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

[Frostweaver]

53 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

No, the plural of anecdote is also not statistic.

Keep telling yourself that. Lots of people have made the mistake of not recognizing a statistic until it is too late.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Frostweaver

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, Zerethon said:

Basically, make it easier for people to get into PLAYING a sentinel, right now builds aside, it feels like you have to sit someone down and teach them at least a highschool if not college-level course on how the class works so they figure out how to shred with the best. Builds will always be akward just like a PB/WS or VEAT because you can be entirely ranged with defense sets to worry about, not just doing the most damage.

@Frostweaver - definitely hitting some of the finer points that I have felt for a while now.  @Zerethon - The quoted statement hits home too.  

Also, for @Zerethon, and just for funsies, I can't say hitting 50 HP regen on a Regeneration character is all that impressive to me.  Perhaps my WP Tanker just makes that jaded with 120 hp/s.  😉  

Know what makes that 50 hp/s on Sentinel regen really cool though?  That absorb toggle that effectively increases that 50 pts to something higher.  Couple that with being out of melee when you want, and Sent Regen is surprisingly durable.  An old popular Scrapper combo was Dark/Regen.  Dark/Regen on Sentinels is the defensive alternative on steroids.  Not because of Life Drain.  No, Sentinel Life Drain sucks for healing.  Sents get Blackstar though, and that's a whole different level of awesome with /Regen.  Not quite a guarantee on all targets, but good enough for most enemies.  

Know what's kinda impressive too?  My Water/Dark regenerates 64.93 hp/s for 10 seconds under Obscure Sustenance.  Not quite perma times on the highest benefit, but bursts of that kind of regen is pretty nice.  That layers with the heal in Dehydrate I have.  None of my other mitigation layers are maxed out.  I don't have soft-cap defenses or even hard capped S/L resist.  I have a ton of knockdown, AoE stuns, and layered healing.  Its also pretty durable.  I'm not sure I'd rave too much on Sentinel Dark Armor.  I mean I like it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say melee has it a lot easier.  Still, it can be a really good set but it is a weird set of problems to solve.  

[Zerethon]

6 hours ago, oldskool said:

@Frostweaver - definitely hitting some of the finer points that I have felt for a while now.  @Zerethon - The quoted statement hits home too.  

Also, for @Zerethon, and just for funsies, I can't say hitting 50 HP regen on a Regeneration character is all that impressive to me.  Perhaps my WP Tanker just makes that jaded with 120 hp/s.  😉  

Know what makes that 50 hp/s on Sentinel regen really cool though?  That absorb toggle that effectively increases that 50 pts to something higher.  Couple that with being out of melee when you want, and Sent Regen is surprisingly durable.  An old popular Scrapper combo was Dark/Regen.  Dark/Regen on Sentinels is the defensive alternative on steroids.  Not because of Life Drain.  No, Sentinel Life Drain sucks for healing.  Sents get Blackstar though, and that's a whole different level of awesome with /Regen.  Not quite a guarantee on all targets, but good enough for most enemies.  

Know what's kinda impressive too?  My Water/Dark regenerates 64.93 hp/s for 10 seconds under Obscure Sustenance.  Not quite perma times on the highest benefit, but bursts of that kind of regen is pretty nice.  That layers with the heal in Dehydrate I have.  None of my other mitigation layers are maxed out.  I don't have soft-cap defenses or even hard capped S/L resist.  I have a ton of knockdown, AoE stuns, and layered healing.  Its also pretty durable.  I'm not sure I'd rave too much on Sentinel Dark Armor.  I mean I like it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say melee has it a lot easier.  Still, it can be a really good set but it is a weird set of problems to solve.  

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. Tank/brute WP is NUTS if built well (higher HP and better scaling = way stronger regen)

And it's not just that, Sentinel regen has the absorb toggle and attacks from a RANGE which means you can be crafty about how much damage you take (By say, hovering as usual and making melee mobs useless) so my 51-odd HP/sec + Absorb/sec from Instant + just straight up ignoring 90% of melee attacks through movement = Absolutely disgusting.

And Dark blast, oh boy. i run a Dark/Bio combo so you have that pure insanity of blackstar stacked with /Bio's BS and it's just...wrong on so many levels.

