff an ENTIRE TEAMS DAMAGE by "20%" (See above) when we hit an opportunity strike, hence why we're in sorta the tanker boat for damage. The trade-off is we get stupid survival, fast nukes, great debuffs, and pretty good sustain (We can DPS for longer due to opp and it's end return) but we're not the bursty types. And honestly, we don't need it Yeah, it kinda sucks, we get it. You wanna nuke and see those 900+ Damage numbers like a blaster, but we're more like a defender. Dangerous enough solo if not fast, but in a team you basically death-mark a single target and can get it to nearly 100% uptime We just need a way to make that DPS Boost less clunky and therefore more dangerous, so that we don't have these scenarios where we're just going through the rotations....and we accidentally waste it on a minion because of autotarget and we were 2 points of opp higher than we thought.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. Tank/brute WP is NUTS if built well (higher HP and better scaling = way stronger regen) And it's not just that, Sentinel regen has the absorb toggle and attacks from a RANGE which means you can be crafty about how much damage you take (By say, hovering as usual and making melee mobs useless) so my 51-odd HP/sec + Absorb/sec from Instant + just straight up ignoring 90% of melee attacks through movement = Absolutely disgusting. And Dark blast, oh boy. i run a Dark/Bio combo so you have that pure insanity of blackstar stacked with /Bio's BS and it's just...wrong on so many levels. And dark is a sleeper to me. On melee it's amazing, but the angry ball of pocket lint works suprisingly well with range. I paired it with dark originally and it was basically unkillable, now i've got it paired with water like you do and it's just....comical. You play it kinda like my Elec/rad sents but not because you have a melee attack, but because cloak of fear and oppressive can outright just stop most enemies dead while you casually blow them apart. DPistols/Dark is another one, it's not a really good DPS build at all, but there's something hilarious about seeing a ton of bullets flying out of a cloud and a dozen enemies just shaking in terror...while on fire.

This, right here, is why Sentinels have joined stalkers in my roster of "Main" characters. Both AT's have some absolutely disturbing shenanigans they are capable of, but it's so build-dependent and out of place you don't see it unless you're playing it or looking for it. It's only when you're looking for it that you realize bosses are dropping before minions and every so often even an AV's health just chunks by 10-15% out of nowhere Or, anyone who's done an SBB or something with me on my Elec has seen me literally flatline even AV's endurance in seconds while scaled down, and keep it basically at zero the whole fight, or the EB's in an ITF not getting to use unstoppable.....because i ate their end bar 2 minutes ago and debuffed them into the dirt. Lets look at a couple examples: Elec blast/Elec armor/Mu Mastery + Preemptive interface and Agillity paragon: "**** your endurance" the musical, can be built with a freebie travel power in LReflexes+Swift and set bonuses too. Nearly 5-caps resists with ease (Smash, lethal, fire, cold, energy) and with incarnates, has 20%+ Defense to all and can turn so many fights into a complete cheese-fest. Even AV's need endurance to use skills, and if you eat it all, they just become punching bags full of loot. might not kill them EXTREMELY fast like some builds can, but you'll basically make easy pickings out of anything you touch. Anything toxic is a priority target first though, they can actually hurt you. Oh and you get a heal that reduces your own end costs by a stupid % on a low cooldown, so that's also a thing. Anything*/Regen: Oh man, this is some amusement WAITING to happen if you build for it. I did Rad/Regen and ended up at 1869hp and change with 51hp (50.92) PER SECOND in regeneration. Also instant healing is now a toggle again but it gives you absorbtion. Generally though regen is considered "Meh" nowadays because it's super hard to build well and the payoff is just on-par with most other sets....Unless you're a sentinel or a stalker. The advantages of stealth or ranged attacks is hard to explain to the jaded. Build it right with the right sets however, and on a sentinel it's especially strong, MoG can get you out of a swarm, but most of the time they won't even scratch you through absorb and potentially 45-50%+ Resist to a few types of damage, oh and you still get reconstruction, so y'know, abuse it. Best for last: Anything*/Dark armor: Put down that pitchfork! i'm not crazy i swear! But no, seriously, you want to talk about a creatively hard but rewarding build? Sentinel DA. If you want to off-tank or just explode the world in mostly melee range, this is your set. Dark armor has always been an expensive (In terms of EPS) armor set, but low-key one of the strongest in the game aside from it's lack of knock resist, but we have an IO for that now so skip acro and the added toggle We lose the damage aura...but keep both the fear and stun ones, get an improved version of the heal, and we still get a stealth power. Pair this with Rad/ Elec/ or anything else with a PBAOE damage/debuff ability and just go ham. The build will break your brain a little, but the payoff of being a lethal ball of pocket lint is worth it. Nobody expects a dust bunny to throw a giant bolt of lightning into their face, after all. All that aside though, you're right, but i still feel like the passive should not be part of the starting powers and dependent on taking both of them to use the full potential of it. it should either be entirely passive (Keep bar full, have chance to apply vuln on attacks as a "Crit" effect, scaling heal/end return per attack based on charge %) or dom-style clicky (Same as above, but click button at full bar to trigger the effect) Basically, make it easier for people to get into PLAYING a sentinel, right now builds aside, it feels like you have to sit someone down and teach them at least a highschool if not college-level course on how the class works so they figure out how to shred with the best. Builds will always be akward just like a PB/WS or VEAT because you can be entirely ranged with defense sets to worry about, not just doing the most damage.

