oldskool

Oh no... squirrels? Luminara, you never, ever, mess with squirrels. You may need to find a new dimension to live in. Hopefully, they have a CoH server there!

This is overstating Sentinels and understating Blasters. Moving the damage scalar to 1.1 doesn't get to a point where Sentinels "can do the same thing...". They don't do the same things unless you purposefully kneecap your Blaster build to only be at range. Even then the Blaster still has advantages over the Sentinel. Sentinels have a target cap limitation in their powers which the Blaster doesn't have. For any target engagement going beyond 6-10 enemies, the Blaster has an advantage. Blasters have access to a myriad of melee powers both single target and AoE. These also have better scaling than ranged blast powers. This is where Blaster damage potential starts to excel. Build-Up is a common power in melee sets with a significant burst damage advantage that Sentinels never get. Defiance works on all attacks. Sentinel Opportunity (now Vulnerability) has a single target limit. These changes to the Sentinel also incorporate an absorption of sorts of the basic damage benefit of generic Opportunity and Offensive Opportunity. Against a single target, the beta Sentinel isn't seeing a full 15% damage increase, even with Vulnerability active, because it is trading its old benefits for new ones. In AoE, the Sentinel on beta may be seeing closer to that 15% increase, but this still has limitations on target caps. There is no way the Sentinel out performs the Blaster's designed damage potential in this scenario. Blasters with investment into IOs can be be sturdy enough. Sentinels optimizing for max damage still fall behind Blasters potential and will always lag behind in AoE when target density is a key factor. The team could push the Sentinel to 1.125, right now if they wanted, and it still wouldn't make the Sentinel stronger than the Blaster.

[Edits]: After some more testing, performance is definitely better. In respect to the degree of change from the beta to live, that is going to be a YMMV caveat. The changes are a buff. Just how much of a a buff that would be is going to be dependent on the power sets, build, and situations. In general, the entirety of the gameplay is a good bit smoother just because of the scalar increase. The new Vulnerability mechanic can be a reasonable combat contributor given the limitations of being an inherent power (i.e., cannot be enhanced).

Its a fair point, and I do have damage enhancement in the proc carrying powers. The procs just add more damage on top of what I already have. 😉

Probably not. The rich will get richer with this. Bio Armor will remain strong since it is boosting base damage, and Sentinel base damage is getting a buff. Really, any of the current secondaries which overtly contribute to damage will just get better. Actually, any sources of +damage are going to be better now since the baseline is going up. While chasing +damage set bonuses isn't really amazing, it isn't completely useless if you start pushing towards 15%-20% (like Scrappers/Stalkers and Blasters can do). Damage-wise, there is still significant difference between ATs that can abuse certain powers like snipes (e.g., Scrappers/Stalkers) in their Epics or how general Blaster play works (i.e., spoiled for choice in offensive options). So far, don't expect the Sentinel to be blowing away the competition without additional tweaks, but so far the changes are better even if it is just slightly. Primaries are unlikely to suddenly change in solo play (beyond the 15~% damage boost), but most players should notice some smoother AoE clear as they gain more progress in their character. The general damage increase to AoE, plus the faster progression towards the T9, are pretty significant benefits for all Sentinels.