And dark is a sleeper to me. On melee it's amazing, but the angry ball of pocket lint works suprisingly well with range. I paired it with dark originally and it was basically unkillable, now i've got it paired with water like you do and it's just....comical. You play it kinda like my Elec/rad sents but not because you have a melee attack, but because cloak of fear and oppressive can outright just stop most enemies dead while you casually blow them apart.

DPistols/Dark is another one, it's not a really good DPS build at all, but there's something hilarious about seeing a ton of bullets flying out of a cloud and a dozen enemies just shaking in terror...while on fire.

[Wavicle]

Another possible way to do it, not necessarily my favorite idea so far but:

Increase base damage (somewhere between 1 and 1.125) and make the self buff aspects of Opportunity into Team buffs. EVERYONE gets Offensive Opportunity or Defensive Opportunity when you trigger it. Take a look at the degree to which multiple Sentinels could stack, I'm not sure.

Still would do a lot less damage than Blasters personally but would increase team damage/hp/end by quite a bit more than currently.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Wavicle

[Zerethon]

6 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Another possible way to do it, not necessarily my favorite idea so far but:

Increase base damage (somewhere between 1 and 1.125) and make the self buff aspects of Opportunity into Team buffs. EVERYONE gets Offensive Opportunity or Defensive Opportunity when you trigger it. Take a look at the degree to which multiple Sentinels could stack, I'm not sure.

Still would do a lot less damage than Blasters personally but would increase team damage/hp/end by quite a bit more than currently.

So, we've talked about the issue with "Just up the scaling" before, but let me break this down in a stupidly oversimplified form:

On my Elec, my hardest-hitting non nuke attack does about 315dmg, and on my Elec/NRG Blaster, my hardest hitting (no defiance) attack does 678dmg (!) and these are both with no buffs or debuffs

Lets say they do that much damage to an enemy through their base resists, for the sake of simplicity and argument. so combined, if those 2 attacks hit, they do 993 damage (Not counting Aim, build up, defiance, etc, that's just base smack in the face damage)

Now lets say i spike the guy with opportunity, dropping his resists to our damage by 20%, so now we hit 20% harder (Roughly, this part is pretty hard to explain fully but "20% more damage" because -20% resist can actually vary wildly because of how the game works)

Now i do 378dmg, and the blaster does 814 (!) for a total of 1192 damage

Both these attacks are roughly 3s CD (2.9 and 2.4s) so 993/3 = 331dps, 1192/3 = 397.3dps from just spamming those 2 attacks, not even a rotation.

Now if we went extreme and bumped the scale to 1.125 same as a blaster, that's a 17.5%+ increase, so it becomes 370base/444 debuffed which yeah, is still only like 66% of a blaster while in opp on a debuffed target but with nearly complete impunity (innate self healing, end return, status protection, damage resistance....)

Remember, we can buff an ENTIRE TEAMS DAMAGE by "20%" (See above) when we hit an opportunity strike, hence why we're in sorta the tanker boat for damage. The trade-off is we get stupid survival, fast nukes, great debuffs, and pretty good sustain (We can DPS for longer due to opp and it's end return) but we're not the bursty types. And honestly, we don't need it

Yeah, it kinda sucks, we get it. You wanna nuke and see those 900+ Damage numbers like a blaster, but we're more like a defender. Dangerous enough solo if not fast, but in a team you basically death-mark a single target and can get it to nearly 100% uptime

We just need a way to make that DPS Boost less clunky and therefore more dangerous, so that we don't have these scenarios where we're just going through the rotations....and we accidentally waste it on a minion because of autotarget and we were 2 points of opp higher than we thought.

[Coyote]

On 6/9/2020 at 2:03 PM, Wavicle said:

No, the plural of anecdote is also not statistic.

Ooh! ooh! I'll take a shot!
Is it... STATISTICS??!?!! 😄

[oldskool]

2 hours ago, Zerethon said:

On my Elec, my hardest-hitting non nuke attack does about 315dmg, and on my Elec/NRG Blaster, my hardest hitting (no defiance) attack does 678dmg (!) and these are both with no buffs or debuffs

This is one of those things where @Frostweaver's previous comment on build complexity being a real issue.  Folks like @nihilii played around in theorycraft-land for a long time.  So seeing potential in powers is probably second nature.  To many other people it is not.  

