oldskool

I appreciate your reply, truly. I'm really not just talking Empathy though. I'm talking the concept to the entire Defender AT. Storm Summoning was something I wanted to talk about before, and I'm glad you bring it up. Storm is a tier unto itself. Note, I currently running a Dark Miasma/Dual Pistols/Soul Defender. Back on live I played Dark/Dark Defender. I have a Rad/Rad Defender, a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender, and for a time ran a Dual Pistols/Dark Miasma/Soul Corruptor. On live, back in the day, I played a Sonic/Sonic Corruptor and a Fire/Dark Corr. My primary Sentinel is Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu. By no means do I want to suggest that Dual Pistols is perfect, but I've played it on 3 different ATs on Homecoming. Hell, my experience in doing so taught me so much about the set itself and what it can do. All 3 ATs inspired me to write the really long write-up about the set in the sticky at the top of this forum. Dark Miasma is great support, its easily my favorite next to Rad Emission. I'm not kidding when I say my Sentinel out damages my Defender. Though my Defender absolutely has broader appeal in team play. Since my Defender is also designed with procs it also happens to do more damage than it really should. Without those procs Tar Patch doesn't do enough to make it out pace a Sentinel's base damage scalar or its better options on single target. Furthermore, Incendiary Ammo functions on AT damage so that is an advantage to both Blasters/Sentinels where the Defender/Corruptor have far better debuffs. We're treading into the territory of classes I play with the majority of my time. I'm not sure you actually play a Defender. Maybe you do and we just have completely different perspectives. Last summer I ran some Pylon tests with the Sentinel, Corruptor, and Defender. I joined in on some other threads around the web about my findings. I'll share them again here. Without any procs, and pushing full sets, the Sentinel in this scenario comes out ahead of the Defender even in solo with 30% on Vigilance. The Defender's base scalar is already low. In solo play Scourge and Vigilance are awfully blurry. In team play where Defenders start gaining endurance benefits over damage Scourge can pull ahead for the Corruptor. In the case of Dual Pistols, the Sentinel still has an edge. So I started pushing damage procs. Again, the Sentinel still edges out a little bit but the gap does start to close a lot. Where the Defender and Corruptor really skew the numbers isn't Pylon test. It's fighting groups. Tar Patch + fully saturated Soul Drain into Hail of Bullets + Bullet Rain is pretty potent stuff. I wouldn't exactly think of that as a given for most Defenders/Corruptors just a certain series of build decisions. In real play I juggle no ammo or chemical rounds on my Defender for the super sweet debuffs. Not running Incendiary ammo is a big drop in personal damage, but totally worth on Defenders for force multiplication. Trick Arrow/Archery running full sets vs procs is mostly just ass for personal damage. Running a proc monster Offender can get you into a 5-6 minute Pylon kill range. That's pretty sweet but its ceiling isn't a lot lower than that. Some Sentinel builds go 4 minutes but they aren't debuffing everyone and their brother either. So point to you about team support, but that was never in question. My Rad/Rad also abuses procs. That combo just isn't fair to compare with anything though much like Storm Summoning. Having some reasonable damage through procs plus imposing stupid levels of debuffs like -45% to-hit and defense is kinda broken. My old Fire/Dark was definitely a monster. Fire/Kin is also quite strong, but that's no secret that Fulcrum Shift is what makes it. Hell, a Fire/Kin Controller is a monster. So is Plant/Storm and a few others. My Gravity/Time does pretty silly levels of area and ST damage. My Dark/Dark Controller's pets (Haunt, Shadow-Puppy, even Fluffy) all have negative energy procs. That stuff adds up! Again though we're talking about procs with IOs that turn those particular builds into monsters. Tankers often took longer to take out an enemy. Many of my Sentinels can accomplish a Pylon downing in 6 minutes and some easily do it faster than others (and I haven't gone that far with my new Fire/Fire Sent). I do need to build procs into my attacks to make that happen across a lot of primaries so that's hardly indicative game balance, but its there. Of course, I also have no problem in dropping 600+ million on my builds either. So its easy for me to climb the ivory tower and say how my play experience is "OK". Anyone just throwing together a casual Sentinel build is probably going to think its total butt for a DPS class and get turned off. So again, point taken. Actually those kinds of points are exactly the kind of thing I was wanting to advocate. I think the Sentinel feels like a fairly smooth ride, but it does have more than a few bumps to smooth out to make it more accessible. Just being near immortal for most the game isn't really a compelling reason to play it for many, and the damage feels like it has a lower ceiling than it should for a DPS class. So I'm with ya. Final notes about snipes. Ya know, back before snipes weren't always as accessible as they are right now. Blasters really needed to build that 22% to-hit in order to make those snipes rotational. That was a pain in the butt. In some cases it pretty much means that snipes weren't available in the general rotation option. So Sentinels come along as a new design that waters down the old snipe into a rotational attack or replaces it. Then you get bolstered CC powers and all of a sudden the Sentinel has new ST chains available that Blasters didn't. Fast forward through 2019, and now snipes are far more available across the different ATs which kicks the Sentinels one big gimmick right in the crotch. Hence the reason why I mentioned the current power creep. The lack of the snipe isn't really the issue. Its that snipes as they exist now make the concept of the Sentinel design superfluous. I'm not trying to convince you to give this another shot. If you don't think the damage is there now, then I doubt you'll find what clicks for you elsewhere in this AT. However, if the potential for doing anywhere between 230 to 300+ DPS is abhorrent, then investing into this AT any further isn't for you. There are several ATs that can accept a 500 million to 1+ billion influence build and squeeze out more damage. Just keep in mind that very little in this game needs a lot more personal DPS than the 200-230 range. You'll certainly clear things faster, but its not like there was much challenge there in the first place. Anyway, good talk. Again, I appreciated this one.

