nihilii

I love my PBAoE nukes. PBAoE nukes have many advantages: 1) Control. No need to target a specific mob and hope they stay equidistant with the mobs I want to hit. I jump at a precise location, and hit everything I want to hit. 2) Armageddon chance for fire damage + Fury of the Gladiator chance for -RES. Enough said. 3) YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE EXPLODING Variety is good. IMHO, play the ranged options if you want a TAoE nuke.

Great advice from Voltor! Personally, I'd lean for Degen Interface rather than Diamagnetic. AVs have huge regen resistance and Diamagnetic unfortunately does very low -regen. On the other hand, Degen -maxHP also works as effective regen debufing, as regeneration works in ticks of your current HP. (The reason Envenomed Daggers are still worth using is because their -regen debuff is HUGE. -250% per dagger, I think? And it is stackable. Same goes for the Longbow Cataphract, which does -500% regen with its double laser beam attack.)

Sentinel RES caps are already at 75%, like Scrappers. You're probably thinking of the defense modifiers being slightly lower. Personally, I can't ever agree with the idea blasters get enough survivability to make sentinel survivability pointless. It's simply not my experience - on highend blasters, I die at a significantly higher rate than on highend sentinels. But I see your point, I think your perspective is valid, and actually... I think it could be a sign the balance is healthy here. People should value different strengths and weaknesses in different ways. And if reasonably informed players end up with opposite positions on the matter, it suggests the current balance succeeds at that. We have a range of choices, accomodating our personal game philosophies.

I voted "skip" but I would add "I pick it on a farming toon". I can't argue my "skip" case from a performance perspective, it's just that other Claws animations are so fast I enjoy being a buzzsaw cutting through mobs methodically. I will make an exception for Spin because 360 degrees PBAoEs are awesome, but Eviscerate easily goes to the dustbin despite being a decent power.

From where I stand, several flaws in that logic. 1) Armor powersets aren't damage powersets. If Fire Melee ignored defense debuffs and if Rad Melee ignored slows, I'd argue both sets would be OP. 2) "Immunity to X" isn't equal in strength to "immunity to Y" by virtue of being "immunity". One has to consider how common the "immunity" is. Rage trivializes slotting for Accuracy, enemy defense buffs and tohit debuffs... Essentially takes an entire cornerstone mechanic out of the game. Being immune to a specific type of debuff doesn't really have the same reach.

Good luck on your quest! Certainly an unique combination, and curious to see how far you will go.

Very cool idea. Might steal it. I've done a streetsweeping-only character, and it's amazing how different the game can feel when you put these constraints on yourself. Revisiting or exploring so many places we're used to zoom by. And the game really holds up as such; even as momentum moved to instances very early, devs still took care to fill the zones with appropriate encounters.

I would definitely play CoH in a fantasy setting. Couldn't care less if there's a million fantasy games out there... Couldn't care less about the super-hero theme, for that matter. I mean, I'm fine with it, but it's hardly relevant to me. I'm here for the game system. You could put whatever coat of paint on the CoH game system, and I would enjoy the results. MyLittlePony CoH? Sign me up!

I've made the same answer elsewhere, but this is a surprising enough statement compared to my own experience I'll repost it. My Fire/Time corruptor with a focus on DPS does ~240 DPS. My Fire/* sentinels do 360 DPS. Even my Dark/Invul sentinel does 260+ DPS, and neither Dark nor Invul tend to be thought of as particularly damaging. I'm not even using epics on this particular sentinel. AoE comparisons are more difficult to justify in pure numbers, but when it comes to practical experience, my sentinels also pull ahead of the corruptor. All sentinels can Aim(+GaussianBU) + Nuke every half minute. Even with lowered target gap, this ensures most of the group is wiped out with that first AoE salvo. Sentinels naturally lock on that ~25s defeat time per group. My corruptor simply cannot keep up with that. Inferno is up every 2 groups, not 1, so every other group my AoE output is drastically lower. I'm also spending animation time on -RES, as well as Farsight - and that's the ideal scenario. If I'm on +4/x8 against tough factions and need to heal, that's more time spent not attacking. I could see a Fire/Storm corruptor dealing more damage against ST targets, provided these targets are relatively static. Tornado and Lightning Storm are beastly. But corruptors as a whole aren't likely to even reach damage parity with sentinels IMHO, if both are built well.

You can make it work without Ageless. But... I feel Ageless is the optimal Destiny pick for a DA/TW tanker. Especially because, what else would you pick for Destiny? - Clarion isn't too interesting, we have full mez protection - Rebirth is relatively less interesting, because we have Dark Regeneration - Barrier is the alternative "legitimate" pick, giving us a window of invulnerability. This can be one way to go, but at the same time, DA/TW is so sturdy to start with... I'd rather use Ageless consistently and save so many slots on endurance than have Barrier sit unused most of the time. (But both approaches are valid, so YMMV) The optimal attack chain for TW is Follow Through -> Crushing Blow -> Rend Armor -> Follow Through -> Crushing Blow -> Arc of Destruction. This is another thing Ageless helps with: this chain requires high levels of recharge, and every little bit helps. Because we're Tankers we should apply Bruising, one of the Crushing Blows should be replaced with Defensive Sweep. Ideally the first. And, if you're fighting a crowd, you can swap the other Crushing Blow for Whirling Smash. (In a sense that also means you could get away with less recharge than optimal, adding DS and WS to the chain rather than replacing CBs. Although you'll have to experiment and see how it affects your momentum.)

