Focused Feedback: Sentinel Archetype Revamp

[Luminara]

10 minutes ago, Underfyre said:

 

No, I'm pretty sure this is massive power creep and the sky is falling.

 

That's a relief.  I thought the squirrels were throwing acorns at my roof because they were angry at me for having so many cats.

[agentx5]

7 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

It can be hard to see why Blasters do so much damage, because unlike most other DPS classes the answer isn't primarily in scalar or in an obvious damage-increasing inherent like crits or Fury.  Instead, it's a combination of things.  They benefit from a variety of tools that let them quickly delete spawns -- full-strength nukes, getting both Aim and Build-Up, and the ability to put together several medium-strength, large-area, high-target cap powers together in an alpha strike before the enemy mob gets a chance to respond.  They're kinda late-blooming, especially on the mitigation side of things, but a level 50 Blaster in HC is still perhaps the strongest AT this game offers.

Will it still be if Sentinels are buffed on their scalar though?

Not that I disagree with any of that, but it needs to be considered in comparison.  Corruptors for example, such as those Cold Domination as a secondary (Heat Loss + Sleet + Blast primary set = woohoo!!!)

I've kind of viewed blasters as sort of "death or glory", in the sense that either you quickly kill what you've chose to attack, or prepare to die horribly.  Damage mitigation through superior DPS, alpha-strike in particular.  It's probably why I like stalkers too, which in a way are kind of like the melee version of a blaster.  It's quite nice to go "SUPRISE ****S!" and then obliterate the enemy before they realize WTF just happened.  To be honest, I would even willing give up things like my incarnate barrier and other defenses just to have things tilting a bit more in that direction of all-the-damage, well IMHO anyways. 😃 
Sentinels to me are a bit more aggressive in combat, and their melee version is arguably a scrapper.  Yes, good sentinel players can get scrapper-lock.  In a way I wish Sentinels had something akin to the Brute Fury mechanic, as it would kind of fit their "in your face" natural approach to combat.
That's my perspective, for what it's worth.  I know I'm not the only one like that either, it's a fairly common perspective. 😜

I guess I just want to cautioning that balancing should never be considering in a vacuum, but rather always taking into account the big picture.  Not just fully equipped level 50's with incarnates, but also those mid-levels that are just slotting some I.O.'s in their powers.  Such changes should NOT be rush through testing.

[agentx5]

32 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

That's a relief.  I thought the squirrels were throwing acorns at my roof because they were angry at me for having so many cats.

 

Is there a thing as too many cats?
PS: because it's Halloween soon:

[DrunkFlux]

The new inherent will be an amazing Archvillain killer.  While stalkers are the melee AV killers of the game, sentinels will be the ranged AV killers.  -resistance thats unresistable is nothing to sneeze at.  Not to mention -defense will help lower level teammates hit more reliably to.

[oldskool]

47 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

That's a relief.  I thought the squirrels were throwing acorns at my roof because they were angry at me for having so many cats.

 

Oh no... squirrels? 

Luminara, you never, ever, mess with squirrels. You may need to find a new dimension to live in. Hopefully, they have a CoH server there!

[agentx5]

1 hour ago, Aracknight said:

I like passive inherents better than click inherents, as a general thing.

Ditto, I'm sometimes bad about remembering to refresh.  Also most click powers come with an unnecessary character animation, just because. (Do we really need to flex by stiffening up and vibrating everytime we buff up, seriously... which sounds dirty but that's kind of what the on-click buff animations do for lack of better words lol)
 

8 hours ago, oldskool said:

 

This is overstating Sentinels and understating Blasters. 

Moving the damage scalar to 1.1 doesn't get to a point where Sentinels "can do the same thing...". They don't do the same things unless you purposefully kneecap your Blaster build to only be at range. Even then the Blaster still has advantages over the Sentinel. 

Sentinels have a target cap limitation in their powers which the Blaster doesn't have. For any target engagement going beyond 6-10 enemies, the Blaster has an advantage. 

