[Focused Feedback: Sentinel Archetype Revamp]

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. 

 

[Dual Blades do they ..]

On 9/3/2022 at 12:26 PM, FUBARczar said:

Dual Blades do they ..do it all?

 

What helps DB the most? +Recharge? Or something else?

 

Thinking of pairing with EA or Stone

 

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. 

[what powers would you use, if you were doing a Homage to Spiderman ??]

On 10/2/2022 at 10:23 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Guess I'm old school. Spidey I knew never had electric blast.

 

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. 

[is /elec only good with the elec primary?]

On 9/26/2022 at 2:42 AM, Jawbreaker said:

Just starting out with Sentinels and I've noticed that just about every mention of /elec involves the elec primary. Does it not work well with other primaries?  If not, what other primaries work well with it?

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. 

[Wondering about Sentinels]

44 minutes ago, roleki said:

You're kind of free to fly your freak flag on a Sentinel; that comes at the cost of DPS.

 

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. 😉 

[Need Feedback On My 1st Sent: DP/Nin/Mind]

21 hours ago, Timeshadow said:

1. The build's currently sitting at 82.5% Global Recharge. Not nothing but also not as much as I usually go for on other toons. Is that enough?
2.  Pistols and Suppressive Fire are both proc heavy by my standards. I understand that's a good thing since Sentinel base damage is a little lackluster but have I gone too far at the expense of boosting the powers' inherent damage and recharge?
3. After a certain level (45ish) I really ran out of ideas for how to make best use of all the available slots. Could I rearrange the late-build placement to get more impactful effects?

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. 
 

[Collaborative Project: A Guide to Sentinel Sets]

On 6/3/2022 at 1:40 PM, Astral_Storm said:

This is excellent thank you.  I've built a Dual Pistols / Energy Aura Character but don't really know what I'm doing.  She is level 48 now but, yeah, endurance is a serious issue.  I'm going to try to adopt your Beam Rifle / Energy Aura build for Dual Pistols but not sure which Dual Pistols Skill I could skip.  Any advice on this please?

 

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). 
 

[Building an all purpose character]

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. 
 

[Water/bio build laying around?]

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).
 

 

 

[Wondering about Sentinels]

50 minutes ago, Cancrusher said:

I would like to see a little bump to the AT's damage, though.  Either that, or a major improvement to the opportunity mechanic to make it much more effective.  Obviously, you don't want to bump the damage to the extent that it makes blasters irrelevant.  I think that concern is probably why the devs originally erred so strongly on the side of caution.  That's generally the right attitude, they just took it a bit too far (IMO). 

 

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. 🙂 

[Wondering about Sentinels]

11 hours ago, Cancrusher said:

In my experience, my Sents don't primarily die because their mitigation up close is inferior to other combat AT's.  They die, because the Sentinels damage output is too low to thin the herd fast enough to prevent the incoming damage from chewing through their armor.

 

That's anecdotal, of course, but that's been my experience with playing Sentinels, so far.

 

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.

[Build list?]

16 hours ago, underfyre said:

Ever just randomly grab from someone's build list and see Hasten triple slotted for recharge and Aim holding a single piece from Adjusted Targeting for To Hit/Recharge and think to yourself, "No thanks."

 

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! 😛 

[Wondering about Sentinels]

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

 

[Dual Pistol Fire Ammo not worth it?]

5 hours ago, biostem said:

Am I missing something here?  

 

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. 
 

[The Tank Mage: Solo ITF With A Fire Blast Invulnerability Sentinel]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Some people lie about the numbers while some others don't understand them.

 

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

[The Tank Mage: Solo ITF With A Fire Blast Invulnerability Sentinel]

10 hours ago, underfyre said:

 

You mean like making a hyper specific build to down a Pylon as fast as possible, but is little good for actual gameplay, then using that as your argument about why one AT is better than others?

 

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

[The Tank Mage: Solo ITF With A Fire Blast Invulnerability Sentinel]

6 hours ago, Krimson said:

Remember, the Sentinel naysayers aren't actually in game playing them. There's a difference between theory crafting and actually using the thing. 

 

 

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.

[Trying to work out a Sentinel]

7 hours ago, Redletter said:

But I have no idea how functional this is, since Duelies, from my understanding, see most of their damage from procs and their debuffs don't really get to be impressive on a sentinel? I don't really know.

 

If you were to reccomend the sentinel to someone who enjoys tankers, defenders, and stalkers, what build what you recommend to them?

