macskull

Most comments on PvP videos on Reddit are usually something like "I can't tell what's going on" or "I don't like your UI layout."

It doesn't happen all the time but I've had it happen on a few occasions. Going all the way to the opposite alignment and then to the desired Rogue/Vigilante has fixed it every time.

You're missing one of the key issues: every time I jump into a mob of +4x8 enemies on my softcapped <insert character here> I'm taking a gamble. I don't know that I will survive the encounter or even the alpha - there's a not-insignificant chance multiple mobs get hits in and if I'm not fast enough on the inspirations I'm taking a dirt nap. This disparity gets worse on characters with lower HP (pretty much everything that isn't a Scrapper, Tanker, or Brute).

"Things that aren't tanks and brutes should have a lower cap on defense" is a poor argument because it completely ignores both differences in resistance caps and differences in base and max hit points. A Blaster with 45% defense is not as survivable as a Tanker with 45% defense, for example. In most cases, the Tanker would be at least 50% more survivable simply by virtue of having a much larger HP pool.

I think the point of this thread is really that Stalkers need their melee damage scale to be at least doubled.

Honestly I think Fire Blast needs buffs. Maybe some secondary effects and the ability to slot some damage procs would be nice. (Also, giving the Clobber treatment to mez powers on non-Sentinel sets, since they actually did that one right for Sentinels. It's mostly just the sets which give up a T3 blast or snipe in exchange for a crappy mez that are seen as weaker.)

About the only time it's actually worth using is for veteran levels, since XP boosters stop working once you hit 50. Maaaaaaaybe it's worth using once you hit the low-to-mid 40s but even those go by pretty quick.

Nah, if you watch the video the pylon goes down just about the same time as they start the animation for the second Freezing Rain after hitting Burnout.

To be clear, there's still no placate protection. Placate and taunt are the only status effects which don't have protection, only resistance.

And there we go!

One Scrapper if that, usually it's another Blaster and one of those three Corruptors is also another Blaster.

The good news is this announcement has not changed your ability to do that.

Seems like this is only for the Brute version, but its text description somehow got replaced by the text for the experimental version of Dark Consumption that never made it off the beta server.

Hate to burst your bubble (haha) but values beyond the hardcap are still calculated, the game doesn't just go "oh you're at the cap, time to forget everything past that!" Example: a Tanker has 120% fire resistance, which gets capped at 90% by the game because limits but the game is still calculating the uncapped value. If that Tanker gets hit with a resistance debuff they resist the entire debuff, not 90% of it. Along the same lines, if the game capped my defense at 40% but I had 100% before cap, I'd need to get hit with 60% -def before I went below 40%. So no, lowering the defense hardcap will not make defense buffers more valuable. EDIT: Besides, all that change would accomplish is reduce build variety and unfairly punish the sets which primarily rely on defense for mitigation (SR, Energy Aura, Shield) which still have the downside of being vulnerable to multiple rapid lucky hits. EDIT 2: I guess it would also make higher-difficulty content substantially harder since mob rank/level accuracy bonuses are applied after the clamp, not before, which really just means teams that struggle through content would struggle even more while teams having an easy go of it would not be substantially impacted. One way you could implement your suggestion is by bringing PvP-style diminishing returns into PvE but then you'd have the misfortune of watching players leave in droves for a server which chose not to implement such an asinine system.

Not really, you'll just end up with players picking up different power picks and slotting them differently. Besides, after several iterations of buffing Blasters because apparently they were too squishy I hardly think limiting set bonuses on them is in the cards.

When "nerf defense" comes up unironically in a thread I like to refer to this post from @Luminara. The post specifically addresses defense bonuses but can be applied to defense as a whole and the argument is still sound.

This creates more problems than it solves. If you nerf defense players will just find another way to get around it, and you’re left right back at the beginning. 45%, 40%, the actual value is irrelevant. This change would also make the game more difficult for everyone while gutting some support sets and epic/patron pools... for what?

Nerd!

This is what makes Sentinels so frustrating from a design standpoint - they were so worried about stepping on the toes of Blasters that they kneecapped the AT out of the gate. In a solo situation that’s probably fine but in a team situation you end up with an AT that only brings damage but is outpaced in many cases even by Defenders and Corruptors, both of which are also acting as force multipliers for everyone else on the team. If Opportunity were reworked to not be so clunky and be more valuable to a team, Sentinels would at least bring something other than subpar damage. This is contrary to statements from that person over the last two years which have continued to describe the design and intent of Sentinels as ranged Scrappers. In that case, either the creator of the AT has no idea what they are talking about (a possibility) or the AT as currently implemented fails to meet its intended design goal (a much greater possibility).

