If you could change the sentinel (or not) which would you choose?(Poll/Opinions)

[Underfyre]

8 hours ago, Six Six said:

I don't have concrete numbers, though. 

I do have concrete numbers. They do not stack up.

[Rathulfr]

I wonder how many of the people who responded to the poll actually play(ed) Sentinels routinely or to max level with completed builds?  I can count on one (maybe two) hand(s) the number of players that I know for sure have thoroughly played and tested Sentinels sufficiently.  I've heard far more players complain about Sentinels who either have only played briefly or simply skipped it because the numbers didn't look good on their spreadsheets.

 

It seems like people either love or hate Sentinels, with little to nothing in between those extremes.  The lovers seem to exaggerate the numbers in their favor (I was unable to replicate some of the claims no matter how hard I tried).  The haters seem to exaggerate the criticisms in their favor (my experience is that Sentinels are nowhere near as "gimped" as they seem to imply).  I suspect that the truth is somewhere in the lonely and unexplored middle ground.

 

Either way, I find it hard to reconcile this with the overwhelming response for "Completely Change It!"  I suspect that many of those votes are from those who have never played Sentinels, or those who simply wish to sacrifice Sentinels for a completely different AT concept (e.g.: the oft-requested "melee support" AT, such as Paladins or Guardians).  Consequently, I'd consider the votes for "Completely Change It!" to be highly suspect and would give less weight to that option.  There's room enough in CoH for both "ranged scrapper" and "melee support" ATs -- we don't have to sacrifice one for the other.

 

[Underfyre]

13 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

the numbers didn't look good on their spreadsheets.

Attacked.

 

I exclusively play my Sentinels. fire/Invuln particularly, even though it's not what my sheet would say is the theoretical min/max. I also haven't voted on this poll, as none of the options are what I would deem a fix to the class.

[Coyotedancer]

The attack sets need a damage pass... AR needs a bit more serious tinkering.

 

That's it. 

As another one of the "plays them quite a bit, so knows how they handle" people, that's all I think they really need.

 

I'll also admit to being very, VERY wary of all these calls to change them completely. As a mostly-solo, I enjoy my Sents as they are, and feel like they do their job pretty well. I'd rather not see efforts to supposedly "fix" them that end up completely ruining them. <_<

[SwitchFade]

10 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

I wonder how many of the people who responded to the poll actually play(ed) Sentinels routinely or to max level with completed builds?  I can count on one (maybe two) hand(s) the number of players that I know for sure have thoroughly played and tested Sentinels sufficiently.  I've heard far more players complain about Sentinels who either have only played briefly or simply skipped it because the numbers didn't look good on their spreadsheets.

 

It seems like people either love or hate Sentinels, with little to nothing in between those extremes.  The lovers seem to exaggerate the numbers in their favor (I was unable to replicate some of the claims no matter how hard I tried).  The haters seem to exaggerate the criticisms in their favor (my experience is that Sentinels are nowhere near as "gimped" as they seem to imply).  I suspect that the truth is somewhere in the lonely and unexplored middle ground.

 

Either way, I find it hard to reconcile this with the overwhelming response for "Completely Change It!"  I suspect that many of those votes are from those who have never played Sentinels, or those who simply wish to sacrifice Sentinels for a completely different AT concept (e.g.: the oft-requested "melee support" AT, such as Paladins or Guardians).  Consequently, I'd consider the votes for "Completely Change It!" to be highly suspect and would give less weight to that option.  There's room enough in CoH for both "ranged scrapper" and "melee support" ATs -- we don't have to sacrifice one for the other.

 

Agreed.

 

50+ Water/SR fully io'd sent and a fire/SR on the way up, so I speak from experience. Most do not understand the AT and I believe haven't played it.

[Gobbledigook]

Personally i would up the Sentinel Damage to 1.1 or very close to Blasters/scrappers. Scrappers have Crits and Blasters have damage buffs. A sentinel would be decent single target then but would have reduced AoE and range as it is now. The AoE and range debuff is enough to warrant higher damage.

 

Or  

 

Make them like a Ranged Brute. start them low on damage and let it ramp up to blaster damage at the peak. 

 

Or 

 

Put them on Stalker damage and let their Crit chance go up as they fight similar to Brutes Fury. 1-25% or something.