Blasters have access to a myriad of melee powers both single target and AoE. These also have better scaling than ranged blast powers. This is where Blaster damage potential starts to excel. Build-Up is a common power in melee sets with a significant burst damage advantage that Sentinels never get. 

Defiance works on all attacks. Sentinel Opportunity (now Vulnerability) has a single target limit. 

These changes to the Sentinel also incorporate an absorption of sorts of the basic damage benefit of generic Opportunity and Offensive Opportunity. Against a single target, the beta Sentinel isn't seeing a full 15% damage increase, even with Vulnerability active, because it is trading its old benefits for new ones. In AoE, the Sentinel on beta may be seeing closer to that 15% increase, but this still has limitations on target caps. There is no way the Sentinel out performs the Blaster's designed damage potential in this scenario. 

Blasters with investment into IOs can be be sturdy enough. Sentinels optimizing for max damage still fall behind Blasters potential and will always lag behind in AoE when target density is a key factor. 

The team could push the Sentinel to 1.125, right now if they wanted, and it still wouldn't make the Sentinel stronger than the Blaster. 

Respectfully disagree?
IMHO,  which I had I said before, the target and ranged cap limitations need to be changed across the board.
I don't agree with Sentinels having reduce range distanced or reduced target caps for AoEs.
Heck target caps and radius distances for most AoEs feel like they are made for a game worried about netcode traffic, which isn't the case anymore as the computers and the internet as a whole has moved so far beyond what it was in 2004 that we could literally have NO AoE target caps and we'd still be ok. (it'd petty fun to, let's be honest, even more love for the taunters (i.e. Tankers) on the team from me that's for sure)
I think we're on the same page for the most part, but you're framing this without that taken into account.

PS:  I'm one of the people who was very happy with the aggro change in Page4, which I know not everyone was a fan of.  In the long run though, it did make the game more fun not having nearby enemies who can clearly see you attacking their allies just standing there like they were bored & waiting in queue at the airport to board their flight.  (still wish aggro caps were increase too, it still needs it.  Just a little bit, like 24 instead of 17 would be, I feel, spot on)

 

  

7 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

The new inherent will be an amazing Archvillain killer.  While stalkers are the melee AV killers of the game, sentinels will be the ranged AV killers.  -resistance thats unresistable is nothing to sneeze at.  Not to mention -defense will help lower level teammates hit more reliably to.

HAMIDON WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!!!

 

 

  

1 minute ago, oldskool said:

 

Oh no... squirrels? 

Luminara, you never, ever, mess with squirrels. You may need to find a new dimension to live in. Hopefully, they have a CoH server there!
 

Rick and Morty?  Right?

Edited October 8, 2022 by agentx5

[Luminara]

26 minutes ago, oldskool said:

Oh no... squirrels? 

Luminara, you never, ever, mess with squirrels. You may need to find a new dimension to live in.

 

I know how to make Brunswick stew.

[Booper]

53 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

The new inherent will be an amazing Archvillain killer.  While stalkers are the melee AV killers of the game, sentinels will be the ranged AV killers.  -resistance thats unresistable is nothing to sneeze at.  Not to mention -defense will help lower level teammates hit more reliably to.

Just to clarify, the debuffs are not unresistible. However, they ignore level differences and it's auto-hit. 

[Teirusu]

37 minutes ago, DrunkFlux said:

The new inherent will be an amazing Archvillain killer.  While stalkers are the melee AV killers of the game, sentinels will be the ranged AV killers.  -resistance thats unresistable is nothing to sneeze at.  Not to mention -defense will help lower level teammates hit more reliably to.

 

The -resistance is NOT unresistable though.  It just isn't reduced by level difference scaling.  That means it's always -15% instead of either getting worse against higher con or getting better verse lower con enemies.

However, if an AV is resist capped, it still is 100% resisted.  So, if they pop their T9-ish power and become capped, it does nothing.  Those Cyclopes EB's that cap themselves with unstoppable?  Basically shrug it off.  So no, it's not suddenly going to make Sents AV killers.  The -15% isn't really that much honestly.  It's less then what you get out of the -resistance procs.  However, I will admit that it's more controllable then the -res procs.


