Sentinels. Are they underused?

[Innerwave]

I just rolled a Dual Pistol/Regen one that I absolutely love, but my friends stated I just should have made a full on blaster.  Are sentinels really looked down on this much?

 

Thanks. 

Duke Dillon-Torchbearer server.

[Apparition]

Sadly, Sentinels are a damage AT that simply does not do much damage.  If you enjoy playing the character though, that is all that matters.  Plus, know that the Sentinel AT inherent will be revamped somewhere down the road to make them do more damage.

[SaintD]

Blasters are broken as hell for endgame minmaxing with the I/O system. You get the absolutely ludicrous maximum damage....and 45% defense.

Meanwhile, a Regen Sentinel has CC protection and generally refuses to die, which is somewhat more bearable if you intend to play the other 99% of the game that isn't the end.

[Coyotedancer]

They have a questionable reputation, especially among power-gaming folks who tend to be on the lookout for "the best" of whatever character category they want to build.  Unfortunately that not-best assessment from the high end has filtered down to become "OMG THESE ALL SUCK" for a lot of people, so... yeah. You're likely to run into Conventional Wisdom that says Sentinels are always poor choice.  

 

Personally? I think their current Opportunity mechanics could use some work. Their damage sets are very uneven and often under-tuned. They absolutely do need a balance pass from the dev crew... Assault Rifle needs a whole lot more than just that... But with all that said, they're not terrible as-is or at all an unplayable choice. Some combinations are definitely stronger than others, and you'll never be The Most Dangerous Thing Ever, but on the average City team, not everyone needs to be The Absolute Best to smash a collective hole in the world.

 

I find that where Sentinels really do well *isn't* on a team, though. They're good soloists, and I've had a lot of fun with them in that space. Yes, with the right build any character in the City can solo... But to me at least, these guys actually feel like they were made for it.  So, if your buddies keep giving you grief about your supposedly less-than-optimal AT choice, make a Blaster to run with them and take your DP Sent out on their own. They'll be just fine. (I soloed a DP/Energy Sent to 50+ red-side, myself. It was good fun. DP is one of better-done Sentinel primaries.)

[Innerwave]

Thank you all for the responses. My goal with this toon was to make a decent character with some survival aspects  and some damage that would be welcome in a team.  I do have a blaster lvl 50. AR/MArtial Combat that was my 1st 50 here.

[DrInfernus]

I’m not sure Sents are underused, but I think they are misunderstood. A lot of people on CoH tend to look at the game very one-dimensionally, that dimension being Damage. If you view the game through that prism then, yes, Sentinels are poor. 
 

Personally, I’ve never looked at Sentinels as a damage-dealing AT. It’s more of a utility AT as far as I’m concerned. It can adapt to any requirement really. It can take alpha strike if need be, it can hover blast, it can comfortably survive in the melee, it can solo.
 

It doesn’t really need anyone’s help either. No tank on a team to take aggro? That’s fine, you don’t need one. No buffers? Also fine. You’re good. No debuffers? Won’t make much of a difference to you. No heals? Meh, you’ll be okay. 
 

A sentinel isn’t the most powerful AT, but it’s the most adaptable and independent, and that comes with a damage price I guess. 
 

As for value on teams... I’ve been on teams where I’ve been very thankful for a Sentinel around. Sents are always the last to die, and one has got a team back up and running after a wipe more than once by dragging a mob away from players ready to pop wakies. Their T9 being used on every mob tends to make life much easier for everyone else too. I’ve been playing a defender before, many times, that is taking aggro and a Sentinel has saved my bacon. Why? Because it was at range with me so could see I needed help whereas the tank couldn’t. 
 

The problem is, the people who will tell you Sentinels bring nothing are the same people who want you to believe they are single-handedly doing everything, so acknowledging Sentinels will never fit their narrative. 
 

I main a blaster btw. 