 

Remove the Opportunity mechanic. Let the defenders/corruptors etc do the debuffing.

[Ultimo]

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

Personally i would up the Sentinel Damage to 1.1 or very close to Blasters/scrappers. Scrappers have Crits and Blasters have damage buffs. A sentinel would be decent single target then but would have reduced AoE and range as it is now. The AoE and range debuff is enough to warrant higher damage.

 

Or  

 

Make them like a Ranged Brute. start them low on damage and let it ramp up to blaster damage at the peak. 

 

Or 

 

Put them on Stalker damage and let their Crit chance go up as they fight similar to Brutes Fury. 1-25% or something.

 

Remove the Opportunity mechanic. Let the defenders/corruptors etc do the debuffing.

Actually, I like your latter two suggestions.  Call it "Focus" or something similar, and let it build up like Fury does.

[Bossk_Hogg]

Up the damage a bit, let you toggle on defensive or offensive opportunity at will. Then remove the marking thing entirely, as it's pretty lame to have to micromanage such a small benefit (roughly equivalent to a proc).

 

There, the sentinel balanced and streamlined from an AT perspective. 

 

Other changes are needed on a powerset basis. Restore Freeze Ray to a hold instead of a useless sleep. Fix Full Auto. Address Archery's shortcomings. Really, the nukes that have huge status effects and debuffs are in a decent spot, its the few oddball ones that arent great. 

[oldskool]

42 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Restore Freeze Ray to a hold instead of a useless sleep.  

So Sentinel Ice Blast should have access to 3 powers with a Mag 3 Hold?  

[ZeeHero]

This was not on the list but the aoe cap needs to be lifted to blaster level.

[Bossk_Hogg]

16 minutes ago, oldskool said:

So Sentinel Ice Blast should have access to 3 powers with a Mag 3 Hold?  

Why not, Ice blasters get four AND an ae hold on a 90 second timer. Defenders/corrupters also have access to three. Holds are kind of Ice's thing, and replacing one of the two in the set with a friggin sleep was a bad call.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[oldskool]

13 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Why not,

I think the answer there is in how the balancing seems to trend across Sentinel sets.  What may have been one primary's "thing" on other ATs isn't necessarily the same "thing" on Sentinels.  

Seems like most, if not all, powers with a hold duration of 9 seconds on ATs like the Blaster (e.g., their version of Abyssal Gaze) were changed to roughly 2 seconds on Sentinels.  I don't foresee a direct port of Freezing Ray without a change to how all of the Sentinel primaries work.  It's hold would be dropped to a 2 second duration under the current trends.  A neat interrupt sure, but if you'd be expecting to hold bosses like the other ATs can, then I think we may all be disappointed.  Bitter Freeze Ray on Sentinels has just over a 7 second duration per the in-game info box (Mid's has it listed as the same duration as other ATs).  

 

Since Sentinels have an entire secondary devoted to passive defense (including toggles as passive) there appears to be some harsh penalties in the AT for active mitigation (like holds).  Tacking on sleep to Chilling Ray seems like an afterthought, but the alternative would be a gutted version of Freezing Ray either way.  So the "why not" appears to be that the "balancing" decision was leaning against the Sentinel using effects like hold for mitigation.  So Freezing Ray was replaced with a new power that includes Sleep since that effect isn't too egregious.  Sleeps were also mentioned to be under review at some point to make them better.  So asking for a change to a hold may not work out as well.  We'll see.  Regardless, what CC effect Chilling Ray has wasn't a deciding factor in why I took it.  It was because it does more damage than Ice Blast or Bolt.  However, that too is a different complaint... 

What irks me more about the change of this power isn't the lack of a hold, but its damage change.  Freezing Ray is pretty close in DPA to Bitter Ice Blast.  Chilling Ray isn't close to Bitter Ice Blast at all.  My issue there is that the change appears to have no rhyme or reason to it.  Chilling Ray was given damage similar to Slug and Stunning Shot from Assault Rifle and Archery respectively.  Other primaries have a more damaging power in that same slot with Fire having Blaze as an outlier at that level.  

