Adaptation: An Idea for the Sentinel Inherent

[Calamity Cain]

Yo. I think I heard that Sentinels are going to be getting a revisiting, up to and including their Inherent. I'm all about it. I was just thinking about what to do with Sentinels, and figured I'd share my thoughts, if only to have the discussion. Or...another discussion. I know this has been talked about plenty already. But maybe, if my take is any good, the players - or even the devs - will give it some consideration?

 

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I think the question comes down to: "What is a Sentinel"?

I'd be interested to hear some discussion on that if nothing else. From where I'm standing I see Sentinels as skin to Scrappers, in that they're kind of tough, do decent damage (Scrappers do pretty damn good damage, I know), and are relatively simple for beginners. No quirks or built in tactics - just shoot the bad guys.

So to me their inherent should support this idea.

Beyond that, I think an AT's inherent should match that AT's inspiration. Vis a vis, each AT seems to have one or more archetypal character. Tankers have Superman. Br00ts have the Hulk. Scrappers have Wolverine. Blasters have Starfire. And so many more. But most of us can think of one or two characters when looking at each AT.

So who do we think of when we look at the Sentinel? They're tough, but ranged almost exclusively. The character that comes to mind personally is Iron Man. 

 

Now naturally you could make a version of Iron Man with any ranged AT, given that his suit can have all kinds of unique abilities. But fundamentally, he's one of the toughest members of the Avengers, albeit not the toughest. He's a heavy hitter at range with all kinds of unique weapons, but really isn't the biggest gun on the Avengers either. But he is kind of a swiss army knife too, in that he has tricks for many situations.

The current Inherent kind of supports this idea, but I think it falls a little short of the other Inherents in the game. It just doesn't seem to make as much of a difference to my gameplay loop on Sentinels. Whether I use Opportunity or not doesn't seem to make as big a difference, especially when compared to...Domination, Gauntlet, or Rage. On those respective ATs, those inherents are not just fun or unique - they're essential to how the AT plays and factor into almost every reasonable build for that AT.

What if the Sentinel's Inherent really was built for any situation, akin to Iron Man? What if it supported a beginner-friendly playstyle, while still having some dynamism involved? What if it made Sentinels an absolute asset to any team, rather than a "Sure I guess"?

 

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So here's my idea for a Sentinel Inherent. I call it Adaptation.

 

It has two components, again similar to the current Opportunity. 

 

First, I recommend that this be a clickie, similar to Dominators' Domination. Tying it to powers in the Primary tree means you have to grab both the T1 and T2 to get the full experience. This excludes all kinds of builds from taking full advantage of Opportunity. That's no bueno if you ask me. Every Brute can enjoy the benefits of Rage. Every Scraper gets to crit. But not every Sentinel gets to enjoy it's full Inherent. 

This is how it works: with each attack, your Sentinel would build their Adaptation meter, similar to the Opportunity or Rage meters. The idea is that as they fight an enemy more and more, they get wise to their tactics, their defenses, etc. Once you build your meter, you can hit the clickie!

If you hit it while targeting an enemy, that enemy receives a hefty debuff to the damage type of the Sentinel's Primary powerset. So after fighting enough, a Dual Pistols Sent could weaken a boss's Lethal resistance, for example! And we can keep the Sentinel's reticle marker from Opportunity, why not? What's that? Do I hear DP and AR Sents weeping with relief? Or am I just crazy? 😛

However, if you select a teammate and activate Adaptation, you give your entire team a passive buff against your Primary set's damage type. This could represent a learning curve: working with a Sent long enough gives a team insight into a certain danger to watch for, or it could be seen as a literal upgrade bestowed by the Sentinel to get their team through the madness. I think that's very in line with Iron Man, and a nice option to have in many situations.

With no target selected? Activating Adaptation gives you the resistance bonus towards your own Primary damage type. Generally, you'd only use this option when facing enemies who use the same damage type as you. To me that makes sense, because a Green Lantern would be quite wise to another Green Lantern's abilities, for instance.

So with a single Inherent and a single clicky, Sentinels have three options for any engagement, once they've built their meter. There's your dynamism baby.

I think this could be a lot of fun, because it gives you options for both solo and team play. Plus, they can stack, so a team with a couple Sents (or ALL Sents) could really link together some interesting buff/debuff combinations! A team of Psychic Sentinels, for instance, could seriously heap on some impressive damage by combining debuffs to Psi Resist, or vice versa be very hardy during a mission against Psychic foes. Or some combination thereof.

Weird example: Did any of you play Diablo 2 back in the day? Remember the Paladin class? It's main deal were the use of Auras, passive effects you could switch between as needed. Some healed you, some reflected damage to enemies, some weakened your foes, dealt magical damage every few seconds, etc.