[MTeague]

3 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 especially among power-gaming folks who tend to be on the lookout for "the best" of whatever character category they want to build.  Unfortunately that not-best assessment from the high end has filtered down to become "OMG THESE ALL SUCK" for a lot of people, so... yeah.

 

This. 

 

OMFG maybe you needed to fire off TWO attacks instead of one to wipe a mob.  Break out the opera singer belting out the tragedy.  You still mow through content plenty fast enough.  If you deeply care about speed-running, and if it really deep-down matters to you, that you cleared a map in 4 minutes vs 6, then OK, Sentinels are not for you. 

 

I will never give a flying leap about my clear times. 

Neither do most people I team with..

[DrInfernus]

4 hours ago, MTeague said:

 

This. 

 

OMFG maybe you needed to fire off TWO attacks instead of one to wipe a mob.  Break out the opera singer belting out the tragedy.  You still mow through content plenty fast enough.  If you deeply care about speed-running, and if it really deep-down matters to you, that you cleared a map in 4 minutes vs 6, then OK, Sentinels are not for you. 

 

I will never give a flying leap about my clear times. 

Neither do most people I team with..

Precisely how I see it too. We lost CoH altogether for seven years, so why anyone would want to speed through it now is completely beyond me.

[oldskool]

9 hours ago, Innerwave said:

Are sentinels really looked down on this much?

 

Oh Hi! You're obviously new here. 

 

5 hours ago, MTeague said:

OMFG maybe you needed to fire off TWO attacks instead of one to wipe a mob. 

 

In other words, the Sentinel is literally unplayable. 

 

 

[Sir Myshkin]

A heartfelt experience from someone who went into playing a Sentinel with zero expectations early on into Homecoming's life:

 

A long time before, back in the days of yore, I had a character concept that I really wanted to try and get off the ground which only worked as a Blaster as being the only high-yield Ranged class in the game. My goal was a long-ranged canon, truly using the concept of "range" as my actual "defense", but to my dismay Blasters still just didn't really fit the bill and I often found it faceplanted more than I'd ever felt comfortable with. There's just too much stuff in the early game that's office buildings and sewage plants that make the idea of a vast open orbital satellite like character from really shining, and it killed the dream for me.

 

In comes the prospects of Sentinels and having baked in armor along for the level-up ride, and I thought "hey, why not revisit the idea and see how I feel about it?"

 

Now I can't get nearly the same total net range as I could've before, but I was also now in a position where that didn't matter nearly as much. I loaded up procs into my attacks as the slots became available and I hit the XP pavement. I noticed slash felt by the time I got into my 40's that the game started to feel tipsy-turvy. Early on there's a lot of even exchange, but as sets grow, slots get slotted, and powers get expanded, AT's start to shimmer and shine, and I noticed in a team scenario that it was pretty easy for a Blaster to quickly out class me if one was present, but only if they were. If it was a few Melee and I, we were a pretty even bunch, at least enough that I didn't feel too wildly out of place.

 

By the time I got my Sentinel to 50, slotted, and marked with a couple of Incarnate abilities I came to terms with the fact that despite it being a somewhat fun journey to 50, I had come to feel a tad bit lacking in the end, like I'd been eating an ice cream cone and found out much too late that the entire time there'd been a hole in the bottom and it'd leaked down my shirt while I was eating the top.

 

I don't regret making the Sentinel and have no intention of deleting him, I'm just quietly waiting to see if some passive buff comes along that gives them a better purpose or toolkit than what they have now that might peak pique my interest in playing the character once again.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Sir Myshkin
typing on mobile is hard

[SaintD]

10 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

that might peak my interest

Pique your interest.

[Sir Myshkin]

2 hours ago, SaintD said:

Pique your interest.

My phone’s auto correct does not understand what you mean 😄

[drbuzzard]

Sentinels are very fun for the ride to 50, and are still fun to play at 50. They just aren't optimal at 50 compared to blasters. If you aren't one of those who needs to have the best possible option, sentinels are fine. They do need some damage help, and I believe it will happen eventually. For the moment, I just play my sentinels when I feel like it and still have fun. That's why there's different ATs, so you can enjoy the content in different ways. 

