Please Explain

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

Think there’s a little bit more difference between Sentinels vs Blasters and Tankers vs Brutes AND a reasonable amount of consensus that Tankers were overbuffed, but, sure, yeah, do whatever.

 

No, please don't. It was a joke!

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

That's why hover exists.

 

So by what you're saying the entire secondary set for Sentinels is useless because one can just hover?

 

Also I note that sense Blasters can hover, there should be no reason not to up Sentinel damage sense hovering is apparently protection.

[arcane]

5 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

So by what you're saying the entire secondary set for Sentinels is useless because one can just hover?

 

Also I note that sense Blasters can hover, there should be no reason not to up Sentinel damage sense hovering is apparently protection.

Sentinels get Armor Sets and Blasters don’t - the vast difference in mitigation is not that hard to grasp…

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Regardless, the most durable ranged AT needs to be [at least one of] the least damaging ranged AT’s, because balance, and that’s why we’re here.

 

That said I understand the frustration with the target caps because even Defenders don’t have to deal with that. So my question is: would people be ok with Sentinel’s damage modifier decreasing from where it is now if that was the justification devs needed to increase target caps? Say between 0.1 and 0.15. Personally, I would say yes.

 

Sentinels do not need to do Blaster level damage but they should do more damage than a damage starved Defender (who hits more targets) since the Defender AND ALL OTHER ranged ATs bring other functionality to the fight for the group. My Dominator happily tools along with things never getting to him or being the are immobilized or held at a distance. Oh, and he buffs regen (for himself and the party) too.

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

Sentinels get Armor Sets and Blasters don’t - the vast difference in mitigation is not that hard to grasp…

 

Neither is the notion that dealing sufficient damage to kill things before they get to you (Blaster) is as well. And yet you'd portray mattters as if Blasters are at some sort of horrible risk of dying when in fact actual game play and repeated experience shows otherwise. Know when I decided I was going to play a Seismic blaster?  When on the test server I took out an entire spawn with absolutely NONE of them getting a chance to do anything to me because I kept knocking them off their feet. 

 

While is it not my cup of tea, blappers are far from unknown, rare things. You don't do that if it results in eating pavement routinely.

 

The entire "Blasters are hyper-flimsy" routhine may hold for a bit but if their defenses were the equivalent of Sentinel damage nobody would play the AT.

 

[arcane]

Blasters are very easy to make durable if all you do is play the easiest content. You’re correct that none of these balance metrics matter if you’re playing in a setting where Blasters are durable enough. If, however, you bother to stray from that level of play, the Sentinel’s durability adds something no other Ranged AT gets. 
 

If you are not having durability issues with Blaster, you should be playing Blaster, yes. Likewise, if you’re only playing content a Scrapper can tank, you should have zero reason to ever make a Brute or Tank. Etc etc. But the game’s balance isn’t based on how IO builds do in easy mode content, so that’s all irrelevant stuff.

Edited August 7, 2022 by arcane

[Erratic1]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

Blasters are very easy to make durable if all you do is play the easiest content. You’re correct that none of these balance metrics matter if you’re playing in a setting where Blasters are durable enough. If, however, you bother to stray from that level of play, the Sentinel’s durability adds something no other Ranged AT gets. 
 

If you are not having durability issues with Blaster, you should be playing Blaster, yes. Likewise, if you’re only playing content a Scrapper can tank, you should have zero reason to ever make a Brute or Tank. Etc etc. But the game’s balance isn’t based on how IO builds do in easy mode content, so that’s all irrelevant stuff.

 

And on non-trivial content a Sentinel's damage is meaningless to a team and they do not bring any other functionality. I am not sure it is much of a hallmark to survive whlie doing nothing useful, but perhaps that floats your boat.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

So by what you're saying the entire secondary set for Sentinels is useless because one can just hover?

 

Also I note that sense Blasters can hover, there should be no reason not to up Sentinel damage sense hovering is apparently protection.

 

No, I'm saying that because a sentinel can attack from above, never being hit by the vastly larger amount of incoming damage from melee, while having an armor secondary, it's functionally immortal in this game. Blasters can also hover but they can be mezzed and overcome by even the piddly ranged damage because they lack useful mitigation.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

Sentinels do not need to do Blaster level damage but they should do more damage than a damage starved Defender (who hits more targets) since the Defender AND ALL OTHER ranged ATs bring other functionality to the fight for the group.

 

And that's why I agree that sents should have the same target caps as the other blast sets. They don't bring anything useful to a team environment other than damage so that portion of their job should not be *AS* hamstrung as it is by said caps.

[Erratic1]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

Think there’s a little bit more difference between Sentinels vs Blasters and Tankers vs Brutes AND a reasonable amount of consensus that Tankers were overbuffed, but, sure, yeah, do whatever.

 

Tankers got an area increase to hit more than any other AT in the game on top of a damage increase. I am pretty sure nobody here is asking for Sentinels to hit more targets than any other AT.

[Erratic1]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

And that's why I agree that sents should have the same target caps as the other blast sets. They don't bring anything useful to a team environment other than damage so that portion of their job should not be *AS* hamstrung as it is by said caps.

 

Lower damage, shorter range, lower target caps, and no group functionality is where Sentinels are at.

 

Is it your position that dropping that to lower damage, shorter range, and no group functionality will balance them out? Or is that a starting point?

