Sunsette

Asking you not to use a word that's been routinely used in living memory as both a term for a group of people and as an insult, aka a slur, is not 'virtue signaling'. There's no one here any of us are interested in impressing. It's asking for some decency and respect for those are different and routinely trodden upon. I wish you well in your endeavors.

Yeah, there are almost no sets where defense and recharge exist together outside of the ATOs. I figured that should stay special to them, and the knockback is supposed to be a form of defense anyway. To be straightforward: the procs for Escape Velocity and Fusionette's Fury were primarily designed with Sniper Blast, Power Burst, Focused Power Bolt, and Incandescent Strike in mind, as they are timed to work well with those attacks and have a high chance of activation. Not a lot of other ST attacks qualify as high activation chances for this on ranged sets from looking around, though they do exist, and are often on other sets that aren't super-strong (e.g. Dual Pistols). I will gladly take suggestions for toning down Escape Velocity if it's necessary, though I'm not 100% sure it is.

Can we not call things a slur for the neurodivergent? Thanks. Anyway, there's a thread already on this here:

Personally, I always see radiation as radiation. The aesthetic is a little too perfect on comic book nuclear radiation. What about fire or ice?

Spent most of my CoH time the last two weeks either testing or writing and mathing and would like to actually PLAY, but I can maybe look into it this weekend.

If it's an Nvidia 1050 GTX with Optimus, like mine, that could have disastrous results. Optimus links the two together for maximum power efficiency and disables many Nvidia features that would require solely the GPU, like DSR.

Ah, I misunderstood. Thanks for clearing that up.

First, thanks for the kind words, Six. 😄 Re: Other Very Rare sets. Escape Velocity does break a few rules: it has far more enhancement on Knockback relative to Schedule D than any other set allows for any other category on their Schedules. It also enhances Damage in a way similar to how these sets usually enhance Recharge. These first two points I think have to be understood in the context that Knockback just isn't that desirable; it's probably the least used set category outside of one-and-done splashes from Force Feedback and Sudden Acceleration, neither of which increase Knockback value, and neither are especially desirable, averaging about 1.5 million influence and 2.5 million influence at the Consignment House each. The proc is good, but I don't think it's as good as it seems, due to the diminishing returns of recharge the more of it you have. In order to have a 90% chance of activating Escape Velocity: Chance for Recharge, you need a single-target attack that has an animation + enhanced cooldown time of approximately 16 seconds. It lasts for 5 seconds. Without any additional global recharge, that's about +30% global recharge for you with each use of the attack, which is good, don't get me wrong, I just think it's comparable to +107 damage on a rarely resisted damage type with an even higher PPM. Even for many Scrappers, that's effectively increasing a power's damage by 50% or more. It's a good rule of thumb that due to different scaling effects, at endgame, %damage is roughly twice as valuable as an equal amount of %recharge for a damage AT. The only reason that the damage proc isn't way better is that it's specific to an attack, but with most people having a roughly four button rotation core at endgame, our rules of thumb still work out: 120% haste among four powers compared to 55% damage on one. As you get higher global recharge, the effective recharge gained from the proc increases, but the amount recharge is actually useful to you decreases. By the time you've reached perma Hasten level and can keep the effect near-perma, it'll be most useful for reducing recharge from Aim, blast set T9s, and support set T9s. It's like 1.5 second off of a melee T9 recharge at this point -- melee aren't going to miss it much. I've purposely avoided making a PvP variant; I don't PvP in this game, I don't know what is wanted or expected, and truthfully, my biggest concern is that this will break something in PvP. While KB is a mixed blessing in PvE, I hear it's a win button in PvP, and Escape Velocity is enough KB that Nova can overwhelm the PvP standard of Mag 44 KB Protection. It's already quite possible for Nova to do that, but usually comes with more sacrifice of effectiveness. This is also part of why I chose to reduce the amount of recharge available to that set -- if you enhance Nova with Escape Velocity, you're trading out a LOT of uptime on it and a decent amount of damage compared to Armageddon or even Sudden Acceleration, and while Escape Velocity can compensate for that lost recharge, it's a lot less reliable in PvP since you need to be hitting a target with it every five seconds or hit at least 7 (Sent) to 16 (everyone else) targets with it slotted in Nova to do so. These are conditions that I think are unlikely to occur a lot in PvP, but again, need to actually hear from PvPers on that.

Looks good, oldskool, thanks! I have one comment: it might be helpful to mention that -res on piercing rounds is a group damage benefit even if it is neutral damage for you compared to incendiary. I like how much you compare the set to its versions in other ATs, should be useful for getting people to adapt. In the final, I'll do some minor copy-editing for spelling and punctuation and smooth out formatting on fonts and paragraph spacing for uniformity.

