sentinel Semi-Reworking the Sentinel into a tanky ranged AT (or, really, anything to make Sentinel better)

[Maelwys]

8 minutes ago, brass_eagle said:

and the link from @Maelwys is outdated though useful as a benchmark. The link is from 2020, and the sentinel revamp was in 2024. 

 

It was first posted in 2020. But @Underfyre last updated the spreadsheet in July 2025.

"Welcome to the Sentinel DPS Spreadsheet v3.0.1, Issue 28, Page 2"

 

IIRC the rack/stack builds are particularly well done and things like sneaky undocumented damage buffs in BR disintegrate are factored in. (Even if my own Sentinel attack chains diverge a fair bit from them!)

[brass_eagle]

1 minute ago, Maelwys said:

 

It was first posted in 2020. But @Underfyre last updated the spreadsheet in July 2025.

"Welcome to the Sentinel DPS Spreadsheet v3.0.1, Issue 28, Page 2"

 

 

I didn't see that. Thank you -- my fault. I should take better care citing.

[Maelwys]

11 hours ago, macskull said:

The Sentinel can only do this to one target periodically for 15 seconds at a time. It also doesn't stack with other Sentinels which makes it an okay niche for a single Sentinel on a team but it means any more than one is redundant.

This bit's pertinent.

IIRC the Opportunity bar gains 50% (one usage of Vulnerability) in 30s. So two Sentinels cycling Vulnerability back-to-back can keep it up on ONE foe indefinitely.
It's a decent debuff... -15% Resistance that isn't affected by target level (e.g. Purple Patch) but since it's low uptime and non-AoE it's not very useful outside of AV/GM fights.

Compared to other ATs with "Ranged Blast" powersets; Sentinels also suffer a bit whenever they're fighting very large numbers of targets. They're inherently (ha!) a bit underwhelming in the regular "let's steamroll through hordes of mooks as fast as possible" meta despite their fast-recharging Nukes (a big FOOM on a ~20-25s timer is nice in theory, but gets let down by the fact that it only hits 10 targets). So I do think that they need a little bit of a boost in terms of non-nuke DPS. Not a huge amount though... just enough that Sentinels would occasionally be more mechanically effective than a different "DPS" AT for something other than a +5 AV/GM fight. It might be a pipe dream, but eventually I'd like a hypothetical intelligent team leader to (i) consider Scrappers/Stalkers/Sentinels to be largely interchangeable in terms of contribution (albeit weighted towards slightly different things!)  and (ii) consider it to be worthwhile using some combination of those ATs to fill at least 2-3 slots on a regular squad.

 

Edited Monday at 11:08 AM by Maelwys

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

IIRC the rack/stack builds are particularly well done and things like sneaky undocumented damage buffs in BR disintegrate are factored in. (Even if my own Sentinel attack chains diverge a fair bit from them!)

 

FWIW, I like Beam Rifle a LOT better on a Sentinel than on a Blaster. It took me a while (playing regular content solo) to figure out how the BR set and the AT play best (for me). Sentinels play a LOT differently that other characters with blast primaries/secondaries.

 

^This^ Sentinel was (per memory) the first character to ever hit the HP cap for its AT without relying on a click power (but does have Accolades and set bonuses) Perhaps not the greatest feat of building in the world, but with an Energy Aura armor secondary this character became hella tough.

[Maelwys]

38 minutes ago, tidge said:

FWIW, I like Beam Rifle a LOT better on a Sentinel than on a Blaster. It took me a while (playing regular content solo) to figure out how the BR set and the AT play best (for me). Sentinels play a LOT differently that other characters with blast primaries/secondaries.

 

^This^ Sentinel was (per memory) the first character to ever hit the HP cap for its AT without relying on a click power (but does have Accolades and set bonuses) Perhaps not the greatest feat of building in the world, but with an Energy Aura armor secondary this character became hella tough.

My two current favourite Sentinels (the ones I keep coming back to) are BeamRifle/Ninjitsu and Seismic/EnergyAura.