 

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. 

[Yet another, another Sentinel improvement thought...]

On 3/12/2022 at 4:31 PM, Errants said:

Concerns:

Active gameplay could potentially mean that you've a permanent +Dam, +EndRed, -DefTgt, -ResTgt buff at all times.

 

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.

[Please advice for my Mando-inspired Sentinel:]

17 hours ago, BeornOTNS said:

I have the ice Mastery for the carbonite (as opposed to the flame-thrower stuff).

 

Any way to make this more... cool? Defensive? In keeping with the concept?

 

Once you've gotten around 45% defense to melee/range/aoe you're pretty golden. There is a reason to push a little higher to pad out your defenses vs enemies that debuff. However, you sprinkle to taste in this recipe. If you're hoping to survive Incarnate content by yourself, then you want around 59% defenses to those categories. If you're not pushing bleeding-edge content, then you don't have to go this far. 

So, defense wise you're golden. Maybe even a little high. You're not really going to get more out of your resistances, but Master Brawler is the key to filling that hole. Plus, as your health goes down your resistance goes up. As mentioned, SR on Sentinel isn't nearly as squishy as it looks on paper unless you purposefully chase content with auto hit mechanics (why even play SR if that would be the case? 😛). 

Keeping in concept is going to be a you thing. My Sentinel is a bit more conceptual around the movie Equilibrium and semi-head canon of Wesley in Wanted (more movie in bullet curving (lol)). 

Beam/Traps Corr was mentioned, but shout out to DP/Traps Corr (I play it so I am biased) since Mando is more about pistols than carbines/rifles. If you wanted, you could look into Ninja Tool Mastery and go all Dark Saber with a white core and black aura for some of the tech swords. Din doesn't use carbonite so that may be more in line. Of course if we mean "mando" as in generic to the entire creed, well then *anything* works. 

OK, now that is all out of the way. Here are some things to think about.  

Sentinel DP is not reliant on Piercing Rounds. Take it if you like, but your base global recharge is over 180%. This means that you will have Pistols, Suppressive Fire, and Executioner's Shot available almost always. Therefore, you won't have room to fire off the sluggishly animating Piercing Rounds unless you just want to. PR works best as an AoE when hitting its target max (3) but it is pretty poor overall vs 1 target. Yes, it has more direct damage than say, Pistols or Suppressive fire individually.  Yet, you'll be able to shoot those powers more often in nearly the same animation window and most certainly during the cooldown of the power. Piercing Rounds shines the best on Defenders, and then Corruptors when using Standard Ammo for the high resistance debuff. Blasters can make some use of that utility, but there are better powers available for damage in their kits. Sentinels have the worst debuff and better options for faster/smooth gameplay cycles.  Now, all that said... play what you like. Use the power if you want. I'm just pointing out it is not an optimal power for damage (it is very misleading and should get an animation reduction to improve it). 

 

Slotting:

Decimation is good for the 5pc bonus to recharge if you need it. However, the 6th slot isn't that important and the Build-Up proc looks great on paper but isn't as strong as it sounds in actual practice. A solid strategy here is to run the 5pc Apocalypse set (with the negative proc) + Unbreakable Constraint (Chance for Smashing; you have it in Block of Ice) for a double dose of two PPM 4 105~ damage procs. This change alone will spike your Suppressive Fire's damage to exceed Piercing Rounds on average. You could also run a set up like I describe below with Executioner's Shot/Pistols.

Executioner's Shot can take the slotting you have, but the 6th slot in the set isn't necessary. So, you could go either 5 slots in the power just for the set recharge or add another proc. You could also go with 3 slots of Thunderstrike (Acc/Dmg, Dmg/End, Acc/Dmg/End; +5 these when you can) and then 3 damage procs. Procs like Explosive Strikes, Impeded Swiftness, Achilles' Heel, Touch of Lady Grey, etc. are all damage increases for your build.  Executioner's Shot lacking a high amount of slotted recharge is OK when you're pushing a ton of recharge. You could also use this exact same slotting strategy in Pistols (3 of a kind set + 3 procs). Pistols having a high amount of slotted recharge isn't necessary since it refreshes very fast already. Your limiter is animation time. Your animation windows are around 1.8 seconds except for Piercing Rounds or Hail of Bullets. Getting 2 attacks in the PR animation windows increases your attacks per minute which leads to more damage. If this is a bit too min-max, then ignore it, but you can squeeze more out of Sentinel DP if you want. I've done it. It is possible, I promise. 

