project Collaborative Project: A Guide to Sentinel Sets

[Sunsette]

One thing I'd really like to work on, if possible, is to create a group repository of information on Sentinels as a whole, explaining what makes a strong pairing from each primary to each secondary and all of the pool powers, as well as what distinguishes Sentinels from Scrappers and Blasters. I understand that this is a big undertaking, but I think it could be extremely helpful to new players. 

 

I have some thoughts on these subjects, but the fact of the matter is, I didn't play CoX live at a very high level of proficiency and there are limits to how much I've experienced in Sentinel as-is.

 

I will say that i would like to avoid contributions from people who are of the position that there is no such thing as a weak choice of powerset in CoX, or of the position that any powerset is so bad it should not be taken by anyone with an interest in m making the most of their characters. I believe it is possible and responsible to speak in general terms about average player performance and also support a diversity of interests. There is no wrong way to play, but I want players to be reasonably well-informed going into their choices -- at least, if they want to be. Some enjoy the discovery!

 

I think the best way to create such a project would be for people to submit "sets" of opinions, where they analyze multiple different powersets in compare and contrast, so that we can get a feel for each reviewer's independently, then have a "czar" for that powerset synthesize all the submissions into something that succinctly reflects the consensus and any important divergences thereof.

 

However, that assumes a large interest in this project. I don't know if anyone else would be interested in contribution. Also, accepting general feedback at this stage.

 

Post inspired in part by @oldskool and their excellent comments in various threads. 

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Set Reviews

List of posters reviewing what powersets; click the [X] next to the name to see a completed review.

Set Name	Review 1	Review 2	Review 3	Review 4
Primaries
Archery	@drbuzzard	@oldskool [X]
Assault Rifle	@oldskool [X]	@Sunsette
Beam Rifle	@Sunsette [X]	@drbuzzard [X]
Dark Blast	@drbuzzard	@oldskool [X]
Dual Pistols	@oldskool [X]
Energy Blast	@Sunsette [X]
Electric Blast	@Save-vs-DM [X]
Fire Blast	@drbuzzard [X]	@underfyre [X]
Ice Blast	@underfyre [X]
Psychic Blast	@drbuzzard [X]	@oldskool [X]
Radiation Blast	@underfyre [X]
Sonic Attack	@drbuzzard [X]
Water Blast	@drbuzzard [X]
Secondaries
Bio Armor	@drbuzzard
Dark Armor	@oldskool [X]
Electric Armor	@Hopeling[X]	@drbuzzard [X]
Energy Aura	@Sunsette [X]	@drbuzzard [X]
Fiery Aura	@drbuzzard [X]
Ice Armor	@357trall [X]
Invulnerability	@Sunsette [X]
Ninjutsu	@drbuzzard	@oldskool [X]
Radiation Armor	@Destlin [X]
Regeneration
Super Reflexes	@Sunsette [X]	@drbuzzard [X]
Willpower	@drbuzzard	@oldskool [X]
Epic Pools
Dark Mastery
Electricity Mastery	@Sunsette
Fire Mastery	@Sunsette
Ice Mastery	@Sunsette
Ninja Tool Mastery
Psionic Mastery	@Sunsette
Leviathan Mastery
Mace Mastery
Mu Mastery
Soul Mastery
Utility Pools
Concealment	@Sunsette
Fighting	@Sunsette
Flight	@Sunsette
Leadership	@Sunsette
Leaping	@Sunsette
Medicine	@Sunsette
Presence	@Sunsette
Sorcery	@Sunsette
Speed	@Sunsette
Teleportation	@Sunsette

 

 

We can have more reviewers than four, but I chose not to assume everyone in the world ever would want to participate in this. I'll increase the number of slots if necessary. I intend to do the synthesizing of reviews into a coherent whole and will also be doing primary reviews on a number of sets; please feel free to keep me honest and call me on my shit if you think I've done a poor job somewhere. I'm initially going to be conservative on picking sets and stick to ones I feel I have a very, very strong grasp on; I'll branch out to ones I feel I have an OK grasp on if we have a lot of holes.