[Underfyre]

Let's set down some facts. An "average" Blaster chasing 45% defense does not do a truck-ton of damage. They do about 20% more damage than a Sentinel chasing offense. Which will more than likely still be defense capped and have status protection that a Blaster does not. Now, your top end Blaster, Fire/Devices by my numbers, will absolutely destroy anything a Sentinel is capable of. Ever. But not everybody is playing that. This is averages I'm talking about. And honestly Elec/Devices and Fire/Devices are outliers and are throwing the averages out of whack anyway.

 

Your Average Corruptor will be matching Your average Sentinel. It will also not have innate status protection.

 

Defenders do 20% less damage than a Sentinel. In every instance. They're an actual support AT. Don't play them to do damage, play them to support.

 

Scrappers? A Scrappers average damage is a Blaster top end damage. Brutes are right behind them, and Tankers right behind Brutes.

[Sir Myshkin]

14 hours ago, underfyre said:

Let's set down some facts.

For what it’s worth, for a Sentinel to start off at an even playing field with a Blaster they have to begin with a ~30% Damage Buff at base, however most Blaster abilities are going to scale slightly higher with their AT’s modifiers so a fully enhanced Blaster at 50 versus a fully enhanced Sentinel is unfortunately a lot more than just “20%” off. There’s also the fact that Blaster inherent instantly starts ramping that damage with each consecutive attack far more consistently than any benefit from Opportunity.

 

And I apologize that I don’t remember the math off the top of my head since I haven’t done it since over a year ago, but an average Sentinel  has to come up with a pretty sizable constant global buff (like 60%) at 50 to base line even medium/average Blaster damage let alone power builds.

 

I could get a build to do some similar tricks with Build Ups and Adrenaline Rush and such,  but it still wasn’t quite there.

 

[oedipus_tex]

The main competition for Sentinels isn't Blasters, it's Defenders/Corruptors. The thinking is, if you can build a tank-y medium damage character who can also buff the team, that's a lot better than a tank-y medium damage character who can only self buff. Sentinels have a few neat tricks up their sleeves, but for me justifiably sit at the bottom of the pole for investing in. People should play what they want, but trading away being a power-multiplier class without a lot to show for it is what hurts this class so much, Scrappers/Stalkers/Brutes and even Tankers do a ton more damage and are the true tank-mages of CoX. They may not be multipliers, but at least they have a lot to show for it. 

[Underfyre]

9 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

For what it’s worth, for a Sentinel to start off at an even playing field with a Blaster they have to begin with a ~30% Damage Buff at base, however most Blaster abilities are going to scale slightly higher with their AT’s modifiers so a fully enhanced Blaster at 50 versus a fully enhanced Sentinel is unfortunately a lot more than just “20%” off. There’s also the fact that Blaster inherent instantly starts ramping that damage with each consecutive attack far more consistently than any benefit from Opportunity.

 This is taking those facts into account. Theoretically your bottom of the line Blaster is going to be AR/Plant doing the same kind of damage as a Psi/Regen Sentinel. Might be fun to have a clear time race with the two of them and see how that pans out.

[Obitus]

On 5/7/2021 at 12:48 AM, Sir Myshkin said:

For what it’s worth, for a Sentinel to start off at an even playing field with a Blaster they have to begin with a ~30% Damage Buff at base, however most Blaster abilities are going to scale slightly higher with their AT’s modifiers so a fully enhanced Blaster at 50 versus a fully enhanced Sentinel is unfortunately a lot more than just “20%” off. There’s also the fact that Blaster inherent instantly starts ramping that damage with each consecutive attack far more consistently than any benefit from Opportunity.

