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and the link from @Maelwys is outdated though useful as a benchmark.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 15 hours ago 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 13 hours ago 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 1 hour ago 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.