How to fix Sentinels

[nihilii]

12 hours ago, metacore said:

Up the 2ndary Resist Caps to 75% (same as Scrapper

Sentinel RES caps are already at 75%, like Scrappers. You're probably thinking of the defense modifiers being slightly lower.

 

22 hours ago, Sovera said:

Alright, this is not another Blaster VS Sentinel thread here.

Personally, I can't ever agree with the idea blasters get enough survivability to make sentinel survivability pointless. It's simply not my experience - on highend blasters, I die at a significantly higher rate than on highend sentinels.

But I see your point, I think your perspective is valid, and actually... I think it could be a sign the balance is healthy here.

 

People should value different strengths and weaknesses in different ways. And if reasonably informed players end up with opposite positions on the matter, it suggests the current balance succeeds at that. We have a range of choices, accomodating our personal game philosophies.

[Sovera]

12 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Personally, I can't ever agree with the idea blasters get enough survivability to make sentinel survivability pointless. It's simply not my experience - on highend blasters, I die at a significantly higher rate than on highend sentinels.

But I see your point, I think your perspective is valid, and actually... I think it could be a sign the balance is healthy here.

 

People should value different strengths and weaknesses in different ways. And if reasonably informed players end up with opposite positions on the matter, it suggests the current balance succeeds at that. We have a range of choices, accomodating our personal game philosophies.

Despite my naysaying I'm actually leveling another Sentinel to cleanse my palate of all the brutes and scrappers. A Sentinel instead of a Blaster because of their strengths.... which is not being armored and having CC protection but rather being able to toss Blizzard every 24 seconds instead of 40+. I have this whole gimmicky build who is purely ranged but still softcapped and has the purple KD proc in Frost Breath, the Overwhelming KD proc in Ice Storm (not sure if it will actually work well, but didn't get to test before the servers went down), and Blizzard having native KD baked in. Hardcapped slow and recharge debuff on mobs plus a ton of slippery amusement.

 

It will be good for funsies if nothing else.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Sovera

[drbuzzard]

I agree that blaster's don't get to the resilience level of sentinels, and even to get as tough as they can, there are tradeoffs made which nobody likes to mention. However, the question at hand is whether that resilience edge is actually worth it.

 

I disagree that sentinels do sufficient damage, it's reality apparent that high end sentinel damage builds have to use procs to keep up, and that's a rather sorry state of affairs for a DPS class. The inherent is pretty clearly inadequate, and something needs to be done to tune them up a bit.

 

Now I understand that comparison is not simple between everyone else's blast sets and sentinel blast sets because there's a fair bit of adjustment to powers, but still the damage is not really all that great. Is the survivability advantage enough to justify the damage hit, I'd have to say no. Blasters can be quite resilient, and with just a bit of team support can unleash enough damage to make sentinels feel like fifth wheels.

[Bossk_Hogg]

14 hours ago, metacore said:

Captain powerhouse has said he wanted to try and have the Sentinel be like its namesake.
Sentinel = "a soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch"

 

So a guardian, someone with some defensiveness = hence the Secondary powersets.
Keep watch = be on the lookout = Inc Perception in a 20' radius (1/3 that of Leadership buffs) - part of the Inherent
Stand Guard = Protect = stop others from getting hurt = Change the -5% Res on all attacks to -7% DAM on all attacks. (leave -ToHit to Dark Blast)
This -DAM doesnt stack from the same Sentinels but can stack from multiple Sentinels so more than 1 Sent on a team has added benefits.

 

Keep the Opportunity Bar but link it to a +ToHit or +Acc buff the same radius as Inc Preception.
0-20% = 0%,  21-40% = 5%, 41-60% = 10%, 61-80% = 15%, 81%+ = 20%
Or
0-30% = 0%,  31-60% = 5%, 61-90% = 10%, 91%+ = 15%
Or even done in 2.5% increments - whatever
[Purely numbers for numbers sake - devs need to apply balance points]
 

The problem is that +perception, to-hit and accuracy are REALLY low value. Most everyone builds sufficient accuracy in their own build, and with the snipe changes I'm seeing a ton of tactics as well. Latching onto this "lookout/scout" thing is a bad call. Same with some kind of objective identifying power... not everyone wants to stand around waiting to be ported to the objective or stealth straight to the boss.  

