Focused Feedback: Sentinel Archetype Revamp

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

 

No, re-tested. By the time Vulnerability ends and lights up the bar has refilled. I can provide a video if my word is not enough.

Two guesses:

 

1.  You have the ATO somewhere very efficient, where it has a high chance to trigger, is in your attack sequence, and with no local recharge.

2.  Somehow you're still getting Rage(/Opportunity, but behind the scenes it's Rage) from attacking?  Leftover from live.

 

FWIW, I had the same experience as others when I did a pylon test: I could not perma Vulnerability, despite having the ATO in an attack in my ST attack sequence.

[Sovera]

9 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Two guesses:

 

1.  You have the ATO somewhere very efficient, where it has a high chance to trigger, is in your attack sequence, and with no local recharge.

2.  Somehow you're still getting Rage(/Opportunity, but behind the scenes it's Rage) from attacking?  Leftover from live.

 

FWIW, I had the same experience as others when I did a pylon test: I could not perma Vulnerability, despite having the ATO in an attack in my ST attack sequence.

 

It's possible. The character already existed in the PTS from a previous test so maybe that's what happened. I'll copy it from live again and test once more.

 

Build being used:

 

Spoiler

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1928&c=773&a=1546&f=HEX&dc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

 

[aethereal]

To be clear:  Sans ATO, if you start a long fight with a full bar, the way it should go is this:

 

Time 0:  You cast Vulnerability, applying it for 15 seconds, your Rage meter drops from 100 to 50

Time 15:  First Vulnerability ends, your Rage meter should have regenerated to 75.  You recast Vulnerability, your Rage meter drops from 75 to 25

Time 30:  Second Vulnerability ends, you Rage meter should have regenerated to 50.  You recast Vulnerability, your Rage meter drops from 50 to 0.

Time 45:  Third Vulnerability ends, your Rage meter should have regenerated to 25 -- you are unable to cast Vulnerability for another 15 seconds.

 

With the ATO slotted efficiently and in your attack chain, it seems very plausible that you'll have gotten three activations in 45 seconds, so you should really be able to chain together four Vulnerabilities in a row.  But unless you're getting on average 2.5 activations in 15 seconds, you shouldn't be able to indefinitely maintain Vulnerability.

 

Currently the chance for +Opportunity proc has 1 PPM -- I assume it is the same on beta.  With perma-hasten levels of recharge, we would expect it to fire roughly once every 20 seconds.  So three activations in 45 seconds is plausible, if a little lucky, but 2.5 activations in 15 seconds would be massively lucky.

 

Have I ever mentioned how underwhelming the Sentinel ATOs are?

[Sovera]

Alright, copied my Sentinel to the PTS since, as mentioned, it already existed there. Same behavior with the bar recovering to full by the time Vulnerability has finished.

 

This time I bring moving pictures.

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Sovera

[aethereal]

12 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Alright, copied my Sentinel to the PTS since, as mentioned, it already existed there. Same behavior with the bar recovering to full by the time Vulnerability has finished.

 

This time I bring moving pictures.

 

 

 

 

It looks to me like you apply your first Vulnerability at about 0:04 and your second vulnerability at around 0:35?

 

We'd expect the Rage meter to recover by then, but Vulnerability lasts 15 seconds, not 30 seconds.

Edited October 7, 2022 by aethereal

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, aethereal said:

It looks to me like you apply your first Vulnerability at about 0:04 and your second vulnerability at around 0:37?

 

We'd expect the Rage meter to recover by then, but Vulnerability lasts 15 seconds, not 30 seconds.

 

I see what you mean. I only cast it when the circle lights up which was my faulty thinking that meant it was when I could re-cast it, but it's actually an indicator that the bar is full and a reminder for the player to use it.

 

After retesting with this bit of info your maths seem to be on the spot since I could almost keep it perma for a decent bit but eventually just ran out of bar.

 

You're absolutely correct and I'll go back and edit my posts.

[Helgrenze]

I like the Vulnerability power a lot. Actually better than the previous (live) version.

 

The power creep... not so much. Even at .950, Sents are decent ranged damage dealers. Vuln adds to their effectiveness. 

I've always looked at them as "Blaster Lite". Boosting the damage to within .025 of Blasters might have an adverse effect on Blasters, with their only advantages being the Sniper ability and Defiance.

