drbuzzard

I'm curious, but do you realize how small this increase would be? I mean the current damage scalar is .95 and the defense scalar is .7. That means we'd get a ~5% damage boost and a ~7% defense boost. I challenge anyone to really notice those. I think those are just part of the solution, as every DPS class had a damage boosting trick up their sleeve. We'd be sitting on a 1.0 damage scalar and no boost, which would leave us well behind. Even if you left the rather questionable inherent in place, the sentinel would still be lackluster.

Umm, this is a well known fact. I have a few sentinels with resistance capped in certain areas, and it is 75%. For example my BR/Elec has 75% resistance to lethal, smashing, fire, cold, and energy. resistance by AT: tanks, brutes 90% EATs 85% rest 75% The 70% number is the defensive powers factor compared to tankers for the various sets. Tankers are always 100%, and then scrappers, brutes, and stalkers get 75%. For some reason (which I suspect is the deep seated believe in COH that range is a massive form of defense) sentinels were given a factor of 70%. Of course the fact that the sets are very modified off the base tanker sets means this isn't a huge deal, but I would prefer 75% as the factor for consistency's sake. It wouldn't change things a heck of a lot.

My complaint would be the lack of fighting pool myself. Not having toughness means you won't be anywhere near cap on lethal and smashing which are the most common damage types. I fully approve of chasing recharge, as that is the key of a good sentinel build IMO. Getting the tier 9 attack up as often as possible is really the best way to actually make sentinels a credible DPS class. Though perhaps you went a bit further than necessary. Once you are at perma-hasten, a few more points that than give minimal return, and cost a lot to chase. I recently finished up an ice/rad sentinel to 50. Being able to lay down blizzard and ice storm is a great way to clear out spawns. However it's a bit annoying since the lshift+rclick can only work on one power. Maybe I should try ctrl+rclick for blizzard. The other think I don't like about the build is that while it doesn't have click status protection, particle shielding is so central to how the set works defensively, that I had it on auto click, which means I had to manually click hasten (which I find annoying). You seem to be chasing defense in the build, which I don't consider all that necessary in a resistance build, especially since you don't really get all that far in the chase. I tend to be a mind to go all in on your strength (which would be resistance in this case). Of course if you can get a lot of defense on top of a resistance build, that's great, but you're not really doing that. Also with no defense debuff resistance, this defense will go away in the face of any debuffing. Also, if chasing defense, not having weave is a pretty serious gap.

When I tested Bio, it did more damage than is obvious because it tacks on toxic damage in addition to the enhancement type boost. I found that it did give around 20-30% damage boost (much of it being toxic).

I agree that blaster's don't get to the resilience level of sentinels, and even to get as tough as they can, there are tradeoffs made which nobody likes to mention. However, the question at hand is whether that resilience edge is actually worth it. I disagree that sentinels do sufficient damage, it's reality apparent that high end sentinel damage builds have to use procs to keep up, and that's a rather sorry state of affairs for a DPS class. The inherent is pretty clearly inadequate, and something needs to be done to tune them up a bit. Now I understand that comparison is not simple between everyone else's blast sets and sentinel blast sets because there's a fair bit of adjustment to powers, but still the damage is not really all that great. Is the survivability advantage enough to justify the damage hit, I'd have to say no. Blasters can be quite resilient, and with just a bit of team support can unleash enough damage to make sentinels feel like fifth wheels.

