drbuzzard

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.

Actually boosting NE resistance is an extremely moot point since it's so damned rare, but I could get behind it because it would thematically make a lot of sense. I don't understand why DA isn't the king of NE resistance. It really should be by a large margin, not a small bit (as it is). I think this wouldn't be a change that actually hurt anything. I rather think sometime in the future we might see a psionic based armor, and it should be the king of psi resistance, not dark.

We still need to get a sentinel run together for EVs MoITF. Last sentinel try was a train wreck. My rad/invuln fared well enough, and the DP/SR lived well enough, but the rest were dying like mayflies. It's rather shameful that an AT with a defensive secondary gets shown up by blasters in the survival sweepstakes.

As I said, I don't question that the mez auras can be leveraged to make a survivable build. I just don't enjoy mezzing builds. On the base stats as a pure resistance set (not including the mez), dark is lacking. That was my point. I skipped it because it requires a play style which doesn't appeal (though I do have a lvl 50 incarnated out BR/DA sentinel, and it works just fine- not my best sentinel, but a perfectly acceptable one). I have seen it work, and I have seen it not work. As is probably accepted as fact by now, it's a bit trickier to build for and play than most other defensive sets which are fire and forget.

Keep in mind I said tanker. If you're dealing with team tanking, under 50% resistance to a damage type means you melt (unless you have a pocket support person keeping you alive). Under 30 simply means it's too close to meaningless. I have multiple tankers with resistance builds and I know exactly how they play. I know exactly when I'm running into a damage type which constitutes a hole. Energy resistance under 50% doesn't do much at all for a tanker who has to hold aggro of spawns doing energy damage (which is, well, about every incarnate spawn for example). I forgive you for not knowing how tanking works, it's a fairly common lack of knowledge out there. I see it all the time. The amount of defense in dark armor is minimal, so we're talking resistance keeping you alive (and a powerful heal admittedly), and when the third most common damage type is resisted at 20% out of the box, with a whole 32% after enhancement, you've got an issue. Of course just the tanker set purpled out will get you to ~40%, but still 40% hurts a lot when you are eating damage from a x8 spawn. Making up 50% (to get to cap) energy resistance with sets simply is simply impossible. Pointing out it is strong to negative energy is rather a laughable refrain as that's one of the most uncommon damage types. I do a lot of ITFs, and that's at least one place you do see a good bit of negative energy damage. However, when dark would theoretically shine, the same places also have plenty of energy damage, so you'll melt anyway. Electric armor is very easy attain 90% resistance to energy, smashing, lethal. Fire and cold can be done with some IO work (not a fortune either). It also gets psi resistance up pretty high as well. Even its value for negative energy is better than the energy resistance of dark (base 30% between conductive shield and grounded). The only real hole in electric is toxic, which is very uncommon damage. I know math is complicated and all, but if you are only taking 10% damage, the effectiveness of a heal is amplified commensurately (also, note the heal includes a significant regeneration boost by the amount of damage incoming). Measuring a heal in a vacuum is basically specious. What one has to measure is the ability of a set of keep ahead of incoming damage. I don't doubt someone could leverage the mez fields into some solid survivability, but as stated, I don't care for mezzing builds. I've watched dark armor in practice, it tends to be a bit soft for tanking.

I have only played DA on a sentinel (for the sake of completeness). As I have found for most sentinel defensive sets, a nice job was done to make them more balanced and pleasant to play. In the case of sentinels you get obscure sustenance for your self heal, but it also enhances recovery for a while (and it particularly nice in that it only needs one target to give you a good heal+regen and is PBAOE with decent radius). Now I suppose if I did have to question anything on the sentinel version, it would be the actual presence of cloak of fear and oppressive gloom at all in the set. You're on a ranged AT, which simply doesn't have melee attacks (before EPPs) so melee mez fields are pretty much utter wastes of powers. In my case that simply meant I had powers which could be skipped without any downside. However, as someone did mention, no power should be a no-brainer to skip. I also like tanks, and have built most armors to 50 now, except stone, DA, and invuln. Stone I suffered through to 50 once on live, and I'm not masochistic enough to do that again. Invulnerability still is remembered with godlike durability, which it no longer has (and perhaps it shouldn't anyway, and is fine as is) and I prefer the memories to doing a new one and not getting that feel like it was. Then there's DA. Nothing about this really appeals to me. I'm not a big fan of mezzing characters, and that's the only really noteworthy aspect of Dark Armor except for stealth (on a tank?!? WTF?!?), a very solid heal, and a big fat glaring hole to one of those most common damage types (energy- that's gonna leave a mark). It's particularly strong against psi- why? I don't get why it's not strongest against NE, but whatever. So if I'm skipping the mezz auras what am I looking at? A resistance set with a bad damage hole, and and knockback hole I have to patch. I'm better off with fire for more general resistance coverage (just that energy hole is enough reason) and more damage, or electric for better overall resistances, good endurance recovery, a decent heal, and knockback protection. I was seriously considering a DA tanker, but simply could not justify it.

