Better Epic Pools Please!

[Omega9]

I don't post much. Sentinels are fine, CoH is great, by far the best Superhero MMO and RPG. Probably the best MMO ever too!

 

However, I don't think the Sentinel Epic Pool Powers are a better value to the archetype than ordinary Pool Powers. Give me some special Sentinel-only epic powers that move the class forward.

[nihilii]

I felt like you for a while. Strongly.

With time (and advice from the forum), I slowly discovered there's significant boosts to be grabbed in epic pools if you abuse the hell out of procs.

For example:

- Psi Mastery: Mind Probe with Hecatomb and Dominate loaded with hold damage procs become two of the strongest attacks available to Sentinels

- Mu Mastery: Electrying Fences with procs is also a strong contender comparable or even superior to primary AoEs. On top of that, AoE immobilize is a highly desirable effect for Sentinels

- Fire Mastery: Fire Sword Circle deals near nuke damage with procs, with less than half the recharge (on admittedly a half as small radius as well). Cremate is another decent melee attack. Char can be procced out for high ST damage, Fire Cages is a fast AoE immobilize, even Warmth can patch up a build

- Dark Mastery: Engulfing Darkness can hit as hard as Fire Sword Circle on a larger radius

I've had a harder time getting good use out of the other epics, although they aren't completely useless.

I don't mean to disagree with your point. A case can be made there's something questionable in epics that only become good if you do weird things with the IO system. But if you're looking for options, there's some for you.

Edited June 15, 2020 by nihilii

[oldskool]

To get even more simple with the ideas... 

Sentinels gain access to caltrops from Ninja Tools as one of the first options.  Caltrops is a pretty flexible power that can do non-trivial damage over time as well as controlling positions of the enemy.  Enemies will generally run out of the caltrops, while taking damage, and do so slowly.  This creates a buffer zone around the Sentinel with limited to no melee attackers.  That can yield additional survival perks to a build while still keeping some enemies in range for you dispatch.  

Any AoE immobilize.  Some AoE powers like Whirlpool (Water Blast) will make enemies flee (like caltrops).  The immobilize will hold several targets in the zone of effect allowing them to do more damage.  Otherwise, an immobilize is a similar concept to caltrops which is battlefield control.  Instead of forcing movement away; you deny movement way or towards the Sentinel.  

Mass Hypnosis in Psi.  Sleeps aren't always amazing on teams, but some TF's can make use of someone creating mass sleep or having a sleep at all.  

Link Minds/Darkest Night.  Either of these are nice survival buffers.  Those are the better ones in my mind, but the other sets have their share of reasonable picks.  
 

The post above covers the damage aspects which can be worth looking in to even without procs.  These powers expand IO set diversity into the melee sets.  Those sets are generally better than the ranged categories.  On top of that several of those powers are pretty good in their own right. 

[Underfyre]

The problem with the Pool powers that I see after playing with numbers for a while is that not all things are equal. If you look at Char, you'll see that its source is an 8 second cooldown, but when transferred to the Sentinel pool, it got bumped up to 32 seconds. Netherworld grasp, 32 seconds. Block of Ice, 32 seconds. Paralyzing Dart, 32 seconds. Dominate? 16 seconds. Almost every ST Hold in the pools got bumped up for an 8 second recharge to a 32 second recharge but 2; Dominate and Paralyzing Jolt. Paralyzing Jolt technically has no parallel in other sets, it's closest would be Tesla Cage.  This sole fact is what makes people that are chasing damage take Psi for Dominate. The distinguishing difference between it and Paralyzing Jolt is that Paralyzing Jolt has nearly double the activation time.

 

Basically what I'm saying is that all the pool power recharges need to be standardized. Probably more towards the x2 side instead if the x4 side. Hell, I'm taking a look at source abilities at random it seems like most of the are x2, but then, out of nowhere, one will be x4. Hell, Havoc Punch is x4.33, the hell is that about? You could argue that it has the highest DPA of all the ST MELEE abilities, but I dunno about that egregious of a recharge penalty.

[madatlis16]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

- Fire Mastery: Fire Sword Circle deals near nuke damage with procs, with less than half the recharge (on admittedly a half as small radius as well). Cremate is another decent melee attack. Char can be procced out for high ST damage, Fire Cages is a fast AoE immobilize, even Warmth can patch up a build

What would you recommend in Fire Sword Circle?

