If You Could Change Sentinels, How Would You Do It? (Another Take)

[Underfyre]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Since the mechanic is designed for an max 50% uptime, the average of these two ends up being an average 1.21 scale damage, actually higher than scrapper + crits, in between scrapper hypothetical 1.18125 scale (vs minions) and 1.2375 (against non-minions) 

I mean, you could halve its duration and double the amount of opportunity given by each ability in the short run to make it active more frequently. I'm not sure how much opportunity is given by the Opportunity Strikes IO, but obviously tune it to a corresponding value. Or leave it as is to give it a bit more oomph.

Edited July 14, 2020 by underfyre
Actually the proc looks like it gives between 50 and 60 opportunity, which is maybe a little too much oomph.

[nihilii]

8 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Since the mechanic is designed for an max 50% uptime

I think there's potentially an underlying implication in such statements we fight infinitely against a static target.

 

Personally, in standard fights I hold onto my T1 until I need the damage, say on a boss. Minions and lieutenants can die to AoEs for the most part.

 

At high level, it meshes well with the ~25s cooldown on mininukes. You use your Opportunity on the boss, you also shoot lieutenants while it's up, and you wipe out any stragglers in 1 or 2 hits out of Opportunity. Some of the Opportunity downtime is also spent traveling from group to group, so the effective uptime ends up above 50%.

 

To put it another way, if we had just 2 attacks, Famine and Feast, Famine dealing 100 damage and Feast 200; and if we ever fought only 2 enemies, Mynx and BAB, with Mynx having 80 hp and BAB 180 hp. Then everything would work well, one hit kill for each enemy.

But if we buffed the AT by 10%, removing Famine and Feast, to instead have 2 attacks dealing 165 damage each. We'd still kill Mynx in one shot, but BAB would be left with a sliver of health. Requiring an extra attack.

This is a gross oversimplification. Nonetheless, I feel it somewhat reflects how Sentinels play, at least for me. Not all targets are created equal, and overkill damage isn't extra damage.

I don't mean to suggest everything is awesome and nothing needs to change. Rather, I only hope the above is taken in consideration so the buff doesn't put us at a weaker spot than where we started.

 

Tangentially, I feel there's something lost in the often seen suggestions to replace Opportunity with, say, crits. Opportunity is deterministic. The bar grows at a stable rate for the most part, and you get to choose when you activate it. Replacing that determinism - that ability to pick and choose - with the randomness of crits may not be a change for the better, in terms of feel. If the inherent is thrown out, I hope that, in spirit, what we get is closer to Fury than crits. Even though I love crits!

[oldskool]

11 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

An unrealistic state so keep that in mind when i say this, true sentinel performance will likely never hit this level, its just "on paper":

 

Without offensive opportunity, the sentinel modifier is at .95 if i recall correctly. At even level foes, the additional -5% resist means in solo play this is about 0.9975 equivalent base damage (things go down against higher level foes)

 

With offensive opportunity, the sentinel has procs equal to +20% enhanceable damage (so long the attack obeys the damage formula) for about scale 1.045. The AT also can land it's -25% resist during this window against the single foe, provided it is strong enough to survive a long test, it would bump hypothetical damage to 1.425 scale (again, even foes, if they have enough HP to make that one-shot debuff count)

 

Since the mechanic is designed for an max 50% uptime, the average of these two ends up being an average 1.21 scale damage, actually higher than scrapper + crits, in between scrapper hypothetical 1.18125 scale (vs minions) and 1.2375 (against non-minions) 

 

And of course, even then its only valid for single target damage (since the -res is not AoE) but every Sentinel gets a mini-nuke, the same is not true for Scrappers.

 

Now, all this is just a hypothetical optimal that only truly work in paper, but it is basically the center of the balance for the whole feast/famine design.

 

The fact it cant really be practical to leverage in game is why there is going to be a big revamp for everything, at some point.

 

Truly appreciate the reply!  

