Please consider fixing the disparity in damage-per-cooldown on short-cooldown nukes standardized to 90s for Sentinels (Full Auto, Rain of Arrows)

[Taveena]

Despite having a longer cooldown than the Blaster version, they both deal MUCH less damage. The full auto cone is also half the size. While I get that Sentinel nukes are supposed to hit less targets, having a longer cooldown, hitting for only 80% of the damage per tick, not having the burst of full auto damage at the end, and having a cone half as long (a QUARTER the total area!) means that the Sentinel version is absurdly weak.

While less egregious, Sentinel Rain of Arrows does still have a longer cooldown while only doing 80% of the damage, rather than the 97% we'd expect if they had the same cooldown. Given the Sentinel version is a LONGER recharge, shouldn't it be stronger as a result?

That said, Blaster Full Auto appears to be coded to still only hit 10 targets, and Sentinel Rain of Arrows appears to hit 16, so I have no idea if that's influencing things here. Even accounting for that, it means that Full Auto and Rain of Arrows are disastrously weak for Sentinels. The standard for Sentinels appears to be having a damage-per-recharge on their nukes about 1.25 times that of Blasters, though it varies quite dramatically. (Presumably because the burst damage is highly valued for its ability to end fights quickly more than slightly higher sustain, but I don't know for sure.)

Attached is a spreadsheet showing a comparison of Blaster vs Sentinel nuke numbers (the Storm Blast ones are likely incorrect; this was calculated when I didn't know about the internal lightning cooldown and was based on the assumption that you'd have a chance to trigger it every 1.33 seconds rather than, y'know, 1.17 to 4.) Final column shows how far off the Sentinel is from the Blaster damage-per-cooldown numbers - more favorable than I expected in many areas, but incredibly far behind on the two biggest offenders. While I'd be sad to see Sentinels lose their few edges here, I'd nonetheless prefer it if the playing field was even across the board.

[Rudra]

Don't compare Sentinel nukes to Blaster nukes. Per the previous thread discussing Sentinel nukes, I don't remember who posted the information, but Sentinel nukes are all pretty uniform.

[Taveena]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

Don't compare Sentinel nukes to Blaster nukes. Per the previous thread discussing Sentinel nukes, I don't remember who posted the information, but Sentinel nukes are all pretty uniform.

I... just shared the numbers from City of Data there. Uniform recharge, yes, all 90 seconds. Which is why the wildly varying actual damage per activation is so notable, and what I'm actually posting about. The Blaster nukes - or Corruptor Nukes, or Defender Nukes, it doesn't actually MATTER - are there because the assumption would be that an ability with a 50% longer recharge would deal more damage to compensate for it. Again, the difference between Blaster and Sentinel damage scalars is only 1.125 to 1.1 - a miniscule amount, smaller than any of the discrepancies noted.

Sentinel Full Auto has no reason to have one quarter the area, one and a half times LONGER a cooldown, AND the lowest damage of any Sentinel nuke. I'm not saying it should be as powerful as the Blaster one, I'm saying it shouldn't be THIS much weaker. Sentinel nukes are weakened compared to their Blaster, Corruptor, and Defender counterparts implicitly because they have a shorter recharge in most cases, so why do the two cases where the recharge is LENGTHENED also suffer?

[Luminara]

Sentinels aren't comparable to blasters, defenders, or corruptors.  Sentinels are ranged scrappers and their nukes are restricted to keep them in line with scrapper limitations, just like their cones and targeted AoEs.

[Taveena]

My whole point isn't about comparing Sentinels to other classes, I'm comparing specifically AR and Archery Sentinels to other Sentinels, where the abilities are inordinately weaker than every other SENTINEL nuke for unclear reasons.

[Luminara]

51 minutes ago, Taveena said:

My whole point isn't about comparing Sentinels to other classes, I'm comparing specifically AR and Archery Sentinels to other Sentinels, where the abilities are inordinately weaker than every other SENTINEL nuke for unclear reasons.

 

Most of the sentinel T9 primaries deal ~138 damage, with a varying amount of additional damage at the center 8-10' of the AoE/PBAoE (in most cases, ~57).

 

Full Auto deals 138.308 damage over 2s and has a 16% chance to crit for an additional 57.195 damage over 2s.  Full Auto has to use a crit because they can't differentiate cone areas.  A target is either in the cone or it isn't, that's the extent of the engine's determination.