New thoughts: Initial testing was tinkering around with a Pylon and so the damage difference isn't that noticeable. Also, there was a learning curve on the Vulnerability button use since Offensive Opportunity is just built into my attack chain on live where I don't think about it. On Beta, I have to retrain some gameplay in order to watch for the circle and use the button. That's mildly annoying, but seeing as how Opportunity was really only ever impactful against specific targets on current Live anyway, this is very minor to me. Toyed a bit in a S/L AE mission to pew pew against minions and LTs at +4/x8. This is an import of my Dual Pistols/Super Reflexes character with all the bells and whistles. Minion mowing speed is noticeable. One shotting LTs is a possibility, but bearing in mind my build is highly dependent on procs for additional damage. Still, solo against the larger packs of mobs that I could engage with off live is less of a slog due to the noticeable difference in damage on the AOE. That said, the inherent does have some issues in performance, and the ATOs could use some reviews. Inherent: (Just Brainstorming) As noted, the use case of Vulnerability is very limited and can lend itself to being forgotten. However, removing it entirely may be a poor decision given feedback in this beta thus far is an incredibly low number of players vs the rest of the community. While the joke of "there are 10s of us" may have some truth, completely removing the mechanic may be worse than the alternative unless that comes with some significantly beneficial change. I could see that change being problematic in both balance and implementation. Anyway, the button click, for me, is a minor inconvenience for otherwise general improvements which have some benefit. I'll take what I can get. ATOs: Both procs need a revamp. That may not be possible in this Issue, but I think they do need some work. 1) Opportunity Strikes - Given the limited use of the button Vulnerability an additional 10% meter gain isn't substantial enough to really warrant a power slot besides the fact the overall set bonuses can be desirable. Possible Solution A: Include a damage proc similar to Corruptors, Blasters, etc. Possible Solution B: Expanding functionality of Vulnerability. I.e., Restore some of the lost -Res that existed in legacy Opportunity. Perhaps even using this as a method to restore a -5% defense and Resistance that used to exist in the basic attacks by default. This could be resisted as it was before if the additional damage increase is considered too much. 2) Sentinel's Ward - I need to test some results on this a bit more as it seems as if the absorb was higher than I am used to in observation. That said, this is still pretty low for the kinds of content we have. Like the Opportunity proc, this effect isn't strong enough to really warrant using it beyond the value of the set bonuses. Possible Solution A: Perhaps reclaim some semblance of "Defensive Opportunity" via mimicry of the various support AT procs which grant group endurance ala Corruptor's PBAoE +End in the Scourging Blast set or Defender's Bastion PBAoE Minor Heal. Possible Solution B: Expanding functionality of Vulnerability. I.e., granting the Sentinel a mimic version of old Defensive Opportunity while Vulnerability is active.

Just some first impressions: So, far I am pleased with how Opportunity is decoupled from the T1/T2 powers and this returns a little bit of agency back to players. The other passive benefits are also nice. I do miss the possibility of endurance return that has been cut from Defensive Opportunity. The damage changes aren't as big a deal as some may make it sound. It isn't like this wasn't predictable in the numerous threads on Sentinel damage over the years. All things considered, the offensive output is essentially treading water in solo play so far.

Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals doesn't require much total recharge, at all. The extreme recharge comes into play when you try to squeeze out BF -> Ablative -> Sweeping -> Ablative since Sweeping Strike's animation is pretty fast. You can easily run BF -> Ablative -> Sweeping -> Nimble Slash or Power Slice, depending on which combos you want to run (Empower vs Sweep), with less recharge than the A -> S -> A. Any of these options are still solid damage, even BF->AV is reasonable, and so you have a lot of options.

Depends on which Spidey we're talking about. There have a been a bunch of them now. Miles Morales has some electric powers which are kinda a throwback to Jessica Drew Spider-woman. Then you've got various plays on Peter Parker clones, a Doc Ock mental takeover in Superior Spider-man, Noir Spider-man with pistols, and so on and so on. So yeah, at this point pick whatever powers you want with an even semi-close theme and call it good. Hell, go Assault Rifle and play off a What-if of Frank Castle, Spider-man.

Thematic pairings are very popular conceptual implementations for a lot of Sentinel players (backed up by the older metrics on Fire/Fire, Ice/Ice, Elec/Elec, etc.). These pairings have very little to do with any real or perceived synergies or general effectiveness of the primary with the secondary. In other words, don't over think this because the reasons why people do what they do isn't always about power gaming.

