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

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, Mechanisto said:

But I could see Sentinels focusing more on single-target or small-group damage

Agreed.  This is why I often build Sentinels in the way I do.  I try to squeeze more out of their single-target damage than I do lamenting lower target caps on AoE.  I don't play the AT like a wannabe ranged-only Blaster.  I play it more like a Scrapper that doesn't need to be hit by melee.   It works for me.  

I'd like to be clear on something though.  For some reason, I feel like this needs to be stated.  I've never made one of these threads.  I'm actually pretty happy with my Sentinels just the way they are.  I'm very aware that some of my other characters can do more damage, but that doesn't change the fact I'm generally happy with what I have.  I fully recognize that other people want the AT to be "fixed".  I both enjoy my Sentinels, but also empathize with their thoughts.  

The only reason why I even bothered to bring up suggestions about change of the mechanic in the first place is because there is an outcry for it.  The devs have heard it and they plan to address it.  The squeaky wheels will get their grease.  Folks want Opportunity to be something else.  If it has to change, so be it.  However, if folks think that pushing the base damage scalar from 0.95 to 1.0 or even 1.125 is going to somehow get them into the 300+ DPS club overnight, then they are delusional.  

[Wavicle]

4 minutes ago, oldskool said:

However, if folks think that pushing the base damage scalar from 0.95 to 1.0 or even 1.125 is going to somehow get them into the 300+ DPS club overnight, then they are delusional.  

Oh definitely. I never meant to suggest otherwise. I always assumed it would take some serious tinkering.

[oldskool]

Word.

[Zerethon]

The problem too i think is people are looking at things like Mids or a Rikti pylon and calculating DPS based on 2 of TENS OF THOUSANDS of cases, easily

Cool, you do 84927^3 DPS to a rikti pylon with all T4 incarns and a procmonster build....But what about in a scaled down TF against resistant enemies? It's just a variant of people wondering why their fire farmer instadies in a +4 ITF when they can do +4/X8 solo fire farming.

Yeah, my DPS might be ~170 with debuffs, but i'm making EVERYONE ELSE do an extra 50+DPS which means i'm effectively doing 500+DPS in an 8man (Assuming my -res is the only -res on the team, when you stack a sentinel with a sonic/sonic defender it gets so much worse)

This is what basically EVERYBODY always misses, single player single target DPS in the actual game basically means nothing other than you have a slight advantage in that one case since this isn't WoW or something where you end up 1v1'ing enemies rather often. Even basic Lv1 hellion groups in atlas are 2+ enemies at a time.

Thus, the sentinel problem, in a vacuum our damage is low, but in practice you KNOW you have a sentinel on the squad when you see the crosshairs and an AV/EB/GM Whatever just implodes

Seriously, had 3 of us on an ITF yesterday, Rom went down like we were doing a speedrun of a speedrun. Vulnerability paired with Kin buffs is stupid.

This is also the key, see, sentinels don't have ANY downside on a team. Put down the torch and hear me out.

Basically, every single mission in the game at some point involves combat, and at no point is there a downside to having a sentinel paired with you.

1.) They're going to do damage constantly to a target, and you pretty much never have to worry about them actually dying
2.) You're going to do more damage because they're going to be debuffing with opportunity
3.) Sentinel Mez-powers unlike blasters, typically do EXTREME damage and therefore we spam them, constantly taking enemies out of the fight
4.) Some armor sets like /Elec /Bio or /Invuln are tough enough to outright tank a suprising number of missions, making them a good aggro magnet for a squishy.

It's all the fun of a scrapper with the advantage of debuffs and range, a blaster will hit harder but drop faster, especially at low levels. etc.

This is why i push so hard for the Clicky-based opportunity, everything about how we currently work is actually completely fine when you take it out of this meta-based vacuum BS ****-waving contest and actually PLAY the game as one, the major issue is that fully utilizing the class and ability is down to timing, luck, and forced build paths. We basically get a "Hunters mark" type power as our passive and it's amazing, it's just easy to ignore when you focus solely on the damage of the lone sentinel

If you don't believe it, duo a pylon or something with a sentinel twice and have them open with opportunity strike in the second round, then times that by 7 and you get the idea.