 

Rain of Arrows has 3 pulses of 61.4326 damage over 1s, but each pulse has a separate hit check, so the average damage equates to (61.4326 * 0.95) * 3 = 175.08291.  Rain of Arrows deals less damage per target, but has a 16 target cap instead of the 10 target cap that other primary T9s use.

 

They're fine.

[Taveena]

17 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Most of the sentinel T9 primaries deal ~138 damage, with a varying amount of additional damage at the center 8-10' of the AoE/PBAoE (in most cases, ~57).

 

Full Auto deals 138.308 damage over 2s and has a 16% chance to crit for an additional 57.195 damage over 2s.  Full Auto has to use a crit because they can't differentiate cone areas.  A target is either in the cone or it isn't, that's the extent of the engine's determination.

 

Rain of Arrows has 3 pulses of 61.4326 damage over 1s, but each pulse has a separate hit check, so the average damage equates to (61.4326 * 0.95) * 3 = 175.08291.  Rain of Arrows deals less damage per target, but has a 16 target cap instead of the 10 target cap that other primary T9s use.

 

They're fine.

To be fair, we've got effects like Shiver now, which has a narrow Fear cone and a wider Slow cone, the randomness of it interacts pretty unfavorably with Sentinel's single-target focus, and the cone being half the length means it's 0.25 times the area, compared to most Sentinel nukes being a 0.64 times the size of other ATs.

Edited February 1 by Taveena

[FupDup]

Just wanna point out that for Full Auto, Sents and Blasters both get 90 degree cone angles. They also amusingly share the same target cap (unlike the other nukes) and Sents at least get Aim (+Gaussian) to try to make up for the lost base damage. Plus the set has so much AOE in general that it didn't feel like an issue for my AR Sent. 

 

Rain of Arrows on the other hand...yeah that one is pretty sadface. 

 

On 1/28/2024 at 1:21 AM, Rudra said:

Don't compare Sentinel nukes to Blaster nukes. Per the previous thread discussing Sentinel nukes, I don't remember who posted the information, but Sentinel nukes are all pretty uniform.

That was me!

 

And yeah, it's true that for the most part, Sent nukes are super close to each other (outside of DoTs and gimmicks that might add a little extra to some). The issue is just that some sets benefit from this normalization more than others. 

 

Sent nukes are pretty weird like this, being balanced against each other in a vacuum instead of being balanced against the other ATs from which these powers are inherited. It doesn't help that these powers probably aren't even perfectly balanced against each other on Blasters either, so normalizing them to one standard is gonna have funky outliers on both ends. 

Edited February 2 by FupDup

[Taveena]

Here's a version of the numbers while at the target cap, and a version that assumes that only 16% of the enemies will be within the area, as the 8 yard radius murder zone is 16% of the area of the standard 20 foot Sentinel nuke. This is equal to Sentinel's 16% chance to crit with Full Auto, but still sees it fall the furthest behind of the Sentinel nukes, while Rain of Arrows' 16 target cap and lack of damage split pushes it far ahead.

 

Sentinel's Full Auto has, incidentally, the exact same area as the other Sentinel nukes (as a cone instead of a circle), which I guess explains the reduction in size from Blaster's version, which is a little over 2.5 times as large as any other AoE. Aim having a range boost and syncing up with it is nice, I guess. It's also worth noting that even while Sentinel does have Aim, every Blaster has some equivalent of Build Up (though the random critical versions pair less well with nukes, of course). And Also Defiance Is There. But also Vulnerability is there. So... I don't know. The randomness of Sentinel Full Auto's crits means that unlike all (non-archery) nukes, they can't guarantee the overlap of Vulnerability and the bonus damage, which kind of sucks.

I guess I'd like to see Sentinel Full Auto instead standardized to deal its bonus damage to a narrower cone (It'd be 14.4 degrees, rounding whichever way, to get that same 16%), and Full Auto, Blizzard, and Hail of Bullets brought UP to the damage/recharge time of other Sentinel nukes (putting Incendiary Hail of Bullets closer to Geyser 3 and Inferno) while getting Overcharge brought down to the same level as Inferno. (Possibly improving Blizzard's damage by extending its duration from 8 to 10 seconds? I don't know, the terrible control of Ice Blast Sentinel in comparison to the other ATs is really disappointing, and losing the highest damage ability WHICH IS ALSO the best control ability sucks SUPER hard.)