 

 

Sure, but Opportunity also isn't completely worthless.  And Sentinel blast sets are different from their Blaster cousins in ways that aren't always immediately obvious: Sentinel Electric and Sentinel Sonic are better at single target damage than their Blaster counterparts, for example.  Sentinel Fire is slightly worse at single-target (no snipe), and the Sentinel version of Ice Blast got screwed on its Freeze Ray analogue, etc, etc--but then again, both ATs have the opportunity to proc out a single-target hold (e.g. Dominate for Sents, Char for Blasters), which helps to even the playing field. 

 

And of course, there's the nuke issue.  I'd rather have a nuke that recharges reliably within 30 seconds than a nuke that recharges in 45+, even if the latter delivers ~120% damage per blast (more, in practice, given Blasters' access to Build Up, but still).  Sentinels' rock-solid every-spawn access to the nuke does a lot to paper over their deficit in AoE target caps, and depending on the set, it can give the Sentinel more wide-area utility.   Take, for example, the absolutely enormous debuffs (-ToHit, slow, -Recharge) attached to Blizzard, which a Sentinel can maintain almost indefinitely on a given target (or group of targets, if they stay relatively bunched up).

 

Then you get into the issue of what it is, exactly, you're comparing.  Ranged Blasters have never done particularly impressive damage relative to melee ATs and VEATs and even certain Corruptor, Controller, Dominator, and now, yes, certain Sentinel builds.  Blaster damage has always been overrated in a single-target context, and even in AoE Blasters weren't all that until the extremely recent (in terms of the game's development cycle) revision towards crashless nukes.  The big Blaster numbers you see in e.g. the Pylon thread come from Blapper builds.  You might say, "But Obi, Blasters can blap so their blapping prowess is relevant!"  And it is relevant to a point, but there are two things to consider:

• Blapper builds have a harder time achieving the allegedly supreme IO-DEF durability that everyone seems to take as given for Blasters when they complain that they're better than Sentinels.  A Blaster can, of course, grab Scorpion Shield and quickly cap S/L/E, but that still isn't as safe as soft-capping to range (on a ranged build); it's brittle because you lose access to S/L Resistance from a different Epic Shield, because you don't have DEF debuff resistance, and because there are more mez effects and more incoming damage when you play in melee range.  Oh, and it shoehorns you into an otherwise underwhelming epic pool.  (No procc'd Char for you!)
• More to the point, if we're comparing like-to-like in the Sent-vs-Blaster showdown, then we have to confine ourselves to ranged blast sets.

Though I haven't posted much lately, I have beat this drum quite a lot in the past: I think the Sentinel's weaknesses relative to Blasters are heavily overblown, but I admit I'm biased because my play style skews towards building solo/carrying monsters, and not so much towards optimizing team compositions for high-end speed runs (arguably the one area where Blasters really shine).  Purely in terms of self-contained capability, i.e. the balance between a single toon's offense and utility/durability, Blasters still don't quite get enough of an offensive advantage to justify their monstrously huge durability deficit--certainly in comparison to melee ATs, but also in general, in comparison to many if not most control/buff/debuff builds, and in comparison with Sentinels as a whole AT.  And I say that after taking into account a fully blinged out IO build and Clarion to deal with mez.

 

But it isn't strictly a solo game, so c'est la vie.  I'm not arguing for Blaster buffs here, just trying to keep things in perspective. 

 

Sentinels on the other hand suffer from a number of frustrating little wrinkles, among them the seemingly slipshod manner in which their blast sets were adapted to the AT, the clunkiness of Opportunity, and (IMO an underrated issue) an unusually crowded powers/build progression; like melee ATs, Sents have to take more-or-less their entire (armor) secondary, but unlike melee ATs, they don't have the Primary power/slot efficiency of a lot of melee offensive sets.  Add to these complaints the (IMO) arbitrary pre-emptive nerfs both to Sentinel attack range and AoE target caps, and people have cause to be underwhelmed.

