Hoverblasting Vs Sentinel

[Snarky]

Blaster Fireball  80 ft range 15 radius ((smashing 12.51 + fire (43.79+7.51x2.44) = 74.62)) 16sec rech

 

Sentinel Inferno PBAoE 20ft radius, buncha numbahs = 212.5  recharge 90sec

 

but number of targets i aint got memorized, etc...

 

 

if anyone wants to take this analysis further please do.  but off the top of my head i am still thinking that constant fireball is wayyyyy better than a Sent nuke.  and Blaster Fire has so many other party tricks, and then a nuke

 

Edited January 22 by Snarky

[Heatstroke]

19 hours ago, Snarky said:

serious question...that i do not want to research....

 

arent most blasters non nuke "aoe ball" or "aoe cone" more effective than a Sentinel nuke?

 

 

Blaster because of their damage modifier in a single attack will do more damage that a Sentinel. And thats by design as Luminary points out very often Sentinels are ranged scrappers and have the same damage modifier as a scrappy but they do not crit.

 

However in the actual mechanics of playing its not as simply that cut and dry.

 

This is why I always say that the " build " of the characters matter.  While yes you CAN make a blaster more survivable with IOs and defense based build and Incarnates powers

(especially Clarion to mitigate stun), a Sentinel can do that same with IOs and Build.. but doesn't need Clarion. so they can take other Incarnate powers to accentuate their build.

 

There are quite a few Sentinel armor sets that not only have damage mitigation built in either through resistance or defense ( like a scrapper ), but they also have the ability to heal damage.

So the ability to mitigate damage, Heal Damage and NOT be mezzed means more up time.. More Up Time means more consistent damage. There have been many times I have been playing a Sentinel on teams and the blaster is dead, or stunned and I am still pumping out damage.

 

Now again that will depend on the build. My point is always that Sentinels are viable choices, try one and see if you like it..

[Snarky]

26 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

 

Now again that will depend on the build. My point is always that Sentinels are viable choices, try one and see if you like it..

I have quite a few of Sentinel 50s.  Probably 12 or more.  Not going back and counting.  
 

The uptime argument is particularly dubious for two reasons.  1) it assumes the player struggles to keep the Blaster alive.  2) it assumes the Sentinel is that much hardier in an environment killing players. (Yes, they are hardier.  But in my experience what kills is an overwhelming turn of the odds, a bad decision, a surprise mechanic.  That is stuff a Brute or Tank might survive.  Maybe)

[Heatstroke]

18 hours ago, Snarky said:

Blaster Fireball  80 ft range 15 radius ((smashing 12.51 + fire (43.79+7.51x2.44) = 74.62)) 16sec rech

 

Sentinel Inferno PBAoE 20ft radius, buncha numbahs = 212.5  recharge 90sec

 

but number of targets i aint got memorized, etc...

 

 

if anyone wants to take this analysis further please do.  but off the top of my head i am still thinking that constant fireball is wayyyyy better than a Sent nuke.  and Blaster Fire has so many other party tricks, and then a nuke

 

 

 

Again.. build makes a difference..  You can isolate two powers.. but most people dont play this way...

My Fire/Rad Sentinel..

 

Typical attack chain for Mobs is Fireball, Fire Sword Circle ( Epic ), Inferno, Ground Zero ( buncha Procs ) and that mob is usually dead.. or pretty hurt... and I still have Fire Cages and Rain of Fire if I need it...

 

And never worried about getting stunned, or killed when I run into a mob..

[Heatstroke]

48 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I have quite a few of Sentinel 50s.  Probably 12 or more.  Not going back and counting.  
 

The uptime argument is particularly dubious for two reasons.  1) it assumes the player struggles to keep the Blaster alive.  2) it assumes the Sentinel is that much hardier in an environment killing players. (Yes, they are hardier.  But in my experience what kills is an overwhelming turn of the odds, a bad decision, a surprise mechanic.  That is stuff a Brute or Tank might survive.  Maybe)

 

The "Try one" comment wasnt directed at you.. it's in response to when people say " people say Sentinels are terrible.. " etc etc

 

[Sovera]

The counter point is that the IO system is geared towards making characters hardier but not stronger. So we can make a Blaster Sturdier, but only minimally make a Sentinel stronger

[BazookaTwo]

Hover Blasting is for wusses. There, I said it. Get in the mix. 

 

Edit... I find hover blasting super boring to play. If I'm doing anything like that it's on a defender. 

 

Hover Melee... Well that's just a bird stalker, and it's not so effective. 

Edited January 24 by BazookaTwo

[Heatstroke]

2 hours ago, BazookaTwo said:

Hover Blasting is for wusses. There, I said it. Get in the mix. 

 

Edit... I find hover blasting super boring to play. If I'm doing anything like that it's on a defender. 

