Sentinel Super Reflexes (/SR)

[cohRock]

I have a level 17 Beam/SR Sentinel, as well as SR protection in other archetypes including an SR tank.  For the Sentinel, several changes have been made.

1. We get base 0.42% resistance to all but Toxic and Psi in Agile, Dodge, and Enduring.   Other SR archetypes have a base of 0.33% to the same (Lucky instead of Enduring), but are marked as resistance to all damage.  Sentinel SR resistance just says resistant to damage, not "all".  Does that mean they will scale up from 0 on toxic and psi, but a Sentinel SR will not?
2. We have an option to take Master Brawler (MB) rather than Practiced Brawler (PB).  MB makes the toggle shields offer mez resistances.  I.e., if your toggle shields are on and you have MB (on or not), then you have mez and KB resistance.  While active, MB grants absorption, which I'm estimating can be made perma with 2 or 3 SO-level recharges and the Quickness power taken.  Given that, why would an SR ever want to choose Practiced Brawler instead?  PB only offers mez protection, and can be unavailable after death for many seconds.
3. We get Enduring instead of the static AoE defense, Lucky.  It offers significant Endurance recovery, scaled resistance, and defense to Psi damage. Lucky's only offers AoE auto defense, as well as the aforementioned scaled resistance.  SR evasion includes extra AoE defense compared to Focused Fighting and Focused Senses, presumably to make up for the lack of AoE defense otherwise.  Should we even bother slotting Enduring for its Psi defense?  I am of the understanding that positional defenses include psi defense, so I am puzzled why it is offered.

Overall, Sentinel SR seems to stack up somewhat ahead of of SR for other archetypes, perhaps because of our lower maximum hit points.  What impressions and/or experience do you have concerning this?

Edited December 22, 2020 by cohRock
emboldened the questions

[oldskool]

1) I've never paid attention to Toxic and Psi resistance on other ATs.  That said, I can assure the game's tool tip doesn't say "resistance to all damage".  Agile, Dodge, and Lucky explicitly detail which resistances scale and those don't include Toxic and Psi.  Again, I haven't ever bothered to track those resistances so I could be wrong.  However, the game doesn't call them out.  This is no different on the Sentinel but the Enduring is just a replacement for Lucky.  
2) The one mechanical benefit Practiced Brawler has is that it can stack magnitude.  I don't think that is worth it, but it is possible.  Master Brawler is less "perma" in practice and more "available when I need/want it".  This is because the duration of 30 seconds isn't relevant to a finite pool of temporary hit points.  The game will streak breaker you and you will get hit.  Those +400 hp (if you enhance the absorb) will vanish if you get a lot of unlucky hits.  I've had it drop off within seconds and then have breather room while I just dodge everything.  Then the cool down is over and I can put the shield back if I need it.  I don't constantly refresh this skill and only do so as I feel it is necessary.  
3) I wouldn't bother enhancing the Psi defense.  I suppose one could do that if they had spare slots.  I generally don't spare slots for that purpose nor do I bother enhancing Agile or Dodge.  I just don't feel those are necessary investments on Sentinel SR but YMMV.  Positional defenses only include positional defenses.  They do not include psi defense.  Psi defense is there for that purpose.  What really happens is the game often uses two flags for attacks.  One flag is a mode and other a damage type.  So an attribute on an attack would look like "ranged_psionic" or "ranged_fire".  The game will check which flagged defense category you have that is higher and use that to calculate results.  So an attack like Mental Blast may have "ranged_psionic" in the game files.  This means your ranged positional defense would check against that attack if that is the high value (and it should be).  However, some powers like Dominate were flagged (and I think they still are... but haven't checked) as "psionic".  So your ranged defense is useless there.  Since Dominate is a hold power with a low damage effect you'd hardly notice this hitting you in practice due to the hold resistance and insignificant damage.  There is no toxic defense in the game so any attacks typed as "toxic" without melee or range or just going to hit you.  Some boss fights are like that and Vaz vomit is just toxic.  