I have the brute version, and it's an absolute beast. This Tanker should be good! I'd recommend sticking the Hecatomb set in Crushing Uppercut, swapping Damage for the damage proc; and also adding the purple hold damage proc from Unbreakable Constraint on your 6th slot. With Crushing Uppercut's long recharge, you are near guaranteed to proc both of these damage procs for an extra 210 damage per hit. You don't need the Karma KB protection, Rad Armor comes with KB protection. I wouldn't slot Beta Decay beyond its base slot, and I would just stick an Achilles Heel's chance for -RES in there. The tohit debuff is mild so not really worth enhancing (imho). I'd add a few more slots to Particle Shielding, this is your prime mitigation tool. It gives you a nice chunk of absorption and increases your regen and recovery, so it's essentially a fast recharging Dull Pain.

Energy Melee has issues, no ifs or buts about it. Regardless... you can *definitely* make it work. It's not like it's broken to the point you couldn't do your job. It's just that virtually any other secondary will do a better job. There may be buffs coming to Energy Melee at some point, but this is likely months away. Elec Armor is a great, solid primary. It has strong resistances to near everything, a good heal, great endurance management, and a couple underrated extras (immunity to end drain, resistance to slows).

At a quick glance, I'd give more slots to Temp Invulnerability. This is your bread-and-butter mitigation against Smashing/Lethal damage, the most common type of damage enemies will throw at you. You could cannibalize slots from Cross Punch, which is probably not worth using/slotting at all.

Within the range of my own personal experience. this doesn't feel accurate. My Fire/Time corruptor struggles to reach 240 DPS. My Fire/anything sentinels can go well beyond 300 (and get pretty close to 400). Even my Dark/Invul Sentinel, using nothing but Dark Blast attacks, does ~270 DPS! I can't see a non-Storm Defender outdamaging most Sentinels. I think even for say a Storm/Fire defender, it would be tough to outdamage most Sentinels in anything that isn't a static fight like a Pylon test. Even if we moved the discussion to target caps, I don't feel hitting 16 targets instead of 10 with your nuke and AoEs would make up for that nuke recharging twice slower. This is admittedly harder to measure, so more subjective. Personally, my own Sentinel flow goes 1) Aim+Nuke+AoE = most lieuts and minions dead 2) focus ST attacks on the 1-2 bosses while dishing out AoEs when sensible = bosses and remaining minions/LTs dead 3) move on to next group and repeat Total encounter time, 30 seconds per group at most. Completely acceptable by my standards on any AT I play. I'm slower on Corruptors and Defenders, simply because the nuke can't be up for every fight - and increased nuke damage still isn't enough to wipe out bosses, so time must be spent finishing them up regardless.

Tanker buffs are a +2 or +3 in power to most secondaries, while TW only gets +1. Thing is... Most secondaries start between 5 and 8 on a scale of 10. While TW starts at 11. 🙂 My own post-buff Tanker, already leveled in anticipation, is DA/TW. DA can be made to hit ~90% res against everything and ~33% def against all positions without sacrifices. The damage aura will hit more foes post buff. And TW, well... is TW. The biggest boon here is we're *losing* Bruising in exchange of higher damage. Which results in an *even bigger* (solo) damage increase: as we don't have to use the T1 to apply Bruising anymore, we can run optimized attack chains. TW profits especially, as its optimal attack chain is very tight. I'm hoping this is the character that will finally let me solo a LRSF and STF in melee range, no tricks. (But I might be delusional.) To answer specifically: the +60% radius applies to damage auras. It's awesome. 8 feet becomes 12.8 feet, so your auras reach much further than a good 10 feet AoE right now. It's not quite at Spine Burst / Foot Stomp levels, but it's close. As for Footstomp itself, it gets a nerf from 15 feet to 10 feet, then the +60% buff brings it up to 16 feet. So it's a slight buff but pretty much impossible to see.

A standard level 50 GM has about 70k HP and regenerates 5% of that every 10 seconds, so you need ~350 DPS to break even with no debuff. As GMs get lower in their (hidden) level they have significantly lower HP. So even though your damage also scales down, their own regen takes a bigger hit. For example, I know from experience ~250 DPS as a level 50 will let you beat Eochai or Jack in Croatoa without debuffs (Jack is indeed significantly harder).