The community's low expectations of the Sentinel can make for moments where the player looks really good. Its a lowkey benefit plus potentially creative backhanded compliments. 😉

1. "Enough" is a big question. What where you hoping for? Enough for the attacks you have? Yes. More on that in a moment. 2. There are some changes you can make here. 3. Yes. Consider: 1) Move the Achilles Heel to Executioner's Shot. 2) Reduce Empty Clips to 5 slots. Create a free slot to use elsewhere. 3) Know that Suppressive Fire can take 2 purple quality procs (Apocalypse and Unbreakable Constraint). I see you're mostly avoiding purples (except for Mass Hypnosis), but that is a significant damage boost. You could use one or both. 4) You can afford to change Executioner Shot's slotting to mirror your Pistols set up (3x Thunderstrike plus procs) and one of the procs could be Achilles Heel for more consistent activation. 5) Piercing Rounds is questionable use in your set up. You may want to consider dropping it for Seishinteki Kyoyo. With your set up, you can run out of endurance. Having an on-demand end heal is nice. The full Performance Shifter set is a worth while replacement and the proc will mostly cap off your end even if you are near zero. 6) You can drop a slot from Hasten. You don't need 3 recharge there and especially not if you ever plan to boost the enhancements to +4 each. 7) You don't need added slots for recharge in Kuji-In Retsu. It isn't helping you much. That frees up 2 more slots. 8 ) You don't need 6 slots in Mind Probe for the set you picked. You could free another slot and even potentially switch this entire set to something else like Crushing Impact. 9) Dominate is of questionable value since you're not using damage procs in it. Other than using it as a set mule for recharge, what is the plan for this? If you run procs in other powers, but not Dominate, then the power will underperform in your attack routine. 10) 2 purple pieces for Mass Hypnosis makes little sense for the effect it grants. Do you really need more than 1 slot with an Accuracy mod in it? You could free up another slot. 11) Link Minds can benefit from enhancements that are Defense/Recharge and lower its cooldown that way. You can drop its recharge to match its duration. You'll still need to deal with the long cast time, but it would be effectively permanent. Dual Pistols can operate just fine at about 90% global recharge without Hasten. You will almost always have an attack at the ready, and especially so since you're adding more with Mind Probe/Dominate. For just single target, running Pistols - Suppressive Fire - Pistols takes just over 4 seconds to animate. Executioner's Shot can easily fit its cooldown into that timeframe while Hasten is active. This means that Piercing Rounds doesn't have room, in terms of animation/activation time, in that sequence because one of those 3 attacks will be available. Also, Piercing Rounds for Sentinels can take a backslide on damage output due to its very long animation time and lackluster damage potential. Bullet Rain and Hail of Bullets will also have a good chance to keep you going at +100% more recharge with further devalues the use of Piercing Rounds for damage. You could even add another Force Feedback to Empty Clips if you want to keep rolling dice to keep that effect going. You could play around with slotting a bit more. One old trick is use 1 slot for a LoTG and 5 slots of Red Fortune. The power you set up in this way grants 12.5% global recharge. Since you'd be pushing a lot of defense, I'd recommend using this in one of your global defense powers (e.g., Weave) to squeeze out just a bit more defense out of it. You could also 6 slot Reactive Defenses for another 8.75% recharge effect. What you have isn't bad for a low budget build, but you squeeze out some more performance with what you have.

Sunsette hasn't been on in a while and may not respond any time soon. The Dual Pistols entry is on page 3. You'll probably want to plan on taking 6 out of 9 powers from Dual Pistols. Which powers you take are going to be your preference. You must pick Pistols or Dual Wield. You do not need both. You could skip Empty Clips. It is, at best, a filler power. You may want to take Suppressive Fire. If you don't want this power, then you may need to take whatever you skipped earlier (Pistols, Dual Wield, or Empty Clips). You could skip Swap Ammo if you don't like the mechanic. This is generally not recommended, but you do you. You should take Bullet Rain. This is your best area power other than Hail of Bullets. You should take Executioner's Shot. This is the highest damage single target attack in both animation and recharge time. You could skip Piercing Rounds. Its long animation and recharge time require a niche build. Also, the side benefits of this power are pretty nerfed on Sentinels compared to all other ATs with Dual Pistols. You should take Hail of Bullets. It is your highest direct damage area power. From the above, you can see there is 1 mandatory power choice at level 1. There are 3 arguably core powers (Bullet Rain, Executioner's Shot, and Hail of Bullets). Everything else you decide to take based on how comfortable you feel with your attack availability. If you get around to having a global recharge modifier around 90%+, then you'll find you likely cannot manage more than 4~ attacks at a time (you'll have something up making other choices a waste).