[oldskool]

This person @Zerethon.  I like them.  

You may get some flack for some of what you wrote, but I think the sentiment is what counts.  It is similar to how I feel. 😉 

[Zerethon]

3 hours ago, oldskool said:

This person @Zerethon.  I like them.  

You may get some flack for some of what you wrote, but I think the sentiment is what counts.  It is similar to how I feel. 😉 

It happens in every team-based game, "X is horrible and i hate it because i can't do Y"

Or in this case "Sentinel sucks because i'm not just a blaster with armor and i don't do a billion dps"

I made a crab spider comparison before, and it's very apt, while you don't do a ton of damage without your pets and things, things like the uber-leadership toggles and venom grenade make it VERY obvious there's a crab on your team

A Solo sentinel is still scary just the same, but when you put 1 or more on a team they really shine, it's constant DPS and a good sentinel is taking out priority targets (healy things, rezzers, etc) with the high-damage mez attacks and short chains while dropping Opportunity on Bosses/EB's/AV's so that the harder-hitting but more risky DPS can rip them to pieces while you keep giggling like an idiot every time you get a Devastation proc or the like on them.

And honestly, the flak just drives me to break "weak" classes more. All of my "Mains" on here are Sentinels and Stalkers now, alongside a pure-arbiter SoA (Bane spec for stealth and debuff, perma pets w/ AR Attacks and buildup)

I mean, if pure raw DPS was the only thing that mattered in the game, why would anyone play anything other than a blaster?

[Zeraphia]

1 hour ago, Zerethon said:

I mean, if pure raw DPS was the only thing that mattered in the game, why would anyone play anything other than a blaster?

It is a false assumption that adding more Blasters to a team is the way to achieve the highest DPS possible. It is not. Very often you'll find adding a Kinetics or a Cold Corruptor/Defender in addition to someone with a fast Sonic Blast chain will always yield higher DPS results because of the group amplifying than just flat out Blasters. 

 

I honestly wish more people saw those benefits and brought them to teams, that is truly at this point the most valuable contribution for a team you can possibly do. Kinetics and Colds overlapping is never a bad thing at all, it actually makes teams uber uber powerful. 

 

I end up playing my Fire/Cold Corruptor more than anything else, I mained my Fire/Fire Blaster purely for soloing.

[Galaxy Brain]

(Have not finished reading, but replying to an early idea on page 1)

 

@Ironscarlet had the idea to turn the Opportunity mark into a Proc rather than a strictly controlled application, and then the opportunity bar still gives you a self buff when full.

 

I rather like the idea of Sentinels "critting" opportunity and applying Mark's far more often, it makes it feel not as urgent to use or as wasteful when it is tied directly to X amount of meter and only certain powers.

 

A good change IMO would be to have all the (ST?) attacks have a base 5% chance to proc Opportunity Mark's. As you gain meter however, this chance increases up to say >25% (thinking like 35% if not more tbh). This still allows your T1 and T2 to be better suited for proccing Opportunities given they cycle so quickly.

[drbuzzard]

4 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

It is a false assumption that adding more Blasters to a team is the way to achieve the highest DPS possible. It is not. Very often you'll find adding a Kinetics or a Cold Corruptor/Defender in addition to someone with a fast Sonic Blast chain will always yield higher DPS results because of the group amplifying than just flat out Blasters. 

 

I honestly wish more people saw those benefits and brought them to teams, that is truly at this point the most valuable contribution for a team you can possibly do. Kinetics and Colds overlapping is never a bad thing at all, it actually makes teams uber uber powerful. 

 

I end up playing my Fire/Cold Corruptor more than anything else, I mained my Fire/Fire Blaster purely for soloing.