Also, this validates a lot of my own findings which is also deeply appreciated.  For example, the contribution of Offensive Opportunity being what it is.  Also the conceptual ideal of "50% uptime".  Its why I map out opportunity gains to animation times and build attacks around that.  It helps ensure the effect can be triggered in under 15 seconds as long as there are no misses.  So on paper a build could have higher than 50% uptime but in reality it trends to hover in the 50% range or worse. 

 

Interestingly enough though, the uptime changes a lot in AoE situations.  Hopefully, you're aware that some AoE attacks double dip on Opportunity building.  For example, Flamethrower in Assault Rifle builds more meter than Empty Clips.  I've combined Opportunity Strikes in Full Auto with Flamethrower to have two attacks that can damn near guarantee 100% meter even off a small number of enemies.  In group situations, or even solo, this is means Opportunity uptime is actually far greater than 50%.  The downtime is literally just the animations of those two powers plus whatever other activation/movement happens.  Sure, a missed hit with Burst means a delay but high accuracy/to-hit makes this a low risk.  Sonic Blast also has this issue with its cones.  

 

Builds that leverage the Epic powers care a lot less about Opportunity as a mechanic and can do significant damage which throws almost all of the concept totally out the window.  That's a proc issue though, and I've read how you feel about that.   

 

Now, more for everyone else: 

For folks following in the class; this is why we see disparities and complaints.  Some folks have taken the time, an awful lot of time, to figure out how to squeeze this mechanic for the most effort.  That level of effort doesn't match or exceed the build ceiling that currently exists in other ATs.  This is also why it seems like when folks discuss this AT it is like we're playing two different games.  Some people aren't maximizing the AT, and even if they did it still would fall short in their eyes.  Yet, if you do push it the AT can do better than it is suspected.   This is actually one of my biggest gripes about the AT.  It took me a lot of testing to discover everything CP just wrote about.  No one should have to do that in order to make an AT feel like it works.  Even when it works people can still do the same thing, if not better, on several other ATs for a lot less effort/headache.  That's why this needs to change.  The damage is an issue, but it is an issue because the entire mechanic requires specific play.  That's pretty much contrary to spirit of CoH.  Still, the AT can do enough damage when built within certain parameters.  

 

While adding up all of the hypothetical damage mods above can put a Sentinel above a Scrapper's modifier under some conditions it really doesn't work out that well in real play.  While the hypothetical scale pushes the Sentinel to 1.425 there is still a glaring issue of power disparity between Sentinels and Scrappers.  Obviously, there can't be a true apples to apples comparison here.  However, it really isn't that uncommon for Scrappers to have around 90+ base damage in T3 power and Sentinels almost universally have 86.  Sentinels do best when they can chain cast the best powers.  This is true of all ATs, but Sentinels have to.  Under the same recharge intensive conditions Scrappers can find themselves chain casting powers doing 90 to 140+ damage.  Often times it isn't just one power doing 140 damage but several.  Additionally, there are several sets with powers that can do 200+ damage and these too can be rotational.  Sentinels are lucky if their highest hitting attack in a given set does 145+ damage.  Psionic Blast has the single highest attack with 188 damage in the entire set and it comes with a 3 second animation.  

Basically, what I'm saying here is there is more to the damage disparity than just temporarily high AT modifiers.  The powers themselves are generally weaker than their melee counterparts.  Again, this doesn't mean Sentinels can't be made to do more damage because procs do help this.  However, the AT is almost reliant on that logic in a build in order to just keep pace with how Scrappers operate on even a basic level.  Once again, this is how the Sentinel AT removes a bit of player agency as it makes things far more cookie-cutter than other ATs.  This is also really only an argument about the high end of optimization.  Still, the fact that it does take pretty significant investment into this AT in order for it to do a fraction of the output of another AT is why it needs an update.  For that last sentence, I'm also speaking directly to the power sets themselves and not the inclusion of Epic power abuse.  Abusing procs in Dominate/Char/etc. push the AT damage to a different height yet it also changes the interaction with the mechanic like @nihiliimentions.  This is also an illustration of how to run this AT in a specific manner in order to achieve an outcome.  It shouldn't be that hard for players to replicate quality while still playing to their own concepts.  The current implementation doesn't do that.  

