Focused Feedback: Sentinel Archetype Revamp

[The Curator]

Sentinel Archetype Revamp

Changes to Sentinel Attributes:

• Ranged and Melee Damage Modifiers increased from 0.95 to 1.10 (15.8% base damage increase to all attacks).
• Fixed PvP Ranged Damage Modifier (50% stronger). Adjusted any damage scales that were set 50% too high to compensate.
• Base Perception increased from 500' to 550' (10% base perception increase, all other ATs are 500').
• Max Perception increased from 1153' to 1268.3' (10% max perception increase, matches Soldiers of Arachnos).

Changes to Sentinel Inherent:

• Sentinels have an inherent resistance to Perception and ToHit debuffs (10%).
• Opportunity builds automatically at a rate of 100% per minute.
• Sentinels now have an inherent power called Vulnerability:
  • Vulnerability consumes 50% of your Opportunity to debuff a single target for 15 seconds.
  • Vulnerability is Auto-Hit.
  • Vulnerability ignores level differences.
  • Vulnerability debuffs the following:
    • Damage Resistance
    • Defense
    • Mez Resistance
    • Stealth
    • Resistance to Endurance, Endurance Discount, Recovery, Regeneration, ToHit, and Recharge
• Removed old Opportunity Debuff Effects/Modes from T1/T2 powers.
• Removed old Inherent Proc.
• Removed old Offensive/Defensive Opportunity Modes.

[Dispari]

First of all, 1.1 damage scalar is VERY good, for those that don't know. It's higher than every single other AT other than blaster and scrapper. Yes it's higher than dominator melee and higher than stalkers (though stalkers get crits). So yeah, the increase in damage is QUITE nice.



Here's Vulnerability doing its thing. It's a click power, and notably it DOES NOT aggro when used, so you can flag an enemy whenever you want. The bar builds on its own, up to 100% every 60s. It only uses half the bar to cast it, so you can maintain it for a full 30s on an AV. In fact, in the time it takes for that 30s to tick down, you'll have earned another use, so rolling up to an AV fight fresh you will able to focus on them for 45s straight. Very nice, even if just for the -15% RES.



And yes you can cast it on multiple targets at once if you please, the recharge is 5 seconds.

I haven't tested the ATO yet, though I assume it just gives a bump like +10% to the bar when it procs? If nobody else looks at it I'll do it later.

[electric_emu]

44 minutes ago, Dispari said:

[snip]

I haven't tested the ATO yet, though I assume it just gives a bump like +10% to the bar when it procs? If nobody else looks at it I'll do it later.

 

I messed around with the ATO a bit.  This appears to be exactly how it works.  I had it slotted into Inferno, so it was going off with each use (every 22 seconds-ish on my build).  I'm sure it could be better optimized, but seems like it could pretty helpful against AVs, EBs, and monsters with high uptime.

 

Can Vulnerability stack if used by more than one Sent?  I have been testing solo. 

[Silverado]

2 hours ago, Dispari said:

First of all, 1.1 damage scalar is VERY good, for those that don't know. It's higher than every single other AT other than blaster and scrapper. Yes it's higher than dominator melee and higher than stalkers (though stalkers get crits). So yeah, the increase in damage is QUITE nice.

 

Perhaps TOO nice I would say. Leaving it at 1.0 or even 1.05 would be still nice without overshooting the buff

[Booper]

2 hours ago, Dispari said:

I haven't tested the ATO yet, though I assume it just gives a bump like +10% to the bar when it procs? If nobody else looks at it I'll do it later

Great expectation, this is exactly correct. 10% for superior, 7.5% for regular. This keeps the performance in line with what 35% and 25% offer on live (technically, it's a slight buff from live, but close enough).

[Booper]

1 hour ago, electric_emu said:

Can Vulnerability stack if used by more than one Sent?  I have been testing solo.

No, and to avoid wasted uses, a target already affected by Vulnerability can't be targeted again until it wears off.

[Dispari]

53 minutes ago, Silverado said:

Perhaps TOO nice I would say. Leaving it at 1.0 or even 1.05 would be still nice without overshooting the buff

It would require some thorough testing, but I think 1.1 is perfectly fine. We're just talking about base values here.

Scrapper and Stalker have crits (Stalker has an effective 1.31 damage scale if they're on a full team), and Brute Fury brings their overall damage up to that level as well. Blasters have Defiance. Even VEATs have large damage buffs and DoTs on their powers that push them ahead.