What am I getting here?  You're pointing how your Sentinel has the hardest hitting non-nuke at 315 damage.  Mine does more.  That's assuming we're talking about Tesla Cage vs Zapp and not Zapping Bolt vs Zapp.  The average expected damage of my Zapping Bolt is a mere 321 pts of damage when not considering my Interface.  My Tesla Cage has an average expected damage of 560 without Interface contribution.  That stems from Musculature pushing ED, my Hybrid granting an always on 10%, the rest of my build considerations, and of course having a few procs there.  My Tesla Cage isn't even loaded with full procs.  I have 3.   

Zapp could also take procs since it has access to the Manticore Toxic, but I rarely see folks doing that.  This is where slotting of the AT becomes very important and these kinds of illustrations get very difficult.  For anyone that thinks "but it should be good on its own", that's fine too.  However, just note that when I can put procs in my Blasters snipes; I do that too.  Procs maybe an issue all on their own, but for right now they are tools to be used.  If a build plan can incorporate more damage in this manner, then why not do it?  

Sentinel (single target) Electrical Blast looks like the following: 

 

Charged Bolts ~ 52 dmg 1  animation (default non-arcanatime)

Lightning Bolt ~ 86 dmg 1.67

Zapping Bolt 103 dmg 1  (!!!) animation

Tesla Cage 120 dmg 2.17 animation 

Blaster (single target) EB with fast snipe Zapp looks like:

 

CB ~ 62 dmg 1animation

LB ~ 102 dmg 1.67 animation

Zapp (fast) ~ 172 1.33 animation 

Tesla Cage  9 dmg 2.17 animation 

 

You can use that info however you like. 

[Edit Notes]: 

So I figured I'd come back to the base numbers for a moment.  There isn't really much of a conclusion to make out of just the base numbers.  Just looking over everything it is pretty clear Zapp carries a lot of the damage.  It is pretty clear Sentinel damage is a bit more spread out over several powers.  If you could run an ideal chain of just the 3 most powerful attacks, then the Blaster will come out ahead.  The Blaster will come out ahead in other situations where they're focusing on improving damage through raw numbers.  Their base damage being higher is just friendly to those kinds of modifications.  

The above doesn't consider Defiance.  Defiance can stack for a few seconds and in the ideal chain you're going to get some stacks duplicating.  This can add 30%+ more damage and likely higher if you stack it fast enough.  This is why Sentinels should favor Alphas like Musculature if you're going to bother seeing who has the bigger epeen.  Sentinels still won't close the gap even with Musculature.  Narrow it for sure, but rarely fully close it. 

Since Sentinels can potentially cover more durability, easier, they can sometimes include damage procs.  Does a Sentinel heavy proc build always out pace a Blaster?  Probably not, but it may not be as wide a gap as it sounds.  Does a Blaster incorporating melee hits and dumping powers like Charged Bolts from the routine do more damage?  Very like, yes. Its pretty pointless to ignore Blaster secondaries.  

Are Sentinels behind Blasters in ST ranged damage?  Generally, yes.  How big a gap that really is depends entirely on the person building that character.  Is it as easy to build Sentinel damage upwards on just full sets?  No.  Definitely not when compared to an AT like a Blaster or Scrapper where their default damage rating is more favorable to increased modification.  

Now, consider the ramifications of moving Sentinel EB to a 1.125 modifier while still having a general ease of use on proc slotting.  That can probably skew balance in ways we're not thinking about.  It would help people that are just vehemently opposed to procs, but it will push other builds higher.  Just something to think about. 

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by oldskool

[Frostweaver]

2 hours ago, Zerethon said:

So, we've talked about the issue with "Just up the scaling" before, but let me break this down in a stupidly oversimplified form:

On my Elec, my hardest-hitting non nuke attack does about 315dmg, and on my Elec/NRG Blaster, my hardest hitting (no defiance) attack does 678dmg (!) and these are both with no buffs or debuffs

I know that wasn't the focus of your comment, but I couldn't resist:

 

 

That is EVERY sentinel's birthright. a 6 second, 450 point, long-range, 1.1 second cast time ST Hold 🙂

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Frostweaver

[oldskool]

14 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

That is EVERY sentinel's birthright. a 6 second, 450 point, long-range, 1.1 second cast time ST Hold 🙂

 

Its not like Blasters don't have access to a ranged hold that they could abuse too.  Char may not be as good as Dominate, but it is there.  