On critical hits.  There is another one of these threads where I noted without having an inherent to contribute to damage then the AT's modifier would need to be around 1.5 in order for people to see a difference.  Critical hits would just be an easier implementation to smooth out how the damage formula works while still allowing the AT to have what may seem to be meaningful damage (of course, I'm making a lot of assumptions here and I recognize that).  Again, I wrote all of that excluding the concept of using proc-fueled Dominate as a solution to all of the AT's issues.  So it looks like my assumption on where the modifier would need to go was justified here.  

Critical hits would certain steal the identity of the current Sentinel.  It isn't an ideal solution to me whatsoever, but I'm concern that the loss of Opportunity in its current form may also be rather big blow.  I'd honestly like to keep as much of the mechanic available as possible (i.e., Offensive/Defensive components - I like these conceptually, but they need work), but see it streamlined for more ease of play.  If the -resistance has to go, then that can be rolled into AT modifiers, but maybe it also needs to be rolled into some power scale review?  Maybe?  

Anyway, I'm looking forward to testing a change.   

Edited July 14, 2020 by oldskool

[Underfyre]

40 minutes ago, oldskool said:

Critical hits would certain steal the identity of the current Sentinel.  It isn't an ideal solution to me whatsoever, but I'm concern that the loss of Opportunity in its current form may also be rather big blow.  I'd honestly like to keep as much of the mechanic available as possible, but see it streamlined for more ease of play.  If the -resistance has to go, then that can be rolled into AT modifiers, but maybe it also needs to be rolled into some power scale review?  Maybe?  

This would be like an overtuned version of Sonic Blast and the Blaster inherent; apply more and more -res as you attack the target.

[oldskool]

15 minutes ago, underfyre said:

This would be like an overtuned version of Sonic Blast and the Blaster inherent; apply more and more -res as you attack the target.

I'm assuming all aspects of negative resistance are going to be removed like how Tankers lost Bruising.  I'm also assuming that the damage contribution of those -resistance effects would be rolled into the total AT modifier, power damage scalars, or maybe even both.  

 

So when I wrote that if the -resistance has to go, then that can be rolled... that's it's damage contribution.  Not the debuff itself. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by oldskool

[Seed22]

On 7/5/2020 at 8:01 AM, FUBARczar said:

I think it is reasonable to bump the damage to Stalker level (1.0) and add Critical Hits.  Blasters already have a Fury-type bar. 

 

Critical Hit Thoughts / Ideas:

- The Range of Sentinels gives added safety at times, just like Stalkers Hide/Placate

- What if the rate of Critical hits varied depending on the distance from target: say one would only get 1/3 the chances for Crits at Range compared to melee range (<10)

 

 

*** A different kind of idea would be do something similar and opposite to Savage Leap.  Where A Sentinel gets a damage bonus comparable to it's range from target.  

 

*** Also get rid of that slight defense penalty that Sentinels have.  

See, that's a problem though. You'll be trying to step on Stalker turf, which is a no beuno. Stalkers have risk, Sents wouldn't

[Bopper]

 

3 hours ago, oldskool said:

Hopefully, you're aware that some AoE attacks double dip on Opportunity building.  For example, Flamethrower in Assault Rifle builds more meter than Empty Clips.

After reading Captain Powerhouse's response last night, I chose to dig a little into the Sentinel's power files to see what I can find out about the mechanics of the AT. Mind you, I have never played the AT and you can correct me on anything I misstate, but I felt like providing some numbers for folks that do play the AT and perhaps they can verify what I see.

 

Rage builds up based on the animation time of the power. I don't know if it triggers off of each target hit or if it's just the casting of the power that builds it up. The formula is:

Rage = (ActivationTime + 0.132) x 7

 

This formula is actually neat because it is the only time I've seen the game incorporate ArcanaTime into a formula. It appears Opportunity will not trigger until Rage > 90, which means it will take at minimum 12.85s of arcanatime to go from 0 to Opportunity again. Of course the actual time will depend on your rotation, but mostly it should be close to that number...let's say 13-15s downtime for 15s of uptime.

