Blasters and Brutes and Sentinels. o my

[Snarky]

Trying to have a somewhat level headed examination of playing power. These ATs were not chosen at random. They are the ones i have personally rolled the most of post snap. (Re snap?  Un snap?  Errr yeah

 

So Brutes I am down with. My native territory as it were. Blasters i have an uneasy relationship with. Like dating a crazy person. Love the excitement. Until youre dead. 
 

what i would love to do ( without devolving into nerf this or modify that) is get an idea of power level on a few things

 

So. We put Fire Blasters as the King of damage. We can put Stone Brutes as the king of survivable (for this thread) but lets use an i/o’d invulnerability Brute.  You know why

 

an Ice Blaster enters the picture. Okay. Not as much damage as fire. And yes i am specifically talking the whole burrito. AoE and ST and all mushed together. More damage than any Brute? I honestly dont know. Could a spines /fire Brute outdamage a Ice/any secondary Blaster???

 

then it gets more complicated. Sentinels. Well. No damage Aura. So that at least simplifies that?  Why dont sentinels get?  No not going down rabbit holes

 

okay.  So focus. More or less graphed out essay wise what is the progression in damage output In a gross (some of you cheat and data mine - thank you) progression

 

Fire/Fire Blaster > Ice/Ice Blaster > Spines Fire Brute > super strength / invul Brute. 
 

we will leave off survivability as anything besides an interesting aside. I believe everyone is more or less cognizant if those rankings

 

where does a sentinel fit in?  Pick a few. Or just add tour favorite if you are pretty sure you know

 

did i even get the 4 i listed right lol?

 

anyways. Thought experiment open for discussion and learning

 

as always thanks

[DougGraves]

I play tankers and controllers and there is no AT that blends them.

[Obus Form]

If you like, the numbers for direct comparison are already in mids, just put them in excel and see a graph of damage per activation, or per animation.

 

Mids actually already has these kinds of graphs but it's not exportable to excel (from what I can tell).

[biostem]

OP, you really need to organize your thoughts better and clearly state what you're after.  As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what AT or powerset(s) you play, as long as you're enjoying the ride.  Certain sets may in fact perform better than others, but if you can't get into said set(s), then what's the point? 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

48 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I play tankers and controllers and there is no AT that blends them.

*Cough* warshade*Cough*

[Outrider_01]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

Sentinels. Well. No damage Aura.

Wannabe blaster and weak scrapper.  It is range with survivability 

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Outrider_01 said:

Wannabe blaster and weak scrapper.  It is range with survivability 

For some primaries and secondaries, the tweaks to those sets that Sentinels got are rather nice.  For me, though, they just don't interest me enough to keep me playing them.  I almost wish they'd have gotten the blaster secondaries as their primary, (well, those with actual attacks in them, anyway).

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

23 minutes ago, biostem said:

OP, you really need to organize your thoughts better and clearly state what you're after.  As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what AT or powerset(s) you play, as long as you're enjoying the ride.  Certain sets may in fact perform better than others, but if you can't get into said set(s), then what's the point? 

Without trying to come across as attacking the OP Ive crossed paths with them a couple times and my insight into their approach to play is the following.

 

On a leveling brute, they tended to bite off more then they could handle and were little better then veng bait to the team.  They came across as someone who really seems to rush for cap play, fully kit a build, and then engage with content.

 

Second time, They were on a tricked out cap brute, and were a teams main frontline meat shield and DPS alongside a blaster on a control heavy team, and left the team to go try to solo an AV ignoring the plan of the team to go glory hound. Again they did not come across as someone that really plays the game, or engages with their team. But more as someone here to tick boxes off of an imagined achievement section like a Steam game.

 

Hence they made my ignore list, as rule number 1 on any TF I lead is to if there is a strategy in play for it to be adhered to for the greater goal of the team.

 

They seem to only care about numbers, and the meta. And really seems to need strong solo builds because I suspect they have made no few ignore lists playing like that on the RP server.

[Heraclea]

Tankers are always going to be my first love.  Top survivability - whichever armor set you choose, it will be at its best on a tanker - and adequate if not earth shaking damage.  The number one thing I want from a character or from a game is to avoid frustration.  Tankers are the least frustrating AT. 

 

The other thing I want from a character is as much immunity as possible to forced AFKs - i.e. mez immunity is a big deal to me.  This means that tankers, brutes, scrappers, stalkers, and sentinels all have the inside track.  Blasters, I tend to play like stalkers.  I don't have a blaster without Stealth.  Stealth is how I cope with the lack of mez immunity.   I run those characters with small spawns and try to neutralize them first.  Not terribly different from the stalkers, who take a minimalist approach to running missions. 