The Devil's Advocate in me also can't help but point out the Blaster doesn't need a procced out Char to beat a Sentinel's baseline damage.  That's the point of that side of the argument.  Blaster's just have higher base damage and generally are easier to build.  I think there is a lot of merit there.  Even in the edit I made in the previous post about EB vs EB of the two ATs the trend there is Sentinels follow a more cookie cutter path to raise damage.  Blasters could potentially roll their face on Mids and come out with a build that probably works.  It may not fantastic, but the level of player agency for build variety is there.  At least, that is what I think is the core of the argument, and player agency is something that CoX has a lot of.  Its just not very prevelent in the Sentinel AT if you care at all about being in some 5-10% competitive range of X/Y/Z archetype.  

Edited June 10, 2020 by oldskool

[Frostweaver]

3 minutes ago, oldskool said:

Its not like Blasters don't have access to a ranged hold that they could abuse too.  Char may not be as good as Dominate, but it is there.  

The Devil's Advocate in me also can't help but point out the Blaster doesn't need a procced out Char to beat a Sentinel's baseline damage.  That's the point of that side of the argument.  Blaster's just have higher base damage and generally are easier to build.  I think there is a lot of merit there.  Even in the edit I made in the previous post about EB vs EB of the two ATs the trend there is Sentinels follow a more cookie cutter path to raise damage.  Blasters could potentially roll their face on Mids and come out with a build that probably works.  It may not fantastic, but the level of player agency for build variety is there.  At least, that is what I think is the core of the argument, and player agency is something that CoX has a lot of.  Its just not very prevelent in the Sentinel AT if you care at all about being in some 5-10% competitive range of X/Y/Z archetype.  

Oh, I get what you are saying. I was just meaning that sentinels absolutely have access to cheatery forms of damage too.

Now, take that hold and add in the -resist that every sentinel gets by default.
And then add in the extra damage that the whole team gets through the sentinel's contribution.

Compare that to the blaster's individual, Non-stacking damage contribution 🙂

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Oh, I get what you are saying. I was just meaning that sentinels absolutely have access to cheatery forms of damage too.

Now, take that hold and add in the -resist that every sentinel gets by default.
And then add in the extra damage that the whole team gets through the sentinel's contribution.

Compare that to the blaster's individual, Non-stacking damage contribution 🙂

You can’t count the sentinel debuffs twice. The blaster benefits from them too, so you count it in the team damage contribution but not in the personal damage contribution.

[oldskool]

2 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Oh, I get what you are saying. I was just meaning that sentinels absolutely have access to cheatery forms of damage too.

Now, take that hold and add in the -resist that every sentinel gets by default.
And then add in the extra damage that the whole team gets through the sentinel's contribution.

Compare that to the blaster's individual, Non-stacking damage contribution 🙂

{Devil's Advocacy is fun; even if you're preaching to the choir! 😄} 

 

The Blaster's damage contribution remains consistent though even if it is entirely selfish.  The Blaster can ramp up Defiance against all targets at any point and it will carry over from attack to attack.  The Sentinel's debuff can easily be lost in a sea of orange numbers in fast moving groups.  It shines the most against targets that live long enough to really compound team damage, but those kinds of events are much more limited (in the grand scope of general play).  Even when Offensive Opportunity is applied to AoE situations it is only a fraction as potent as Defiance and Sentinel base damage is lower to begin with.  

Its tough to suggest Opportunity as being all that impactful at all times as Defiance does something more frequently.  Perception problem, for sure, but there is validity in the actual gameplay impact. 

I do not find Defiance to be all that great of an inherent.  I generally find it to be 'meh' at best. 

[Frostweaver]

12 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

The blaster benefits from them too

That was my point. My sentinel doesn't have to compete with blasters any more than my defender does.

And solo? It's no contest. ALL of my sentinels can farm +4 DA content. (I usually don't, but I absolutely can). My Blaster cap at about +2-+3. And I have lots of both, with decent builds, to compare them. The only exceptions are my regen and WP sentinels, who have personal survival issues... which is why I think that increasing sentinel HP base would be a more significant change than cranking their base damage, or altering their passive.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Frostweaver

[Frostweaver]

9 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

You can’t count the sentinel debuffs twice.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

[Wavicle]

6 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

If you're calculating Sentinel team contribution then you include the debuffs that a Sentinel brings.