The Beam Rifle toon technically deals less damage over time (before Aim, Vulnerability and Incarnate Clickies it's ~256 DPS and the Seismic is ~307) but its Nuke is far more team-friendly and since Refractor Beam is (despite the short description!) a real AoE rather than a Chain it procs pretty decently; so I honestly don't mind the lack of a Snipe on Sentinel BR. Whilst Ninjitsu is objectively worse than Energy Aura at practically everything except for one big burst per mob... Shinobi-Iri + Aim (with Gaussian) + Overcharge is just 🧑‍🍳💋
 

Edited Monday at 12:52 PM by Maelwys

[CoeruleumBlue]

On 10/12/2025 at 5:52 PM, MsSmart said:

They do not get snipes of any form, which is gaping hole, while melee who only supposed to have at best very very short range attacks get the snipe. All my Scrappers have snipe, so it would make sense to me while the Sentinel bread and butter ranged attacks being only to modest ranges, still should have the defining snipe.

 

Yeah, this is basically why Sentinels suck imo. The stats on Sentinels suck and the epic pools suck. I say this as someone who plays extremely non-meta things all the time, like I have a Shield Defense/Psionic Melee Tanker that I think is fun. Someone said "play a Sentinel like a Scrapper" and aside from the fact I already mentioned I don't personally like playing Scrappers at all, Sentinel damage is just not comparable to Scrapper damage. Then add in the Scrapper epic pools and they're probably also doing better ranged damage than Sentinels anyway. I was comparing them more to Brutes because I play Brutes and not Scrappers and it makes the lower damage on Sentinels seem more acceptable, but that has the bad side effect of making the lower damage seem more unacceptable instead. Like if you want armor and AoEs just play a Brute and if you want to deal damage at melee and range just play Scrapper, Stalker, Blaster, or Dominator.

 

Since I have a lot of Defenders even if none of them have admittedly been totally levelled and built out yet, Sentinels mostly end up feeling like bad Defenders to me, and their innate ability doesn't help. I also like the support ability Radiation Emission on Controllers and have been trying it on Defenders and that seems way better than Vulnerability. I think Sentinels would work fine as some kind of balanced class if they adjusted the stats somewhat and just went like "let's make this between a Scrapper and a Blaster" instead of "let's make this so it can't do support or tank," because basically no ATs are actually defined by what they can't do. I've been in entire conversations where one user on Everlasting (I know who and if you're on Everlasting you probably do too) was talking about how her Blaster was super good at -Resistance debuffs, healing, tanking, and pets, and I made a Dominator who's actually pretty good at buffing because I took all the buffing powers from Epic and Ancillary Pools, and also Dominators are already good at debuffs anyway, even the starting screen where you make one says that. If you just define Sentinels by "they need to be good at XY and bad at AB" then they're just going to turn out way worse than other ATs at everything because other ATs can basically dip into whatever roles you want to a lesser extent than the main thing, and people are always saying "don't pay attention to what the stat bars say for what an AT can do" all the time for a reason.

 

Sentinels just seem designed to be bad at things that aren't their main roles and their main roles suffer because the stats have to be bad enough to justify that, rather than just making an AT with a certain level of armor and blasting and not seemingly nerfing everything else deliberately. "Sentinels are better at single target DPS" ...So basically what a Stalker turns into once they get the snipe, plus they can actually run into melee and can basically take whatever armor isn't something that's been totally nerfed or neglected since they don't need it for damage? Like, we don't need ranged ATs with armor when all the melee ATs with armor can already do range pretty well with Epic and Ancillary Pools, and we don't need ranged ATs with armor when regular ranged ATs all get as much armor as you'd actually take if you aren't running into melee and triggering procs all the time if you want it anyway. Rudra compared Sentinel attacks to Defender, and it still just feels like a worse Defender to me, and I think the fact I like Defenders OK even if I haven't maxxed any of mine out yet is why I get so annoyed with Sentinels. I don't like Corruptors much either unlike him, but also, Corruptors are actually good gameplay wise even if I personally don't like the feel of playing it, it's basically just designed for people who want to take all or most of the powers from the DPS set and not very many from the support set instead of all or most of them from the support set and not so many from the DPS set, and the stats, which he said don't matter at all, are a huge part of that, not just the order the powers are arranged in. Stats do matter, from someone who has a Shield Defense/Psionic Melee Tanker among other total jank builds that are just based on RP types of concepts and is obviously not minmaxxing. 

[CoeruleumBlue]

On 10/12/2025 at 11:42 AM, Maelwys said:

 

Sentinels can dish out very decent levels of damage output, if you build them sensibly.