I proposed a similar idea to this, which was actually even simpler, when you activate it, for the duration single-target attacks (And possibly at a lower chance, AOE) apply stacks of vulnerability to a target that last a few seconds for 5/7-10% resistance debuff each with a limit of 3 stacks from a single source Meaning we'd have the option of throwing a lower debuff on more targets, or focus on a single target and absolutely shred their resist like the current form. Just now it's entirely de-linked from our attacks

Yeah, i probably could have worded it a bit better, but the point was basically that if doing damage and only damage was all that mattered (EG: Debuffing/Buffing/Controlling/Etc. was useless) stacking blasters or something would be how you tackled content The reality is, buffing/debuffing etc. is SO STRONG in CoX that bringing only pure DPS is a losing game. A blaster with a Kin is always more dangerous than just 2 blasters due to speed, cooldown, damage, mez/damage resist buffing, etc paired with either a second DPS set or a CC set or pets now with MM's having /kin.

Oh man i missed a bit, here we go Not ENTIRELY sure if intentional, but you instantly proved what i said with this. Pure raw DPS is NOT how you actually do the most damage. Otherwise stacking blasters would be all that mattered. In reality having a couple of Pure or High DPS builds paired with a lot of debuffs is always higher DPS. Because people are so used to the idea that "Support = weak and low damage" from other games, even buffers/medics in shooters tend not to have the biggest baddest guns available. So especially people who are basically new to COX Want to play the blaster/stalker/scrapper not the Troller/dom/brute/etc. Whereas, anyone who's played CoX for any length of time knows that if you want to kill things in femtosecond timescales, you bring a couple Kin/X - X/Kin builds. Remember doing Long killy TF's with THREE Fire/Kin trollers? Pepperidge farm remembers. And you smacked it directly on the head, because the top statement describes how to properly look at things like set & class balance. You don't nerf scrapper melee scalar because TW is too powerful, you nerf scrapper TW. You also don't buff scrappers because claws is too weak, you buff claws. Sets are representatives of themselves, not entire classes Context is EXTREMELY important, i mentioned i test with base SO's so generally in a 5-slotted attack i'll have 2dmg/1acc/1end/1rech @ 50 and suchforth for defensive powers/holds/etc. as this is more representative of what the BASE SET is capable of TW/Bio without IO's is alright, but without all the procs and end rec and such, it peters out pretty quick since TW is expensive to run. But at the fully-IO'd full incarn extremes? Yeah it's friggin' terrifying. And i do this for every class and every build i make before i start slotting them all out.