 

3 hours ago, oldskool said:

While the hypothetical scale pushes the Sentinel to 1.425 there is still a glaring issue of power disparity between Sentinels and Scrappers

The one thing about Captain Powerhouse's math that likely won't add up is the fact those "20% damage procs" I don't believe get strengthened by Buffs or Enhancements. So Although the math shown is correct, it's correct only if you don't include enhancements and global damage bonuses in your analysis. When you do, you will see that Sentinel Damage under these single target conditions actually should be doing 5-8% more damage (depending on slotting/bonuses). 

 

The proc is set to IgnoreStrength, so it only works off the base damage of the sentinel and does not get stronger as you build stronger. For what it's worth, the proc works much like Double-Hit Hybrid and Toxins (from Plant Manipulation). Your damage will be:

DMG = 0.20 x 52.8297 x [ 0.8 x minmax(BaseRecharge, 1, 30) + 1.8 ] x 0.2 / AreaFactor

 

Anyways, hope some of that information helps.
 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Bopper

[oldskool]

5 minutes ago, Bopper said:

It appears Opportunity will not trigger until Rage > 90, which means it will take at minimum 12.85s of arcanatime to go from 0 to Opportunity again. Of course the actual time will depend on your rotation, but mostly it should be close to that number...let's say 13-15s downtime for 15s of uptime.

I can confirm this, and I've experienced this first hand with every set I have tested.  In some sets it just isn't possible to really have a complete attack routine that fits perfectly into that 13~ second ideal.  However, some can hypothetically do it even faster (Burst -> Disorienting Shot -> repeat).  That parenthetical is actually something I've tried, and it does do what it is suspected of doing rather fast.  However, the damage output is far less than I had hope for, and wouldn't do it.  I can also confirm that Opportunity doesn't build up to 90% and consume in the same action.  This is why I try to build routines that can achieve 90% before the next activation of a T1/T2.  Most attack sets can build up meter within 13 seconds assuming enough recharge is being leveraged to do so.  This also means that optimal use of Opportunity is locked into build mechanics which are going to be counter the experience of players leveling up.  You can have a lot of downtime within attacks as you gain levels and generally those routines aren't ideal anyway.  This is assuming single-target fights and will of course just get lost in the usual AoE chaos. 

 

There are some AoE powers that build meter per target struck.  IIRC, these are largely cones.  Flamethrower does this, but Buckshot doesn't.  All of Sonic's cones do this, but none of the AoEs in Dual Pistols do it.  This has another effect where powers like Flamethrower will return significant amounts of health and endurance under Defensive Opportunity.  This may be a bug since I haven't done a dive into the game files to see for myself.  

13 minutes ago, Bopper said:

The one thing about Captain Powerhouse's math that likely won't add up is the fact those "20% damage procs" I don't believe get strengthened by Buffs or Enhancements. So Although the math shown is correct, it's correct only if you don't include enhancements and global damage bonuses in your analysis. When you do, you will see that Sentinel Damage under these single target conditions actually should be doing 5-8% more damage (depending on slotting/bonuses). 

 

The proc is set to IgnoreStrength, so it only works off the base damage of the sentinel and does not get stronger as you build stronger. For what it's worth, the proc works much like Double-Hit Hybrid and Toxins (from Plant Manipulation). Your damage will be:

DMG = 0.20 x 52.8297 x [ 0.8 x minmax(BaseRecharge, 1, 30) + 1.8 ] x 0.2 / AreaFactor

Can confirm the bolded statements above.  

 

16 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Anyways, hope some of that information helps.

Its better than anything I've done. 😉 

[Linea]

In my tests ... Sentinels do objectively live up to their design intent when compared to "average" scrappers. 

 

The problems as I see it are:  Subjectively, its very different.  (and) Who wants to be the "average" scrapper.  ... The subjectively damage on demand of BU+Crits is just incredibly strong.  Subjectively, no one really notices the extra AoE damage, it's there, you can measure it, but just eyeballing it you don't "see" it, it's not flashy or obvious enough.  Sentinels do have one of the least variances best to worst, that's definitely in their favor.   But Scrappers variance is 2.5x or maybe greater.  That means if you hit average, there's a really really big difference in Top Tier and Average, so large that the sentinels that hover around average-scrapper will never scratch the bottom of top-tier-scrapper.  But if you buffed them, then they'd be superior to more than half of the scrapper options, and that wouldn't be a good thing either.  

