CaptTastic

I have a Sonic/Regen Sentinel that has solo’d AVs (not all of them, but some) so certainly wouldn’t say Sonic Blast was a moot set. It’s not the best, obviously, but it can work.

This post reminded me of my first ever day on CoH. I was off work ill so thought I’d give it a go. Must have been around 2007. Made myself a fire/fire blaster and off I went. Solo’d for a few levels at first as I didn’t have the confidence to interact with other humans yet given I was an MMO virgin. Before long, I found myself in The Hollows and got invited to a team. It was the Atta mission. Now, up until then I’d been on my own, so never confronted by more than three foes at a time. Suddenly I was looking at a sea of trolls and - you guessed it - in I went lobbing fireballs into them before a tank had agro 😂🙈 In fact I’m pretty sure I was always dead before the tank had even arrived at the mob! God I love fire blasters 😍😍

This is true, of course, but you have to at least have a go, right? Think in general the solo element here is a tough one to reconcile, as MMOs are not designed to be played alone.

Dr Enceladus - Fire/Ice Blaster.

Think what you are fighting when solo makes a big difference too. When soloing an AV, for example, you will likely strip them of half their attacks or more if you stay at range. Even with my most robust blasters, there have been times I have tried to go toe-to-toe with an AV and taken too big a hit in melee to last the fight. For me, melee attacks on blasters are very situational. Great, but situational.

I don’t think Blapping is a sub-class. Blapping also isn’t the normal way to play blasters, otherwise the AT would be called blappers. So I guess my answer is neither. I tend to view my blasters as primarily ranged but with some situational melee attacks too. I am loathe to describe either ranged or blapping as a ‘playstyle’ tbh, as think it’s up to players to adapt to a character to get the most out of it. I certainly don’t think players should be trying to shoehorn a powerset into a rigid style of play.

That’s probably a good test, actually!

Does anyone else ever find themselves so focused on making new characters they forget how good older ones are? Fired up my Fire/NRG blaster today for first time in a months and was almost blown away by how powerful he was. I mean, he’s fully T4’d, has 44 veteran levels and 3000 reward merits, so I obviously played him a hell of a lot once upon a time. Feel bad for neglecting him recently now! Sure I’m not the only one this happens too, so what are your lost hidden gems lurking along your alts?

I’ve went the middle ground between your builds on my Fire/NRG. Capped Ranged defence (playstyle choice as dislike melee/blapping and prefer to play hover-blaster instead), 50% S/L/F resists, 50% damage bonus, perma-hasten. Puts an AV down solo in around 2-3 mins. Love him.

I absolutely love concept builds like this. Build creativity is very underrated in my opinion. Kudos to you. On the question itself, I think range as a mitigation tool is a little wasted on Sentinels as you already have all the mitigation you will ever really need. That goes even more so for top tier survival sets like Bio and Invul. If you are soloing at, say x4, you should have all the mitigation you need from Bio. If you are soloing at x8, the AoE cap will kick in and likely negate any advantage the cones are giving you. But all that aside, it's just theory on my part and will be fascinated to follow your findings from it.

I agree with @oldskool. Fiery Aura is a little underwhelming on Sentinels if you are looking for a great playing experience as opposed to something conceptual. Burn and Consume entice you into the melee but the set doesn't really offer you the mitigation to allow you to do so with any real comfort. My experience of Fiery Aura on a Sentinel was that if you're in a team with a good tank and pick your moment to jump in and out of melee, it's a nice set. I was disappointed with it from a self-sustaining point of view though, because for me that is the key attraction of a Sentinel - and ultimately, if you are reliant on something to hold your aggro for you, would you not rather just play a blaster? I have fire/fire/fire versions in both Sentinel and Blasters, and there isn't a huge amount of difference in terms of survivability, Yes, the Sentinel has a bit better resists and the self-heal, but the blaster kills stuff much quicker so you have to face far fewer attacks.

Absolutely agree on the Sentinel regen. I've solo'd AVs on my Sonic/Regen with no resists and less than 20% defence.

Think the major difference is that those other builds you mentioned are that good with the help of IOs. If IH went back to its old version, Regen would be that good out of the box without any need for IOs. Then people would be free to stack massive resist/def bonuses on top through set bonuses. Regen maybe needs a little more help somewhere. I'd be all for a small buff here or there. Don't think restoring IH to its issue 2 incarnation would be that, though.

