aethereal

Just increase their damage to be competitive with (just a sliver lower than) a Scrapper or Stalker. Don't give them Blaster-scale nukes. That's really it, from a balance perspective. It won't make any AT obsolete, and there is not a highly delicate situation where one false move dooms an AT. People will play Sentinels, Stalkers, and Scrappers because their superhero concept does or does not demand ranged damage, stealth, or whatever. None of those ATs will usually be the absolute best choice you could make to fill a role on most teams, but they'll all be fine. (I think there's another another dimension of a sentinel revamps that's about injecting a few more decisions into their play experience. Just "a blast set that does a lot of damage" plus "an armor set" might be a touch boring to play. Their current inherent, despite its many flaws, does provide a certain amount of choice that, I think, is welcome. But probably there are plenty of people who are there for a straightforward play experience, and in any case, that's a different problem than balance or team role.)

Every damage class besides Blaster does fine with just one of their power-sets being a damage set. Scrappers and Stalkers are in great shape. It would be trivially easy to tune Sentinels to do plenty of damage with their primary -- it would be easy, if someone wanted to, to make them do more damage than Blasters with just their primary (obviously, that wouldn't be good design. I'm just saying that the idea that there's a problem with Sentinels "only" getting one powerset focused on damage is a non-problem). People spend a lot of time trying to make the issue with sentinels way more complex than it actually is.

Stalkers generate very little aggro. See here: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Threat They get about 2/3rds as much per constant damage that scrappers do (while typically doing around the same amount of damage that scrappers do), and my experience playing various Stalkers is that on a well-functioning team, their armor is indeed serious overkill. Honestly, same with scrappers unless you're playing one of the sets with a taunt aura and there is no brute or tanker on the team. But that's not a big deal, because, as it turns out, as long as you're doing your primary job (doing damage) well, having more survivability than you need isn't a problem. Maybe it's not perfectly ideal, but this isn't a game where people generally embrace highly deterministic team role and tip-top performance.

Do you feel the same about Stalkers? Scrappers?

Stalkers are contributory as an armored class with no taunt (and inherently low threat!). It's just that they do more damage than sentinels. I think it's instructive to look at how much more. Stalkers have a 1.0 damage scalar. On an 8 person team, they have a base 31% chance to critically hit, so that's essentially 1.31 scalar (but also you have your ATO and Assassin's focus, so let's say it's a total of 40% chance to crit). They have build-up, which is recharged by their ATO: it has a 5% chance to recharge for every attack (I think that's how it works). With the Gaussian's proc, each build-up does +160% damage for 5 seconds, +80% damage for another 5 seconds. Build up's natural recharge is around 30 seconds (90 seconds base, 200% recharge through some combo of local + global): using it 3 times per minute is not unreasonable, that means that in any given minute we have about 5 seconds used casting build up, about 15 seconds of +160% damage, about 15 seconds of +80% damage, and about 25 seconds of +0% damage. If you have about +100% damage enhancement normally, then that all comes out to about 3.4 scalar. Sents have a .95 damage scalar. They get 5% damage resistance debuff. They get Aim, which let's say they get it every 30 seconds, and have the Gaussian's proc in it, so using it twice per minute means they get 10 seconds of +100% damage and 10 seconds of +20% damage. And they get opportunity, which gives a large damage resist debuff, but only against one target, plus a damage proc (if offensive) for the Sent. The resist debuffs scale poorly against higher-level opponents, let's say that you get an effective 4% debuff. They get about 50% uptime on opportunity. If you discount the 20% opportunity resist debuff, then you have the whole thing comes out to about 2.15 scalar personally. Now, sents magnify the rest of the team, too -- but if it's only 4%, and it's not on alpha, and the rest of the team isn't necessarily high-end damage performers, that doesn't come out to that much. If the rest of the team averages 2.5 scalar (ie, the average for the rest of the team is above the sent's personal contribution), then even if they get the entire debuff all the time, that's only another 0.7 scalar for the sent. Those are rough numbers, they don't capture the full complexity of the situation, but honestly I think it's more generous for the sent than it should be. All the stalker really needs to do is hit build-up when it becomes available. Sentinels have to try to keep their damage debuff on enemies, be on high-damage teams, use offensive opportunity when it becomes available, etc. This is also not counting the fact that Stalkers get simply higher-damage basic attacks. It's easy to look at the sent .95 scalar and the stalker 1.0 scalar and the scrapper/blaster 1.125 scalar and be like, "Oh, okay, the sent does like 10% less damage than those classes." But opportunity is WAY less good than crits. Blasters getting aim + build up, and the stalkers getting build up plus free recharges of it, and scrappers getting build up are all significantly better than sentinels getting just aim -- uptime for these powers is large! Getting high base damage attacks like snipes, blaster nukes, assassin's strike, etc is a big deal. These magnify the difference and leave sentinels a major step down in damage compared to the other DPS classes. And that, not team role, is why sents aren't that good. Fix their damage to be comparable to Scrappers/Stalkers/Blasters (doesn't need to be quite AS good as theirs, but close), and you'll generally see the concerns about what are they doing on teams melt away. The answer to "what are they doing on teams" will become "they're doing damage." They no more need a protective role than stalkers do. Like, the idea of having a single-target taunt function that lets them bodyguard certain other players is fun and all, but most people aren't going to actually understand that and use it. Giving some kind of auto self + damage or enemy debuff thing is, like... a fine answer to the damage deficit, I guess, but you could also just give sents more damage.