People used to know that stacked buff/debuff characters was how you broke the game. I'm not really sure how that knowledge was lost. However leveraging that requires people to stick together and coordinate, and again we're talking a lost art. 

[drbuzzard]

6 hours ago, Zerethon said:

I made a crab spider comparison before, and it's very apt, while you don't do a ton of damage without your pets and things, things like the uber-leadership toggles and venom grenade make it VERY obvious there's a crab on your team

In ideal circumstances (as in somehow the pets all stay alive, which is doable on a pylon run, but not so much in normal TF play in my experience), a crabbermind does high end damage. I think they have very respectable pylon times. I have a SoA with two builds, one as a crabbermind and another as a ranged tank. The crabbermind does sick damage while the pets last, but I find that to be a small enough percentage of the time, that re-summoning pets on long timers annoys me to much and I play the tank build. The ranged tank is as you say- so so damage, but high team support. 

 

You did mention people thinking stalkers were a weak class- that's for people who aren't in the know. Stalkers are the highest single target damage class (unless TW scrappers throw this off too far, I don't follow pylon stuff much). I have a number of stalkers and recently have forced myself to build up some scrappers to see the contrast. There is no comparison, stalkers are flat out brutal killing machines that can reap AVs like they were summer wheat. They suffer a bit on AOEs in general, but dayum, their single target damage is brutal. 

[Zeraphia]

39 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

You did mention people thinking stalkers were a weak class- that's for people who aren't in the know. Stalkers are the highest single target damage class (unless TW scrappers throw this off too far, I don't follow pylon stuff much). I have a number of stalkers and recently have forced myself to build up some scrappers to see the contrast. There is no comparison, stalkers are flat out brutal killing machines that can reap AVs like they were summer wheat. They suffer a bit on AOEs in general, but dayum, their single target damage is brutal. 

True and false...

 

TW/ scrappers are high enough damage now that even the most damaging Stalker (StJ/Dual Blades) with their -res procs has a hard time matching TW times or just being right on par with them. However, the guaranteed bursts for something like a boss or an EB are definitely and firmly in the Stalker's favor over uncontrolled crits (even if they are sort of controlled with the ATO to an extent.) So it's about 50/50 true about this one, but be cautious. How it ultimately comes down is that over time, TW will even out the difference of the highest damaging Stalker in ST, do just enough to feel fine, and will get substantially better AoE. TW/Bio is definitely broken though, and it doesn't reflect a true DPS comparison of Scrapper vs. Stalker in ST, where many of the Scrapper combos will not do the same ST DPS.

 

Compared to Blaster? A fire/ blaster is definitely formidable, fire/fire will come very close, but still an StJ/Bio or a DB/Bio (with a TON of recharge) will out-DPS it. I would say that top Blaster combo is about 90-93% the damage of top Stalker combo.

 

However there is a "dark horse" in Thugs/Storm, lots of Mastermind combos in general, but particularly Thugs/Storm will definitely out-DPS it. If this particular Thugs/Storm goes for it as well, they can out-DPS it by almost double. It isn't consistent obviously because of the nature Masterminds work, but it will definitely end up as the top. Ninjas could technically be higher but it never works out that way for them, the Ninjas don't have the same types of procs, they don't survive as well, and the procs that Thugs can run put them solidly ahead (plus the Tactics). Obviously as with Mastermind and Storm Summoning, the damage isn't completely controlled and is less versatile, pets can die, the peak damages require Burnout for double gang war, 4x nado & LS and triple Freezing Rain...

[oldskool]

Its a circle of life... and thought.  

I know at one point I had thrown out the idea that is pretty much similar to most.  That was to make Opportunity a separate click thing and raise the base damage slightly.  