 

 

 

Whilst they will not approach min-maxed Blaster levels of damage output (nor IMO should they) they can comfortably compete with most Brutes; and even with some low-to-mid-tier Scrapper Primaries (I've got a SeismicBlast/EnergyAura Sentinel that has almost exactly the same level of ST damage output as my Katana/Regen Scrapper, including averaged Crits but not Vulnerability). They do not however get access to Taunt auras, which reduces their effectiveness when enemies are unclumped.

 

Their draw is not being a lower-damage more-survivable Blaster, but being a Scrapper with a Ranged Damage powerset. This distinction is important, because Sentinels get very few melee attacks; and if you try to play them as a melee toon then you'll be very disappointed... so instead, play them as a Scrapper with longer range and a fast-recharging Nuke. Make the most out of their inherent Mez Protection, Absorb/Heals and DDR. And don't sleep on Vulnerability.

 

Also, World of Confusion is pants. Even ED-capped for Confuse aspect you're barely getting 50% uptime on its pathetic Mag2 CC, so without the Contagious Confusion Proc (and a decent AoE with a Cupid's in it, or Arctic Air) IMO it's a total waste of endurance.

 

 

Why not just play a Scrapper then? They get way more DPS and can just run through everything, plus the single-target ranged DPS is probably better than Vulnerability is anyway and they probably also have a bigger nuke from the epic pool too since it's just one nuke. I also mentioned I personally don't like playing Scrappers, though people aren't obligated to read that far, but everyone agrees Scrappers are useful and have good damage output even if they aren't into playing them. Same as what Rudra said where he said he likes Corruptors but not Defenders and I said I like Defenders but not Corruptors. It just seems like the roles for Sentinel are worse Scrapper, worse Brute, worse Blaster, or worse Defender. I don't know why you'd play this. I also have played tons of toons where the only power sets are psi damage so in the discussion of psi damage I haven't had that problem specifically with Sentinels, the problem is that it isn't clear what they're supposed to do and they just seem to end up being worse at everything, rather than in the middle of everything. 

 

World of Confusion is mostly a damage power in my experience, and it also stacks Confuse mags if you have any other powers that do Confuse. It's not about maxxing out that one power, it's about how they all work together. But whenever I've used it I've mostly loaded it with damage procs, which you mostly don't want to put on other Confuse powers because then you might draw aggro and you will definitely break your stealth if you have any. So if you melee enemies that already have Confuse on them or you apply it in melee you get big stacks of Confuse plus a lot of melee damage and they stay Confused. If you don't have any other Confuses I imagine it'd probably be pretty great as a damage proc power, but only if there isn't a better damage proc power for someone who isn't also using Confuse. 

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

Then add in the Scrapper epic pools and they're probably also doing better ranged damage than Sentinels anyway.

Not even. Sentinels get a full primary set of ranged abilities. Scrappers? The fastest recharging ranged attack in Dark Mastery for instance is 8 seconds for Dark Blast, 16 for Tenebrous Tentacles, 20 for Night Fall, and 30 for Umbral Torrent. Dark Blast on a Sentinel? 4 seconds. 15 for Umbral Torrent. I am now convinced you are trying entirely too hard to hate Sentinels.

 

(Edit: Sure, the Scrapper's Dark Blast is hitting for 62.5631 damage to the Sentinel's 61.1728, but the Sentinel is getting in twice as many attacks with that power.)

 

Edit again: I missed this, so am addressing it now: 

52 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

and they probably also have a bigger nuke from the epic pool too since it's just one nuke.

Scrappers don't get nukes in their APPs or PPPs. They can get pets, but they don't get nukes. So what are you talking about?

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:52 AM by Rudra

[Maelwys]

30 minutes ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

 I don't know why you'd play this. 

 

It shows.

 

Quote

Why not just play a Scrapper then?

...

they probably also have a bigger nuke from the epic pool too since it's just one nuke.

 

I already pointed the reasons out in the very post you're quoting. And frankly, the day that Scrappers get Epic/Patron pool Nukes is the day that the final nail gets hammered into Brutes' coffin.

 

Seriously, if you hate Sentinels that much... then just don't play them. Personally I believe that (Clarion Destiny and Dispersion Bubbles notwithstanding) there is a sufficient "gap in the market" for a Ranged Damage AT with inherent Mez Protection and a Nuke every ~20-25s to carve out a decent niche.

