Post some neat differences between Blaster and Sentinel primaries

[Leogunner]

It's the weekend and my alt-itis is picking up.

 

I haven't touched Sentinel's except today but found out that besides the AT mechanic in the primary 1 and 2 attacks, there were other things changed for Sentinel's primaries.

 

Since I play Blasters not to be the biggest DPS peen on the team but rather to have max fun with the blast sets, this has piqued my interest in Sentinel.  Can you tell me some of the cool changes that makes the blast sets more intriguing to get some ideas flowing for me?  I think I heard there are new powers in the secondaries too but I'm playing the AT for the primaries.

[Super Homer]

AR has aim?

 

Also, attack chains may not be insane good, but all the attacks that usually do joke damage with a stun had their recharge cut and damage boosted, and snipes replaces with reliable attacks. This means even a DO build should be able to fill an attack chain.

 

The snipe thing may be a double edge sword if the snipe changes in beta go through, though.

[csr]

For the most part they simply replaced the Snipe in Blast sets with a high Acc (1.20) single target attack.  In all cases save Beam that was a bit of a nerf.  And in some the resultant power is a redundancy as well (e.g. Psy now has 5 ST attacks and the Snipe replacement Psionic Strike is inferior to Will Domination, Telekinetic Blast and Scramble Thoughts and only superior to Mental Blast if you ignore the Offensive Opportunity buff).  There are a few where the new ST attack fits in nice though (see Elect below).  They also decreased Cone attacks from 10 targets to 6 with a few exceptions (Water's Steam Spray and all three of Sonic's cones still have 10 target caps).  Cones had their ranges reduced from 50' to 40' and other attacks from 80' to 60'.  And the T9s typically hit 10 targets instead of 16.  AR's Full Auto stayed at 10, and the "Rain" powers in Archery and Ice may have avoided the nerf as well (hard to tell since they summon pseudo-pets).

 

AR saw the most changes.  It got Aim in place of the Snipe.  But Ignite was replaced with Incinerator, which is a single target attack instead of a patch (sort of a ranged version of Fire Melee's Incinerate instead of a ranged version of Fire Armor's Burn).  It does decent DPA, but it's all DoT, so that DPA is only realized in longer fights.  They upgraded Beanbag to Disorienting Shot and put it at T2.  The Ignite change coupled with the Cone nerfs to Buckshot and Flamethrower hurts AoE output considerably.  It also didn't get an ST attack with an Acc over 1.15, whereas all the others sets that lost Snipes did (and they already had Aim clones).

 

Dark had Tenebrous Tentacles replaced by Dark Obliteration - a Fireball clone with a 10 target cap instead of the standard 6 TT would likely have gotten, and -ToHit instead of extra DoT.  And Abyssal Gaze became a hard hitter a la Bitter Freeze Ray or Cosmic Burst.

 

Beam probably came out best, relatively speaking, since it's Snipe was replaced by a chain AoE that can hit up to 10 targets.

 

Electricity also got Tesla Cage turned into a hard hitter, so that Sentinel's Elect can put together a pretty decent ST attack chain with the addition of Zapping Bolt (the Snipe replacement) and Tesla Cage.

 

Fire's Snipe replacement looks interesting, with a micro-Hold and Repel, but it seems to be broken.

 

Ice had Freeze Ray nerfed to Chilling Ray, which is a Sleep that does decent damage instead of a Hold and gives the set 5 ST attacks with Chilling Ray arguably being the worst.  It's clearly inferior to BiB and BFR, and Ice Bolt and Ice Blast give Opportunities.  Even so, it probably did better than most sets.  It just lost some control since it can no longer Hold bosses reliably, lost some range and targets on Frost Breath, and in place gained a very skippable power.  They should have given Chilling Ray comes up just short of perma-Sleeping an Lt out of the box.  BFR's Hold is now so short it is difficult to stack (7.63s at level 50, with a 16s base Recharge and 2.50s cast) means you can just barely perma-Hold even level Lts unless you slot for Hold.  So, no longer a control-y set really.