The reason why I started on critical hits as an idea is all due to the ideas of making Sentinel damage match something.  I've gotten awfully long winded as to why some kind of additional filler for the inherent would be necessary to increase Sentinel damage.  It should be obvious, but in case it is not, that specific change would be aimed at non-procs builds.  Right now, if anyone cared to do it, a proc heavy build can push DPS dealt within various power combos upward.  Most folks participating in this thread know this.  The concerns about the AT standing on its own without procs is valid.  I hear you folks, and that concern does have merit.  

Since this thread is now 9 pages and starting to cycle away from bickering (which is great!) I can throw around my other original thoughts. 😁

I think most folks agree that Opportunity up time is an issue.  Doesn't really matter if it is 40% up time or 60%+ up time.  The fact it isn't available as frequently as other passive bonuses is a problem.  It is largely a problem in this respect because it doesn't carry the same impact (in some eyes) as Domination can.  

Opportunity's longer up time can be seen easily while leveling.  A build just doesn't have the recharge to really chain attacks fast enough to build meter in under 15 seconds.  Some may, in bursts, but generally speaking this is unlikely.  The Sentinel ATO isn't a great help to this issue either.  The basic attuned version is PPM 1.  Yuk.  Its not exactly going to fix this problem.  If players build into more recharge, then they can potentially shorten their attack chains substantially.  This does have an impact on Opportunity up time.  That should probably change to be more flexible. 

What's Opportunity do though?  Where is some room for improvement, right?  

Most know by now that Opportunity has multiple parts.  Most know that Opportunity imposes a very minor set of debuffs the moment a successful hit lands and it is trivial to maintain.  Most know that Opportunity also builds up to a bigger event.  We all seem to know that part of the event is a -20% resistance debuff.  There is also a very high chance that the debuff parts are going to be rolled into general AT damage scalars.  What about the buff parts though?

It has been a long time since Sunsette wrote about Offensive and so I decided to observe it a bit myself.  Offensive absolutely creates an additional hit of damage that is based on a percentage of the parent power's base damage.  That exact percentage does not seem to be universal.  The T1 I used appeared to be creating a new damage effect that was around 15% of the base power.  My T3 and T4 seemed to have around 21%.  The exact number may be a bit higher since the targets hit had some resistance, about 20-25% (it wasn't a Pylon).  So the numbers are rough estimates since Opportunity innately lowers any resistance even if slightly.  The damage numbers below are taken from my combat log so they're hard numbers vs exact percentages like 21% of X power.  However X power did consistently do Y damage, and that damage did increase as the target's resistance went down (thanks Achilles' Heel). 

Just because I'm being nitpicky; there are two chains I can run.  One of them is more realistic to what I actually do, but another is within the realm of possibility of my build.  Chain #1 is T4 - T1 - T3 - T1.  Chain #2 T4 - T3 - T1.  

Chain #1 runs 6.072 seconds and the other runs 4.884 seconds.  I can run the second with a minor gap while Ageless is down.  I don't often run Ageless, but I could since the character has more than one Destiny (benefits of playing it for a year I guess).  The game does seem to register activation times trigger before an effect ends and includes it within a window.  This was experimented on in the Defender forums relating to the Decimation Build-Up proc.  Let's just assume it for a moment.  I can confirm my own reflexes aren't precision like a machines so I cannot actually pull it off.  I'm just assuming it is possible and that can be a mistake.  So note that. 

Chain #1 becomes T4 -> T1 -> T3 -> T1 -> T4 -> T1 -> T3 -> T1 -> T4 -> T1 (Effect ends).   T4 adds 22 pts of damage.  T3 adds 18 pts of damage.  T1 adds 8 pts of damage.  Numbers rounded.  No target struck with the -20%.  I fired it at a rando target and then switched against a non-debuffed enemy.  I had to pray that Achilles' Heel didn't fire (didn't want to remove it even for the sake of Science!).  That's 142 damage added over the span of 15 seconds.  The procs I run in the T4 and T3 are both purple quality.  They're not exactly guaranteed to go off, but their expected average is 170 damage.  Its possible the final T1 can't be trigger thus missing out on 8 damage for a new total of 134.  