It happens in every team-based game, "X is horrible and i hate it because i can't do Y" Or in this case "Sentinel sucks because i'm not just a blaster with armor and i don't do a billion dps" I made a crab spider comparison before, and it's very apt, while you don't do a ton of damage without your pets and things, things like the uber-leadership toggles and venom grenade make it VERY obvious there's a crab on your team A Solo sentinel is still scary just the same, but when you put 1 or more on a team they really shine, it's constant DPS and a good sentinel is taking out priority targets (healy things, rezzers, etc) with the high-damage mez attacks and short chains while dropping Opportunity on Bosses/EB's/AV's so that the harder-hitting but more risky DPS can rip them to pieces while you keep giggling like an idiot every time you get a Devastation proc or the like on them. And honestly, the flak just drives me to break "weak" classes more. All of my "Mains" on here are Sentinels and Stalkers now, alongside a pure-arbiter SoA (Bane spec for stealth and debuff, perma pets w/ AR Attacks and buildup) I mean, if pure raw DPS was the only thing that mattered in the game, why would anyone play anything other than a blaster?

The problem too i think is people are looking at things like Mids or a Rikti pylon and calculating DPS based on 2 of TENS OF THOUSANDS of cases, easily Cool, you do 84927^3 DPS to a rikti pylon with all T4 incarns and a procmonster build....But what about in a scaled down TF against resistant enemies? It's just a variant of people wondering why their fire farmer instadies in a +4 ITF when they can do +4/X8 solo fire farming. Yeah, my DPS might be ~170 with debuffs, but i'm making EVERYONE ELSE do an extra 50+DPS which means i'm effectively doing 500+DPS in an 8man (Assuming my -res is the only -res on the team, when you stack a sentinel with a sonic/sonic defender it gets so much worse) This is what basically EVERYBODY always misses, single player single target DPS in the actual game basically means nothing other than you have a slight advantage in that one case since this isn't WoW or something where you end up 1v1'ing enemies rather often. Even basic Lv1 hellion groups in atlas are 2+ enemies at a time. Thus, the sentinel problem, in a vacuum our damage is low, but in practice you KNOW you have a sentinel on the squad when you see the crosshairs and an AV/EB/GM Whatever just implodes Seriously, had 3 of us on an ITF yesterday, Rom went down like we were doing a speedrun of a speedrun. Vulnerability paired with Kin buffs is stupid. This is also the key, see, sentinels don't have ANY downside on a team. Put down the torch and hear me out. Basically, every single mission in the game at some point involves combat, and at no point is there a downside to having a sentinel paired with you. 1.) They're going to do damage constantly to a target, and you pretty much never have to worry about them actually dying 2.) You're going to do more damage because they're going to be debuffing with opportunity 3.) Sentinel Mez-powers unlike blasters, typically do EXTREME damage and therefore we spam them, constantly taking enemies out of the fight 4.) Some armor sets like /Elec /Bio or /Invuln are tough enough to outright tank a suprising number of missions, making them a good aggro magnet for a squishy. It's all the fun of a scrapper with the advantage of debuffs and range, a blaster will hit harder but drop faster, especially at low levels. etc. This is why i push so hard for the Clicky-based opportunity, everything about how we currently work is actually completely fine when you take it out of this meta-based vacuum BS ****-waving contest and actually PLAY the game as one, the major issue is that fully utilizing the class and ability is down to timing, luck, and forced build paths. We basically get a "Hunters mark" type power as our passive and it's amazing, it's just easy to ignore when you focus solely on the damage of the lone sentinel If you don't believe it, duo a pylon or something with a sentinel twice and have them open with opportunity strike in the second round, then times that by 7 and you get the idea.