 

P.s., I couldn't tell you what Ice Blast's "thing" is supposed to be on Sentinels.  If using multiple holds as a form of mitigation was the thing elsewhere, that identity is gone and replaced with nothing really.  This is also a trend in Sentinels.  Power set homogenization.  Though for Devil's Advocacy, I always saw Ice as the "slow everyone" set and that hasn't really changed.

Edited March 31, 2020 by oldskool

[NEW DAWN]

2 hours ago, oldskool said:

 

 I couldn't tell you what Ice Blast's "thing" is supposed to be on Sentinels.  If using multiple holds as a form of mitigation was the thing elsewhere, that identity is gone and replaced with nothing really.  This is also a trend in Sentinels.  Power set homogenization.  Though for Devil's Advocacy, I always saw Ice as the "slow everyone" set and that hasn't really changed.

 

I suspect that everything that has been released since Cryptic control was a wip, so other than burst and -rechg there is nothing else. I looked at Tanker melee powers that are new and they all lacking certain utility assets in comparison to the old ones, but the old ones were SOs and 0-50 game.

[Hedgefund]

I just played my 2nd Sentinel to 50.  This one Water/Regen.  The first was Sonic/Bio.  I've read 0 of the responses above, just wanted to give my thoughts on the AT and my selection for the poll.

 

I rather like the AT.  My initial reaction to Sents was "why make this when I can make a sturdy blaster with IO bonuses?" but I've seen the value of an actual armor set that has multiple means of mitigation vs a blaster that, once def gets debuffed, or encounters a specific damage type, comes crumbling down like the proverbial house of cards.

 

The second time around, I basically ignored Opportunity.  I selected the 3rd option for the poll but I'd really like to see no reliance on a specific blast power to utilize the inherent.  I tend to skip one of the 2 initial blast powers for Blasters and Corrs and I did the same for my 2nd Sent.  

[SeraphimKensai]

I have multiple Incarnate/Io'ed Sentinels at this point: Rad/Rad, Elec/Fire, Water/Bio, and most recently an AR/Regen. Like the poster above I have only skimmed through some of the previous posts.

 

I enjoy the AT quite a bit given the 4 Incarnate Sentinels I have. That said I do agree that the AT does need some attention.

 

Ideas to help Sentinels:

1.) Standardized Damage Modifiers for Ranged/Melee at 1.0 (this would be a slight improvement in damage overall).

2.) Rework the Sentinel Opportunity. Rather then tie it to the tier 1 & 2 attacks to trigger on 1 target, how about two click powers like how Dominators pop domination, One is a 90 second pbaoe Damage/ToHit Buff for the Sentinel and nearby teammates/leaguemates. The second is a 90 second pbaoe Defense/Resistance buff for the Sentinel and nearby teammates/leaguemates.

 

That way the inherent is more useful for the Sentinel/teams as the buff would last longer. Obviously the numbers would have to be balanced/tuned, and then the increase to the Sentinel damage modifiers would give Sentinels a slight improvement on damage, to help tune them.

[carnalchaos]

I like Sentinels and enjoy the combination of ranged damage with status protection and some shields.  It is fun.  Having said that the Sentinel blast layouts are almost identical.  It needs some variety and spice, how we get that spice is what will make or break the arch type.  Changing the inherent is the easiest thing to do and also perhaps the most boring. 

 

What I would really love to see is some variety in the primaries.  I know its unlikely since the homecoming team doesn't have much time, but a true aoe control, buff, pet, or debuff in the place of one of the redundant blasts in each of the sets.  Right now we are arguing over minor secondary effects and dps numbers, lets get spicy and step on every other arch types toes!

[Gobbledigook]

Some more ideas.

 

How about...

 

Offensive/defensive opportunity becoming Toggles.

 

Offensive toggled on gives all of your attacks a chance to debuf mitigation/defence but reduces defence/mitigations of the Sentinel slightly similar to Bio armours Offensive toggle.

 

Defensive toggled on gives all of your attacks a chance to proc a PBaoE heal but lowers dps by 15%. Gives a passive regen/recovery boost or defence or something.

 

None toggled on would give no buff or debuf at all.

 

Or something similar to above. 