One other thing I'll point out that I'm not sure if someone else mentioned in this thread but the old auto proc was main target only.  It did not go off on all AOE targets, only just your main target.  So, if you used a PBAOE, it did not apply to anything.  If you used a TAOE, it would only apply to your main target.  So that was effectively only single target.

@agentx5

One of the issues with Sentinel's damage scalar is that there isn't really a lot of wiggle room to play with.  Corrupters with Scourge are actually pretty close to Sentinel damage and have higher target caps to boot and team wide buffs/debuffs.  So really the only sensible choice is to scale them upwards.  At least now, in terms of single target damage, you can say they're fairly close to Blasters.  Although, even with the buff, do you think that the standard Hammy crowd is going to jump ship and start saying 'Well, why begin a Blaster when you can bring a Sentinel?"  No, of course not.

So, I assume in the grand scheme of things, the general pop is going to feel that Sentinels are closer to Blasters in usefulness but will probably still rank Blasters higher.  Do I agree with this?  Not really, but that's just my opinion.  I don't honestly believe that target caps actually make that big of a difference that most people make them out to be.  Nor do I think the reduced range is that big of an issue either, but that's because my style of play leans more towards melee-ish range.  So, to each their own.

[Luminara]

50 minutes ago, agentx5 said:

Is there a thing as too many cats?

 

3 inside (Jessica, May and Bunny), 15 outside (Arthur, Bonnie, Naomi, Emily, Sara, Jasper, Mr. Fade, Noel, Kal, Tucker and Violette, and Sara had four kittens a few weeks ago) and more on the way (Naomi's going to pop any day now).

 

Yeah, I have too many cats.  I can't turn a stray away.  I have a friend of a friend who's going to help me get all of the outside cats fixed and some of them re-homed.

[Underfyre]

1 hour ago, agentx5 said:

HAMIDON WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!!!

 

The inherent goes around purple patch. Hamidon is already +0. It does not go around inherent resistance levels, which Hamidon has plenty of.

 

My bad. Booper already pointed this out.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Underfyre

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, agentx5 said:

Will it still be if Sentinels are buffed on their scalar though?

 

Yes.  Sentinels with a buffed scalar do really substantially less damage than Brutes.  They remain really far from Blaster damage.

[Booper]

On 10/5/2022 at 6:38 PM, Dispari said:

Just a small issue. Playing with it I've noticed that Vulnerability does an animation even if it can't activate. Even if it fails because there's already Vulnerability on the target. Even if you're out of range. Even if you don't have enough to cast it. Bit misleading

This should have been fixed in a recent build. 

[Lost Deep]

I REALLY like new Sentinel.

 

I have some character ideas that fit in the sentinel space, but I never liked opportunity: I wound up just ignoring it and taking whichever result I got (most often the T1 one, since my play flow uses T1s a lot). Managing it purposefully was too disruptive to game flow for it to be worth it to me.

 

This Beta changes that entirely.

 

Sentinel now has a definite gimmick and a feel: You have a 'I hate that guy' button. It encourages target priority. You can use it back to back if you really need to, but the gauge mechanic means that if you do it's liable to be a while before you use it again. It makes you gauge threats, prioritize targets, and think while you fight. This is both very on-brand for the sentinel fantasy as it has been defined, AND what I was already doing without any distinct mechanical benefits outside of just... good fight control.

 

Sentinel now encourages that same kind of playstyle through its mechanics, and (MOST IMPORTANTLY) feels good to play.

 

Thank you, I love it.

[Coyotedancer]

Yeah.... After taking my Fire and both Darks out for some fun on scanner missions this morning, I think the click has won me over. I do miss my Defensive opportunity a little on Shonokin (Dark/WP) but the extra damage more or less evens things out. He's still slower than proverbial Christmas, mind... He's just never going to be fast at clearing a map... But beta!Shonokin is definitely less glacial than his current Live counterpart. 