I'm not sure. I didn't know until now that rebirth had a different version of stalker ice melee. But my guess is that live didn't have ice melee for stalkers. Score probably proliferated it, and when they did so, chose to drop greater ice sword for assassin's ice sword. Then rebirth separately proliferated it (starting with the i24 code base that had no ice melee for stalkers) and when they did so, they chose to drop ice patch for assassin's icicle. Just a guess though. Edit: thought of a simple way to check. Paragon wiki archive lists ice melee as a set only available to tankers. So yeah, rebirth proliferated it separately.

That's their default animation: their power is called assassin's icicle, whereas ours is assassin's ice sword and is a sword by default. I agree that the icicle look is a good option, and one somewhat low impact way we might diversify our set would be to import the icicle look for our sword attacks. That preserves the connection between those attacks' lethal damage and the animation, while still making the power seem a little more less of a "I can just make anything it of ice."

I can't tell if this is serious or some kind of rhetorical device. If it's serious: They added non-sword options to ice sword and greater ice sword. They added sword options to frozen fists, freezing touch, and assassin's icicle. And they added a ground punch option to frozen aura. Their version of stalker ice melee is different from ours: we have assassin's ice sword, no greater ice sword, and ice patch. But I think it's the different animations that people are calling out. (Their ice armor also has a series of less intrusive coatings.)

Sure! I personally always tend to like to be able to perform well against single large targets, but being best against a large group is a valid role.

@Nerva I don't think you're wrong -- everything you're saying is true and makes sense -- I just think that this matters relatively little. Yes, sents' armor sets don't get much of a workout in typical team play (that is: relatively easy content) as they do in solo. But neither do scrappers' or stalkers'. And Brutes that aren't primary-tanking for the group. Sents can absorb alpha for a team if necessary. Yes, if a sent plays in the melee, they aren't getting much out of their range. But they do get something, they can blast without repositioning, etc. The real issue with sentinels isn't their lack of team role, it's their low damage for a primary damage class. If they did 10% less damage than scrappers, then they'd be perfectly fine as a scrapper replacement. Scrappers aren't the most valuable teammembers of all time, but they're FINE. The issue with sents is that they don't do 10% less damage than scrappers, they do about 35% less damage than scrappers.

Honestly, the group role that a Sentinel should probably have is "relatively survivable DPS." It's kinda boring, but it's a fine role. We can talk until we're blue in the face about what the role of Scrappers, stalkers, and at least some Brutes should be, and yes, they potentially can do some sophisticated group role, but my experience is that most of those ATs fil the role of "relatively survivable DPS." If a given group/content dynamic is such that the content is difficult and prone to killing squishies, then having some armored classes in the party gives mitigators an easier job -- they can focus on the squishies. If a given group/content dynamic is such that everyone is prone to dying, then "relatively survivable DPS" is DPS that gives the tank a little bit of a chance to be imperfect. If a given group/content dynamic is such that everyone's steamrolling and nobody is worried about dying, then the group can subdivide and conquer fairly safely. The issue that Sents have is that their inherent is overly fiddly and their damage is tuned low.

Quality of life changes mean "changes that minimally affect balance, but remove some kind of annoyance or provide a streamlined way of performing an action in the game." Changes to damage scalars or target caps across a whole AT are the opposite of QoL. Rightly or wrongly, I doubt they'd make a major change to class balance in advance of a whole rework. You won't likely see changes like this unless they decide that this kind of change is the long awaited sentinel rework.