My laptop has pretty similar specs to yours and not having this issue. I'm sure that doesn't seem very helpful to say, and I'm sorry, but I can at least say it's not categorically a problem with your processor or GPU type. Best of luck.

See/understand those points. Question: Are we sure build-up has a lock-out period? I know one was hypothesized for Force Feedback but our testers haven't seen corroboration of that and am now a little suspicious of claims of internal cooldown. Thanks.

Alright, and updated with the current state of the proposal. That... was nearly four hours of writing and calculating by itself, good grief. I'm going to go take a break.

I'm not particularly strong on Ice or Bio, so withholding comment for the moment since I'm diving into something else. Will come back if no one else says anything. Wanted to say the idea of bottoming out the PPM chance intentionally on a build is pretty novel/clever and a useful way to get around the lack of Aim naturally in the set.

Since this appears to be fairly convincing as-is, I will take some time today to edit the opening post with more specific proposals complete with numbers for evaluation. Below are the original sets of proposals for archival purposes.

Sents already can get good melee attacks in many of their epic pools and these are often the maximum DPS builds for Sents. Would be simplest to ask for more epic pools for Sentinels.

I think it could be doable by actually making it a hidden property of the proc IO that fires invisibly but only gives a benefit if an auto power for the 6p is done, but I don't know what variables the procs are allowed to call and if searching for this variable would cause mass slowdown, etc. If it's not, I amend the proposal to not have a knockback to knockdown component at all.

I understand that normally, a proc basically gives a hidden auto power that grants a passive global bonus. This would be the first set bonus that applies a proc to the power itself, and I'm not entirely sure it's workable, now that you mention it -- but I intentionally wanted it to be tied to the set bonus as a limiter on the effect.

This would be the biggest boon to power sets that don't have a single hat but do multiple different things with each attack. Those already tend to be strong sets. So don't think I'd change a thing.

You are really somethin' else. I wouldn't have even tried to solo an iTrial, man! Look at you, goddamn! Thanks for sharing, was an entertaining+informative read.

I'm a bit out of date on php and such so I have no idea if the forum software can actually do that. But a lot of major browsers have addons and extensions that can stop it! I don't know if you have looked into that at all. It's a pretty easy client side fix if you are using Chrome or Firefox.

Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong -- you still have to build for defenses. But on my /EA, which has a lot less resistance and healing than Bio, I was able to throw myself into packs before I was softcapped just by being in the 40% range. 32 to 42 seems like a great range for Bio to aspire to and the best Sent bios I know don't beeline for softcap. Staying at range rather than closing into melee constantly also helps a lot, even if you're charging ahead; almost every enemy group is much less scary if they're forced to chuck things at you rather than smack you around.

@Sovera Acknowledging your post re: Bio as a "noob trap' -- I'm not an expert on Bio, I've had zero ideas that work with it and I don't play sets I don't have a conceptual link to. However, I think the real trap is pushing for 45% defenses on anything but fire/bio (which can afford to lose a lot of its damage). You don't need softcap to everything when you also have solid resistance and healing and high damage. People can get too fixated on the soft cap specifically when it's not always what they need.

Opening post updated to reflect some new thoughts I've had.

I've had some time to think more about the problems, and possible solutions, for the state that Sentinel Energy Blast is in. At first I thought the problem was the IO tax; then I thought the problem was the powerset. With more time, I see it's really a conjunction of the two things. The single biggest problem is, I think, how utterly disappointing that Focused Power Bolt is, along with the sameyness factor. I think it needs to give a stacking -res penalty on a good duration, given its high recharge time. Power Push is a reliable single-target crowd control even if it does 'tax' to knockdown instead. Both Power Burst and FPB I think should get a slight damage increase of about 10%, bringing them closer to Power Push's DPA numbers but not quite getting there, and being more satisfying for their cast times. Then I would like to steal a little bit of Energy Manipulation's thunder and just change Sentinel EB Aim into a hybrid of it and Boost Range. Just like Corruptors get Power Build Up in their epic pools, I'd call it Power Aim, and it'd work as Sentinel Aim does now, but it increases Range by +66% instead of +33%, better allowing Sentinel to compensate for knocking back out of its own range, The second biggest problem is, I've been looking at the Knockback sets all wrong. One way to address them is to come up with other single IOs that can be broadly 'sprinkled' into other builds. Another way to address them is to make them five-slot better. Sudden Acceleration has its recharge bonus as the 6-piece bonus and the HP as the 5-piece. I feel comfortable guessing (though correct me if I'm wrong) that no one who's looking to stack HP bonuses goes after Sudden Acceleration. I think it would be an acceptable violation of the cottage rule to bring the recharge bonus down to position 5, buff the HP bonus to 3% HP, and put it at position 6. Because this still doesn't damage cap an attack without a damage alpha and it gives crap-all for the other benefits, you're not going to see a lot of people take it willy-nilly. Finally, I would like to propose that there be a Very Rare Knockback set added. There's a Very Rare for every other type of secondary condition, so this isn't out of line. As with the other Very Rares, this would be a near straight upgrade of an existing Rare set, in this case, Sudden Acceleration. The Knockback to Knockdown bonus would be the sixth piece (and thus optional), and the 6 piece bonus would grant the Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge bonus on the attack but at 3.5 PPM rather than 2 PPM. This makes it a strong choice for being used on attacks that recharge relatively quickly rather than ones that recharge slowly, but prevents it from being abused without the full six slot dedication. In the event that it is not possible to create a proc effect via a set bonus, then I amend this proposal to make the 3.5 PPM recharge the proc effect, slap a hefty Schedule D Knockback bonus onto it to discourage melee use, and remove Knockback to Knockdown from this VR KB set entirely.