For most of the time on Live it wasn't a toggle. Don't see anything wrong with IH as a situational buff, particularly with MoG there too. Regen definitely better on a Sentinel in my opinion, but making it overpowered right out of the box by making IH a toggle again won't fix anything. That's even more so when Regens can still add defence on top with IOs,

When you solo Dominatrix she can really leave a mess 🤣

Would like to add Sonic/Regen to this list if I may. The build was an experiment of mine to try and make the absolute most out of Opportunity in it’s current form. Thought sonic -res could stack on opportunity -res and defensive opportunity’s heal could stack on top of Regen when needed. It leans heavily on a procced Dominate (as most Sentinels do) for big spike damage but great survivability without any real defence (<20) and resists, and really contributed to teams due to the -res and soft control from shockwave and the nuke. Even solo’d a couple of AVs without insps or temps. All in all, a very successful experiment (for once 🤣) and would recommend.

Think Sentinels really appeal to those who like to stay at range and hover blast. Know I’m one of them. Forcing melee powers into their primary would kill all the appeal for me. I’d just play blasters instead since I could do exactly the same but hit harder.

Think it’d be too much to give blasters Mez protect. There should be a penalty/vulnerability for so much damage and that one is fair. Agree with you that Sentinels should be getting a little more of everything though. As for opportunity, I’d love an unlockable build up with a mechanic similar to that of Domination. More you attack you build your fury/opportunity bar, and when full it unlocks a big damage buff for 30 seconds or so - but you get to control when you activate it. Shouldn’t be possible to perma though. Don’t think Sentinels need major changes by any means. Just a new inherent and tweak the numbers a little.

Can completely second what oldskool said about +end procs. Currently levelling a fire/invul and he’s at lvl 31 atm. Running around 56% global recharge bonus and it was killing my blue bar even with Durability taken. Grabbed 2 Performance Shifters and a Panacea and endurance issues have completely gone.

For me it’s when I start rooting for them, and for that I’ve learned I need some vulnerability there. Like everyone else, I have the overpowered, huge damage, +4/x8 on their own without losing health, AV-soloing characters, but they bore me because I can’t really connect. Then again, my staff/SR scrapper was doing some lvl 40ish missions last night... no real spike damage and could take a big hit any time, and I was happy as anything because he was an underdog I could root for. When he came through stuff, there was a sense of victory and achievement rather than the dull inevitability I feel when on more powerful characters. That’s just the way I’m weird though I guess.

Fire/Dark corruptor is so good you’ll be ashamed to tell your parents you’ve done it.

I just wish they’d give Sentinels a bit of a buff. Completely understand the initial caution, but think we know enough now to know they need a little extra something. I love mine and probably consider Sentinels my AT, but they shouldn’t have to be so reliant on procs and so limited in terms of AoE. They shouldn’t be Blaster level damage, obviously, but right now it’s a massively unfair trade off. Sentinels have to give up damage, range, AoE cap, and build-up for... *checks notes*... a little bit more survivability. That’s a bad deal and they should be given some help.

I'll certainly give them a look!

This would be a big no for me. We’ve all been on end-game content with characters literally straight out of AE. Last thing we need is a bunch of people with 1000 vet levels, all of which were gained while stood next to a door, bragging about how how powerful they are. Think slowly earning your power is one of the true highlights of CoX, but it needs to be done through 1-50, not 50-1000. I started a stone melee/SR Brute, thrown together on a random whim to be honest, a few weeks ago and started him in Preatoria. I’ve solo’d him all the way, which has cost me the joys of teaming, but boy do I know him. I was with him when Syndicate were beating him down in the Nova Preatoria sewers. I was with him when he started to find his feet even though Resistance laid every ambush imaginable. I was with him when Seismic Smash changed his life, but came with an endurance cost he couldn’t handle. I was with him when he chose villainy and headed to Rogue Isles and his defence started to grow. I was with him when he finally conquered those endurance problems in his mid-30s and hit the defence caps. Now, at 38, he’s taking on much tougher challenges, x3/+3, and that’s brought more struggles particularly when you run into an occasional +4 EB. The end-game power is not the game. The journey is the game. Right now he’s got 12 more levels ahead of him before he can even think about incarnates. He has Rikti, Romans, Patrons, Arachnoids in his path. Will he have a crisis of conscience and seek redemption in Paragon City? Will he go home to Praetoria? I don’t know right now. But what I do know is that character, his powers, his strengths, his weaknesses, and all the lessons we have learned together. City of Heroes is VAST. It’s practically a masterpiece. There is already a huge world out there for players to explore and experience. The last thing it needs is more incentive to just endlessly cycle the end-game stuff, at best, or AE fire-farms at worst.

But that is surely a loaded test as some sets have strong defence debuff resistance, some don't. Some sets rely on defence, some don't Again, not criticising anyone. It's an absolutely fair observation that Regen does not solo a max-dif ITF as well as other sets can. I'm just saying it doesn't prove anything more than just that.