 

Characters outside this comfort zone tend to languish.  I have a controller that's fussy to play, brings value to teams, but I don't really enjoy the style.  Same with a dominator, who is quite fussy to play and whom I learned I didn't really like the style all that much.  I have a corruptor who I rolled in May and just hit 50.  A bit easier to understand than the controller, but playing her seems to involve concentrating on the secondary and spamming the snipe.  I don't think I have rolled a defender anywhere.  The mastermind is probably my favorite among these, but since I find them somewhat annoying on teams I am reluctant to bring that one, even though I chose what in my opinion are the least annoying pets (Beasts).  And then again since Banished Pantheon, Vanguard, and Arachnos lore pets are crowd favorites, every vet leveled character can be an annoying Mastermind. 

[Gobbledygook]

Nevermind, I found it!

Sorry, like I said, I'm dense.

Back to your regularly scheduled, um, stuff.

1 hour ago, Obus Form said:

If you like, the numbers for direct comparison are already in mids, just put them in excel and see a graph of damage per activation, or per animation.

 

Mids actually already has these kinds of graphs but it's not exportable to excel (from what I can tell).

It may be because I'm tired, or it may be that I'm dense (I am), but I can't figure out how to do this. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?

Edited March 8, 2020 by Gobbledygook
I'm a dunderhead

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, DougGraves said:

I play tankers and controllers and there is no AT that blends them.

A Tanker is the best ‘troller in the game. Because you cant stop them from doing their job. They just keep on mezzing 17 to attack them. No matter how useless that is

[Caulderone]

2 hours ago, Obus Form said:

If you like, the numbers for direct comparison are already in mids, just put them in excel and see a graph of damage per activation, or per animation.

Bear in mind that the damage numbers on many things (especially for Sentinels) are wrong.  Be sure to check the values in the planner vs the values in the detailed info in game.  I tend to modify the powers/sets that I am interested to match the in game numbers before I trust them.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

They seem to only care about numbers, and the meta. And really seems to need strong solo builds because I suspect they have made no few ignore lists playing like that on the RP server.

I appreciate the insight. I cannot say you are wrong. I have a Tank. When i play the Tank I shepherd everyone like little lost ducks paying special attention to the ones wandering slowly in circles

 

my Brutes do not have Taunt. They are not Tanks. If there are two Brutes on a team i will immediately tell everyone the ither Brute is the Tank and see if i can sell that. 
 

if i am the only Brute i clearly state i have no Taunt and play like a heavy scrapper. Some folks ignore this.  
 

if people are not familiar with Redside tactics and expect a Brute to use issue 1-3 Blueside Tank tactics I am okay with that.  I already told them that is not what i am doing.  But i am okay with them ignoring it

 

I played Brutes when i started. Which means i played Redside for years. I never liked scrappers or tanks. So i am indeed mostly a solo storyline player who teams for TFs, merits, and badges.  
 

yes my “leveling brutes” die.  I knew of a group who deleted characters when they die. Level 49. Die. Delete. Whole SG of them. Not a fan. I will charge +4 with a Brute and generally be somewhat effective. And sometimes i die. Which is why i have almost as many ways to rez as i do ways to port around the city. There is no way to know for sure what a Brute build you have never run will do under pressure until you have a roomful of bad stand on it. On a SS/Will or Invul build i already know. I only engage then if i know it will help. If it is useless i wont wast the resources

 

But i do love to look at the various builds and ATs. Whenever i am not on a comfortable old build i will roll one and see how it does. I soloed Posi 1 on a Dark/Invul Sentinel today. I have never soloed a TF before. 1:04. Missed a mage and had to hunt lol. But the Sentinel performed admirably at +0/x1.  Better i think than a Blaster would. At least in my hands. On a Brute i might have done better.  Probably would almost sure. Sigh. Now i need to level one up to a similar level and run it to see lol

 

But to the topic at hand. I am not sure Mids will answer the question. Mids will tell you a Fire Blaster does more damage than an energy blaster. It will tell you that a fire fire brute does more damage than a dark/invul brute.  And it would be wrong most of the time.  On a fire farm sure.  In any other content the Fire Brute is so busy trying to survive it generally lags behind a solid engine like dark/invul. 
 

i know little about Sentinels. I have not 50’d one. I can tell you they are better (for me) as fire support on a farm because when they draw agro they have enough tools to usually survive A Sentinel has just enough tricks to get out if you notice things going south. Armor mez prot heal etc. A blaster is dead and that is how you know.  At least for me. So on a farm i can reliably be fire support on a  Sentinel. But with a Blaster i am face planting too often  And i know they run solid in solo mission content. Even against CoT at low levels. (And not built out)