 

If you're interested in submitting a review, this is the current format. Submissions are not yet open, but will be soon barring major disagreements.

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Set Review Format (Tentative)

• Powerset Name
• Basic Qualities:⁰
  • If damage primary: High/Med/Low Single-Target Damage¹, High/Med/Low AoE Damage² (# Cones/# Spheres/# PBAoEs)³, High/Med/Low Control⁴
  • If survival secondary: High/Med/Low HP/Healing⁵, High/Med/Low Defense⁶, High/Med/Low Resistance⁷, High/Med/Low "Clicky-ness"⁸. 
  • If pool: The main purpose of this pool.
• Special Qualities:
  • For primaries, list secondary effects here: knockback, knockdown, stun, -regen, -res, -def, etc. Do not include the benefits of Passive or Active Opportunity.
  • For secondaries, list things that aren't defense, resistance, healing, absorbs, or max HP here. So +recharge, defense debuff resistance, any notable mez protection the set lacks or is weak in, etc.
  • If pool: Can skip
• Other: Anything else that you think should be noted about this powerset. Significant changes in this powerset from their implementation on other archetypes should go here.
• Beginner's Notes: Any powers or strategies that are especially beneficial to low level or new players to this set. This is a good place to put down slotting ideas for before level 50 (keep it to under 10 million inf. costs please) as well as early level rotations.
• Skippables/Must-Haves: For primaries or secondaries, list the powers that typically are considered optional or bad. For pools, list powers that are the strongest in the set. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Advanced Slotting: L50 builds. (sky's the limit for budget). Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning. This will probably be a pretty long section that needs subdivisions, I'll work on this some more.
• Base Rotation: The standard attack rotation leveling up or at early 50s, for people to refine. Note any cooldown benchmarks that may be necessary for a specific rotation if it requires over 70% or so enhancement or global recharge. 
• Complementary Choices: Suggest any primary, secondary, or pool (save ones that are mutually exclusive with this one) that synergizes with this one, and explain why. Ex: Energy Blast synergizes well with pools that contain an AoE immobilize with knockback protection and a strong melee attack to make the most of position with Nova; Dark Blast synergizes well with Dark Mastery to completely floor the opponents' accuracy. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Incarnates: Would skip this for pool powers generally speaking, but incarnate powers that pair notably well with this powerset. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.

---

⁰ All measures assuming fully geared and incarnated at 50; this is just so we have an empirical baseline.

¹ High: ST damage of approximately ≥230+ DPS. // Medium: ST damage of approximately 190 DPS. // Low: ST damage of approximately ≤160 DPS. If damage type is mostly Smashing or Lethal, consider it one tier lower.

² High: Has 3+ AoEs. // Medium: Has 2 AoEs. // Low: Has 1 AoE. If damage type is mostly Smashing or Lethal, consider it as having one fewer AoE.

³ The breakdown of the number and type of each AoE type.

⁴ High: Reliably reduces incoming damage from the average pack of enemies by 50% or more. // Medium: Reliably reduces incoming damage from the average pack of enemies by about a third or a quarter. // Low: Controls can be beneficial sometimes but not to be relied upon.

⁵ High: Unaided, can heal or absorb a third of base Max HP (400) every 10 seconds or less. // Medium:  Unaided, can heal or absorb a third of base Max HP (400) every 20 seconds or so. // Low: Unaided, can heal or absorb a third of base Max HP (400) every 40 seconds or more. Does not include the benefits of Defensive Opportunity.

⁶ Use values derived from Reistorm's chart located here. High: Gets S/L/E or all Positional to ≥32.5%. // Medium: Gets some of S/L/E or Positional to ≥32.5%, or gets all of S/L/E to 20%+. // Low: Any other result.