In Diablo 2 multiplayer, as I understand it, Paladins are meant to be a boon to any team. A Paladin giving an entire group Fire Resistance could be pivotal during a given boss fight, for instance. But also, a full team of only Paladins could really stack and combine Auras to make themselves formidable in their own right. You could overlap magic resistances, healing auras, or simply buff the team's damage. All of the Paladins could pick the same aura to stack, or they could mix and match for unique combos.

This is what I can see for Sentinels. An AT that's simple to play and get into with an Inherent that helps no matter what you do with it, but has a lot of room for creative use.

 

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I'm sure there should be a limit to how much these effects can stack. I also have no idea what the numbers should be for the buff/debuff effects. I leave that to the more number savvy players and perhaps the devs to hash out.

But what do y'all think? Is Adaptation better than Opportunity? About the same? Is it worse? LOL

 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Calamity Cain
Spacing/Readability

[Glacier Peak]

There are indeed many Sentinel suggestions in this sub forum. I think I'm correct when I say that some kind of Sentinel change is the most made suggestion overall.

 

Whether the merits of your suggested change to the Inherent would work or not, it would require testing, (which I'm all for). I'm not sure your suggestion is any different than what's already been said previously on the topic. Maybe @Wavicle can speak to tha?

Edited February 5, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[Wavicle]

The suggestion has its own unique properties as well as some features it shares with other ideas.

[wffej1]

No, you lost me at "clickie", didn't even wanna keep reading after that.

[Calamity Cain]

14 hours ago, Wavicle said:

The suggestion has its own unique properties as well as some features it shares with other ideas.

What strikes you as unique? I'm pretty damn new to the conversation, all things considered. 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Calamity Cain
Spelling

[Wavicle]

19 minutes ago, Calamity Cain said:

What strikes you as unique? I'm pretty damn new to the conversation, all things considered. 

I haven’t seen the idea of being able to cast it on allies.

 

1 hour ago, wffej1 said:

No, you lost me at "clickie", didn't even wanna keep reading after that.

 

What if it was a clickie that could be activated even while another power is still animating?

[Calamity Cain]

15 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

What if it was a clickie that could be activated even while another power is still animating?

Ah, is that the hesitation? I confess I didn't even think about it. But I get it now. Hell, why not be able to use it even while mezzed?

[Wavicle]

11 minutes ago, Calamity Cain said:

Ah, is that the hesitation? I confess I didn't even think about it. But I get it now. Hell, why not be able to use it even while mezzed?

Unnecessary. Sentinels have mez protection.

[Calamity Cain]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

Unnecessary. Sentinels have mez protection.

LOL complete mez protection? Are you referring to their Secondaries? Aren't those toggles? Which can shut down?

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Calamity Cain said:

LOL complete mez protection? Are you referring to their Secondaries? Aren't those toggles? Which can shut down?

They only shut down if you run out of endurance.

 

 The reason for the suggestion is so that Opportunity can be activated without losing DPS, just like it currently can, while also not forcing the Sentinel to take both t1 and 2 attacks and not forcing them to use those attacks to activate the debuff.

[Calamity Cain]

Ah gotcha gotcha. Thanks for that!

[Calamity Cain]

2 hours ago, wffej1 said:

No, you lost me at "clickie", didn't even wanna keep reading after that.

Now that I understand a little better why you might have said this, aside from a bit a humor, lemme try to explain my reasoning:

It should be a clickie for maximum strategic possibility. I suppose you could make Sentinels have a simpler Inherent like Brutes or Scrappers. I'm always up for simple, but I also don't want another watered down solution to a watered down problem. I think we'd all prefer Sentinels had a unique and interesting Inherent all their own right? Something to make them attractive to many players on top of their available powersets.

I go for Brutes for that Rage dynamic. I go to Stalkers so I can plan my critical hits and be able to get in and out of situations easily. What do people play Sentinels for? What should they pick Sentinels for? My answer is: effectiveness in both solo and team environments, toughness, and good damage, especially when pitted against opponents they understand i.e. they use the same damage type as them. Kind of like how Rangers in Dungeons & Dragons have (or used to, dunno about new D&D these days) a preferred enemy they get bonuses for. Except you choose when and where to cash in on those bonuses, and also how they're applied.

Making Adaptation a clickie means you can choose exactly when to fire off your buff/debuff. And yes, if you made it immune to animation times, would that help alleviate your issue? Which btw, I still don't know if I understand. Just guessing here, tbh.

[xl8]

On 2/4/2022 at 7:18 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I think I'm correct when I say that some kind of Sentinel change is the most made suggestion overall.

You are not, but it is up there.

[xl8]

22 hours ago, wffej1 said:

No, you lost me at "clickie", didn't even wanna keep reading after that.

You lost me at "No", because you offered nothing constructive at all.

