Galaxy Brain

January 18, 2021

21 minutes ago, tan702 said:

@Galaxy Brain I'm 100% for changing Shout to be a cone attack. The smallest ranged cones I could find were Piercing Beam/Rounds at 5 degrees. It would be awesome to see more of these in other sets.

I agree that this could help a couple of sets out for sure. Sonic just stands out immediately as it is the worst by far + thematically it makes sense to have sound waves pass through a whole crowd easily.

21 minutes ago, tan702 said:

What I find odd is that powers like Cosmic Burst and Blaze have the same range as the t1/t2 blasts. I always thought the icon of those powers signified that they were a shorter distance, harder hitting attack. I think it would be cool to cut the range of those blasts (as well as Shout, Lancer Shot, etc) to ~45ft and give them that small cone effect with the same ratio as Head Splitter. Would make for more interesting blaster combat IMO.

This actually used to be the case! Many T3 blasts had a 40ft range while the T1 and T2 had 80, but many people found that far too annoying. Nerfing it back down would be a bit drastic nowadays.

On top of this, these do not need to be cones, especially Blaze.

January 18, 2021

So, it occurred to me that the Blast Sets are really more about their AoE potential... and conveniently, AE has a way to make you invulnerable so you can tackle x8 content solo on SO's! Let's take a look at how the sets perform in a fully saturated +0/x8 environment with basic slotting:

So, little surprise here in terms of the tippity top and ...bottomy bottom, but something interesting is just how close a large portion of the sets are in the middle. Note on Dual Pistols is that I used only Incendiary given I was invulnerable, mimicking having an 8-man team handling your aggro / defenses. Fire Blast obviously stood out a lot, but that also got me thinking based on a note by @ScarySai: Fire's Fast Snipe adds a LOT to the set.

Without using the snipe, Fire is much more on-par with DP and Rad blast in the A tier which is interesting, and really goes to show how impactful a fast snipe can be!

S TIER: FIRE BLAST

With this test at x8 and no worries about safety, it should be no surprise that Fire takes the cake, even when you have on snipe tied behind your back.

A TIER: DUAL PISTOLS / RAD BLAST

Likewise, these two sets were able to really let loose with their AoEs where they couldn't before. For Pistols, being able to just stay in Incendiary mode was a huge boon where before I had to swap ammo when in danger or to do soft control or debuff, not much else to say here aside from the Bullet Storm T9 working properly being awesome. Rad Blast with the safety off is a great suprise with how well it performed, though the sluggishness of it's AoEs kept it behind Pistols IMO.

B TIER: WATER BLAST

Dropping a good bit from the "standard" test, Water is still great but I feel it was kept back slightly due to animation speed. Granted, it was not the fastest in the OG test either but in this test "good" isn't the best.

C TIER: ARCHERY / BEAM RIFLE / ELEC BLAST / ICE BLAST / ENERGY BLAST / PSY BLAST

Ok, so this is a very big tier, but most of the sets fall into an interesting pattern.

Archery/Energy Blast - Despite what I just said, Archery just sort of felt average to me here. It has good ST and good AoE just like Water, but lacked any big-hitters like Water which plopped into this tier. Likewise, Energy is in the same boat where it is just sort of your basic blast set, but with Nova on a longer timer Archery ended up being faster.

Beam Rifle / Ice Blast / Psy Blast - These three all share a common design where they all deal ST much more effectively than AoE, at least throughout a mission (Blizzard is amazing but not always there / takes a bit). With so many enemies to chew through, the cones and spreading DoT of Beam took longer, as did the Rains and cone of Ice. Psychci Blast, specifically Psy Nado surprised me with how effective it was despite being the only AoE in the set it was up quite often and had great coverage... that said it's the only AoE outside the nuke.

Elec Blast - Kind of the opposite of above, Elec actually did very well with AoE with how Voltaic Sentinel would randomly ping targets in the group for that *last* bit of damage, and Ball Lightning + SC actually did a good bit of work as you toss out ST attacks and they tick away. That said... Voltaic Sentinel also had a lot of trouble focusing on the bosses, and without a proper 3rd blast the set suffered in ST quite a lot despite the "on paper" good ST.

D TIER: DARK BLAST

This dropped compared to the first test for two reasons: 1: Safety obv doesnt matter, and 2: AoE contained within a Nuke and 2 differently sized cones is just awkward, esp with one being DoT. Not much else to say beyond that.

E TIER: ASSAULT RIFLE

The same issues as said before, but Ignite's fear effect is even more pronounced as is the scatter messing with your cones of different sizes. Also, animation times = sad panda.

F TIER: SONIC ATTACK

Take Dark Blast and make the animations bad + remove two ST attacks as Screech is just awful, and Siren's Song really doesn't add much. Upon revisiting the set as well, something that stood out is that Shout (and sound waves in general IMO) really *looks* like it could have been a Cone attack. Much like melee sets with Head Splitter or Eviscerate, having a hard hitting, small-area Cone is something that only a select few blast sets have and could make the power much better immediately.

January 17, 2021

Very well put @oldskool, and to answer your question @SwitchFade I'll have to mirror what he said as well as expand on my OP.

I think the "problem" with Sentinels is that they're almost a textbook "works on paper, not in practice" AT, if you had to condense it.

As noted on my prior posts, when the stars align you can do pretty respectable damage to a single target... but the key there is when the stars align. Their inherent is very finnicky in terms of being split between the T1 and T2, and needing to select somebody to trigger it + land the hit, on top of having poor uptime out of the box. Dominators are the only other AT with an inherent that works similarly but at least they do not need to "rely" on Domination to work in terms of offensive output nor do they need specific triggers. It just happens and they get to decide when and where to use it. They face a similar struggle with uptime (until you perma it), but it feels like more of a bonus than something that you need to play catch up in normal gameplay, if that makes sense? Dominators release when they want to and have great uptime, and being on a team even without permadom lets them get Domination faster through multiple means. Sentinels do not always get to use their inherent the way they want to since it is so target dependant, and like what Oldskool pointed out the values when you don't have each piece working together are not up to snuff when combined with the uptime.

There are other issues sure, like how the best primary is Psy Mastery 😛 , but the root of a lot of it has to do with the inherent IMO as it is so prominent for them. Sentinels are an entire, fleshed out AT and yet they are on the low end of popularity like with EATs which people generally only make one of. There's definitely something missing.

January 15, 2021

56 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

First off, don’t include corrupters. The time it takes for them to cast their buffs, and the variety of buff they have, makes it very difficult to include them. Just leave them out.

I included them as there have been direct comparisons between them and Sentinels as ranged damage dealers

56 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Compare to scrappers, stalkers, and blasters. Include aim and build up. Do not include the Debuffs from opportunity since those would also increase the damage of scrappers, stalkers and blasters on the team.