If you dropped Piercing Rounds, move the ATO into Empty Clips. 

You don't *need* Elude, but its endurance benefit could be handy if you wanted. 

I prefer using the Preventative Medicine set in Master Brawler and put the Numina proc in Health. 

Block of Ice could just swap the damage proc for the other enhancement it has access to. This keeps the 10% recharge bonus if you want. Alternatively, 4pc Basilisk Gaze is another small ranged defense bonus, recharge bonus that stacks with Luck of the Gambler, and saves you a slot. Investing heavily into CC isn't necessary when you start doing more damage. 

So there you go. Food for thought. 

 

[Elec/SR Suggestions... Thoughts?]

On 2/6/2022 at 1:22 PM, Xeph said:

Jack of all, master of none... I suspect that's why Sentinel's are in such a strange place in the meta right now.

 

DPS meta > than all according to some very vocal people. Sentinels are essentially a DPS only AT, they really don't offer anything else beyond this, and are the lowest on the totem pole. 

The lower damage gets people to question its role, then said people try to pigeon the AT into other roles, and then they realize it sucks at that too. 

This isn't that complicated. The Sentinel is just an underperforming DPS AT with an incredibly low ceiling for optimization. If a person is willing to do all of the bending over backwards it takes in order to tread water in the extremes of the DPS meta, then the AT can be adequate at best. 

The quality of said DPS is also variable based on observer where adequate to me may be substandard to someone else. Substandard could come from any number of explanations and nitpicking where the bar for what is acceptable ranging somewhere around 250~ DPS (an easy ranged-only Blaster build can do this in its sleep). 

 

On 2/6/2022 at 1:22 PM, Xeph said:

Maybe there's a way I could re-engineer set bonuses to get a little closer to my overarching goal? Influence isn't a concern for this.

You could increase your potential damage by changing the slotting in Tesla Cage. Take a look at changing out your current set bonus with 5pc Apocalypse + Unbreakable Constraint (Chance for Smashing Damage). This would be a substantial DPS increase if you opted to go this route. That is, so long as you hit with the attack. 😉 This change would get you closer to the baseline DPS needed to just barely exceed the average regeneration rate of an AV. You wouldn't have enough damage to take one down quickly with your set up (they'll likely hurt you faster than you can hurt them still), but it would be a big change for sure. 

Tanky-wise, Tough and Weave would be part of the recipe here. There isn't a secret set of 5-6pc bonuses that I think you are missing. You've already found that 5pc LotG is a big S/L resist boost. Any other resistance sets would be in opposition to slotting in your other powers (i.e., Short Circuit, Thunderous Blast, etc.). So, this is less a specific set selection topic and a consideration for a full rebuild from the ground up. In other words, there isn't a whole lot more you'd do here to push the needle on tankyness. You don't have enough base resistance to make Incarnate Alphas like Cardiac or Resilience worth your time for this. 

Same can be said for healing. That power, enhanced, is only offering 16% healing. You could potentially push this with Incarnate choices at the expense of damage and defense. The Spiritual and Vigor Alphas could get you into an 18% to 19% (Vigor Core only) healing bonus. 

You could get funky with some other Incarnate choices too. For Hybrid, take a peek at Support and Melee. Melee likely less appealing due to your Hover use, but Support may be more interesting to you. 

In Destiny, Rebirth works as a heal for everyone and is something different from the usual Barrier/Ageless you may see. Also, Rebirth works very well with Super Reflexes when you dodge most attacks.

 

 

[What is good dps in CoH?]

18 hours ago, Brawlin said:

So 150/200 is the average. 400 is the target for good/great. My original question was what is good dps in CoH, not what is passable.

 

I'll rephrase into mechanics you're more familiar with and that you have stated already. Plus, I play SWTOR so it is relatable to me. 

In SWTOR, parsing 21k is "good" but there is room for improvement when the top end players are pushing 26k+. 

 

Sub 20K in SWTOR; non-NIM raiding just having fun = 130 - 170 (This is effectively playing on single origins)
21k in SWTOR = 170 to 230 in CoH. (This a huge range of build tweaking from early IO investment even to some purples)

26k in SWTOR = 300+ in CoH. (Mostly high quality gear, focus on specifics of the build, practice with attacks per minute)

 

A fully purpled out IO build with plenty of practice behind it, is on par for looking at SWTOR parses of top players with gold augments. 