[xl8]

While I like the idea, I think working with what we have to be more effective simply because change upsets a great number of players. As suggested before, merging the 2 sentinel components would be a huge bonus. That's plus health AND damage on every attack.

[Teirusu]

People already complain about the domination clickie and that's just one power.  Imagine now having 3 of those sitting in your already packed Power Tray.  No thank you.

 

Also, from what I've seen, Dominators are also one of those ATs that people don't play as much as others.  Recently, Sentinels appear to be at least as popular to play as Dominators, perhaps even slightly more.   I'm sure the clunkiness of Domination does not help them.

Moreover, most of the other ATs inherents function just by doing stuff they normally do.  Brutes get rage from attacking, Scrappers and Stalkers get criticals just naturally and/or from hide.  Corruptors are the same.  So, to stay on the same footing as all those other ATs, whatever change they make to opportunity should just follow that pattern for ease of use.

[General Idiot]

I'm not a huge fan of making it a click power but that's mostly personal preference. My real problem with it though is tying the defensive buffs explicitly to your primary set's damage type, because that makes it vastly more useful for some sets than others. If you're something like Dual Pistols it's good because tons of things do lethal damage. But something like, say, Ice Blast it becomes much less worth using the defensive version because almost nothing does cold damage so a buff to cold resistance only is extremely situational to the point that even when it is useful it'll be forgotten about. Additionally, having it charge up per enemy (if I'm reading that right?) would mean it'd have to charge very quickly or it becomes unusable outside of the occasional Elite Boss or Archvillain fight because by the time it's available the enemy is dead or mostly dead already.

[SuggestorK]

On 2/5/2022 at 7:31 PM, Wavicle said:

Unnecessary. Sentinels have mez protection.

 

On 2/5/2022 at 7:34 PM, Calamity Cain said:

LOL complete mez protection? Are you referring to their Secondaries? Aren't those toggles? Which can shut down?

 

Can be Shut down by end drain or even are Clickies themselves, yes i look at you /SR or /Ninjitsu

[Wavicle]

7 hours ago, SuggestorK said:

 

 

Can be Shut down by end drain or even are Clickies themselves, yes i look at you /SR or /Ninjitsu

There’s nothing wrong with SR and Nin mez protection, and on Sentinels SR can have toggles if you really want.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Wavicle

[Calamity Cain]

20 hours ago, Teirusu said:

People already complain about the domination clickie and that's just one power.  Imagine now having 3 of those sitting in your already packed Power Tray.  No thank you.

 

Also, from what I've seen, Dominators are also one of those ATs that people don't play as much as others.  Recently, Sentinels appear to be at least as popular to play as Dominators, perhaps even slightly more.   I'm sure the clunkiness of Domination does not help them.

Moreover, most of the other ATs inherents function just by doing stuff they normally do.  Brutes get rage from attacking, Scrappers and Stalkers get criticals just naturally and/or from hide.  Corruptors are the same.  So, to stay on the same footing as all those other ATs, whatever change they make to opportunity should just follow that pattern for ease of use.

You misunderstand. You would have ONE clickie in this idea, exactly like Domination. The differences in how the effect is applied come with you target.

Whereas Domination is just a clickie that applies the same effect no matter what, Adaptation would be one clickie  that has three possible effects, based on what you're targeting:

• Targeting Enemy: Lower Resist to Primary damage type
• Targeting Friendly: Buff friendly's Resist to Primary damage type
• Targeting nothing: Buff your own Resist to Primary damage type

I'm sympathetic to your argument from simplicity. But I also don't want something boring or just as milktoast and frustrating as the current Opportunity mechanic.

Besides, technically Opportunity is already a clickie, cuz you're using one of your powers. I know it's not the same as Domination, but you do still have to "press a button" to do the thing, right?

My thought is if you're gonna go back to the drawing board, the devs, in my opinion, should really iron out conceptually what Sentinels are in both solo and team play, then continue the conversation from there. That's what I attempted to do here.

Given that Sentinels archetypal hero seems to be Iron Man, a clickie seems most appropriate to me. Iron Man doesn't have a lot of passive effects or buffs. He has gadgets and armor components that do specific things for specific situations. That's what Adaptation would be. You determine which fancy doodad to use and when. I think it offers a lot of strategic variation for both solo and team play and could really make for interesting team combinations. If the devs get the numbers right? Sents could be a big win for certain teams on certain content, rather than just "Oh okay, sure. A Sentinel. Fine I guess."

[Calamity Cain]

12 hours ago, General Idiot said:

I'm not a huge fan of making it a click power but that's mostly personal preference. My real problem with it though is tying the defensive buffs explicitly to your primary set's damage type, because that makes it vastly more useful for some sets than others. If you're something like Dual Pistols it's good because tons of things do lethal damage. But something like, say, Ice Blast it becomes much less worth using the defensive version because almost nothing does cold damage so a buff to cold resistance only is extremely situational to the point that even when it is useful it'll be forgotten about. Additionally, having it charge up per enemy (if I'm reading that right?) would mean it'd have to charge very quickly or it becomes unusable outside of the occasional Elite Boss or Archvillain fight because by the time it's available the enemy is dead or mostly dead already.