[Wavicle]

3 minutes ago, Helgrenze said:

I like the Vulnerability power a lot. Actually better than the previous (live) version.

 

The power creep... not so much. Even at .950, Sents are decent ranged damage dealers. Vuln adds to their effectiveness. 

I've always looked at them as "Blaster Lite". Boosting the damage to within .025 of Blasters might have an adverse effect on Blasters, with their only advantages being the Sniper ability and Defiance.

 

And Build Up, and Melee attacks, and higher range, and Bigger size AoEs, and Bigger target caps, and no inner radius on their Nukes...

Blasters will be fine.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Wavicle

[BurtHutt]

So I haven't been on Beta or anything but with the new Sentinel inherent stuff.....does it make taking Weaken Resolve, from the Force of Will power pool, reduntant/pointless? 

[agentx5]

23 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

I analyzed Blaster performance with procs, and the scalars are close enough to identical now.  Procs consistently provide more damage enhancement than a normal damage enhancement does, even at Blaster/Scrapper/(beta Sentinel) scalars, if you have no local recharge, with very rare exceptions for a tiny minority of powers.  Here's the sheet (ignore the Sentinel row on that sheet, it's Live Sentinels, not beta Sentinels.  Just look at the Blaster rows, they'll be only like 1% different from Sents).

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1exC_bOWKCrjQ4eCjN12Cs5ETFPOpJCaBjmBnUIyMXHU/edit?usp=sharing

 

Then it's like I said, Blasters need a buff.

Otherwise why go Blaster if Sentinel can do the same thing but with the added benefit of a defensive secondary set that can make them extremely hard to kill?

 

I will point to the development diary of TF2 where they at one point realized they had too many classes from TFC that more-than-less did the same role and behaviors as other classes.  They had to rework some of them to get them different enough from each other on release.

Overwatch is another example of this same development challenge where there are similar enough one's that when they change balancing on one thing it can have unintended consequences for a different character.

I think the proposed changes for Sentinel are good and have the right direction (although the max ranges need to be standardized across all blast sets), but it may require some re-thinking of how it might fit into the overall balance too.

 

I say this as someone who has both Blasters and Sentinels

 

Alyssa Q'Uzixola and HDJ are my main Blasters, Fire/Nrg/Fire and B.R./Nrg/Mace respectively, both on Everlasting.

 

Kali Q'Uzixola is an Electric/Electric/Ice Sentinel main of mine on Everlasting.

She was fixed with Page3's "Shocked!" Mechanic

 

Also my friend @Teirusu has Jane Zim, a pretty well-known vet level >1000 sentinel on Everlasting.

 

So believe me when I say I want to see BALANCE.

 

@The Curator This will require more feedback and testing, it's a fundamental change and will likely require tweaking the numbers.

Ideally testing should require surveys and such, not just a relatively small group people sharing opinions on a thread (it's useful but hard to gather data from). 

 

PS:. I still do not like the overly flashy persistent graphical sprite effect for the debuff.  Please, tone it down, or give us an option to do a "Min FX" in the character creator.

Edited October 7, 2022 by agentx5
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[BurtHutt]

17 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 

There are 15 ATs. I'll even be super generous and refer to ALL the Arachnos and Kheldians as 1 AT. So there are "12" ATs. So on an 18 person team there isn't room for 2 of every AT to begin with. And Sentinels now do quite good damage, better than more than half of the other ATs, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

This is an interesting point. 

 

Here's a crazy thought: put in the NEW inherent and leave the old one as is so people have an option or can take both!

[Coyotedancer]

Or even just leave the old Defensive option... I actually do use that sometimes when I'm running solo, and suspect I'll miss it once I get the chance to really do some poking around on beta with my little collection of Sents. 

[BurtHutt]

2 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Or even just leave the old Defensive option... I actually do use that sometimes when I'm running solo, and suspect I'll miss it once I get the chance to really do some poking around on beta with my little collection of Sents. 

I haven't crunched numbers but would it be so bad to leave the old and add the new? I would like to see it if it isn't 'game breaking'.

[oldskool]

32 minutes ago, agentx5 said:

Then it's like I said, Blasters need a buff.