 

To be clear, though, Blasters had it way worse, for way longer, and it still isn't obvious that they're better off on the whole.  Fair to say in fact that a lot of Sentinels' valid complaints are, or stem from, long-standing problems inherited from blast sets.  Certainly it's fair to argue that, to the extent Sentinels were under-tuned, they were under-tuned for much the same, irrational reason that the Paragon devs refused to buff Blasters for so many years.  "Range is soooo uber in and of itself that we have to be extra extra careful," to paraphrase.

 

This isn't directed particularly at Myshkin, btw.  I have a great appreciation for much of his work on other subforums.  I just used his post as a jumping off point for my contrarian rant here. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Obitus
formatting

[Underfyre]

Yeah, I got yelled at in the Blaster forums for showing the DPS of a purely ranged builds. Apparently you have to play blapper style or you're doing it wrong.  So I fiddled around a bit and found myself staring at DPS numbers on blapper builds that were 100 DPS higher than pure ranged builds. The problem there is that a Blaster, though apparently designed to wade into melee range, wasn't really designed to survive the foray.

[oldskool]

3 hours ago, underfyre said:

Yeah, I got yelled at in the Blaster forums for showing the DPS of a purely ranged builds. Apparently you have to play blapper style or you're doing it wrong.  So I fiddled around a bit and found myself staring at DPS numbers on blapper builds that were 100 DPS higher than pure ranged builds. The problem there is that a Blaster, though apparently designed to wade into melee range, wasn't really designed to survive the foray.

 

I sometimes consider the Blaster to be the Schrodinger's Cat of damage archetypes.  It is the AT that is simultaneously able to survive really well while fighting with hover out of range and does the highest damage while being in melee range.  

 

The Blaster is also both alive and dead at the same time depending on how the Tanker is observing them. 

[Obitus]

5 hours ago, underfyre said:

Yeah, I got yelled at in the Blaster forums for showing the DPS of a purely ranged builds. Apparently you have to play blapper style or you're doing it wrong.  So I fiddled around a bit and found myself staring at DPS numbers on blapper builds that were 100 DPS higher than pure ranged builds. The problem there is that a Blaster, though apparently designed to wade into melee range, wasn't really designed to survive the foray.

 

The main problem with pretty much all balance discussions on the forum is that a large portion of the playerbase doesn't seem to do or care about content that isn't Council farms or the ITF.  Or they run exclusively in 8-man Incarnate teams when they do harder content. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me; you make an uncontroversial statement about e.g. Blapper durability, and like clockwork fifteen dudes will jump in with variations on, "my blaster never ever dies," "learn to play," etc.  Meanwhile, if you've spent any time at all trying to solo at high difficulty levels across a variety of the game's content, it should be obvious to you that just about all builds have pretty glaring weaknesses, which will be emphasized against at least one or two NPC factions.  This is doubly true of builds that rely almost exclusively on IO +DEF bonuses, which are very strong; don't get me wrong, but by no means are they comprehensive.

 

With regard to Blasters specifically, you also quickly realize that their clear speed isn't actually very high in the absence of Controllers or Tankers/Brutes (or anything with a taunt aura) to prevent scatter.  Incidentally, Sentinels have a huge advantage here because their Epic Pools give them access to AoE Immobilize powers.  Even without taking one of those, though, Sentinel clear speed is at worst tied with Blasters at the high end, IME.

 

And all of this is before you get into some of the more advanced soloing tricks, e.g. soloing AVs or even TFs.  In keeping with the theme that all builds have weaknesses, the best builds for soloing hard TFs are also terrible at AoE clear speed (Illusion Controllers and Mind Dominators)--but if you want something that's good at both, a Sentinel's a pretty good choice. 

 

That said, and in the general case, meleers are the true tank mages, as Oedipus said above.  This has been the case, more or less, from day one.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Obitus

[Monos King]

4 hours ago, Obitus said:

Sentinel clear speed is at worst tied with Blasters at the high end, IME.

So I want to be clear this isn't sarcasm or a trap or anything, I HAVE to see your sentinel clearing content at a comparable speed to high end blasters. Please transfer your sent to beta or something, message me, I want to see this. This is unprecedented. 