⁷ Use values derived from Reistorm's chart located here. High: Gets S/L to ≥45% or S/L/E to ≥30%. // Medium: Gets S/L or E o to ≥45%, or gets all to 20+%. // Low: Any other result.

⁸ High: Has 2+ abilities with an enhanced cooldown of a minute or less used frequently. // Medium: Has an ability virtually used on 'autocast' or an ability with an enhanced cooldown of a minute or less that otherwise needs to be frequently used for a non-healing purpose. // Low: Active abilities with enhanced cooldowns of a minute or less are rarely used for any purpose but an emergency heal.

---

Outline (Tentative)

1. Why Play a Sentinel?
2. Seize the Opportunity: Sentinel Basics
3. The Never-Ending Battle: Attack and Defense Mechanics
4. Zoom and Enhance: Enhancement Mechanics
5. Four-Color Fantasy: Leveling Red, Blue, Gold, and Black
6. Primary Colors: Blast Powerset Reviews
7. Secondary Strategies: Defensive Powerset Reviews
8. Fly Like an Eagle: Utility Pool Reviews
9. EPIC!: Epic Pool Reviews
10. The Alpha and the Omega: Incarnate Mechanics
11. A Few Provisos: Badges, Macros, and other Miscellany

At the moment these are all things I intend to write myself, but I will gladly take volunteers for any sections.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sunsette

[oldskool]

First off, I am humbled by the call out.  Thank you!  

Second, this sounds like an awesome, but big, undertaking!  I'll help if I can.  I've been considering writing up something of a guide or so at some point myself. 

[Sunsette]

3 minutes ago, oldskool said:

First off, I am humbled by the call out.  Thank you!  

Second, this sounds like an awesome, but big, undertaking!  I'll help if I can.  I've been considering writing up something of a guide or so at some point myself. 

Great! Glad to hear it. 🙂What would you feel most comfortable giving analyses for?

[oldskool]

That's a good question.  I'm pretty open.  I'm pretty open to even trying something new and adding some feedback too.  

I happen to gravitate towards underdog sets on the Sentinel anyway as I have 0 opinions on Fire.  

Dual Pistols has fun opportunity for analysis compared to all the other AT's.  I've also made a Dual Pistols Corruptor which in many ways drove me to experiment more on the Sentinel.  

I also have experience with a few of the secondaries especially since they were ones I played as other AT's on live.  Examples are Willpower (I had 4 characters with it) or Dark Armor (my first lvl 50 in 2004).  Obviously, I have an opinion on Ninjutsu since I play it more than my other Sentinels.  

I can also just toss around ideas to the group too.  I'm flexible. 

[drbuzzard]

OK, time to go back a clean up information which probably isn't so helpful. Now I've got a lot more play and analysis under my belt, and it's best if I don't mislead people. 

 

At this point I've played every secondary to 50, and of the primaries only energy blast hasn't made the slog to 50 simply because I hate the knockback tax (almost all powers have knockback and hence you would need to slot in a knockback to knockdown IO to prevent scatter). 

 

Here's the numbers for the primaries for easy comparison https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ys_WYSHarVfYLmvtiSnPkac8u0Eds9lbjTYqhy8LOG0/edit?usp=sharing. It's just the top DPAS powers (or all the single target, with a few exceptions- damage per activation second). A thing to note when looking at this table, while the in game numbers provided at character creation are 'true' because they come from the game files, they can be deceptive. Beam rifle is the main culprit here since it includes extra damage from disintegrate in the DPAS calculation, when often it's damage done to secondary targets. 

 

From a quick perusal of the sets, you'll see that fire sits well up there (as always). However it's got a rather annoying repulsion effect on one of its hard hitting attacks (blazing blast) which you cannot undo, so this makes it shine a bit less than the wonders of blaze, and good AOE would make it appear. Then Ice also has a DPAS attack in excess of 100 (bitter ice blast) which should make people clamber to make ice sentinels, but to 'compensate' bitter freeze ray got the hell nerfed out of it with a slow animation compared to all other versions, and the T1 and T2 attacks are among the lowest in the primaries for DPAS. Hence we end up with electrical as one of the most popular. It's got a fairly hard hitting attack in zapping bolt for 87 DPAS, and the rest being at least OK. Tesla case is easily amplified using procs because of the hold. 