Chain #2 can happen 3 times in the span of 14.652 seconds.  If you can squeeze out another T4 right before 15 seconds ends, then it would look like: 

T4 - T3 - T1 - repeat x 3 -> T4 (effect ended just after the power was queued).  That's 166 damage in the same span.  Recharge helps.  If the effect end and activation queue didn't matter, then the damage would be 144.  Only a minor improvement. 😞 

The damage contribution of the current Offensive Opportunity is very minor.  Its overall damage seemed to contribute damage roughly on par with adding a PPM 3.5 proc into the whole routine.  The faster one can bring Opportunity back up, the better this damage gets, but even then it isn't that much as Sentinel base damage isn't that high. Health returned per hit was something like 22 health and roughly 4 end with Defensive Opportunity.  

The effects are obviously so slight that having these two combined won't break the game at all.  Even pushing the base AT scalar up to 1.125 isn't a real threat to damage with Offensive adding only 15 to 20~ percent base damage.  Defiance can stack higher and adds on top of existing damage vs being a separate check susceptible to resistance on its own.  

All of this assumes that the broader player base is OK with Sentinels doing slightly less overall damage even under these conditions.  I don't see Sentinels really eclipsing any other ATs with these changes.  For the record, I also don't think they *need* to either.  

Making the current Offensive Opportunity more consistent would be a nice benefit.  If the meter function built up its damage, then perhaps that is a worthwhile alternative to consider.  So perhaps Offensive and Defensive buffs are on all the time, and the meter builds their effect up like Fury.  Either the meter could work like Fury and stay high during combat or it could ebb and flow.  If the damage is too spiky, then it is not doing what it should.  

Anyway, enough from me for now.  This is already too long. 
 

Edited June 4, 2020 by oldskool
Just minor fixes

[drbuzzard]

Yeah, TW does throw things off, but I understand it will be getting put in its place, so I think my stalkers as king evaluation isn't terribly wrong, just premature. 

[oldskool]

3 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Yeah, TW does throw things off, but I understand it will be getting put in its place, so I think my stalkers as king evaluation isn't terribly wrong, just premature. 

It wasn't wrong per one of the last posts by CP stating Stalkers are king of ST damage.  

TW is an outlier.  It isn't representative of all Scrapper builds nor is it representative of Scrapper potential.  It is merely is representative of TW/* potential.  

The kind of metrics that create statements like "Stalkers are top on ST" come from averaging out data from logs compiling a wide range of player action.  

You're both right, but the context is important.  

When discussing broad strokes of DPS no one should assume outliers are the prime point of comparison (and that's not really directed at you DrBuzzard, I think you get it).  On average, most players do not optimize their characters.  So it should stand to reason that the average Stalker build will likely do more ST damage than the average Scrapper build.  The Stalker ATOs just make this very easy to do even at the non-superior versions.  

Not much stands up to a truly pimped out TW/Bio Scrapper, but that probably won't be forever either.  

[Zerethon]

Oh man i missed a bit, here we go

8 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

It is a false assumption that adding more Blasters to a team is the way to achieve the highest DPS possible. It is not. Very often you'll find adding a Kinetics or a Cold Corruptor/Defender in addition to someone with a fast Sonic Blast chain will always yield higher DPS results because of the group amplifying than just flat out Blasters. 

 

I honestly wish more people saw those benefits and brought them to teams, that is truly at this point the most valuable contribution for a team you can possibly do. Kinetics and Colds overlapping is never a bad thing at all, it actually makes teams uber uber powerful. 

 

I end up playing my Fire/Cold Corruptor more than anything else, I mained my Fire/Fire Blaster purely for soloing.

Not ENTIRELY sure if intentional, but you instantly proved what i said with this. Pure raw DPS is NOT how you actually do the most damage. Otherwise stacking blasters would be all that mattered. In reality having a couple of Pure or High DPS builds paired with a lot of debuffs is always higher DPS.