[macskull]

4 hours ago, Obitus said:

And all of this is before you get into some of the more advanced soloing tricks, e.g. soloing AVs or even TFs.

It is worth pointing out that almost every solo task force speed record is held by Blasters, and the team composition of 8-person teams setting records in that same content is usually 6-7 Blasters and 1-2 Corruptors.

 

Also would like to see a Sentinel clearing at anywhere near the speed of a high-end Blaster build.

[Obitus]

58 minutes ago, Monos King said:

So I want to be clear this isn't sarcasm or a trap or anything, I HAVE to see your sentinel clearing content at a comparable speed to high end blasters. Please transfer your sent to beta or something, message me, I want to see this. This is unprecedented. 

 

How about this--you tell or show me how fast a Blaster can clear 4x8 content, against a wide variety of NPC factions and without routinely chewing floor, because clearly I'm doing something wrong, if you think that Blasters are some sort of untouchable gods of clearing speed.

 

I will happily admit that "at the high end" may have been a poor choice of words, though.  What I meant was that Sentinels are perfectly capable of matching most of the high-end IO'd Blaster builds that I would personally play, which tend to emphasize range and survivability over WTFPWN PBAoE damage.  That's what "IME" was supposed to mean.  I'm sure there are builds that can clear faster, though I'm not sure exactly what their existence would prove, with regard to the overarch of my argument.  On average, i.e. with powersets that aren't your bespoke Ice/Fire or whatever, even highly IO'd Blasters don't clear 4x8 content particularly fast.

 

(And chances are, your bespoke Ice/Fire would have survivability problems unless he's cherry picking enemy groups or gulping down temps and inspirations like a drunken sailor.)

 

Anyway, even really good PBAoE damage Blasters, which I have played in the past, tend to get slowed down by scatter, against mobs that don't die in the first salvo.  This is why most farmers prefer Brutes, Tankers, and even occasionally Controllers for the task.  Sentinels who opt for the AoE immobilize have an advantage here, as noted.

 

47 minutes ago, macskull said:

It is worth pointing out that almost every solo task force speed record is held by Blasters, and the team composition of 8-person teams setting records in that same content is usually 6-7 Blasters and 1-2 Corruptors.

 

 

All of that is very impressive, and I appreciate the link.  But I already acknowledged that Blasters shine in high-end speed runs.  Do you think Blasters are actually the best soloist AT because a tiny handful of people who've memorized the content and made it a priority to refine the process down to its most minute detail, use Blasters to shave seconds off their best times?  Am I supposed to cede the balance argument because stacking every temp power available, mailing yourself inspirations, and so on and so forth tends to favor ATs with a high damage scalar and damage cap?

 

To put it another way, if you were soloing something for the first time, or even the third or fifth time, and you had your pick of any build in the game, would you pick a Blaster?

Edited May 12, 2021 by Obitus

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Obitus said:

To put it another way, if you were soloing something for the first time, or even the third or fifth time, and you had your pick of any build in the game, would you pick a Blaster?

Me? Probably, yes. At any rate, a Sentinel would not be my first choice, or probably even in my top ten.

 

I think the point here is Sentinels don't have a clearly-defined role on teams. They're good training wheels for people who are unable or unwilling to play a Blaster but that's all they are - training wheels. In an environment where the tools exist to make a Blaster survivable enough the extra survivability a Sentinel brings is rarely needed and isn't worth giving up the damage in exchange. Unfortunately Sentinels are stuck in this weird spot where they don't have the tools to tank and/or manage aggro, don't deal competitive damage with other damage-centric ATs, and generally don't bring significant buff/debuff to the party which would at least excuse their lower damage.

 

EDIT: All this being said, I'm not going to disparage someone because they like Sentinels and I'm not going to turn down a Sentinel on my team specifically because they're a Sentinel - I know the person at the keyboard is far more impactful than the character they're playing - but none of that changes what I said.

Edited May 12, 2021 by macskull