It is a bit of a tall ask. Fun is subjective. Most ATs have power combos that can solo max diff missions. Most AT have power combos that can solo AVs, and potentially GMs. Note, these power combos may or may not be the same set. A pretty safe pick for just ease of play that can do most of what you want will likely be the Scrapper AT. The can solo most mission difficulties and many AVs. Blasters can potentially solo GMs and AVs but max diff missions may be annoying (they can certainly do it; how easy is build dependent). Defenders and Tankers can also be fairly easy to pick up and play. They both innately have high mitigation values which can allow for them to explore other damage potential in the IO system. Is it on par with the hardcore damage ATs? Depends on what you pick and a whole lot of "maybe". It may be easier to narrow your choices down by playstyle. Do you like the idea of using crowd control powers? If yes, then maybe Controllers or Dominators are for you. Do you like the idea of supporting your team with debuff effects? Defenders, Corruptors, and Controllers may be for you. Do you like the idea of getting right in your enemy's face? Any of the melee ATs and certain Blaster set ups may be for you. Do you wanna just range pew-pew? Defenders, Corruptors, and Blasters may be for you. Final thought... There is no shame in running solo missions at +0/x0, +2/x6, or any other combination of difficulty. No one is going to pull your CoH player card except for the most elitist of jackasses.

The 3rd and 6th posts are Water/Bio builds. You could also cobble something out of searches from just Water and then just Bio. Both power sets are pretty popular when it comes to build discussion. There is no innate synergy between these sets where you couldn't just leverage what other builders using Bio armor have done (just replace primary powers like Elec with Water).

Funny enough, I can count on one hand the number of players that are vocal about the AT being just fine and still have multiple fingers left. Like, at the core, this isn't really a debate in regards to community consensus. What tends to get people riled up into a frenzy is the degree to which one's own bias and perception creates an opinion about performance. Those fun chats often get deeply hyperbolic and aggressively absurd to engage in arguing for argument's sake. Anyway, one thing that is interesting about your point is the experience you've had. Energy Blast is just a weak set for damage and has been for a long time (not just limited to Sentinels). It isn't really top of the list anywhere, but it has some minor potential with proc abuse. Beam Rifle is a weird flip side to its counter parts elsewhere. The snipe changes benefited BR massively and made its single target DPS top notch. Its not really a fair comparison against the Sentinel anymore and hasn't been ever since that change rolled out. However, the Sentinel on the other hand has a better choice for a 10 target AoE in Refractor Beam that doesn't exist anywhere else. It isn't even like BR on Sentinel sucks. It just doesn't have the same degree of potential due to changes to Penetrating Ray. How much of a problem it may be to have a 20% DPS gap between the two is a source of inflated pages of argument. (Oh but it isn't really 20% its double!!1 OK, evidence shows in your set up its more 45%, my bad! See! Its's weak! Well, that isn't really double... It's awful though! My T1 MM henchman does more damage with Brawl!!! Rawwwarrragggh!!!) I can totally get how Sentinel BR can feel anemic in the leveling process. It feels like hot garbage and if you switch to any other ranged AT suddenly you have an on-demand snipe capable of instant gratification feel good numbers. I can also completely understand how a Dark/Dark Sentinel can feel fragile early on. Dark Armor on Sentinels is considerably different in design and playstyle than its melee counterpart. Dark Blast early on isn't going to realize much of its potential. The pairing is going to force some serious trade off and consideration later on depending on content choice. Do you want more damage to take advantage of all of the cool procs that DB has or do you want to shore up the mitigation holes in DA? You cannot have both. Anyway. I see you and support you, fam. 🙂

