Chilling Ray vs Freeze Ray

[Kachooman]

Hey peoples, I am new to Sentinel but just looking at Chilling Ray vs the Blaster equivilient I feel I am missing something. Like Chilling seems a lot worse, about half the DPA and instead of hold has sleep. Why is that?

 

[Luminara]

Chilling Ray deals 100.3208 damage.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel

 

I've checked as far back as version 2.6.1.25 and Mids' has never displayed less than 86.64 damage for Chilling Ray (sentinel damage was increased about 1.5 years ago, damage for attacks like Chilling Ray went up from 86.64 to 100.3208), so something is fucky.

 

 

It deals less damage than the blaster version because sentinels aren't blasters, they're scrappers with a ranged primary; and it has a shorter recharge time (HC uses a formula to determine damage, base recharge time is one of the variables in that formula.  the faster an attack's base recharge, the less base damage it deals).  It uses Sleep instead of Hold because sentinels were designed to be less reliant on hard controls, none of their primaries have two hard controls which can stack (you can select a *PP with a compatible hard control if you want to stack).

 

All of that said, I don't recommending using Chilling Ray.  The autohit Sleep resets the streak breaker, which allows the damage part to miss (it has to make a hit roll, even though the Sleep makes it appear that the power is guaranteed to hit), and it can miss an indefinite number of times without a hit being forced, and cause miss streaks when used in conjunction with other powers.  It breaks the streak breaker, in other words.

[Heatstroke]

24 minutes ago, Luminara said:

sentinels aren't blasters, they're scrappers with a ranged primary;

 

 

Please keep shouting this from the rooftops !!!!!

[drbuzzard]

This power change is a reason I don't recommend Ice Blast on sentinels. It's rather a weak set (as it is a great set everywhere else). 

[Kachooman]

53 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Chilling Ray deals 100.3208 damage.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.ice_blast.chilling_ray&at=sentinel

 

I've checked as far back as version 2.6.1.25 and Mids' has never displayed less than 86.64 damage for Chilling Ray (sentinel damage was increased about 1.5 years ago, damage for attacks like Chilling Ray went up from 86.64 to 100.3208), so something is fucky.

 

 

It deals less damage than the blaster version because sentinels aren't blasters, they're scrappers with a ranged primary; and it has a shorter recharge time (HC uses a formula to determine damage, base recharge time is one of the variables in that formula.  the faster an attack's base recharge, the less base damage it deals).  It uses Sleep instead of Hold because sentinels were designed to be less reliant on hard controls, none of their primaries have two hard controls which can stack (you can select a *PP with a compatible hard control if you want to stack).

 

All of that said, I don't recommending using Chilling Ray.  The autohit Sleep resets the streak breaker, which allows the damage part to miss (it has to make a hit roll, even though the Sleep makes it appear that the power is guaranteed to hit), and it can miss an indefinite number of times without a hit being forced, and cause miss streaks when used in conjunction with other powers.  It breaks the streak breaker, in other words.

I'm talking Damage per animation. Yep does 100 damage but due to the slower cast 1.67 seconds instead of the 1 on the blaster it works out to less than half the damage over the same peroid of time.

As for the no hold that doesn't track as Bitter Freezing Ray still has a hold effect so why are they different?

FIre for example again using DPA because animation time matters when talking damage. Left side Sent, right side blaster. Yep Sent is lower but its not such a crazy difference.



I'm not expecting Blaster numbers, I am just wondering why some sets have closer parity and this one in particular has a key power this gutted.

 

 

Edited June 9 by Kachooman

[Uun]

Freeze Ray was designed at launch and ignores the current power balancing formulas. The devs won't change it due to the massive uproar that would result (as far as I can tell the only thing changed since launch is the hold duration), but I suspect they didn't want to port it to a new AT. 

[Kachooman]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

Freeze Ray was designed at launch and ignores the current power balancing formulas. The devs won't change it due to the massive uproar that would result (as far as I can tell the only thing changed since launch is the hold duration), but I suspect they didn't want to port it to a new AT. 

Cheers for that this is what I was interested to hear.

 

Just looks to me like ice blast could use a quick pass and minor number tweaks using another sentinel set as a balance pin, I might head over to suggestions with this idea. I'm wondering if there are any others in the same boat, I can't imagine people being super upset about minor upswing to a couple of sent sets powers out of step with others.

[Uun]

2 hours ago, Kachooman said:

Cheers for that this is what I was interested to hear.

 

Just looks to me like ice blast could use a quick pass and minor number tweaks using another sentinel set as a balance pin, I might head over to suggestions with this idea. I'm wondering if there are any others in the same boat, I can't imagine people being super upset about minor upswing to a couple of sent sets powers out of step with others.

I posted recently about psi blast for sentinels needing a few tweaks.