Otherwise why go Blaster if Sentinel can do the same thing but with the added benefit of a defensive secondary set that can make them extremely hard to kill? 

 

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. 

[Galamane]

I kind of like the idea of a Brute/Sentinels combo. No click to activate and status effects and damage increase at Max buff. This is what I meant to say. Don't know what i was thinking lol.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Galamane

[aethereal]

45 minutes ago, agentx5 said:

 

Then it's like I said, Blasters need a buff.

Otherwise why go Blaster if Sentinel can do the same thing but with the added benefit of a defensive secondary set that can make them extremely hard to kill?

 

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.

[electric_emu]

So I've been comparing an Ice/Stone Sentinel to my live (copied) Ice/Fire Blaster.  I've only been running PI Radios, but so far the Blaster is clearing maps a lot faster.  Of particular note, the Sent is leaving a lot more lieuts standing around and needing to do more cleanup.  Target caps are really noticeable on x8.

 

But even without target caps getting the in the way, the Blaster has an entire secondary set full of tools geared toward doing more damage.  Build Up, Hot Feet and FSC are putting in a lot more work than Brimstone's damage proc. And not all Sent secondaries have ways to add damage like Blaster secondaries do. And of course Defiance is doing its thing too.

 

Things got interesting when I turned the difficulty up.  For the most part the Blaster is still winning out, but when he slows down it's because he's dead which of course happened more often for him than the Sent.  But also not as much as I thought.  A lot of Blasters' "toughness" at higher levels comes from their ability to just kill before being killed, even with softcapped s/l/e.  The Sent is even slower, which itself has led to a faceplant here and there as tougher enemy groups have more time to do unpleasant things (Carnies amirite).  

 

That's all to say that so far, having very unscientifically tested a grand total of two builds, new Sents feel just about right.  Their DPS isn't so good that they can frontload alphas and just "out-DPS" enemies that will otherwise stomp them like Blasters can, but their extra durability is enough that they don't need to nearly as much.  The trade off feels appropriate, but I'm gonna play around with some other sets before passing final judgment.

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

So I haven't been on Beta or anything but with the new Sentinel inherent stuff.....does it make taking Weaken Resolve, from the Force of Will power pool, reduntant/pointless? 

 

It should stack with Weaken Resolve and other debuffs.

[Golden Azrael]

On 10/5/2022 at 12:01 AM, 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.



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.

 

Amen.

 

I was pretty impressed with Sent's before the change.  (Loved my Sonic/Rad.)

 

Now, I'm really impressed.  *Carries appreciation card.

 

A laser focus which makes Sent's the AT class that can 'hone' in on a mob's weakness and target that weakness.  It's clever.  It's focused.

 

It now makes the purpose of the Sentinel AT crystal clear.  If we weren't sure before about the AT's purpose...we are now!

 

Azrael.

Edited October 7, 2022 by Golden Azrael

[BrandX]

Just a thought it may not go anywhere since this is where it's at, but why not have gone a build Opportunity by attacking (so like Brute Fury) and at different stages of Opportunity (25 - 50 - 75 - 100 maybe?) you gain more -Resist tagged onto every attack.  They did -5% every attack before.  So, maybe 1% -Resist every 10% of opportunity?

 

But this is all me being a little meh on the idea of a clickie inherent

[Golden Azrael]

3 hours ago, electric_emu said:

 

 

Things got interesting when I turned the difficulty up.  For the most part the Blaster is still winning out, but when he slows down it's because he's dead which of course happened more often for him than the Sent.  But also not as much as I thought.  A lot of Blasters' "toughness" at higher levels comes from their ability to just kill before being killed, even with softcapped s/l/e.  The Sent is even slower, which itself has led to a faceplant here and there as tougher enemy groups have more time to do unpleasant things (Carnies amirite).  

 

 

 

Ofc.  Lol.

 

Azrael.

[Aracknight]

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

[Heatstroke]

17 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 

And Build Up, and Melee attacks, and higher range, and Bigger size AoEs, and Bigger target caps, and no inner radius on their Nukes...

Blasters will be fine.

 

EXACTLY.. Blasters will be fine.

[Underfyre]

24 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

EXACTLY.. Blasters will be fine.

 

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

[Wavicle]

7 minutes ago, Underfyre said:

 

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

and me without my tinfoil hat