Everyone ITT has already made the most important points about the Tanker role: a cushion helping the team, rather than stiffling them. In that spirit there's one thing I see many Tankers unaware of, overtaunting has negative effects. This is especially true against enemies with special mechanics, most prevalent in iTrials. In BAF, if you overtaunt Siege or Nightstar, aggro might stay on you after your first ring, your second ring, and sequester you (and any unfortunate ally in range). This could happen even if you pull back. On the other hand, if you don't taunt at all, another Tanker or even a Brute or Scrapper could snatch back the aggro from you by using Taunt themselves once they see the second ring on you. In practice, expecting this level of coordination is utopic; but at least it will let you lose aggro the moment you move away, someone else will snatch it, and the AV won't move. For Marauder in Lambda, this is less important, but I find it annoying to see Marauder superjump away, then slowly move from all the melee characters and damage patches to run towards the slooow moving Tanker who's still running to the new spot. Tankers have the greatest power to affect the flow of battle. Taunting everything at length and herding groups when unnecessary can turn the experience into a miserable slog. Soaking alphas swiftly and efficiently, using Taunt on a need basis and applying Bruising on key targets can greatly speed up the pace.

I'd be bummed if that suggestion went through. First, I enjoy getting to use mobility. Chasing down AVs is fun (YMMV, obviously). Second... One of the big reasons I'm a relentless Sentinel cheerleader is this particular point. Having AVs run away from you all the time while maintaining a solid attack chain and almost Scrapper defenses give you essentially stronger mitigation than a Scrapper, because so much of the AV damage is cut down from their running away. If you don't like AVs running away from you, power pool Provoke is an option available to every character. Yes, that means one extra power pool choice. Another option can be to get an immobilize, most AVs don't have more than mag4 resistance to immobilizes which means 2 applications will be enough to keep them still. I think all characters have access to some form of stackable immobilize, whether through epics or primary/secondary. There's also being (or playing with) a Tanker, a Brute, a Scrapper with a taunt aura, a Scrapper with Confront. You could also get the Melee Hybrid Incarnate power, which comes with a Taunt effect for its 2 minute duration. I feel there's enough options out there to make this AI tune down unnecessary. Perhaps look at particularly egregious cases like Rommie jumping up the 200 feet high Cimerora wall the moment you sneeze at him, and Nosferatu is also another notorious runner (even then, is it really that bad if a couple AVs out of the many out there run like headless chickens?). Most other AVs are fine IMHO.

I'm not convinced. If I can do X today, and if I must change something after change Z to be able to do X again, then Z was a nerf, not a buff. It's a question of semantics. "What's expected of you as a player to keep succeeding" doesn't seem relevant to that precise question, instead it would open up a much bigger debate.

Any buff that would demand a change in playstyle to attain at least equivalent performance to what we have right now is a nerf. Change my mind. :) Suggestions to plainly buff Sentinel's damage = why not. Suggestions to introduce complex mechanics requiring to play in melee, use certain powers, extra clicks = eeeh. Plenty of ideas in this thread are good ideas in a vacuum and even in general, but bad Sentinel buffs. YMMV.

Sometimes a "like" isn't enough to say "I wholeheartedly agree". As far as I'm concerned, you're right on the money, @DocRadio. Sentinels are awesome, blasters are awesome, they're awesome in different ways and I feel neither really steps on the toes of the other because of their radical differences. It's not a brute vs scrapper vs tanker situation nor a corruptor vs defender situation. Sentinels have their spot, a particular window of performance no other AT can quite touch in their unique way (soldiers and widows are close, but given powerset diversity, both ATs can coexist).

You're right on the money! The left branch of Ageless gives enormous amounts of recovery, to the point caring about endurance at all becomes optional for all but the end hungriest builds. Provided, of course, you're fine with your optimal performance limited to level 45+ (under which we don't get incarnate levels). I ought to have mentioned that. I like that with /Rad, we're provided with a hefty heal plugging that hole in SR. Which... really doesn't have any other hole. So this makes (in my opinion) Ageless a very attractive pick, solving end woes and giving freedom to overload on procs. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics of Irradiated Ground, but I've heard from people smarter than me procs are quite effective in it; and indeed, my own limited testing seems to show good proc action.

Sentinels have a damaging Tesla Cage and their nuke on the standard Sentinel 90s recharge (while retaining its awesome end drain). It still doesn't make the set crazy good, so I'd see no problem with "porting" these buffs to blasters/corrs/defs (that is, a damaging Tesla Cage and a nuke on the standard timer). I'd love for Tesla Cage to be slightly sped up, 1.848s would be great. But most of all... The best buff elec blast could get would be for Voltaic Sentinel to be permanent. Having to recast it every minute is balance by annoyance. It doesn't really affect objective performance as you can recast it between groups, but it's so tedious to do for such a subtle effect. Because of that, if we pick the power at all, we end up using it situationally. Not only a permanent VS would be a nice boost, it would emphasize some uniqueness in elec blast.

I have a lvl 50 SR/Rad Tanker specifically built to deal ST damage with decent resistances, alternating Melee Hybrid and Rune of Protection. The build does roughly 210 DPS on T3 incarnates, running a simple attack chain of Devastating Blow -> Radiation Siphon -> Radioactive Smash -> Contaminated Strike. Destiny is Ageless. This character soloes +4/x8 fine even if not very fast at it, and has tanked STF Recluse and the LRSF final 7 with some inspiration use. Build: