Sentinel Dark Blast seems really low damage?

[Seroster01]

I haven't played around with sentinels in Pine's much, but the one I have messed with, Dark Blast, seems to have pretty low damage per cast compared to other "DPS" characters I've built up. I particularly say damage per cast because I'm not familiar enough with the min-max routines to know how the set stacks up in a fully optimised attack rotation.  Thus, my whole premise could be wrong & the rest is pointless, but I'll write out the rest anyway.

 

The ST damage abilities aren't completely awful but I'd describe them as "meh".  The particular thing that seems really poor is that their AOE options seem comically low damage, doing 100-150 damage per cast when fully IOd.

 

This lead me to a general inquiry: is this issue an AT-wide problem, or is Dark Blast's damage tuned lower due to the strong benefits of spamming - to-hit abilities with every attack?  I know Sents are considered by many to be underperforming because they give up too much in different basic combat parameters & gain too little in return, so I wasn't sure if this was the case here or the solid debuff from DB was reflected in lower damage tuning.

 

Any input on this front?

[Snarky]

I am not knowledgeable about the exact numbers.  I have done rough comparisons by eye in the character creator power info screen. Doesn’t look horrid. I have played a couple dark blast Sentinels to 20-35 with different secondaries.  The one I have that uses the high end KB to KD that increases KD % is particularly fun. Does not ‘feel’ underpowered unless I compare it to Energy Blaster

[Gone]

I haven't played around with sentinels in Pine's much, but the one I have messed with, Dark Blast, seems to have pretty low damage per cast compared to other "DPS" characters I've built up. I particularly say damage per cast because I'm not familiar enough with the min-max routines to know how the set stacks up in a fully optimised attack rotation.  Thus, my whole premise could be wrong & the rest is pointless, but I'll write out the rest anyway.

 

The ST damage abilities aren't completely awful but I'd describe them as "meh".  The particular thing that seems really poor is that their AOE options seem comically low damage, doing 100-150 damage per cast when fully IOd.

 

This lead me to a general inquiry: is this issue an AT-wide problem, or is Dark Blast's damage tuned lower due to the strong benefits of spamming - to-hit abilities with every attack?  I know Sents are considered by many to be underperforming because they give up too much in different basic combat parameters & gain too little in return, so I wasn't sure if this was the case here or the solid debuff from DB was reflected in lower damage tuning.

 

Any input on this front?

 

I don't know if it's an AT-wide problem, but my Sentinel is endgame-built and incarnated so I can give you my experiences with Dark/Energy.

 

The damage feels very low and while survivable the durability doesn't feel much better than just a well-made blaster.  I have stopped playing my Sentinel altogether because my blaster hits what feels like twice as hard (or more!) and has no issues with surviving either.

 

Dark/ has me in a headspace where I don't think I'll ever play another Sentinel, because it feels very, very weak.  Since I have no interest in playing another sentinel though, this one completely souring me on it, it isn't likely I'll find out whether it is a poor performer or if the AT is fine or otherwise.

[Hopeling]

Sentinels do the expected amount of damage for the powers they're using and for their AT modifier of 0.9, so they deal 80% as much base damage as Blasters, and 120% as much as Corruptors. Dealing ~100-150 damage per cast with a slotted AoE attack is pretty normal for any AT. The Blaster version of Umbral Torrent deals 60.06 damage base, which is about 120 with slotting. For a Sentinel, that's 48.05 base, or about 95 with slotting. In practice, that's going to be a bit more for both ATs due to Defiance and Opportunity respectively, but still within that ~100-150 range.

[oldskool]

I haven't played around with sentinels in Pine's much, but the one I have messed with, Dark Blast, seems to have pretty low damage per cast compared to other "DPS" characters I've built up. I particularly say damage per cast because I'm not familiar enough with the min-max routines to know how the set stacks up in a fully optimised attack rotation.  Thus, my whole premise could be wrong & the rest is pointless, but I'll write out the rest anyway.

 

The ST damage abilities aren't completely awful but I'd describe them as "meh".  The particular thing that seems really poor is that their AOE options seem comically low damage, doing 100-150 damage per cast when fully IOd.

 

This lead me to a general inquiry: is this issue an AT-wide problem, or is Dark Blast's damage tuned lower due to the strong benefits of spamming - to-hit abilities with every attack?  I know Sents are considered by many to be underperforming because they give up too much in different basic combat parameters & gain too little in return, so I wasn't sure if this was the case here or the solid debuff from DB was reflected in lower damage tuning.

 

Any input on this front?

