A neat schtick for Sentinels

[Replacement]

It's not glamorous, it doesn't appeal to everyone's focus on DPS.  But I suggest...

 

Buff their Secondary effects.  

 

Let's be clear: I think they need some small improvements elsewhere as well, like a large usability overhaul to Opportunity and a minor overall damage increase.  

But you want to make them more interesting?  Give them better secondary effects.  I'd suggest going as high as Defenders.  By contrast, right now they are at Blaster level (and sometimes below even that).

 

Consider: right now, Defender secondary effects from their blasts are about 33-50% stronger than Blaster equivalents.  However, those numbers tend to be overshadowed by their Support sets.  While Corruptors experience an interesting divide on this as well, they again have an entire Support set that skews the impact of their Blasts' secondary effects.

 

If you gave this treatment to Sentinels, you would be giving their blasts an interesting use: "the blast set where you care about the damage and the effects."  It would also be an interesting way to lean into the notion of Sentinels providing a bit of everything without truly reaching "tankmage" status.

 

This won't help Fire Blast on Sentinels any more than it does on Defenders so I'm choosing not to focus on that set.

[Super Atom]

Sentinels need so much help that any buff at this point is welcomed

[Vanden]

What's that going to do for sets like Fire Blast, Archery, and Energy Blast?

Edited September 24, 2020 by Vanden

[Replacement]

18 minutes ago, Vanden said:

What's that going to do for sets like Fire Blast, Archery, and Energy Blast?

There's no scale for it, but you could increase the Knock chances across Energy.  Sets like Archery or AR already have Sentinel-unique powers. I think adding additional effects to those would make the most sense. 

[FoulVileTerror]

What's in a name?

"Sentinel" 

- An entity that watches or stands as if watching.  

- A soldier stationed as a guard to challenge all comers and prevent a surprise attack.

 

 . . . one of the things that is DAMNED annoying and doesn't have much in the way of counterplay in the game right now is the Blinded status effect.

What if we tried adding an Inherent superior Resistance to -Perception Debuffs AND made all of the Sentinel Attacks add "Illuminate" to any enemy they hit.

 

Illuminated enemies would have reduced Resistance, but also be easier to target by the whole team under conditions when those teammates are Blinded.

 

Whether we add that to all Sentinels, just Fire Blast Sentinels, or add it to all AND give the Fire Blast Sentinels an even stronger version of it . . . I'm not one to say which is ideal.

 

Now, of course, that doesn't address -all- of the Sentinel's problems, and -Perception Debuffs are mercifully rare, but in addition to whatever other changes get applied to the Sentinel, I at least think this would give them a VERY interesting niche to fill.

[nihilii]

I feel the rebalance (arguably nerf) of Fire Blast's secondary effects on Sentinels was a good thing, and encourages primary diversity. Going back to the blaster Fire Blast situation wouldn't be desirable.

Secondary effects in general are actually in a pretty good spot on Sentinels, mostly thanks to their mininuke balance. i.e. Blackstar's -tohit, which is a novelty on regular blast ATs, becomes a reliable and massive -35% tohit debuff that is up every 25 seconds. Elec Blast Sentinels laugh at the complaint "end drain is useless" as they open every new fight with Thunderous Blast (90s base recharge down from 170s on other ATs). Disorients/holds on T9s are up more often, etc..

[Dragon Crush]

Can the modifiers for blast's secondary effects be changed with a simple change to the AT modifier without also adjusting armors, or would the values of each power for sentinels need to be manually adjusted?

Other than that question of how much work it'd be, sounds interesting and seems like it could use a spin on test server at the very least.

[Lines]

I like the ideas that are coming up, but my feeling is that the inherent needs to be resolved first so that we can know what exactly the character of the AT is. I think the AT requires incremental development.

 

The inherent could link to the secondary effects, of course!

[Replacement]

8 hours ago, Dragon Crush said:

Can the modifiers for blast's secondary effects be changed with a simple change to the AT modifier without also adjusting armors, or would the values of each power for sentinels need to be manually adjusted?

Other than that question of how much work it'd be, sounds interesting and seems like it could use a spin on test server at the very least.

My understanding is that most of them have AT modifiers, but I think some of them like Slow effects are just eyeballed in.

2 hours ago, Lines said:

I like the ideas that are coming up, but my feeling is that the inherent needs to be resolved first so that we can know what exactly the character of the AT is. I think the AT requires incremental development.

 

The inherent could link to the secondary effects, of course!

I think it's very likely that an inherent overhaul will bring with it some supportive elements. It already has a bit with the -res effects. It's actually what got me thinking down this path.

 

At the end of the day, this feels to me like a way to color in the AT without reducing everything to dps comparisons.

Tapping into an element of the Blast sets that largely goes unnoticed is just an interesting (to me) design space.

[Zeraphia]

15 hours ago, nihilii said:

I feel the rebalance (arguably nerf) of Fire Blast's secondary effects on Sentinels was a good thing, and encourages primary diversity. Going back to the blaster Fire Blast situation wouldn't be desirable.

I do not think nerfing a set relative to competitors "encourages diversity" in this context. The set's established goal was to trade all other forms of advantage between other sets and Fire Blast as an opportunity to gain more damage in overtime effects. Having this advantage decreased only leads to less people playing the set and the AT as a whole. While Fire Blast is the most played blast set, it is by no means in a super-majority, it is still in a minority in comparison to all other blast sets chosen, therefore I conclude that there still is encouraged diversity to play other sets than Fire Blast even in context of the blaster's viewpoint. No one should feel forced to choose a set, and it's obvious that most blasters even now, do not feel inclined to choose a specific set by their statistics. Moreover, I think the general feeling of Sentinels (notable exception to Sonic Blast and some other sets) being shortchanged overall compared to their Blaster variations making less palpable sets overall have a worse feeling on this AT that is already at a distinguished perceptual feeling of dissatisfaction. Key powers were outright replaced with some variations that most deem lackluster, and in some cases disastrous alternatives. Regardless of how you or I are aware Sentinels can be tweaked to become decent alternative characters, that is not the general feel of a current Sentinel for many users. Even so, where we gauge how good a set is in relativity to the other sets. Simply put, no set is truly "amazing" by pure definition of being "amazing" it is only the perception that it performs better than competitors. 

[nihilii]

The disparity between blaster Fire Blast and the second choice is >222%. The disparity between sentinel Fire Blast and the second choice is <130%.

 

If we assume we can derive anything at all from that data, it seems obvious rebalancing Fire Blast has encouraged diversity in Sentinels, without hurting its appeal, hitting just the right balance.

If we assume we can't conclude anything from that data, then the point is moot and there's not really a case to be made for buffing Fire Blast here. Surely nobody would try to argue Sentinel Fire Blast underperforms compared to other Sentinel primaries.

Edited September 24, 2020 by nihilii