Naraka

Having gotten a couple Sents past nuke levels, it feels pretty solid. I'm sure, once they get into the late levels and endgame, things change for the worse but I typically don't play much part 44. One of my builds only uses frankenslotting and uniques while the other uses proc'ed attacks. Thinking about the hypothetical of an "AoE concentrated" toggle makes me feel it would be a viable change. In the grand scheme of things, you're increasing your personal kill count and, depending on if they back up the target cap a bit, it would feel like more of a buff in offense with very little sacrifice. I think the only downfall would be in the realm of procs... In that respect, you want to hit as many targets as possible to increase the number of times those procs go off. Hitting fewer targets, even if it's only 2 targets less than current, could be a huge hit to damage. On that front, I concede BUT...I feel procs are and should be nerfed in some way. I have another thread in mind for that...

For me, I tried Sent a little when I first came back but the reason I didn't give them a better effort was I had other concepts I wanted to make. Couple that with having played many blasters, defenders and some Corruptors and I didn't really see the point in revisiting those sets. Same with the armors and scraps, stalks, tanks and brutes, I had played all the sets and their different iterations. Having recently taken a closer look at the AT's sets, there is a lot more different than other AT's iteration of a given power set. This gives them even more variance in mechanical feel than what I initially thought an armor AT paired with blasts would have.

If still be weary of that solution because, like was mentioned, there seems to be a period that are visually there but not technically there and I often try targeting a pet already summoned that is close to the new pet too use the upgrade on instead. There have been times where I go too far and the upgrade doesn't catch the newly summoned pets. That being said, the main solution I'd use is just summoning me pets in safer places. As is, MM is decently free to retreat to resummon or to wait until the fight dies down to summon.

I disagree wholeheartedly. You don't have to perma-lockdown a foe for it to make a difference. In many cases, like Guildwars 2, using stuns/knockdowns opens a foe up for more damage to the point you're literally *waiting* for the period that you can stun a boss to unload on it because any other time is more dangerous and more prone to failure since you have to be attacking and not running around trying not to die and that's not even mentioning the various gears/traits that increase damage against foes that are locked down. In Blade and Soul, they have specific classes that utilize control as a class feature to provide utility to a team, specifically the Destroyer and Blade Dancer (unsure of what else they have since I haven't played in years) who can literally hold a foe (hold as in grab them and choke them in the air) and they have traits that give anyone who attacks their choked target chi-return, extra damage and then there is the aerial launch that renders a foe helpless in the air which is the only time you can use certain aerial attacks and buffs. Then, they usually time the use of these features to coincide with certain boss attack patterns so as to bypass certain AI attacks. The problem in CoH is the whole "missing 75% of the time" part. In any other game, standing still in a group of enemies is actually dangerous. In most non-turn based games, a tank has to actually *work* to do their job and use mechanics to dodge and block attacks rather than it being mostly automatic. And if perma-lockdown is broken, how is 95% dodge rate not?

Along with giving the powers stacking +debuff resistance (each click Regen power could give a small amount to each debuff or a moderate amount to unique debuffs), Revive could have the ability to instantly recharge your Regen clicks. If used while alive, it could have double the cooldown. It also has the benefit of helping you stack more debuff resistance by reviving your clicks to use again. I think people underestimate revive though. If you're like me and only use P2W powers sparingly, having revive means you don't need awakens +breakfree which, still, are inferior to just revive. I can keep more offense or defense inspirations instead.

The powers shouldn't have to be more powerful to want to preemptively balance them among their peers. People are always asking for improvements and QoL, so imagine people wanting some of the buff powers or some of the attack powers in pools to be buffed. Well that can't happen if you can then pick up and slot any of the powers without limitations. The interesting part is, you now have more power slots to pick powers with *because* they made the pools less restrictive and now look. You were given an inch and now you want another inch.

I'm going to add the possibility that it also has to do with the way the origin pools are built to have aspects of support and they want to limit availability of force multiplying pool powers.

It used to be Shadow Maul. Shadow Maul no longer lives up to its former stand-pummeling glory.