 

Pine's still has a lot of things wrong for Sentinels.  The damage scale is one of those. 

 

BUT here is the TL;DR - Even considering the scaler issue in Pine's lower damage is an AT vs AT thing.  The rest of my discussion here is comparison against set I personally play.

 

I have several Sentinels.  Here are ones I have made:

 

Dark/Regen

Dark/Dark (replaced my /Regen)

Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu

Beam Rifle/Willpower

Sonic/Energy Aura

Assault Rifle/Bio Armor

 

I have a build for Water/Super Reflexes I want to experiment with on Justin whenever it pops back up. 

 

Anyway, per Pine's both of Dark's AoE powers have fairly consistent DPA (compared to each other).  This is actually quite good compared to the other sets I play.  Empty Clips (DP) falls just behind both of those, Shockwave/Howl (Sonic) falls behind, Cutting Beam (Beam) falls behind, Buckshot (AR) is better, M30 Grenade (AR) falls behind, and Flamethrower (AR) breaks even etc.  Beam is kind of an odd duck in that it gets a bouncing chain attack that actually does surprisingly well on Disintegrate targets as does Piercing Beam.  Those numbers don't reflect in Pine's.  Sonic just has really anemic options for AoE outside of the T9. Anyway, that's just to give an idea on comparisons.  I'm not going to advocate specifics on what powers to take or not (not the point of this discussion). 

 

Real numbers are a bit higher but the comparisons still hold true. 

 

As for single target, Dark holds its own well against the sets I play.  Of course I am playing a lot of middle of the road primaries but breaking roughly even in the pack isn't really a horrible place to be.  It's not dead last.  Sonic Blast on Sentinels is kind of an outlier because Screech is insane.  It is the next highest DPA to Dreadful Wail doing about 85% of a T9's damage on a 3 second cooldown with how I have slotted those.  The other single targets are all pretty 'meh' but they do stack -9.6% resistance which leads into my Screech. 

 

Anyway, Dark Blast is an "OK" damage set on an AT that doesn't really wow anyone for damage numbers.  So I can see how it will look like it is even worse when compared to Blasters.  However, it's AoE is actually better than it looks when compared to some other sets, and it's single target isn't bad either (it's not great either).

 

 

[Seroster01]

Sentinels do the expected amount of damage for the powers they're using and for their AT modifier of 0.9, so they deal 80% as much base damage as Blasters, and 120% as much as Corruptors. Dealing ~100-150 damage per cast with a slotted AoE attack is pretty normal for any AT. The Blaster version of Umbral Torrent deals 60.06 damage base, which is about 120 with slotting. For a Sentinel, that's 48.05 base, or about 95 with slotting. In practice, that's going to be a bit more for both ATs due to Defiance and Opportunity respectively, but still within that ~100-150 range.

 

I suppose I was comparing Sentinel damage to the #s from melee ATs (specifically Scrapper WM & Widow Claws).  The AE those sets were all over 170+ according to Pine's (except maybe Whirling Mace, can't remember that one for sure) & most of the ST attacks were significantly higher as well (sometimes 2x as much). Having said that, the #s reported in Pines for Widows seem exceptionally large, so it could be that some of the #s are wrong. Or perhaps I just happened to pick a couple of sets that are large outliers in the AoE department, IDK.

[Hopeling]

Some melee AoEs do more damage because they have smaller areas and/or longer recharge than most ranged AoEs, yes. Hitting more targets more often tends to make up for it though.

[BlackenBlue71]

I don't know about the low damage, but even with good Acc slotted, my Dark Blast/Regen seems to miss more often than my other characters. And I mean all, not just other Sentinels. Don't know if its a bug, just my imagination, or just plain bad luck. (I once had four attacks in a row miss on a yellow con mob, even after using an accuracy inspiration.....then managed to hit with the Nemesis Staff. Go figure.)

[Seroster01]

This is probably bad luck, cause I've never heard of a whole set having lowered base accuracy compared to other sets of the same type.  I also don't remember feeling particularly prone to missing on the DB Sentinels I've made...

[PaxArcana]

Sentinels do the expected amount of damage for the powers they're using and for their AT modifier of 0.9, so they deal 80% as much base damage as Blasters, and 120% as much as Corruptors.

 

Sentinel Damage Scale is 0.95, not 0.90 .... they deal about 84.444% the damage of Blasters. :)

[Destlin]

Dark blast on a sentinel is very very low damage compared to playing most of the other power sets. Fire/water/elec/beam rifle are all great with fire having the least utility but the most damage.