 

Having lower AoE targets and lower range should warrant the sentinel having higher dps than it currently does though. I would go as high as 1.1 even.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[DanaDark]

Hmm, this is tough, because things I'd like might not actually be balanced. But a small list of random things:
1. Damage scaled to 1.0 is not 1.05 (we get fewer targets in our AOEs after all)
2. An AOE -res or -def debuff to enemies around us as we attack (think of tanks taunting but with a debuff in our case) to replace the opportunity system
3. Outright immunity to most perception problems (We're sentinels after all dang it...)
4. Team-wide +range buff (again, Sentinel theme)
5. Team-wide +perception 

Mainly, our inherent blows donkey chunks and needs to be outright replaced, and we are rather lackluster in the damage-department as a team player so something to help with either our own or the team's abilities.

[Zeraphia]

After time, and playing around with other ATs and the Sentinel, I've had more thoughts about it and I'm giving them a second look. Here are some thoughts I think could improve the AT overall that may or may not be too imbalanced...

 

1. Overall damage scale increase. There are outlier sets like Fire (not really) and Elec, but in many ways, I feel Fire has been somewhat shortchanged on Sentinels. Fire trades literally every single form of mitigation and procs to gain its damage. I think it deserves its place for that, whereas other sets have that and still do relatively the same if not more than Fire does. Fire's inferno is comparatively weak considering how much of an outlier fire by virtue of sacrificing everything else should gain substantial DoT. (Inferno should do at like a base of around 180-190 damage, still well under half the Blaster inferno base, same for ice's Blizzard due to it being a DoT T9 with very little actual "nuking.")

2. I really feel like Sentinels should get snipes at this point instead of their attack. Others have clearly said that they don't want it to be "the same" and want something different, fine, but you shouldn't say that about the literal best single target power in every blast set that enables blaster sets to be on-par with melee sets. Dominators have Snipes. Corruptors have Snipes. Defenders have Snipes. I think Sentinels should have snipes as well.

3. I don't understand their range being reduced. I get the "balancing" but IMO, the range is something they should gain as no other AT with a blast set has reduced range, and the Sentinel has suffered in every aspect that every other AT has not had to. Other ATs have their snipes, better range, higher target caps. The Sentinel has lost all of these things, and I don't think that they should be so heavily penalized. Especially when ranged AT's are given select jobs such as having to use Snipes in the Underground, IMO, a Sentinel should be able to participate with the other Blaster AT's in all activities that they can. 

4. Inherent rework to some extent. I feel like Sentinel unfortunately is trying to "jack-of-all-trades" in areas it just shouldn't try to. Sentinels are moreso imo, "solo artists" that should excel just like Scrapper. They do solo well, they just need a bigger push. Their damage on average is border-lining Tanker levels, heavily lagging behind Brute and Scrapper. That's unfortunate. I really do not think the Inherent is very useful on the fast-paced meta, you use the inherent maybe once per every two mobs on a team usually, you target it on a boss, and after that boss dies, your entire inherent besides the -5% base is completely gone. On AV's, the inherent isn't usually felt all that much outside of a solo scenario, on teams and leagues, it will rarely make a difference. 

 

What I don't wish to see? Blasters and other AT's being deemed "unworthy" or "not good enough." I think many Blaster sets should deal more damage than what they do, not by a ton, but I think many sets can use a damage boost in their single target capabilities, because they've sacrifice legitimately every other type of defense or control or armor in the game, they should be specialists at damage. As much as I love Fire, it should not be the "default" blast set that everyone goes to because it's the undisputed king of damage, I think other sets should have their damage buffed to be closer to the level of Fire while possibly giving boosts to fire as needed to make the choices between Blast sets not so stark once the end-game comes. 

[oldskool]

I decided to log into the Sanctuary team's server and check out their changes.  

For those wishing to see what it may be like to play a Sentinel along the lines of what some of these suggestions, I highly recommend you do so.  I think it is very unlikely that Homecoming will implement Sentinels (basically change them to that scale) in the way they do.  