In addition, Sentinels have lower target caps than other equivalent ATs. They don't have Snipes. Their Aim is weaker than Blasters. So they aren't exactly going to outplay the other DPS classes here.

Base numbers wise, Sentinels are 3rd highest. Overall damage wise, they're probably beaten by at least 5 other ATs. Which is still respectable, but not overpowered. Base values aren't the whole picture. Brutes are only 0.75 but they're always among the highest damage contributors.

[aethereal]

If I'm understanding correctly, we lose the -5% resistance debuff that we used to get on all attacks, and also lose the offensive/defensive opportunity procs (so the heal/end heal of defensive opportunity and the damage proc of offensive opportunity).  And vulnerability is -15% resistance while the old Opportunities were -20% resistance.  Is that right, or do I misunderstand?

 

That seems like a lot to lose for what cashes out to like a sub 10% damage improvement when solo and probably a net loss of damage when on a team.  QoL and ease of play seems better, but doesn't feel like it comes close to fixing Sentinel damage underperformance.

 

What's the cast time on Vulnerability?

Edited October 5, 2022 by aethereal

[Ratch_]

12 minutes ago, aethereal said:

If I'm understanding correctly, we lose the -5% resistance debuff that we used to get on all attacks, and also lose the offensive/defensive opportunity procs (so the heal/end heal of defensive opportunity and the damage proc of offensive opportunity).  And vulnerability is -15% resistance while the old Opportunities were -20% resistance.  Is that right, or do I misunderstand?

 

That seems like a lot to lose for what cashes out to like a sub 10% damage improvement when solo and probably a net loss of damage when on a team.  QoL and ease of play seems better, but doesn't feel like it comes close to fixing Sentinel damage underperformance.

 

What's the cast time on Vulnerability?

0 cast time

[aethereal]

9 minutes ago, Ratch_ said:

0 cast time

That's nice.

[Ratch_]

19 minutes ago, aethereal said:

That's nice.

I've only had a very limited time of playing it...however a large part of me wishes it could be more like activating the vulnerability inherent and then next attack you use will carry the vulnerability with it & apply it. Right now it feels a bit awkward to cast the inherent individually on a target (which has no animation) and then proceed with 'normal' gameplay. It's overall minor and might just be a personal thing, but it would feel a bit more natural to me as I think the overall existing idea/execution of an attack applying the debuff itself felt good, it was just dragged down by being locked to specific power use. If it could be more like a clicky with a very small vfx that would modify your next attack to have vulnerability I would find that very cool.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Ratch_

[Bill Z Bubba]

Pylon time with fire/bio sent, 2:56. This puts it on par with my shield/nrg tank and claws/sr scrapper. While hovering above the fight in complete safety. (Edit: In normal content, of course. I know it doesn't matter with pylons.) Also took out a lvl 54 Tub Ci in Mr G's arc in less than 5 mins.

 

Yay. More power creep.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Ratch_]

I should clarify..it has the animation of an inspiration (it's interruptable), just no character vfx but I am mainly just looking for a bit more feedback feel I guess is what I'm mainly wanting to say.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Ratch_

[LastHumanSoldier]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pylon time with fire/bio sent, 2:56. This puts it on par with my shield/nrg tank and claws/sr scrapper. While hovering above the fight in complete safety. Also took out a lvl 54 Tub Ci in Mr G's arc in less than 5 mins.

 

Yay. More power creep.

Yeah. I know this won't be popular but I think its a bit TOO much in the other direction.

Dial it back a tad.... 1.05?

 

[Keen]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Pylon time with fire/bio sent, 2:56.

 

What's your time with that build on Live? It shouldn't have changed much (assuming you used Offensive Opportunity).

Edited October 5, 2022 by Keen

[Booper]

One thing to note that was missed in patch notes (I'll edit them shortly). Vulnerability ignores combat mods. So the 15% debuff will be the same against a +0 or a +4.

[Zeraphia]

1 minute ago, Booper said:

One thing to note that was missed in patch notes (I'll edit them shortly). Vulnerability ignores combat mods. So the 15% debuff will be the same against a +0 or a +4.

For reference, did the previous Vulnerability (opportunity) work against +0/+4 groups the same way?

[Booper]

10 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

For reference, did the previous Vulnerability (opportunity) work against +0/+4 groups the same way?

It did not.

[Zeraphia]

Just now, Booper said:

It did not.