So this gets really really nitpicky. 1) Build Up/Aim do not have anywhere close to even like 30% uptime. I can average it out with 3slotted Rech and apply that damage bonus, or just slap +100% on em and call it a day, but Sentinels usually get Aim too.

BU w/ 95% rech = 10s up / 46 rech = 22% Uptime = 22% Damage buff avg for Scrapper/Blaster, 17.6% for Stalker

Aim = 22% uptime,13.75% damage for Blaster, and 11% for Sentinel

With full boosts (Including the proc for opportunity, and the 10% damage boost on the new sentinel for both of these):

Blaster - 233.04 - 100%
Scrapper - 203.01 - 87% of Blaster
Stalker - 168.22 ~ 200.31 (184.28 avg) - 79% AVG
1.0 New Sentinel - 146.68 - 63%
1.0 Sentinel - 140.41 - 60%
New Sentinel - 139.34 - 60%
Sentinel - 133.39 - 57%

So what is interesting here is that at current in this particular case, even with the damage proc a Sentinel's burst appears to be 57% that of a Blaster's while the other 2 damage dealers are within 20% (BIG ASTERIX ON STALKER BURST). Boosting the Sentinel to 1.0 Damage Mod + the new proposal gets much closer, but still....

With averaged boosts:

Blaster - 153.74 - 100%
Scrapper - 149.33 - 97%
Stalker - 130.05 ~ 154.88 (142.47 avg) - 93%
1.0 New Sentinel - 124.98 - 81%
1.0 Sentinel - 118.73 - 77%
New Sentinel - 118.74 - 77%
Sentinel - 112.79 - 73%

While sustained, things are a lot closer for this first hit scenario. However, by stripping the debuffs you are ignoring an inherent part of the Sentinel when it comes to ST damage as even now all their hits inflict a static -5% Res. In this thread, bumping that to 15% would have a significant impact.

56 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Include however, a separate number that goes next to the sentinels damage number, that is the cumulative amount more that the scrapper the stalker the blaster and the Sentinel combined get as a result of the sentinels debuffs. That will give you a more accurate idea of what the archetype brings to the team.

Currently, all these results above would be boosted more or less equally by the Sentinel. Lets eyeball a Blaster for comparison:

Dark Blast -> 9.38 Damage Proc + BU/Aim/Defiance/Opportunity Dam Buff + -15% Res on target = 285.98 final damage (Burst), or 194.79 (Averaged), for a total bonus of 23%/27% more output from the Blaster thanks to the Sentinel (Proposed). This should be mirrored across all the rest as well, and we could round it out to be about a 25% bonus on average.

The trick though is that only a portion of the bonus is additive as the Proc and -Res multiply other bonuses.

January 15, 2021

Just now, Wavicle said:

What you have done here is compare solo damage. Well that is not relevant to the discussion. Solo performance of sentinels is fine. It’s team performance that we need to look at.

Teams get hella messy. Give me the criteria you want to see.

January 15, 2021

7 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

It is incorrect to include the sentinels Debuff but not to include corruptor Debuffs. It is also incorrect to include the Sentinel debuff on the Sentinel’s damage but not on everybody else’s damage. Debuffs apply to everybody on the team, so it is incorrect to include it in the sentinels DPS but not in everybody else’s.

Yes and no.

1) Not all Corruptor sets have the same debuffs, all Sentinel Sets will have the same debuffs through Opportunity. I made a note of this in the post stating that this does not include Corruptor debuffs/IOs/other outside sources (like the Blaster using Build Up in it's secondary). If there are specific examples then by all means.

2) If you'd like, I can calculate the values that the Sentinel would provide to all these examples as well, I was more just looking at them in isolation when comparing a Sentinel to X other AT!

@aetherson, when it comes to adding more AoE Damage it gets super muddy since.... well Blasters exist. Unless they surpass a Blaster in AoE performance then I don't see the "where do they fit???" argument going away. What they should bring to the table is a unique, fun playstyle that allows them to do decent damage (being a boss melter is fun too!) while simultaneously offering team support that also happens to benefit them equally.

Big edit: something that has occurred to me is that this all sorta touches on the Primary more than anything as it related to Offense. Sentinels are also known for their very unique versions of Armor secondaries, and perhaps there is design space there? Players are always coming up with an "armored support" class, so having some more things like /Rad's Support-lite powers here and there could spice things up.

January 15, 2021

Just to get some semblance of a measure here, lets look at a power that a handful of the comparison AT's can get:

Scrapper Dark Blast = 62.56 -> Crits for +62.56, base 10% chance = +6.26 = 68.82

Stalker Dark Blast = 55.61-> Crits for +55.61, base 10% chance but can naturally be up to 31% = 5.56 ~ 17.24 = 61.17 ~ 72.85

Corruptor Dark Blast = 41.71 -> Scourge for +41.71, ....I'm not sure on how to quantify Scourge, but lets say over time is is a 25% chance = 10.43 = 52.14

Blaster Dark Blast = 62.56 -> With defiance, we're looking at like an avg +15% dam on attacks you keep tossing out too = 71.94

Sentinel Dark Blast = 52.83 -> + ~7.93 proc from Off Opp + 5% to 25% res Debuff, though that 20% is up "half the time".... as is that proc, so more like ~ 3.96 and 15% res debuff

-> 55.47/56.79 + 4.16/4.26 = 59.63 ~ 61.05

New Sentinel Dark Blast = 52.83 -> + 10% Dam Buff + ~7.93 Proc + 15% Res Debuff (constant), with the changes to Opportunity in a team/hitting your target lets assume it is up 75% of the time and not 50% -> 7.5% Dam Buff + 5.94 + 15% Res Debuff

-> 56.79 + 5.94 -> 65.31+6.83 = 72.14

Luckily, Stalkers have a 1.00 damage mod. Many people want Sentinels to share this:

Current = 55.61 + 4.17 proc -> 62.77 ~ 68.75 (5% ~ 13% boost)

Proposed = 55.61 + 6.26 proc -> 75.94 (5% Boost)

At a *glance*, Sentinels seem like they're already in the ballpark for a comparable ST attack, lets see what happens when we slot enhancements though:

95% Damage Enh:

1.00 New Sentinel = 136.70

Scrapper = 134.19

Blaster = 131.38

Stalker = 119.28 ~ 142.06 (130.67 avg)

New Sentinel = 129.86

1.00 Sentinel = 118.24 ~ 129.50 (123.87 avg)

Sentinel = 112.33 ~ 123.03 (117.68 avg)

Corruptor = 101.66

Ordered by damage (avg), the proposed Sentinel with a 1.00 damage mod actually pulls ahead for this single ST blast comparison which is interesting, while Corruptors are in last place. Now, this is a very narrow scope as it does not account for additional IO's or Debuffs that ATs can slot/use (Esp on the Corr), or the Blaster's ability to stack different self buffs. Just the basics.