[Acyl]

8 hours ago, CoeruleumBlue said:

Sentinels just seem designed to be bad at things that aren't their main roles and their main roles suffer because the stats have to be bad enough to justify that

 

Many decisions have been made all the way across the Sentinel AT in the name of balance, to prevent the archetype from being too strong or treading on the feet of other ATs. That's fair. The whole point is that a fan-created AT shouldn't be too stupidly strong and overshadow the older official live ATs. But it does mean the Sentinel's being designed and balanced from a very cautious perspective.

There's comments in this thread that argue Sentinels aren't, and don't need to be, as effective as other ATs in endgame content - whatever you wanna define endgame content to be, and they're just fine as easy-to-play solo-friendly characters for levelling. But that's the kind of thinking which leads to... I mean, this has dropped off with balance changes, but you know how people used to say that Masterminds had no place in Incarnate Trial content, and shouldn't be played in Incarnate Trials? Yeah. That's not good thinking.

 

That's the kind of thinking that ends up with teams that are exclusively resistance armor Brutes and Cold Corruptors.

 

Ideally everything should be viable. There's comments in this thread saying there's already been a Sentinel pass, and limited volunteer dev time shouldn't be spent too heavily on this one fan-created AT. That's a reasonable practical comment - there are other things in this game that need fixing. But in principle we want everything to, y'know, not suck.

 

The big question here is what the niche or role of a Sentinel is supposed to be. It's not just "ranged DPS that's tougher than a Blaster", or "Scrapper with more range". The vulnerability inherent positions them as a debuffer. The inherent also gives Sentinels increased perception and resistance to per debuffs, so that's supposed to be a role as well.

 

The issue is that the value of vulnerability is hard capped, since we can't stack 'em on the same target. This also means there's a limit on the number of Sentinels it makes sense to bring on a team, especially if you're mainly concerned with an AV/GM fight... perhaps the only AT where the game outright tells you that bringing multiple of the AT is a bad idea. So the "Sentinels are debuffers" thing is a wash.

 

And let's face it, does anyone care that Sentinels have better perception? It doesn't come up that much in PvE. Is it valuable in PvP? Hell if I know. The fact that the perception thing hasn't really been brought up in this thread demonstrates that it ain't factoring into how people think of the Sentinel, even though it's supposed to be part of the role identity.

 

But what's the solution? Should any further adjustments to the Sentinel change the role identity? If they become ranged tanks proper, as the OP suggests, that's a completely different role. Or is the solution figuring out some way to make 'em better at their current role?

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:39 AM by Acyl

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Acyl said:

does anyone care that Sentinels have better perception? It doesn't come up that much in PvE. Is it valuable in PvP? Hell if I know.

I always take the Rectified Reticle +Perception IO in any build which doesn't have perception buffs; because otherwise certain PVE enemies like CoT Ghosts and Tsoo Ancestors can go "full invisible" and become very annoying (especially on 'defeat all' missions).

Sentinels have 550ft Perception instead of 500ft; which is half a Rectified Reticle. It's almost (but not quite) useless.

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, Acyl said:

But in principle we want everything to, y'know, not suck.

 

"everything" does not suck.

If you enjoy playing City of Heroes, you know that.

 

8 hours ago, Acyl said:

The big question here is what the niche or role of a Sentinel is supposed to be. It's not just "ranged DPS that's tougher than a Blaster", or "Scrapper with more range".

 

I'm at a loss.

I see Sentinels in no way as being "Scrappers with range".

Scrappers are melee characters and have no ranged attacks. Clearly, Sentinels are Blasters with armor instead of melee attacks (Blaster secondaries).

 

I see no confusion on that nor a need to question it.

 

9 hours ago, Acyl said:

This also means there's a limit on the number of Sentinels it makes sense to bring on a team, especially if you're mainly concerned with an AV/GM fight... perhaps the only AT where the game outright tells you that bringing multiple of the AT is a bad idea. So the "Sentinels are debuffers" thing is a wash.

 

Perhaps some players are too focused on the end-game and aren't playing the actual game (the part before the "end-game")

That appears to be what this is focused on.

But this comment isn't even on "just" the end-game but focused on "...you're mainly concerned with an AV/GM fight..."

 

Personally, I have 3 50's. I don't plan on leveling any more character to level 50. Level 49 is my cap. I don't care for the incarnate system. I don't think it is fair to make level 50's immune from the renaming system simply because they are level 50's. I don't enjoy the end-game as much as the game itself. 

 

Sentinels play fine as far as I'm concerned. I don't see any negatives for playing them versus the other ATs. 

I generally don't solo, so there is that. 

 

9 hours ago, Acyl said:

And let's face it, does anyone care that Sentinels have better perception?

 

I don't think people pay attention to perception in general.

When you think about https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Leadership#Tactics do you or anyone else think, "I'm going to get Tactics because it boosts perception"?

I think not. I don't even think anyone really notices when the perception increase make a difference in battle.

I'm not even sure how many people know that they can pop a yellow insp to clear up being blinded.

But not being "blinded" and being able to see stealthed foes at greater range is obviously useful whether a player realizes it or not.

 

9 hours ago, Acyl said:

But what's the solution? Should any further adjustments to the Sentinel change the role identity? If they become ranged tanks proper, as the OP suggests, that's a completely different role. Or is the solution figuring out some way to make 'em better at their current role?

 

The AT needs to be left alone.

The AT fills its niche.

Players don't have to play it if they don't want to.

 

I don't feel that there is a need to change any AT at this point in order to make it the-favour-of-the-month.

We already know what the most played ATs in the game are - perhaps if changes need to be made -, it is those ATs that need to be changed so that they aren't picked to be played by players as often? (which doesn't make any sense to me either - though I do feel that tanks were given the ability to do more damage simply to make the player-base happy and had nothing to do with game balance.)

 

Sometimes things need to be left well enough alone.

[Steampunkette]

So... potential solutions to make Sentinels feel like they have more identity and make them more useful in groups rather than there being only one on a team:

 

1) Tie -something- to Opportunity so that there's a cost to using Vulnerability, and make sure Vulnerability is good enough to make that an important decision. There's lots of options, here. Could have Opportunity grant Global Recharge, Accuracy Bonuses, End Discounts, Etc. Make it scale by Opportunity just like a Brute's Fury, and spending half your opportunity kills half the accrued benefit.

 

2) Allow Vulnerability to be applied by different Sentinels on the same target. Yes. The way it currently works, you -cannot- do that so that a Sentinel can have two uses of Vulnerability stored up without being able to dump both onto the same target. Just set Vulnerability's recharge rate to the same as the duration of Vulnerability -1 second, and make it immune to recharge changes and cooldown resets.

 

Tadaaaaah!

[Psyonico]

17 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Just set Vulnerability's recharge rate to the same as the duration of Vulnerability -1 second, and make it immune to recharge changes and cooldown resets.

That's quite a nerf you're suggesting... right now vulnerability can be put on 2 targets... why remove that?  If the devs want to make it stack from different casters, they can just use existing mechanics and flags.

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Allow Vulnerability to be applied by different Sentinels on the same target.

Just so you know what you are asking for, given that Sentinels' Vulnerability currently ignores level differences, and so purple patch, if it is changed to allow multiple Sentinels to affect the same target with Vulnerability, that means Vulnerability will lose the ignores level difference trait it has to keep teams of Sentinels from knocking AVs and GMs down by 90% on their defense and 120% on their damage resists. You realize the huge nerf that will be to Sentinels, yes?

[Steampunkette]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

That's quite a nerf you're suggesting... right now vulnerability can be put on 2 targets... why remove that?  If the devs want to make it stack from different casters, they can just use existing mechanics and flags.

Ostensibly, sure, it could be done a different way. I'm just referring to how it's coded, -now-. Which is to not apply to a target that already has vulnerability on it regardless of the source of that vulnerability. Removing that lockout results in a 'problem' that has to be solved in one of several ways. I offered one.

 

However, putting Vulnerability on two targets isn't terribly effective in most scenarios so it wouldn't be much of a nerf at all.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Just so you know what you are asking for, given that Sentinels' Vulnerability currently ignores level differences, and so purple patch, if it is changed to allow multiple Sentinels to affect the same target with Vulnerability, that means Vulnerability will lose the ignores level difference trait it has to keep teams of Sentinels from knocking AVs and GMs down by 90% on their defense and 120% on their damage resists. You realize the huge nerf that will be to Sentinels, yes?