Then this inherent change is not a nerf like most originally suggested, and is a considerable buff. Great work, it retains the feel of what many people wanted from the inherent, whilst also tackling on the aspects about the inherent people disliked (the possibility to miss, being tied to a power you may not want as a T1/T2, only usable on 1 enemy.)

[Six-Six]

Awesome sauce all around. Thank you for taking a good look at Sentinels. You guys surely have been busy. 

I in turn will have to take a good look at all of my sents and will inevitably do another round of respecs when the patch rolls out.

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, Booper said:

One thing to note that was missed in patch notes (I'll edit them shortly). Vulnerability ignores combat mods. So the 15% debuff will be the same against a +0 or a +4.

 

You added the line about ignoring level differences, but it's Rank differences as well. 🙂

[Sovera]

Elec/Bio Sentinel.

 

Pylon test, no -res involved, no incarnate clickies:

 

3:27

3:08

 

Previous on Live: 3 minutes.

 

No improvements detected despite the upped scalar even if there is some RNG involved in pylon tests.

 

 

I never ran out of Opportunity since I could not re-apply it before the effect ended and the bar would refill in the meanwhile, so it can be considered a perma effect on a single target, but the perma 15% -res had no discernible effect compared to previous tests and neither did I notice the sapping happening noticeably faster. It is probably one of those spreadsheet things.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Sovera

[Dispari]

The nature of an AT with a lower target cap and a single target debuff is of course going to skew them toward higher performance on metrics like pylons and soloing AVs. That -15% RES is something the whole team gets to benefit from too though. Big picture kinda stuff.
 

5 hours ago, Booper said:

One thing to note that was missed in patch notes (I'll edit them shortly). Vulnerability ignores combat mods. So the 15% debuff will be the same against a +0 or a +4.

As far as the purple patch is concerned, correct me if I'm wrong but the math on this works out to:
+0: -20% (old), -15% (new)
+1: -18% (old), -15% (new)
+2: -16% (old), -15% (new)
+3: -13% (old), -15% (new)
+4: -9.6% (old), -15% (new)
+5: -6% (old), -15% (new)

+3 is the baseline where incarnates are mostly operating. Unless you don't have a rare Alpha, as level 55s do not exist, you will only ever be facing +3s. People without a level boost will face +4s, and the poor level 32 sidekick is fighting +5s (which is pretty much the cutoff where your contributions are negligible; purple patch cuts off sharply after +3). That means unless you're playing at +1 or below, the newer version is better (or maybe one point off), and it becomes increasingly more useful in harder content. Combined with the fact that you can actually use it on purpose (imagine!), when and where you want, and chain it 2-3 times in a row, yeah I'd say it's a lot nicer for sure.

[Sovera]

7 minutes ago, Dispari said:

Combined with the fact that you can actually use it on purpose (imagine!), when and where you want, and chain it 2-3 times in a row, yeah I'd say it's a lot nicer for sure.

 

Yes, but, it's not terribly useful either way. Or should I say it is about as useful as a Rad toggles. Which seems paradoxical since rad toggles are huge. But they don't get used during regular gameplay because everything melts too fast. What is the point of using Rad toggles (or Opportunity) on anything other than an AV/GM (probably on the Tinpex EBs since they are still decently sturdy)? Even a boss lasts a cant handful of seconds. So now there is one less second if Opportunity was used.

 

Different than Rad toggles glacial 3 second activation times Opportunity's no-cast-time nature will maybe allow it to be bound so it is automatically used while in combat. Something to test.

 

 

Speaking of testing, I beg the rest of you lot to log your Sentinels and test and then bring back numbers. At least with mine there was no improvement (or slightly worse but that can be RNG. We need more data samples please) in pylon times with Opportunity used religiously.

 

So no need to start making noises about being too good of a buff and maybe nerf it some, eh?

[Dispari]

Actually I think Rad toggles are a good comparison. As you said, they largely don't get used in quick-moving teams in the current meta because of the extremely long activation times, and there being multiple of them to turn on each fight. Add to that the very high endurance costs and they're cumbersome to use. Opportunity is an instantaneous fire and forget type ability that makes sense to use on whoever you want to die, especially since it puts a big target on them (literally).

It's true it may not feel like it contributes as much if it's just being dropped on bosses, but it will still drag them down faster, and it will be very handy for every EB and AV fight. And I'm kinda looking forward to seeing the ways people use it to ask people to focus fire on problematic units. City is a spammy game, it can often be hard to tell what's going on without a good visual cue.