 

Hover Melee... Well that's just a bird stalker, and it's not so effective. 

 

 

Oh now I wouldnt say that.. I play my Nrg/Nrg Blaster Airhammer as a hover blaster hence the name.. One of my favorite things to do is drop down and hit the Nuke.. my SG used to call it " Death from Above" 

[Hitback]

On 1/22/2024 at 4:19 AM, Snarky said:

Blaster Fireball  80 ft range 15 radius ((smashing 12.51 + fire (43.79+7.51x2.44) = 74.62)) 16sec rech

 

Sentinel Inferno PBAoE 20ft radius, buncha numbahs = 212.5  recharge 90sec

 

but number of targets i aint got memorized, etc...

 

 

if anyone wants to take this analysis further please do.  but off the top of my head i am still thinking that constant fireball is wayyyyy better than a Sent nuke.  and Blaster Fire has so many other party tricks, and then a nuke

 

But it's not like Sentinels don't have Fireball, though. Since you used Mid's formula, it gives 72.97 damage for the sentinel version. Same cooldown and aoe, 10 targets (blaster is 16), half range.

 

 

The nukes don't compete with the rest of the set's aoe, the difference is blaster have stronger nukes on a longer cooldown, sentinel weaker ones on lower cooldown. And you can't examine powers in a vacuum. Sentinels have more consistency in their AoE damage, their cooldowns line up so that every 20-25s they can hit Aim, nuke and 2 regular aoes. A blaster can be more explosive with both Aim+BU and a stronger nuke, but at the cost of lower uptime.

 

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Hitback said:

But it's not like Sentinels don't have Fireball, though. Since you used Mid's formula, it gives 72.97 damage for the sentinel version. Same cooldown and aoe, 10 targets (blaster is 16), half range.

 

 

The nukes don't compete with the rest of the set's aoe, the difference is blaster have stronger nukes on a longer cooldown, sentinel weaker ones on lower cooldown. And you can't examine powers in a vacuum. Sentinels have more consistency in their AoE damage, their cooldowns line up so that every 20-25s they can hit Aim, nuke and 2 regular aoes. A blaster can be more explosive with both Aim+BU and a stronger nuke, but at the cost of lower uptime.

 

A Blaster without Aim/BU going out damages a Sentinel.  What uptime problem do you think Blasters are encountering exactly?   I have a few,  built for various tasks.  A Sentinel might be “safer” depending on player playstyle (mine rarely die) but I seriously cannot understand making damage comparisons between the two.   Like playing darts versus a blind opponent and insisting it be judged?

[biostem]

On 12/10/2023 at 9:13 PM, Lhanis said:

ut if my intent is to largely skip most of the melee portion of the kit, would I just be better served by rolling it as a Sent instead

I haven't read all the replies to your OP, but there are some blaster secondaries, like devices or tactical arrow, that lean more toward a ranged-only playstyle, so don't sleep on those options.  Soldiers of Arachnos or Fortunatas also make for great ranged combatants with status protection, if you wanna go that route.  With all that in mind, I do very much enjoy my Sentinels.  Give Ninjitsu a try for your secondary - has some very nice tools to keep you in the fight!

[Troo]

[Hitback]

7 hours ago, Snarky said:

A Blaster without Aim/BU going out damages a Sentinel.  What uptime problem do you think Blasters are encountering exactly?   I have a few,  built for various tasks.  A Sentinel might be “safer” depending on player playstyle (mine rarely die) but I seriously cannot understand making damage comparisons between the two.   Like playing darts versus a blind opponent and insisting it be judged?

 

I specifically mentioned nuke uptime, I'm sure it's not hard to understand what I'm talking about.

Yes, blasters have higher dps. But we are playing a game where burst is enough to kill mobs in a couple of seconds, which reduces the impact of damage uptime. When a sentinel does their Aim+nuke+aoe combo, most of the mob is dead, and are left with a few stranglers. And they can do it every mob. You are not going to outdamage that with Fireball alone. 

 

My argument is not that sentinels are doing the same damage as blasters. But in practice, the difference is not as major as you are making it seem, because of the game's heavy focus in aoe burst. That's why you can find similar Trapdoor times for the two archetypes.

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Hitback said:

 

I specifically mentioned nuke uptime, I'm sure it's not hard to understand what I'm talking about.

Yes, blasters have higher dps. But we are playing a game where burst is enough to kill mobs in a couple of seconds, which reduces the impact of damage uptime. When a sentinel does their Aim+nuke+aoe combo, most of the mob is dead, and are left with a few stranglers. And they can do it every mob. You are not going to outdamage that with Fireball alone. 

 

My argument is not that sentinels are doing the same damage as blasters. But in practice, the difference is not as major as you are making it seem, because of the game's heavy focus in aoe burst. That's why you can find similar Trapdoor times for the two archetypes.