If you are calculating Sentinel personal damage contribution then you do not include the debuffs because All damage dealers on the team benefit equally from those.

What is confusing about that?

Sure, if we are comparing SOLO damage capability then we would include the debuffs, but solo damage capability is not really all that important to game balance. It's a small factor among many others.

[Underfyre]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

You can’t count the sentinel debuffs twice. The blaster benefits from them too, so you count it in the team damage contribution but not in the personal damage contribution.

If the damage didn't exist before the Sentinel came along, then the damage can be counted as the Sentinel's damage. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[Zerethon]

2 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

If you're calculating Sentinel team contribution then you include the debuffs that a Sentinel brings.

If you are calculating Sentinel personal damage contribution then you do not include the debuffs because All damage dealers on the team benefit equally from those.

What is confusing about that?

Sure, if we are comparing SOLO damage capability then we would include the debuffs, but solo damage capability is not really all that important to game balance. It's a small factor among many others.

You're right, but you're wrong.

you DO include the debuffs the sentinel applies when talking about the sentinels damage contribution. Because it's not like i magically do 20% less damage when i apply my debuff to a target. I do exactly the same base damage just now that target takes increased damage. In no scenario does my PERSONAL contribution not go up in debuff state

I might only do another ~30-40 DPS personally, but we can't just say "The sentinels debuff doesn't count towards their own damage contribution because everyone else does more damage with it"

So my contribution on the deathmarked target goes up by the same % as everyone else, it's just that ~20% boost is SO MUCH better for the blasters/scrappers/whatever on the team, because they have a higher base damage and boost their own damage far harder than i boost my own even with Aim

Thus, my PERSONAL contribution on debuff state is lower (Sub-100DPS typically) but across the TEAM that can become hundreds. we're still only counting the debuff once here. Just considering it the same as any other damage-boosting debuff. a sonic/sonic defender won't do a ton of damage, but their damage contribution to the team still includes their own damage.
 

 

7 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

I know that wasn't the focus of your comment, but I couldn't resist:

*Procmonster epic pool screencap goes here*

That is EVERY sentinel's birthright. a 6 second, 450 point, long-range, 1.1 second cast time ST Hold 🙂

 

So, edge cases like this do not factor into my ideas of "Balance" or anything in the slightest, my comparisons are all made with the same SO Combo for 5/6 slotted offense powers. They also do NOT include buffs from incarnates or anything of the sort as well.

What happens if you go do a Posi TF? No more epic pool, no more incarnates, etc. happens. (Seriously, i've seen people posting builds that don't have travel powers until like level 44+ because they ONLY do level 50+ content)

When we look at the BROAD range, L1 to L50, sans sets/incarns/whatever sentinels will never touch blasters in damage at all, but blasters will also drop like rocks down a well. The line blurs a lot once you add sets, and NEARLY vanishes once incarns come in, but sentinels will still endure longer and tougher fights easier

But the blaster will also notice the sentinels presence, because the moment they target that boss with the marker on him, they're a god.

 

8 hours ago, oldskool said:

This is one of those things where @Frostweaver's previous comment on build complexity being a real issue.  Folks like @nihilii played around in theorycraft-land for a long time.  So seeing potential in powers is probably second nature.  To many other people it is not.  

What am I getting here?  You're pointing how your Sentinel has the hardest hitting non-nuke at 315 damage.  Mine does more.  That's assuming we're talking about Tesla Cage vs Zapp and not Zapping Bolt vs Zapp.  The average expected damage of my Zapping Bolt is a mere 321 pts of damage when not considering my Interface.  My Tesla Cage has an average expected damage of 560 without Interface contribution.  That stems from Musculature pushing ED, my Hybrid granting an always on 10%, the rest of my build considerations, and of course having a few procs there.  My Tesla Cage isn't even loaded with full procs.  I have 3.   

Zapp could also take procs since it has access to the Manticore Toxic, but I rarely see folks doing that.  This is where slotting of the AT becomes very important and these kinds of illustrations get very difficult.  For anyone that thinks "but it should be good on its own", that's fine too.  However, just note that when I can put procs in my Blasters snipes; I do that too.  Procs maybe an issue all on their own, but for right now they are tools to be used.  If a build plan can incorporate more damage in this manner, then why not do it? 