A Ton of valid info, and your posts are partly the driving force behind some of my ideas. "Just add crits" seems fine but lazy so i've spitballed variants (Inverse scourge, mini-crits during opportunity, etc.) As much as people probably ignore it, opportunity is actually amazing (Healing for 40+ health every single attack is pretty good) it's just easy to ignore in bigger fights On the DPS comment, my sents can push 200+ DPS even without being "Proc monster" builds so the damage isn't the problem when we're talking ST DPS, it's when you draw comparisons to blasters or corruptors instead of scrappers. "Ranged attacker" does not equal equivalent. Compared to a scrapper, we trade crits for extra safety and survival by having ranged attacks, no taunts, and a lack of damage auras generally. but i feel turning the class into LITERALLY just a ranged scrapper by dropping opportunity for crits is just....lame. Instead, i feel like it should be more a case of "Crab spooder: The AT" Durable ranged DPS with a team and self buff. If we don't want -res on a class passive effect to be a thing, how about making it like inverted defiance? More successful attacks increases our damage and the damage of nearby teammates? Or i mentioned inverse scourge before, we do more damage to targets at higher HP. Thus meaning we could basically "Crit" on targets over 50% or so health No matter what though, i don't think the AT should lose it's uniqueness, a large part of our survival and potential trickery comes from our innate healing ability in defense mode, and sets like dark blast that can stack BOTH effects at the same time show us just how good the AT could be if the effect wasn't as clunky to use. Heck i'd be happy with just making both effects part of a dom-type clicky (i'm fully in this camp, giving us a "Permadom" state of the buffs would solve some issues on odd sets) and modifying the -res effect into something more classy Honestly, anyone who says the crosshair popping up on a boss doesn't do anything hasn't played a sentinel long enough to see first-hand what happens in teams. even a single sentinel adds a surprising amount of DPS to a single target when opportunity hits. not necessarily from themselves though. Seriously, when i'm in a team beating on an AV that doesn't have a ton of debuffs and i see that little green ring appear on my attacks, it's just "PARTY TIME!" pop aim, spike the boss with it, and watch us suddenly melt a ton of health because that was the push we needed. Nobody but me will really notice, but it feels great.

True, and i always forget we have synshock now even though i've used it here and there. Though i still prefer 3-slot hasten, 2x+5 is sub-100% rech bonus on the power itself, 3x can push it to over 103% (ED Is annoying)

After i got over the headache from looking at it ( i HATE PM Builds) Some notes: Hasten should be 3-slotted for rech (3 base 50 IO's pretty much cap it, let alone boosted to max) and with permahasten you really don't need the 2x rech in aim, use them elsewhere to break other things more (it drops to about the same recharge you had before even with just gaussains in it) You can also go proc + Endmod perf shifter in stamina for the speed boost and use quickness + Swift slotted for speed to have a base 60mph+ runspeed with ninja run, it's not pretty and you do need a jetpack for some zones, but not needing a travel power is a slot free for other things (Rad armor, SR, nin, Elec, and probably more i'm missing can all do this since they have some form of self +spd +more Passive or toggle power) Pretty sure it can be optimized even further than that, but it's 3am here and thought machine is broken. Edit: 31s and change on aim (Original build 29s or so) & 68mph with stealth off but no-proc no-incarn hasten is perma by over 4s and on a proc it's more like 30s perma and 22s on aim