Huh. TIL.

If I'm reading City of Data right, Meteor's damage lands 5.5 seconds after casting, Rain of Arrows' damage lands 3.6 seconds after casting, so yes. Almost 2 seconds more delay on Meteor.

Almost all enemy-targeting powers take at least four: End Reduction Recharge Reduction Accuracy Whatever their primary effect is (damage, mez duration, whatever) Ranged powers typically take range enhancements. Powers that have a secondary effect usually can enhance it, too. So it's pretty common for powers to take 6 enhancement types. Much rarer to take 7, though still not exactly hard to find (like, Dark Blast has three different powers that take 7 enhancement types: Moonbeam, Life Drain, and Abyssal Gaze all take Acc, Dam, End Redx, Rech Redx, Range, and To-Hit Debuff, then Moonbeam takes Interrupt Redx, Life Drain takes Healz, and Abyssal Gaze takes Holds).

I don't think there is currently tech for "increased endurance cost only for some powers." I mean, I guess that's not totally true, you could make an effect of Fiery melee powers be to remove your own endurance, but that is different from endurance cost: if Fire Sword's cost is 6.864 endurance and it also has an effect that costs you another 5 endurance, then: a. You'll be able to activate the power if you only have 6.864 endurance, and the effect would do nothing (you'd be at 0 endurance which is the floor). b. Endurance reduction would only affect the 6.864 -- the other 5 endurance would be affected by endurance modification (if endmod were allowed in the power and the effect was not flagged to ignore it -- also I think endmod would affect it opposite from the direction you'd want it to). You don't have any way to expend Heat, unless you meant incinerate and burst of flame to do so?

Your friend is correct, EM's defense is just out of combat defense. It's supposed to keep you from getting sniped while flying through a zone, not keep you alive in combat.

A lot depends on how much end reduction you slot in your other powers. If you're proccing out attacks so they're all at full end, you need a lot more recovery than if you're using sets that give you substantial end redx.

How about the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away? With MIND BULLETS? Which, you know, I guess is the Psi Blast power of your choice.

A hilarious perverse incentive.

For most non-armored characters, the right (boring) answer is probably the mez protection toggle of your choice.

Sadly, Vengeance doesn't give you more of a bonus if more of your team is dead. BUT IT SHOULD.

Avatars of Hamidon use confuse.

Yep, 30% chance for a mag 9 kb, per CoD.

Hey @xl8. I think it's an interesting suggestion. Let's explore it a little. As I think is implicit in your initial proposal, Enhancement Diversification prevents "lots of slots in a power" from equalling "lots of enhancement of a given stat to that power." You can put 10 +5'd damage enhancements in the power all you want, it'll be a waste of slots. "Overslotting" a power would give you the ability to max out (ie, to ED limits) all of the enhanceable attributes of a power, but not to overenhance one of attributes. So you could, if you wanted to, have a Freezing Touch with ~100% accuracy, damage, recharge reduction, endurance reduction, and hold duration. You probably almost can do that with frankenslotting today, and I agree that this would not be abusive. There are a few powers that currently suffer from it being very difficult to effectively enhance all of their useful enhanceable attributes -- powers that significantly damage an enemy and heal yourself are a classic example -- and this change would provide a buff to those powers. There aren't a ton of those powers, but some of them are pretty good, and we'd need to watch closely what would happen if you could easily slot them for both healing and damage. But what about the effects of the change that aren't purely on how easy it is to enhance power attributes? This change would allow you to do things like, if you wanted, slot two complete sets in a power and pick up the set bonuses of both. Perhaps more realistically, it could let you five-slot one set and three-slot another. In the case where you're somewhat starved for the ability to slot certain kinds of sets, you could see this being a pretty significant advantage to some builds. And, perhaps most importantly, it would let you slot a full set (or most of a set) and then pile on a bunch of procs, and that's where I think the change really falls down. Because ED prevents you from usefully 10-slotting damage, but it does not prevent you from usefully slotting Freezing Touch with 5-piece Hecatomb (ignore pure-damage), then Unbreakable Constraint proc, then the following procs: Gladiator's Strike, Mako's Bite, Touch of Death, Ghost Widow's Embrace, Basilisk's Gaze, and Gladiator's Net. And that seems problematic to me.