Sentinels - A New Direction

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

 

You can buy the ATO for 100 merits or about 8M inf.  You don't need the rest of the set, you don't need a complex build.  It will make a huge difference in performance even if you use it at 3PPM with no global recharge.  Players in SGs I was in who didn't make "builds," who mostly used common IOs or SOs still bought the ATOs for their AT, with merits.

 

I also want to be extremely clear to both you and @Naraka:  Do you think that well-build Scrappers with the ATO make Blasters have laughably bad damage?  Are blasters obsolete because Scrappers are the only kings of DPS, once we're talking about the kind of play that includes ATOs?

 

That's not my holistic impression.  Mine is that at a given level of build sophistication, blasters, scrappers, and stalkers are all fairly close to each other in terms of performance.  If anything, people tend to think that blasters are a little ahead of scrappers, in environments that don't highly value mitigation (soloing TFs at hard difficulties, for exaample).

 

So it's very convenient to use Scrappers for mathematical comparisons.  Their mechanics are simple compared to Stalker or Blaster mechanics.  But if we accept that Blaster ~= Scrapper ~= Stalker, then comparisons between Sents and Scrappers are implicitly comparisons between Sents and Stalkers or Blasters.

 

 

To be frank, I do not care how simple it is to obtain or how convenient they are, you don't compare ATs to other ATs with ATOs in the equation.  Because, what if it was deemed a certain AT's ATO was overperforming and needs to be changed?  It's much easier to balance if an AT's ATO is underperforming and needs to be change vs an AT's ATO was overperforming and you balanced every other damage AT on that metric and now need to revisit them all.

 

Comparisons aside, I am for the approach of giving Sent some kind of "crit" or "damage proc" mechanic because they are A.) somewhat behind on damage compared to Scraps and B.) because you can accentuate that using the ATOs as well as C.) damage being so prominent, it is the most visible change you could make to the AT that I can think of.

 

If we are bringing up the mechanics of the various DPS ATs, you're probably going to have to delve into their intent and actual performance there to then highlight possibilities for Sent (not compare then directly but rather to gauge what potentially they could do). 

[aethereal]

13 hours ago, Naraka said:

 

To be frank, I do not care how simple it is to obtain or how convenient they are, you don't compare ATs to other ATs with ATOs in the equation.  Because, what if it was deemed a certain AT's ATO was overperforming and needs to be changed?  It's much easier to balance if an AT's ATO is underperforming and needs to be change vs an AT's ATO was overperforming and you balanced every other damage AT on that metric and now need to revisit them all.

 

That's a perfectly sensible design approach.  It's just not the one that we have.  Nobody believes that all the ATs are at roughly level A, and then all the ATO's raise them to roughly A+X.  Nobody thinks that Brute ATOs are as good as the ATOs of any of the other melee classes.

 

Starting from a place of "well, let's just ignore the reality of the state of the game" is not a good way to make game design choices.

 

If a massive nerf to Scrapper and Stalker ATOs were coming down the line, then sure.  But I don't think any such nerf is coming (nor do I think that Scrappers and Stalkers would be very attractive compared to Brutes and Tanks if their ATOs were down at Brute/Tank level).

[PeregrineFalcon]

To the OP:

1. Good. I dislike Opportunity. 99% of the time it becomes available just as I'm about to finish off the last minion in the group. This makes it worthless.
2. Good.
3. Still a bit more complex than I'd like. Just add the perception and/or -dam resist and call it a day. Not every inherent has to be like Fury or Domination. Sometimes inherents like Vigilance are best.
4. So you're going to remove the +Range from the Sentinel ATOs? Not only no, but HELL NO.
5. Given IOs this is completely unnecessary.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So you're going to remove the +Range from the Sentinel ATOs? Not only no, but HELL NO.

 

I just don't get the design goal here.  Why give Sentinels shorter range but then wink and say, "Oh, but seriously though, we didn't actually mean 60', we meant 70'"?

 

Personally, the short range on sentinels never bothered me much, but I know it's a huge issue for some people.  Let's make the range be whatever the range should be, and set it there, rather than having the ATOs change it.