Sovera

Listen, I love ya, but, you seem more interested in arguing than showing the results you got. Take 10 minutes and hit an AV for 5 minutes with Degen (or kill it if you want) and 5 minutes with Reactive. And if you are feeling energetic still do one without Interface slotted. I am very willing to change my mind but I need some common ground.

What is this about ablative being tied to a damage bonus? The rest is valid, but Bio is good enough for a Sentinel who stays out of melee. I did Trapdoor with an elec/bio who had 33% and did not need to use inspirations despite the tunnels not allowing to stay at range. But everything you say is true in that someone who values recharge or whose theme does not fit has good reason not to go Bio.

That's a weird thing to say. I find math to be the lead cause of misinformation. Math often does not account for under the hood sub-math, or plain bugs, or some sort of dev imposed rule also running under the hood. People will think that their math is correct, because math is always correct, but the rules governing the math are subjective to coding. And yes, a single 5 minutes is not enough, but 5 minutes is the customary cut off point where RNG has smoothed out things. Most importantly the number difference was large enough to remove doubts: This is what I got. If someone wants to do some actual tests of their own and present results I would be pleased pink to have something to compare with and see what diverged. Possible swapping 75% chance for -res instead of chance to DoT would make the difference?

From testing, not math. I hit several +4 (+3 with alpha) AVs in the AE and tallied their HP after 5 minutes. Degen had a significant impact and Reactive had none. Ditto on the -res aspect and the DoT of Reactive. The 75% DoT was better in clearing maps than the 75% chance for -res. As always if someone has more data please correct me. And if we really want to be min maxey we can also have one of each tier as the Degen/Reactive does not stack, true, but only for its according tier. So if someone has T4 but the other has T3/T2/T1 the effects will stack.

Degen works on AVs and visibly reduces the time needed to kill it. Works on the pylon as well. Does little for regular missions except if using the 75% chance for DoT and then it shaves some time off kills. I use it as a middle ground choice good for either AV bashing or clearing missions. Reactive does not work on AVs (or should I say it has no visible impact on AVs due to -res resistance) but works well on a pylon due to it being considered +0, hence the similar times it gets compared to Degen in pylon tests. But it also is what has the best results for regular missions. This is not from the -res but rather the DoT so I'd go around picking the version with 75% chance for DoT. If someone has run their own tests and have different experiences please correct me.

A dirty test with turning off Offensive Adaptation gives a taste of what it is to play with other armors, and it was an extra minute on the pylon. Considering Bio is reasonably defensive and Sentinel is safe and sturdy I really can't advocate for other armors other than Rad (eat all the damage, but have extra nuke) and Bio (defensive enough and extra damage. I feel like a Storm/Rad might be something to try with Storm protecting the player as it goes into melee to detonate stuff while Rad adds some damage the set lacks, and I'll test it once the new patch hits live. But Storm already suffers from prep time and the pairing would add a THIRD long animation skill. I feel by the time a Storm/Rad has placed Storm Cell, Cat, 5, used Intensify, and finally detonated Ground Zero, that the fight is over already (2.2 + 2.6 + 1.3 + 3.1 = 10-ish seconds. Average full team fights are in the 15 ish landmark)

Simple enough to resolve though: stop making sentinel nukes normalized and have AR and RoA on 60 second timer as they were designed for.