 

It's all a bit of a mess, and a Great deal of that mess isn't the sentinels fault at all. Which is going to make it very interesting to "fix".

 

[Gobbledigook]

There are resistance debuff procs that will boost a scrapper and other ATs damage easily. Scrapper more than Sentinel.

 

How far can you debuff resistance, Zero?

 

Certain power sets debuff resistance also.

 

Defenders/ controllers etc debuff resistances also. 

 

Do we really need another resistance debuffer like the Sentinel. Let the Defenders etc do their job , they are barely needed as it is.

 

I just think there are too many ways to debuff resistances. A more unique way to make Sentinels interesting would be better.

 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[drbuzzard]

I haven't seen anyone really come up with a particularly new suggestion for sentinels  but then game mechanics rather limit the amount of 'new' options really so this isn't a criticism. 

 

I've suggested stacking up resistance before, but I think CP doesn't like that notion. It allows too much team stacking I suspect. It's how we always did superteams back in the day (stacked buff/debuff classes). 

 

So that basically leaves us with two ways of boosting damage on the table (OK, I guess just a straight up boost of the scalar is an option, but I doubt they'd want to boost it up enough to make it feel like a DPS class). That can be something which simply enhances damage (like defiance or fury) or you can do crits (scrappers, stalkers, corrupters). Personally, I'm not a particular fan of fully random crits (like scrappers), but rather like controlled ones (stalkers). 

 

Of course while I do appreciate the analysis by CP, it doesn't include the ATOs, and those are truly make it or break it items on any scrapper build. The difference in performance between a scrapper with or without them is night and day. The sentinel ATOs are fully meh by comparison. A trivial amount of absorption or a boost to get the lackluster inherent working. I understand that things aren't balanced around ATOs (or IOs) in theory. Right now competitive sentinel builds are fully dependent on procs. Without them sentinel damage is fully lackluster. Hence it's hard to consider anything without IOs and ATOs. 

 

Also one should note that the analysis is at even level. However the way the powers interact makes for greater penalty against higher level targets. 

 

Let me demonstrate:

He talks about stacked enhancement and resistance debuff. 

So at best you have 20% damage boost from offensive opportunity, 30% resistance debuff (from the target). 

So in practice, we'll assume 100% damage enhancement. If we take a power of 100 damage (before scalar) we get .95*2.2*1.3*100= 271 (- with no opportunity we have .95 *2.0*1.05 *100=199)

Then we look at scrappers (I'm assuming bosses or Lts since nobody will be wasting opportunity on minions) to compare. 1.125*2*1.1*100 = 248 .

As the uptime is around 50% we get 235 for sentinel damage. Averaging the feast and the famine makes it look pretty sparse. However it is at least ballpark. 

 

However let's look at fighting +2s. The purple patch means both damage done and the debuffs are both scaled down to 80%. 

 

So let's see what we get: 

Scrappers are nice and simple since the patch only applies once straight up to damage:

248*.8= 198

 

However the sentinel is a bit more complicated since the damage and the debuff are both affected so the level effect is squared. 

 

So it ends up being (.95*2.2*.8)*(1.3*.8) which gets us 173. So now, against mere +2s, feast becomes famine. (and of course this is worse against higher levels). 

 

If we throw in scrapper ATOs it really goes to hell. 

1.125*2*1.16*100= 261 (208 vs +2s)

 

Even if sets were equivalent scrappers are clearly ahead, and honestly against hard targets, which are worth a lot more, they are well ahead. 

 

Honestly, the way the purple patch works, I think CP's concern about resistance debuff is probably overdone as it suffers a square effect purple patch. Honestly I think a strong case could be made for the resistance debuff stacking mechanic on all attacks just as something different for a DPS class, which also helps teams. 