Ignores level differences, but not resistance to debuffs. AVs and GMs both have resistances that already apply to all the other powers in the game from all the other archetypes. So it's not like 8 Sents would instantly reduce any AV or GM to a quivering puddle of goop.

 

It's definitely true they'd probably remove or reduce the level difference ignoring functionality, dropping the potency of the debuffs against higher level targets by up to 60%... but if you've got some kind of alternative that would allow for multiple Sents to be useful to the team and have their inherents matter at all on high end content, I'm all ears.

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

and have their inherents matter at all on high end content

You mean like how Controller inherents matter on them? Or Soldiers or Widows of Arachnos whose inherent does nothing for anyone other than them? Or MMs whose inherent is just ever so helpful on those content? Yep, so many team mates are benefitting from those MMs and their inherents on high end content just ever so much.

[Steampunkette]

12 minutes ago, Rudra said:

You mean like how Controller inherents matter on them? Or Soldiers or Widows of Arachnos whose inherent does nothing for anyone other than them? Or MMs whose inherent is just ever so helpful on those content? Yep, so many team mates are benefitting from those MMs and their inherents on high end content just ever so much.

This isn't an argument against doing something to allow multiple Sentinels on the same team to benefit the group as a whole with their overtly offensive inherent...

 

Multiple controllers on the same team stacking controls, or dominators, could be useful with their additional stacks of controls from their inherents... if the game weren't specifically designed to give them the middle finger.

 

And there's nothing about a Mastermind that makes having multiple MMs on a team redundant.

 

And not only is having multiple VEATs on the same team not a problem it's actively a benefit to the entire team.

 

But Sentinels, whose inherent is specifically a single target debuff, are by nature less useful to a team if you've already got one, because one can make the hard targets take more damage, but several can only try to snipe the chance to dump Vulnerability on the target before someone else makes the attempt.

[LightMaster]

After looking at the responses… What was I thinking? Seeing negative reactions and even asking for removal regarding the Sentinel skewed me to see it as lower tier, and that’s despite me having a lot fun with the archetype.

 

After revising how I feel about the Sentinel AT, I do agree that it only needs a single something to truly feel like a ranged Scrapper, like a crit, so that it can compete with Scrappers and the like, but definitely not close to the level of Corruptor and Blaster. Just an overall bit higher single target DPS with that in mind.

 

Regarding inherents, that’s more of a wide issue than the Sentinel’s specifically, so this thread isn’t appropriate for this thread regarding Controllers, Dominators and Masterminds unless for comparison, and Sentinel’s Vulnerability more falls victim of being severely underused / misused by players due to a lack of guidance than the inherent itself having issues. I would not argue against Vulnerability stacking, but with diminishing returns as to not make it obsoletely good.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

This isn't an argument against doing something to allow multiple Sentinels on the same team to benefit the group as a whole with their overtly offensive inherent...

 

Multiple controllers on the same team stacking controls, or dominators, could be useful with their additional stacks of controls from their inherents... if the game weren't specifically designed to give them the middle finger.

 

And there's nothing about a Mastermind that makes having multiple MMs on a team redundant.

 

And not only is having multiple VEATs on the same team not a problem it's actively a benefit to the entire team.

 

But Sentinels, whose inherent is specifically a single target debuff, are by nature less useful to a team if you've already got one, because one can make the hard targets take more damage, but several can only try to snipe the chance to dump Vulnerability on the target before someone else makes the attempt.

There is nothing making multiple Sentinels redundant on a team either. It is still multiple characters that can dish out consistent, solid damage. Just like with VEATs. VEAT inherents are doing jack all for the team. Absolutely nothing. However, the VEAT characters are still doing damage to the enemy and soaking hits. Guess what multiple Sentinels can do on a team too? Do damage to the enemy and soak hits.

 

MM inherents are doing jack all for the team. And according to several posters on these forums that I disagree with, their pets aren't even doing anything either. You know what MMs are still doing on teams on high end content? Using their primary and secondary sets to take down enemies or support the team. You know what multiple Sentinels can do on a team? Take down enemies and soak hits so other members may be able to avoid doing so.

 

You know what Controller inherents are doing for the team? Jack all. Containment is letting the Controller do extra damage to an already mezzed target. And most teams I've seen? Don't give the Controller time to mez anything. It isn't the Controller's inherent that is doing anything for the team on high end content, it is their primaries and secondaries.