I have run a few tests on -res procs because they have become something of a pet peeve of mine due to how they skew pylon tests and make tier lists separate the haves (can slot -res procs) from the have nots (has no place to slot a -res proc), when in practice the difference is not 20-30% but rather much smaller or even a wash between have and have nots. This leads to some sets being considered weak and some being considered strong, or even balance changes (such as the recent Fire Melee pass that gave the possibility to slot -res as a 'boost to damage'). - In practice against AVs (+4, +3 with the shift) using different opponents in the AE the difference between slotting a -res against slotting a damage proc was in the order of 4%. Bopper is our mathmagic wizard and would use different numbers or terms but I tested by wailing on the different AVs for 5 minutes with the -res and then with a damage proc. Then I saw how much HP it had in both cases, used a calculator for the percentages, and 4-5% difference between the two was the average. - For clearing maps there is no difference between -res procs and damage procs (with the notable exception of the old Radiation Melee power Irradiated Ground. The power has since been 'fixed'). More data is always welcome though if someone would like to chime in. But the few others who did chime with results from map runs (Trapdoor for example) have coincided with this. In conclusion: - On a pylon two -res procs can shave the time by 20 to 30% because the community uses the open world pylons existing in Rikti War Zone. If the community would start using the pylons in the instanced mothership raid these numbers would change. It is not terribly important to change targets though since the idea of the pylon test is not to brag or puff one's chest but to see what numbers the build has. But, because the pylon is +0 it skews things. MMs get mindblowing numbers, -res effects have a huge effect, etc. This is not a problem either until these results are touted as bona fide uncontroversial facts regarding certain ATs or sets. - Regular gameplay the -res effects has no visible effects. This is not a bad thing though as it means slotting damage or -res makes no particular difference in clearing a mission of the minions/lieutenants/bosses. With the caveat that if someone else is running the same -res proc they will not stack. - While the effect on a +3 AV is small it does add 4% damage compared to a damage proc. With 8 players all doing 4% extra damage the AV dies faster. This is a bit academic since AVs always die fast anyway due to the large amount of firepower aimed in their direction. There are some anecdotes on how a full 8 person team could not defeat an AV but this is due to a large level disparity and/or low damage team (and even then). - The lower level the content (which is run at lower difficulty settings such as +0 or +1) the more useful the -res procs, but paradoxically the less troubles a team has anyway against such content.

Not sure which discord you're using. But here you are: https://midsreborn.com/

Do you have Mids? I can drop the file instead. Sentinel (Elec Energy).mbd

I no longer remember but did the last AR tweaks trickle down to Sentinel and if so what got changed?

Electric is fine though. I'm currently leveling an Elec/Rad and soloed Posi 1 and 2 at +0x3. It was a pleasure to destroy the Vhaz AV without a problem compared to my unfortunate Dark/Bio that used multiple Recovery Serums and whittled the AV very very slowly until running out of inspirations. I tried to put an Elec/Energy build together for you. It's a bit cobbled but it should work. You will have the soft cap for defense, a heal, an endurance recovery clickie, decent resistances and an obscene amount of recharge (Hasten at 118 without the build having FF procs), and a very easy/fast and early blooming rotation of Tasla Cage, Charged Bolts, Zapping Bolt, Charged Bolts, repeat. The powers are somewhat in order but there are so many important or useful things that it's difficult to choose what to pick first while leveling. The slots are rearranged by Mids and not to be taken as gospel. [/img] View This Build In MRB This is an end-game(expensive build. If you feel you'd like a leveling build let me know.

My bad, I had two Mids windows open. Lets try that again: Tanker (Fire Fire).mxd

First of all welcome back, second of all my condolences, and third check my signature if you've been away for a long time. Elec/Energy is solid but if you're aiming for a nuker then consider an Elec/Rad since you get to nuke twice every 25 seconds.

Fire/Fire has my vote. EM blooms later and while it has the lead in ST it is nearly TW level of piano play. CoH is not particularly a game of piano play. Fire Armor does compensate for EM's lack of AoE though, and EM's constant barrage of CC helps surviving a little bit better, but CoH is mostly a game of AoE and tankers tend to die a death from papercuts instead of fearing one single tough enemy. In that Fire Melee's AoE will help whittle things down faster. This is what I was using for Fire/Fire. Scorch probably could/should be swapped for Incinerate but I preferred to have Scorch for an easy, simply, early rotation. It is not a min max decision so play around as long as you get a gapless rotation. [/img] View This Build In MRB

Okay, just a video I found, but the guy only had nice things to say where the title made me watch it just to rip him a new one.