 

[drbuzzard]

5 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

There are resistance debuff procs that will boost a scrapper and other ATs damage easily. Scrapper more than Sentinel.

 

How far can you debuff resistance, Zero?

 

Certain power sets debuff resistance also.

 

Defenders/ controllers etc debuff resistances also. 

 

Do we really need another resistance debuffer like the Sentinel. Let the Defenders etc do their job , they are barely needed as it is.

 

I just think there are too many ways to debuff resistances. A more unique way to make Sentinels interesting would be better.

 

Defenders barely needed? You can steamroll this game easiest with a pure defender team. Also resistance debuff isn't really about reducing an amount of resistance, it effectively acts as a damage boost. If I do 30% resistance debuff to a target, I do 30% more damage. While that may seem obvious, the fact that every resistance power in the game inherently resists resistance debuff by exactly as much as the value of the power means it really does just act as a damage boost. However it is an independent damage boost from damage enhancement. What it does mean, though, is you never hit a 0% resistance, you just keep boosting damage (I believe there is a cap, but I don't recall what it is 400% maybe). 

 

But what other options are really on the table? Let's look at DPS classes:

Blasters, brutes- enhance damage

Scrappers, stalkers - have crits (some argue corrupters are a DPS class, though I would not as their scalar is so low, but they crit also)

 

Right now sentinels do a combination of enhancement and resistance debuff, which is at least something different even if implemented a bit poorly and in an underpowered fashion. 

 

Most options seem to be handing crits to sentinels to replace the current flawed system. That would be fairly brutal for all the proc builds as resistance debuff at least helps them, crits won't very much. 

[SwitchFade]

Res debuff is capped at -300

[arkieboy72472]

I was on a team tonight and we came to all the same conclusions. Given everything equal, a team is just worse with a sentinel on it. There is nothing gained by having one as opposed to anything else.

 

A sentinel, to me, is just a solo friendly ranged only blaster. It has no niche at all and does nothing well. I understand that the game is made to have fun and play and socialize or RP. I think a sentinel is a little more safe than a blaster unless you dump money into a blaster with bonuses and IOs. 
 

I would think in the comics the best example of a sent would be iron man. As it stands now, they are all of the bad aspects of other ATs and none of the good ones. That is the real travesty. No niche or defined role, no wheelhouse, nothing that they do better than anyone else. Just an odd filler. If the direction they ultimately go is what the powers guy said, I feel bad for anyone really invested in them. However if they fit your theme or RP or if you solo a lot and like ranged, I guess they are ok. It is your fun to have, not mine.
 

All other things equal, they gimp a team just by being on it. If I had a tough mission I would never pick one for my team.
 

[Gobbledigook]

Good to know the debuff cap is 300%. So there is plenty of room for resistance debufs then. 

 

It's a shame that the debuff is only single target on a sentinel though and tied to specific powers.  At least the Tankers version was 100% uptime.

 

Most ATs can steamroll this game though if built right.

 

I still think a different mechanic would be better. 

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

I still think a different mechanic would be better. 

But what? I mean, sure, we could pick one of the two choices already in use by DPS classes, but that really is about it, and it won't be novel at all.

 

I'll see if we do see it going towards a crit solution, I'd like it to be more like the 'I have a choice' stalker type.

 

Perhaps something which has a power/bar like domination that once activated grants a pretty damned high crit rate (like 25%+, not a piddling 10%) for all attacks for a period of time. Of course this again would be the feast or famine we are supposed to have now (which we only kind of do).

 

Really I'd rather have something which builds up and is consistent. Personally I'm simply not the biggest fan of crits since the randomness means I'm as likely to crit a lieutenant as boss (using scrappers as an example). Yes, I understand that each crit roll will hopefully be independent (unless they have a streakbreaker active), but it will realistically only pop so often.

[drbuzzard]

4 hours ago, arkieboy72472 said:

All other things equal, they gimp a team just by being on it. If I had a tough mission I would never pick one for my team.

 

On a positive note the amount of things which manage to actually be tough in this game is vanishingly small, so sentinels should feel secure enough.