I find it odd that nobody seems to care about the fact that sentinels are intentionally AOE limited (and they clearly are except for the T9, and even that has a low cap), and for a steamrolling team, my resistance debuff suggestion doesn't actually mess with that design decision. If they are to be buffed in damage (which has been expressed by CP), I have to imagine it will be in keeping with the overall design scheme which includes that AOE limitation. Say you add something like criticals- What will then have to give? Will they nerf AOE powers? Will they buff single target powers? I think my solution manages to change very little in that context which barring hyperbolic stuff like 'blaster damage with scrapper defenses' is really in keeping with the important metrics of the game -ie. how fast does an AT manage to reap rewards. As is well known, AOE damage reaps rewards, be it influence, recipes, salvage or experience. You can be the very god of single target damage and that won't mean squat. Adding my resistance debuff model in practice means the sentinel, if he gets his blast off first into a large spawn, will debuff it, say, 10%. That's nowhere near the neighborhood of 'blaster level damage'. By the time he lays down more attacks to keep that stacking very little will be alive if he's on a team. Yes, on hard targets making that resistance debuff stack up to, say, 50%, will make the sentinel a considerable contributor, but he won't ever be a farmer. I am willing to entertain suggestions like criticals, but I'm not overly convinced they will be by the devs since I think the risk/reward question looms, and an actual understand of the reward side of it (which means dispatching hordes of targets, not the fairly uncommon AV) means keeping a lid on AOE ability. It's pretty clear that the current design of the AT leaned this way. They have resistance debuff as the cornerstone of their inherent, they just don't do enough of it consistently enough to keep up in damage. I quite enjoy the AT, and truly it is my favorite, but I know it is rather lacking. It needs some help, but I don't want it off the reservation breaking things, or changing it a great deal from where it is now.

I have no objections to your suggestion, and I wouldn't really mind criticals at all. However the reason I made my suggestion based on resistance debuff is just so things are different. Right now both stalkers and scrappers are critical based, and I wanted something different, and at least sort of related to the current state of the AT. I get your point that no other ranged at does crits, so that is at least novel. I would stand on my notion that they don't want a survivable blaster who can farm. A slowly building damage boost which is on the target rather than the damager is better suited to keeping a cap on that. In a way my solution is comparatively gimpy.

I know it applies a 4.5% (iirc) resistance debuff all the time. I think that the defense debuff might only be in Offensive mode (or do you get a to hit buff? I don't recall, it's too small to be of note IMO).

Range is only a defense in some cases where the encounters were designed to be tricky based on the assumption that only melee characters would have good defenses. Protean is one of those of course. If you're dealing with a more ranged focused AV, that advantage evaporates immediately. Incarnate content has a lot more ranged hazards, and only very optimized sentinels can do the properly crazy stuff in there (and by crazy stuff, I mean charge a spawn solo and expect to come out on your feet, things I can do with my brutes, stalkers, and tanks- I don't play scrappers much). I think why we see things differently is two primarily things: A) I team almost always. On a team, the soloing strength of sentinels meals approximately nil. Sure you are low maintenance, but you are also low upside. At least once you get past 32 and a fast recharging nuke, you finally contribute at least some decent damage, but before that you offer diddly to teams other than a 24% resistance buff against a single target maybe half the time (4% otherwise). PUGs aren't picky, and they don't really notice that sentinels don't really kick in much right now. Solo is completely different since it's your own pace, being mediocre on damage while still survivable means very little. B) I worry more about endgame, and range really stops being a defense at that point. Sure there are still some enemies which are much more dangerous in melee, but by and large, range is little defense (incarnate is loaded with ranged nastiness). For the ride up, sentinels are definitely more easy than blasters because you won't be dying a lot, and soloing is not hard. However at the endgame, fully tuned blasters are quite survivable and the damage gap is huge. As for 'giving sentinels top level damage' well they are supposed to be a DPS class. What are they supposed to contribute otherwise? Looking pretty? Being able to run away? Right now sentinels are a sometimes contributor to teams via debuffs, and the rest of the time peck away with mediocre damage. But I think really where you miss the 400 lbs gorilla in the corner, is asking 'what is the downside' when it already exists and that gorilla ain't a stalker. This game is ruled by AOE. Your ability to reap rewards (exp, infl, and drops) is directly related (not correlated, directly related) to how many targets you can put down in a given amount of time. AOE is king, and single target is just a commoner. Sentinels have severe AOE caps and it has been made explicit that when they get some buffs, those caps will remain in place. There's your downside. It's not a trivial one by any means. This is why I say sentinels really only get good after 32 because the fast recharging T9 nukes are the only great AOE strength the class has, and even that has a 10 target cap. My suggestion, when you think about it, won't mean jack squat for your ability to clear maps quickly. That's why I think it might have some appeal with the powers that be. It seems they want sentinels to not be crazy farmers, and getting resistance debuff stacked up bit by bit won't help with blowing away piles of targets. It will only help with hard targets, and in terms of time vs. reward, those are a bad deal. So yes, it will make them more powerful, it will give them some team appeal, but by no means will it infringe on that blaster who's running at ~100% damage boost, who drops aim+BU and nukes a spawn into oblivion and and AOE the next one nearly has hard on a steamrolling team. For the steamrolling team, the sentinel will still be sub optimal, with the opportunity to shine really showing up on AVs and such. Sentinels may well become kings at soloing AVs, and while that may upset someone, I'm pretty sure all the ATs which are better at AOEs will cry themselves to sleep on their piles of influence and purple recipes.