 

3 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

People used to know that stacked buff/debuff characters was how you broke the game. I'm not really sure how that knowledge was lost. However leveraging that requires people to stick together and coordinate, and again we're talking a lost art. 

Because people are so used to the idea that "Support = weak and low damage" from other games, even buffers/medics in shooters tend not to have the biggest baddest guns available. So especially people who are basically new to COX Want to play the blaster/stalker/scrapper not the Troller/dom/brute/etc.

Whereas, anyone who's played CoX for any length of time knows that if you want to kill things in femtosecond timescales, you bring a couple Kin/X - X/Kin builds. Remember doing Long killy TF's with THREE Fire/Kin trollers? Pepperidge farm remembers.

 

1 hour ago, oldskool said:

TW is an outlier.  It isn't representative of all Scrapper builds nor is it representative of Scrapper potential.  It is merely is representative of TW/* potential.  

The kind of metrics that create statements like "Stalkers are top on ST" come from averaging out data from logs compiling a wide range of player action.  

You're both right, but the context is important. 

And you smacked it directly on the head, because the top statement describes how to properly look at things like set & class balance. You don't nerf scrapper melee scalar because TW is too powerful, you nerf scrapper TW. You also don't buff scrappers because claws is too weak, you buff claws. Sets are representatives of themselves, not entire classes

Context is EXTREMELY important, i mentioned i test with base SO's so generally in a 5-slotted attack i'll have 2dmg/1acc/1end/1rech @ 50 and suchforth for defensive powers/holds/etc. as this is more representative of what the BASE SET is capable of TW/Bio without IO's is alright, but without all the procs and end rec and such, it peters out pretty quick since TW is expensive to run. But at the fully-IO'd full incarn extremes? Yeah it's friggin' terrifying.

And i do this for every class and every build i make before i start slotting them all out.

[Zeraphia]

51 minutes ago, Zerethon said:

Oh man i missed a bit, here we go

Not ENTIRELY sure if intentional, but you instantly proved what i said with this. Pure raw DPS is NOT how you actually do the most damage. Otherwise stacking blasters would be all that mattered. In reality having a couple of Pure or High DPS builds paired with a lot of debuffs is always higher DPS.

Perhaps it was me miss-perceiving your point, which can happen as this is text after all. My point was that it seemed like you were saying that stacking more Blasters on to a team was going to make it deal the highest damage possible, which I pointed out isn't the case. The way it was worded was:

11 hours ago, Zerethon said:

if pure raw DPS was the only thing that mattered in the game, why would anyone play anything other than a blaster?

it makes it sound like adding more Blasters is the way to achieve the highest DPS possible.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Zerethon]

33 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Perhaps it was me miss-perceiving your point, which can happen as this is text after all. My point was that it seemed like you were saying that stacking more Blasters on to a team was going to make it deal the highest damage possible, which I pointed out isn't the case. The way it was worded was:

it makes it sound like adding more Blasters is the way to achieve the highest DPS possible.

Yeah, i probably could have worded it a bit better, but the point was basically that if doing damage and only damage was all that mattered (EG: Debuffing/Buffing/Controlling/Etc. was useless) stacking blasters or something would be how you tackled content

The reality is, buffing/debuffing etc. is SO STRONG in CoX that bringing only pure DPS is a losing game. A blaster with a Kin is always more dangerous than just 2 blasters due to speed, cooldown, damage, mez/damage resist buffing, etc paired with either a second DPS set or a CC set or pets now with MM's having /kin.

[drbuzzard]

Don't know if any of you recall Repeat Offenders, but they were a coalition of buff/debuff oriented SGs on Liberty (? I think). They had SGs based on one powerset required for membership. I was in the kinetics one with a kin/archery defender way back when. They also had rad/*, dark/* etc. They would run teams of these guys (and there were a few build requirements for the SGs, namely the leadership toggles), and everything was steamrolled by a rocket powered steamroller. 

