drbuzzard

These proposed nerfs would do a splendid job of clearing the servers of people if that's your goal. I know I'd likely bail. I enjoy my romps around Paragon City, but it's old content, and I've done it all before. If you geld all my heroes, well I've walked away from the game (back on live) over nerfs before, I can certainly do it again. Perhaps it's wrong in some ways, but I've always like COH because you can get to being 'overpowered'. You're a damned superhero after all.

I agree that the max targets business is aggravating, and I would like to see it upped for all attacks. I will say I don't like the idea of tying too much power to the ATOs. Right now the ATOs for sentinels are not exactly critical to their performance, and I consider this a good thing. Look at how the ATOs of scrappers and stalkers make night and day differences, and I'd prefer the performance level of an AT to be utterly tied to their sets of enhancements. Heck, you actually have to play to the ATOs on scrappers and stalkers to optimize performance. I don't know that I like that,

And there I was thinking we were done.

I find that defiance makes a huge difference, and given the 12% (.95 vs. 1.125) scalar increase, every increase in defiance increases the disparity. Since one of the largest complaints about sentinels is how bad their inherent is, not comparing the effects of the inherents IMO defies there being any point in comparing at all. The numbers I provided couldn't even really include the sentinel inherent since the targets would die too fast for it to matter. The blaster inherent, OTOH, stacks between spawns and keeps helping. I'm pretty sure I showed the effects of defiance outside of penetrating ray. You can disregard that if you like. You can say the snipe is the difference between the ATs in damage. I think you're dead wrong, but I also am sure I won't convince you, so I'll just stop wasting time putting forth data.

This argument basically says that until everything is perfectly balanced, you can't do anything. Pardon me, but that's simply ridiculous. If a clear disparity between general AT performance is evident, you can adjust things to close the gap. Say we have blasters with a fairly wide error bar in performance, but where even the bottom of the blaster zone still exceeds the sentinel (with it's small performance error bar). You can close the gap between the bottom of the blasters and the top of the sentinels without fiddling with either error bar size first. We just saw a very substantial revision to tankers which didn't affect anything outside of tankers (some changes to brutes, but small IMO) though it did tighten the melee set error bar some (and it's a plenty big error bar- ahem TW), but only by limiting the impact of the boost to tankers. This was clearly a case where different ATs were felt to have performance gaps (particularly at endgame) and the devs moved to close the gaps between ATs without actually closing the error bars. If the sentinels damage was as good as a blasters, there would be no reason to choose one over the other (though AOE caps would at least give some reason, but then survivability could weigh in the favor of the sentinel). However sentinel damage is clearly not as good as blasters, so if one is picking an optimal team (say you want to set a speed TF record, or the Master of ITF challenge that I have mentioned) you will not be picking a sentinel. In a circumstance where you are competing in a stated goal, a sentinel must fall by the wayside.

I do agree with you OldSkool that crits are probably the best solution of what the devs are likely to consider. It's controllable and certainly can give a feel of finally hitting hard without so many hoops to jump. I still prefer the option I once suggested to stacking resistance debuffs to a level chosen to keep them competitive. This would have a number of interesting advantages and balancing effects. First off, it would be fairly novel as inherents go (and basically a riff off the present one). We seem to have exactly 2 different inherent themes when it comes to DPS classes- you either get crits or a version of fury. Peeling off resistance would at least be a change of pace. Secondly it would be something that built up on a target over time, and hence wouldn't help a whole lot on steamrolling teams until you actually got to a hard target. Hence that would be a balancing factor in rewards over time. On a positive note, it would be a force multiplier effect, which would make the sentinel have a support angle (which it has in the current inherent, if poorly impemented) which again isn't seen in DPS classes. However Captain Powerhouse has shown a dislike for stacking resistance (probably watched too many Repeat Offender videos or something), so this is basically nixed.