And I don't think your experience should be discounted. I've experienced what you're describing myself. However, I haven't had the same experience on every Sentinel I have played. Some Sentinels are remarkably stronger than others (surprise surprise that a common CoX problem is in this AT too). Some power combinations may have much smoother leveling experiences and/or much easier build decisions later down the road. The Sentinel, overall, is very very backloaded. It can be incredibly easy to dismiss its value early on. Additionally, the effort it takes to shrink the gaps could be replicated on other ATs with much greater return on investment. I think a lot of this mindset is what drives discussion points from naysayers or those pondering the value of the AT. They aren't wrong, but they also aren't completely accurate in all situations either.

Well if that is your thing, then I think I know of a 22+ page thread that may interest you! Also, don't kink shame! 😛

The point of the Sentinel is one of HC's best kept secrets much like the search button.

I think so. The damage contribution of Incendiary Ammo is deceptive. For many powers Incendiary Ammo is adding around 20% more damage than not running it. This can have 100% uptime if you're not toggling away from it. Aim, by contrast, is a 50% damage improvement that runs 10 seconds with an uptime constrained by power recharge. So, in cases of low recharge Incendiary Ammo's effect actually contributes more damage over time than Aim would. Builds with higher Aim uptime, and Gaussian's Build-Up, make things more competitive but Incendiary Ammo is still quite good for what it is (free damage). That said, some players do not value Aim much and likely wouldn't value Incendiary Ammo either (or maybe even the entire Swap power broadly). That's fine. If max damage isn't the goal (considering constraints within the AT; let's not get off the rails making AT-to-AT comparisons), then Incendiary Ammo isn't a big deal. If you do want to leverage the most damage that Sentinel Dual Pistols can offer, then Incendiary Ammo is a must. There really isn't any other power in the kit that contributes as much as the fire ammo. If you do like the idea of juggle ammos to offer options to a team, or yourself, then I recommend taking a look at a Defender or Corruptor. Defender's have very strong debuff numbers which combines really well with their primaries. Dual Pistols shines as a force multiplier set when paired with primaries doing the same thing. Sentinels can also contribute a bit here (Blasters too for that matter), but my preference is to lean into the damage enhancers on the AT.

^ For when the joke the previous two posts this references doesn't land and needs to be spelled out in a hand holding manner.

"iTs EvIdEnCe! tHe NuMb3Rs dOn'T LiE!"

Not to mention the cherry picking of favorable outcomes, hypothetical maximums of perfect execution, and other hyperbolic nonsense*. *Yes, I am new to the Internet.