 

They need to keep is simple. Up the damage (and IMO target caps somewhat) and have the inherent apply to the team. Give Sents corrupter level buff/debuff/heal/leadership scaling and then tweak individual power balance as needed. That's it really. No need to reinvent the wheel or change the playstyle of the AT. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Rathulfr]

23 hours ago, nihilii said:

Sentinel RES caps are already at 75%, like Scrappers. You're probably thinking of the defense modifiers being slightly lower.

Source?

[drbuzzard]

12 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

Source?

Umm, this is a well known fact. I have a few sentinels with resistance capped in certain areas, and it is 75%. For example my BR/Elec has 75% resistance to lethal, smashing, fire, cold, and energy.

resistance by AT:

tanks, brutes 90%

EATs 85%

rest 75%

 

The 70% number is the defensive powers factor compared to tankers for the various sets. Tankers are always 100%, and then scrappers, brutes, and stalkers get 75%. For some reason (which I suspect is the deep seated believe in COH that range is a massive form of defense) sentinels were given a factor of 70%. Of course the fact that the sets are very modified off the base tanker sets means this isn't a huge deal, but I would prefer 75% as the factor for consistency's sake. It wouldn't change things a heck of a lot.

[DarknessEternal]

Easy fix to sentinels:

 

1.  Increase damage scalar to Scrapper. 
2.  Increase defense scalar to Scrapper.

3.  Stop pretending range is something you can force into actual play as exclusively beneficial. 

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

Easy fix to sentinels:

 

1.  Increase damage scalar to Scrapper. 
2.  Increase defense scalar to Scrapper.

3.  Stop pretending range is something you can force into actual play as exclusively beneficial. 

I'm curious, but do you realize how small this increase would be? I mean the current damage scalar is .95 and the defense scalar is .7. That means we'd get a ~5% damage boost and a ~7% defense boost. I challenge anyone to really notice those. I think those are just part of the solution, as every DPS class had a damage boosting trick up their sleeve. We'd be sitting on a 1.0 damage scalar and no boost, which would leave us well behind. Even if you left the rather questionable inherent in place, the sentinel would still be lackluster.

[Omega-202]

8 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

I'm curious, but do you realize how small this increase would be? I mean the current damage scalar is .95 and the defense scalar is .7. That means we'd get a ~5% damage boost and a ~7% defense boost. I challenge anyone to really notice those. I think those are just part of the solution, as every DPS class had a damage boosting trick up their sleeve. We'd be sitting on a 1.0 damage scalar and no boost, which would leave us well behind. Even if you left the rather questionable inherent in place, the sentinel would still be lackluster.

Scrapper damage scale is 1.125, not 1.0.  Stalkers, Blaster secondaries and VEATs are at 1.0.

 

So putting Sentinels at 1.0 while retaining some sort of secondary mechanic, like a reworked -res would still put them only about in line with VEATs in terms or ranged damage dealing.  

 

I don't disagree though that they'd wouldn't still be lackluster if they just got bumped up 0.5 in damage.  

[drbuzzard]

Oh, must have missed when the scrapper scalar went up. Thought only blasters had the 1.125. My mistake. If it went up that much, it would be noticeable. 

[Omega-202]

I apologize if this has come up already, but what if Sentinels were rebuilt to reflect the AT that basically does what they do, but better already?  I'm talking about VEATs.  

 

VEATs have 1.0 damage vs Sentinel's 0.95 and all 4 branches can hit higher HP and defensive numbers.  Hell, my Crab out tanks most Brutes and some Tankers.  

 

So up Sentinel offense to 1.0, up their HP base and cap, up their defenses to the full Scrapper/Brute/Stalker 0.75.  And then to reflect the Sentinel "theme" give Sentinels four inherent toggles that are essentially boosted versions of Assault, Tactics, Maneuvers and a +Res equivalent, each being mutually exclusive.  Numbers can be futzed with during testing.

 

Thematically, the Sentinel would be a "guard" that has different modes.  Spotting enemies for the team, bolstering the defenses when under attack and leading the countercharge.  

[DarknessEternal]

3 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

I'm talking about VEATs.  

 

This is entirely the correct comparison.