[Bill Z Bubba]

28 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Lower damage, shorter range, lower target caps, and no group functionality is where Sentinels are at.

 

Is it your position that dropping that to lower damage, shorter range, and no group functionality will balance them out? Or is that a starting point?

 

Lower damage and shorter range should absolutely stay as is.

 

Caps should be standardized and Opportunity should be completely reworked into something useful for both the player and a team that doesn't rely on utilizing the T1 or T2 attacks.

 

That's my hope for future changes.

[Heatstroke]

15 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Lower damage and shorter range should absolutely stay as is.

 

Caps should be standardized and Opportunity should be completely reworked into something useful for both the player and a team that doesn't rely on utilizing the T1 or T2 attacks.

 

That's my hope for future changes.

 

 

I agree with this 100%

 

Sentinels need some love. Opportunity should be reworked into something like Domination working towards building in a damage buff for a short period of time., but that cant be perma'd like Domination can. 
 

[arcane]

Drop their damage multipliers by 0.1, increase target caps now that you’ve found something to give away, and then rework opportunity bigtime. That’s my prescription. 

[Arcadio]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

No, I'm saying that because a sentinel can attack from above, never being hit by the vastly larger amount of incoming damage from melee, while having an armor secondary, it's functionally immortal in this game. Blasters can also hover but they can be mezzed and overcome by even the piddly ranged damage because they lack useful mitigation.

If the AT is supposed to be balanced around hover, then just make that their inherit.

 

6 minutes ago, arcane said:

Drop their damage multipliers by 0.1, increase target caps now that you’ve found something to give away, and then rework opportunity bigtime. That’s my prescription. 

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've never cared about my target cap being lower ever. Everything in the AT points to being good at damaging one/few targets. The lower target cap, the inherit, the buff to the ST utility blast. I would really rather sentinels lean more into that instead of moving towards another farming AT.

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Arcadio said:

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I've never cared about my target cap being lower ever. Everything in the AT points to being good at damaging one/few targets. The lower target cap, the inherit, the buff to the ST utility blast. I would really rather sentinels lean more into that instead of moving towards another farming AT.

I’m fine with that approach too in which case they just need to make sure Sentinels really shine at S/T damage when they rework opportunity.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Arcadio said:

If the AT is supposed to be balanced around hover, then just make that their inherit.

 

We can all choose to play as we wish. I have a ground pounder rad/regen sentinel that fights in melee because of Rad's pbaoes. He's far squishier than my fire/bio sent that hovers as my fire/bio would be if I sat in melee. Being ABLE to hoverblast in complete safety as a tankmage is a perk of being a sentinel.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

We can all choose to play as we wish. I have a ground pounder rad/regen sentinel that fights in melee because of Rad's pbaoes. He's far squishier than my fire/bio sent that hovers as my fire/bio would be if I sat in melee. Being ABLE to hoverblast in complete safety as a tankmage is a perk of being a sentinel.

 

If he is squishy then the claims of how utterly overpowering Sentinel secondaries are when combined with ranged attacks amounts to hot air as reality is ranged+secondary+hover. As Arcadio put forth, if Hover is a require part of having a functional sentinel, it should be their inherent.

 

And I would not be surprised if your fire/bio is pretty darned squishy on SOs even hovering (relevant because the game is not balanced around IOs).

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

If he is squishy then the claims of how utterly overpowering Sentinel secondaries are when combined with ranged attacks amounts to hot air as reality is ranged+secondary+hover. As Arcadio put forth, if Hover is a require part of having a functional sentinel, it should be their inherent.

 

And I would not be surprised if your fire/bio is pretty darned squishy on SOs even hovering (relevant because the game is not balanced around IOs).

 

Squishy when comparing hovering vs non-hovering. And, no, you'd be wrong, when running at appropriate difficulty for SO only builds, meaning anything up to +2/x2 and no higher which is the max diff we could run solo back before IOs, no sent is squishy.

[Bill Z Bubba]

That will never cease to crack me up by the way: "The Game Is Balanced Around SOs" automatically means "Since IOs exist, the game is now ridiculously and stupidly unbalanced."

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Squishy when comparing hovering vs non-hovering. And, no, you'd be wrong, when running at appropriate difficulty for SO only builds, meaning anything up to +2/x2 and no higher which is the max diff we could run solo back before IOs, no sent is squishy.

 

I run higher on various other ATS, SO only. What makes +2x2 your magical cut-off?

[Erratic1]

57 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

That will never cease to crack me up by the way: "The Game Is Balanced Around SOs" automatically means "Since IOs exist, the game is now ridiculously and stupidly unbalanced."

 

Who has said the game is unbalanced?

[Bill Z Bubba]

24 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

I run higher on various other ATS, SO only. What makes +2x2 your magical cut-off?

 

Because that was the cap on the old difficulty system. The one that existed when the concept of "the game is balanced on SOs" actually meant something rational unlike now where the game is in no way balanced around SOs. EDIT: Or if it is, then it actually is horrifically unbalanced as IOs exist.

 

24 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

Who has said the game is unbalanced?

 

I do. Often. It's a mess.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[DarknessEternal]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I do. Often. It's a mess.

Do you need me to send you the details to making your own CoH server?

[ashenlost]

Why not kill two birds with one stone....activating opportunity can either boost the targets caps of your AoEs or boost the damage of your single target powers.