Primary Powerset: Energy Blast Medium Single-Target Damage, Medium AoE Damage (1 Cone/1 Sphere/1 PBAoE), High Control Medium-High chance of knockback. Energy Blast is a visually beautiful, aurally satisfying, mechanically unglued set that is surprisingly complex to master despite its simple appearance. As one of the oldest sets in City of Heroes development, Energy Blast is the prototype for all of the blast sets that came later, which means that in most of its implementations, it has neither glaring weaknesses, nor significant strengths. It is not well-served by its conversion to the Sentinel, as the Sentinel's shorter range and high damage melee abilities -- like its PBAOE T9 -- are at odds with knockback, and the Sentinel's lower damage requires you to do more knockback and exposes the subpar damage of most of Energy Blast's attacks. What is worst is that only two attacks in the whole set actually guarantee knockback. The rest are random chance, so it is extremely difficult to rely on the results being consistent. Adding to the chaos is that Power Push -- traditionally a fast recharge, low damage attack in Energy Blast -- was made the most efficient damaging ability in the set for Sentinels, meaning the standard Sentinel rotation involves a magnitude 13.3 knockback on a base 60 ft. range every 3 to 8 seconds. This chaos can be harnessed and smoothed out as one reaches the higher levels of play, ultimately culminating in an effective combatant. Beginner's Overview Unusually among Sentinel sets, four of Sentinel Energy Blast's five single target attacks are almost the same attack, just with different animation, recharge, and raw damage. Their DPA is all within a 10% variance of the median, and they all have basically the same side effect -- a chance of mild knockback. As long as you take Power Push at level 12 -- an unusually damaging attack that animates quickly and recharges fast, the one exception to the 'sameyness rule' -- you can take basically any other combination of single-target attacks from Energy Blast and do about the same as most anyone else leveling up. When you get to 50, there are some advanced tricks you can pull to better differentiate your attacks, but I don't advise worrying about them before then. You will need to reposition heavily to make the most out of Energy Torrent and Explosive Blast -- not only because Energy Torrent is a cone and cones demand positioning to hit their targets efficiently, but also because your position determines the direction that enemies go flying. If you can deliver your knockbacks from as straight above as you can manage, it is likely that your AoE attacks will send enemies only down to the floor in a manageable knockdown. Flight and stealth will both help you a lot with pulling this off. Slotting Due to the common resistance to smashing damage, I would generally not slot more than one accuracy enhancement into any Energy Blast power at any time; due to all attacks being virtually the same attack, recharge isn't very important for you while leveling either, and you can just take more attacks instead. Your standard attack slotting for Energy Blast should look something like: 1 Acc, 2 Dam, 1 End Redux, 1 Dam, and 1 enhancement of your choice for the last slot. Prestige Enhancements are useful here, being worth about the same as a single SO split between damage and recharge, which is the same as two DOs or four TOs. It's a good idea to slot Kismet: +Accuracy at the first available moment to keep you from regretting only have one accuracy enhancement. It can first be slotted around level 7, but it requires a power that takes defense enhancements and it's worth about 4.5 million influence to buy. Some IOs to consider slotting as you level include Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge, Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage, and Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown. The first two are proc IOs and benefit from going in your slowest recharging attacks, while I would save Sudden Acceleration for Power Push and Nova, your guaranteed knockback powers that can ruin your own day by sending enemies everywhere you don't want them to. The Chance for Recharge and Absorb in Sentinel's Ward also deserves special mention for going into Explosive Blast with a high chance to trigger when used on a group, reduce its own cooldown, and give you an HP buffer. As with all Sentinel powersets, you benefit heavily from getting the two-set and three-set range bonuses on Archetype Origin Enhancements at the first opportunity, but these cost roughly 8 million apiece, and will be out of reach for many new characters. Likewise, you should put Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control: Chance for Build-Up in Aim, and no more than about 70% enhancement recharge in Aim to maximize Build-Up chances. Skippable Powers While leveling up, there's really only four powers in Energy Blast that are folly to skip: Aim, Power Push, Nova, and Explosive