What stood out though is that the Criticals/Scourges scaled off the attack's total damage and not the base damage which Opportunity uses. Lets take a peek at what that'd look like:

1.00 New Sentinel = 144.07

New Sentinel = 136.87

1.00 Sentinel = 122.40 ~ 134.06 (128.23 avg)

Sentinel = 116.28 ~ 127.36 (121.82 avg)

The current Sentinel would certainly be better but still in about the same spot, while the "New" Sentinel would top the chart (before X factors).

January 15, 2021

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

Yeah, I have a few quite different criticisms of this proposal:

I specifically think that resistance debuffs should not, by and large, be unresistable. That makes them very up-and-down in terms of power in a way that's not at all legible to players.

Well, yes and no... depending on how you look at it. A 15% unresistable debuff will always be -15%, unaffected by other stats the target may have (outside level). Sure, when you look at the scale of certain encounters it technically does way less or way more... but to the avg player it is still "Hey, the Sentinel made it so I hit for more damage, cool".

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

I don't think that this really ends up giving a very compelling team role to sentinels (single-target modest resistance debuffs aren't in high demand), and it potentially compromises the amount of buff we'd be able to give them in terms of raw damage, and thus makes them less capable soloers in return for a not-very-compelling team role.

The current proposal grants them -15% on their primary target at all times, on top of the current Opportunity procs (avg like 15% ish of base damage) on top of a further 10% damage boost while Opportunity is active. These all stack up in separate ways to make for a decent boost, with the added bonus of Allies being able to be boosted as well / take advantage. Basically by just doing their thing they both deal damage and magnify team performance at the same time.

The alternate method is to just make them deal more base damage.... at which point isn't the same topic gonna come up when you compare them to other Damage Dealers?

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

I don't think that this package of conditional effects and different benefits is easy for teams to work with. It just seems complex to me. Conditionally giving out small bonuses to damage and regen to allies and also if they hit their targets they potentially give heal/endurance to the sentinel?

It breaks down like this:

If you are within 60ft of a Sentinel, you get some thematic buffs to Perception stats while they build meter. You being in that range helps the Sentinel build meter, and any power you use on targets they mark (even if an AoE clips one and you didnt target them specifically!) is better.
Once the Sentinel triggers Opportunity, you get a myriad of small buffs for being in range of the Sentinel, and in addition you also get to use the Opportunity procs on targets the Sentinel marks (even if you do not directly target the... target, a Fireball clipping a marked enemy will heal the caster and deal a bit more Proc damage to that guy)

There isn't much added "choice" here other than being a little coerced to stay within 60ft of your team mate and possibly pig pile the guy they mark. Everything else is gravy for your team as you can rapidly switch targets if need be + the team helps you get to your boost faster, which they also get to use. They get the opportunity procs too, not just the Sentinel, with the catch being they gotta hit targets that the Sent sets up.

2 hours ago, aethereal said:

(this one isn't really mine, I don't have a problem with it) I don't think the dev team is going to go for "sentinels constantly give -15% resistance to their target," and that we shouldn't invest effort in routes that the dev team is opposed to.

Well, they currently are able to have 25% up half the time (in theory), and if that is an issue then we can go set by set at all the support powers that can easily, easily surpass that 12.5% average (at best) on a single target or more for AoE.

January 14, 2021

1 hour ago, aetherson said:

Like, I think people get scared by hearing "your resistance debuff drops from 15% to 7.5%," but it's super unclear to me why we would want a character with resistance debuffs to add much more effective DPS against high-resistance opponents as against low-resistance ones. What's the game design goal here? Is the idea that high-resistance characters are like puzzle bosses that demand specific approaches? That doesn't feel like it's an element of CoH design. Is it just a general sense that high resistances are overly powerful against a few characters (like lethal and psi-oriented characters)? I think there's a plan of record to make a big change to enemy resistances and try to make them a little more sensical, and that sounds like the right response to that problem, not give out a bunch of unresistable resistance debuffs.

Thematically, having one Archetype able to "target and open up" enemies to allow themselves and allies more effectively take them down is a fun playstyle esp if it is only 1 target at a time. Sure, you can rip one robot down faster... out of the 25 in the mob. The lock into ST + the amount being relatively small compared to some of the BIG / AoE -Res powers available in proper support sets I feel evens this aspect out.

The Key to me is that "marking a target" is the literal flashy part of playing a Sentinel, making that portion more exaggerated separates them from the crowd much like how Stalkers have their own ST mini-game that has them stand apart from other Melee's. As they are currently, they sort of have an odd identity where they have some blasting, some survival, and some debuffing, but the way it all melds together isn't as exciting as it could be. By shifting focus to a unique gameplay loop of prioritizing Ranged Single Target and team support through Offense it will carve out a better identity for them.

The debuff being unresistable reinforces this to ensure that if a Sentinel marks you, you're gonna feel it from them or the team taking advantage. The current amount of 15% is about in line with similar ST -Res debuffs, if not smaller than most all even looking at Mastermind values instead of Defender, and they do not have the rest of a support set to stack on top of that. The addition of -Mez Res and -Special res is there to support different types of powers as well to highlight that that particular target is in for a rough time. The ability to switch targets on command also circumvents the issue with targets dying/etc, and allows multiple Sentinels on a team to still spread the love while not being overwhelming on a single boss.

Just to understand the point a bit more, are you saying that the -15% res being unresistable does not add much in the grand scheme?

1 hour ago, aetherson said:

That's a surprising assertion to me. Is Achilles' Heel really unresistable?

IIRC it is due to how the IO is applied. It grants a power to the target that applies the -20% res to themselves, which bypasses resistances.

You know what, it should actually be tested:

Well I'll be darned, for a long while I thought it had some oddity where it was not resisted due to being a granted power. There are *some* IO's that work like this, such as one of the -Slow ones though!

January 14, 2021

9 minutes ago, aetherson said:

Monos King suggested earlier that unresistable debuffs are still affected by the purple patch. Assuming that's the case, I don't think there's a good case for unresistable debuffs for sents. Unresistable debuffs make good sense for small debuffs that you want to still be meaningful against AVs. AVs have no special resistance to resistance debuffs and these proposed debuffs are not small.

