Blaster vs. Sentinel for content, end game teaming

[Mashugana]

I am not sure if I want to go Blaster or Sentinel.  I want to get a character to 50 and use it as my general 'main' character.  I want to run content, be useful on teams, run solo, etc.  I do not need a maxed out perfect build for this character.

 

I love leveling the Sentinel because he feels much more survivable.  I can run story arcs and bank missions solo when there are no teams forming - I struggle to do that with a Blaster.  Will I regret that at 50 once a Blaster gets some survive-ability?  Is Sent DPS at 50 significantly lower than a Blaster once IO sets are ion the game?  Or is that damage difference only really noticeable in min/max builds?

 

Thanks for any advice.  I'd hate to have a fun ride to 50 with a Sentinel only to regret the weak damage for the much longer time spent at 50.

 

Also, I may be over thinking it 🙂

Edited August 25, 2020 by Mashugana
clarify

[aethereal]

Sents are noticeably lower-DPS than Blasters at level 50, especially in the case of naive builds (Sents can close some of the distance between them and Blasters by proccing out and making heavy use of ancillary power pools).

 

They're still FINE, though.  I mean, especially on high-level teams, it is arguably the case that all ATs underperform blasters.  If every team was an 8-blaster level 50 fully incarnated group and every spawn got 6-8 T9 nukes and 2-3 Judgments, well.  Okay.  But as a sent, you'll do okay damage and be a little hardier in the rare circumstances where everything isn't instantly dead.

[nihilii]

The overall consensus is that Blasters have enough survivability at level 50 and that the damage difference is enormous.

I completely disagree with that above opinion.

 

IMHO, Sentinels deal ~80% of the damage Blasters do and boast roughly 400% of the survivability. About the same ratios as Scrappers vs Tankers.

 

Of course, in itself this statement doesn't necessarily disagree with the former statement. A Sentinel could have 400% of the survivability of a Blaster, but if the 100% Blaster survivability is enough, then all the extra survivability is overkill.

It then depends what your definition of "enough" is. There are plenty of scenarios where Blaster survivability can be arguably enough. Say you play full teams exclusively, you hover at range, or maybe you wait for teammates to grab aggro. Or you survive on a steady diet of amplifiers and inspirations - sky's the limit with that. Fire/Fire blasters have soloed the Miss Liberty Task Force in less than an hour.

 

But... if you like to turn your brain off, if you enjoy taking on +4/x8 solo, if you don't want to rely on inspirations, if you simply yearn for an extra cushion of safety to take things nice and easy, a Sentinel can make sense.

 

I'm of the opinion having more native survivability is just an excuse to chase damage. Your typical Blaster gets Clarion or a Rune of Protection and Melee Hybrid combo to fight mez effects. The counterpart Sentinel can get Ageless to get more recharge and forget about their end problems entirely. Your typical Blaster aims for softcapped S/L defense or ranged defense, which typically requires full sets in attacks. The counterpart Sentinel fills up their attacks with as many damage procs as they can take, content with their secondary mitigation.

It's not a 1:1 mapping, but if you build a Sentinel for damage and a Blaster for survivability, you might end up surprisingly close - in both damage and survivability. The Sentinel is probably ahead in that scenario, actually.

[Rathulfr]

I love both Blasters and Sentinels (see sig below) -- ranged DPS 4TW.  My experience is that it's easier to make a tanky Blaster than it is to make a blasty Sentinel. 

 

At max level with complete IO set builds and T3/T4 Incarnates, my Blasters are practically invincible and their damage far outshines my Sentinels at max level with complete IO set builds and T3/T4 Incarnates.  My Sentinels are definitely invincible and their damage is ... disappointing, when compared my functionally equivalent Blasters.  The damage isn't bad, it's just -- okay, I guess?

 

My Sentinels feel awesome when leveling up and playing solo.  But at end-game and on teams, my Sentinels feel underwhelming.  YMMV.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, Rathulfr said:

My Sentinels feel awesome when leveling up and playing solo.  But at end-game and on teams, my Sentinels feel underwhelming.  YMMV.

Where as my blasters while solo are complete crap while my sentinels don't spend time eating dirt. As you say, YMMV.

[Rathulfr]

11 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Where as my blasters while solo are complete crap while my sentinels don't spend time eating dirt. As you say, YMMV.

I think we're agreeing with each other.  I prefer Sentinels when solo, but I prefer Blasters for end-game/teams.