I tend to play like my stalkers, especially on my Elec/Elec and Ice/Nin, Focus on the biggest bad with my opener, move in and clear some trash in the process while landing the debuffs, and then pick off any priority targets still standing EG: Ice storm -> Blizzard -> Bitter freeze ray on the biggest bad, start burning rotation Or Thunderous Blast -> Jump in -> Short circuit -> Cages -> Thunderstrike -> DPS Both of these builds don't really do "Burst" but they do "Annoyingly constant damage and another thing" Ice/Nin has slows/holds/confuse and Elec/Elec is "**** your endurance bar" alongside holds and stuns The difference with brutes and scrappers is crits vs. fury, scrappers can land a lot more BURST damage, brutes are a lot more CONSTANT damage Sentinels are in the brute camp, we don't really do burst, but we can constantly lay fire on a target while being a decent threat to groups, since unlike blasters we have the advantage of armor and mez protections (Again, my Ele/Ele pushing 75% Resist to 5 types of damage without incarnates comes to mind) Where blasters fill the "Scrapper" role in the ranged department Since they have higher damage and more melee options + more self buffs, but like scrapper vs. brute, this comes at the cost of durability in pretty much all cases (A Fire/Nrg blaster can do a TERRIFYING amount of damage, at the cost of being pretty fast to fall if focused on where a Fire/EA Sentinel would be able to keep unloading on targets even under fire.) It's also worth noting that while we're still talking in a vacuum here, i'm talking in PVE @50 with zero incarnate powers on and just SO's - so no ATO's, sets, IO's or boosted IO's, HO's, etc. Sets, ATO sets, IO's and boosting combined with incarnates just skews the overall data in favor of the biggest bomb since they can cover all the bases you would normally lack, or the compromises you have to make in a build 'Cause yeah, a Fire/NRG/Something blaster (Mace?) with full sets/purples/superior ATO's and T4 incarnates at 50+1 can do things a "Squishy" shouldn't typically be able to do. And doing comparisons at that level of power is just meta-hounding and that accomplishes nothing.

I touched on this before, so i guess I'll bring out my own wall. Critical hits are interesting, because they're exciting, to be coming so close to death on a scrapper in a hard fight, and then get that crit that finishes off the last guy moments before he would have killed you is exciting. On stalkers, knowing that you constantly have that trump card of a Crit AS or a crit from hide in a fight lets you get those beautiful "SURPRISE MOTHER**" moments of Crit into Crit and just blowing up a single target Fury is interesting because it rewards you heavily for just staying stuck in fight after fight, no tactics, only punching or your preferred method of applied brutality. Etc. Every passive is interesting or useful in a way, even the current sentinel one. The problem is this, yes, we could buff sentinels to blaster scale ranged damage, but without a reason to get close (Melee attacks, traps, etc. that blasters have) you now have a blaster level of ST Ranged DPS that can drop a 20%+ Res debuff on a target that ALSO has a scrapper level of survival tacked on The better solution is twofold, and the one i keep harping on, and I've had 2 major options kicking around: #1) Turn Opportunity into a click power like domination, your next ST attack applies Vulnerability to the target and you get both of the current buffs for the duration as just "Opportunity". Additional options include making it so that each successful ST attack on a target during the duration applies vulnerability stacks (7-10% each, up to 3 stacks or something) instead of only the first target hit, or adding basically a chance to "Mini crit" to attacks while it's active, OR adding a stacking self damage buff for each successful application of vulnerability on the multi-stackable version #2) Do away with the active side entirely, keep the lower passive resist debuff, maybe buff it a bit, and make the bar work like fury instead of domination. the higher the bar, the more health and end you get per attack, and while the bar is at 50% or higher, attacks can do bonus damage This option makes you tougher still for staying stuck in combat by making the "Defensive" opportunity a passive effect that scales up with your "Determination" or whatever we call the bar, and if you keep fighting, just like a brute, your attacks will start gaining a chance to do a weaker doublehit incarnate or something in the damage type of the set once you pass the halfway threshold The problem currently is for as good as the debuff actually is (No seriously, -25% or so to all resists is pretty scary as a passive-based effect) and as surprisingly useful as the opportunity buffs are, they have a couple of issues: 1.) To get full effect, you are FORCED to take 2 powers, at least one of which may suck or not fit your theme and 2.) Overall the effects of the buffs and debuffs are not obvious enough or impactful enough to the SENTINEL ITSELF in the way domination, containment, fury, defiance, etc. are It's kinda like the PB/WS Passive in that sense, the passive is pretty much useless if you're alone. Where the sentinels isn't useless, but it doesn't have such a big impact you pretty much ignore it, but if you bother to use it you're much much scarier (Swapping targets to drop the debuff on a boss instead of killing a weakling with it, etc.) I mean, creative use of defense opportunity, my armor heal, t9, and debuffs on my Ice/Nin had me tanking a kahn TF where the actual tank left and never came back, including reichsman and the AV's, with basically all SO's. Yeah yeah, i know, your Fire/Fire/Mace blaster with all T4 incarns and a billion inf of IO's can solo it, but we're talking about sentinels here. That was the "Hold up" moment for me Now i have my Ice/Nin, Dark/Bio, Fire/Invul, DP/Fire, Elec/Elec and others, and honestly i enjoy them as much as my main AT (Stalker) and yeah, they need work to feel "Complete" in a sense, but i wouldn't say the idea needs a major overhaul, we just need the unique ability to not suck and be so tied to attacks in the set

