Fix Sentinel Target caps

[WindDemon21]

Ok, so this is a big debate topic, but one thing really shouldn't. Ok so making the aoes 10 targets instead of 16, I can figure that even If i hate it, but a few of the Sentinel ranged cones REALLY need to be bumped up to 10 targets. It's absurd that they are stuck at only 6 targets, especially things like dark's cone knockback, and energy torrent which are main parts to the aoe of the set. Fistful of arrows, buckshot in AR, and also ESPECIALLY Flamethrower in AR, need to have the standard 10 targets, 6 targets capped especially on Flamethrower REALLY hinder the power. While I could *maybe* see fistful of arrow and buckshot, umbral torrent, energy torrent, flamethrower, and electron haze all 100% non negotiable need to have their 10 target caps.

[Underfyre]

Gunna give us the Tanker damage modifier, may as well give us the Tanker target caps.

[Heatstroke]

How about.. FIX SENTINELS... period. 

[WindDemon21]

39 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

How about.. FIX SENTINELS... period. 

Well yes, but this cap for cones is just unconstitutional XD. In general, outside of sentinels, all ranged cones should really be 16 targets capped just like other taoe's are too.

[PyroBeetle]

I honestly do think that lifting the target cap would go a long way towards fixing the AT. It is not unplayable in any way in its current state, I have a handful of sents that are my favorite tools including one that has become my main.

 

All that being said it is okay that they are lower damage than blasters due to the uptime of the nuke. Fixing the target cap would remove what is otherwise just an additional penalty. As has been pointed out the inherent is a take it or leave it proposition, it has its uses now, however limited they are, but the target cap just seems like an artificial handicap, kinda like Harrison Bergeron.

[Hardboiled Hero]

  I honestly believe the first step in "fixing sentinels" should simply be to (at least temporarily) get rid of ALL of the "QoL nerfs" and see what happens.  Why do Sentinels have to have reduced target caps, yes..  but furthermore why do Sentinels have to have reduced range?  You take an AT that SHOULD rightly be the best at pulling mobs, remove the power that's generally used for making those pulls, then reduce their range by an additional 30%? what sense does this make?  Am I  the only person who finds themselves face-pulling with sentinels because their range is so short?  Am I the only one who has noticed that the corners that a puller would normally hide behind are not in range for a sentinel who wants to pull a mob?

 

  I know the maps are mostly "random", but to me it feels strongly like the algorithms used to "randomize" the maps weren't designed with characters with sentinel range in mind.  Thus I think the range reduction has had consequences that weren't fully anticipated.  Honestly, even the consequence that was anticipated seems kind of mean spirited to me.  The Sentinel is meant to give up some damage in order to gain survivability.., but the Blaster not only has better damage, but also can soft-cap defenses AND has better tactical options available to keep themselves from getting attacked. (Their greater range allows them better positioning.)

 

  I'm not saying these changes should necessarily go live, but if I'm in the dev team I think this is where I'd start looking.

[Nightmare Shaman]

The BIGGEST problem, like many things in CoH, is the irrational and seemingly erratic way in which the target caps are spread among the different powersets.  Some weak powers with a small cone, long animation, and low damage have a max of six targets.  While some high damage, true AOE, fast animated powers, have a max of ten.  The T9 powers are all unequal, everything is a mess.  You add the target caps and it just makes some things much less enjoyable to play.

That being said, I am in the "Sentinels are awesome" school of thought versus the other opinions.  They can be made very strong, don't have the nuisance of chasing targets that melee sets have, and overall are an interesting approach to a ranged "tank" type character.  
 

[PyroBeetle]

If I were to make another change beyond fixing the Harrison Bergeron like target cap handicap, I would also add an inherent taunt to the AoE, both ranged and PBAoE powers. This would allow the Sentinel to also focus as a "ranged tank".

 

Please note that I am also in the Sentinels are awesome camp. I find them playable as is, but hope that they will be balanced out in regards to the other ATs. Personally I think the target cap would accomplish this, and would only look at minor tweaks after that...maybe limit the taunt to the epic PBAoE as an extra incentive to take them, even if you make it a short duration and lesser magnitude than a Tank's. Adjust taunt to put Sentinel and Brute a step behind Tanks in agro management.