Blast. Everything else is to taste. This alters at the high levels of play, when every power except your choice of the T1 (Power Bolt) or the T2 (Power Blast) becomes mandatory. The two are virtually identical at high gear levels, so consider their Opportunity effects: Offensive Opportunity gives no benefit whatsoever to PBAoEs like Nova (aside from the generic -res common to it and Defensive Opportunity), so there are strong arguments to keep either or both of the T1 and T2. By my calculations, Offensive Opportunity is about a 3 to 5% damage contribution to single-target damage on a highly-geared level 50, so while that can make a difference in an AV solo, you will probably want Defensive Opportunity otherwise. Advanced Slotting When slotting, you have to make a decision: do you want to use Nova regularly, or primarily as an AV-killer? Regardless of your choice, five of your slots for Nova will go into the Armageddon Set if you can afford it, Obliteration or Scirocco if you can't; in either case, skip the IO that only boosts damage. The sixth is where you make your choice. Nova: AV-Killer If you want a power to kill AVs, put in Fury of the Gladiator: Chance for -Res. It has an 88 to 90% chance to activate per target (depending on what set and how boosted it is, assuming you do not have a recharge incarnate alpha), and makes the affected targets extremely vulnerable for the next 10 seconds. However, it will also spread enemies everywhere, meaning you have to be more thoughtful about when to use it against non-archvillains. I still use Nova regularly regardless, just not with the reckless abandon another setup allows. Doing this means you need Energy Torrent as an actual attack to handle the average pack of enemies, or an AoE immobilize to use Nova safely. If the former, five-slot Energy Torrent with Positron's Blast, skipping Damage/Recharge; the additional range makes it less of a chore to use Energy Torrent effectively. The sixth slot should go into Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown. If you chose the latter, five-slot with Gravitational Anchor, skipping the proc, or three slot with Endoplasm Exposures, Graviton Particles, or Calcite Shards from the Special Origin enhancements. This also means that it's imperative you maximize the damage from Explosive Blast. A combination of Posi's Blast (Acc/Dam, Dam/Range, Chance of Damage), the damage procs from Explosive Strike and Javelin Volley, and Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown will give much more damage than straight-slotting Posi's Blast into Explosive Blast, though it demands that you have a lot of accuracy and to-hit from other sources in your build if you want to actually hit. Disregard AVs, Spam Nova If you want to use Nova whenever it lights up, regardless of situation, put in Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown in the sixth slot in Nova. This means you don't really need Energy Torrent to actually attack with unless you're exemplared down, in which case use it as a set mule; six-slot it with Sudden Acceleration and forget it exists. Because you have Nova in your regular rotation, you can disregard a little bit of damage in Explosive Blast. A combination of Posi's Blast (Acc/Dam, Dam/Range, Chance of Damage), one of the two damage procs from Explosive Strike and Javelin Volley, and Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown will give much more damage than straight-slotting Posi's Blast into Explosive Blast, though it demands that you have a lot of accuracy and to-hit from other sources in your build if you want to actually hit. If you've been counting, you used one less IO in Explosive Blast than for the AV-killing build. With this last slot, insert Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge. If you make sure to hit a lot of targets, this will shave several seconds off of your Nova. Single Target Attacks Regardless of your choices with the AoE attacks, you'll want to put Apocalypse in Power Push to at least five slots, not including the +Damage IO. You have the choice of finishing the set to gain about 9 Damage and 5% Psi Defense, inserting Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage to get a 30% chance of 71.75 damage, or putting in Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown if the extreme push on Power Push is annoying. Power Push will be your bread and butter attack, to be used every cooldown. Power Burst will be your second-most used attack, and should six-slot Superior Opportunity Strikes to slightly improve your speed of getting Opportunity. Focused Power Bolt is your third attack, only used if Power Push and Power Burst are on cooldown, annoyingly slow, but with okay-enough damage. Five-slot Decimation here, making certain to not boost any IO here that improves Recharge; in the sixth slot, insert Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage. Finally, put Superior Sentinel's Ward in your Opportunity attack. If you grabbed both, put six