Thanks for the reply @aetherson! Everything, even unresistables, are affected by the purple patch before anything else applies. The key here is that Damage Resistance resists Resistance Debuffs, which currently messes with a number of Sentinel primaries vs many enemies. For example, lets say you are an Archery Sentinel and you're fighting something with ~50% Lethal Resistance. Your 25% res debuff is actually resisted by 50%, making it only about 12.5%. If your debuff is unresistable, it will always be 15% (which matters for the proposed Mez and Special debuffs in there too!)

There are cases where the 25% is still "better", but the ability to do this on command is where it will shine brighter (plus the other bonuses).

9 minutes ago, aetherson said:

I think it's also worthwhile to ask: why a resistance debuff? Why not just Moar Damage? Moar Damage scales better against the purple patch, it's just superior solo. On a team, resistance debuffs have a magnification effect. Does this actually give sents a meaningful team role? Maybe. I don't think that teams typically have a hard time with single targets in the current meta. Maybe in the case of a few specific scenarios it'd be worthwhile. But sents are never going to compete with defenders/corruptors in terms of their ability to debuff resistance.

The role of it being a magnifier/multiplier is why its chosen over just a damage boost (though that is in there too!). With other buffers on the team, +Damage eventually gets a diminishing return, especially with AT's with lower damage caps. -Res, as well as the Damage Proc both bypass damage caps by letting you multiply damage instead of just add. Oh, +Damage doesn't "really" scale better vs the purple patch as both incoming damage and debuffs are reduced by 0.48x at +4, its often just easier to boost damage than to lower resists.

Comparisons to Defenders/Corruptors/Etc is super valid as while we are talking about a single target res debuff, Defender Trick arrow has a ST -20% res debuff + slow/immob on a base 4s rech, and a permanent -40% AoE -Res debuff they can apply each fight. Achilles' Heel is also -20% (unresistable technically) and anyone can use that on sets that accept the IO. The trick here is that these characters need to spend time either debuffing OR attacking, while a Sentinel can do both at once while also being armored to allow freedom with scouting out and marking targets. The addition of team-wide procs, damage, sustain, and -Mez/Special res all open up the Sentinel to being a more passive support while they do offense as well.

In my experience, especially as a kitted out Blaster, is that most teams really only struggle vs big targets as most of a mob gets deleted in short order except for them. Stalkers and Sentinels combined with other team members could be the solution while they both "pay" for it with lower AoE capabilities than similar ATs.

January 14, 2021

3 minutes ago, oldskool said:

I like the idea, but I don't think the 15% resistance debuff is going to happen. As it was mentioned by another poster, there seems to be this aversion from having innate resistance reduction being a part of an AT's kit.

Fair, but this is also something that only Sentinels have and currently they can produce far more every so often.

January 14, 2021

@oldskool,yep! The intent is that Sentinels can *always* mark one target.

January 13, 2021

To be honest, I have a hard time rolling a Defender! I find their buff/debuff values great but often overkill in a team with *other* support characters where it kind of gets washed out. In that regard, a Corruptor gives "good enough" support on top of the ability to contribute a good chunk of damage time to time with Scourge where it matters. A "proper" damage dealer can often clear fodder esp with your buffs/debuffs, so a Corr can help a lot more over time on hard targets in ways a Defender usually can't.

I feel similarly with MM's where I can have my pets go aggro and focus soley on the secondary in a team. Yes, they support even less but the damage and effects of pets while simultaneously using support powers is just Groovy.

January 13, 2021

53 minutes ago, Hew said:

Hmm, interesting. I want to like sentinels, but struggle to do so. I was not aware of the passive; does it scale? Or do fast cast + fast recharge powers allow you to stack it quickly?

It does not stack unfortunately, it just applies when you hit. Currently, multiple Sentinels can stack the "Basic" -5% Res/-2.5% Def on enemies they hit, but a single Sentinel cannot stack themselves.

January 13, 2021

Hello everyone, I had posted this in the suggestions forum, but I figure it'd be a good idea to post directly to the Sentinel Forum as well!

2021 is upon us and it is a time of great change and new beginnings! So, let's take this opportunity dig up something we have been talking about for a while now 😉

Goal:

The Sentinel AT has a great foundation all things considered, but a clunky inherent ends up leaving many players feel underwhelmed with them and often going to other more specialized roles or playstyles. They are a hybrid class that specializes in mid range engagement, but are not particularly high damage, not particularly tanky, nor do they have particularly stellar support. The inherent tries to rectify this by allowing you to provide support utility while also letting you choose between more offense or defense in theory, but there are a list of issues to address with how it works:

Opportunity is only active some of the time, and while its active it's not incredibly better than without to make up for how somewhat lackluster Sentinels feel when not in a mode, yet still creates sort of a feast/famine dynamic as you need to build up the meter over time before the payoff.
This is exasperated by the need to hit either your T1 or your T2 attack for one of 2 Opportunities. Often, a missed opportunity can feel wasted and frustrating with having to wait for your power to recharge or settle for the opportunity you did not want to use after needing to build it up. Let alone having the dynamic of selecting a target that is "worth" marking, I can't tell you how often there may be like a minion left in a spawn and I have opportunity ready and I have the choice to mark that minion and waste the mark, but get the buff for the next spawn or to just defeat that minion and try and hurry to the next spawn while I still have opportunity to mark a "worthy" target.
I feel that this leads to more frustration than fun if you care to pay attention to which mode you want and who you want to target given that you need to build meter, need to then successfully land a hit with one of 2 different powers, and then a large portion of the effect can only be done once at activation which leads you to want to be very selective about who gets it.

When everything works though, I feel that it is actually very fun! When you do get a mark on that boss and the right mode at the right moment it feels great! Its just getting to that moment feels much more difficult than it should be when you compare them to other AT's or even other powersets. A Corruptor with a ST Res debuff and decent survival through buffs/debuffs can pretty much do what a Sentinel does currently without needing to build up and take a shot. A more egregious example is comparing them to a Blaster with a lot of defensive investment in IO's, or even just a Scrapper or Stalker.

In short, Sentinels have a sort of identity problem when you start comparing them to other AT's that is enhanced by the effort/payoff ratio of their inherent. They are super fun when you do line everything up, and their twists on existing Blast / Armor sets that are unique to them are fun to explore but it often feels like there is something missing. To remedy this, changes should:

Enforce a stronger identity for Sentinels to where you cannot easily get the "Sentinel experience" on other ATs or builds.
Make their playstyle easier to grasp and have a much smoother gameplay loop

My suggestions below aim to hit those two goals and keep the spirit of Sentinels intact while making them just smoother overall.

1) Base Stats:

The base stats for Sents I feel is actually in a decent spot overall for what they do, and changes to the inherent should be where the focus lies. The base -5% Res/-2.5% def per attack is actually solid given it's unresistable, but along those same lines I think a boost to the secondary effects of all their attacks could do wonders!