You raise a good point I hadn't considered. But perhaps this would be offset by the fact that an Ice Blast Sentinel could simply lean more on the more offensive side of Adaptation, and rarely have to break out the defensive components (debuff on enemies vs. buff on allies). I'm not opposed to Adaptation affecting different powersets differently, but you may very well have shown a weakness in this idea. Fair enough!

And no, in my idea I do not intend for it to be a clickie for every enemy. That would be nuts. I suppose I imagined its meter being a faster charge up than something like Domination, so you could use it a little more often? Or maybe not, if the buffs/debuffs are really good. But I conceived of it being used more for Boss-level enemies and up, if you plan to use it on enemies at all.

While I understand your preference for a non-clickie inherent, Sentinels already have so little clickie powers baked in, is one more really going to annoy you or ruin the experience? Blasters can have two full trays of clickies just from their Primary and Secondaries alone. Same with Dominators and Defenders. Having a clickie might make it more clunky in general, or for newer/more basic players, I could concede that. But so far, I think Adaptation offers quite a bit of variability in how you want to play your Sent and could keep them interesting even after you've reached 50+, and I really don't think the learning curve would be so steep as to turn off new/basic players.

[Calamity Cain]

20 hours ago, Teirusu said:

People already complain about the domination clickie and that's just one power.  Imagine now having 3 of those sitting in your already packed Power Tray.  No thank you.

 

Also, from what I've seen, Dominators are also one of those ATs that people don't play as much as others.  Recently, Sentinels appear to be at least as popular to play as Dominators, perhaps even slightly more.   I'm sure the clunkiness of Domination does not help them.

Moreover, most of the other ATs inherents function just by doing stuff they normally do.  Brutes get rage from attacking, Scrappers and Stalkers get criticals just naturally and/or from hide.  Corruptors are the same.  So, to stay on the same footing as all those other ATs, whatever change they make to opportunity should just follow that pattern for ease of use.

 

Also I really don't think the fact that Dominators' Inherent is a clickie is what is offputting to people. Dominators are CCers par excellence, and thus take more care and strategy to play effectively than your average hitting stick. They're also pretty squishy unless you know how to build one, and even then. That's immediately going to turn players away. Some just wanna hit or shoot stuff without dying all the time. I get it - I don't play Doms hardly at all.

Yeah the clickie probably doesn't help, but there are deeper issues at play, if you ask me.

[Wavicle]

I think you're making it too weak.

Should be:

 

14 minutes ago, Calamity Cain said:

• Targeting Enemy: Lower Resist to ALL DAMAGE
• Targeting Friendly: Buff friendly's Resist to ALL DAMAGE
• Targeting nothing: Buff your own Resist to ALL DAMAGE

 

But honestly, I think I agree with the person who said it should basically not change too much from current, just be less clunky.

A single click power that activates a -Res to All debuff on the enemy, that can be activated DURING other powers animations, and grants the Sentinel both the Defensive and Offensive portions of the current buff, but with the Offensive portion enhanceable and buffable.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Wavicle

[Calamity Cain]

5 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I think you're making it too weak.

Should be:

 

 

But honestly, I think I agree with the person who said it should basically not change too much from current, just be less clunky.

A single click power that activates a -Res to All debuff on the enemy, that can be activated DURING other powers animations, and grants the Sentinel both the Defensive and Offensive portions of the current buff, but with the Offensive portion enhanceable and buffable.

 

Given General Idiot's point about problems with some Primary sets not being as useful, this might be a good fix. haha

I'll miss all the specific, fun combinations, but he did bring up a pretty good point and this might fix it.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Calamity Cain

[MTeague]

I actually prefer clicky status protection, because it can STACK. Toggle on a status protection and that's your status protection, for the duration the toggle is on. Click protection and if it comes back fast enough you can have double the status protection for a significant period of time. Can be very nice against a massed group of mobs that like to use Holds / Sleeps / etc.

 

Is there a slight DPS loss because of Practiced Brawler firing? Yea, maybe. Have I ever noticed or cared? Nope.

But, your mileage may vary. 

 

To the original idea.  Debuffing them to only your primary method of attack... makes Sentinels less team-friendly. Right now everyone who shoots it benefits from the -RES a Sent applies. Now if you want to do a large debuff to a damage type ON TOP OF what teams already benefit from, sure. Still. I do like the idea of not having it married to the T1 or T2 power, I do like the idea of triggering it when is tactically best for me.