Totally agree here. I do feel Sentinels have a very high opportunity cost that is disproportionate with their end effect. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the OP is ultimately going here. I know I expressed a giant wall of text to get there, but piling on hyperbole gets to me. Ultimately, I'm rather torn. I get the complaints, I get the divide in opportunity cost, but at the same time I don't think the AT is in such dire straights as it often said to be. 😕 Then on the other hand... just how much DPS do you need*? *Answer = all of it, obviously Again, also agreed. Blasters can get away with chasing less damage in their overall build because of things like a higher base scalar, Defiance, and the ability to juggle Build-Up and Aim. Sentinel builds are the complete opposite, most of the time, and look for ways to close the damage divide. Sentinels don't ever completely close it, and I don't think I was suggesting they do, but the mere pursuit of it does have a noticeable impact in real play. I've never cared for comparisons to Scrappers directly (or Blasters for that matter) and that's mostly due to just how lopsided melee vs range really is. I'm probably a player that is a polar opposite of many. I originally started CoH in 2004 looking for a melee DPS'er. Yet my love of the underdog got me into a Dark/Dark Scrapper back when you could only run 1 toggle at a time but Hasten six slotted with nothing but recharge was a thing. In CoV I did a 180 mostly playing a Corruptor, then Dominator and Mastermind. I jumped on the SoA and SS/WP too. Right before shutdown I found out just how much I loved the Controller. Homecoming pops back, I totally think I'm going to play melee again... nope. The Sentinel draws me. Next thing I know my first few alts are all Controllers and a couple Defenders. I mean I've had the same Stalkers in my roster for a year, and I love them to death, but I just don't spend nearly as much time on pure DPS melee anymore. I do love me some Tankers too. Times change ya. So I guess my entire perspective on what's acceptable DPS is due to this big roller coaster of various ATs. The only two ATs I haven't spun back up are the Dominator and Corruptor (Correction, I retired one pretty quick but it was a fun ride. It's a Defender now.) which is ironic given their place in my CoV journey. At one point I did have over 50+ characters. I ended up purging all but 20 and now I've added back 7. I'm probably going to hold at 27 for most of this year. So I've forgotten ones that I re-rolled!! LOL

I'm really digging Sentinel Electric Blast, paired with Energy Aura, and Thunderous Blast could use an animation pass... for all ATs.

