Should the mysterious Voltaic Sentinel be less mysterioius?

[cohRock]

The Voltaic Sentinel is a non-killable pseudo-pet that does some damage and saps foe endurance.  It has a duration of one minute and a recharge, when non-buffed, of one minute.  Since it is non-nameable and non-commandible, it does not show up in a player's pet window.  If the player has a lot of global recharge or teamed with someone helping his recharge, the Sentinel can be ready for renewal in less than 30 seconds or less, replacing the previous one.  That is a problem, because it is expensive to launch (26 base endurance), mobile, and difficult to see, especially with multiple teammates and lots of visual effects going on.  As stated earlier, with no extra recharge, a new one is ready to launch at the 60 second mark when the old one de-spawns.

 

Is there a trick to knowing when to know the old one is gone?  If not, here are some ideas:

1. Make the power ignore recharge.  When the power is ready to click, you know the old one is gone.
2. Add it to the pet window so a player can easily tell when it goes away.
3. Allow multiple simultaneous instances from a single player.  If there is enough recharge to launch every 30 seconds, cool.  He'll have two of them up.  It is not like they are killing machines.

What do you-all think?

 

(Since Voltaic Sentinel is available to several archetypes, I am asking here instead of an archetype forum.  (Dominator, Corruptor, Defender))

[Aurora_Girl]

Blasters too. 

[Glacier Peak]

1. I feel like a player could just choose not to activate the power again and that would solve the issue you're describing for it being available more often. 

 

2. That seems okay to me, but since it's untargetable I don't think it will work the way you think.

 

3. Yeah, but they still do damage and enemies can't damage them either.

[kiramon]

I hate this power 

[TheZag]

Back in the day you could have multiples of this power up at the same time.  I believe they had a faster rate of fire as well.  Players would have 2-3 active all the time providing a significant amount of damage.  Having a single sentinel and slower attack speed was the fix.

 

Adding it to the pet window should work.  Omega Maneuver on my crab spider is untargetable but shows up in the pet window just fine.  Clicking it targets for a split second and then drops.  No other summons block their power from being reused that im aware of and at least the sentinel is replaced.  My patron summon just fails and the duration isnt refreshed and the first expires a few seconds later.

[Yomo Kimyata]

If they just renamed it Voltaic Blaster, everyone would stop complaining about how sucky they think it is.

[aethereal]

I like the idea of making the power ignore recharge buffs.  Seems like it is, strangely, a useful QoL improvement.

[Hew]

What if it was a toggle instead?

[TheZag]

15 minutes ago, Hew said:

What if it was a toggle instead?

 

A toggle with .43 end/sec cost to keep it the same per minute as it is now.  I kinda prefer having to decide to use it though.

[Coyotedancer]

I'd rather it be a toggle, honestly, or at least have a longer up-time. Constantly having to resummon the thing is a bother. (I only have one character who took the power, and a solid two-thirds of the time I either forget to resummon it, or just decide that it adds so little that it isn't worth the bother.)

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Hew said:

What if it was a toggle instead?

 

Dear god, no.

 

If it's a toggle, it would be an offensive toggle - and thus drop when the player is mezzed. I've had this be *the* source of damage (at times managing to get the last bit of damage to kill the thing that keeps  mezzing me) more times than not. If it becomes a toggle, it loses that ability, and I'd only really use it on my Sentinels with their built-in mez protection.

[aethereal]

A toggle would be a significant damage buff, since its cast time is significant.

[Coyotedancer]

While that may be technically true, the thing isn't exactly a damage powerhouse to start with.

[aethereal]

42 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

While that may be technically true, the thing isn't exactly a damage powerhouse to start with.

 

It does enormous damage!

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.voltaicsentinel.electrical_bolt&at=minion_pets

 

It does 44.4882 damage (unenhanced) with an arcanatime of 1.32 seconds and a CD of 2.5 seconds.  It has a 60 second duration.  So, if there are enemies within range, it should cast 15 times in its duration.  15 * 44.4882 = 698.77 damage!  Unenahnced!  It's way more than a nuke or a critting tier-3 Crushing Uppercut or anything.

 

Now, like, I get it.  It does that damage over a minute.  It takes a long time to pay off its animation time.  It is frustratingly untargeted.  It follows you slowly.  It is a pain in the ass in a variety of dimensions.  But I think people don't get how easily this thing could tip over into "terribly overpowered."

[Coyotedancer]

This is one of those "Spreadsheet vs Reality"-situations, I'd say.

 

On paper it looks like the thing should be just fine, but- 

It's cute as a conceptual thing, but not what I'd call a great power pick. I'm apparently not alone in thinking that, since it keeps being brought up as needing SOME kind of attention.

 

ETA: How about at least giving it a movement speed increase, so it doesn't spend most of its active duration drifting down the hall trying to keep up with its owner? 😝

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[aethereal]

It's not great right now, agreed.  But it would be easy to tick it over into too good.  Movement bonus, maybe a mild chaining thing on its attack (since right now it's not great in crowds where the untargeting thing really hurts), the "ignores recharge," all good bonuses. More st damage or reduced casting problems, probably not.

[KC4800]

Be careful what you ask for because Mu Guardians cast the same power and it will drain you of mojo fairly quickly.

[Hew]

3 hours ago, aethereal said:

It is frustratingly untargeted.  It follows you slowly.

Teleport Target.

 

Give it the singularity treatment.

[Shadowsleuth]

12 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

Dear god, no.

 

If it's a toggle, it would be an offensive toggle - and thus drop when the player is mezzed. I've had this be *the* source of damage (at times managing to get the last bit of damage to kill the thing that keeps  mezzing me) more times than not. If it becomes a toggle, it loses that ability, and I'd only really use it on my Sentinels with their built-in mez protection.

 

How about if you only have 1 perma up (with the toggle) but upon mezz toggle drop, the power auto-casts 3 (temporary duration) Voltaic Sentinels.
That way it provides a damage burst (& diversion) when it's really needed. 

[MHertz]

I haven't played with one since Live, but I never found anything wrong with Voltaic Sentinel on my elec/elec blaster. Sure, it doesn't divert enemy attacks away from me like a pet or soak up aggro, but I don't have to micromanage its targets, either. I can focus on other things, like keeping bad guys' endurance drained or healing teammates or whatever.

 

The part I like best is that it's pretty efficient. It uses a relatively weak blast, but shoots fairly often, so there's not a lot of overkill going on. Nukes and similar front-loaded damage powers can sometimes do so much overkill that your DPS rating is deceptively high. Not all of that DPS is being put to good use.