 

these are things Mids cannot really tell you

 

and so i come to ask of those who have experience with the AT about how much damage these things reliably do. And my known metrics (the language i know for comparison) are Brutes and Blasters

 

i suspect that the Sentinels (effectively ) do slightly more damage than most Brutes but not outliers like Spines Fire.  The interesting thing is Spines Fire, even not built for super i/o def and res are probably way more survivable than a Sentinel.  But that is a guess

 

 

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

i suspect that the Sentinels (effectively ) do slightly more damage than most Brutes but not outliers like Spines Fire.  The interesting thing is Spines Fire, even not built for super i/o def and res are probably way more survivable than a Sentinel.  But that is a guess

 

Good Lord, no.  Sentinels do not do more damage than most Brutes.  Sentinels do as much damage as a Defender without damage procs, and with no support.  In terms of damage (excluding damage procs), Blaster > Stalker > Scrapper > Brute > Corruptor >>>>>  Sentinel.

 

[bweeda2]

I'd argue a fully IO'd TW/Bio scrapper is top damage, it is a completely busted combo

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

Good Lord, no.  Sentinels do not do more damage than most Brutes.  Sentinels do as much damage as a Defender without damage procs, and with no support.  In terms of damage (excluding damage procs), Blaster > Stalker > Scrapper > Brute > Corruptor >>>>>  Sentinel.

 

 

I cheated. My fire/bio sentinel definitely out damages my emp/nrg defender. But probably does not out damage the sonic/dark corruptor. She's kinda scary.

[Haijinx]

Claws/bio scrapper

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

7 hours ago, DougGraves said:

I play tankers and controllers and there is no AT that blends them.

Warshades and fortunatas come pretty close. I can tank incarnate AVs with my fortunata.

[Ukase]

7 hours ago, Snarky said:

 

 

But i do love to look at the various builds and ATs. Whenever i am not on a comfortable old build i will roll one and see how it does. I soloed Posi 1 on a Dark/Invul Sentinel today. I have never soloed a TF before. 1:04. Missed a mage and had to hunt lol. But the Sentinel performed admirably at +0/x1.  Better i think than a Blaster would. At least in my hands. On a Brute i might have done better.  Probably would almost sure. Sigh. Now i need to level one up to a similar level and run it to see lol

 

But to the topic at hand. I am not sure Mids will answer the question. Mids will tell you a Fire Blaster does more damage than an energy blaster. It will tell you that a fire fire brute does more damage than a dark/invul brute.  And it would be wrong most of the time.  On a fire farm sure.  In any other content the Fire Brute is so busy trying to survive it generally lags behind a solid engine like dark/invul. 
 

i know little about Sentinels. I have not 50’d one. I can tell you they are better (for me) as fire support on a farm because when they draw agro they have enough tools to usually survive A Sentinel has just enough tricks to get out if you notice things going south. Armor mez prot heal etc. A blaster is dead and that is how you know.  At least for me. So on a farm i can reliably be fire support on a  Sentinel. But with a Blaster i am face planting too often  And i know they run solid in solo mission content. Even against CoT at low levels. (And not built out)

 

these are things Mids cannot really tell you

 

and so i come to ask of those who have experience with the AT about how much damage these things reliably do. And my known metrics (the language i know for comparison) are Brutes and Blasters

 

i suspect that the Sentinels (effectively ) do slightly more damage than most Brutes but not outliers like Spines Fire.  The interesting thing is Spines Fire, even not built for super i/o def and res are probably way more survivable than a Sentinel.  But that is a guess

 

 

The ONLY advantage a well built sentinel has over a well built blaster is status protection. And, with rune of protection, and clarion - not even that. At lower levels, the blaster will outshine a sentinel easily, with wise use of inspirations for both. But - ultimately that comes down to power selection priorities, slotting and the skill of the player behind the character. 

Sentinels can farm - but they shouldn't. They just aren't as good at it as a brute. They don't dish out the damage a brute will. 
"Fire support" on a farm? Nonsense. A farmer's purpose is to defeat mobs quickly solo. Otherwise, you might as well just team up for task forces and make merits as well as full xp in lieu of nerfed XP in AE. 

A brute, even with the recent lowering of the damage cap, will outdamage a sentinel. Period. No exceptions. A sentinel is a good first character for a new player to level up, due to the safety of attacking at range and status protection. Even poor slotting and half-way decent power selection will give a fair amount of resistance or defense, depending on the power sets. An experienced player may enjoy a Sentinel more than playing a blaster for a number of reasons - but for dps, the blaster wins that battle hands down. Easily. Every time. No matter what the power sets are. 