No damn clue what to do with Hail of Arrows, since apparently it's massively OVERperforming as well as easier to use. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

EDIT: Also I just noticed that all of Auto Rifle Sentinel's ingame descriptions are just the Blaster ones, and include Defiance and Blaster's 10% crit chance on Full Auto. That should probably be fixed.

Edited February 2 by Taveena

[Rudra]

Let's go down the line again.

 

Sentinel Nuke:                               Damage:

Archery (Rain of Arrows)                  Summons pet that inflicts the damage. I'm not bothering with figuring it out.

Assault Rifle (Full Auto)                   138.308/57.195 damage

Beam Rifle (Overcharge)                  137.8187/56.7669 damage

Dark Blast (Blackstar)                      137.8187/56.7669 damage

Dual Pistols (Hail of Bullets)            92.1541/37.9868/Swap Ammo used/not used (added damage) damage

Electrical Blast (Thunderous Blast)   137.8187/48.937(?)/56.7669 damage

Energy Blast (Nova)                         137.8187/56.7669 damage

Fire Blast (Inferno)                           137.8187/56.7669/DoT 19.26897 damage

Ice Blast (Blizzard)                           Summons pet that inflicts the damage. I'm not bothering with figuring it out.

Psychic Blast (Psychic Wail)             137.8187/56.7669 damage

Radiation Blast (Atomic Blast)         137.8187/56.7669 damage

Seismic Blast (Meteor)                      Summons pet that inflicts the damage. I'm not bothering with figuring it out.

Sonic Attack (Dreadful Wail)            137.8187/56.7669 damage

Storm Blast (Category Five)             Summons pet that does lots of crazy stuff. No way in hell am I tackling that.

Water Blast (Geyser)                        68.8788/tidal power (63.6429-79.86498)/56.7669 damage

 

So as you can see, all the Sentinel nukes do approximately the same damage. (All data pulled from City of Data https://cod.uberguy.net/html/archetype.html?at=sentinel for Sentinel nukes.) They all have the same recharge at 90 seconds and the same END cost at 15.6. So what is the problem with them?

 

Edit:

From the game:

Archery:             130.53/53.76

Assault Rifle:       152.13/62.92

Beam Rifle:          137.82/56.77/24.48

Dark Blast:          137.82/56.77

Dual Pistols:        39.6/96.12/39.6/96.12

Electrical Blast:    137.82/56.77/48.94

Energy Blast:       137.82/56.77

Fire Blast:            137.82/56.77/27.54

Ice Blast:              148.83/61.09

Psychic Blast:       137.82/56.77

Radiation Blast:    137.82/56.77

Seismic Blast:       137.82/56.77

Sonic Attack:        137.82/56.77

Storm Blast:         139.2/57.57

Water Blast:          68.88/tidal power (68.64-86.13)/56.77

Edited February 2 by Rudra
Edited to alter Swap Ammo comment. Edited again to adjust Dual Pistol for all standard ammo damage.

[Taveena]

Meteor's damage is the same as the mode. Dual Pistols underperforms when not loaded with incendiary ammo. Game information is contradicted by City of Data's information, so I'm not sure what to trust (my sheet was based on CoData). Definitely possible I missed something, but please see my earlier posts for discussion of the various damage splits.

[Rudra]

52 minutes ago, Taveena said:

Meteor's damage is the same as the mode. Dual Pistols underperforms when not loaded with incendiary ammo. Game information is contradicted by City of Data's information, so I'm not sure what to trust (my sheet was based on CoData). Definitely possible I missed something, but please see my earlier posts for discussion of the various damage splits.

The damage I posted from the game is with standard ammo for Dual Pistols, not incendiary, cryo, or toxic. (Though I did the math wrong and had to go back to the post to lower two results and add the missing 4th result.) Common Sentinel nuke damage is 194.59 per what the game says, while standard ammo on Dual Pistols is doing 271.44 damage per what the game says. Though each of the 4 parts has a 60% chance of triggering (so 40% chance of not). Though incendiary ammo does add another 23.23 DoT after the initial damage, which is equal to the standard damage. (Edit: Unless the game is listing its damage twice.)(Edit again: And Dual Pistols weren't even part of your request. It was Full Auto and Rain of Arrows.)

 

 

Edited February 2 by Rudra

[warlyx]

Archery needs a rework it has been bad for so long ....