OK, that explains it. Thanks. Still not going to play the defender much for the moment.

OK, I built a psi/cold corrupter and realized I didn't much care for the blast focused play style which I deem the AT to fit. I wanted to be more focused on my buff and debuff work. Thus I have created a new alt with cold/sonic instead so I'd be focused on those force multiplying aspects which I consider the key to the support ATs. A cursory examination shows that the shields are all 33% higher on the defenders as it should be, so I figured all was going to be good. Then I look at the major debuffs. You have benumb, sleet, and heat loss (yes, there are 2 more, but they are really just slows so meh). Benumb follows the proper relationship of corrupter (.75 effect) to defender (1.0 effect). The other two, however, are identical across the two ATs. I remembered that other resistance debuffing powers tend to follow this relationship, so I poked around and checked radiation, dark, and sonic (sue me for not checking every one). All the rest followed the corrupter = .75 of defender values (22.5% vs. 30% for tar patch, or disrupting field, or enervating field). Heck, I decided to check on Masterminds, which I thought had even lower values than corrupters, and once again sleet and heat loss are constant. Would someone care to explain what the heck is up with this? There is only once excuse I can possibly imagine is that when cold was ported to defenders, they decided that the resistance numbers would simply be too high so left the values at corrupter levels. However they also didn't want the pushback from corrupters over being nerfed (which is as it should be if the defender values are proper). Right now I have basically no desire to bother playing my cold defender as it is clearly the red haired stepchild, and I'm better off sticking with the corrupter I already have (more damage, almost the same debuff). This is rather a shame really, but I supposed there are other sets out there. I think this ought to be resolved in the sensible way of boosting sleet and heat loss by 33% on defenders (as corrupters are already uncommon enough, and cold is not the most popular set in any AT).

I would suggest the easiest way to do this is just toss a couple of AOEs into your attack chain when taking out the towers, and you won't have to worry about the repairmen. They will just die without you noticing.

I didn't care for any of the options, so I didn't bother to vote. I've done a thread on what I think should be done. To sum it all up, start with upping damage scale to 1.125 (same as scrappers and blasters). Also up defensive values to .75 like scrappers and stalkers (and brutes) instead of the oddball .7. After that I'm of two minds: What I would really like is stacking resistance debuff to all stalker attacks, so they build up their damage, and help out the team at the same time. It would be a fairly unique mechanic (though sonic blast does it already). Scrap opportunity as is. However Captain Powerhouse has stated that he doesn't want massive resistance debuffing out there, so I doubt this will happen. Alternatively, so go with an easy solution based on what CP said, just give them crits (like scrappers, not as good as stalkers). The opportunity mechanic, while of some use currently, is nothing I will miss as long as something better replaces it. Sentinels are simply a DPS class that lags in DPS. That's not overly acceptable. As I see them they have one shining ability, and that's the ability to nuke often when you pump recharge. Other than that, they do meh single target damage, and even more meh AOE damage because of the lowered caps, low damage scale, and the inherent not at all helping with it. Someone mentioned that another server (WeHaveCake is one of know of that does this) basically abolishes AOE caps (and aggro caps as well-both are set to 200). Playing a sentinel over there is (was)actually pretty nice since it actually leverages your survivability edge over a blaster. However it's clear that won't happen here (and that server did a weird revent to i23 on their last update, and completely screwed up sentinels).

One nice thing to note about war mace on tankers, the tanker AOE changes really did nice things to mace.