I'm not saying a Sentinel doesn't have a place in this game. It does. I have three of them at level 50. I have multiple spines/fire brutes - one on each server to stash loot in my solo SGs on each server.  (I rotate their play, based on server load, how many converters they have and other factors)

Without question, my preference is to play a blaster. It's far easier for me to mash a button to blast than to run into melee and mash a button. Less traveling is always good. My heart goes out to melee that do the Apex TF and need to dodge the blue patches while trying to get their shots in. Ranged > melee, every day in every way. But that's my bias. 

If your blaster is dying it's because you lack the experience or patience to play it properly. And there's many ways to play it properly. Almost without exception, the few times my blasters get defeated is on MSRs before level 50 and occasionally during incarnate trials or Tin Mage. Bobcat has this one attack that seems to get me one out of three times. Other than that - it just doesn't happen. The mobs don't hit very often when you're soft-capped on defense with max hp. 

There are true fire farm builds, and there are hybrid farm builds. All of my farm builds are softcapped to fire defense AND s/l, with very close to 90% s/l resist. They do not struggle to survive in ANY content at +4/8. But - all of my builds are what I would consider kitted out. Some builds may be better, but not by much. They certainly work for me. 

So - the question is - which deals more damage? The blaster. 
Which is more survivable - the brute, simply because it has the same defense as the blaster - but much higher resist, and a higher damage cap. So, if you're on a team that gives buffs to damage, there's a great opportunity for both to shine - but the brute can shine more because of the higher damage cap. 

That's just my opinion - and opinions will vary. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

If your blaster is dying it's because you lack the experience or patience to play it properly. And there's many ways to play it properly. Almost without exception, the few times my blasters get defeated is on MSRs before level 50 and occasionally during incarnate trials or Tin Mage. Bobcat has this one attack that seems to get me one out of three times. Other than that - it just doesn't happen. The mobs don't hit very often when you're soft-capped on defense with max hp. 

Thank you. Yes i suspected as much. I have run a Blaster at 50 and incarnated on live. Nrg/nrg. I was ... not great at it.  I think i am a better player now but have not 50’d one on Homecoming yet.  My Invul Brutes and the Dark/Dark i have just do so much damage and are nigh unkillable. (Except those pesky blue patches)
 

i think it is time for a deeper study of Blasters, the sets strategies and setting up location target keybinds on ice. Grrr. I get frustrated with location AoE in heavy combat. Like trying to find three straight lines in a Jackson Pollock

[Without_Pause]

Depends on the blaster though. I have a Water/temp/cold and even without Incarnate abilities or IO sets yet that's a rather rock solid build. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I have a larger than average size list of fully IO'd toons to run as that number is closing in on catching up with my 50 or so lvl 50s.

 

In my experience my rad/fire brute is better than my spines/fire for running content, it wrecks things. My rad/fire blaster is probably my favorite blaster to play give. That it also simply deletes mobs. My fire/mental blaster survives better than.the rad/fire blaster. My ice/plants blaster does amazing single target damage, and has great CC, with AoE holds and then gets to drop blizzard on them, but it doesn't compete with the rate of Carnage my rad/fire brute or blaster deal.

[SwitchFade]

Those naysaying sentinel damage may not have taken a water/SR to 50. 50% def to m/r/a, nuke every fight, self heals, and incarnates. Granted the spike damage does not meet blaster levels and people tend to think a brute is more damage, but I often find I move faster and kill more than most brute sets, but I'm sure there are AoE heavy brute sets that do more and water is very AoE heavy.

 

Well built, water/Sr puts out significant damage and is very tough. At +4/8, the only thing that slows it down is a boss, as minions die on nuke (up every fight) and lt's are close behind. I routinely run council farms in this fashion.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I have a larger than average size list of fully IO'd toons to run as that number is closing in on catching up with my 50 or so lvl 50s.

 

In my experience my rad/fire brute is better than my spines/fire for running content, it wrecks things. My rad/fire blaster is probably my favorite blaster to play give. That it also simply deletes mobs. My fire/mental blaster survives better than.the rad/fire blaster. My ice/plants blaster does amazing single target damage, and has great CC, with AoE holds and then gets to drop blizzard on them, but it doesn't compete with the rate of Carnage my rad/fire brute or blaster deal.

You re-sparked my interest in an old school SS/Fire Brute.  I have a concept that I would enjoy.  I believe with an experienced player it would be pretty tanky as long as you pick your fights a little carefully too, which sounds odd but makes sense to me

 

[SeraphimKensai]

SS/Fire can do alright. I'm in the process of making one on my third account that I wanted to do proc out some stuff to test in a farm setting. I don't think it will beat my rad/fire brute, but might beat my spines/fire when I'm.done with it.