What “mob” is dead except for a few stragglers?   When you are soloing at *1/x1” or when you are running a Team Ms Liberty Master badge run?   Because with the limited target dps of a Sentinel I honestly do not see how you keep making this “Sentinels our DPS Blasters” reference 

 

Also, the way i run Trapdoor it is pretty much a ST fight.  Why is it an AoE burst fight for you???

 

[Story Archer]

On 12/10/2023 at 8:13 PM, Lhanis said:

I suppose the actual question I have here is... is there even a point to hoverblasting now that Sentinel has closed the gap in damage?

 

Sentinels have closed the gap in damage??

 

I actually think it's just the opposite. I find it easier a lot of times to get a Blaster's Ranged defense at the soft cap than getting all of a Sentinel's defenses in that range. So, in practical terms, you've got better defenses and more damage on a well-built Blaster. The ones I tend to play, anyway.

 

I have two Sentinels that I really like, an Elec/Elec and a Dual/Super Reflexes, but I've never really figured out where they fit in. Both Blasters and pretty much all of the melee sets seem better suited to doing whatever it is you'd want a Sentinel to do.

Edited February 5 by Story Archer

[FupDup]

A few things about durability comparisons:

 

1. Comparing strictly ranged defense between the two AT's is kinda silly because a lot of armor sets are designed to either be focused around resistances (like Rad) or typed defenses (like Invuln, Energy, etc.). There's more than one way to bulk up. 

 

2. You get no DDR whatsoever, compared to Sents who get it on every defense-based set and most "layered" sets too in varying amounts. All it takes is one half-naked Roman man throwing a pointy stick at you and you're gonna start cascading if you've got no/low DDR. 

 

3. Sents get other survival tools like clicky absorbs, max HP boosts, certain T9s (the crashless ones), armor set depending. 

 

4. What do your other defense types/positions look like besides just ranged, along with resists? If you picked a resist armor in your Blaster epic you'll have decent enough S/L resists and maybe a third type if you picked something like Mu or Soul. And I'm guessing the remaining resists are barely in the double digit range. Or, in other words, your protection is less comprehensive. 

 

If you wanna fixate on positional defenses, let's look at SR. With no enhancements slotted, an SR Sent will be sitting at 49.82% DDR compared to your 0%. With some modest enhancement, this can jump up to around 75-78% give or take depending on just much defense you slot in its powers. I just don't see how someone can say with a straight face that ~75% DDR softcapped defenses is totally the same as softcapped with 0% DDR.

 

If you wanna say you'd rather have the defiance buffs and more melee attacks of a Blaster over that DDR or whatever other survival tools like absorbs and such, that's a perfectly legit argument to make. But it's not legit to say that 75% DDR is totally the same or inferior to having 0% DDR. 

 

 

The one thing I'll give Blasters for durability is that on average they do tend to have higher regen due to their sustains having just stupid amounts of it, at least in terms of what Mids shows as the regen % (the actual HP/S is a bit muddier to compare due to max HP differences). 

Edited February 5 by FupDup

[Snarky]

On 2/5/2024 at 3:42 PM, FupDup said:

A few things about durability comparisons:

 

1. Comparing strictly ranged defense between the two AT's is kinda silly because a lot of armor sets are designed to either be focused around resistances (like Rad) or typed defenses (like Invuln, Energy, etc.). There's more than one way to bulk up. 

 

2. You get no DDR whatsoever, compared to Sents who get it on every defense-based set and most "layered" sets too in varying amounts. All it takes is one half-naked Roman man throwing a pointy stick at you and you're gonna start cascading if you've got no/low DDR. 

 

3. Sents get other survival tools like clicky absorbs, max HP boosts, certain T9s (the crashless ones), armor set depending. 

 

4. What do your other defense types/positions look like besides just ranged, along with resists? If you picked a resist armor in your Blaster epic you'll have decent enough S/L resists and maybe a third type if you picked something like Mu or Soul. And I'm guessing the remaining resists are barely in the double digit range. Or, in other words, your protection is less comprehensive. 

 

If you wanna fixate on positional defenses, let's look at SR. With no enhancements slotted, an SR Sent will be sitting at 49.82% DDR compared to your 0%. With some modest enhancement, this can jump up to around 75-78% give or take depending on just much defense you slot in its powers. I just don't see how someone can say with a straight face that ~75% DDR softcapped defenses is totally the same as softcapped with 0% DDR.

 

If you wanna say you'd rather have the defiance buffs and more melee attacks of a Blaster over that DDR or whatever other survival tools like absorbs and such, that's a perfectly legit argument to make. But it's not legit to say that 75% DDR is totally the same or inferior to having 0% DDR. 