You don't seem to be including defiance. You might as well be comparing performance cars by looking at the engines with no regard to the weight of the chassis and the quality of the transmission. As I've said, on the BR/Dev my damage bonus (from defiance and targeting drone) tends to vary from 60-116% damage boost (from the stealth of field operative with targeting drone up, it starts at 116 set bonuses are part of this of course, but I have those roughly the same on the sentinels), and doesn't seem to get below 56 (the out of stealth value) as I blast away). Just to pick one point- aim+overload from stealth gives me 791.13. Not from stealth I was getting 698.01 (I shouldn't have to say these are combat monitor numbers). without aim 660.93 without aim or stealth 549.94 We'll also do lancer shot since it is available both sides from stealth: 467.05 after breaking stealth: 378.72 Lancer shot in offensive bio offensive mode: 304.4+31 toxic (bio offensive FTW) overcharge 494.45 (with gaussian boosted aim) without aim 322.7 I am leaving off the DoT since it is variable (and the power is identical) It is interesting that the 'after breaking stealth' is generally the low point in the blaster damage (since I've no been building defiance, just waiting for lancer to be up and firing it while the targets are still seeing me and attacking). It's only about 12% higher than the BR/Bio, but it's the low point. If compared out of stealth which seems closer to where I usually am after building up a head of defiance, it's 39% higher. Defiance makes a very large difference. Of course /Dev is an odd beast so it throws things off a bit (with the constant damage boost from targeting drone and the stealth interaction). However for other builds, we'd be talking about build up, with high global recharge so a good bit of uptime, and any sensible build will have the gaussian proc thrown in (I do on my fire/atomic). The base damages cannot be simply considered in a vacuum. I certainly concede that piercing beam does throw things off since it does plain silly damage. Here's some numbers: an actual snipe from stealth: 961.79 a snipe not from stealth: 774.29 a non stealth non snipe shot: 517.9 These numbers are from picking on lvl 50 Cimerorans on the wall. Both characters have T4 alpha (spiritual core for both).

Being internally balanced within the AT has little to do with being balanced against other ATs. Sentinels are a weak choice to pick for a team at endgame. Just about any other AT would add more to a team. Now while you are leveling up, sentinels are just fine, their improved durability vis a vis blasters means they are doing damage while the blasters is closely examining the carpet, and that does serve a purpose. However once everyone has a fully decked out build, the blaster will be quite adequate in survivability, and sentinel damage is left far, far behind. Of course this does involve the rather sticky wicket of how the devs don't want to balance around IOs, but rather SOs, and in that case blasters at 50 are not even close in durability (but then without procced up builds, sents fall even more behind in damage). I recently decided to bite the bullet and see how I could remake my BR/Dev for peak durability. He's now got past softcap in ranged and energy, with near softcap in l/s defense. Since he has core clarion, he has permanent status protection as well. While he lacks def defbuff resistance, there's really not such a wide gap in survival between him and a sentinel since he just hoverblasts. I gave up pretty much nothing in terms of damage to accomplish this (still perma hasten, with my nuke up in 33 seconds or so). The damage gap between the blaster and my directly comparable sentinel is huge (vs. BR/Bio- in offensive mode at all times). I mean huge enough that the sentinel feels like it should have tanker values for defenses to even vaguely make it a fair trade off (though mentioning tankers-they now seem to eclipse sentinels in damage other than the nukes which I will always say are the strong point on sentinels).

It's only the first hit from stealth.

Looks quite solid.

I think the point I would make, if I cared to continue arguing (which I don't) is that by comparing Dual Pistol, which is usually regarded as a low end set for blasters against sentinel DP (which as you say is better balanced), you slant things towards sentinels. I get your point that many blaster sets are ill balanced, but certainly it's not just fire blast which doesn't suck. I found beam rifle on a blaster to be pretty powerful as well. Hence when I compare my BR/Dev to my BR/Bio (or elec, or dark), the sentinel feels very wanting. We both picked a data point, and unless you do a hell of a lot of analysis across all manner of primary/secondary combinations any generalization won't be terribly valid as they are based on singular data points. It's simply not worth the kind of effort required to do proper analysis(at least not to me). But honestly I shouldn't have responded. It doesn't really matter. We all acknowledge that sentinels need some work and OldSkool does a nice job of giving people advice on how to make the most of the AT as it is.

Ok, nevermind. You do good work pointing out how to optimize sentinels. I'm done.