Warning though, stuff is a little unpolished, but this is what I found so far: 

• Opportunity doesn't exist.  The bar is there and the icon in the bar is there, but this works like Defiance on Sanctuary.  Each of my blast powers was granting me a damage bonus.  
• The blast sets have a lot of commonality with the "norm".  Unfortunately, they do not include snipes but they do revert changes to CC powers.  So powers like Suppressive Fire (Dual Pistols) are identical to their Blaster/Defender/Corruptor counterparts. 
• The secondaries are carbon copies of Scrappers and in some cases Stalkers.  Their version of Ninjutsu is the Stalker version complete with Hide at level 1 and Caltrop within the set.  This also means you get PBAoE damage auras in the sets that had them.  
• Freezing Ray exists there... its just a hold. 
• The Sentinel ATOs are not implemented yet since they seem to be tinkering with the implementation to make it different.  So far it seems like a direct Blaster primary + Scrapper secondary.  
• AoEs retain their original target caps. 
• Assault Rifle is almost identical to the Blaster version except Sniper Rifle is still replaced by Incinerator.  That means no Aim, but you do get Ignite.  Disorienting Shot is replaced by Beanbag, etc... 
• So far some powers also do not work at all.  Dual Pistols (my go-to) can't seem to access Swap Ammo despite selecting it, and Bio Armor's Adaptation is also missing. 
• Conceptually the Sentinel is described as a sturdy Blaster with the ability to distract (I guess hold some aggro momentarily?). 

So a place out there in the wild west of private servers does exist in order to test at least some concepts being tossed around.  You could potentially see for yourself just where things are lacking (or not) with these suggestions in at least some capacity. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by oldskool

[SwitchFade]

On 4/4/2020 at 5:39 PM, DanaDark said:

Hmm, this is tough, because things I'd like might not actually be balanced. But a small list of random things:
1. Damage scaled to 1.0 is not 1.05 (we get fewer targets in our AOEs after all)
2. An AOE -res or -def debuff to enemies around us as we attack (think of tanks taunting but with a debuff in our case) to replace the opportunity system
3. Outright immunity to most perception problems (We're sentinels after all dang it...)
4. Team-wide +range buff (again, Sentinel theme)
5. Team-wide +perception 

Mainly, our inherent blows donkey chunks and needs to be outright replaced, and we are rather lackluster in the damage-department as a team player so something to help with either our own or the team's abilities.

50+ Water/SR here...

 

No vote on taking out the healing component of defense opportunity, it's amazing when used properly.

 

I leave my diff at +4/8 and I can run into 17 MOBs and wreck shop without even thinking about survivability, because the few bits I may ever take are healed back as I only use defensive as part of my attack chain. 

[Six-Six]

On 3/24/2020 at 11:09 PM, underfyre said:

I do have concrete numbers. They do not stack up.

what doesn't stack?

If you were quoting me, I was talking about how Sent recharge helps with the overall damage output as compared to blasters/corruptors.
 

[AurianArchive]

On 3/7/2020 at 4:21 PM, Vulgaris said:

I was deeply curious how sentinel players themselves felt about the sentinel. I have fun with it from time to time but I really wondered... Beyond a suggestion thread or random murmerings here and there...
If you COULD decide the fate of the entire Archetype and how it was approached, balanced or changed. What would you choose?

And I think that would yield more interesting results numerically than a thread of suggestions. So I'm posting this poll here.

 

Generally speaking the opinion on the Sentinel during the Sekrit was: UNDERDAMAGED

 

As far as I know the only reason that nothing ever happened was twofold. First the Powers Developer ran out of real-time to work on the game. Second, when the Powers Developer GOT time to work on the game, a bitter/vitriolic clique was quite successful at de-motivations. 

 

Flash forward to today when there's a tad bit more Dev Power, and the Dev Team is a little better at telling overly bitter players to stick it where the sun don't shine, and I'd still say that at the core.. the Sentinels are undamaged. The operating theory on Sekrit was "Scrapper Damage" and they never got close. I'd compare the output to Defenders, but I think that'd be insulting to Defenders. 

 

That being said, simply flat boosting the damage doesn't really do anything to develop the Archetype as it's own unique entry. It fixes the immediate problem, but just makes the AT a Ranged Scrapper (which, well, is what the AT was advertised as) 

 

If you'll pardon a tangent for a moment into Tank's, I think there may be a historical link here that might help. During development under Sekrit the Powers Developer added new Tertiary Powers for Tankers. A number of these new sets brought along Interface type powers, adding debuffs to Tanker attacks. During the testing of these new sets I strongly argued (multiple times) that the entire Tanker Tertiary order should be re-adjusted.

