Sentinel DPS sheet

[Sovera]

34 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

There's no such thing, and after 18 years, people should really stop saying that.

 

?

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 10/22/2022 at 9:02 AM, DarknessEternal said:

There's no such thing, and after 18 years, people should really stop saying that.

No.

 

I led a lot of PuGs for years on Freedom, and I led a lot of PuGs for the first two years I was on Torchbearer.

 

A LOT of people play their Blasters like always at range unless the enemies are able to close. A LOT of people try their best to keep their Blasters out of melee range at all times. Hover blasting is a thing, perhaps you've heard of it. Even my Archmage, an Incarnate Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster with 32% Range Defense, stays out of melee most of the time. And believe me, she wipes out entire spawns in seconds.

 

So, no. There's no reason whatsoever that people should stop saying, "I stick to 100% range", whether you like it or not. Because a lot of people, most would be my guess based on my experience, play their Blasters that way and always have. And it doesn't matter if you like it or not. And it doesn't matter if that's the mathematically most optimal way to play. That's how people play Blasters.

[drbuzzard]

Hell, I've got BR/dev,fire/dev, archery/dev, archery,arrow,  and ice/dev blasters that I use all at range (closest I come in is taser which is 30 feet). I do use trip mines, but I don't toe bomb. Guess it must all be a figment of my imagination. 

[drbuzzard]

While I understand that people don't like that sentinels are still well behind blasters, it's inevitable in a world where tank mage is taken to be a no no. You get to do decent ranged damage, and by stacking some decent defenses with range, you can do it with close to total impunity. Yes, tough ranged blasters are possible (I have a few), but the sentinel will be tougher given the same amount of attention to defenses. They top it off with status protection. 

 

I like what we got, and while I would not object to maybe a bit more, I'm not going to hold my breath. It's basically not going to happen. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

A LOT of people play their Blasters like always at range unless the enemies are able to close. A LOT of people try their best to keep their Blasters out of melee range at all times. Hover blasting is a thing, perhaps you've heard of it. Even my Archmage, an Incarnate Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster with 32% Range Defense, stays out of melee most of the time. And believe me, she wipes out entire spawns in seconds.

 

So, no. There's no reason whatsoever that people should stop saying, "I stick to 100% range", whether you like it or not. Because a lot of people, most would be my guess based on my experience, play their Blasters that way and always have. And it doesn't matter if you like it or not. And it doesn't matter if that's the mathematically most optimal way to play. That's how people play Blasters.

Pick "Ranged" on Character Creation screen.  Look at Blaster.  It says, "The Blaster is an offensive juggernaut. This hero can deal a ton of damage from a distance."

 

I too am confused by people who insist Blasters must play at Point Blank range.  

 

Hey, maybe they cannot read!

[Hyperstrike]

8 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Pick "Ranged" on Character Creation screen.  Look at Blaster.  It says, "The Blaster is an offensive juggernaut. This hero can deal a ton of damage from a distance."

 

I too am confused by people who insist Blasters must play at Point Blank range.  

 

Hey, maybe they cannot read!

The game's AI can be really wonky at times.  And sometimes the "ah close enough" nature of melee attacks hitting kinda makes the notion of sitting back and plinking unfeasible.

GIANT FRICKING FOR INSTANCE.

During the STF's last mission, LORD RECLUSE, to deal with ranged attackers, will quite literally leap PAST the first mezzanine of the tower.

Not rocket flight.

Not a hover board.

Not even super-jump.

He just JUMPS that far.

Granted, with proper positioning, you can avoid him.

Now trying doing stuff like that inside an indoor map instance.

This sort of thing kinda argues for at least a SEMBLANCE of acknowledgement of Blapper principles.

[drbuzzard]

11 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

This sort of thing kinda argues for at least a SEMBLANCE of acknowledgement of Blapper principles.

Nah, I default to 'run like a bard' principles. 

[Snarky]

11 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

This sort of thing kinda argues for at least a SEMBLANCE of acknowledgement of Blapper principles.

As far as I am concerned the Blaster was designed from the ground up as a Blapper.  Then AR and Elec were punished for being non conformists.  My opinion.

 

Whoever wrote the flavor text for Blasters (and i thought i remembered it used to go on even more about "ranged"....) was either a lawyer or high as a kite.  Or both.  Because while most Blasters have a lot of the best ranged attacks in the game, almost all of their top damage synergistic combos happen at Point Blank.

 

[Hyperstrike]

4 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Nah, I default to 'run like a bard' principles. 

Two words.

HOMING BOULDERS

[DarknessEternal]

7 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

A LOT of people play their Blasters like always at range unless the enemies are able to close. A LOT of people try their best to keep their Blasters out of melee range at all times. Hover blasting is a thing, perhaps you've heard of it. Even my Archmage, an Incarnate Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster with 32% Range Defense, stays out of melee most of the time. And believe me, she wipes out entire spawns in seconds.

 

 

You're doing that all without Inferno, huh?  Let's see the build capable of wiping out spawns in seconds without it.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

You're doing that all without Inferno, huh?  Let's see the build capable of wiping out spawns in seconds without it.

He did say most.

 

My fire/time/scorpion blaster spends 90% of the time outside of melee range.  Inferno is the only melee range I have on them.

 

On the other hand, I have blappers that are just fine with cutting in close.  though most of those have rise of the phoenix in heavy rotation.

 

In any case, why are we arguing about this in a Sentinel thread?

 

Ah, the 100% at range comment.   Meh, not quite.  Yea, there's some heavy hitting on the secondaries, but it's optional.