You think his extremely small thematic suggestions are excessive? I mean, you don't like my stuff, but he's suggesting stuff which is there for flavor and does approximately nothing. I guess you just think any suggestion is a bad one, and they should stay as they are. That is a place where below lvl 32, the AT is basically just gimpy for damage, and post 32 is basically a one trick pony, which isn't the greatest trick out there, but it as least OK. They are OK soloists, if a touch slow, and are fine on PUGs. I don't imagine a Sentinel would be getting a sniff of an invite to an optimized team as is.

Every controller and mastermind has a buff/debuff secondary. Every single one. I would guess over half of those sets are capable of resistance debuff. That's not a matter of specific sets any more than claiming corrupters and defenders are those who do resistance debuff (after all, it's the same damned sets). Your claim that my suggestion is an 'AT-wide mechanism which tramples on what another AT does' is completely false on it's face. It does what almost everyone but the melee ATs do (blasters and doms being the exception) and that includes sentinels as they currently exist. You did notice the current inherent debuffing enemies resistance didn't you? As for the AT getting 'scrapper level damage' that is a quote from Captain Powerhouse, not my suggestion. My idea was a way in which to implement it. A valid argument against my point might be that it makes sentinels too team friendly, but that tends to be something the devs have shot for over the life of the game (when it was live). As for blasters, I'm curious, have you played one recently? They do simply preposterous damage. They have the highest damage scalar coupled with basically a fury like mechanism in defiance. If your blaster is not running in combat at 100% damage boost most of the time, you're doing it wrong. Then with aim+buildup the damage spikes can be simply insane. Yes, on pylon tests scrappers are way up there (titan weapon of course, which is an actual issue of specific sets) because the tests are also measures of survivability. It would be interesting to see a pure DPS measure of blaster designed to just go all out, without the sacrifices that high end blasters make for survivability. My blaster does crazy damage, and he's built without too much survivability concerns, but he's also not really as optimal as he could be (BR/dev) so I doubt he'd be setting any records.

They already do resistance debuff. Heck, everyone with sonic does resistance debuff. Of course Masterminds and Controllers also do resistance debuff, as do Soldiers of Arachnos. Resistance debuff is by no means exclusive to those 2 ATs, and I suggest this just so we could have a different feel to a power up. I'm OK with just buffing the heck out of their damage as well, but it wouldn't be very unique.

Yeah, honestly, of the secondaries I've tried (WP, SR, Energy, Elec, Fiery, Ninjitsu, Regen)- all of them are perfectly fine for soloing. Some have different ceilings than others, but they all play pretty easy.

Actually energy is great, but make what you want (it has the same recharge boost as SR if you didn't know that, it's hidden in the mez protection power). SR is quite good, if you want a defense based build. Regen is actually quite good on sents, as they reworked it for the AT. It has a very solid feel to it. I also like electric or fiery, as both are basically resistance with a goodly bit of regen.

Except you keep forgetting it's def + end recovery + absorb heal + scaling resists (even if you don't like them). The absorb heal (assuming you take the toggle status protection) is actually pretty good.