There is no reason not to always go Bio. The other armors don't bring anything special to the table when Bio is defensive, has a heal that comes with a shield, an endurance clickie that also heals, and comes with extra damage. There is only Radiation Armor for the second nuke at the cost of ST damage. But because Sentinels are so sturdy and (usually) are out of melee range they don't get anything special out of Water either. AoE? Sure, but time gained with Water's AoE is then lost when trying to ST a target. Don't want to piss on your parade though, CoH is not hard enough that it requires the very best. Consider Storm if you want to lean on the tanky angle because all the debuffs do a better job at keeping someone up instead of Water's piddly heal (especially if coupled with Bio who already has two of those). It just doesn't have great AoE... or ST... 😄 Water/Rad could be a nice AoE machine once you nuke, then pseudo nuke, then start moping up with the watchamacallit water fireball power. The already ailing ST will just ail further without Bio and with Water though. Another nice pseudo tank is an Elec/Bio. I found I could very reliably shut down Cyclops/Minotaurs/Paragon Protectors by sapping them dry before they used their T9. And it got a nice 3 minute pylon run thanks to the extra damage from the sapping mechanic, though Trapdoor was bad at 7 ish minutes. Perhaps an Elec/Rad might get the best of both worlds though the ST will still suffer, but less noticeable on regular non AV content since whatever is alive will have eaten two nukes before ST comes into play.

Do you happen to remember what the Fire/Bio got on Trapdoor and what the Fire/Rad got on the pylon?

There is no such thing as 'compensating for Granite's debuffs'. Either Rage or IO bonuses the full strength would be exerted without Granite and with Granite we have less. Even if IO +damage could be stacked to 30% we're not compensating for Granite. If we don't have Granite toggled on we do 30% more damage. The last time I built for Stone I remember that there was no great points in using Granite. If I recall correctly the resistances went up, including defense debuff, but losing all toggles dropped defense as a whole so it was a wash or slightly worse in defense even if resistances went up. With all the other debuffs attached to the form I could not see the point.

They like it. And that's fine. Devs said it achieved their goal and the best we can say about it (other than being super pretty) is that it did not introduce further power creep. I got an average of 4 minutes with a pylon on a Storm/Bio which is not fantastic. It lacks burst and does not have steady power either, or decent AoE. But it is pretty helpful if building for a sturdy character since the KD and -ToHit does good in that aspect. It's just that we achieve the same sturdyness simply by killing mobs. As others said (but I was on a Sentinel) throwing Storm Cell and Cat 5 and then spamming everything with Chain Lightning whenever up would still have live mobs by the time Cat 5 ended... which is not really brilliant. But 4 minutes is my average on a fully ranged Sentinel so on that AT it is in the average. No worse than the other contenders, not better.

I just come from testing procs in Cat5 and Storm Cell and notice they had zero effect that I could see in terms of times. Lemme just repost here: First of all a much needed pylon test: : two minutes and 49 seconds. Not blaster times but rather decent for a fully ranged build. endurance was under control and I did not need to use any endurance recovery tools. I may not have maximize Vulnerability since I only used it prior to using Intensify. Now proccing Cat 5. On paper (Mids) I went from 111 damage to 305 so the usual 200-ish from loading on three procs and have the other three boosted damage/rech. Time to test: - 4 minutes. ...okay, what? Also, my endurance that was solid in the 95% range actually forced me to use Rebuild DNA three times during the test. - Was the first run a fluke? I'll swap back to non proc slotting for Cat 5. No, still 3:58. I wonder what happened with the first pylon there. Endurance did not hold up as well (well, one minute longer fighting would do that) and I had to use Rebuild DNA despite the slotting being the same. Regardless no difference with and without procs so the procs during its duration did not seem to make a difference in the output. This is a bit sad since it is another nail on an already overwrought coffin: Cat 5 neither has the non proccing of Blizz but does not have Blizz's cast and forget either, and procs seemingly have no impact on it either unlike normal nuke Storm Cell also does damage though so time to proc it: - 3:44. Not enough of a difference that simple misses would not account for it. One last test now with both Storm Cell and Cat 5 triple damage procced: 4:13 🤷‍♂️ Super basic test but proccing Storm Cell/Cat 5 seems to show no dividends much like any other rain power. Using both as mules for sets that have no damage procs seems the way to go. Also, the first test must have been a fluke or my eyes playing tricks when I looked at the watch. A whole minute does not simply disappear like that. One last test: what if using a different secondary instead of Bio? I did not bother leveling or making a different character for this and just returned the build to it's original state before turning off the thing that makes Bio do extra damage: the offense adaptation. 5:20. It does not completely reflect the truth though. Ston did some very nice Trapdoor tests with a Fire/Rad Sentinel getting 4 minutes with it and from what he said Bio did not nearly achieve the same times.