 

I argued that the existing Debuffs (e.g. [Darkest Night]) and new debuffs should be moved to the Tertiary T1 slot, all Single target damages to Tertiary T2, all TAOE's to Tertiary T3, All holds/immobilizes/self-buffs to Tertiary T4, leaving Tertiary T5 for Pets / secondary holds / secondary immobilizes. 

 

The intent to these changes was to make the Debuffs available at level 30 under scaling conditions, vastly increasing the value of a Tank as a back-up debuffing option in the game's mid-range. This would also fix outliers like Earth Mastery, Arctic Mastery, and Energy Mastery. 

 

So, bringing this back around to Sentinels: Perhaps the focus should be on the mid-game engagement. What, exactly, kind of crossover do the Tertiary Sets offer that Blasters/Scrappers don't offer? 

 

Well, the obvious answer would be Team Buffs / Heals / Controls. Most of the Sentinel Sets have a either a single target or mass immobilize in the Tertiary T1, and a Heal/Debuff/Pet in the Tertiary T5. So, re-order. For the most part put the Heal/Buff/Pet in the Tertiary T3 slot to make them available earlier, standardize the Single Target Melee in the Tertiary T4, and the Tertiary PbAOE in the T5 slot. 

 

So, what about that T2 slot? Keep the miscellaneous holds/ranged-attacks? Going back to the Tanks, where Tankers would get their Interface-like debuffs by level 35 in Tertiary T1, Sentinels would get those same kind of Interface-like powers in their T2 slots. Thus giving Sentinels a little bit more flexibility to offer per-attack debuffs as early as 30 as well. 

 

I think this approach would help separate the Sentinels as combinations that play differently before even looking at an AT Specific mechanic. 

 

Now, the AT mechanic itself was pretty much broken from the start. Most Sentinel builds don't even bother taking the Primary T2 since the Defense Opportunity is at best useless and at worst pointless. The Offensive Opportunity doesn't actually do anything to increase delivered damage. In-Set advantages such as Beam Rifle's integrated Regeneration Debuff have a larger payoff than the mechanic. 

 

Now, while I've been quite certain about how to address Sentinels as far as Power Sets go, I've never been too sure on the Mechanic. I'll just run you through the first idea that percolated in my noggin, and then why it wouldn't actually work.

 

Going back to the Tanker Tertiary Powers that never happened, most of those were implemented as Toggles. For Sentinels, maybe it should be approached as a Click Activation. When a Sentinels Opportunity Bar is full when they click their Interface-like power; it both doubles in strength and pulses to nearby teammates. A twist on the Dominator formula if you will, instead of only empowering the player, empowering the player and any nearby allies. Again; this would give the Sentinel additional value in mid-range play, and lower barriers for players who don't possess optimized/be-all-end-all/end-game builds. 

 

Now, granted, the major flaw with this approach is that it, obviously, requires the player to take a Tertiary Power.  It's not something inherent to the character from Level 1.  So the quick response there was to just borrow from Dominators and Dual Pistols Swap Ammo; and let the character get an Interface-Like per-power proc toggle at level 1, and let Sentinels swap between each on demand. Thus the Tertiary Pools would only have to be readjusted for standardized order with no powers changed. That being said, that sounds almost overpowered to give any AT that kind of flexibility in choosing power enhancements from level 1. 

 

So I really don't know what to do with the AT for a unique/specific mechanic. I'm just quite confident that what it does now... isn't it. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by AurianArchive
correcting grammar, spall cheque.

[Vulgaris]

Seems like generally speaking- regardless of the replies and votes- There is a very large consensus something is amiss in some fashion and needs looked at.  And this is the most viewed unpinned thread (Thank you for that btw everyone!) on the first page of the sentinel forum so far.

I think a major salve for the nerves so to speak for the sentinel playerbase would be hearing a dev confirm that it will at least be looked at in time.  Instead of the spinning wheels of speculation on our parts.

[Caulderone]

1 hour ago, Vulgaris said:

I think a major salve for the nerves so to speak for the sentinel playerbase would be hearing a dev confirm that it will at least be looked at in time.  Instead of the spinning wheels of speculation on our parts.

That post happened last September:

CP also replied a few more times after that.