It should be made clear that TW is actually king of single target and AOE damage when the build is ultimately finished. Whether or not you particularly want to deal with the pain of getting there (moot if you get PLed and have piles of influence) is the issue. I basically never get characters PLed up except my TW tank as I didn't much want to deal with the pain. Even after my build was done I still didn't care much for the mechanics because they feel clunky. The damage it puts out is great, but honestly I made a war mace right after and I enjoy it much more (even though the damage is lower).

Tested, and it's working again.

Not sure if this was intentional, but LFG no longer works to teleport you around to contacts (at least solo).

I rarely play solo, so the pets fall to AOEs all the time, and they are just burst damage, as I mentioned before. I'm not saying a SoA should be a mastermind, as I'd play a mastermind if I wanted a pet build, I was just saying if the crabbermind was supposed to be a pet build, there's issues with keeping pets alive.

My crabbermind is focused on recharge, and I'm well past permahasten. However even with the summons under 3 minutes, the pets often last less than a minute, so you're spiking at high damage for only a limited time. At best even if some do last, I've almost never seen the whole troop last for their recharge time unless I'm doing something completely easy. In team stuff, they die in droves.

I have a crab at 50 and a fort at 50. The crab has 2 builds, crabbermind and a very tanky blasting build. All are thoroughly IOed and incarnated out. >How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs? The fort works well as a team buffing, mind blasting, dominator with solid defenses and status protection. It's pretty solid, though the damage is probably just OK. However given the control and survivability with team buffs, I can't really complain. The solider depends on the build in use. I did up a crabbermind because of all the talk of it being a damage king. I suppose it theoretically might be, but with pets dying constantly, and slow recharge on those pets, it's a very bursty damage and cannot be considered sustained. I do hand out quite a bit of defense to the pets, but that doesn't keep them alive. In blasty tank mode the build is crazy durable, but the damage is really nothing to write home about. I have all position softcap, as well as 85% l/s resistance and 60ish resistance to everything else. That makes for a damned hard to kill character, but none of the attacks hit that hard (use the Ghost Widow Patron set for the dark blasts). It's not bad, but I feel sentinels blast better. >What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another? I'd say my fortunata is the better of the two. It's quite handy on teams, and stacking up a lot of confusion is quite amusing. >Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment? A crabbermind might be overpowered if you could keep the pets alive. As it is, you get to me a damage god until AOEs kill all your pets. If you aren't a crabbermind, you can be a ranged tank, but with meh damage. Not sure if I'd argue that my fortunata is overpowered. It's very helpful on teams, but death is a real possibility, and except by abusing confuse, I wouldn't expect to be soloing TFs or anything. >What would you like to see changed? Omega maneuver should be made to not be utterly horrible. It's got the recharge of a nuke, but without the damage, and the whole delay nonsense just means it goes off after your teammates have killed everything. Honestly just replacing it with a different power or something which isn't close to useless would be nice. Right now it is purely a power choice trap. Perhaps drop the recharge on the pets so damage could be sustained. Also removing the take out the gun delay would be nice. Fortunata is fine IMO. >What do you love about them? Actually since the introduction of sentinels, I've played my VEATs much less. Back when they were the only real option for a tanky blaster back on live, that's what I played all the time. I do like the crazy level of durability I can attain on a SoA, but the damage could use a bit of help. Crazy durability doesn't really do you a world of good with an aggro cap of 17.

I meant the actual DoT of the disintegrate, not the overall DPS of the set, which I agree is quite decent.

I'm quite fond of beam rifle. It is nice on single target and AOE, and honestly the whole disintegrate spread mechanic amuses me far more than it should. Sure, it's not a whole lot of damage (shooting a disintegrating target gives a decent damage boost though), but watching it spread over a crowd is just rather cool to watch. Currently my favorite sentinel is my BR/Bio one. I actually don't do the psi pool on that one, which is uncommon as I usually do, but damage is still good enough for me (but then I don't hunt pylons).

Yeah, got me a Dominator up to 50 and perma-dom put in (all the spending and even alpha to tier 3) and I realized I couldn't stand playing it since it was simply too fiddly for me. Perma dom can only be maintained when you watch it like a hawk, and honestly I don't have enough focus for that. Heck, I've had tanks die because I was paying too much attention to fighting to watch my health bar.