 

So, reduced range, reduced damage (because of AT multipliers), reduced targets, reduced controls (again, AT multipliers), Snipes replaced and a few buffs thrown in randomly here and there and an Inherent with one decent buff (Offensive Opportunity, which allows you to put a solid -20% Res on targets of your T1 and T2) and one mediocre one (Defensive Opportunity) you can choose between every so often.  In exchange?  Roughly Stalker level defenses instead of buffs and blapps.

[nihilii]

All nukes recharge in 90 seconds (down from the 145 or whatever base from other ATs), sharing that recharge time with Aim.

 

Essentially means after some slotting, it's up for just about every fight, and you never have to wait for the nuke to recharge before tapping Aim. Yum! Slap a Gaussian Chance for BU in there, and you're starting to look at decent numbers.

 

Overall, Sentinels seem to trade extreme performance for a smooth quality of life experience.

[Leogunner]

Interesting.  Thanks for the info, guys.

 

I also heard the shape of some cones were changed to make them wider and easier to use which is what made me curious in the first place but csr said it was the reverse?  So cones are now smaller?

 

I think the first character I'm going to mess around with is Dual Pistols.

[marcussmythe]

Hmm.  Stalker Level Defenses.  Hows the DPS compared to Stalkers? ::)

[csr]

Hmm.  Stalker Level Defenses.  Hows the DPS compared to Stalkers? ::)

 

Significantly lower ST burst, lower ST sustained, though more AoE than most Stalker sets.

[csr]

I also heard the shape of some cones were changed to make them wider and easier to use which is what made me curious in the first place but csr said it was the reverse?  So cones are now smaller?

 

A very few do have wider arcs.  I forgot about that.  It's a major gain for AR I should have noted.  Most of the nukes had their radius reduced too (to go with the 16 to 10 target reduction).  With the nukes note that their Damage Scale was reduced with the Recharge to about 80% that of Blaster nukes (which combined with the AT factors makes them do about 2/3rds the damage).  Here's a rundown...

 

 

Archery:  Fistful of Arrows from 30 to 50 degrees.

 

AR:  Buckshot and Flamethrower were unchanged, but Full Auto went from 20 degrees to 90.

 

Beam:  Cutting Beam from 30 to 45, Pierching Beam unchanged.  Overcharge reduce from 25' radius to 20'.

 

Dark:  Umbral Torrent unchanged, Blackstar 25' to 20'.

 

Dual Pistols:  Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds unchanged, Hail of Bullets reduced from 25' to 20'.

 

Elect:  Thunderous Blast 25' to 20'.

 

Energy:  Energy Torrent unchanged, Nova reduced.

 

Fire:  Fire Breath unchanged, Inferno reduced.

 

Ice:  Frost Breath unchanged.

 

Psy:  More changed here I should have noted.  It's more akin to the Defender/Corruptor version than Blaster.  Compared to Blaster Psionic Dart was removed, Mental Blast and Telekinetic Blast moved up, Sramble Thoughts turned into a hard hitter and also received Psychic Scream with 70 degree arc, up from 30 in other versions.  Psychic Wail area reduced.

 

Rad:  Electron Haze unchanged, Atomic Blast reduced.

 

Sonic:  Howl, Shockwave and Siren's Song unchanged, Dreadful Wail reduced.

 

Water:  Steam Spray unchanged, Geyser reduced.

 

 

So, far from "cones being widened" in general it's really just that Fistful of Arrows and Cutting Beam were widened some, Full Auto was widened dramatically and Psy got a very wide version of Psychic Scream.  In general cones are 64% as large and hit 60% as many targets.  Even the wide Psy Scream only hits 6 targets and was shortened more than most from 60' to 40' so that it's area is about the same (28/27ths).  I found the 6 target cap especially troublesome with the Torrents, as they blow away the nearest 6 - usually in the middle-front of the spawn - and leave both wings where they were, essentially cutting the spawn into three dispersed pieces.