Ah, the way you describe BR makes me not want to play it. I suppose part of what I like about games is trying to get the best out of something so having that something made simpler just means I have to try less which is boring to me. As for cleaves, yes, having the AoE do less damage on more targets is another form of limiting AoEs. I'm not sure how feasible it is for CoX to do that but that probably would be a great change to help balance the game. For ATs like Blasters, you can actually give them less of a diminishment as a kind of feature and have Scrappers circumvent the diminishment via critical hit to give them an identity. ...but as is, CoX happens to use target caps as a balancing feature. I would agree with you that it might seem unintuitive to have a big bomb go off and some foes not be affected *IF* defense was actually balanced. It isn't and thus I feel this point is moot.

As I'm playing, I can definitely share this being a more annoying issue but not because you have to choose. I'm a passive-RPer so power choice has various meanings to me. Skipping a majority of powers in a set, to me, is like a mechanic that has a bunch of expensive power tools...but doesn't even have a simple flat-edge for measuring or a pair of scissors to cut through some annoying material you're trying to break down to remove. It's not a big deal for me to take the tier 1 and/or 2 powers but when fighting, it could get annoying keeping them both handy or available when opportunity happens. I've only ever gotten to the lower 30s on a Sent and currently working on a couple, one of which just hit 24 and I don't believe I've ever really benefitted from defensive opportunity. If they want to help scale defensive opportunity, maybe they should have a "bonus" for some of your armor powers, like adding stacking debuff resistance to slows on Focused Senses, a slight movement buff if you hit on Agile, a small stacking smashing/lethal res buff on Practiced Brawler etc. I suppose, to implement it, your defense opportunity would just give you "defense flags" and those flags would enable effects built into your armor powers. This could then be scalable by power choice as well as flavored and balanced to the armor set. I am actually not a fan of the -res portion, primarily because it's few and far between that it's every decently utilized. It's only ever on the first target and the time it takes to build up to use it again is unintuitive....if I'm understanding the mechanic to its fullest, it's only the 1st target you activate the opportunity mode that takes the largest debuff, right? A way to counteract this might be utilizing the grant powers system where you grant the power to the target that then debuffs itself but then, upon defeat, it "recharges" the debuff opportunity so you can then shift that effect to a new target while an opportunity mode is active. I don't have an intricate understanding about how the blast sets differ from the Blaster/support ATs besides the snipes. That being said, I am *NOT* a fan of the snipe changes. It screwed up the balance quite a bit. Not specifically for blast sets as a whole but rather intra-powerset balance for sets that don't have snipes. I prefer the live update to snipes because it helped emphasize ToHit buffs and also gave Defenders an edge in certain cases so they weren't so far behind. Now? I am just not a fan...and worse yet, the only way to stick to my guns is to not take a snipe since there is no way to avoid the fast snipe while in combat. That being said, I have no solution, suggestion or further thoughts on Sent equivalent of Snipes. I am not the person to speak on this. I may only moderately use the IO system with uniques, procs, frankenslotted and the occasional stacked bonuses but I don't often build for capped [insert stat], even on high-end builds. Usually, hovering around 32% def is my target or a round 25% res or just enough +rech to get me around slotted rech without actually slotting for recharge. The IO system, while cool and interesting, is a broken mess and I just don't mess with it. Also, same with the incarnate system. For the most part, my gameplay 75% hovers in the lvl 1-45 range. That all said, I do enjoy coming up with ideas but I tend to have a bias to buck the meta. The meta tends to push for bigger, faster, more powerful AoE and my suggestion was kinda 1-out-of-3 to give a benefit at a cost.

I haven't tried Beam Rifle on Sent (I haven't tried a lot of sets on Sent, to be honest). What do you mean by not being small-group focused? Or just the generalities. I know the disintegrate spread mechanic from my Beam Rifle Blasters, just not sure how it differs on Sent. As for target caps being unintuitive in current games, I find that an interesting assertion. Most MMOs I can think of today have some sort of limiting factor for their AoEs, be it having larger enemies so AoE is inconsequential, having far fewer AoEs (perhaps having 3 or less with inhibiting cooldowns), having weaker AoEs, having only specific classes with any amount of AoEs or just having fewer foes to take advantage of AoEs on. I'm sure there are other limiting factors out there but it's hard to take them out of context. Many current MMOs I can think of indeed to have target capped AoEs, most notably the "cleave" of basic melee classes. I can't remember off the top of my head if FFXIV has any sort of target caps but that game's bread and butter is big boss fights with intricate raid mechanics, not masses of foes. If the Dynasty Warriors games are considered MMOs, then yeah, they don't have target caps but it's also a pretty brain-dead beat-em-up. I think the only thing that keeps CoX in check *AT ALL* is the target caps and they are being used to balance the ATs against each other and there's no changing that. That being said, yeah, I don't see my idea being very attractive to anyone who values hitting as many targets as possible...which is why I added a slight reduction in their cap nerf to give room for my idea. But yeah, if you are all about getting those procs and splattering that fodder, then my idea would certainly be a flop in that regards.