 

(edit) And if you're not eating dirt while leveling up a Blaster, you're doing it wrong. 😉😆

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Bill Z Bubba]

Just now, Rathulfr said:

I think we're agreeing with each other.  I prefer Sentinels when solo, but Blasters for end-game/teams.

I don't hate my fire/time blaster when she's on a team.

[Rathulfr]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't hate my fire/time blaster when she's on a team.

I love my Energy/Time Blaster when he's on a team, too. 😍

[three_star_dave]

Of my 50s, five (including the first) are Sentinels, one is a Blaster, fwiw. I enjoy both, but the on-the-way-up survivability of the Sentinel tilts it a bit for me. On the other hand, I find the character concepts and power combos even more interesting, so I'm willing to try out either, just as I'm happy to alternate between Scrappers and Brutes.

[drbuzzard]

Even playing at 50, if I'm solo, I'd rather be on one of my sentinels (and I do have a couple of defensively specced out blasters). On teams, my blasters can shine however and do quite a bit more damage. To leverage the sentinel survivability, I tend to go for speed runs and things where you have to operate independently more. My blasters tend to stay near support and tanking more.

 

I like both. The amount of things in this game where it makes noticeable difference such that a team will really care which you brought is pretty limited.

[Mashugana]

holy cow everyone - thank you! this explains a lot about end game and some of the math that I did not know.

 

Naturally now I need to make a blaster AND a sent but hey - that's what heroes do

[CaptTastic]

I absolutely adore blasters and I can’t deny it. I have some really powerful ones too that do insane damage. 

 

Here is the kicker though... the toon I have that gets by far and away the most compliments and is noticed most by team mates on any content, whether it’s at lvl 15 or 50... is my Elec*3 Sentinel. 

Sentinels get a rough reputation in-game with many, perhaps even most, believing them to be underpowered and ultimately obsolete, particularly in end-game content. But that reputation is not deserved. 
 

The truth is that Sentinels probably have the hardest sweet spot to find of any AT. It’s very easy to go overkill on survivability and lose too much offence. It’s just as easy to chase too much offence and completely compromise your survivability. Find that sweet spot though and a Sentinel is a thing of beauty. It’s the most versatile and reliable AT in the game and is immensely satisfying to play. 
 

Now, you may not want the hassle of getting to that point, which is fine. In which case, blaster is an easier ‘pick-up-and-play’ bet in terms of teaming. Me? I love both. 

[Saikochoro]

To me the damage difference is night and day. It is very noticeable. Blasters do way more damage, and with IOs they can be made fairly sturdy. They won’t be as sturdy as a sentinel, but especially on a team they are plenty sturdy. I can’t even remember the last time I face planted on a level 50 blaster and I play really aggressively.  
 

When I can’t find a team late at night I don’t have a problem soloing +4/8 on my blaster without amplifier and without scarfing down inspirations constantly. I am able to get the important softcaps and still take musculature alpha and assault hybrid. I even take ageless destiny for more recharge. Picking up rune of protection helps a lot, but I pick that up on sentinels, stalkers, and scrappers too.  I do steer clear of Arachnos or carnies though, but I hate those factions regardless. 
 

I don’t really notice the survivability difference between the two while teaming at level 50. However, I do definitely notice the damage gap. If you are looking for purely the best in slot the answer is blaster. They can overcome survivability issues with a proper build and the team buffs. However, the sentinel just can’t overcome the damage gap. Even if they get a fulcrum shift capping out their damage, a blaster would still do better in that situation. 
 

Effectiveness and efficiency aside, sentinels are still fun. I think fun is much more important than effectiveness. Both will do perfectly fine on teams and nobody complains about having a sentinel. Both archetypes are also very fun to play. I personally enjoy blasters more so I play blasters more.  If you enjoy the sentinel a lot, then keep at it. You can always make a blaster too!

Edited August 28, 2020 by Saikochoro

[MTeague]

Many people spend all their time on a Lvl 50 doing Peregrine Island, ITF's, iTrials, and an occasional Dark Astoria.

But many other people may spend the same amount of time on their nominally level 50 character exemplared down, doing Ouroborous Marathons. 

 

"endgame" varies by player. 

 

If you'll be exemplaring down a lot, then those incarnates may be completely out the window for you.  Someone who mainly exemplars basically has no Clarion, no Ageless, No Barrier, no Lore pets, your Alpha doesn't matter,  no Hybrid, etc.  That may shift the math a lot to how much you might keep feeling blasters as squishy vs not. 