Sentinels are sort of like the "cavalry" who come in and give back-up to the team with their versatility, allowing them to further "mark" targets with their effects would suit this very well. Currently, Sentinels have roughly the same (debuff) stats as Blasters, with Umbral Torrent for example dealing -5.25% ToHit on both. Boosting this by 1.25x for Sentinels will be a slight but meaningful change that would put them above other damage classes, but below the more "Support" oriented ones (5.25 on Blaster, 6.56 on Sent, 10.71 on Corr). We could potentially even go higher to match Corruptor values as Sentinels do not have Buff/Debuff sets to leverage them in the same ways!

Many champion an increase to base damage, but I think there are more unique ways to go about that and having the "support" stats fits more with the often under-looked part of their inherent where simply attacking debuffs enemies.

2) Opportunity - Vulnerability Mark:

Currently, Sentinels have to get max Meter and hit a target successfully with either their T1 or T2 attack in order to apply a Mark. This is far too particular given what the mark actually does, heck we even have Trick Arrow able to more or less replicate this exact effect every 3 seconds! This should be decoupled from "Opportunity" and instead just be something the Sentinel can do whenever. Specifically, the T1 and T2 blast, as well as the lvl 6 T3 ST blast will now be able to freely apply the Vulnerability Mark when they hit an enemy.

(List of lvl 6 T3 blasts)

Spoiler

(Stunning Shot / Slug / Disintegrate / Abyssal Gaze / Suppressive Fire / Zapping Bolt / Power Burst / Blaze / Chilling Ray / Will Domination / Cosmic Burst / Shout / Dehydrate)

Sentinels can only mark 1 Target at a time, and the mark cannot stack from multiple Sentinels. These marks last 10 seconds but disappear if another Mark is created (you cannot mark 2 different targets at once by yourself), and new marks replace old ones on the same target. While marked, Vulnerable Enemies face a harsh, unresistable 15% debuff to: Damage Resistance, Mez Resistance, and (Special/Debuff) Resistances, as well as a 7.5% Defense Debuff. This myriad of weaknesses allows any player to benefit in their own unique ways towards a target highlighted by a Sentinel where not only do they take more damage, but longer mezzes and harsher debuffs. Sentinels would enjoy this themselves solo too with each set having a strong Mez attack and increases to their base secondary effect mods!

With this in place, the "passive" Vulnerability on-hit of 5% -Res and 2.5% -Def would be removed, and replaced by the second change to their inherent.

3) Opportunity - Overwatch:

Sentinels will now produce a 60' Radius Aura (Identical range to Mastermind Supremacy) that grants themselves and allies +Perception, as well as +Perception and ToHit resistances (something minor, but flavorful). Allies in Overwatch range will have some interactions that we will touch on in just a moment.

With every hit Sentinels dish out, they will gain meter towards Opportunity. Hits on Vulnerable Targets will give Bonus Meter, on top of this Allies within Overwatch Range will supply the Sentinel with Bonus Meter (TBD, could be if they are simply in range the Sentinel gets a boost per hit to make it easy). In order to solve some of the Feast/Famine dynamic, I figure giving the Sentinels more ways to stay in "Feast" may just be the most straightforward solution!

Once at (near full, 80~90%) Meter, the Sentinel will trigger Opportunity automatically! Once active, both effects of Offensive and Defensive that we know now will be active for the Sentinel where they are able to proc damage on foes they strike as well as heal HP and Endurance just the same. On top of this, Overwatch will now grant everyone in range a 10% Damage Buff, 5% ToHit Buff, 30% Regen buff, and 15% Recovery buff for as long as Opportunity is active.

Better still, allies within Overwatch will be able to use the effects of Offensive/Defensive opportunity (may as well just call it Opportunity) when they strike Marked Targets!

4) Putting it together:

Overall the goals of the changes are to streamline Sentinel's Opportunity to be much easier to trigger and be more impactful to themselves and allies than it is now. The ability to mark targets at all times with an unresistable debuff will be stellar and help the Sentinel out greatly in between boosts, and the combination of boosts when you get going will allow them to rise to the occasion each fight especially when they focus fire in a team. Allies benefiting in multiple ways wouldn't hurt either 😉

Keeping the current opportunity bar and procs doesn't mess with too much IMO and keeps their spirit alive, though I am still a little hesitant on whether the T3 blast should also mark, but it seems like a fair compromise between those who do not like the base abilities and those who want every attack to be able to mark.

These changes aim to make Sentinels more like actual "scouts" with their playstyle, generally debilitating foes through offense and being able to select foes individually to take down for added effect. I've tried to keep the spirit of them as they exist now intact with Opportunity still being a window, but making the journey to that spot a little less painful. Both Solo and in a Team the changes offer unique spins revolving around their ability to Mark Targets to take down for various rewards, and hopefully create a fun and unique supportive style through offense rather than raw support powers.

-Galaxy Brain

(Old OP below)

Spoiler

Opportunity:

The major changes will all revolve around the inherent, which is broken down into a few parts.

1) Vulnerability Mark:

One of the literal highlights of a Sentinel is the ability to mark a target with a big, glowy reticle that indicates that they have a harsh, unresistable Resistance Debuff on them! However, this mark is only available if you have a full Opportunity Meter and due to the timer on that, you often "waste" it as mentioned above.

Instead, given the precedence with Bruising before it, as well as numerous ATs with access to near spammable -Res abilities, lets just allow the T1/2 attack to mark targets freely. The value is lowered to 15% unresistable instead of 20% resistable. This does not stack from multiple Sentinels, but multiple sentinels can now easily spread marks. This is a direct increase to single target damage overall as you can consistently keep 1 enemy marked while in combat and the versatility it gives in a team scenario would be just awesome as you and other Sentinels can more freely set up enemies to take the hurt.

Edit: Either the T1 or T2 can cause this mark freely, but they share the same mark.

2) Opportunity Modes:

With the T1 and T2 now freely giving Vulnerability, a big part of "Opportunity" is no longer present with the modes. Instead, I'd like to tie these directly into the Vulnerability mark to still have that element of choice, but with much more leniency.

Offensive - When at (max) meter, Marked Targets take additional damage procs from your attacks. This is somewhat of a nerf due to AoEs not having small procs from the Sentinel, but is made up for by the ability to freely do this from target to target.

Defensive - When at (max) meter, defeating Marked Targets triggers a heal to Health and Endurance that scales based on enemy rank. This would be much bigger than the healing from current Defensive mode, but less frequent due to it not being per hit. Luckily defeating a marked target should be easy, especially a minion, with the combined offensive mode + stacked -Res debuffs.