While I appreciate the detailed analysis, I consider Dual Pistols an udder dud of a set. It's the only sentinel primary I tried that I retired the character after it was 50 and stripped of enhancements because I could find better uses. Maybe it's not that bad, but as I'm a shooting enthusiast, the amount of egregious wrongness employed in the set terminology and animations just irks me. The performance failed to impress me at all as well, but the feel probably annoyed me more than anything. Also you are also picking the single set that lacks an aim power which would have a telling effect at higher recharge values. I don't see build up mentioned, which again with lots of global recharge has significant uptime, and thus benefits from the higher scalar. I'd have to say if someone wanted to compare sentinel to blaster output, you'd want to pick the high end, which would generally be considered fire blast. I know my fire/atomic puts my fire/fire sentinel to shame (and honestly I like to play the fire/fire more even if it feels like I'm just pecking away at things). Now as for my BR/Dev, maybe it's the targeting drone that does it (it gives a perpetual damage bonus), but I find my damage bonus to range between 80 and 100 just about all the time during a fight.

Well claws has follow through (iirc) which acts as a perma build up of sorts, and they was likely not considered if you melted a pylon.

I should be clear, I don't mean just AOE. In both single target, and AOE, blasters are well ahead. I have only 2 blasters, -BR/dev and fire/atomic and their damage is so far out ahead of any of my sentinels than it is really just not comparable. My blasters are not defensively oriented, but built for recharge, so they are pretty comparable to how I do sentinels, and the damage is just so much higher (and I have sentinels with the same primaries) that when I go back to a sentinel, I feel like I'm plinking away with a BB gun vs. a .308. I don't blap either, so it is pure ranged vs. ranged comparison.

Ok, this will bring up a quibble from your other post. Sentinels are not 70% of blaster damage in my experience. They are lower. I'd say more around 60%. I have a BR/Dev blaster and multiple BR sentinels (/elec, /bio, /DA), and while I agree with you that the sentinel BR set is the best of the bunch (due to the good AOE it adds), the damage is not even vaguely comparable. It is not hard to keep defiance values up high, and between that and the higher scalar, blasters do not in any way suffer from damage shortfalls, even keeping their distance (as my build is /dev I have no melee attacks to distort the ranged damage DPS). Sentinels need to be balanced on their own. They fall short, it is not ranged damage which does so. I'll certainly concede that ranged damage is generally lower than melee damage if you have a large unmoving sack of HP to beat on. However the existence of an idle sack willing to sit there while you empty it is hardly a given these days unless you are beating on a pylon. Ranged damage gets a seldom acknowledged DPS benefit of not having to chase down the target nearly as much.

This is full of good stuff. I won't bother to quibble with the points I do disagree with and they are somewhat subjective really (ok, mostly). One thing I will say though, is that the fact that you say that sentinels are good at single target when you require massive proc leveraging to do it simply clarifies the situation that as a DPS class, sentinels lack their DPS. Also, the degree to which one has to build and play to leverage the inherent to be good (to the degree it can be good, which IMO is very limited) shows how short that inherent falls from the mark of being acceptable. My personal take on sentinels is leverage recharge as hard as possible on every build, and this will reap rewards. It will allow higher level powers to be up more to gain uptime for opportunity. It will allow you to pop your nuke every spawn (which again helps with opportunity). It will also allow your heals to pop more often, which is crucial for some of the secondaries. Oh, one quibble I will make, invulnerability isn't hard to softcap across everything but psionic and toxic. I have a heavily damage procced rad/invuln build which has capped l/s resistance as well as softcap to all but psi and toxic. It also has perma hasten. For the ITFs that I love to run, I would say it's my best sentinel. The trick is, since everyone dips into psi epic anyway, mind link can get you a decent boost of defense and is permanent at the recharge rates I suggest anyway.

Some of the secondaries don't have click powers so having a defense power trigger defensive opportunity is not really an option (like willpower as an example). Also triggering it with a heal hardly sounds productive (which constitutes most of the click secondary powers). Personally I think the current inherent should be scrapped with a retry at the drawing board. Also if you want the damage scalar go from .95 to 1.0, that will basically not be noticeable. To be blunt if that's all the upgrades you want, there might as well be no change at all since it will leave sentinels in the same place as a DPS class with low DPS. The support the team idea is at least somewhat novel, but I doubt it will be done. It changes the tone of the class and the secondaries in a pretty drastic way.