[Underfyre]

32 minutes ago, madatlis16 said:

What would you recommend in Fire Sword Circle?

Well it only has 4 damaging procs available, so probably the 4 damaging procs available.

[nihilii]

31 minutes ago, madatlis16 said:

What would you recommend in Fire Sword Circle?

It depends how much global accuracy you're running with, if you have another PBAoE in which you want Arma and Fury, and whether you want set bonuses.

To maximize the power without too many outside assumptions, I'd go Scirocco Dervish acc/dam/end + acc/dam + proc, Eradication proc, Obliteration proc, Arma proc. On most builds picking up global accuracy here and there in other powers, this would likely end up at 95% chance tohit against +3s.

[madatlis16]

3 minutes ago, nihilii said:

It depends how much global accuracy you're running with, if you have another PBAoE in which you want Arma and Fury, and whether you want set bonuses.

To maximize the power without too many outside assumptions, I'd go Scirocco Dervish acc/dam/end + acc/dam + proc, Eradication proc, Obliteration proc, Arma proc. On most builds picking up global accuracy here and there in other powers, this would likely end up at 95% chance tohit against +3s.

Currently I only have room for 3 slots... I will see if I can pull 3 slots from something else..

[Omega9]

Caltrops maybe, the rest are all pretty nerfed. I don't need them. They don't offer any intrinsic benefit to your primary or secondary. Don't need melee procs mostly and never take a power just for procs. Plenty of stuff in the pool powers that support you primary and secondary and they get procs too.

[DreadShinobi]

5 hours ago, Omega9 said:

Caltrops maybe, the rest are all pretty nerfed. I don't need them. They don't offer any intrinsic benefit to your primary or secondary. Don't need melee procs mostly and never take a power just for procs. Plenty of stuff in the pool powers that support you primary and secondary and they get procs too.

I'm going to hop on board with Nihilii's post and say that if you aren't taking advantage of procs then of course the epic pools aren't going to look good to you. Because sentinels have pretty low base damage, procs make a big difference in making up for their damage and because of the longer recharge in epic pools, they work very well there.

 

Dominate with 6 damage procs is going to hit harder than any single target attack sentinels have access to, and Mind Probe helps a lot too with filling out an attack chain with multiple high damage per animation attacks. On top of that link minds makes softcapping defense quite a bit easier especially for non-pure defense sets. Shockwave also provides a unique place for pbaoe set bonuses, and more psi damage to hit enemies that are in resistance godmodes. With an epic pool like this it is pretty difficult to say sentinels are being held back by their epic pools. In terms of 'giving the archetype something unique that moves the class forward" you are given a melee attack, a pbaoe, a single target nuke, and a team defense buff, which does plenty to expand the role of the sentinel that chooses psychic mastery. Fire mastery is pretty stacked too with another good melee attack, a relevant AoE immobilize and fire sword circle that can help make up for a more single target oriented primary, a procc'able char, just with a longer cooldown than dominate, and a small heal while not amazing, offers set unique set bonus options and additionally expands the role of the sentinel. Access to the AoE immobilizes across other sets is pretty defining as far as epic pools go, and helps a lot with lategame sentinel identity imo. Outside of fire and psi epic pools, yes, there could be some little buffs here and there but I believe your issue is more that sentinel damage modifier is on the low side and you aren't a fan of relying on procc'd epic pools to fill out their damage.

[drbuzzard]

I'm going to echo the chorus saying the EPPs are quite good for sentinels. I don't always use a lot of them, and there are some traps which look good until you look at the numbers (warmth- good god what were they thinking?!?) but they generally are very useful, and are strongly leaned on in high end builds. 

 

I don't like to do the proc leaning builds as much as some other people, which of course does cost me in ultimate performance. However, FSC and cremate (for example) really do add to your ability to hand out more hurt even if you aren't playing proc games (I personally build for over the top defenses and lots of recharge).  

 

Funny thing is I happen to like the caltrops power myself on some builds, but in that case the rest of the set gets skipped. When I use other EPPs, I use a few things.