Edit: Both effects happen once you hit max meter, they are not "separate"

Combining these modes when at max meter and trying them to the marked target I feel would cement the Sentinel's playstyle to someone who calls the shots and points out the targets and strategies for the group. Now, currently meter drops to 0 after some time after triggering Opportunity. This could be kept as when you hit max meter, you get the same effect and go into "Opportunity Mode" for ~20s like now before it resets, or the meter could simply drain much quicker. Either way I think it'd be nice if attacking or defeating Marked targets gave bonus meter to allow you to get to this mode much more regularly.

A big downer for me was the build up to opportunity, and then often that would also be delayed by a miss, selecting a target, or juggling when to activate. Changing this to where you always get to mark a single foe to boost you in between Opportunities on top of making windows of opportunity more common would be a huge boon.

3) Overwatch:

A new ability, Sentinels now emit a wide area Aura that provides +Perception and +Perception resist to themselves and all friendlies in range (thinking like 60ft). This would be super flavorful for the AT's Scout/Cavalry role, but the aura also serves a potent secondary function.

The Sentinel and all friendlies in Overwatch Range benefit from the Sentinel's opportunity meter. As it builds, all entities in range will receive bonuses as you point out vulnerabilities in your foes, and ultimately get to join in when you trigger an Opportunity! The Sentinel and all Allies in range will receive up to the following at Maximum Meter:

+15% Damage
+7.5% ToHit
+50% Regen
+25% Recovery

The latter boosts to sustain even out the loss of the Defensive Mode per-hit bonus, while the 15% boost helps with AoE's losing the normal proc and helps bolster the hurt on Marked targets even more. These numbers can be fudged around, but I think those values are solid as the meter will eventually drop either naturally or after a set time when Opportunity wears off as above.

When you do have Opportunity active, it should be mentioned that Marked Targets take proc damage from Any Damage Source. This means allies, pets, or even other enemies that damage the marked target will be able to contribute to Offensive Opportunity! Multiple Sentinels with the mark and opportunity active cannot stack, but you can spread targets through a group still. As for the Defensive Opportunity, it should be noted that the Sentinel does not have to be the one to defeat the foe. Any defeat of a marked target will trigger the heal for everyone in Overwatch range. This means a Sentinel can mark a target for a Brute to smash, and by doing so the whole team benefits!

January 12, 2021

3 minutes ago, Hew said:

Update on noob (nascar/wp):

T2 and T3, despite supposedly having fast casts, feel slow as dirt. I know that my fast cast ranged and melee attacks (~1, 1.2 secs) on other sets are FAST. This is like, when will I get there.

I don't understand why that is, but the numbers dont represent the feel of other powers that have "the same" cast time. How is that even possible? It feels like 2 second cast time powers.

Like with Burst, it has to do with when the hits land. IIRC the T2 actually hits *after* the animation is over/cancellable lol

If you string them all together it feels faster as they flow one into the other more smoothly

January 12, 2021

20 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

If I had my way I'd speed up the animation of most of the attacks, as the set feels clunky, and then change:

Power Siphon as follows:

1. Nerf the TBD gained per stack from 7.5% to 2.5%, with the proposed changes below this is actually a buff to tohit.

2. Increase the Maximum Duration of Power Siphon from 20 seconds to 60 seconds, once the duration is over, cause increased end cost to all powers for 10 seconds (a fatigued status of sorts)

3. Increase the Maximum Number of Power Siphon Stacks to 20.

4. Adjust damage increase per stack to be 5%, thus allowing you to hit 100% damage increase.

5. Lastly, Power Siphon is changed to a pbaoe, that targets surrounding enemies, and it inflicts a -15% damage buff on any enemy in range, and gives the caster up to 8 starting stacks based on number of nearby targets.

Thoughts? Is this too much? too little? or just enough?

Currently, Power Siphon hits give you much, much more damage per attack.... 25% per hit as a Tank/Brute and 31.25% per hit as a Scrapper, for a total of 125%-136.25% at 5 hits. Needing a total of 20 total hits, or at best 12 hits to get less of a buff is a downgrade 😞

January 12, 2021

2 hours ago, Hew said:

I am going to spin up a scrapper KM and see how it performs again out of curiousity. It has been a long while, and maybe my memory is a bit rusty.

What do you guys recommend I use for a secondary?

Couple fun choices

Shield has fun synergy

Ice has fun synergy with more -Dam stacking

January 11, 2021

36 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

@Galaxy Braina couple small points concerning Storm, afaik there is no KB or KD in Storm's Thunderclap it's purely a Stun (mag 2) effect. And while there is a KB component to Hurricane CoD list it at a 5% chance (I assume that is per target per pulse of the power.) Most of the effect is in the powers Repel portion.

Gotcha, I did a lot of this via glancing so I may have saw Thunderclap and thought of Elec Melee hah!

January 11, 2021

14 minutes ago, Safehouse said:

Okay, cool, thanks for clarifying. The visuals and the numbers in your previous post help too! Always appreciate seeing the data 🙂 I just wasn't sure I had the right understanding of it. So from my persepctive, even if I'm able to perform my next action almost immediately after unleashing burst, that looong start-up before the hit just feels too much. Maybe making it function a little more like whirling mace and fire sword circle is all that would be needed, but right now it really does feel so slow and laggy.

Exactly, it may be worth speeding up the start up and increasing the end lag if that makes sense! The fact that it hits so late is the issue.

January 11, 2021

Just now, Safehouse said:

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow, do you think you could explain what you mean when you're talking about whirling mace/fire sword, vs Burst? Are you saying that the extra "wind up" for burst is making it lag more? Because basically you don't get "hit" until the end of the chain of events, as opposed to fire sword circle having the "hit" at step 2?

Sure, so for a visual lets look at it this way:

Fire Sword Circle

FSC has a wind-up animation before it "Hits" with the big flame burst, and THEN it has some time afterwards with End-Lag as you stand back up, before you are able to act.

Burst

Burst on the other hand is allllll Start-Up before unleashing the attack/hit, but then you can act nearly immediately once it unleashes.

If I had to guess (there is a stat for this but I cannot find it at this sec), FSC actually "hits" around the ~1.6 second mark of it's 2.67s animation, while Burst hits well over 2 seconds into it's 2.67s animation. So while they are the same animation/activation, FSC is actually a second faster to strike.

January 11, 2021

21 minutes ago, Safehouse said:

Animation times. Especially for Concentrated Strike and, to a lesser degree, Focused Burst and Burst. There could be other attacks that need the AT trimmed, but those are the big three that need some love. Nobody wanted to be a "corpse blaster."