 

I wouldn't mind throwing together something like that, but heck I can't get a consistent sentinel team together for the MoITF challenge, so I don't have my hopes up. Personally I think a stacked SoA team would be flat out crazy good. 

[dangeraaron10]

Some good ideas in this thread.

 

I like the idea of Opportunity being a clicky like Domination, being able to use it on whenever you want when it activates (either via the current Fury-like build up or something else?).  This will let players not feel obligated to use the T1 or T2 powers in powersets where they aren't that great, and it makes a complex Inherent a little simpler.  

 

While upgrading the damage scale won't give Sentinels Blaster level damage, they don't need it (or else they'll over shadow Blasters).  While Blasters get their fast snipes, an increased damage scaler for Sentinels will close the gap a bit while keeping their unique utility.  

 

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet (I didn't read ALL the comments, about half of them), but I'd love to see the Opportunity "Fury" Bar be a lot like Domination.  In that once you are able to activate an Opportunity, you get a buff called "Window of Opportunity" and that lets you place 1 of the 2 Opportunities on a target.  During this Window of Opportunity, if the target that has it dies, you can place the Opportunity on a new target.  

[Zerethon]

37 minutes ago, dangeraaron10 said:

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet (I didn't read ALL the comments, about half of them), but I'd love to see the Opportunity "Fury" Bar be a lot like Domination.  In that once you are able to activate an Opportunity, you get a buff called "Window of Opportunity" and that lets you place 1 of the 2 Opportunities on a target.  During this Window of Opportunity, if the target that has it dies, you can place the Opportunity on a new target. 

I proposed a similar idea to this, which was actually even simpler, when you activate it, for the duration single-target attacks (And possibly at a lower chance, AOE) apply stacks of vulnerability to a target that last a few seconds for 5/7-10% resistance debuff each with a limit of 3 stacks from a single source

Meaning we'd have the option of throwing a lower debuff on more targets, or focus on a single target and absolutely shred their resist like the current form. Just now it's entirely de-linked from our attacks

[Frostweaver]

I think I am starting to join the 'sentinels are fine like they are' camp. Based on the performance of MY sentinels, and team performance fo ITF's and LGTF's at +4, sentinels seem to be adding MORE to team clear speeds than many other AT's...including scrappers and blasters.

I am beginning to think that the problems are interlinked and come down to:
1. Perception. Sentinel contributions are HARD to easily quantify... between off-tanking, nasty debuffing, and some real AOE and fast nukes/damaging controls, they don't really have a role other than simply improving EVERY other part of a team. And they do this extremely well at nearly every level... but it's not easy to notice unless you are actually looking for it. And unlike most archetypes, their contributions are multiplicative, rather than simply additive. This is a similar problem to what the VEAT's faced, and it took literally YEARS for them to get over the perception and for people to start saying "Oooh! a soldier! I want him on my team!". As decent sentinels are built and played on teams, this perception is guaranteed to change... but sentinel builds are TOUGH.
2. Builds.. Builds for sentinels are much more challenging than almost ANY Other AT I have ever played. They depend vastly more on the slotting potential of the primary, but some secondaries that have seen limited use might provide some superior slotting options as time goes by... and having good sentinels with good builds is going to be critically important for allowing players to know what sentinels are actually worth to a team. For this reason, people might start moving away from the 'obvious' stuff like fire/ and more into builds with wonky special effects because the performance might simply be...better.

Basically, I am REALLY staring think Sentinels might just need a perceptual change rather than a physical one.
 

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Frostweaver said:

I think I am starting to join the 'sentinels are fine like they are' camp. Based on the performance of MY sentinels, and team performance fo ITF's and LGTF's at +4, sentinels seem to be adding MORE to team clear speeds than many other AT's...including scrappers and blasters.

As they say, the plural of anecdote is not data.

[Frostweaver]

10 hours ago, Wavicle said:

As they say, the plural of anecdote is not data.

No, it's statistic.