[FUBARczar]

On 8/25/2020 at 9:16 PM, aethereal said:

They're still FINE, though.  I mean, especially on high-level teams, it is arguably the case that all ATs underperform blasters.  If every team was an 8-blaster level 50 fully incarnated group and every spawn got 6-8 T9 nukes and 2-3 Judgments, well.  Okay.  But as a sent, you'll do okay damage and be a little hardier in the rare circumstances where everything isn't instantly dead.

not so fast.  So I run +4/8 4-man master ITFs w/ inspirations off for time.  We typically ran all the same AT.  Current the best times are Scrappers 20:11, Brutes 26:03, Blasters 29:23, Corruptors 29:43.  And there have been many runs of each with all sorts of different powerset combinations.  Of these top runs I would say that only the Corruptors run was all top tier sets.  So as it stands right now Scrappers are way ahead, and Brutes are ahead by quite a bit too.   But I am confident that with a better mix of Blasters that could come down to 25 mins, but then again I think Brutes can improve by a few mins, and scrappers can do sub 20 minutes. 

 

[Shred Monkey]

I think there's 2 key things the OP said.  

 

1.  They like their sentinel.

2.  They don't need an ultimate endgame build.

 

With those 2 things in mind, I'd say go Sentinel.  Personally, I go for ultimate endgame builds which raises both the blasters durability and damage by so much that sentinals feel underwhelming in damage and like overkill in durability.

 

I think where sentinels shine is if you compare them to tanks.  Sentinels do more damage with bigger AoEs then tanks (that's true isn't it?), and they have similar levels of durability... in fact if you hover-blast on a sentinel, you are probably more durable then most tanks.

[CaptainLupis]

9 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I think there's 2 key things the OP said.  

 

1.  They like their sentinel.

2.  They don't need an ultimate endgame build.

 

With those 2 things in mind, I'd say go Sentinel.  Personally, I go for ultimate endgame builds which raises both the blasters durability and damage by so much that sentinals feel underwhelming in damage and like overkill in durability.

 

I think where sentinels shine is if you compare them to tanks.  Sentinels do more damage with bigger AoEs then tanks (that's true isn't it?), and they have similar levels of durability... in fact if you hover-blast on a sentinel, you are probably more durable then most tanks.

My Claws tank would heartily disagree with sentinels doing more damage and having bigger AoEs...

[MTeague]

6 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

I think where sentinels shine is if you compare them to tanks.  Sentinels do more damage with bigger AoEs then tanks (that's true isn't it?), and they have similar levels of durability... in fact if you hover-blast on a sentinel, you are probably more durable then most tanks.

I think a Tanker will have a wider-area AoE attack that can hit more foes per activation.

But the Sentinel may have 4-5 different AoE attack the can chain together, vs a Tanker having like, 1, maybe two if they got Crosspunch.

 

Sentinel armor sets are Scrapper levels of durability; Tankers and Brutes can build up higher. 

But that said, a well built Sentinel, much like a well built Scrapper, can still take an awful lot of incoming punishment.

They won't be able to hold aggro well, but a Sentinel or two to soak the alpha strike and a mix of other AT's coming in right behind them will do right fine for most content. 

[Shred Monkey]

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

Sentinel armor sets are Scrapper levels of durability; Tankers and Brutes can build up higher. 

But Sentinels don't have to go into melee.  That means they can beat scrappers by a mile in durability.  A hover blaster is easily up there in competition with tanks and brutes.

[MTeague]

5 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

But Sentinels don't have to go into melee.  That means they can beat scrappers by a mile in durability.  A hover blaster is easily up there in competition with tanks and brutes.

Depends on the Sentinel. 

My Fire/Fire/Fire sentinel lives in melee a lot, between Burn, FireSwordCircle, Cremate, Inferno, point blank fireballs, stepping back a step or two for Fire Breath, Consume, etc.

My Ice/Dark sentinel does tend to stay at least at midrange though, even without Hover.

[Keen]

I had a similar dilemma recently, trying to figure out a "main" for badges and whatnot.