What kind of Tanker are we talking here? Also, before I go any further I want to state the following in bold text: I'm on board with buffs for the Sentinel. Please don't take the things I'm about to state as if I'm fanboying and can't see issues. I feel as if I have beaten this horse to death, but it also irks me to see context tossed to the wind in favor of carefree discussion. I do commend an open discussion about the AT and how to improve it. I also think that can be done without getting into hyperbole. I want to support your ideas, but just set aside some of the loaded rhetoric. You tried Fire Blast and felt that it didn't live up to whatever sense of competitiveness suits you. I'm 100% OK with that, and I get it. However, I do think you are missing a bit of the forest for the trees with the Sentinel. This is likely why you see the push back that you do, and probably why it all seems frustrating. 1) Fire Blast wasn't changed nearly as much as some of the other sets. If you're going to compare Fire Blast's ST with Blaster/Corruptor/Defender you're not going to see a whole lot of change. The snipe attack is different, and Inferno is different. That's about it. The basic attack chain isn't too far off conceptually from any of the other ranged attack ATs. This isn't true for all Sentinel primaries. I'm not pulling rabbits out of my ass when I say some Sentinel sets have better ST than their counterparts in other ATs. Electrical Blast is one. Psychic Blast is another. There are others. Hell, most of them. Any of the previous ranged sets that had a CC power were converted to a high damage attack. Some of these being the best attack in the entire set (e.g., Sonic Blast's version of Screech). These changes fundamentally alter how several of these sets play. So some (some criticism is fair) of the commentary is really disingenuous, and forgive me here, and flat out ignorant of how the AT functions. I think compared to the core concept of other ranged sets, what I call the cousin sets, that the Sentinel's ST isn't that bad. Hell, its a strength of the AT from a view of complete ranged gameplay. To me some of your complaints are like we're playing two completely different games. 2) You talk about powers in apples to apples comparisons and also in a vacuum. If you want to compare the attack chain of just a ranged set from a Blaster and Sentinel on base numbers alone you're going to miss the point there too. How many Blaster builds bother with their offense in the same manner as a Sentinel? I'm looking things like Incarnates where Sentinels have more flexibility and freedom to run Musculature Core than Blasters running Agility Core. I'm looking a Assault Radial vs Clarion, and so on. I'm looking at how easy it is for some builds with defense heavy secondaries to run damage procs in their primary. That's a reality of the game. Now look, I'm not an idiot and I understand full well that a Blaster can run damage procs. If a Blaster did that, then yes their damage potential will sky rocket. Same goes for a Blaster pushing Musculature. Just for disclosure... I've built a Blaster that does just that. So in the realm of hyper specialization into the Blaster's role of damage it will out perform the Sentinel, hands down. However, Sentinels can have an easier time leveraging that damage in their optimization options which in real game play make things far more blurry. 3) In point #2 I'm in no way saying that an optimized Sentinel is always better than an optimized Blaster. More likely this... Certain kinds of optimization work out on Sentinels far better than I think you're giving it credit. I seriously doubt that level of expenditure in your time and influence is of any value to you, but it exists. You're not wrong that a Blaster can do much of what a Sentinel can and do it better. What the Sentinel does better than the Blaster though is allow for a far easier ride to 50 and even in some cases of exemplaring. In some cases a Sentinel can tread pretty close on Blaster ST but a Blaster will always have the upper hand on AoE. Hell, Defiance alone pushes Blaster ST once they get rolling. The option of having both Aim + Build-Up also helps. Though build vs build, there can be times that it takes Defiance + Build-Up in order for that Blaster to really out class some Sentinel builds. 