Well now I'm curious what you perceive the AT's problem is then. From what I could gather, it's mostly a mix of lack of identity and clunky/weak mechanics in their inherent. Defensive-wise, they seem pretty solid, possibly functioning better than Stalkers in a lot of respects. Offense-wise, they're squarely behind most of their competition. And appreciate the critique.

I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean by "hacky" but I assume you either mean "slapdash" or maybe "cheaty". One thing I didn't elaborate on when I made the OP was some of the conceptual ideas behind it which might make a difference in your perception of it. I touched on it with the names but didn't talk about it. The power name that doubles the power of your AoEs but cuts the amount of targets I was going to call "High Caliber" or "Focused Fire" and the concept brings in the concepts of the other blasting ATs. To make an analogy, Blasters are like a flood or tsunami, capable of sweeping away most anything in a semi-chaotic fashion. The Corruptor is like a waterfall, the higher the drop, the stronger the downpour. The Defender is just your standards river, you can use them as a vehicle to attain other things but they are going to have limits depending where they cut into the earth. This idea would make Sentinels into structured flows like a hydroelectric dam or a fire hose, able to control their flow for specific purposes. You have the opportunity feature to weaken single targets, a wide spray to whittle down lots of targets and a mid-control setting to better handle the stuff between single target and mass swarms of enemies. The other name, "Roulette", was kind of touching on the randomness that might occur if you have 8-10 enemies really close together but your AoE will only hit 4 of them. It's be like a lottery but with bullets. Instead of everyone taking a couple of pecks of birdshot, a lucky few will be taking a proper high caliber shot to the face. Who will win the prize? Lol

Been reading through more threads and curious if anyone has suggested just rolling offense and defense opportunity together as a means to improve the function of the AT? So then you wouldn't have to choose between the offense or defense opportunity nor the tier 1 or 2 attacks.

That's just a disingenuous strawman. I didn't say no one should use Assault sets because they'd be second rate or less than. I said only Doms should use them because they are built FOR the Dominator AT. It's not a simple building-blocks type of set like Control sets, Armor sets or Blast sets but rather a hybrid of 2 building block sets and the conceptual dynamic of using range when foes are not locked down and then using melee when they are is how the set was meant to complement the Dom AT. Things are not always 100% locked down. Not everyone has perma-domination to one-shot hold all bosses and not every set is tricked out with low-cooldown AoE confuse powers. Further still, Doms can be pretty hectic swapping targets to apply their various controls on so having ranged attacks can fill in the time you're swapping targets or closing the gap. And I disagree. On a standard (i.e. not IO'ed to the gills build), you're not going to be able to melee everything to death without huge risk. It's too late for that and outside of the scope of this suggestion thread.

I'm not sure why I end up playing ATs or combos I have less of an understanding of rather than focusing on characters or concepts I like.... Not saying I don't like Sentinels, it's moreso not having a specific concept for the AT then hearing in the forums about people complain about the AT so I have to try it for myself then I just get ideas....it happened with Masterminds too and now I've got an extra 4 MMs between lvl 25 and 45 to get a feel for some of their sets. Anyways, I've started up a couple of Sents. I first tried recreating a Blaster from live (DP/Fire/Ice) into a Sent but didn't like it for mechanical reasons. Since then, I tried again with a DP/Ice up to like lvl 28 and haven't touched it in a long while then made an DP/SR and an AR/Fire that's I've been concurrently leveling. Anyways anyways, reposting my suggestion from the Suggestions forum here to see what people in the AT feel about it: Sentinel Inherent Addition - Suggestions & Feedback - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) Snipped the main "addition", it would be: New Addition Unsure of name but some I thought could fit were [High Caliber], [Focused Fire] or [Roulette]. Type: Inherent Toggle Enhancements: None Cast: None Recharge: 25 sec Specifics: Unaffected by recharge reduction Effects: you no longer build opportunity while toggled on. Any AoEs from your primary set deals double damage (excluding non-nuke rain powers) but affect fewer targets (12 target AoEs >> 8 target AoEs; 8 target AoEs >> 4 target AoEs; 3 target piercing attacks still affect 3 targets). What do you think?