I think Captain Powerhouse has already said there won't be assault primaries added. The idea of the sentinel is ranged/defensive and it will stay that way (and I like that fact). Melee attacks do become available in the epic pools if you really feel a need.

I think you would be hard pressed to find someone to argue with this. Sentinels simply do too little damage for a DPS class. Their inherent is lackluster on top of that. If those two issues are resolved, I think they will be fine. I still enjoy playing them, but they really only become fun to play after you get the fast recharging t9.

Yeah, I have a ninjitsu at 50 as well, but I hate click status protection. Otherwise it's a very good set, I agree.

Doesn't geyser require you to be on the ground? i think there was some power which did it (not whirlpool). I don't play that one much.

Yes, when there is something which nullifies defense (Ruularu, DE crystal emitters, are the real culprits, I don't find vengeance to be nearly as bad) then SR crumples fast. In a mixed environment with many damage types, and even a goodly number of debuffs (the aforementioned cases are massive to hit bonuses, which is a different kettle of fish) it holds up well. I've done some fairly good with with my water/SR, though I don't like him as much as some other sents because he's ground bound due to the primary. I like my sentinels flying. To be quite honest, with the exception of psi and toxic holes, energy aura is probably the best of the lot. It's easy to softcap, it has decent resistances (think in the 30s or so for a lot of things, and toughness really helps), and a solid heal which also gives regen and endurance discount. Now there is a nicely layered set of defenses. If it weren't for the holes, and the reduced defbuff resistance (it has some, but not SR levels), I'd say it was a clear winner over SR.

Nice of you to include a swipe there at the end. So you list off a whole bunch of heals/regen (absorb is just a different pool of hit points being healed- if you believe otherwise you have no grounds whatsoever to criticize anyone for not understanding anything). Yes, and a smidge of resists which is all you get from the set (11% after enhancement is a smidge). I do find it funny that the absorb in regen is a big deal, but SR having it as well is something you just brush off (not to mention the scaling resistance is on the order of the regen resistance). I have both SR and Regen sents at 50 now, and both are incarnated out. I think I might have a clue about what I speak. Can you say the same? I know what each set can do in practice. That's not speculation- that's a road test. SR is more durable. That's just the way it is. I actually like how regen plays, and I'm glad I made one up, but I know what each set can handle, and SR handles more.

There's a reason I switched my sonic/dark to sonic/energy.

I know this will sound odd, but if you have not tried the regen version which is on sentinels, you should. It is a reworked version of the set, and it is actually quite good. It's not the nerfed into paste version which every other AT has. It actually manages to capture some of the feel of old regen, but still maintains a cap at what you will crumple from when you exceed that cap.

Going by pine since it's what I have access to right now: Blaster combustion base damage at 50: 83.42 Tanker combustion base damage at 50: 57.83 So we assume the tanker boost from .8 to .95 which means *1.18 or so and the tanker is now doing 68.6. This means the tanker is doing about 82% of the damage of the blaster without even accounting for defiance. So yes, his numbers were way the heck off.

I can answer psychic blast questions, but have not played dark armor. 1. You really only need one of the first two attacks since the actual offensive and defensive opportunity add ons to the resistance debuff are pretty meaningless by high level. I only have one of them on my psi/wp. 2. I have psi tornado on mine, but I am considering dropping it for the reasons you list. Yes, it is an AOE which the set is a bit short on, but the deficiencies are clear. I think dipping into psi pool and getting psychic shockwave is a much better solution. Popping that off right after psychic scream makes for some very nice PBAOE damage. 4. dominate is actually pretty good damage, has good range, and there's a good selection of hold damage procs which can be put into it. 5. No, it's a sleep and those are generally crap IMO unless they do something such as damage. Mind probe is well worth your time instead since it does serious damage and will be a good place for a melee set. 6. 90 second duration, 300 second recharge means that it is possible with perma hasten. If you slot it for max recharge, and have the 170% global floating around from perma hasten, your recharge time will be (1/1 (base) +1 (~100% recharge in the power) +1.7 (global recharge from perma hasten and what's needed to get there) * 300 = 81 seconds.