Storm Blast Sentinels

[Psyonico]

OK, so I'm not holding my breath for this, but one can dream...

 

Right now, all Sentinel targeted AoEs have a 40 foot range.  This includes Storm Cell.

 

My suggestion is to increase Storm Cell's range to 60 feet to match Sentinel ST range.

 

The reason for Storm Cell specifically is that my understanding is SC is supposed to be cast at the beginning of a fight, and all other ATs that get Storm Blast can cast Storm Cell without aggro.

 

Sentinels, with only a 40 foot range, are well within minion aggro range *before* it is cast, meaning you either are forced to take a stealth power or forced to slot multiple Range enhancements or else you will take damage *before* casting an aggro free power.

[tidge]

I can see the logic behind the request, but I don't know what practical effect this would have once the Sentinel has access to more powers (both primary and secondary). As Storm Cell can be taken rather early, I can understand the feels here.

 

13 hours ago, Psyonico said:

The reason for Storm Cell specifically is that my understanding is SC is supposed to be cast at the beginning of a fight, and all other ATs that get Storm Blast can cast Storm Cell without aggro.

 

Sentinels, with only a 40 foot range, are well within minion aggro range *before* it is cast, meaning you either are forced to take a stealth power or forced to slot multiple Range enhancements or else you will take damage *before* casting an aggro free power.

 

The Storm Cell will move with the character that cast it. Maybe it would be better to think of the Sentinel more as a Scrapper that happens to use ranged attacks rather than a Blaster with an armor set?

[arcane]

Stealth IO doesn’t cut it here?

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Stealth IO doesn’t cut it here?

So 2 things about this:

1. The game isn't balanced around IOs

2. It's one more toggle that has to be maintained.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

The Storm Cell will move with the character that cast it.

Mmm... not quite. The Storm Cell will move after the character that cast it, as in it will chase after its summoner, but it is rather slow moving.

[Luminara]

Last time I looked, sentinels had scrapper-quality damage mitigation and could easily handle being attacked while using powers, so they don't actually "need" a longer range on anything.

 

Also last time I looked, Storm Cell dealt damage, and that's very likely to keep it in the 40' base range camp.

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Storm Cell dealt damage, and that's very likely to keep it in the 40' base range camp.

 

Right, but it doesn't do damage on cast, only after casting other powers does it have a chance to do damage.

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

Right, but it doesn't do damage on cast, only after casting other powers does it have a chance to do damage.

 

Well, we're not talking about a defender or a corruptor here, an archetype which might use it more as a debuff tool than an enabler for their other attacks.  We're talking about sentinels.  Damage dealers.  You're going to attack after dropping Storm Cell, not slink to the back of the group and hide, so it is going to deal damage.  Citing conditionals is utterly irrelevant in this context.  You are going to attack, so it is going to deal damage.  Even if you don't want it to deal damage, it will.  So it does qualify as a damage dealing power from a developmental perspective.

 

The fact that it will continue to deal damage even after you stop attacking, and even if you move away from it, reinforces that.  No-one in the powers department is going to look at this thread and think, "Yeah, we should totally increase the range on that long duration mobile rain power because it's actually a debuff in disguise."