So, DPS is an easy fix, we all talk about fixing the inherent to make it not based on the attacks (I've stated just combine both forms into a single click dom-type power) if you still feel like we actually need more damage, give us a stacking 5% Damage buff while opportunity is active or make the offensive side of the buff work more like the chance to doublehit incarnate power, effectively giving us "Crits" while we have opportunity active. However, i've been playing this build lately (This is WITHOUT any incarnate buffs): https://imgur.com/lZiqFmu And honestly, if the passive was just a dominator type power instead of the active, it would be perfectly fine for most content. I'm as tough as a /Elec scrapper, my speed is non-suppressible and yeah i can't taunt, but i can stay in melee range against pretty much anything and beat the crap out of it. But the untold side, this means i can spam -end and -recov procs with near impunity even in non-incarnate content which means i can shut down entire groups without a single actual Hold/stun/etc against most foes. So as with Doms/Controllers/etc DPS isn't everything ALL THE TIME, give us too much damage and blasters are useless because we get Mez protections and lots of healing/absorb/etc innately Balance is a testy and hard process

I...Disagree with this, and i'm late as always After 50'ing 3 and quite literally making another today, they actually feel (Aside from the sucky function of opportunity to use it) Like something that's ALWAYS been here, because it makes sense in a weird way. Most "Blaster" type characters in comics are more like sentinels anyways. Having an Elec/Elec dom, blaster and sentinel now, i can say that the Elec/Elec sent "Feels" the best overall to play. The dom can hit like a freight train and lock down whole groups, but has a lot more "Oh ****" moments when big AOE's and things get thrown around, the blaster is the same way, can't totally lock groups down but you can still CC and slap the heck out of them. The sentinel? I don't have the damage output, but i have the durability and built-in travel power of elec armor that can't be suppressed in combat easily. so while i can't quite instaclear a group, i can take out group after group with relative impunity between END drain and armor combined with an even more flexible build path. As useful as offense opportunity would be it's just not worth taking for how outright tanky i can get with my usual build. Long story short, if opportunity was reworked to work like dom (Click button, place debuff, recieve bacon) since it's already built from it, sentinels would basically just be a class entirely built like crab spiders. Not really a true DPS or anything, but a tanky damage dealer with team utility and survival letting them play even more aggressive to spread the love, And by love i mean considerable damage at a moderate pace.