 

 

The one thing I'll give Blasters for durability is that on average they do tend to have higher regen due to their sustains having just stupid amounts of it, at least in terms of what Mids shows as the regen % (the actual HP/S is a bit muddier to compare due to max HP differences). 

I like how you changed the subject from damage comparison to talking up Sentinel survivability.  (Which is not stellar either)

 

Here is my answer to Sentinel armor from a Blaster POV...

Blaster - Electrical Blast - Temporal Manipulation tank 4.0.mxd

[FupDup]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

I like how you changed the subject from damage comparison to talking up Sentinel survivability.  (Which is not stellar either)

 

Here is my answer to Sentinel armor from a Blaster POV...

Blaster - Electrical Blast - Temporal Manipulation tank 4.0.mxd 4.79 kB · 1 download

The reason I brought up survivability was to reply to the person above my post who said that Blasters have easier to build defenses and thus have higher defenses total. 

 

More broadly, the trade-off of less damage for more survival/self-sufficiency was the whole point of creating the AT so it will always be relevant in any discussion surrounding them. They aren't supposed to out-damage Blasters, if they could they would be busted. 

Edited February 7 by FupDup

[tidge]

AFAIK, all my characters "hover blast" strictly for flavor (i.e. the character is a 'default flier') or for movement on maps. There are a limited number of AV fights and situations when I plan to keep flying during the fight (if the power is available): typically Marauder for squishy AT, and Diabolique because she flies herself.

 

In the Homecoming era, especially because enhancements and globals are easily available, partially because of when (primary, Secondary, Travel) powers can be chosen in a build, I consider Hover-blasting to be a relic strategy of a bygone era.

 

As others have written, or implied: I believe that if the choice is being made to "hover-blast" for defensive reasons, a Sentinel will probably be more satisfying... if the player can get into a mindset where they accept that the will end up being "near" enemy mobiles. If "max damage" is the goal, then self-buffing defenses on a Blaster should be the build goal... and the way to achieve the max damage is to embrace the melee/PBAoE parts of the Blaster secondary, not by ignoring teh secondary in favor of an out-moded offensive strategy.

 

 

[Sovera]

I'm a defender of Sentinels, but even so I don't play the game of pretending Sentinels can do the same damage as a Blaster. And if they did then they would have to be nerfed.

 

But they don't need to be nerfed because they already are at the point where they do significantly less damage than a Blaster. Which is how it should be.

 

If people want to pretend that their Sentinels can do the same damage as Blasters these people should check the Trapdoor and Pylon threads. Yes, some specific Sentinels with Radiation Armor and Ground Zero and loaded on procs can do some pretty good Blaster comparable times. With that one combo! And nowhere close in single target damage.

 

 

Lets please just enjoy the fact we have a sturdy ranged character with no need for gimmicks or juggling buffs to remain sturdy and accept that the trade off is doing less damage. The game is not competitive enough outside of the 0.5% of content that are Hardmodes that which AT someone picks matters.

 

 

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

AFAIK, all my characters "hover blast" strictly for flavor (i.e. the character is a 'default flier') or for movement on maps. There are a limited number of AV fights and situations when I plan to keep flying during the fight (if the power is available): typically Marauder for squishy AT, and Diabolique because she flies herself.

 

In the Homecoming era, especially because enhancements and globals are easily available, partially because of when (primary, Secondary, Travel) powers can be chosen in a build, I consider Hover-blasting to be a relic strategy of a bygone era.

 

As others have written, or implied: I believe that if the choice is being made to "hover-blast" for defensive reasons, a Sentinel will probably be more satisfying... if the player can get into a mindset where they accept that the will end up being "near" enemy mobiles. If "max damage" is the goal, then self-buffing defenses on a Blaster should be the build goal... and the way to achieve the max damage is to embrace the melee/PBAoE parts of the Blaster secondary, not by ignoring teh secondary in favor of an out-moded offensive strategy.

 

 

My Dark Dark Brute runs Fly 99% time.  Just easier….

[Duckbutler]

I've been following this thread with some curiousity. 15 years ago, circa the issue when the invention system was released, I had an AR/Energy blaster. This character was probably the most miserable experience I had with City of Heroes and my only blaster that got anywhere because I hadn't even learned to hoverblast. Everyone kept telling me I needed to mix in my melee attacks. I eventually clawed my way to 50 paying XP debt most of the way. This character is now literally impossible to fully and precisely recreate because not only have both power sets been reworked since then (energy got changed while I was playing it, even), but the blaster inherent power got reworked.

 

Suffice it to say that the concept of a blaster having any survivability whatsoever makes my head turn a little. I'm curious to try it where it might actually be fun. The compromise that I personally came to was to just play support builds and hoverblast with my corruptor, which can fully justify never being in melee because it doesn't have any melee attacks.