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[@Ghost]

Some further testing with Water/Bio via some random +4x8 Devouring Earth missions: I got my butt beat, repeatedly. Damage, though, never felt like it was really lacking. I had some more time to get used to the Vulnerability clickie and it's still not gelling with me in particular, even though I was using it much more readily than before. Trapdoor times improved slightly from a ~6m5s to a ~5m50s, but I think that's more up to variance than it is to me making better use of the clickie.

 

The opportunity cost here of tabbing through a group to find a boss to apply vulnerability to makes things feel frenetic. Trapdoor runs highlighted this in a way that I think simulates the typical group experience, where to make your best time you're firing off AOEs trying to maximize efficiency. I'm better served doing the same for DPS than I am playing 'find the boss in this mess,' and the instant nature of it makes it almost feel like something you could macro into powers... but can't. I think the rate of acquisition for vulnerability is smooth and frequent, but the ways for spending it feel limiting.

 

Some potential suggestions for the current implementation:

Make vulnerability a toggle. Each attack then spends meter (20/target, as opposed to the current 50/target). This allows AOE usage to apply widely at the cost of your entire meter, allowing more team-and-speed friendly 'dump and forget' styles. A toggle is less frenetic than utilizing a clickie repeatedly, and could auto-off when the meter reaches 0.

 

Split the debuff. Rather than -15% to various attributes in a single application, I'd propose something like the recent Sonic Attacks changes. A non-stacking -10% that only refreshes duration, and a -2.5% that stacks with multiple applications even from other Sentinels. An attack would then apply an immediate -12.5% for 20 meter, and back to the original -15% for 40 meter. Only a slight increase, but it also allows wider application of -12.5% to 5 targets for 100 meter if the player chooses. I think this would enhance team-play, especially with multiple Sentinels, but keep Sentstacking from being too dominant.

 

 

And a side note, since I think I saw questions about both earlier: the Vulnerability reticle isn't controlled by any colors in the primary set, and there's no option in the tailor specifically for it. Also, applying Vulnerability doesn't alert targets.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

Also, applying Vulnerability doesn't alert targets.

 

That's working as intended.

[Max Firepower]

I tested my 'main' Sentinel on the Pylon test.  I normally think Armitage Shanks, my DP/SR, is pretty good - but the pylon test showed me how much I gave up by still running my leveling-up build (though I had a decent idea where I was heading) vs a truly tuned build.

 

T4 Musculature, T3 in most other areas, my pylon was an abysmal 8:15 or so.

I copied to Beta and did the same thing, and was about 6:30 - and I forgot to add the Vulnerability clicky...  

 

I then ran a new L50 Nrg/EA Sentinel, only T3 Musculature, T1 Judgement.  Also forgot to add the Vulnerability clicky, so I'll redo that.  I would have sworn I noticed some Opportunity graphics pop up several times, but I bet it was Vulnerability.

 

I wonder if the small time differences noted by the excellent builds is simply the reflection of the 'margin' as they get close to optimal.  Could my large delta reflect the sloppiness of the build and these changes make 'casual' Sentinels better?  I will run some Boss/door missions with some of my vanilla sentinels on Live vs. Test to see what the difference is for those builds.  Will aim to compare similar maps/foes or will note differences.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Max Firepower
clarity

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, Max Firepower said:

T4 Musculature, T3 in most other areas, my pylon was an abysmal 8:15 or so.

I copied to Beta and did the same thing, and was about 6:30 - and I forgot to add the Vulnerability clicky...  

 

I wonder if the small time differences noted by the excellent builds is simply the reflection of the 'margin' as they get close to optimal.  Could my large delta reflect the sloppiness of the build and these changes make 'casual' Sentinels better?

Using the DPS calculation from the Pylon thread, the difference in DPS improvement appears to be about 10% (even 10% improvement on throughput speeds things up). That seems to fall in line with what @Underfyre noted in the Sentinel subforum of an expected return of about 9% on single target. 

My own testing has been between 7-9% using a purely ranged build. 