Kinda late here, but working on Sentinel #5 now so i have a waaay better idea of how they work/play and what really murders things "Ranged scrapper" not in the slightest - They're more like pure-human Warshades/PB's with more builds, just durable as heck with pretty solid damage output As far as "Changing" the class, i would entirely do away with the current opportunity system and rework them to be more dom-like, with an active power. EG, when the bar is full, you click activate "Opportunity strike" which works like domination, and it doubles the effect of your passive while active This decouples it from your T1 attacks and lets you hold it easier (especially at low levels) without wasting it to kill a random minion or something. New descriptions/effects would be like: Opportunity (Passive): As a sentinel, your constant assault weakens your enemies resolve and builds yours up, reducing their defense and resistance to damage as long as you keep striking them. Working alongside other sentinels increases this effect (Passive -5% Def (All) -5% Res (All) on hit, unique per sentinel, becomes -10% while in opportunity strike. Or whatever the real numbers are from the server right now and then double those when activated) Opportunity Strike (Active Self buff, click, requires full resolve meter): When the time is right, you unleash your full power as a sentinel. Activating this power increases the debuff effect of opportunity and causes your next single-target power to apply Vulnerability on a successful hit, Further weakening your target. Additionally, while active your successful attacks of any type will deal bonus damage and cause you to gain a small amount of health and endurance Basically, we've now taken the confusing and poorly-explained power and given it a simple description and visible numbers, combined its' effects, and made it mechanically better (Bar full, click button, hit any power with a colored ring around it) Also, made it SLIGHTLY more powerful for those paying attention, when you pop it, you can ST to apply the current debuff to a single target, but your PASSIVE debuff is also doubled during the duration which basically brings you to a 1.05 scale at a full 10% debuff Seriously, if you don't believe me roll a dark blast sentinel and do the Dark blast -> Gloom combo with a full bar at near max range so you stack both buffs, thats when you realize how ALL powersets should feel on a sent.

Title, i'll have to make a quick video of it, but the assassin's staff power is bugged. Occasionally it will fire off, and after a delay pop up as hit/miss, but on a hit, it un-hides you long before the damage actually hits And it's entirely random. Every other AS hits instantly when the animation plays and either shows miss (Keeping you hidden) or hit (Dealing the damage and unhiding you) Reproduction, make a staff/anything stalker, get to 6, randomly assassin strike enemies until it happens.

Oh cool, some /Dev love that just generically adds damage instead of fixing even part of the sets problems (Sets with "Setup times" suck) Ideas for Traps/Dev proper fixes: Caltrops, trip mine, time bomb, acid mortar, gun drone, triage beacon, etc: Now instant cast, no longer ground targeted, instead, the Mortar & Explosives have a short arm time, and the explosives scale up from 30-100% Damage over their old cast durations once dropped. Beacon/Mortar/Explosives/Caltrops are dropped at your feet instead of being targeted on the ground (Some already work that way i know, but they should ALL be that way, so you can just jump into a group and click caltrops, instead of trying to click it on the ground and targeting an enemy instead half the time, that kinda thing) Gun Drone: Needs to work more like a proper limited pet, Attacks with more along the lines of Burst & Heavy burst so it has some AOE utility. It's a freaking T9 power after all. And the fact that you decided to "Re-work" Devices and COMPLETELY IGNORE one of the most disappointing T9's in the game..... Seriously, L45 Water/Dev against some L42 minions, it took 5 full bursts from it to kill a single minion and it has no AOE Other secondary T9's are: Total focus, Midnight Grasp, Hot feet (Another one, for another day) Frozen Aura (Natch, lateeer) Shocking grasp, Eagles Claw and Psychic Shockwave Every other set with an offensive T9 has a huge melee attack or in the case of Psi a very solid AOE, Fire/Ice/Dev get stupid underperforming skills, and Dev is the worst of the 3 IMO, it's the only one that can be straight-up killed without doing literally anything Either: A.) The drone needs to be waaaay tankier and it's ST Damage needs to be higher, or B.) It needs more attacks and some AOE Damage to make it worth using in big fights Or C.) Make it a multiple-choice toggle power, like dual pistols ammo (EG: Taking the "Combat drone" Power unlocks 2 toggles that summon either a fire support or a team support drone and are exclusive with individual cooldowns) Overall, i'm underwhelmed by basically all these changes, it feels too much like "Changing things to look like we're doing something important" instead of "Fixing the actual problems the sets have" Not to mention the scaling changes, you guys doing the dev work realize that doms have a pretty high inherent melee scaler, right? They're SUPPOSED to hit like a train in melee (Like blasters) Because they're a squishy class, right? THEY HAVE A HIGHER MELEE SCALE THAN RANGED! (Source: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Damage#Damage_Scale ) Meh, lets see how this all plays out after a week.

Pretty close, yeah, slotting is season to taste as you level as always, but it's maybe 3-5 slots off from how i leveled mine up