4) Comparing melee vs range is like comparing apples to Saturn. These things are so grossly disparate and have been for so long that there isn't really a contest in discussing them. You did hit a nail on the head about that a few times, but its worth calling out again. 5) Not all Defenders play equally. Seriously. Last I checked people still like playing Empathy. I've grouped a few times with full support Defenders. Sentinels have the Dominator's damage scalar. There isn't anyway that Sentinels do less damage than your average Defender player. Hell, MANY Corruptor builds too. For Defenders in particular you have to really go out of your way to push damage procs AND run one of the top 5 primaries for debuffing/buffing (self). Same too goes for Corruptors. While we're at it, same to goes for Controllers. No joke there are Controller builds capable of 1-2 minute Pylon times. That's not normal either. 6) So back to the Tanker. What kind are we talking here? One where the player goes out of their way to make a Tanker-Scrapper TankMage to post awesome times on the Pylon thread? For every one of those there are multiple more Tankers that specialize on taking damage without a real worry about dishing it out. I guess you could say those players are "unoptimized", but I mentioned before that the player base that pushes hardcore is still pretty small. I couldn't care less that my 3 tankers are capable of making one of my Stalker's damage look embarrassing*. I know how I designed those characters and I 100% completely fault the IO system for their ability to do it too. *Not saying my Tankers out damage my Stalkers, but more a commentary that the Tanker changes have given them a surprising amount of damage. Two of my Tankers are proc abusers so the base damage increase just pushed them easily into the 300 DPS realm which to me is just nuts. 7) I've got a Sentinel in my roster right now for each primary except for Radiation Blast and Energy Blast. Those two sets are ones I'm not ready to go into because I've played them a lot in the past and they weren't really my favorites (like most of the Darkness sets). So over the course of playing 15+ Sentinels, both in live and test purposes, I've gotten pretty used to Opportunity. I think Opportunity is rather clunky for what it is, but at the same time I think people have a tendency to just dismiss it like it doesn't do anything. Sentinels always apply a -5% debuff. Then on top of that they can get another -20% resistance from their inherent while also getting some bonus damage. Opportunity lasts 15 seconds. I've gotten in the habit of building my Sentinels to try to get Opportunity active in just over 13 seconds. Some primaries can actually use the ATO for Opportunity to reduce that gap even further. Some dramatically so (like Water Blast). It certainly isn't the greatest inherent, but it also does more than it gets credit for. As someone pointed out before, the Sentinel is a moderate damage dealer in pretty much every arena it exists in. It just doesn't compete right at the same scale as other specialists ...when built for specialization. Do you think that most players break 300 DPS? In playing this game, I seriously don't. From the way you have responded, and the way a few others too, I can see why you may not believe me if I'd say I have impressed people playing my Dual Pistols Sentinel. I really don't need your belief, because I've actually experienced it. You can take my experience however you like. Phew... That said, you have some nice ideas to address some of the gaps. Hopefully the class gets some love because I've seen a few other threads in the same realm of "tried, don't care for it because too little damage". As I've said before, if you have to bend over backwards to make the Sentinel work (and that's pretty much what my builds look like) then something is off. Still, Sentinels aren't always half the damage of all Scrappers. Its a bit much. 😉 Final note. Some of the recent changes really make Sentinels look a lot worse than they probably did around May 2019. We've seen a spike in power for Tankers. We've seen a much smoother version of instant snipe. We've some tweaks here and there. The power creep will just make it worse.