The Sentinel's optimization ceiling is pretty low and so yeah the margin's aren't going to be all that extreme. Other builds will likely enjoy the noticeable increase and especially so with AoE output. Its still not up there with the insanity of other DPS ATs (where real power creep exists) without seriously bending over backwards to build a post level 45 character. 

[Tachstar]

Played around a lot today on brainstorm with my testy dp/wp. Bumped levels to 20, 30, 40, and 50, doing some radio missions at each level. SOs all the way. Team size 2. Minimal kitty aggro for a change. Level 20 felt great! 30 not bad, but started seeing heavier end use. 40 started off kinda rough. Colorful metaphors were spoken. Felt like I just wasn't keeping up with the bad guys. After a couple of respecs it got better. At 50 I did another respec or two and it was feeling pretty good by the time I was ready to log off. Didn't get incarnated. I've already duped this one on my home server of Indom, currently at level 7.

 

One more thing -- when the baddies really piled on and things got hectic, I often forgot to use the Vulnerability click. Mostly I would apply it to a select target before leaping into the fray, and then not again unless one of the baddies was being irksome. So, while I don't dislike the click like I thought I would, I do still kinda wish it was more, ya know, automatic. For the people. Or something. Anyway.

 

/e saaaaalute

Edited October 9, 2022 by Tachstar
ewpsie

[arthurh35353]

1 hour ago, Tachstar said:

One more thing -- when the baddies really piled on and things got hectic, I often forgot to use the Vulnerability click. Mostly I would apply it to a select target before leaping into the fray, and then not again unless one of the baddies was being irksome. So, while I don't dislike the click like I thought I would, I do still kinda wish it was more, ya know, automatic. For the people. Or something. Anyway.

I noticed that my End Usage was really, really high using just using IOs.

 

I do kind of think that it might be nice as an automatic hit if an attack hits at 100% opportunity build up.

Edited October 9, 2022 by arthurh35353

[brasilgringo]

I ran some 4x8 council on test on my 50 incarnated Elec/Bio sent, and found the damage buff underwhelming -- still felt like it took a lot longer, and put me at more risk of dying, taking out spawns then on, say, a comparable TW/Bio scrapper or even EM/Rad scrapper.  And that's with Short Circuit, BL, and the nuke, and single-target attacks including Dominate from Epic (and Elec/Bio supposedly being one of the top DPS sents).  I didn't feel like a "ranged scrapper" in terms of my ability to decimate spawns and not take a material beating.   Only used Vulnerability on a few purple bosses and it didn't seem to make a material difference, maybe they died with 1 less blast than w/o.  

 

Overally my impressions were:

1) Not enough buffs to damage to make me feel like Sents can keep up with Scrappers / Stalkers / Blasters or even some Tanks in terms of damage (e.g., Rad/SS).

2) Inherent (Vulnerability) doesn't feel like it does enough. Maybe it should be AOE at a minimum with higher target caps.

[Battlecruiser]

While I don't have very strong opinions about this change, my experience mirrors the above.  The damage increase didn't seem noteworthy to me, and the changes to vulnerability were hard for me to appreciate in detail. 

 

I'm not a hardcore Sentinel player, I only have one and it uses a lot of procs.  So in full disclosure it's hard for me to know where the baseline was for damage, but so far this doesn't provide impetus for me to leave my Fort, Scrapper, Stalkers, or Brutes.

 

I do sympathize deeply with both Sentinel lovers and the developers who are trying to move this AT from the laughing stock to something that is acceptable by the community. This is a hard thing to get right.

[jlm2924]

One of my mains is a Energy Blast / Super Reflexes Sent. She is awesome and powerful.  Vulnerability seems just OK to me.  If you really want to help the class out I have a few suggestions.

 

1. STOP NERFING RANGED CHARACTERS! Take that 1.1 and bump it to 1.25 like the blaster. Give us a little edge, Sents deserve it, after all, we have an attraction of what? 3.0 compared to a tank's 4.0? So we are the classic example of Geek the Mage!