slots of Sudden Acceleration in the other. Basic Rotation Use Power Push, Power Burst, and Focused Power Bolt as often as possible if you have them, in that priority. With enough recharge, you should be able to use Power Push every other attack. Use Nova whenever it's up, as appropriate -- vs. groups if you gave it knockback-to-knockdown or somehow are mitigating the KB, vs. single-target if you gave it Fury of the Gladiator. Complementary Choices Energy Blast really, really likes recharge speed from its secondary (Energy Aura, Electric Armor, Radiation Armor, and Super Reflexes). A secondary that has a damaging PBAoE of its own also shifts the burden of slotting Fury of the Gladiator off of Nova into something else. (Dark Armor, Fiery Aura, Radiation Armor). If you opt to use an epic pool that grants a KB-blocking AoE immob, you also want a secondary that is very survivable because you will be getting hit a lot. (Dark Armor, Energy Aura, Invulnerability, Super Reflexes). The best Epic Pool choice for Energy Blast is likely Psionic or Fire. Psionic contains a high damage melee attack and a good frankenslot candidate as well as a powerful final ability in Link Minds, while Fire has a very convenient AoE to block knockback to free up Knockback-to-Knockdown IO choices and offers a good DPA melee attack. AoE immobilizes that block KB are nice because on Sentinel, they are only Mag 3; this means bosses are not immobilized, and can still be knocked around to offer a degree of soft control. Hasten is very important to Energy Blast as it results in a significant DPS increase if the rotation can be minimized. Leadership and Fighting are strong choices for every Sentinel. Methods of stealth like, uh, Stealth and Superspeed are good for getting into position without fuss, while Flight and Sorcery allow you to get into better positions to begin with -- very important with knockback and cones. Incarnate Abilities Alpha: I don't recommend any Alpha slot ability that reduces recharge, as the alpha is considered to be enhancement recharge and significantly reduces the chance that all of your very important procs activate. This makes your best choices Musculature Core (Damage, Immobilize Duration, Defense Debuff) or Intuition Radial (Range, Damage, Hold Duration, Slow Duration, Defense Debuff, To-Hit Debuff). Intuition Radial is a better choice if you want to use Energy Torrent regularly as range makes cones far more bearable, but you should otherwise prefer Musculature Core. If you're having significant endurance issues, please consider other options than using your alpha slot; Cardiac Core (Endurance Reduction, Range, Damage Resistance) can't help you while you're exemped down, and it's a significant loss of potential damage as compared to the other two options. Judgement: Pyronic Core is the highest damage option and fastest casting option; Ionic Core is the best at damaging over a very wide area. Both are excellent choices for Energy Blast, but there are only good choices here. Mighty Radial Judgement is also a strong choice, as you have to PBAoE anyway with Nova, and it helps you juggle foes. Interface: Your best choices should be Reactive Radial or Degenerative (either) for damage. Reactive Radial is better than Reactive Core, as fire DoTs will cancel if any of them miss, so a high reapply chance is good, Diamagnetic Core is a great choice for survival, but the Regeneration penalty is mediocre. Lore: There are no bad choices in Core Lore slots, while Radial slots are mostly bad. Longbow Core is notable for an extremely high amount of -regen, which is great for soloing; Robotic Drone Core has half as much -regen, but are a good alternative for visual variety. Banished Pantheon Radial is notable for having an untouchable support pet that can deal damage, and is a great choice for soloing. Destiny: If you have no other way to manage your endurance problems, go for Ageless. The choice between Ageless Core and Ageless Radial is between a ridiculous amount of endurance and a bit of haste, versus a good amount of endurance and defense debuff resistance. Otherwise, Barrier Core is a strong defensive choice for every Sentinel build, and Clarion Radial will increase your range, secondary set, and some of your side effects for a time. Hybrid: Assault is by far the strongest choice. For a Sentinel, I would recommend Assault Core over Assault Radial, unless you know you will frequently be in situations where you will be at the cap for +damage, such as in Incarnate Trials or the Hamidon Raid. Assault Core runs slightly behind Radial in single-target damage for a Sentinel, but proc chances for Radial drop heavily with the size of an AoE, causing it to exacerbate the Sentinel's biggest weakness. While Radial bypasses the cap, Core gives the Sentinel more damage in situations where the Sentinel's individual damage contributions are most important. Melee Core or Melee Radial can help shore up an offensive secondary that is relatively bad at survival.