My impression is that Sentinel SR is ahead of other versions.  This is due to Master Brawler, Enduring and getting the Stalker version of Evasion.  All of these things combined make it much stronger than the melee counterparts.  The only exception for giving this a run is the Tanker version because the scaling resistance is amazing on that AT.  

Experience wise I actively play a Dual Pistols/Super Reflexes Sentinel and an Assault Rifle/Super Reflexes Sentinel.  I've also played SR on a Tanker, Scrapper, and Stalker.  

 

[cohRock]

9 hours ago, oldskool said:

1) I've never paid attention to Toxic and Psi resistance on other ATs.  That said, I can assure the game's tool tip doesn't say "resistance to all damage".

Thank you for the comprehensive and informative reply.  One nit is that the tool tip for Sentinel's Dodge does indeed say it resists all damage.  The tool tip for their Agile does not say this however, nor do any of the auto-defense powers for an SR tank.

 

Sentinel Dodge -- Auto: Self +DEF(Melee), Res (DeBuff DEF), Res(All DMG, Special)

Tank Dodge -- Auto: Self +DEF(Melee), Res (DeBuff DEF), Res(DMG, Special)

 

Whether this is just a typo, I cannot say.  But I wanted to verify that I wasn't crazy in seeing the "All".  I'm sure I only looked at Dodge, and assumed Agile and Enduring would say the same for their scaling resistance.  Since my sentinel is not yet senior enough to have Dodge, I don't know how to bring up its info window; all I have access to is the tool tip.

[Doomguide2005]

Interesting but fairly easy to test if you're up for some pain.  Open combat attributes to monitor your toxic resists and go let some Vahz puke on you.  Either you'll see the resistance kick in or you'll think this was some really stupid advice 😜

 

Also there's a tool tip slider bar when looking at your powers.  It defaults I think to your current level but you can move the slider to anything up to 50 (or back down to level 1).  But that's going off memories from before my computer died a few months back.

 

Edit: For what it's worth I'm pretty sure those scaling resistances do not apply to psi and toxic.  Those types if I'm not mistaken weren't even named way back at launch.  The resistances basically pair off with the positionals.  Melee with S/L, Ranged with  Pos/Neg, etc.  You'll see it when looking at set bonuses with the matching types being half value and vice versa. Psi and Toxic aren't matched up that way.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Afterthought

[Underfyre]

Or easy, just use RubyRed's API tool and look at the files for your info. Like Tanks, Sentinel Dodge also does not buff against Psi/Toxic. 

 

It scales thusly:

(minmax((60 - Current_HP%), 0, 100) / 60) * 0.25

 

The Tanker version only multiplies by 20% instead of 25%, so we get a touch more resists out of it.

[oldskool]

8 hours ago, cohRock said:

Thank you for the comprehensive and informative reply.  One nit is that the tool tip for Sentinel's Dodge does indeed say it resists all damage.  The tool tip for their Agile does not say this however, nor do any of the auto-defense powers for an SR tank.

 

Sentinel Dodge -- Auto: Self +DEF(Melee), Res (DeBuff DEF), Res(All DMG, Special)

Tank Dodge -- Auto: Self +DEF(Melee), Res (DeBuff DEF), Res(DMG, Special)

 

Whether this is just a typo, I cannot say.  But I wanted to verify that I wasn't crazy in seeing the "All".  I'm sure I only looked at Dodge, and assumed Agile and Enduring would say the same for their scaling resistance.  Since my sentinel is not yet senior enough to have Dodge, I don't know how to bring up its info window; all I have access to is the tool tip.

Ah, that's not what I consider the tool tip.  I'm referring to the detailed power breakdowns where you see the effects.  I didn't even notice the "All DMG" in the short power description.  That makes more sense for the confusion.  That is a typo.  Dodge doesn't do this.