Just wanna talk about Burst real quick:

Name	Animation	Damage	Recharge	Radius
Fire Sword Circle	2.67	126.30	20	10
Typhoon's Edge	2.27	117.70	12	8
Spin	2.50	113.70	9.2	8
The Lotus Drops	1.83	94.47	14	8
Burst	2.67	89.93	15	8
Whirling Hands	2.50	81.33	14	8
Whirling Mace	2.67	80.58	14	8
Eye of the Storm	2.57	76.98	17	10

This is only a small sample of PBAoE's, but looking at some common ones it seems Burst is right in the middle-ish. It matches animation time with the slower ones, but I think the main issue is that say, Whirling Mace or Fire Sword circle's animations have:

Wind Up > Hit > End lag

While Burst has:

Wind Up > Wind Up > Hit

This makes it much "Slower" comparatively as the other attacks with the same cast time hit at least half way through and not at the end.

January 11, 2021

5 hours ago, AerialAssault said:

Look at what powers are most often slotted for KB->KD and think about why people feel the need to slot that enhancement.

I feel this is super relevant.

Usually, there is just 1 "big annoying KB power" per set where this not only becomes a minor slot tax, but ends up usually revamping the power into an amazing one (Shockwave in Claws, Hand/Thunder Clap, Bonfire, Umbral Torrent, etc). There are only a few sets that have MULTIPLE big knocks that are also AoE's, which is where the frustration and sort of the "Tax" comes in. Even still, one of those (storm) GREATLY benefits from having Tornado deal KD and drill into opponents.

Heck, lets break it down and look at the AoE KB in the game. ST KB is largely OK unless somebody is actively trolling in which case that is a player problem, and the unspoken rule is "ST KB = that guy is your problem". It's the AoEs that cause grief:

Archery: Explosive Arrow
Assault Rifle: Buckshot, M30 grenade
Dark Blast: Umbral Torrent
Dual Pistols: Bullet Rain
Energy Blast: Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Nova
Psychic Blast: Psionic Tornado
Radiation Blast: Electron Haze (tiny chance but it's there and it's KB)
Sonic Attack: Shockwave
Devices: Trip Mine, Time Bomb (lol)
Electricity Manipulation: Thunder Strike, Force of Thunder
Flame Mastery (Various): Bonfire, Rise of the Phoenix
Force Mastery: Repulsion Field, Repulsion Bomb
Munitions Mastery: LRM Rocket
Fire Control: Bonfire
Gravity Control: Wormhole, Singularity
Illusion Control: Phantom Army / Phantasm can cause KB randomly iirc?
Force Field: Repulsion Field, Repulsion Bomb
Kinetics: Repel
Sonic Resonance: Sonic Repulsion (Extra troll since you cast it on somebody!)
Storm Summoning: Gale, Hurricane, Thunder Clap, Tornado, Lightning Storm (On here as it deals KB to a RANDOM single target)
Traps: Trip Mine, Time Bomb/Detonator
Leviathan Mastery (Various): Water Spout
Mace Mastery (Various): Mace Beam Volley, Disruptor Blast
Primal Forces/Energy Mastery (Various): Energy Torrent
Psionic Mastery: Psionic Tornado
Electricity Mastery: Thunder Strike
Claws: Shockwave
Electrical Melee: Thunder Clap
Kinetic Melee: Repulsing Torrent
Body Mastery: Energy Torrent
Darkness Mastery: Torrent
Super Strength: Hand Clap
Mercenaries: Commando has several AoE knocks, M30 Grenade
Robotics: Assault Bot missiles, Various Bot attacks
Thugs: Bruiser Hand Clap
Peacebringers: Various

I think that about covers it...

Yellow highlights are sets where I feel there is a legit "tax" of sorts where you gotta control the KB for multiple powers. Orange + Italics I really have no EXP on. Several areas with multiple KB powers were not highlighted as one of the KB powers is very often skipped (RotP, Force Of Thunder/Thunder Clap, Time Bomb, etc) and is essentially a non-issue.

So from this, it seems that sets with AoE KB generally just have 1 power, making the conversion to KD often not that big a deal... and on many of them the conversion is well worth it (Nado/Spout/Claw Shockwave/Bonfire)

January 11, 2021

I had planned on making a thread similar to my Ice Armor one, but hey here we go.

Experience with the set:

Played approximately 100 missions at lvl 50 with and without certain IOs slotted as a Scrapper in my melee testing both in Live and Closed Beta with the goal of out-competing all the other melee primaries. It was dead last every single time by a wide margin...

Goal:

KM has weirdly the fastest and slowest avg animation times of any melee set depending on which half of the set you look at, but that doesn't make up for how weird it's build-up is. The crux of the set is that it takes far too much time to use Power Siphon effectively with arguably less payoff than other similar powers and their Build Up's. If you were to compare Power Siphon to a normal build up power:

PS takes nearly a whole second longer to kick-in, and with less +ToHit (minor but its a thing)
Normal build up you can not only act out of faster, but you get ~3.5 stacks of PS worth of buff immediately that lasts for 10 seconds
During those 10 seconds you are hitting with max potential from the boost with each attack, which you can argue is MUCH more damage potential than having to click -> build up power -> unleash in an underwhelming "heavy hitter"
Speaking of, you need to successfully hit multiple times in order to take advantage of the boost in a reasonable way which can lead to frustration, especially when several powers may animate long enough for you to lose stacks by the time they finish animating!
The other set with a big "gimmick" Build Up is Dark Melee's Soul drain which is spectacular, and on the newly renovated set it works wonders! 😉

While these issues do not directly apply to Stalker KM (I do not have as much EXP there), for all other AT's the main point of taking Kinetic Melee is Power Siphon but it just is not up to snuff when you eyeball both it and the set it's attached to together. Its simply too slow to be competitive and given the effort of using it all together does not deliver the proper bang for it's buck. On top of this, the higher tier powers are all very slow to animate which is counter to the "frantic" build up of power you need to do (as mentioned, building up then unleashing can lose stacks)... and the elephant in the room of Concentrated Strike possibly being the worst melee T9 and kind of a noob trap power.

Goals for a fix to the set I feel should really focus on Power Siphon and by extension Concentrated Strike, but I also feel that some of the others need a pass too for cohesion!

Power Siphon:

The biggest issue is that the way PS builds and the way it is "spent" is just not efficient. At the absolute fastest, it takes around 5 seconds to gain maximum PS stacks *AFTER* the 2s animation time of activating the power, *AND THEN* another 1-3 seconds to actually use that boost on something... easily a time commitment of at least 8 seconds that other sets can get near instantly, and by the time you get max stacks you only get around 5 seconds to use it. Given the recharge and 20s duration, you really do not get as much use out of Power Siphon as it leads on....