Edited October 25, 2022 by lemming
answered my own question

[Underfyre]

All these Blaster comments about not wanting to get in close to optimize damage is kind of revealing why they're so threatened by the Sentinel modifier coming close to theirs. Like I said in an earlier post, it's Risk v Reward. Blasters have it, Sentinels kinda don't. The option is there to increase damage for Blasters, they just have to take a risk to get it.

[oldskool]

2 hours ago, Underfyre said:

they just have to take a risk to get it.

 

There is an (un)healthy bit of "I know but I don't wanna" as well as a good bit of gatekeeping involved. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by oldskool

[KaizenSoze]

21 hours ago, oldskool said:

 

There is an (un)healthy bit of "I know but I don't wanna" as well as a good bit of gatekeeping involved. 

It's nice to see Blasters get their Brute moment. I mean that Brute were so far ahead of Tankers until the Tanker revamp.

 

Now, Blasters have some competition. My beta Sentinels could solo things that would have been very hard for my favorite blaster to solo. Like Carnies at 4x8.

[Underfyre]

2.4.1 was silently released.

 

2.4.2 is up, Seismic Shockwaves affects are now implemented.

[Underfyre]

2.5 up. Page 6 data added.

[DarknessEternal]

I don't suppose any comprehensive analysis of all the primaries sim out with this to see how they all rank?

[Hjarki]

5 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

I don't suppose any comprehensive analysis of all the primaries sim out with this to see how they all rank?

There are a lot of nuances to this. If I've got the rotations right, the pre-enhancement/proc ST dps of the various sets should look something like so:

Fire Blast: 72.54

Psychic Blast: 70.42

Seismic Blast: 70.36

Storm Blast: 70.07

Archery: 69.95

Assault Rifle: 68.30

Water Blast: 66.54

Dark Blast: 65.08

Dual Pistols: 64.96

Cold: 63.68

Sonic Blast: 61.65

Radiation Blast: 60.53

Energy Blast: 59.32

Beam Rifle: 56.75

 

It's entirely possible that there are better rotations than the ones I used although it's unlikely that I got the rotations for the top end of the list wrong. These rotations also don't include melee attacks from epic/patron pools. I've got a spreadsheet I use to play with these numbers, but apparently Google Sheets doesn't allow anonymous sharing of such documents.

[Underfyre]

The last tests I ran were for Storm Blast and they were spot on after 3 tests. As for going through every single primary lately to run comparisons. No, I haven't done that for some time.

[DarknessEternal]

Electric?

[Hjarki]

Electric would be right around Cold for much the same reason: lack of a decent backup to its primary attack.

[Lockpick]

8 hours ago, Hjarki said:

There are a lot of nuances to this. If I've got the rotations right, the pre-enhancement/proc ST dps of the various sets should look something like so:

Fire Blast: 72.54

Psychic Blast: 70.42

Seismic Blast: 70.36

Storm Blast: 70.07

Archery: 69.95

Assault Rifle: 68.30

Water Blast: 66.54

Dark Blast: 65.08

Dual Pistols: 64.96

Cold: 63.68

Sonic Blast: 61.65

Radiation Blast: 60.53

Energy Blast: 59.32

Beam Rifle: 56.75

 

It's entirely possible that there are better rotations than the ones I used although it's unlikely that I got the rotations for the top end of the list wrong. These rotations also don't include melee attacks from epic/patron pools. I've got a spreadsheet I use to play with these numbers, but apparently Google Sheets doesn't allow anonymous sharing of such documents.

 

What is the Fire rotation?

[Hjarki]

3 hours ago, Lockpick said:

 

What is the Fire rotation?

This is a non-editable version of the spreadsheet I use to play around with various sets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSXnW5bbWLXeZUblluSb5E8jo79coHN3AYqVxtgDYdkOox6T6-cR1HbkgNnOtVP7yWM_g6Fivg5iAWL/pubhtml?gid=1339529025&single=true

 

The 'uses' column is the rotation. While it doesn't describe the order, it describes how many times you use the power in the rotation. The green box indicates the dps of the entire rotation.

 

I omit a fair number of mechanics:

• Dual Pistols is fixed to Fire Ammo
• Beam Rifle Disintegrate is ignored
• Storm Blast's Storm Cell is ignored
• Sonic Blast's -resist is ignored
• Seismic's mechanics are mostly ignored and the assumption is that you're only using Stalagmite when it's enhanced.

So if we look at Fire Blast, I'm claiming that 2 Flares, 1 Fireball, 1 Blaze, 1 Blazing Blast creates a decent rotation if you limit yourself to 300% (or so) recharge. Due to the flexibility of Fire's rotation, it actually has a much higher ceiling as you permit more recharge and throw in melee attacks. For example, a rotation of Fire Blast, Cremate, Blaze, Blazing Bolt is around 85 dps (before enhancements/procs).

 

However, remember this is just a quick and dirty tool for myself, so it relies a lot on knowledge I have that isn't expressed by the spreadsheet.

 

[Underfyre]

4 hours ago, Lockpick said:

 

What is the Fire rotation?

 

If you're in my sheet, click the hamburger on the bottom left and that will show you all the hidden sheets. If you click on Rack and Stack it will bring up the final dps for all the builds I have made a sheet for, which includes the rotations used. I only made builds with secondaries that contained a damage boosting mechanic.

[DarknessEternal]

On 8/10/2023 at 12:26 AM, Hjarki said:

Electric would be right around Cold for much the same reason: lack of a decent backup to its primary attack.

You don't seem to have used Tesla Cage in your spreadsheet despite it having the 2nd highest DPA.