The entire AT sees most of its damage from procs. By Duelies, do you mean Dual Pistols? I'll assume this is a yes. Dual Pistols on the Sentinel has a lower scale on debuffs, similar to Blasters but with some minor exceptions, but keeps its DPS scale on Incendiary Ammo. If you're looking to make the most out of Swap Ammo and try out various debuffs, then the Sentinel is not the best AT for this. That would be the Defender. The Sentinel does have a unique range buff in its Cold Ammo which is something, I guess. Chemical Ammo brings a minor damage debuff to enemies, but I've never bothered with it on mine. Fire Ammo adds a minor damage over time that is the only source of additional damage out of the lot. At least, this is barring calculations on benefits of Standard Ammo which only perform defense debuffs, knockdown/back, and resistance debuff in specific attacks. Standard Ammo starts to fall off damage potential later on. The defense debuff becomes less important when you're running high to-hit and accuracy. The resistance debuff is tied to Piercing Rounds which is overshadowed by using procs in Suppressive Fire and Executioner's Shot. Therefore, the fire element becomes the sole means of increased damage since Cold and Chem are defensive benefits (which the Sentinel doesn't really need). Dual Pistols on Sentinels brings a changed Suppressive Fire which turns the gameplay into a higher actions per minute style. You can effectively run 3 powers all under 2 seconds of animation vs builds with Piercing Rounds that get that 2.64 second animation in one power. This means the longest animating attack you actively use is Hail of Bullets which at least comes with a 10% additive defensive buff to all 3 positions while it goes off. Damage-wise, a lot of Sentinels take a while to really shine and take off. The AT itself is sadly very backloaded. It is highly dependent on absurd levels of recharge to make its inherent functional (as it was intended) or heavily reliant on proc effects to bolster its damage. Furthermore, Sentinel builds get a lot out of epic holds using procs for micro-nuke single-target DPS. In other words, any Stalker you make can feel really good out the box. You could stack full set bonuses with a competent build plan and do very well with it. You likely won't touch someone optimizing to the gills, but the general gameplay loop doesn't really require it. If your perspective on damage is that Stalkers feel right, then you will not get this out of a Sentinel until you've stacked proc damage, run Alpha Musculature, potentially abuse procced holds, and have other full Incarnates. It takes a lot more work for Sentinels to tread water than it takes your average Stalker to roll their face on a keyboard. If you're looking at the debuffs to tinker with, then go for it. However, Defenders do it better. A Sentinel's resistance debuff on Piercing Rounds yields 9~% effect. A Defender's is 20%. Corruptors and Blasters both have 15%. Defenders can compound this with primaries that also introduce more resistance debuffs. I do this with my Dark/Dual Pistols Defender and Dual Pistols/Traps Corruptor. Tankers are just beef bois and girls. Their recent damage increase, combined with some the innate scaling of melee powers, will make them feel better than the average low-level Sentinel. Similar to the Stalker, a Tanker doesn't require much to feel comfortable with. A Sentinel, if DPS is the only metric that matters here, has to do a lot more and play much closer to perfect than the other options. All that said, I still consider my Dual Pistols/Super Reflexes Sentinel more or less my main. It is a very fun AT, to me at least, despite its limitations. I think a key takeaway here is that understand the limitations and embrace the fun. If DPS races are your definition of "fun" (not assuming this is true but stating very very broadly), then perhaps the Sentinel isn't for you.

This really isn't a concern at all. Given that the AT has a ranged damage scale of 0.95 it is reliant on other sources to close the gap. As things stand right now, the min-max approach of Opportunity uptime is to shoot (pun intended) for 50%. [Edit: Caveat, no one actually advocates 50% uptime as a min-max method of Sentinel build design. I should have worded this more in the realm that *if* you wanted to maximize the potential the best uptime you can achieve is around 50%.] In both testing this, and running numbers, I tend to get about +3~ DPS from Offensive Opportunity in a build -> spend playstyle as it is. Note, this is *not* something where procced Dominate is involved as I typically do not use it. Er go, if Offensive Opportunity is yielding me something in the ballpark of just 3-5 extra DPS at a 50% uptime, then a 100% uptime of the effect is still a minimal boost. I know some may not believe this, but Sentinels can achieve DPS totals in the multi-hundreds. It requires very specific building and play, but the possibility exists. This is not to say that it meets or exceeds other DPS ATs but it isn't quite the dumpster fire it is made out to be. Anyway, my point here is that Offensive Opportunity, such as it is, offers me somewhere in the 0.012% DPS increase vs not using it. This ties a bit into what @Luminara was going with on how a Sentinel can completely ignore Opportunity in its current state. In other words, don't feel a need to hold back on suggestions to benefit the AT with Opportunity uptime. As it stands, the benefits are comically small when executing a perfect rotation under perfect conditions. Even then, the largest benefit of the effect is limited to one target making any big game hunting the sole area the inherent shines. No suggestion on 100% uptime of Opportunity, with a single target limitation, is ever going to encroach on the role of a Blaster, Corruptor, some Defenders, Claws Scrappers, Crab Spiders, some Bane Spiders, some Masterminds, or even some Controllers. Go nuts with the suggestions.