 

2. Increase our range. Nearly all my powers are 60 ft and a few 40 ft. COME ON, seriously? I may as well go point-blank. Bump those ranges up 50%, so 60 ft. to 90 ft and 40 ft to 60 ft.

 

3. Point-blank fighting. Okay, so this is a major pet peeve of mine. If I am in that person's face, there is no way to miss. Create a new sub calculation that says (pseudo-code warning) <IF SUB Rng=>11' THEN increase soft cap to 99% to HIT>  Meaning, if we are within 10 ft of the target, we need to bypass the 95% to hit cap and it needs to increase to 99% with only a 1% miss chance. Range characters in melee range tend to get slaughtered anyways, so please increase.

 

4. Our Nuke. Look, our nuke is a T9 power and for energy blast and most other powers as well, and even though it says "extreme damage" that is bull crap! It should Auto kill ALL White enemies, ALL Yellow enemies, do 75% to oranges, 50% to reds, and 25% to purples. I have buffed my nuke with +5 Purple set and the damage is dismal. Even when I bump it with AIM, it's still barely 600 points. That SUCKS! My blaster's PSI Nuke I have seen it go beyond 2000 damage, so let's bump it WAY up. It's a NUKE, it's supposed to even the odds so let's make it do its job!

 

Also, make the Oro menders belt and chest piece available as costume parts. Even better, make it part of the welcome to Oro mission sets where we can unlock them like we used to have to do missions to unlock capes. I like the idea of unique and meaningful pieces that have to be earned.  Also for those of us that like playing girls, if you set breasts to min OMG they are still too big! Her chest should be flat as a board. Fix it!

[Cancrusher]

31 minutes ago, jlm2924 said:

One of my mains is a Energy Blast / Super Reflexes Sent. She is awesome and powerful.  Vulnerability seems just OK to me.  If you really want to help the class out I have a few suggestions.

 

1. STOP NERFING RANGED CHARACTERS! Take that 1.1 and bump it to 1.25 like the blaster. Give us a little edge, Sents deserve it, after all, we have an attraction of what? 3.0 compared to a tank's 4.0? So we are the classic example of Geek the Mage!

 

2. Increase our range. Nearly all my powers are 60 ft and a few 40 ft. COME ON, seriously? I may as well go point-blank. Bump those ranges up 50%, so 60 ft. to 90 ft and 40 ft to 60 ft.

 

3. Point-blank fighting. Okay, so this is a major pet peeve of mine. If I am in that person's face, there is no way to miss. Create a new sub calculation that says (pseudo-code warning) <IF SUB Rng=>11' THEN increase soft cap to 99% to HIT>  Meaning, if we are within 10 ft of the target, we need to bypass the 95% to hit cap and it needs to increase to 99% with only a 1% miss chance. Range characters in melee range tend to get slaughtered anyways, so please increase.

 

4. Our Nuke. Look, our nuke is a T9 power and for energy blast and most other powers as well, and even though it says "extreme damage" that is bull crap! It should Auto kill ALL White enemies, ALL Yellow enemies, do 75% to oranges, 50% to reds, and 25% to purples. I have buffed my nuke with +5 Purple set and the damage is dismal. Even when I bump it with AIM, it's still barely 600 points. That SUCKS! My blaster's PSI Nuke I have seen it go beyond 2000 damage, so let's bump it WAY up. It's a NUKE, it's supposed to even the odds so let's make it do its job!

 

Also, make the Oro menders belt and chest piece available as costume parts. Even better, make it part of the welcome to Oro mission sets where we can unlock them like we used to have to do missions to unlock capes. I like the idea of unique and meaningful pieces that have to be earned.  Also for those of us that like playing girls, if you set breasts to min OMG they are still too big! Her chest should be flat as a board. Fix it!

 

Make the damage multiplier = to a blaster?  Close the range gap with the blaster?  Make the Nuke as powerful as the blaster's nuke?

 

I guess my question here is:  "What do the blasters get?  Defiance?"

 

I think you should dial back your expectations a little, amigo.