Pretty much, highest single target ranged vs highest single target ranged. And i'm SO AWARE of how powerful procs are, i know i can break so many powers by just proc'ing them all to hell and back and getting accuracy/rech/end reduc from other sets in other powers. And i staunchly refuse to do so, i will OCCASIONALLY do triple-set slotting (Proc + 2pc + 2pc or 2+2+2 or something) Because of bonuses, but i try to avoid stacking too many procs in things (Other than health/stam). just because it would be SO EASY for that to be nerfed away and break everything.

Main point still stands though, regardless of slotting, increasing the sentinel scaler as a band-aid fix for reliability in the long run doesn't do NEARLY as much as people think it would. It would indeed make solo sentinel stronger, but it doesn't solve the mechanical or build-dependent issues the class actually has
 

[Frostweaver]

13 hours ago, Wavicle said:

If you're calculating Sentinel team contribution then you include the debuffs that a Sentinel brings.

If you are calculating Sentinel personal damage contribution then you do not include the debuffs because All damage dealers on the team benefit equally from those.

What is confusing about that?

Sure, if we are comparing SOLO damage capability then we would include the debuffs, but solo damage capability is not really all that important to game balance. It's a small factor among many others.

You should probably read the 'logic' operations manual, you seem to be having a problem with operating it correctly. Sentinels absolutely benefit from their own debuffs, as does the rest of the team.

[Frostweaver]

12 hours ago, Zerethon said:

So, edge cases like this do not factor into my ideas of "Balance" or anything in the slightest, my comparisons are all made with the same SO Combo for 5/6 slotted offense powers. They also do NOT include buffs from incarnates or anything of the sort as well.

The reason I said "I couldn't resist' was because you were not supposed to take it so seriously. It was sort of a semi joke.

That being said, However, I don't think you CAN compare Sentinels in an SO vacuum, because IO slotting is such a crucial factor of their strength.
Blasters need set bonuses. Most Blasters slot literally half their ranged attacks with 6 Thunderstrike simply to stay alive and fight against DA content. And the rest of their slotting is recharge.

Sentinels have more proc slotting options. because they have innate abilities to defend themselves against damage and mez. And this is a REAL thing.

Sentinels average 7 ranged attacks. Two of those are slotted with ATO"s. Two of those are 5 slotted with purple sets and an extra damage proc (ragnarok's crappy proc doesn't count) and the ST attack slotted with apocalypse is ABSOLUTELY slotted with Gladiator's Javelin Toxic at least. Or, the sentinel might skip Ragnarok and put in something else better, like maybe something with an FF proc

You still have 3 attacks. One of which is an aoe. Highly likely to be FF proc monkey, but it is going to be going off a LOT faster than the Blaster's is... It is a well-known fact that HALF of sentinel nukes are Considerably HIGHER DPS (but lower DPA) than blaster nukes sans defiance, and far higher dps than defenders and corrupters. Anyway, those two ST attacks are procced to high heaven. or 5 slotted (with a proc) with an extra proc on top. And you are likely to scooch another couple of proc-heavy attacks on top.


This is why I don't like comparing Sentinels to Blasters. They are much better compared to certain defender secondaries or corrupters

 

[Zerethon]

11 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

The reason I said "I couldn't resist' was because you were not supposed to take it so seriously. It was sort of a semi joke.

That being said, However, I don't think you CAN compare Sentinels in an SO vacuum, because IO slotting is such a crucial factor of their strength.
Blasters need set bonuses. Most Blasters slot literally half their ranged attacks with 6 Thunderstrike simply to stay alive and fight against DA content. And the rest of their slotting is recharge.
*Snip*
This is why I don't like comparing Sentinels to Blasters. They are much better compared to certain defender secondaries or corrupters

 

I Know, but this is the internet, i have to poke at it.

The "SO Vacuum" is a very legitimate comparison, not everyone has 500 quintillion influence and a personal farming account to PL their own toons, so comparing SO-slotted builds means more to me than the absolutely IO'd right to hell L50 builds when i'm looking at class power or issues.

After all, it's not like the AVERAGE PLAYER who decides to make a sentinel is going to hit level 20, and then partial slot all their non-50 sets and expand the slotting of them every time they get more slots.

