XaoGarrent

Yeah, mostly patience is my problem. I have a dedicated farming character already maxed, so budget isn't really a problem... It's just leveling something that endurance heavy is going to be painful one way or the other. I'm still waffling over whether I should make it Tank or Brute, but I just have this image in my head of an ethereal demi-god of dread in a hulking suit of metal armor reaping souls with a massive weapon of some sort. It's *gotta* be doable without ripping my hair out.

You think that's bad, I've been considering a Dark/TW Tanker.

To put this in perspective, if the Sentinel ranged damage scalar is somewhere around .80 to .85 as I *think* it is, that means it's only a little bit over a 25% difference between Blaster and Sentinel *base* damage. Of course, the Blaster inherent, build up and whatever else is going to dramatically inflate that for short periods of time, but Senintels also have a few tricks up their sleeves, and in particular these tricks all surround having more readily available and consistent damage- shorter cooldowns on their nukes, an extra high-ish damage single target attack... As Sunsette alludes to later in this post, the reason why this is important is that differences as little as 10-20% can *radically* alter TTK in these older style RPG games where everything has a cooldown, and on sentinels in particular, their tweaks to push them towards more consistent, less spike-y damage paired with their use of armor sets means they get along with flat damage increases particularly well. Aside from those specific points of notice, it's also because- especially in a game like CoH- It's far safer to increase base values in small slices, little boosts of 10% or 5% with testing in between. It's way, way safer for a game to make adjustments to numbers that exist at the bottom of a massive buff stack like this. Really, smaller increments in one direction are safer in general, as you're less likely to overshoot your target and have to start nerfing. If the player hemmoraging nerf patches this game experienced early in its life time taught us anything... It's that.

You more or less did. I'm mostly in agreement with this post. I just don't want to give concrete numbers because availability of good information on their values is scarce, and I don't like doing things off feeling or gut instinct. I also have zero idea what they're planning on doing for the inherent rework and that could change literally everything.

Why don't you suggest some numbers, then? You're the one that seems to want something set in stone, so you can begin.

That's an awfully big leap you're assuming there, and that's awfully uncharitable. Sure that's not what you WISH was the case, rather than what's ACTUALLY the case?

Thanks for proving my point. <3

On paper, Scrapper. In practice, Brute. The key here is consistency, and the fact that you're never going to have *just* 50% fury when you actually need it, cept maybe in the early levels when you can't afford to wantonly wade into things and you don't have full attack chains. Scrappers rely too much on lolrandom to hit peak damage when you really need it, whereas Brutes frequently are in situations where they can acquire it at will, especially if you're on a large team that's moving fast. Scrappers do have one thing going for them though: Their base damage is higher than that of Brutes. They don't have to work at all to reach an acceptable level of performance, nor do they have to obtain agro. If you *do* happen to get lucky and crit on the right power at the right time, it doesn't cost you anything either. Scrappers are probably the lowest risk and effort for highest reward AT in the game, in most content, even if Brutes technically outperform them when pushed to the limit.

We live in an era of delusion, I'm fully aware of this, yes. I am one of many people fighting against this, and I think I've made my point VERY well here.

You are not factoring in the person having the experience as part of the total picture. You're only describing one half of the equation, and you're getting bad results because of this. I deal with post-modernists on a regular basis, dude. I'm not going to miss something this basic, it's a mistake they make CONSTANTLY because they have absolutely no respect for a reality existing independent of their perception. This includes, most specifically, their existence, as exists separate from their own perception.

I think you missed the implied point. Numbers are one of a number of causal factors in what makes something fun. They're the *only* causal factor, depending on how you look at it. All things exist in a measurable state. Colors exist on a scale that can be represented numerically, animation times and recharges are counted in seconds, resources and meters come in and are replenished in a finite quantities, etc. You could really just boil that down and say that fun is logically representable. As in, you don't even need numbers, what causes people to experience "fun" can be narrowed down to a fundamentally knowable state that one can simply measure with their senses. You can even condition people into *being* part of the knowable state, hence my mention of masochism. "Fun trumps all" as a response to numbers is not only a gross simplification, and an empty platitude... It's outright fallacious reasoning and creates a broken form of circular logic, which is utterly useless when trying to make informed decisions. You do realize that when you're creating a game you have to make objective determinations on things like fun, right? You do realize failing to do this is more or less paramount to creating a giant game of Calvin Ball, correct?

This right here is a problem. We shouldn't even be invoking Defenders in this conversation because not only are they the most redundant thing in the game damage wise, they exist entirely at an extreme towards team support, outdone by Corruptors in other regards- Both of which can make your *whole team* safe. If we're starting this far on the backfoot, that alone is worth having a thonk over. Sentinels pay too much in damage for the safety they get, and they add very little to a team (with exceptions, of course, but that's like saying defenders do good damage because /kin exists, and trust me, we don't wanna be invoking /kin here). Add on a set with commonly and often highly resisted damage and a lack of *any* damage boosting clickie and you've got a real stinker. If you find that kind of thing fun, well... I don't, but I wont kinkshame your masochism, don't worry.

This kind of brutal honesty is so rare to see in this community, and it's frankly a breath of fresh air with all the usual, stale butt patting going on to see someone just tell it how it is.

I honestly don't know how you put up with the low damage. I really wanted to try that combination, but I took one look at the numbers and just went "Oof."

Just be warned that Invuln anything is heavy on endurance. Sentinel Invuln has one less toggle, but is a more expensive AT overall, so start making room for endurance reduction enhancers early, and slot up Stamina ASAP.

Try a Water/Bio. Fun fact: If you color it just right, some of the Bio Armor stuff can look a little like pearlescent coral. Water is just a strong set in itself, boasting higher than average damage and moderately strong utility (knock up, a smattering of defense/speed debuffs and even an AoE stun). Bio boosts your damage harder than any other Sentinel secondary (as far as I'm aware, anyway), while still being beefy to boot. You're going to want that damage boost because Sentinel damage is crud on a stick, Bio actually makes it kinda alright, especially as it adds extra damage as toxic, which isn't too commonly resisted.