 

You know what Blaster inherents are doing for the team? Jack all. Defiance lets the Blaster keep fighting with their primary's T1 and 2 attacks and their secondary's T1 while also boosting the Blaster's own damage. It is doing jack for the team itself. The Blaster is just there doing damage. You know what Sentinels can do? Damage at range too. They get less range and damage, but they can soak hits and they don't suddenly stop being able to do damage at range for their being more than one of them.

 

So I do not get the fixation on Sentinel inherents. If you have multiple Sentinels on a team, you know what you have? I solid firing line the squishy characters can stand behind as they add in their own attacks. So what Sentinels can't stack their Vulnerability ability on a single target. They still do solid damage and can take a hit. They shouldn't be your main tank, but they can act as an off-tank, a heavy scout, bait for the enemy, or just be another ranged attacker that also happens to be able to take a hit without having to hunt down every damage resist and/or defense IO bonus they can find. And if they decide to hunt down those set bonuses or grab those pool powers the Blasters grab too? Then they are tankier for it and can hang in the fight for longer doing damage.

 

(Edit: Could anyone imagine Iron Man and War Machine showing up to join a team and being told "Nope! We don't need 2 armored range guys. Only 1 of you, the other can just go away now."? I am getting that sort of vibe from this thread.)

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:27 PM by Rudra

[Riverdusk]

Not sure if it is feasible, but maybe they could do some kind of diminishing returns on the same target being hit with more than one vulnerability?  I remember the original devs once stated they'd wished they'd done that for all buffs and debuffs in the game as multiple buffers/debuffers kind of break the game and become VERY powerful.  I was always happy they didn't do that as I liked that this game was different and that "all-support" teams could be so powerful.

 

But I'd take diminishing returns over the way sents are now with not allowing any stacking whatsoever. 

 

Edit:  Just noticed @LightMaster brought up the same idea. 

Edited Tuesday at 09:36 PM by Riverdusk

[Ghost]

Sentinels are not scrappers.

 

[Steampunkette]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

There is nothing making multiple Sentinels redundant on a team either. It is still multiple characters that can dish out consistent, solid damage. Just like with VEATs. VEAT inherents are doing jack all for the team. Absolutely nothing. However, the VEAT characters are still doing damage to the enemy and soaking hits. Guess what multiple Sentinels can do on a team too? Do damage to the enemy and soak hits.

 

MM inherents are doing jack all for the team. And according to several posters on these forums that I disagree with, their pets aren't even doing anything either. You know what MMs are still doing on teams on high end content? Using their primary and secondary sets to take down enemies or support the team. You know what multiple Sentinels can do on a team? Take down enemies and soak hits so other members may be able to avoid doing so.

 

You know what Controller inherents are doing for the team? Jack all. Containment is letting the Controller do extra damage to an already mezzed target. And most teams I've seen? Don't give the Controller time to mez anything. It isn't the Controller's inherent that is doing anything for the team on high end content, it is their primaries and secondaries.

 

You know what Blaster inherents are doing for the team? Jack all. Defiance lets the Blaster keep fighting with their primary's T1 and 2 attacks and their secondary's T1 while also boosting the Blaster's own damage. It is doing jack for the team itself. The Blaster is just there doing damage. You know what Sentinels can do? Damage at range too. They get less range and damage, but they can soak hits and they don't suddenly stop being able to do damage at range for their being more than one of them.

 

So I do not get the fixation on Sentinel inherents. If you have multiple Sentinels on a team, you know what you have? I solid firing line the squishy characters can stand behind as they add in their own attacks. So what Sentinels can't stack their Vulnerability ability on a single target. They still do solid damage and can take a hit. They shouldn't be your main tank, but they can act as an off-tank, a heavy scout, bait for the enemy, or just be another ranged attacker that also happens to be able to take a hit without having to hunt down every damage resist and/or defense IO bonus they can find. And if they decide to hunt down those set bonuses or grab those pool powers the Blasters grab too? Then they are tankier for it and can hang in the fight for longer doing damage.

 

(Edit: Could anyone imagine Iron Man and War Machine showing up to join a team and being told "Nope! We don't need 2 armored range guys. Only 1 of you, the other can just go away now."? I am getting that sort of vibe from this thread.)

 

You are comparing apples to carburetors.