Not to mention, a LOT of people, including several of my friends hardly use ATO or purps in their builds, because they don't feel like putting hundreds of millions of INF into a single alt....when they have a couple dozen or more alts to build out, heck, half of them don't even use Mid's

And, again, you hit it on the head. Sentinels aren't really blaster-tier DPS, even as broken as you can get with incarns and a procmonster build, you're still only doing about 50% of a blasters damage....at BEST. Compared to a Crab/Fort/Def/Corr though, your damage is a lot closer or better, but you also have the survival.

The proper "Big three" here, would be Sentinels, Crab Spiders/Fortunatas (Ranged VEAT) & PB/WS - Ranged primary offense with Durable secondary sets/melee options. We're a lot tougher and have a really solid debuff, but we don't have the same tier of team buff as the VEAT's or the sheer options a PB/WS has. But more appropriate to actual GAMEPLAY to compare sentinel to those classes.

Blasters are the "Extreme" side of ranged damage, but there's literally 4 other "Ranged attack + Defensive secondary" AT's that aren't sentinels.

[Wavicle]

20 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

You should probably read the 'logic' operations manual, you seem to be having a problem with operating it correctly. Sentinels absolutely benefit from their own debuffs, as does the rest of the team.

You are misunderstanding my point. Of course the Sentinel and the team benefit from the debuffs. My point is that when comparing the damage of the Sentinel and the Blaster WHEN TEAMED the Blaster will also benefit from the Sentinel debuffs. So you can't include the debuff as part of the Sentinel's damage but NOT count it as part of the Blaster's damage.  If we were comparing solo play, sure, but comparing solo play is not really very important.

[Wavicle]

28 minutes ago, Zerethon said:

The proper "Big three" here, would be Sentinels, Crab Spiders/Fortunatas (Ranged VEAT) & PB/WS - Ranged primary offense with Durable secondary sets/melee options. We're a lot tougher and have a really solid debuff, but we don't have the same tier of team buff as the VEAT's or the sheer options a PB/WS has. But more appropriate to actual GAMEPLAY to compare sentinel to those classes.

And therein lies the problem. VEATs provide MUCH better "support" than Sentinels. Kheldians can spec to be not just tough but actual tanks with aggro management abilities. Sentinels ONLY provide damage really, plus a very small amount of debuffing. VEATs and Khelds both do similar damage to Sentinels yet also provide other benefits to the team. That is precisely the problem.

[Frostweaver]

57 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

You are misunderstanding my point. Of course the Sentinel and the team benefit from the debuffs. My point is that when comparing the damage of the Sentinel and the Blaster WHEN TEAMED the Blaster will also benefit from the Sentinel debuffs. So you can't include the debuff as part of the Sentinel's damage but NOT count it as part of the Blaster's damage.  If we were comparing solo play, sure, but comparing solo play is not really very important.

Except that the blaster does NOT GET THE DAMAGE if the sentinel is not present. Therefore, that extra damage the blaster gets? Direct result of sentinel's activities.

So yes, it counts. As does every single other person's damage boost. a sonic/ could count that contribution as well. Hell, an entire low-damage AT is based on what non-damage components they bring to a team to boost their damage, as are several powersets.

looking at a sentinel and ignoring the extra damage they help a team bring to the table leads to an utterly innacurate picture of the AT's value. And that contribution is large enough that it is NOTICED on things like an ITF or Itrial.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just a side note: I just soloed a max diff ITF with my fire/bio sent. Two faceplants from Requiem. Taking him down took about as long as the entire 4th mission. No ultimate insps. Just used what I showed up with and what dropped.

 

Just one point of data.

 

Granted.... it did take 3:22 including a lunch break and some smoke breaks.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Wavicle]

11 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Except that the blaster does NOT GET THE DAMAGE if the sentinel is not present. Therefore, that extra damage the blaster gets? Direct result of sentinel's activities.

So yes, it counts. As does every single other person's damage boost. a sonic/ could count that contribution as well. Hell, an entire low-damage AT is based on what non-damage components they bring to a team to boost their damage, as are several powersets.

looking at a sentinel and ignoring the extra damage they help a team bring to the table leads to an utterly innacurate picture of the AT's value. And that contribution is large enough that it is NOTICED on things like an ITF or Itrial.

You’re still missing my point. I’m not saying ignore the debuffing. I’m saying you count it in a separate column. You don’t count it as personal damage, but you do count it as team contribution.