 

Ultimately I went Sentinel, because I personally favor defense way more than offense, and I enjoy being ranged a lot more than melee. So I built a proc-oriented Beam Rifle/Willpower Sentinel that manages to get a 4m30 pylon time (better than many of my Blasters) and has around 80HP/s regen -- better than the average Regeneration Scrapper without Instant Healing/Dull Pain on -- on top of the other defense layers from WP. Beam Rifle does -res and I slotted a few -res IOs as well so it helps quite a bit on teams and endgame content.

 

But the difference exists, and it's huge. I also have a Beam Rifle Blaster who can solo giant monsters in the Hive -- the damage output is quite absurd. It is my fastest pylon killer to date (2m30). It needs Clarion to get around mez (while the Sentinel went for Ageless). But as others mentioned, I'd rather not rely on Incarnates or Inspirations as much, so Sentinel gives me the comfortable level of gameplay I'm looking for.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by Keen

[oldskool]

3 hours ago, Keen said:

I had a similar dilemma recently, trying to figure out a "main" for badges and whatnot.

 

Ultimately I went Sentinel, because I personally favor defense way more than offense, and I enjoy being ranged a lot more than melee. So I built a proc-oriented Beam Rifle/Willpower Sentinel that manages to get a 4m30 pylon time (better than many of my Blasters) and has around 80HP/s regen -- better than the average Regeneration Scrapper without Instant Healing/Dull Pain on -- on top of the other defense layers from WP. Beam Rifle does -res and I slotted a few -res IOs as well so it helps quite a bit on teams and endgame content.

 

But the difference exists, and it's huge. I also have a Beam Rifle Blaster who can solo giant monsters in the Hive -- the damage output is quite absurd. It is my fastest pylon killer to date (2m30). It needs Clarion to get around mez (while the Sentinel went for Ageless). But as others mentioned, I'd rather not rely on Incarnates or Inspirations as much, so Sentinel gives me the comfortable level of gameplay I'm looking for.

4m30s is pretty good for a game that hasn't really increased any of its difficult yet has made a new damage meta despite that. 

[Haijinx]

On 9/16/2020 at 9:07 AM, Shred Monkey said:

But Sentinels don't have to go into melee.  That means they can beat scrappers by a mile in durability.  A hover blaster is easily up there in competition with tanks and brutes.

This probably explains a lot. 

 

I hate hovering.  

[siran]

One thing people don't mention is 'you spend a lot of time not at level 50'. Even at end game there is 'the task force of the week' and 'joining other people's missions'. People correctly say that blasters can be very tough, but exemplar down and an awful lot of that toughness vanishes

 

I have blasters that can tank a lot of content. All that said I've never seen one tank carnies or banished pantheon or rularu (sp?), and I've seen a lot get smashed into little pieces by nemesis... so I think they are tanky as long as there is no heavy debuffing going on. Sentinels though are tough and with a rapid charging nuke they can really dish out respectable damage.. Procs help a lot.

 

With blasters you can expect to face plant a lot. Really a lot. On that journey from one to 50 maybe you faceplant a dozen times. I've very rarely been on an ITF with blasters and seen them all make it all the way through without one faceplanting. Sentinels... they don't tend to do that. My last one didn't get defeated from level 1 through 50, and has only been defeated twice since. All my blasters get debt badges: Lots of debt badges.

 

So I think I am with the 'I disagree with the common consensus'. If all you do is level 50 content with eight man teams and lots of supports, then blasters are great. If you want to be tough and do the damage at any level, exemplar to give support to friends or to do the weekly TF, then sentinels have a lot to offer.

 

 

[Grindingsucks]

I actually feel like Sentinels are the most reasonably balanced AT in the game (apart from the special AT mechanic).  They perform quite poorly compared to the other AT's but, as another poster noted, that is primarily because of the tremendous power creep in the game (which also- sadly, IMO- renders AT roles and team strategy in combat largely superfluous, particularly in the 50+ lvl range.  I think this bit will only be fixed by introducing new, suitably challenging end-game content to the server, but that is a segue and isn't relevant to the topic at hand.  Moving on...).

 

Because of the power creep, Sentinels do need a pretty serious upgrade IMO.  Having said that, I do enjoy my Rad/BR Sentinel, even if he doesn't perform as powerfully has my Dominator, for example.  At end-game content, I don't think it makes much difference, though.  A group of incarnate players will hit a pile of mobs, wreck them in about 3 seconds, with little to no regard for strategy, move on to the next pile, etc- often without suffering a single casualty.

 

I do think, at lower levels, that Sentinels are quite a bit more enjoyable to run during solo play.  YMMV and what not.