 

The best Sentinel currently is Crab Spider.  They're better at literally everything than Sentinel.

[Sovera]

3 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

This is entirely the correct comparison.

 

The best Sentinel currently is Crab Spider.  They're better at literally everything than Sentinel.

Only in numbers though, but yes, when I hear the semi-cringe inspiring roleplay ideas to buff Sentinels with things like perception, ToHit and scouting ahead, then the Crab Spider does all of that and more.

 

But they lack build diversity. Two choices VS 100-ish choices makes EATs underpopulated for a reason.

[drbuzzard]

I do have a crab spider, but the fact that you're stuck in lethal damage for the most part if you build a blasting type, means I prefer sentinels. 

 

One thing I do when I hit 50 is Rammiel's arc in Oro to open the alpha slot. My sentinels(except the archer, who sits now) didn't have trouble with Honoree, but my crab did (because of that lethal damage issue). I don't even consider builds which do lethal damage anymore since it is simply awful at high level. Crabs do mostly lethal, so I don't play that one either. He's damned tough though I admit. 

[Omega-202]

8 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

I do have a crab spider, but the fact that you're stuck in lethal damage for the most part if you build a blasting type, means I prefer sentinels. 

 

One thing I do when I hit 50 is Rammiel's arc in Oro to open the alpha slot. My sentinels(except the archer, who sits now) didn't have trouble with Honoree, but my crab did (because of that lethal damage issue). I don't even consider builds which do lethal damage anymore since it is simply awful at high level. Crabs do mostly lethal, so I don't play that one either. He's damned tough though I admit. 

There's a lot of issues with this statement.

 

a) Honoree has high resists to all but negative energy and toxic.  You won't be doing much less damage with lethal than with smashing, psi, energy, fire or cold.

 

b) Good Crabs don't actually rely on a lot of lethal damage.  You have Longfang and Frag Grenade and the Spiderling attacks.  Suppression, Channelgun, Omega Maneuver, and Disruptor pet attacks are all Energy.  Venom Grenade is Toxic and gives you a -20% resist to all and a bonus -40% to toxic.  Your ATO global proc is toxic.  None of the PPP options are lethal damage.  So I'm not seeing where this "mostly lethal damage" is coming from.  It's probably about 1/4 of your damage.  

 

If you had issues with Honoree, the issue is with you or your build, not Crabs or lethal damage.  

[drbuzzard]

Ok, first off I'm not taking talking about a crabbermind. Sentinels in no way compare to pet build crabs. Crabberminds are some of the most expensive builds out there and do top damage. I may change mine into that, but my goal was a blasting tank and as I hate pet classes, having those two pet powers wasn't going to happen.

 

My build was meant to be a sentinel version of a crab. I picked the powers with the best DPAS (burst, single shot). That doesn't include channel gun BTW (which has lousy DPAS especially if you have to keep pulling out your rifle). Omega maneuver is pure crap, so I can't really imagine why anyone would pick that up after trying it (which I have, and it's a nuke with all the recharge and none of the damage of a real nuke- it does about the same damage as a sentinel nuke on 4 times the recharge- what a bargain!). Longfang is lethal, so there goes that one and it has lousy DPAS anyway. Yes, venom grenade is splendid, and I use that of course. I didn't take one of the patron pools, though I suppose I should to try and get some other damage types in there. Mu is decent as I recall.

 

The difference is that with a not very tuned sentinel (which pretty much all of mine have been when they just get to 50) I've made it past Honoree every time (except the archer. which I doubt I bothered to try). With a comparatively built, not terribly tuned crab I failed. Yes, it is not the optimal crab. However it is the crab which was built to match a sentinel, so saying a crab is the best sentinel isn't quite the truth. A crab with pets is the best sentinel (and those pets are a large chunk of the damage)? Hardly.

[Omega-202]

Cool, so we're comparing gimped versions of things to other things now to try and make a point.  

 

I'm not going to try and convince you that Crabs are objectively better than Sentinels at being "Sentinels", even at low effort IO levels because you don't seem to want to know. 

 

The fact is they mathematically and in practice are superior at literally everything a Sentinel does and then add pets on top of it.  I have the experience to back it up.  