 

I do enjoy the +4 MoITF time challenge we run on Excelsior, and right now the reining champs are blasters (they just narrowly beat the def/corr team I had previously set the record with). The organizer keeps bugging me to get a sentinel team together, but when the blasters are able to survive and set a fast time, there's simply no way for sentinels to beat that. If survival is our edge, and the blasters can survive it, we sure as hell can't out damage them.

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

<snip>

Critical hit suggestions kind of assume that the Sentinel inherent needs to contribute to damage.  When I brought it up before it was because my analysis was suggesting the scalar would need to be around 1.5 (or a little less) in order for the AT to meet a standard applied to other ATs.  That includes how the top end builds that get tossed around are constructed.  

Using critical hits could still give damage effects while allowing the scalar to come down.  However, from what CP wrote about scalars, even conceptually, of 1.4+ is just too high.  I wouldn't bank on the Sentinel having an AT scalar over 1.125.  I wouldn't bank on Sentinels getting critical hits either.  Since some of the info here suggests the idea that Sentinels are conceptually better at AoE when compared to Scrappers (reality being determined by perception of a user) then critical hits would have an impact on that possible role too.  That impact may be too much of a boost.    

The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is this; the "fix" won't put an end to "Why play a Sentinel...".  The reason why should be apparent.  If Sentinels do damage on par with Scrappers, as in indistinguishable, and can be as survivable as they are then there will be "Why play anything other than a Sentinel".  I just don't see that happening.  

So if folks want to free themselves from the shackles of thinking that the inherent needs to be a DPS booster, then your imagination is the only limit.  At a least within certain confines of the engine.  So if a Sentinel is supposed to be a spotter or a guard it could have an inherent that does something within that definition.  Good luck in convincing anyone that the Sentinel is worth bringing to teams under those conditions if their current view is already anti-Sentinel. 

Edited July 15, 2020 by oldskool

[FUBARczar]

On 7/14/2020 at 4:07 PM, Seed22 said:

See, that's a problem though. You'll be trying to step on Stalker turf, which is a no beuno. Stalkers have risk, Sents wouldn't

explain please...

Which idea steps on Stalkers' toes?

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

But what? I mean, sure, we could pick one of the two choices already in use by DPS classes, but that really is about it, and it won't be novel at all.

 

I'll see if we do see it going towards a crit solution, I'd like it to be more like the 'I have a choice' stalker type.

 

Perhaps something which has a power/bar like domination that once activated grants a pretty damned high crit rate (like 25%+, not a piddling 10%) for all attacks for a period of time. Of course this again would be the feast or famine we are supposed to have now (which we only kind of do).

 

Really I'd rather have something which builds up and is consistent. Personally I'm simply not the biggest fan of crits since the randomness means I'm as likely to crit a lieutenant as boss (using scrappers as an example). Yes, I understand that each crit roll will hopefully be independent (unless they have a streakbreaker active), but it will realistically only pop so often.

There's doublehit similar to the incarnate assault. For a time when opportunity procs or on a percent chance all the time.

 

There's power boost effect that buffs damage,recharge, secondaries so on for the Sentinel and the team.

 

What about a proc effect to attacks and the Sentinel gets to choose the type of damage proc/effect.

 

 A damage increase the closer the Sentinel is to a target. In your face high dps or at range lower DPS. Maybe on a toggle. Toggle on reduces all attack to 10ft for example but gives a big damage boost in some way.

 

Plenty of ideas have been mentioned. A lot of people want change,the class is lacklustre. And not just a mathematic change.

 

The Sentinel is just outclassed in every way. Even a Tanker can out dps a Sentinel and they even have increased AoE and survival. You don't need range when you are nigh invincible.

 

I also do not think the Sentinel has better AoE than melee with the sentinel reduced targets. Some of the Sentinel AoE is on long cooldown and PBAoE.  How does it compare to an elec\shield scrapper with some extra AoE from the epic pool?

Edited July 15, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Destlin]

Thorns would be a good start, maybe scaling thorns for the team based on opportunity bar? that would be a unique mechanic i think and might help tankers and brutes hold threat? Idk but it sounded cool to me.