The value of fast animating attacks is actually independent of global recharge. It's always been a factor in why some sets have been better than others. Energy Melee was single target king back when energy transfer had its 1 second animation. Now its DPAS (damage per activation second) is nowhere near as good, and it dropped the whole set out of contention. Any attack chain is going to have DPS determined by the average of the individual DPAS . For example fire blasters are clear and away the damage champions, and a lot of that has to do with blaze. It animates fast and hits like a truck. Of course global recharge does exacerbate this by allowing chains to focus on the high DPAS attacks. Considering that sustained DPS is actually the most relevant stat when comparing sets (though figuring that for AOE will be quite the can of worms), the OPs suggestion is how things should have been done from the start. Whether or not it will be fixed that way is a different matter, but if you want sets to have a semblance of balance, this is how it has to be done (at least in part).

I've spent some time revamping my VEAT (crab) recently. At one point I decked him out as a crabbermind, and the damage output is pretty impressive during the peaks, but then the pets die (and it's not due to a lack of buffs I'm giving out). Thus I decided to create a ranged tank build, and was very careful to pick the high DPAS attacks, and get a good patron pool. While my blasting tank crab doesn't have the flashy high damage blasts of a sentinel, all of the attacks are high DPAS, and there's a lot of AOE goodness mixed in. Add in the debuff of venom grenade and he can beat things down quite well. This is on top of all positions being softcapped, with 85%l/s and around 60% for all other damage types. You simply can't do that on a sentinel. At the same time he hands out 30% damage boost and around 20% defense to everyone on a team. The only thing really lacking compared to a sentinel is the nuke (omega maneuver being a sorry joke) . The question I end up having to ask myself is, if a SoA can be made that durable, and have that kind of buff/debuff potential, yet still have acceptable damage- then why are sentinels stuck where they are? I mean let's just compare opportunity (inherent) vs. venom grenade (single power). Opportunity requires you to build up a bar, hit with a power, then applies a whopping 20% resistance debuff to a single target. Venom grenade is on a fairly short timer, and applies a 30% resistance debuff to 10 (or is it 16? I'd have to check) targets. A single VEAT power beats the sentinel inherent.

There's a guy (EV300 is his brute), who organizes them and keeps track of time records for them. MO means master of, so no temp powers and no deaths. For the current competition he runs with 5 players, 30 minute time limit, and no inspirations (in addition to MO). Can't make tonight (MST) at that time.

I think we need to pick a date well in advance so we can properly coordinate. Everything saying 'I can tonight' then gets read the next day since most people don't seem to read this every day (for example, I cannot tonight).

War mace is sorely in need of a rolling pin option. (though I'm not sure if that counts) I would also like to see fire melee animations which would allow consistency. Hence having a full set of sword and non sword animations for all the attacks.

So there's a sort of competition on Excelsior where people run Master of ITF at +4 in timed runs, fastest time gets the glory. Runs are generally done in a 'gimmick' fashion, but singular AT, or all ranged, all melee, etc. Right now a pure blaster team is in the lead. While I haven't tried too many times, I can't together a sentinel team which can even survive it (I can, but someone else dies). Perhaps it's because not that many high end players chase perfection in sentinels because their ceiling is so low. I suspect eventually we'll get the right sentinel team together, but I doubt we'll beat the blaster time. If they can survive the run, we can't match the damage. Sentinels are probably about the easiest AT to play. You stay at a distance and blast away (softly though), and if someone does close, you can deal with it without much difficulty. You never really are driven to chase the last little bit of optimization (some do nonetheless). Blasters are simply hard to play (easier than they used to be, but still not easy). This makes people chase every scrap of optimization they can, and it results in some pretty impressive builds. Ultimately, the sentinel needs to have the ceiling raised. You can optimize as much as you like, but as others have mentioned, IOs make defenses easy to optimize, but offense hard to increase. Sentinels lack in offense, and there's really not much you can do about it. There needs to be some revamp. While some people are good and stubborn and have turned out some impressive results from sentinels, I think high end blaster builds are more impressive. I kind of think sentinels are sitting about where tankers were before the recent revamp. They can play the high end stuff, but a different AT would numerically be better (of course variations of build quality and player quality means you can't really predict the outcome), and with equal players who optimized just as hard, you get better results with, say, a blaster. There's a reason these kinds of threads keep coming, and will continue to do so. Sentinels are fun, and definitely fill a niche reflected in a plethora of comic book characters. However, they simply get left behind eventually.

OK, I'm game for it tonight. We'll take you along Bill. We just need to pick a compatible time. I'd aim to shoot for the 5 man 30 minute one. Best if we all pick up all the SG boost before (never hurts to get every edge). I've got absolutely nothing planned today.