 

I'd love to see Sentinels brought up to par.  But they are solidly far behind Crabs, even without pets.

[drbuzzard]

No, they are not solidly behind crabs without pets. You have done nothing to demonstrate that superiority. You didn't even address any of my points. I guess that means this isn't worth your time or mine, which is fine.

[nihilii]

36 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

The fact is they mathematically and in practice are superior at literally everything a Sentinel does and then add pets on top of it.  I have the experience to back it up.

To be mathematically superior at literally everything a Sentinel does before adding pets, you need to do 400+ ST DPS, without pets.

 

I'm not seeing the math working out that way, but I'd welcome being proven wrong.

[Omega-202]

19 minutes ago, nihilii said:

To be mathematically superior at literally everything a Sentinel does before adding pets, you need to do 400+ ST DPS, without pets.

 

I'm not seeing the math working out that way, but I'd welcome being proven wrong.

Can definitely run the pylon test without pets, but lets establish some ground rule comparisons here: that 400 DPS is using a proc'd out build (Dr buzzard is complaining that IOs shouldn't factor in because 'Crabberminds are too expensive') and also utilizes APPs (Dr buzzard refused to take PPPs).  

 

So again, seems like you guys are comparing the gimped version of something to a competently built version of something.

 

And I will concede that in a single target, petless DPS sprint, a Crab may not be mathematically superior to a top tier Sentinel, so I may have overstated.  It may be possible, so I'm willing to try, but single target DPS is probably the weakest part of a Crab.  But compare every other metric. 

 

AoE, Crabs have a larger target cap, more AoE attacks and Venom Grenade.  They don't need a nuke to wipe a full group because a full AoE attack chain drops everything in 2-3 cycles.  Even Fire^3 Sentinels take multiple cycles to take out a full group when each attack only hits 5 targets.

 

Durability, show me Sentinel builds that cruise at defense cap with 50-60% resist across the board on top, and a self heal/HP boost.  

 

Group support, Sentinels maybe have an APP power and their resist debuffs while VEATs are walking force multipliers.  Venom Grenade replicates the Sentinel inherent in an AoE.

 

Again, I'm just trying to advocate for Sentinels to get a boost because they are in a rough spot.  

[nihilii]

35 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

So again, seems like you guys are comparing the gimped version of something to a competently built version of something.

I was strictly answering the precise statement (which you reframed now, and that's fair game - we don't want to play semantic games).

 

I'm inclined to agree with many of the other Crab advantages you list.

Just a nitpick, PBAoEs and TAoEs hit 10 targets rather than 5 and that's really most of what you're going to use as a Fire Sentinel. Most, if not all; personally, I don't have any cone.

[Omega-202]

Just now, nihilii said:

I was strictly answering the precise statement (which you reframed now, and that's fair game - we don't want to play semantic games).

 

I'm inclined to agree with many of the other Crab advantages you list.

Just a nitpick, PBAoEs and TAoEs hit 10 targets rather than 5 and that's really most of what you're going to use as a Fire Sentinel. Most, if not all; personally, I don't have any cone.

My apologies, you are correct on the taoes and pbaoes being 10.  I think it just feels more like 5 on Fire Sword Circle and Fire Cages because the areas are so small.

[drbuzzard]

43 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

 (Dr buzzard is complaining that IOs shouldn't factor in because 'Crabberminds are too expensive') and also utilizes APPs (Dr buzzard refused to take PPPs).  

 

 

You could avoid words in my mouth (or just referencing me at all). I said a not fully optimized build. That doesn't mean I didn't use IOs. It wasn't gimpy, just not all out. That's also the case for the sentinel builds I compared to.

[Crysis]

On 11/20/2019 at 10:07 AM, Rathulfr said:

Source?

A Fire/Rad sentinel, even with moderate +Res slotting, will show 75% Res to S/L and several other types once you activate Meltdown.  With Barrier I think everything but Psi hits 75%.
 

Just pull up Combat Attributes window and you’ll see it.

[DarknessEternal]

Why would you exclude pets from a Crab's single target damage?  We're talking about damage.  We're not talking about some arbitrary construct of rules designed to favor one side or the other.

 

Single target damage, AOE damage, survivability: those are the categories that matter in this game.  Crabs beat Sentinels in all those fields.