I think they did a decent job with Sent as it is undertuned. That's good. That means they can alter the sets or AT upward to smooth out it's gameplay. The range reduction for the AT, to me, was partly to balance it but in the long run, no one uses strictly uses extreme range as a defense (moderate range with either flight or using some kind of obstacle is enough to keep you safe). The range limit was to restrict Sent's offense and require the Sent to need to close gaps enough to stay in range. I doubt Sents are trying to push range to stay safe, in fact, it's probably the opposite in that they try to utilize their defenses and maximize their offences. At best, it's purely an offensive change to give them more range, specifically for things like cones. As for blasters being the go-to for bigger caps, they still would be. Blasters have 16 target caps while this proposition limits Sent to 12 for equivalent AoEs or 8 targets (half the targets!) If they used the inherent toggle I'm suggesting. I don't think anyone but Dom should use assault sets. Giving Sent an attack set that incentivizes close melee neutralizes having ranged attacks at all. Assault was made for Doms only because they benefit from keeping things at range but also can capitalize on the inert enemies they lockdown. I think the go-to risk v. reward balancing point is range v. melee and that's fine until you take into consideration a lot of blast sets have PBAoE aspects so balancing that on an AT might be a bit tricky. My suggestion is aiming to add another reward balancing point into the mix via trading some kind of potency for another, in this case, hitting fewer foes to hit those fewer foes harder. It's kind of the balanced version of how Tankers got changed...i.e. they shouldn't have gotten their offense bumped up and just stuck with increasing their AoE (range and target cap). You can kinda consider my idea as a "Tanker attack" mode and a "Brute attack" mode in that one is meant to hit more foes normally while the other is less effective AoE but more potent damage. That was also a concern. As is, I tend to just take what I can get with the opportunity attacks and adding something else on top might get dicey. I feel Stalkers start to get in a similar ballpark though with it's assassin's focus, team crit rate, assassin's strike (slow and fast), demoralize, hide, ect. But for them, most of it is passive. If another variable power were added to Sent, it might require turning one of their current opportunities to a passive effect... Or maybe roll them together so you just get both offense and defense at once and only require tying it to the 2nd blast power with perhaps a shorter duration. The funny thing is, I like the opportunity mechanic-wise, it's just a slight bit muted on the offence if you're not built to maximize -res (IOs, powers, etc). If they combined them so you get them together, it might feel pretty strong and might be the actual change Sent needs. Outside of my suggested toggle inherent, if they just rolled Offense and Defense opportunity together, would that be enough to give the AT the right bump up? Overall, I think it'd be an interesting dynamic giving the player an equivalent choice of hitting their normal amount of targets for regular damage or hitting half the normal targets for twice the damage. In some cases, it might net you the same damage, but in other cases (fewer targets or only some targets being debuffer or in range) it could be pure gain.

I just would like to put an idea down so I can stop thinking about it so much but would enjoy getting feedback on it. Weak? Overpowered? Clunky? Unnecessary? Preface For this suggestion, some overall AT changes are required: Rescind the decrease in range, partially for QoL but primarily to help cones. Slightly reduce the target cap reduction. Instead of 10 targets for true AoEs, it would be 12 and instead of 6 targets for cones, it would be 8. Opportunity The bar and the various effects for offense and defense are unchanged. New Addition Unsure of name but some I thought could fit were [High Caliber], [Focused Fire] or [Roulette]. Type: Inherent Toggle Enhancements: None Cast: None Recharge: 25 sec Specifics: Unaffected by recharge reduction Effects: you no longer build opportunity while toggled on. Any AoEs from your primary set deals double damage (excluding non-nuke rain powers) but affect fewer targets (12 target AoEs >> 8 target AoEs; 8 target AoEs >> 4 target AoEs; 3 target piercing attacks still affect 3 targets). Now I didn't scour all the sets for exceptions to the target caps of all blast set AoEs or to compare how it would affect some sets vs others. Most blast sets seem pretty standard in how much AoE they have so at first glance, it doesn't seem to favor any sets in particular. That all being said, I'm not as experienced in Sent, only just made a new DP/Inv to brush up on them so take this idea as just a fun thought. A lot of players seem to love their AoEs and I don't blame them but when on a team, all vying to splatter their AoEs on as many things as possible, I've tended to care less about hitting as many as everyone else as much as I care about taking out the ones that I do hit. I see the same value in hitting 8 enemies with Empty Clips and weakening them for a follow up AoE as I do hitting 4 with Empty Clips and actually taking at least 3 of them down right then and there. And with it being a toggle, it creates the dynamic of weighing the amount of damage you could do with how many targets are present.