[Zerethon]

12 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

2. Builds.. Builds for sentinels are much more challenging than almost ANY Other AT I have ever played. They depend vastly more on the slotting potential of the primary, but some secondaries that have seen limited use might provide some superior slotting options as time goes by... and having good sentinels with good builds is going to be critically important for allowing players to know what sentinels are actually worth to a team. For this reason, people might start moving away from the 'obvious' stuff like fire/ and more into builds with wonky special effects because the performance might simply be...better.

Basically, I am REALLY staring think Sentinels might just need a perceptual change rather than a physical one.
 

This, right here, is why Sentinels have joined stalkers in my roster of "Main" characters. Both AT's have some absolutely disturbing shenanigans they are capable of, but it's so build-dependent and out of place you don't see it unless you're playing it or looking for it. It's only when you're looking for it that you realize bosses are dropping before minions and every so often even an AV's health just chunks by 10-15% out of nowhere

Or, anyone who's done an SBB or something with me on my Elec has seen me literally flatline even AV's endurance in seconds while scaled down, and keep it basically at zero the whole fight, or the EB's in an ITF not getting to use unstoppable.....because i ate their end bar 2 minutes ago and debuffed them into the dirt.

Lets look at a couple examples:

Elec blast/Elec armor/Mu Mastery + Preemptive interface and Agillity paragon: "**** your endurance" the musical, can be built with a freebie travel power in LReflexes+Swift and set bonuses too. Nearly 5-caps resists with ease (Smash, lethal, fire, cold, energy) and with incarnates, has 20%+ Defense to all and can turn so many fights into a complete cheese-fest. Even AV's need endurance to use skills, and if you eat it all, they just become punching bags full of loot. might not kill them EXTREMELY fast like some builds can, but you'll basically make easy pickings out of anything you touch. Anything toxic is a priority target first though, they can actually hurt you.

Oh and you get a heal that reduces your own end costs by a stupid % on a low cooldown, so that's also a thing.

Anything*/Regen: Oh man, this is some amusement WAITING to happen if you build for it. I did Rad/Regen and ended up at 1869hp and change with 51hp (50.92) PER SECOND in regeneration. Also instant healing is now a toggle again but it gives you absorbtion. Generally though regen is considered "Meh" nowadays because it's super hard to build well and the payoff is just on-par with most other sets....Unless you're a sentinel or a stalker. The advantages of stealth or ranged attacks is hard to explain to the jaded.

Build it right with the right sets however, and on a sentinel it's especially strong, MoG can get you out of a swarm, but most of the time they won't even scratch you through absorb and potentially 45-50%+ Resist to a few types of damage, oh and you still get reconstruction, so y'know, abuse it.

 

Best for last:
Anything*/Dark armor: Put down that pitchfork! i'm not crazy i swear! But no, seriously, you want to talk about a creatively hard but rewarding build? Sentinel DA. If you want to off-tank or just explode the world in mostly melee range, this is your set. Dark armor has always been an expensive (In terms of EPS) armor set, but low-key one of the strongest in the game aside from it's lack of knock resist, but we have an IO for that now so skip acro and the added toggle

We lose the damage aura...but keep both the fear and stun ones, get an improved version of the heal, and we still get a stealth power. Pair this with Rad/ Elec/ or anything else with a PBAOE damage/debuff ability and just go ham. The build will break your brain a little, but the payoff of being a lethal ball of pocket lint is worth it. Nobody expects a dust bunny to throw a giant bolt of lightning into their face, after all.

All that aside though, you're right, but i still feel like the passive should not be part of the starting powers and dependent on taking both of them to use the full potential of it. it should either be entirely passive (Keep bar full, have chance to apply vuln on attacks as a "Crit" effect, scaling heal/end return per attack based on charge %) or dom-style clicky (Same as above, but click button at full bar to trigger the effect)

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.

[Wavicle]

57 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

No, it's statistic.

No, the plural of anecdote is also not statistic.