A simple fix here would to increase the amount of time that stacks last from 10s up to 15s or even 20s. At 15 seconds, building up to max stacks will give you roughly the same 10s that normal build up powers enjoy to use the buffs at maximum potential, while of course the 20s would be even lengthier to award the effort of 5 separate ToHit checks coming together. Staying at 156.25% damage buff for an extended time would be awesome in of itself and this simple fix I think could go a long way.

Alt/Added Idea 1) Power Siphon, given its 1.93s activation is longer than the main builders of the set. Activating the power giving you one stack for free would be nice and shave off not only raw seconds but a whole attack needed to get rolling.

Alt/Added Idea 2) This one is a little more out there, but what if PS was always on for KM attacks, but limited to 1 stack at a time? This means as long as you're attacking, you can drain DMG from your target and boost yourself a little bit to make the set that much better when PS isn't active. When you activate PS, your stack limit then boosts to 5 instead of 1 (as well as +ToHit) and otherwise behaves as normal. Similar to the idea above but it just helps a little in between.

I think that bottom line a duration increase is appropriate here as you do need to work for the boost, and currently you gotta spam weak ST attacks to properly "enjoy" it for all of... 1 attack or so. Combine the duration increase with either idea 1 or 2 and I think we got something awesome.

Concentrated Strike:

The recharge gimmick is really not reliable, and the cast time is atrocious and not something you even want to use with Power Siphon given it eats away at buff time. Granted, longer lasting stacks will help here but it doesn't really address the core issues. The animation time leaves a LOT to be desired and iirc its probably one of the slowest powers to actually hit a target for a melee set? I had to double check and it's 2.83 activation time is mirrored only by Sky Splitter which does hit earlier in the animation, and surpassed by One Thousand cuts which hits throughout the animation and Thunder Strike.... of which both are AoEs! Even slow Energy Transfer is faster!!!

A simple boost to the animation speed to something like 2.5s would be fantastic alone, but I feel there needs to be some sort of perk to it given it cannot crit normally for one (Scrapper Stalker issue), and as the final power its very lackluster. Personally, I think this power alone should get a special perk per PS stack. After all, you build up your concentration by siphoning power from enemies, the ultimate strike using it just makes sense. I think the following should be looked into:

The base damage of CS goes up per stack of PS. This synergizes very well with PS itself and it could be an incredibly hard hitting ST nuke if done properly. For reference, at base a Scrapper's CS does 222.7 damage without any buffs or enhancements. By boosting the base by even say, 5% per stack that could go to 278.38 damage.
- With 95% enhancement and full PS, this is currently around 782 damage
- If each stack boosted base damage before other buffs, this would hit for 978 damage!
- Why this would be important in particular is that with the same values (enhancement + PS), the combo of the 1st 3 ST attacks actually out-damages CS 879 to 782, and it repeatable within a very similar timeframe (3.1s to 2.83s). CS *needs* to be able to beat this to be worthwhile!
The instant recharge "crit" should scale with PS stacks! Plain and simple, why not literally carry your kinetic momentum by having the chance to crit go up per stack? Even something like 5% per stack would be huge as you'd end up at 35% total when you fire it off which isn't too shabby. I'd even say 10% per stack would be awesome.

I think some combination of these two would turn CS into a sort of "event" type of power that you whip out on a boss or LT to really delete them and get your ball rolling again. It would still be slow, to really emphasize the power behind it, but now it actually feels powerful both in damage and in effect when you use it. You could still corpse bomb at times sure, but if you build this up and open on a boss or a fresh mob it can really swing a fight your way instantly.

Those two make up the main, crucial areas of the set that need attention but I feel there are two more powers that could use a once over.

Repulsing Torrent:

The only real analogue to this power is Claws' Shockwave, which while yes it is a T9 it has near identical Rech and Damage, but has double the radius and half the cast time of KM's ranged KB cone. Torrent also has much, much stronger KB and that sort of defeats the purpose of how the set functions with wanting to be up close and rapidly building up Power Siphon.

Given the smaller radius, knockback, and long animation, I would actually dig if this was a "big" power in terms of damage as well. Like a Kamehameha that gets launched through a crowd sending them flying and dealing massive damage, especially with your self damage buff. The theme I guess along with Concentrated Strike is that the slower moves should "feel" powerful both in animation and effect, so you flow between building up and unleashing constantly like you are letting the energies flow naturally.

Torrent is also alone in that it does not grant a PS stack on hit, something that Burst does (which is why Im not altering that power, it can debuff damage in an AoE and with PS changes it's probably fine), and even CS grants you. This could be all the more reason to boost the base damage considerably at the expense of Recharge, giving Kinetic Melee a ST and AoE super-move to build up and unleash at will.

Focused Burst:

Lastly, this power is really nothing to write home about with it's 2ish sec cast time compared to the much faster trio of starting ST melee attacks. Sure, the range is nice but its essentially a worse Smashing Blow simply due to the animation. I'd say either speed it up, or give it a base damage boost worthy of the animation and making it something sort of in between the "big" moves of your AoEs and CS and the quick ST attacks. As is it doesn't really "fit in" otherwise. Oddly, this is another place where KM mirrors claws with an odd ST attack.... and a BU variant that relies on hitting... weird.

So boiled down I think the set honestly needs minor changes to function properly as the "base" is there with some refinement. It has a coo l dichotomy with very fast, clear "builder" attacks and what seems to be intended "finisher" powers that take advantage of your huge damage buff... its just in practice you cannot really take advantage of this in a timely manner nor is the payoff really worth it. A boost to PS duration is a natural buff to the set and anything you pair it with off the bat, but the changes to the "big" powers in in Repulsing Torrent and Concentrated Strike are where KM would really shine. With slow recharges you'd still expect to see them only once per cycle (eyeballing 20s up from 12s for Torrent, matching CS) but when you do use them they should really represent all that built up power.

I'd lean on making Focused Burst much faster of an attack (1.4s, each ST getting about .2s slower) and maybe recharge a bit slower (8s > 10s) for a light damage bump to make the set have a truly kinetic feel of fast attacks building up to a big, powerful burst every so often.

While my primary experience is on Scrappers, Brutes will likewise love the changes to base damages combined with Fury. Tankers will appreciate Torrent being much better with their AoE focus, and Stalkers... well this is weird given they don't get PS.... but hey maybe thats where the idea of them always getting 1 stack comes in?

January 11, 2021

7 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I still like my idea on KB, that mobs KB'd take bonus damage based on distance they are tossed and the impact they make with the ground.

Same here, my OG idea was that they just take damage from being KB'ed near immediately due to the (force), and to prevent yeeting into an immediate wall being "bad"

Sign In

Profiles

Forums

Events

Store

Articles

Patch Notes

Posts posted by Galaxy Brain