Sentinel:Puller/Herder?

[Chalkarts]

I'm new(?)

I've not been in any solid parties since I came back.

There've been a few threads trying to define the sentinel and I had a thought.

 

Do groups in CoH pull mobs?

It seams like the Sentinel is purpose built to be a puller to send it out into the mission to herd three or four large groups of mobs and drag them back to the awaiting party ambush.

 

Do people play this way?

[Shazbotacus]

Given its reduced range, not really. Another user described the class as filling a conceptual hole more than a mechanical one, in that it's like a slightly less damaging Scrapper that does its damage at short range rather than strictly in melee. It enables us to create Iron Man type heroes who attack at range but aren't glass cannons like Blasters. I'm inclined to agree, though there's talk of a revamp that'll look at the Sentinel in the light of having a more defined team role. I'm... admittedly dubious such a thing would turn out well, or at least leave the combination of sturdiness and ranged damage intact.

[Mercurias]

I would say that the threads try’s no to define what a Sentinel is are perhaps trying too hard to find a specific answer to an extremely broad question.

 

Sentinels are an archetype with a ranged blast Primary and an Armor Secondary, tooled to have less damage and fewer maximum targets than Blasters, but be much more survivable. In teams their job is to deal damage to enemies, like a Scrapper or Blaster. Sentinels often excel at handling solo content thanks to their combination of traits.

 

Beyond that, you can have a huge variance of Sentinels depending on their power combinations and respectively builds. Frankly, I’m inclined to say that the biggest strength Sentinels have lays in handling content solo. 

Edited October 22, 2019 by Mercurias

[oldskool]

I agree with the points already brought up. 

 

However, there is a question related to "pulling" and "Do people play this way?".  The answer to that question is a generally no.  

 

I have been on groups where someone playing a tanker has insisted on trying to line of sight pulls to "speed things up" by piling enemies into a neat cluster on them.  That can work for some groups and it can work in lower levels.  You will often find at the level 50 and beyond level that groups just make everything explode.  The Incarnate system grants everyone an extreme damage area of effect power.  Blasters will usually be the top burst AoE damage dealer, but everyone can contribute something in the post-50 game.  It isn't unrealistic to run around clearing pack after pack with one or two folks dropping a judgment + T9 nuke, and then in the next pack someone else does it. 

 

Not only is handling mass groups of enemies post-50 trivial, but it is also creating a lot of identity crisis issues across archetype.  The ability for practically everyone to contribute to massive AoE damage makes control less important.  Specific controls like sleep become essentially worthless outside of soloing.  Having a character devoted to being a speed bump for enemy damage, like a Tanker, is unnecessary when all threats are on the floor in seconds.  There is specific content where roles can be more important but majority of teams will likely just steamroll everything. 

 

Sentinels fill a damage dealing role in practical terms.  Just how good they are at that is a source of argument, but there is nothing wrong with the community at large having multiple DPS options (Blaster/Stalker/Scrapper/Sentinel). 

[Jeneki]

I occasionally saw pulling and herding used on the live server, however I believe its fallen out of favor these days.  Now that I think about it, I haven't seen it used yet on Homecoming.  But I don't see any reason why you can't use pulling and herding if that's the playstyle you like, it works as you'd expect it to.

[Shazbotacus]

22 minutes ago, oldskool said:

I have been on groups where someone playing a tanker has insisted on trying to line of sight pulls to "speed things up" by piling enemies into a neat cluster on them.  That can work for some groups and it can work in lower levels.  You will often find at the level 50 and beyond level that groups just make everything explode.  The Incarnate system grants everyone an extreme damage area of effect power.  Blasters will usually be the top burst AoE damage dealer, but everyone can contribute something in the post-50 game.  It isn't unrealistic to run around clearing pack after pack with one or two folks dropping a judgment + T9 nuke, and then in the next pack someone else does it. 