Last test for realsies: what if using a different secondary instead of Bio? I did not bother leveling or making a different character for this and just returned the build to it's original state before turning off the thing that makes Bio do extra damage: the offense adaptation. 5:20. It does not completely reflect the truth though. Ston did some very nice Trapdoor tests with a Fire/Rad Sentinel getting 4 minutes with it and from what he said Bio did not nearly achieve the same times.

So in typical me fashion I decided to answer my own question. First of all a much needed pylon test: : two minutes and 49 seconds. Not blaster times but rather decent for a fully ranged build. endurance was under control and I did not need to use any endurance recovery tools. I may not have maximize Vulnerability since I only used it prior to using Intensify. Now proccing Cat 5. On paper (Mids) I went from 111 damage to 305 so the usual 200-ish from loading on three procs and have the other three boosted damage/rech. Time to test: - 4 minutes. ...okay, what? Also, my endurance that was solid in the 95% range actually forced me to use Rebuild DNA three times during the test. - Was the first run a fluke? I'll swap back to non proc slotting for Cat 5. No, still 3:58. I wonder what happened with the first pylon there. Endurance did not hold up as well (well, one minute longer fighting would do that) and I had to use Rebuild DNA despite the slotting being the same. Regardless no difference with and without procs so the procs during its duration did not seem to make a difference in the output. This is a bit sad since it is another nail on an already overwrought coffin: Cat 5 neither has the non proccing of Blizz but does not have Blizz's cast and forget either, and procs seemingly have no impact on it either unlike normal nuke Storm Cell also does damage though so time to proc it: - 3:44. Not enough of a difference that simple misses would not account for it. One last test now with both Storm Cell and Cat 5 triple damage procced: 4:13 🤷‍♂️ Super basic test but proccing Storm Cell/Cat 5 seems to show no dividends much like any other rain power. Using both as mules for sets that have no damage procs seems the way to go. Also, the first test must have been a fluke or my eyes playing tricks when I looked at the watch. A whole minute does not simply disappear like that.

As someone who did Storm Blast/Bio I felt it was okay. And also it was pretty tanky. I say this as someone who then rolled a Dark/Bio Sentinel and immediately noticed that as helpful for survival as Dark is it did not reach Storm's knees. I can't speak for other ATs though, but anything that asks for a secondary to be clicked will be immediately gimping Storm so it's almost tailor made for Sentinel, IMO. Part of Storm's problem is the lack of, shall we say, better AoE. This might ask to be paired with Rad instead since Rad will dump Ground Zero and then we go ham with Storm. i don't feel Rad will add much for ST though. Fire Armor is a possibility with Burn but mobs will just ditch us and run off to the americas so Burn's tiny aoE will do very little. On the other hand Ground Zero is big and a decent second nuke. Has anyone had luck with proccing Cat 5? I can grab a regular nuke and add 200-ish damage just by maxing recharge, damage, then add three damage procs, but with how Cat 5 is loaded with pseudo pets and secondary hits every X seconds I have no idea who these will interact with a load of procs.

I have no idea why we have satellite emoji reactions but you get one.