[Hardboiled Hero]

  This is the sentinel forum; we're all in the "sentinels are awesome" camp.  One doesn't play sentinels without loving them.

 

  I have over 30 sentinels, all with their own unique concepts and personalities..  from a conceptual perspective, sentinels are probably the best AT (at least in my mind), but mechanically they're not so good. On paper they look like they should be a "ranged tank", but in practice they are purposefully designed to lack the survivability of tank classes.  Sentinels reduced range wasn't done to make the AT do less damage, it was designed to make the sentinel suffer more damage.  The sentinel completely lacks taunts, which would be another "tanking" tool that was specifically removed from sentinel defensive power sets.  In addition, the sentinel's powers were made to have the weakest debuffs and controls possible.. did you know that a defender using ice blast slows targets more than a sentinel using ice blast does?  It's as if the designers were specifically trying to make sentinels bad at tanking, peeling, and pulling..  you know, the things that it looked like sentinels should be good at. Honestly though, that's all fine, because the state of the game at this point renders all of those irrelevant anyway.. well..  some tanking, but you don't really need an off tank, which is what the sentinel would be.

 

  This means that the only thing that really matters for the sentinel is damage..  Obviously, since the sentinel lacks any other form of utility, it should be one of the big damage classes right?  except no.. it's damage is no better than any other ranged class with a damaging powerset.

  

[Crysis]

On 5/26/2021 at 6:02 PM, underfyre said:

Gunna give us the Tanker damage modifier, may as well give us the Tanker target caps.

Last I saw a comment on future of Sentinel DMG we are headed to Scrapper levels.

[SmalltalkJava]

14 hours ago, Crysis said:

Last I saw a comment on future of Sentinel DMG we are headed to Scrapper levels.

That would be ultra sweet

[DarknessEternal]

Believe it when I see it.

 

But Target Caps are definitely an issue, especially when the in-game info lists powers as 10 targets, but it's really 5.

Edited June 2, 2021 by DarknessEternal

[Sunsette]

I'm like 90% sure that the target caps are never going up and that they're never going up because the HC devs are afraid of creating a second Brute or Troller Farmer. Every aspect in which Sentinels are bad matches that. That's why no taunts, that's why bad controls, that's why low target caps, that's why the class shores up psi holes relatively easily but has big gaps in everything else. That's what bothers me about Sentinel, the design is so afraid of accidentally getting great at something that there's little it is actually good at, and so what it is good at tends to look very similar across the board, just with different visuals. Sents of different powersets resemble each other more than even the Scrapper/Stalker/Brute families do, which are otherwise the most samey ATs in the game. 

 

Small group damage will go up and survivability might go up (i think it should; it isn't that the sentinel is bad at survivability now, but it should be easier to reach caps with fewer power and IO expenditures if the class is going to be offensively underwhelming).

Edited June 3, 2021 by Sunsette

[Marshal_General]

I can see less damage and less targets than a blaster, but there is no reason for less range too.

 

Opportunity needs to work like domination. You build it up and then click one of 2 non damage buttons to determine how the buff works. Then for the next 'X time' it gives you that buff until it wears off and you can start building it again.

[DarknessEternal]

On 6/3/2021 at 7:13 AM, Marshal_General said:

Opportunity needs to work like domination. You build it up and then click one of 2 non damage buttons to determine how the buff works. Then for the next 'X time' it gives you that buff until it wears off and you can start building it again.

That is how it works now.

[Underfyre]

21 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

That is how it works now.

 

Hey now, those 2 attacks do some damage.

[Marshal_General]

22 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

That is how it works now.

What I am referring to is more like domination where the buff is on you and works on any mob, not just the one that you triggered it on. It would also last far longer.

 

They could even make it affect teammates. Then they could play around with different buffs to give sentinels some utility. Like press one button and do an AoE regen/recovery buff or press the other button and give out a resist/def buff.

 

It would be where domination is self, but opportunity is for everyone in an AoE.

[DarknessEternal]

The defensive/offensive part of Opportunity is on you, and does last a fixed duration regardless of the original target's state of existence and applies to anything you attack.