 

Not only is handling mass groups of enemies post-50 trivial, but it is also creating a lot of identity crisis issues across archetype.  The ability for practically everyone to contribute to massive AoE damage makes control less important.  Specific controls like sleep become essentially worthless outside of soloing.  Having a character devoted to being a speed bump for enemy damage, like a Tanker, is unnecessary when all threats are on the floor in seconds.  There is specific content where roles can be more important but majority of teams will likely just steamroll everything. 

Sigh. Yeah, this worries me. I haven’t got any 50s yet, and on Live when I did I played mostly before Incarnates happened. Groups blast through stuff easy enough, but if one player can really just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype, then doesn’t that just take all the challenge out?

 

I guess I’m getting off topic.

[oldskool]

27 minutes ago, Shazbotacus said:

Sigh. Yeah, this worries me. I haven’t got any 50s yet, and on Live when I did I played mostly before Incarnates happened. Groups blast through stuff easy enough, but if one player can really just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype, then doesn’t that just take all the challenge out?

 

I guess I’m getting off topic.

Its not quite "one player ... just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype".  Judgments are powerful but they aren't that powerful.  Judgment do allow everyone an opportunity to contribute where maybe they didn't quite have it before.  No judgment is going to turn a Controller into a nuking monster like a Blaster, but if everyone is leap frogging the cooldowns on it you're going to drop minions/LTs within seconds while severely damaging bosses. 

 

But if you have two people dropping judgment at once then most of the targets are going to be defeated.  It only takes a little bit of clean up to finish a spawn.  There have been times where I have run to the next group, my T9 is on cooldown, and my judgment is on cooldown, and the only power I get off is 1 application of Bullet Rain (1.848 second animation) before target is dropped.  That's not just the judgments doing it, but everyone else contributing.  Still, less than 2 seconds to defeat a spawn isn't an unreasonable or even unrealistic expectation for Incarnate enabled players to achieve.  Once everyone's judgment is on cooldown things will slow down, but once they are back... its speedy defeats all around.

 

Furthermore, its not like every team up at 50 is with a full 8 of Incarnates unless you happen to know them.  I still get into pick up groups with folks below 50 or just at 50 with barely their full IO loadout.  So don't sweat it too much.  Most groups leveling steam roll content and that doesn't change at 50.  The only thing that changes is that it can be faster and in some cases it can be extremely fast.  That's all.

Edited October 22, 2019 by oldskool

[drbuzzard]

Yeah, a good steamrolling team moves too fast for judgement to recharge. Honestly one of the best things about sentinels is the fast recharging T9 which allows it to keep up with a fast team. When I've got my sents mostly finished (which means perma hasten) I can pop my nukes every 23 seconds or so (and aim of course).

Edited October 22, 2019 by drbuzzard

[Shazbotacus]

I guess that ain’t so bad, then. Okay.

[FUBARczar]

8 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

Yeah, a good steamrolling team moves too fast for judgement to recharge. Honestly one of the best things about sentinels is the fast recharging T9 which allows it to keep up with a fast team. When I've got my sents mostly finished (which means perma hasten) I can pop my nukes every 23 seconds or so (and aim of course).

qft, that is a huge strength for Sentinels. 

[Mercurias]

My Fire/Elec Sentinel blasts off his nuke constantly, yeah. It doesn’t have the punch of a Blaster nuke, but it definitely helps.

[DocRadio]

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 8:37 AM, Shazbotacus said:

Sigh. Yeah, this worries me. I haven’t got any 50s yet, and on Live when I did I played mostly before Incarnates happened. Groups blast through stuff easy enough, but if one player can really just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype, then doesn’t that just take all the challenge out?

 

I guess I’m getting off topic.

No. Crank up the difficulty and against the right groups content can still be quite hard. Roll up against +4 Malta or Carnies or some of the tougher Task Forces and incarnate powers seem justified.

Edited October 24, 2019 by DocRadio

[Shazbotacus]

19 minutes ago, DocRadio said:

Malta

shudder All right, all right, no more need be said. 😰

[DocRadio]

13 hours ago, Shazbotacus said:

shudder All right, all right, no more need be said. 😰

Malta blood is made from the tears of fallen heroes.

True story.