Some alternative choices - for fun. 😉 Radiation Blast is fun for lowering defenses. Dual Pistols is a big tool kit of debuffs with its ammo system. Standard ammo (basically not using any of the Swap Ammo options) includes defense debuffs in a few powers. Piercing Rounds has a resistance debuff that can hit a few targets. Cryo ammo converts those previously mentioned debuffs into slow effects. Chemical ammo changes the base debuffs into a negative damage effect. I have a Dark Miasma/Dual Pistols Defender that's just a fun configurable debuffer. Rad/Rad is also classic, but X/Sonic is hard to beat.

Are you there Derp? Its me, Margaret.

This thread needs something, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

At this point there is a good bit of hyperbole being tossed around. Attempting to defend/counterpoint is really just making it a lot worse. Takeaways: - The Sentinel just doesn't do the kind of damage a specific player would like, and they aren't alone. That's fine. - The Sentinel has some perks to it that don't necessarily appeal to everyone beyond the damage equation. Also fine. - The rest begins to tread into cherry picking for the sake of winning. Can this stop? Signed: A person that actually plays Defenders and finds a good bit of this to be bullshit at this point. 😂

Scrappers are certainly going to do more damage, but at the end of the day Staff Fighting is really good at AoE damage over single-target (Not to say I think it is bad there either. It's just not as laser focused on that.). Dark Armor just adds more AoE damage. The Stalker version of Staff gets a better single-target attack option (Innocuous Strikes dropped for Assassin's Staff) and the form power gets dropped for Build-Up. Confront also dropped for Placate. The Stalker version doesn't get an option for forms, but it does have the damage form baked into it by default. If you like the options that Staff Fighting brings, then yeah a Scrapper will probably be a good choice. If you favor single target damage over AoE damage, then the Stalker will be better. Even that said, Staff Fighting isn't exactly the most amazing Stalker set against one enemy (Again, its still quite good but not necessarily the best in the AT). It's just stylish AF while providing some pretty good damage all around.

Looked into this thread out of curiosity. Stayed for the Ole Derp chatter.

Happy to help! Glad I could share something you might enjoy! Tip... If you're not in the habit of going on to the Beta server to tinker, then I highly recommend it. A few hours there can save you a lot of headache later on.

For my tastes? Gettin' there (lol). What's more important though, is do you think you'd be happy with it? I sent you a direct message with a totally different take. That take is also food for thought along with other commentary intended to get you thinking a bit differently on approach. If I'm not slotting any of the Epic powers, then I don't bother taking them at all. I don't think Psychic Shockwave is all that necessary for you, and if I did take it I would drop one of the AR powers. I personally do not care weapon swapping at all. So I avoid the melee powers with sets like Beam Rifle, Assault Rifle, Archery, and Dual Pistols like the plague. Style > than adding a little bit more DPS. I can be harsh on Sentinel AR, but do note that it does have enough core damage to get the job done. If you really like Mind Probe, then try to shuffle some slots around to get 5pc Hecatomb in it.

I think the build, as it is, will do what you want it to do. That said, you've gone into a realm of overkill. There is no kill like overkill, but still... I don't think you needed to stack defense as high as you did with the expectations you have. Furthermore, taking but not slotting Mind Probe and Shockwave is largely a waste of time. As they are, you could totally drop them from your build and not miss their existence at all. You could drop Link Minds and not notice. You're far more paranoid about being hit by powers flagged "psionic" than you really need to be. Powers that are psionic only are often times crowd control. Like Dominate. Dominate from enemies isn't some procced out micro nuke. Your hit points can handle the stray hit. Honestly enemies like Widows are more lethal with their melee attacks than they are with their mind bullets. Offense wise, Assault Rifle is what it is. You can only push it so far and it does happen to have a bit lower of a ceiling than I would care for. Though don't let that make you think your character can't handle +4/x8. Invulnerability absolutely can take that beating. You can dish it out too, but again you've made some choices that just aren't necessary. Burst has the most likely chance to miss against +4 enemies which is going to deny you the Achilles' Heel effect more often than it will benefit you. Slug will miss too. The Dam/Rech in Burst is completely unnecessary too. It also actively lowers your chance for every one of those procs to go off. Your other attacks have enough accuracy to hit +4 enemies. Obviously Mind Probe will miss even more often than Burst (same goes for Psi Shockwave) lowering their value even further. Against +3's Burst still has a slight chance to miss beyond the basic 5% floor you could hope for. Slug's at 95% though so there's that. Against +2's Burst is getting to be ok there. +1's and +0's you'll hit with whatever you want, even Mind Probe with only the default 5% miss chance to really worry about. Still for everything you included I'm not sure its worth it. You have a room for improvement, but it isn't for any of the reasons you may have originally thought. The improvement you can work on is balance because everything you want to do is already there. Its just the decisions to get there are perhaps a little on the extreme side. 😉 I'm switching to make a Assault Rifle/Super Reflexes from my older AR/Bio myself. So that new concept is just all in on procs in every power within some reason. I'll see if I can replicate that with Invulnerability. I need to re-work my Sonic/Invul anyway so this is a good time to play with those. I'll shoot you a PM sometime whenever I come up with something.

