Sentinels seem... weird.

[Ljhalfbreed]

Sentinels can off-tank though, especially if the main-tank eats it and the sentinel's secondary hasn't been too neglected.

 

Personally, I tanked a Silver Mantis AV with a DP/Willpower sentinel just by leveraging (well, more like super clutch crutch) Defensive Opportunity to keep my HP topped off.

 

I think the biggest drawback right now is that most of the info/tooltips/detailed-info/etc for sentinels are missing, incorrect, or otherwise 'not good'.

 

Just looking at straight numbers, their damage seems deficient, until you realize that Opportunity is basically a two-pronged debuff. First hit applies ~5% res and ~3% defense debuff. Slapping your built up opportunity increases the -res to 25%. Suddenly you're doing 'real damage', and you still have the ability to avoid mezzes and do self-care/protection as needed.

 

I don't think they'll match scrappers or blasters or stalkers, because that's not what they are. I do, think, they are just as *useful* as scrappers, blasters, and stalkers in a DPS role, because of how they do what they do.

 

I mean, it comes down to tools. We need deeps, and Scrappers, Blasters, Sentinels, and Scrappers all focus on it, but each one has situations they excel in that the others just don't or cannot.

[SinergyX]

I'm still kinda stuck on the mechanics of the buff/opportunity, the ups and downs of your damage output between those 2 states is rather huge, though you can 'extend' the time you want to pop your opportunity (by not simply using T1/2 attack), a simple mis or any other moment (like KB) can make or break your output.

 

Would be nice if it was more of a dominator style mechanic, charge and pop at will on a offensive or defensive moment.

 

The only offset they have over blaster/corrupter is their base defense, and specialy the def-type get a strong debuff resist on -def making them stronger then a IOéd blaster, specialy with strong mez toggles (though blaster get a proc through their AT).

 

I see them as 'i wanna be a scrapper but i hate melee', or 'i wanna be more tough then a blaster' style, with a trade-in on damage (i yet have to ever match my blaster damage), but with a too situational build-in system.

 

The drawback of 6/10 cap versus 10/16 cap is also quite noticable on the higher end of the game, where more and more peopele get the full-group nukes, you know you have to count them before firing off. Though i asume Ice is the one that bypasses that number, since its a summon that just ticks anyone in range.

 

Though i like em, they are a very very solo-friendly AT, certain sets excel at many aspects (end-drain resist, fear, high defense 'out of the box', heals), but i yet have to find their 'strong' place in the higher-end TF's, or a valid reason to replace either a blaster or corrupter by a sent.

[marcussmythe]

The Sentinel is strong in casual play, while casually built.

 

It does not and cannot achieve the levels of performance offered by certain narrow, specific builds of other ATs.  This is likely by -design-.  Whoever built the Sentinel Archetype did the math -first-, rather than waiting until someone who can do math exploits overly generous always on buffs to radically change gameplay.

 

However, most of that insanity relies on IO sets and Incarnate stuff, along with a short list of really poorly designed powers/sets.  Without those, Archetypes still retain more individual distinction, and the Sentinel fills a role.

[Galaxy Brain]

Sentinels can off-tank though, especially if the main-tank eats it and the sentinel's secondary hasn't been too neglected.

 

Personally, I tanked a Silver Mantis AV with a DP/Willpower sentinel just by leveraging (well, more like super clutch crutch) Defensive Opportunity to keep my HP topped off.

 

I think the biggest drawback right now is that most of the info/tooltips/detailed-info/etc for sentinels are missing, incorrect, or otherwise 'not good'.

 

Just looking at straight numbers, their damage seems deficient, until you realize that Opportunity is basically a two-pronged debuff. First hit applies ~5% res and ~3% defense debuff. Slapping your built up opportunity increases the -res to 25%. Suddenly you're doing 'real damage', and you still have the ability to avoid mezzes and do self-care/protection as needed.

 

I don't think they'll match scrappers or blasters or stalkers, because that's not what they are. I do, think, they are just as *useful* as scrappers, blasters, and stalkers in a DPS role, because of how they do what they do.

 

I mean, it comes down to tools. We need deeps, and Scrappers, Blasters, Sentinels, and Scrappers all focus on it, but each one has situations they excel in that the others just don't or cannot.

 

The other part of this is that their way of building damage applies to the team as well!

[Acrimon]

Did you ever play night widows up through Fortunata training, back in the day? That's how they seem to me. Survivable blasters. Sorta-tanky-sorta-blasters. :P