Bill Z Bubba

Nah. I don't keep what I don't play. I'm not a fan of clutter.

Another option to consider would be to go FU/Eviscerate/Slash/Repeat using a damres debuff proc in both evisc and slash. Fury of the Gladiator for evisc, Achilles' Heel for Slash. That's what my claws/bio runs and if I could tolerate evisc's animation I'd probably go that way on the 3 Bills. The fun part of this chain is that it loads up evisc's already higher than normal base critical chance when using the +crit chance proc in FU.

This is how I judge my characters. If they can't do this, then they aren't good enough. They might be fun, they might be relegated to "team only," I might still like and play them for a variety of other reasons but they will remain not good enough for normal play. Normal play is max diff against everything. Edit: Forgot to mention that this is as true for my claws/sr scrapper main as it is for my claws/sr brute or sr/claws tank. Always a good rule but at that point we're not soloing so thinking of the welfare of others is always a good thing. Although staying at max diff with fair warning also works. 🙂

Kinda surprised that no one really spoke about Bio apart from a slight side mention. I've got 50s of fire/bio, fire/sr and fire/nin and by far, the added damage from Bio makes that one shine above the others. Being unkillable due to all the absorption is a nice bonus.

If that's all there is to it, fine. Go to Dark Astoria, run repeatable missions from Ephram at max diff, compare your gains on a maxed out Sent vs a maxed out Blaster. I already know the outcome.

Sentinels are not blasters. They have mez protection. They have armor. Sentinels come into the mix with built in damres reduction which can not only be stacked with multiple sentinels but be stacked on any damres debuffs you can slot in your build. And again, a non-faceplated sent is going to out-dps the blaster who spends their time licking dirt.

There is no argument. There is no impasse. Anyone that states range doesn't reduce incoming damage and thus the likelihood of faceplanting is delusional or lying. I mean WTF.... go sit in melee on the 3rd mish of the ITF in the spawn of nothing but EB monsters and then hover above them blasting away and come back and tell me that being in melee doesn't increase incoming damage. Seriously. WTF.

Pretty sure they're the same caps. And coupled with being ranged instead of melee, they're actually vastly more durable. Just logged mine on and ate an orange. Yes, damres cap is 75% just like scrappers. Defense cap is 175%. Unsure if that's the same on scrappers.

Agreed. As safety goes up, damage should go down. That's why my scrapper does better damage than my brute which does better damage than my tank. All Claws and SR so it's a true comparison.

Nope. Didn't forget them. But this is a sentinel thread. VEATs have their own ridiculous design issues.

It's in the 30s, so no. Again, precisely because the incoming damage at range is so drastically less than the incoming damage at melee.

It's a fair statement. So explain why I feel the exact same with my dp/sr sent? Edit: Who is in the 30s ... and doesn't hover. Another edit: or my brand new lvl 14 rad/regen sent? We'll discount the fire/nin and fire/sr sents since they use fire blast.

Obvious to who? My fire/bio sent takes down pylons faster than both my claws/sr brute and my sr/claws tank. And thanks to being able to stay at range suffers from VASTLY less incoming damage. See above comment about the discrepancy between incoming melee damage and incoming ranged damage. A tankmage. And that's what they are. They sit in extreme safety blasting away without a care in the world, arguably as safe as tanks and dishing out greater damage. Quite frankly, from the moment I first viewed them when the post-snap CoH was back online, I called them out for what they are: something that doesn't actually belong in this game. But they are here, and I've got several of them because they are fun and they are safe and they do get the job done.

Having recently struggled with my blasters in a way I don't at all with my sentinels, I can't agree to this. I see no reason for sentinels to match blaster damage output at all, in any area, when they spend their entire existence cruising along with vastly superior mitigation.

They're gone. Replaced by a single demon/kin who is now 34 and pretty heavily IOed. I don't think MMs are for me regardless of any possible changes.

I can only assume that we were never told that there would be no math. @BopperYour work is wonderful but it's starting to feel like we're diving into Heisenberg levels of silliness.

I've got 3 MMs that are languishing and damn near close to deletion. Part of the issue is that I can't use the 3 attacks I'm given, or the others I take from power pools without bottoming out on end even with 4 perfshifters in stamina on all 3 and proper end-red in each of the attacks. I could do what others suggest and sit back idle while my pets do the work but then I get bored and if I'm bored with a character it has no reason to exist. Remove the end penalty, please. Return MMs to the normal end usage equations.

True statement unless you're SR which has 95% DDR. SR users just cruise on through without a care in the world while everyone else is all "why is my defense in the red?!?!?!"

Only in regular content. Incarnate content gets a 13% tohit buff (as per power analyzer on DA baddies) so incarnate content softcap becomes 58%.

Sitting around 3:45 with my fire/bio sentinel now. BB, Flares, Blaze, Flares, repeat. Musc Core, Degen Core, Assault Core (used at start.) Pyronic Core thrown in when available. Edit: Just for giggles I hit a 2nd tower and threw out my Carnie Radial Lore ... 1:15 was the time.

I'm pretty much stuck in a rut these days with incarnate abilities on all 4 of my claws/sr users. Musculature Core Alpha. Degen Core Interface. Barrier Core Destiny. Assault Core Hybrid. AVs aren't generally a problem with this setup. Barrier Core at T4 is perma and will get you that bit of extra defense to cruise at the incarnate cap on melee even as it drops to the lowest buff level right before you recycle it. Going off memory it's 5% at the lowest level.

BZB Brute attempt also a failure. Same rules, MoITF settings, max diff, no insps. Got to final Rom in 4th mission, peeled off the healing fluffy, took it out, couldn't peel off the others, autohit fluffy ended me. Took 1:04 to get done with missions 1-3. Edit: Unsure if hybrid melee would make any difference at this point.

As in *capped damres to all but psi, incarnate softcapped defense and capped DDR to keep it from failing.* You don't even have to get all the way down to 30% health to get there.

When in doubt, eat more reds.

Both of which are very recent additions to the game proving quite well the flaw in the system. But you're correct. We buy/craft/whatever all manner of things to make our builds better. There's no real difference between staying stocked up on double xp and staying stocked up on defense amplifier.