It's a blessing and a curse. In the case of Invulnerability, they actually combine 2 passives into one to make room for Hide as a freebie; in Dark Armor, the defense and mez protection from Cloak of Darkness is split between Hide and Shadow Dweller and you don't get unsuppressed stealth in combat; for Regen, you just straight up lose a large chunk of +recovery for Hide but gain a little bit of defense instead...and any taunt/damage/buff aura disappears.

If GW2 was any more current indication to me, it's easier to balance across multiple forms of PvP, PvE and specific content if you create more iterations of powers rather than relying on a global data source. So you can balance a power for a certain mode or for a certain AT much easier. Because if a power underperforms for a certain AT, there would be no way to fix it outside of buffing that power for every AT or buffing the specific AT across all powers. I don't think so. I do think it would make powersets more bland and samey. Having unique aspects to powersets is a good thing. Is it good for balance? Probably not, but if people actually believe the mantra "diversity is our strength", you have to accept not everything is equal and THAT'S OKAY! Same for differences between AT. Because inherents aren't actual powers most of the time but rather flags/additions to powers themselves, having differences in powers actually incentivizes players to try different ATs because Dual Blades will play differently on different ATs, Ice Control will have a different feel on a Controller vs a Dominator, a Tanker will have a different experience with Dark Melee than a Brute, etc etc you will feel a mechanical difference and thus more game to play. As for issues with Stalker's inclusion of Hide in it's secondary, any effect you might need to add to its secondaries, I see no reason why it couldn't just be added to that set's Hide.

It's also good to get a relative standing when talking about balance so knowing the differences between Stalker and Scrapper is also important. I'm still curious if my suggestion would be outlandish or useless. The most important aspect to me isn't just being balanced, it's mechanically playing differently. The OPs suggestion to just increase damage seems to me to make the AT a scrapper but using ranged blast sets instead of melee.

We aren't talking about caps, we're talking about base numbers. They both get the same resistance from Dark Embrace, for example. That said, I don't really know how sentinels compare to stalkers and scrappers. I never bothered to dig into it

Stalkers and Scrappers have the same value armor. Stalkers just have less HP than Scrapper. As for the Sentinel, I only dipped my toes in just a bit with a low 30s DP/Ice and it seemed pretty cool. The inherent is interesting but might require taking both tier 1 and 2 which isn't an issue for me. To buck the trend on suggestions, what if their inherent stayed the same but they added a toggle to the mix (unaffected by rech) that greatly increased the damage of your AoE powers... But further decreased their target cap? Flipping in and out of that mode too best utilize your attacks would be the name of the game and give a different dynamic to it's kind of blasting.

I think the funny thing is, I'm sure I've heard plenty of players criticize the patron pools, saying they're weak and the pets are underpowered, but there still needs to be equality. Most have boiled the patron pools as either niche, mediocre or a failed effort outside of certain powers like Gloom/Ball Lightning on Brute/Tanker but I guess any possibility of "unfairness" should be rectified, even if the unfairness is having a pile of meh, everyone should have a pile of meh....but I have a sneaking suspicion that any suggestion for a Hero Patron pool will be "adjusted" to fix some of the meh-ness of the Patron Pools.

The problem is, there's already a bunch of overlap. For example, Back Alley Brawler uses Invulnerability, SS and Energy Melee, all of which are available in normal epic pools. Same for Statesman. Hmm, what about Citad- yep, same. I guess you could make a "trick arrow" epic for Manticore or put empathy powers in Numia but you're hardcore pushing against blurring AT niches. People are so caught up in "make things equal" and they lose all sense of creativity. Lvl 35+ pools could be an opportunity to add pools that shine rather than being regular pools that have to be watered down and you could do that by creating new, more condensed powersets. Throwing 5 powers that follow an AT-set's parameters while just being nudges to some NPC by filling it with a bunch of existing powers...is wasted potential and, IMO, effort, especially if a content arc would be tied to them.