Trying to make sense of the "Power Structures" for the Sentenal

[Gairian1974]

General question, after reading the description of the "Sentenal" I find myself wondering?

 

As a "Medium Range Combatent" is there a reason "Ranged" power sets were chosen as the primary options instead of the "Assault Power Sets" that are a Domanators Secondary?

 

It seams making "Assault Sets" with there mix of ranged and melee would make more sense for "a medium range combatant". As a primary, and keeping "Scrappers sets" as a secondary would be more in line, with the description.

 

If some could take a few minits, and give me a response to this inquiries, it would be appreciated, my thanks for your time.

Edited January 31 by Gairian1974
Found the answer to the second inquiry.

[cohRock]

I wouldn't refer to a sentinel as "medium ranged".  He is a fully ranged combatant, even more so than blasters, who have melee attacks in their secondary.  The range for most blaster attacks is 80 feet, while for a sentinel it is still 70.  (Most melee attacks are 7 feet.)   In exchange for having armor, sentinels lose a little range, a little damage, and fewer total attacks.  It is a fair trade-off, IMO.

 

Note that, like blasters, sentinel secondaries include stamina and/or recovery capabilities, making sustained performance much easier than most other archetypes.

[Sunsette]

You probably won't get a firm answer of "why" unless the SCORE fan team that put them together before the HC dev takeover were to speak on the subject

 

But I would guess it was probably because it would have been a huge undertaking to create a lot of new Assault sets while there were a ton of existing blast sets. 

 

... and no, 60 foot range with no snipe very much puts them at medium range. Appreciation of distance is basically a function that moves as a square.

 

pi r² and all that. Every other ranged combatant has a primary kill area of 6400 pi feet, Sents have one of 3600 pi feet, that's a big difference in COH's wide open spaces. 

Edited January 31 by Sunsette

[StarseedWarrior]

5 hours ago, Gairian1974 said:

General question, after reading the description of the "Sentenal" I find myself wondering?

 

As a "Medium Range Combatent" is there a reason "Ranged" power sets were chosen as the primary options instead of the "Assault Power Sets" that are a Domanators Secondary?

 

It seams making "Assault Sets" with there mix of ranged and melee would make more sense for "a medium range combatant". As a primary, and keeping "Scrappers sets" as a secondary would be more in line, with the description.

 

If some could take a few minits, and give me a response to this inquiries, it would be appreciated, my thanks for your time.

There is quite extensive info on sentinels if you read some of the posts below and people have shown the numbers sents are only slightly behind in ranged dps, sents also have melee attacks in epic pools and a melee bonus as well, the big difference is blasters where never meant to cap defenses like this, the at was built long before they over tuned this aspect in blasters. Blaster though cannot do this until much later sure you can start early but your going to end up with really linear builds having to always cap it and linear slotting while I feel like sents come this way out of the box and you do not have to worry about the linear slotting either. I can pick more of what I want out of the set, from my understanding they are more consistent dps and most blaster sets are burst.

 

I also think allot of people judge sentinels because they cannot manage to put their debuff on auto, the debuff single target or not is absolutely amazing. And the team buff for dps helps a bit I personally like to stack this with assault if a defender isnt already putting it out, as I know its only like 10 but I like feeling like im contributing to a team.

 

As others have said it should be compared to a scrapper more then a blaster.

Edited January 31 by StarseedWarrior

[Psiphon]

The developers created the Sentinel in reaction to a request from users pre-shutdown; users asked for a ranged/defence AT.

Originally this wasn't done for fear of an over powered tank mage but the current developers have managed to create the AT and keep it balanced.

[FupDup]

In regards to not having Assault sets, my opinion is that an assault/armor AT would be a pointless addition because Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, and Stalkers can all pick some ranged powers from their epic pools to create a playstyle very similar to assault. Furthermore, Sentinels themselves can also pick up some melee attacks in their epic pools to also create an assault-like feel too. The current implementation allows you to get the best of both worlds to an extent because you get to have nukes (assault sets don't). 

 

And frankly, assault sets are pretty close to outright melee sets in terms of design/feel anyways (ranged offers a different playstyle even if the game's power design usually rewards melee). They make sense on Doms but I really just don't get the hype for putting them on other ATs. The most I'd like to see for Sents is adding an extra melee attack to each epic pool and/or adding more epic pools that have a higher quantity of melee attacks available (so you can choose to be assault if you want or choose not to). 

 

Like seriously, what actual merit or difference would an assault/armor AT offer over a Scrapper or such using their epic pool ranged attacks?

Edited January 31 by FupDup

[biostem]

9 hours ago, Gairian1974 said:

General question, after reading the description of the "Sentenal" I find myself wondering?

 

As a "Medium Range Combatent" is there a reason "Ranged" power sets were chosen as the primary options instead of the "Assault Power Sets" that are a Domanators Secondary?

 

It seams making "Assault Sets" with there mix of ranged and melee would make more sense for "a medium range combatant". As a primary, and keeping "Scrappers sets" as a secondary would be more in line, with the description.

 

If some could take a few minits, and give me a response to this inquiries, it would be appreciated, my thanks for your time.

Blasters and Dominators are the hybrid ranged-melee ATs.  We already have numerous melee-only ATs.  Sentinels are the "stand there and take it while dealing damage at range" AT.  The "medium range" aspect reflects the reduced distance of their attacks, (typically 60' instead of 80').

[Sunsette]

39 minutes ago, FupDup said:

In regards to not having Assault sets, my opinion is that an assault/armor AT would be a pointless addition because Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, and Stalkers can all pick some ranged powers from their epic pools to create a playstyle very similar to assault. Furthermore, Sentinels themselves can also pick up some melee attacks in their epic pools to also create an assault-like feel too. The current implementation allows you to get the best of both worlds to an extent because you get to have nukes (assault sets don't). 

 

And frankly, assault sets are pretty close to outright melee sets in terms of design/feel anyways (ranged offers a different playstyle even if the game's power design usually rewards melee). They make sense on Doms but I really just don't get the hype for putting them on other ATs. The most I'd like to see for Sents is adding an extra melee attack to each epic pool and/or adding more epic pools that have a higher quantity of melee attacks available (so you can choose to be assault if you want or choose not to). 

 

Like seriously, what actual merit or difference would an assault/armor AT offer over a Scrapper or such using their epic pool ranged attacks?

 

One of the strongest arguments given for why Sentinels occupy a reasonable design space is that, even if a Blaster can ultimately approximate a sent at high levels, the game exists outside of high levels.

 

It stands to reason that that works in reverse as well -- one of the strongest interest in assault sets on other ATs is that it allows for long-range attacks and meaningful melee attacks which match your theme on a character from a low level.

 

It is correct to point out that an assault set would ultimately be entering a crowded design space, but that's not really any less true of a pure ranged set.

[Gairian1974]

My thanks all, getting others perspective is a great way to see the information from another point of view. 

 

It shows my person, that perhaps I was preceding tha Sentenal from a more narrow perspective then I realized.

 

Appreciate your time and input, my thanks.

[StarseedWarrior]

2 hours ago, Gairian1974 said:

My thanks all, getting others perspective is a great way to see the information from another point of view. 

 

It shows my person, that perhaps I was preceding tha Sentenal from a more narrow perspective then I realized.

 

Appreciate your time and input, my thanks.

Np many do because they just are not use to hybrids in mmos, especially a mid ranged one, we have all done it somewhat at some point I think.