[summers]

I don't see why Sentinels need to exist, and this is the same argument I had for Brutes and Tankers with the revamp. They don't have a role or set of powers that distinguishes them in a meaningful way.

 

Blasters with their sustain and the epic armour are now very tough. Blasters that have IOs are easily capable of soloing the hardest content in the game. So where do Sentinels fit? They do less damage, have less range, and hit less targets, and spending a whole secondary for what, at end game, is almost negligable benefit seems a waste. Blasters are just plain better, and Sentinels sacrifice a whole secondary for what can easily be replicated with sustain, an epic armour and IOs.

Edited July 16, 2020 by summers

[Zeraphia]

29 minutes ago, summers said:

I don't see why Sentinels need to exist, and this is the same argument I had for Brutes and Tankers with the revamp. They don't have a role or set of powers that distinguishes them in a meaningful way.

 

Blasters with their sustain and the epic armour are now very tough. Blasters that have IOs are easily capable of soloing the hardest content in the game. So where do Sentinels fit? They do less damage, have less range, and hit less targets, and spending a whole secondary for what, at end game, is almost negligable benefit seems a waste. Blasters are just plain better, and Sentinels sacrifice a whole secondary for what can easily be replicated with sustain, an epic armour and IOs.

Well, I don't really see the need for four ATs with the exact same two powerset types, but they do exist, and they are all unique flavors and takes on it. 

 

I personally see the Sentinel as filling a hole that is the "pure ranged" Scrapper-type character that is more safe but less reward than Blaster/Scrapper, but not far behind them either. Blasters captured a fantasy that was the "ultimate armageddon damage destroyer," but the "ironman" fantasy was never truly realized. Yes, you can come close to it, but it is an important distinction that a class is purely at range. 

 

Blasters can feel like a rocky experience throughout certain levels, a Sentinel will probably feel smooth beginning-end, may not be the most "impressive DPSer" but would feel excellent. My hope for them is that they can some day realize their true potential, start to gain a leg up on their DPS to make them closer to their DPS cousins, because unfortunately, Sentinels in their current state are not good at what their primary motivation should be: DPS. The AT does not control, it does not taunt, it does not summon pets, it is a DPS AT, handicapping its damage so much out of fear is stunting its primary purpose. 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Underfyre]

38 minutes ago, summers said:

I don't see why Sentinels need to exist, and this is the same argument I had for Brutes and Tankers with the revamp. They don't have a role or set of powers that distinguishes them in a meaningful way.

 

Blasters with their sustain and the epic armour are now very tough. Blasters that have IOs are easily capable of soloing the hardest content in the game. So where do Sentinels fit? They do less damage, have less range, and hit less targets, and spending a whole secondary for what, at end game, is almost negligable benefit seems a waste. Blasters are just plain better, and Sentinels sacrifice a whole secondary for what can easily be replicated with sustain, an epic armour and IOs.

Sounds like a reason to neuter Blaster defensive capabilities.

[marcussmythe]

38 minutes ago, underfyre said:

Sounds like a reason to neuter Blaster defensive capabilities.

Wont happen.  The ship has long sailed.   EPP Shields started it.  Set Bonuses raised it.  And the survival incarnates gave it its final form.

Now, had we content that was actually tough (and not just 'All the debuff and exotic damage' tough, but honestly challenging), then the fact that Sentinels are actually -way- tougher than blasters might matter.  But the blaster is tough enough for almost anything, and its not like PPD Kheldians and Rularru give any better drops than Council.

 

So here we are.  
 

Sentinel Specific - the class really seems designed to fail by people who were afraid of making something good.  It feels like a flashback to the original release Peacebringer and the Jack/Castle Era.  
 

Give the thing full range, full AOE caps, full Scrapper HP and Secondary Values and Damage Scalar.  Grats, now you have a ranged scrapper.  Replace crits with Opportunity and make Opportunity a switchable toggle for 100% uptime and the ability to instantly respond to the situation.  If its too good there (it wont be) we can start winding it back.  Oh, and give it good ATOs.  Stalkers get a good ATO on a good AT.  Start there.

Edited July 16, 2020 by marcussmythe