I think there is some truth here if you're only talking a narrow band of the player base that takes the time to deep dive into optimization. People looking to highly optimize aren't playing sets of anything less than Titan Weapons OR Mace for Scrappers/Brutes/Tankers, Street Justice for Stalkers (or Dual Blades with extreme recharge), Fire Blast on any ranged AT, and so on. Its just not a fair comparison to play anything less than the most optimized pairings of powers with the most expensive IOs chosen for the best bonuses. Incarnates too. The reality of the game though is most people don't do that. Still, the Sentinel does need a review but just how much of one is certainly debatable. Edit: And if survivability/DPS/targets plus utility are all that matters, there are options in the Mastermind/Controller/Dominator category that can put pretty much every damn one of those other ATs to shame. I guess they need to be listed as better than the Sentinel in every way too.

I've seen complaints about Whirling Hands alongside ones about ET and TF. Maybe not so much here on the HC forums because Energy Melee is a known pariah set by a lot of veteran players. Dragon's Tail is much the same way on Martial Arts. I feel like DT is less of a kick in the pants (see what I did there?) than Whirling Hands. Though Whirling Hands being just 'meh' really does feel like adding insult to injury with the EM animation changes. Honestly the word of any buffs to Energy Melee is enough to get me excited. Fingers crossed some animation times are looked at even if the damage values get tweaked (hopefully to be fair).

This has been a wonderful day!!! I mean really. I love these classic sets so damn much. Dark, Martial Arts, and Energy Melee are literally my first picks from 2004 for characters. I'm down to wait since there are things to work out here but...

Seconded.

Dude stop...

Me after scrolling down to: Dark Melee Update

Blasters have access to Aim and/or Build-Up. Aim and Aim-like replacements (e.g., Swap Ammo) are found in ranged attack sets. Build-Up and Build-Up-like replacements (Blinding Feint/Follow Up) are found in melee attack sets. Dominator assault sets are mixed bag with a set here or there having actual Build-Up and several others having Power Boost. Sentinels going in the direction of the Dominator sounds really good on paper, but Dual Pistols exists. If all other sets gained Build-Up (or I'd wet myself over Power Boost), then Dual Pistols starts to lag even further behind. As it currently stands, Swap Ammo is nothing even close to being as effective as Build-Up replacements of Blinding Feint/Follow Up. It doesn't even keep pace with Aim. If the other Sentinel primaries get Build-Up, then the Sentinel Dual Pistols needs a serious overhaul (it probably does anyway). So there are facets here where tweaking specific powers elsewhere can have ripple effects where other sets may need an entire overhaul. If a balanced play experience is the end result, then I am all for it. However, this is a dead game with people volunteering time to keep it available. I'm also for simple solutions on the inherent and general Sentinel AT features. Some of my own wish list items: - Increase the defensive modifiers from 0.70 to 0.75 - Increase base damage even if it is at the expense of the resistance debuff - Roll the Offensive and Defensive side features (bonus damage/resource return) into a unified effect - Either decouple the trigger mechanic from the first two powers entirely OR allow either of them to trigger the unified effect above - Critical hits. That MAY be a stretch if the other topics became a reality but Scourge isn't really like critical hits so there isn't a true ranged class with that feature. Might step too far on Scrapper/Stalkers toes and I don't want to diminish those ATs (of which I play too). Despite my own wish list of things, I still like the Sentinel enough to have 10 of them in my roster with various levels. More than one has full Incarnates (even multiple in a category like Destiny) and a complete expensive IO build. I'm far too much of an alt-o-holic to stick with one character. I enjoy several of various ATs so the current damage state isn't such a turn off for me as it appears to be for so many others. Still, buffs are welcome.