The DPS range in CoH is vastly larger on HC than it ever was in the live game. Also, you noted before that you're not looking for the best, and yet you're settling on 400 as a baseline. This is equal to top tier elite hardcore raiders in other MMOs. 

In other words, this discussion comes across like someone asking for an Edmund's report on a "good car" then making the final determination that the only good car in existence is the Porsche 911. My point here is this. The Porsche 911 is a top end performance machine with a cost that is prohibitive for the vast majority of the market. Is it something to strive for in your life? Sure. Is it attainable? Potentially. Will most people have one? No. Can you drive from point A to B for less? Absolutely. CoH builds are like cars. You can spend a fortune on high performance, but you don't need to do that if you're only driving to get groceries. 

If you're already touching 400 DPS with your own character, then that is actually amazing in the context of this game. If you're able to hit 230-270, then that is above the average. The latter is also mostly overkill for the majority of the game. 400 DPS is on the extreme side. 

In reality, "average" DPS is *less than* the regeneration rate of an AV*. It is FAR easier to hit slightly above average DPS on DPS characters, but it is a fallacy to assume that most players do hundreds of DPS in this game. A large group of players just like to roleplay or play for fun or whatever. And "dps" as a concept largely doesn't matter here anyway beyond e-peen stroking. Doing hundreds of DPS is most impressive for single targets, but the only enemies that comes close to mattering on is if you are soloing Archvillains or Giant Monsters. Otherwise, the high potential of area damage on an AT like the Blaster smooths out the rest. Furthermore, at some point the majority, or all, of your squad will be leap frogging a Judgment power and wiping enemies repeatedly. 

Hell, there is a really large thread in this forum full of builds that many people adore and almost all of those pull DPS well under the potential of what the kit is capable of. 

 

*Consider that CoH's old dev team wasn't really that great at balancing numbers. Fire Blast, for example, is an outlier set with far more damage packed into it than other sets. Ice Blast also has some outlier scalars that make it excel. There is a massive difference in performance between Fire Blast and almost everything else. Sets like Beam Rifle aren't necessarily high performers because of their base numbers, but the combination of base numbers plus effects. Some effects, like regeneration debuffing and resistance debuffing, are incredibly powerful for what they are.

[Opportunity Strikes!]

22 hours ago, cohRock said:

I had thought that Opportunity Strikes! would be more direct.  It's more of an "opportunity available soon, maybe now."  It is curious that the whole team is informed that this fired.  Would I care if I saw a teammate received it?  I don't think so.

 

Its not a great proc since there is a limit on how much Opportunity you need (90+ out of 100) and a time period where further procs do nothing (do not gain opportunity meter while the effect is active for 15 seconds). The low PPM value makes including it in single-target dubious in its value as Opportunity itself doesn't contribute enough damage to eclipse proc stacking. Therefore, those ATOs may find a home in either filler attacks (single-target) or AoE attacks to increase the odds of trigger the effect (proc chance per target). 

Some Sentinel sets have funky Opportunity building effects which can combine with the ATO proc to essentially fill your bar with minimal effort. Sonic Blast cones and Flamethrower in Assault Rifle all come to mind. 

Still, building your character around the ATOs is largely a waste of time unlike how other ATs can have fairly critical choice in their ATO placement. The set bonuses can be worth it, but the procs aren't by themselves. 

[What is good dps in CoH?]

On 1/16/2022 at 3:21 PM, Brawlin said:

I was just wondering where the bar was for good. It is somewhere around 400 dps.

 

I think a lot of responses are skirting around the issue of subjectivity here. If 400 DPS is "good" for a Blaster, then 99.99% of the player base is royally screwed. There is no way the majority of players are hitting this number as a baseline. AoE is more likely, but not single target. Especially not on ranged only builds that aren't specialized to the gills. 

The Pylon thread *is not* the majority of this game. It is the upper 1% of the player base that are hardcore min-maxers and genuinely curious about pushing limits. I don't state this to bash those folks, I love them to death and respect the hell out of those contributors. However, this should not be where you place a bar to make a generalized statement about what is good. Maybe, good to you, but just understand this is actually exceptional, even unattainable, to many others. 

Someone else already mentioned a bar of being able to out damage AV regeneration as being a target metric. That's around 150 DPS. That's OLD numbers and much of the game hadn't scaled (until some of the new content on HC) in over 15 years. Back in the old live game the original Pylon thread had people wetting themselves flexing their 170-190 DPS. 