I believe it was you who said Sentinels are a “utility” AT rather than a damage AT and I’m having difficulty understanding exactly what you mean by that. A Sentinel isn’t capable of tanking (where “tanking” = managing aggro) significantly more than any other non-Scrapper/Brute/Tanker AT unless they dip into the presence pool since their armor sets lack taunt auras, their attacks lack a taunt effect, and they don’t get a taunt power to manage aggro. They have a higher threat level than other ranged ATs (2.5 vs 1) but threat level is only part of the equation for threat generation. A Sentinel can’t reliably pull enemies off a teammate. Sentinels also lack much in the way of support powers. They do get a few in their epic pools but those are generally too weak to be consistently useful. About the most useful support a Sentinel brings is offensive opportunity, and even then it’s a mediocre debuff that is only available periodically on single targets and also requires the Sentinel to take a specific power but also to use it at the correct time before accidentally using a different power and wasting the opportunity (puns!). So if they’re not an aggro management AT and they’re not a support AT... what are they? The AT text at character creation describes them as “powerful ranged combatants.” The guy who created the AT has at multiple points described them as “ranged Scrappers.” Both those make Sentinels sound like a damage AT to me. A far better example of a “utility” AT would be Kheldians because unlike Sentinels they can deal high damage at range and deal respectable damage in melee and manage aggro via dwarf form.

I think you are overlooking my earlier post(s) in this thread where I said something along the lines of "people can play what they want." I'm not in here trying to tell people to not play Sentinels, or saying that I would rather die than have a Sentinel on my team, or someone else's playstyle preferences are wrong, or anything weird like that. Those are all subjective viewpoints and I'm not here to change anyone's mind on those. If someone likes playing Sentinels, cool. My subjective opinion is Sentinels are boring as hell because there's little to no risk involved and you give up a lot for that lower risk (incidentally, the same reasons I dislike non-Stalker melee characters). However, the last page or two of this thread has revolved around the discussion of which AT performs better in the role they fill (Blaster = damage primary/damage and utility secondary = damage dealer, Sentinel = damage primary/armor secondary without taunt = damage dealer) and in this case the Blaster is objectively better by almost every measure.

I think another key difference people are missing is how trivial it is to make a Blaster approach Sentinel survivability levels most of the time while the inverse just isn't possible - the Sentinel's lower base damage, lower damage cap, and lower target caps mean a Sentinel will never be capable of performing to the level of a comparably-built Blaster when both are being intelligently played. Obviously there will be content where the Blaster will have a more difficult time in the survivability department than the Sentinel but that only matters if you ignore a player's ability to choose the content they want to run. I also wanted to address something I've seen come up a few times in this thread, specifically re: Sentinel nukes being better by virtue of their faster recharge. At face value you're looking at a 90s recharge versus a 145s recharge so the Sentinel's nuke will be up more often. Sounds nice, right? Welllllllll it's not quite that simple. I'm going to use Nova for these numbers but the damage scales are the same for all the PBAoE nukes (minus the extra DoTs Inferno gets). With no enhancements a Blaster is getting 250.246 damage every 145s while a Sentinel is getting 168.0513 damage every 90s. This works out to an effective damage per second per target of 1.726 for the Blaster and 1.867 for the Sentinel, or about an 8% advantage. Sounds good so far! But wait, there's more! The Blaster's nuke has a 25% larger radius and a 60% larger target cap, which means it is easier for the Blaster to hit more targets more consistently. Once you factor in the total number of targets, assuming you're hitting the max every time (and if we're talking x8 you almost certainly will) you end up with an effective damage per second of 27.616 for the Blaster and 18.67 for the Sentinel, or a nearly 50% advantage. But wait, there's more! Did you know about 30% of a Sentinel nuke's damage does not apply to targets outside the first ten feet of radius? So not only are Sentinel nukes hamstrung by lower radius and target caps, but they're also doing even less damage to some of those targets. Yikes.

Me? Probably, yes. At any rate, a Sentinel would not be my first choice, or probably even in my top ten. I think the point here is Sentinels don't have a clearly-defined role on teams. They're good training wheels for people who are unable or unwilling to play a Blaster but that's all they are - training wheels. In an environment where the tools exist to make a Blaster survivable enough the extra survivability a Sentinel brings is rarely needed and isn't worth giving up the damage in exchange. Unfortunately Sentinels are stuck in this weird spot where they don't have the tools to tank and/or manage aggro, don't deal competitive damage with other damage-centric ATs, and generally don't bring significant buff/debuff to the party which would at least excuse their lower damage. EDIT: All this being said, I'm not going to disparage someone because they like Sentinels and I'm not going to turn down a Sentinel on my team specifically because they're a Sentinel - I know the person at the keyboard is far more impactful than the character they're playing - but none of that changes what I said.

It is worth pointing out that almost every solo task force speed record is held by Blasters, and the team composition of 8-person teams setting records in that same content is usually 6-7 Blasters and 1-2 Corruptors. Also would like to see a Sentinel clearing at anywhere near the speed of a high-end Blaster build.

"This set is better than comparable sets both on its own merits and when combined with secondary powersets, therefore it is not better than other sets." I'm confused here. On another note, here's some actual data on clear speed for each ranged attacks done by @Galaxy Brain which represents how a set will perform in more-or-less actual conditions encountered in the game. These numbers are with SOs only so there is plenty of room for improvement but adding IOs into the mix (specifically for global recharge which is what's required to make the attack chains you want) only further helps Fire because of how ridiculously good the DPA on Blaze and Fireball are. The only real IO options that can get other sets close to Fire are when you start adding procs into the mix and that's only because Fire can't slot any additional damage procs besides those available to ranged damage sets. TL;DR: There's a reason Fire (and far less commonly, Ice) is the only ranged set you see on most high-end, DPS-crazy ranged character builds.