Sometimes if I can't find information about a specific pairing I will do more narrow searches of just the primary/secondary. I'll look over both and see if my combo can play similarly. I'll also check out other subforums for some general slotting ideas. There are a few Staff Fighting/X and X/Dark Armor threads in this subforum. Dark Armor/Staff Fighting has some interest in the Tanker community since the pairing is really quite sturdy. I play Staff/Dark on a Stalker. While there is some cross over the sets are different enough I'm not sure my ideas would be of much use. Finally, the combo isn't a bad one but probably just isn't a popular one. It's a pair that should work pretty well together. Staff brings Guarded Spin for bonus defense, Sky Splitter for a stun that stacks with Oppressive Gloom, and forms for configuring your playstyle. Dark Armor brings the style you need, more AoE goodies, and decent resistance to most damage. Temper your expectations though. Staff isn't known for its overwhelming single-target capabilities, but you can certainly make the pairing play off each other's strengths.

Agreed. I really enjoyed both. Are you in my Steam library? Get out!

Bummer the AT didn't click for you. Here's to hopes it gets a buff so more folks can enjoy it.

Agreed.

You keep writing this stuff as "fact", but I'm a bit confused as to where you're getting this info. There is record of the confiscation of United States M16 rifles using 5.56 NATO in the Vietnam War (U.S. enters arena in 1965 and withdraws though March 29th 1973 [Paris Peace Accords signed January 1973] - 10 remaining Marines air lifted out after fall of Saigon, war ends with fall of Saigon 1975). The reverse engineering of the 5.56 NATO was completed by 1973. The 5.56x39 was released with the AK-74 (designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov to chamber the round) in 1974. The weapon is translated "Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle Model 1974". As mentioned before, Saigon fell April 30th 1975 thus ending that war. The Soviet - Afghan War started 1979 after a failed coup in 1978. What's perplexing... Vietnam's conflict waged from 1955 through 1975. Vietnam's ground forces largely used Russian made AK-47 and SKS Carbines as personal arms. The Russian equivalent to the M60 was used for heavy fire. Anyway, both of the previously mentioned weapons used 7.62x39 rounds. The Russian made 5.56x39 didn't release into circulation of Soviet military until 1974. It's first use in a theater of war that I know of is the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979. That would mean a few things... 1) The Vietcong couldn't have 5.56x39 as a part of a wound the warriors so others drag them off strategy as the weapons to fire didn't exist. Again, Vietnam War 1955 to 1975 (United States enters in 1965 and completes withdraw by 1973). 2) Soviet war with Afghanistan was in 1979 so I'm not sure how they put guerrilla tactics learned here to use in Vietnam where the war ended 4 years earlier. Does Soviet strategy also involve time travel? By the way, these dates are also well documented and considered historical fact. However, I am absolutely willing to read whatever information you can share regarding how the Soviets taught the Vietnamese guerrilla tactics using a weapon that didn't exist. Edit: Instead of just pushing this thread further with this absurd discussion I'll just add the edit. I'm not going to debate Balochistan (stated below) which has been an active hot zone for over 70 years. There was a prototype field test of a 5.56 variant deployed in 1968. That was the AO-35. That rifle was ultimately rejected. In the 1970 (the actual year not some vague "early 1970's" paraphrase), the cartridge and rifle pairing was put to redesign. That process took 4 years. That's where the AK-74 and the ammo it used comes from. Trying to insinuate a final product was used as a means of guerrilla warfare in Vietnam is dubious at best. The Vietcong largely used Russian equipment. There would be no reason not to take other weapons and munitions from enemies as you find it, but at the end of the day that's not the standard equipment that was already established for the forces in question. The weapons used by the Vietcong ran on 7.62x39 when talking personal rifles/carbines. Even today, we field test new small batch ammo prototypes and weapons. There is no reason to think that didn't happen before, and I'm not suggesting that the munitions that became the modern 5.45x39 magically appeared. However, it is a documented fact that 7.62x39 munitions were the widely used type during Vietnam. It is documented fact that the AK-74, and its ammo the 5.45x39, debut war theater was in 1979. To suggest that some prototype variants played a larger role in the overall guerrilla tactics is questionable. Telling people it's just matter of fact and public record is equally lazy. You'd be assuming I haven't looked. Furthermore, the Vietcong were well aware of the Art of War and guerrilla tactics are practically invented in that work. Also, I'm well aware of the guerrilla tactics of the Mjuahideen. The Soviets were on the receiving end of those tactics in the 1970's. Anyway, I'm done here.