Congrats on sub 2 minute Pylon time. This likely has a lot to do with your years of playing MMOs, being into focused play like that, and doing research on what makes a strong build. You're in a small group of the player base with that level of ability and execution. Please take that into consideration.

[New Dark/Dark Sent build , suggestions welcome! :D]

Cardiac Core would also help for the over level 45 content (and helps offset Darkest Night). 

Below is a thought experiment. Resistances to focus on are S/L/E.  You get N from the powers and most sets so not a big deal. F/C/T/P aren't that big a concern, but are close to 50% (except toxic; not worth it imo). 

Defense will take a hit here, but your resistances going up is pretty durable. Keep in mind too, Obscure Sustenance is a large buff to your regeneration rate. The highest aspect of it lasts long enough for you to refresh it fairly quickly. By significant, you're looking at about 54~ hit points per second at the peak of the buff which is backed up by 70~% resistance to the most common damage type. You're *going* to get hit.  Sentinel DA doesn't have enough IO slotting options to really softcap defenses (other than Range, Energy, Negative) *and* still boost resistances. Well, you *can*, but not with Darkness Mastery. 

I'm not sure Engulfing Darkness is really doing much for your build so I dropped it. However, the slotting idea is good enough for Darkest Night. Engulfing Darkness has a base to-hit reduction of 5%. Enhancing that isn't worth your investment when you consider that higher level enemies will likely only take a -1% debuff from it. 

Netherworld Tentacles and Grasp slotted purely for utility. I'd probably do something different here, but those sets have good break points. Annihilation has a nice E/N resistance boost and the set contains a source of resistance debuff. 

I don't worry about the knockback in Umbral Torrent here and focus on stacking the large Energy/Negative resistance benefit. Energy is common enough later on that it is worth trying to close that gap. Between the defense and resistance (with 50~ hp per second regen) this should be fairly comfortable. It won't be a primary, or even secondary, tank but it is survivable enough. 
 

Cardiac Core will cap S/L/N resistances and guarantee 50%+ to everything but Toxic (Psi may still be slightly behind). Endurance management should be pretty easy and even here Darkest Night isn't a 2+ end per second total drain. Attacks, like Umbral Torrent, go from 15~ endurance per use down to 9. You're never going to compete with a Blaster as a Sentinel. So, the loss in direct damage is a tradeoff to try to get more sustained damage. 

The nice thing about building like this is that the endurance management challenge is mostly resolved in the IO sets and configuration. Ageless would certainly be the icing on the cake but you may feel fine without it. This means a few things: 

1) Barrier becomes an option with its 5% defense and resistance pretty much at all times under T4. This too will guarantee capped resistances and at least 32% defense to several things. 32% is a nice number as 1 small purple inspiration is all you need to get to 44-45% defense (accounting for whatever remainders exist on your character sheet). 

2) Musculature Core opens up if you're not in dire need to run Cardiac Core. This is a significant damage boost in any content you can run Incarnates with. 

3) Could even investigate Intuition Radial. I *really* like this one on Defenders, Corruptors, and some Controllers. Here, it would make Blackstar impose a -42% to-hit penalty (assuming even level) for 20 seconds and Darkest Night bumps up to 18%. On top of this, you still get a decent damage enhancement bonus to your attacks as if you used Musculature Radial. 

4) Generally a better feeling of empowerment to experiment vs being pigeonholed. 

 

You do leave a lot of potential damage on the table with this build style because you give up all the proc damage options. However, just like with the AR/Regen, you have to consider the tradeoffs vs the benefits that matter to you. 

I can tell you, from experience with this set, that running it at 62%+ resistance is enough if you're also capable of controlling minions (i.e., with Oppressive Gloom and/or Cloak of Fear). If you have enough recharge to keep Obscure Sustenance up within 20 seconds, then the overall game play is a LOT smoother.  

I have not tried the build below, but I have run testing with Dark Blast/Dark Armor. I've played Dark Armor extensively and a good bit of my hero roster uses that or Dark Miasma. 

Psionic Mastery is also very good with Dark Armor on Sentinels. Psychic Shockwave has a stun which stacks with Oppressive Gloom creating a magnitude 3 stun. Link Minds is another defense power that can help push defenses up to 28-32% without any Destiny Incarnate help. 

 

 

Spoiler

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