 

Yes. The inherent of a MM or a VEAT or a Blaster or any number of other classes does nothing for the team.

 

The Sentinel's, SPECIFICALLY, does. And only one of them can provide their benefit on a hard target at a time. Which makes additional Sentinels redundant.

 

"But they can do damage!" So can ANY OTHER ARCHETYPE while also bringing Crits, Fury, Domination, or in the case of VEATs their built in AoE buffs to the entire team.

 

A Dominator brings more damage to the fight than a second Sentinel. Which is BIZARRE since Dominators have a lower damage scalar.

 

Sentinel Energy Blast at 50

Power Bolt: 61.17

Power Blast: 100.32

Power Burst: 129.69

Focused Power Bolt: 178.62

 

Dominator Energy Assault at 50

Power Bolt: 52.83

Power Blast: 103.55

Sniper Blast: 237.74

Power Burst: 236.04

 

Sure, the Sentinel's secondary makes them more survivable. And if the target is Vulnerable their damage will go up, considerably... but if you've got a Sentinel on the team already: SO WILL THE DOMINATOR'S.

 

For standard content, this isn't highly important. A team of Whip Masterminds with no pets will take down pretty much any mission you throw them at by rolling their face across the keyboard every 4-5 seconds. But at high end there are folks who will refuse a second sentinel 'cause they already have all the debuff they're going to get out of one sentinel, and a scrapper or blaster or stalker or dominator or brute or corruptor or VEAT is going to put out more damage than that sentinel, often while helping the team with their other powerset. Except Blaster, Scrapper, and Stalker, who will instead be dishing out way more damage than anyone else.

[Starhammer]

I would like if Sentinels had a mechanism that caused them to do more damage the more often they take damage, and get buffs to their defenses based on how often they do damage. Start a fight, kinda meh, but the more they keep fighting, the better they ramp up. But with damage buffing DPS and DPS buffing defenses (or resist/regen), that way they have to remain active against challenging foes to get the most effect. 

I'd also like to see Vulnerability decrease stealth in vicinity of the target.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

You are comparing apples to carburetors.

No, I'm looking at inherents, which was your argument, and how they benefit the team. One of your comments was how a Controller's and Dominator's inherent lets them stack mezzes to lock down a target. See below:

 

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

Multiple controllers on the same team stacking controls, or dominators, could be useful with their additional stacks of controls from their inherents...

Except there is no stacking of controls from their inherents. The Controllers are simply stacking controls. The powers in their primary power sets.

 

Then you followed up with a MM comment:

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

And there's nothing about a Mastermind that makes having multiple MMs on a team redundant.

And there have been multiple comments on these forums about how it is better to simply grab a Defender than have even one MM on a team because the individuals making those comments go on about how they can't keep their pets alive and keep up with the team, and MM support isn't as good as Defender support. (Edit: Yeah, MM inherents are never redundant on a team, but that is because they do nothing for the team in the first place.)

 

You then argued that VEATs are welcome on teams, even desired to have multiples of, which I have to assume is because of their inherents because the entirety of the rest of that post was about AT inherents:

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

And not only is having multiple VEATs on the same team not a problem it's actively a benefit to the entire team.

Except VEAT inherents are completely useless on a team. It is their secondary power set's auras that makes them welcome. And most of those auras any AT can get from the Leadership pool. (VEATs get to double dip, but that still isn't their inherent.)

 

And all to say that Sentinels with their inherent are worthless to have more than one on a team because their inherent isn't stackable. And my point is your argument is garbage. Because most AT's inherents are worthless to the team itself. They don't even get to be applied to the team's benefit in a non-stacking way like how a Sentinel's does. It isn't the inherent, it is the power picks and how they are played. You can employ Sentinels on a team, with multiple Sentinels, and clear high end content just as easily as you can with any other 'does not have a team buff' inherent. Why? Because, yeah, Blasters are going to out-damage a Sentinel every day of the week and do so at longer ranges, but the Sentinel will last longer in a bad fight and still take down the same targets. It will take longer, yes, but they will still do it. Only one Sentinel's Vulnerability can affect a given target at a time? Until you reach that one target the entire team has to gang up on, the multiple Sentinels on the team are making multiple foes vulnerable to the team's attacks. While still being safer on the field than any Blaster can hope to.

 

Edited yesterday at 01:17 AM by Rudra