 

The only part that works against the thing you targeted is the 20% resistance debuff.

[Underfyre]

So how about we lean heavier into that whole Domination idea and make it so that enough global haste makes the damage/defense buff part perma?

[Teirusu]

On 6/4/2021 at 1:59 PM, DarknessEternal said:

The defensive/offensive part of Opportunity is on you, and does last a fixed duration regardless of the original target's state of existence and applies to anything you attack.

 

The only part that works against the thing you targeted is the 20% resistance debuff.

 

I'm pretty positive that this is wrong for the offense opportunity.  It only procs on the target you cast it on.  It does not proc on any other mobs you attack.

 

Here is one of my most recent Combat Logs using Carni's combat Parser.  This was collected over running a batch of RWZ repeatable missions on +4/x8 with my Sentinel.  I also manually skimmed combat log checking for 'opportunity' to make sure that the parser wasn't seemingly missing anything.  The opportunity proc shows up like this:

 

"You hit Rikti Leader with your Opportunity for 1.66 points of Energy damage."

 

https://www.carnifax.org/?uuid=57b3dc3f-702b-432e-b5af-77edf621e612

 

 

As you can see, the offensive opportunity proc does basically -jack- for damage as it only accounted for 0.2% of my total damage.  The Hecatomb proc that I have in Havoc punch did more over-all damage then that.  Almost -twice-!  Considering that I used Power Bolts nearly twice over Havoc Punch in that set of missions, it's pretty underwhelming.  This leads me to believe that the offensive opportunity is basically worthless and you might as well just use the T2 power instead to get the minor defensive buffs.


Back to the target-caps problem:

One thing that does bug me is that Shield Charge https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=villain_pets.shield_charge_aoe3.shield_charge_aoe_scrapper&at=minion_pets and Lightning Rod https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=pets.lightning_rod_scrapper.lightning_rod&at=minion_pets are set to hit 16 targets.  Yet, these two powers are basically the same as Sentinel nukes.  Further adding to the point is that Savage Leap https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee_aux.savage_melee.savage_leap_aoe&at=scrapper is set to a 10 target cap.. yet it only has a 40 second cooldown.

This clearly tells me that it's okay for Shield Charge and Lightning Rod to hit 16 targets while Savage Leap is balanced around 10 targets with a 40 second cooldown.  So, why is it not okay for Sentinels to have 16 target-caps for their T9s?

[Underfyre]

What he means is there are 2 components to the Opportunity proc. The -20% debuff is anchored to the target. The proc is anchored on you and does very little, unenhance-able damage. I'm pretty sure if it were enhance-able it would still be pretty weak.

[WindDemon21]

On 6/2/2021 at 9:06 PM, Sunsette said:

I'm like 90% sure that the target caps are never going up and that they're never going up because the HC devs are afraid of creating a second Brute or Troller Farmer. Every aspect in which Sentinels are bad matches that. That's why no taunts, that's why bad controls, that's why low target caps, that's why the class shores up psi holes relatively easily but has big gaps in everything else. That's what bothers me about Sentinel, the design is so afraid of accidentally getting great at something that there's little it is actually good at, and so what it is good at tends to look very similar across the board, just with different visuals. Sents of different powersets resemble each other more than even the Scrapper/Stalker/Brute families do, which are otherwise the most samey ATs in the game. 

 

Small group damage will go up and survivability might go up (i think it should; it isn't that the sentinel is bad at survivability now, but it should be easier to reach caps with fewer power and IO expenditures if the class is going to be offensively underwhelming).

I wasn't talking about the 10 target cap though, i'm ok with that given the change around the nukes. But the 6 target cap on some cones is just overkill and pointless and really needs addressed to up them to 10 targets as well.

[DarknessEternal]

It's 6 target caps on real AoEs too.  Stack a bunch of guys up and try, it ain't 10.

[Sunsette]

4 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

It's 6 target caps on real AoEs too.  Stack a bunch of guys up and try, it ain't 10.

Detailed info on non-epic, I think City of Data 2.0 also lists this info

 

[DarknessEternal]

Right, which is the problem.  In game, Ball Lightning says it hits 10 targets, but it only hits 6.