 

The funny thing about the current state of sentinels, being the damage class which doesn't do terribly much damage, is that it means people find tricks to force damage out of the sets. As I mentioned before, you can proc up attacks to increase your damage, and most high end sentinel builds do that nowadays. This actually amplifies the appeal of such sets as radiation blast or dual pistol, both of which actually have downright poor DPAS (especially DP), but all the attacks can be procced with a few so you can effectively 'cheat' in damage. 

 

For the secondaries, the numbers in game don't really require any analysis so, sorry, no spreadsheet. However I can point out a few things which aren't obvious. Bio armor, which is a conglomeration of resistance, defense, regeneration, heals, and absorb, may seem like a hard set to grasp, is probably the way to go if you want to be damage focused due to offensive mode which gives 25% damage enhancement and some toxic DoT. I'll deal with the pros and cons of it in a specific post. 

 

Regeneration is actually one of the better secondaries as it is very fire and forget with an amazingly nice power in Instant Regeneration. Of course this is a rather odd name for a power which doesn't actually provide regeneration, but it does provide a rapidly replenishing absorb which allows you to shrug off a lot of damage that never makes it to your hit points. Effectively this feels a lot like the classic toggle instant heal of the glory days of regeneration, definitely more so than the regeneration dregs which exists on the other ATs. 

 

If you want to regenerate for real, willpower is the set for you, but it also includes defense and resistance, and can be formidable. 

 

Otherwise in general, for pointers on sentinel secondaries, they are all their own thing. None are complete maps over from the sets for the melee ATs. They all get some power which helps with endurance. They mostly get some power which boosts your damage output (either via straight up damage increase or via recharge boost. Now as you're not a brute or tank, the resistance sets are capped at 75% resistance, which can hurt quite a bit if you mix it up in melee. Hence, don't mix it up in melee. All of the resistance focused sets (fire, electric, dark, radiation) get significant heals and most some other health boost so they work better than you might imagine for the resistance levels. 

 

Truth be told, though, if you want to be the toughest sentinel possible, defense is the way to go. Given that the softcap of 45% defense translates into 90% mitigation, clearly this is a good deal compared to the 75% mitigation from resistance. Of course it's not that simple, but nonetheless, this is a fairly valid approach. Super Reflexes is very good on sentinels since it gives out high positional defense, high defense debuff resistance, and allows for toggle status protection and an absorb shield. This makes it (IMO) the best version of the power set across ATs. Energy aura is another strong set which provides a good bit of typed defense, a heal, and decent resistance on top of it all. Ninjitsu is another positional defense set, which includes a heal and an endurance booster, but requires a click status protection power (a big minus IMO) and has minimal defense debuff resistance which can be very painful. Invulnerability is also a defense set in effect, though with very strong lethal/smashing resistance on top (which can mitigate its lack of defense debuff resistance). Last, and least comes ice armor. While I would claim that sentinel secondaries are well engineered versions of the sets ported over from the melee ATs, this is belied by ice armor. Ice armor is crap (IMO of course, but so's this whole screed). The defense numbers are not great, it mixes in resistance to fire and cold, and no defense for those, and much of your defense is provided by having to pop your endurance regain power. Thus it has to be slotted for defense. Basically I considered it a hot mess, and stripped out IOs from my ice armor sentinel rather quickly after fiddling around. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by drbuzzard

[Sunsette]

Oh, wow, first contribution already! Thanks!

 

I'd like to hold off on any other contributions for the moment because I think we should work out good formats for this, but I'll type up something when I'm back to my computer -- on a phone atm.

[Seroster01]

6 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

In exchange, as it is an enhancement type damage boost, you get 12.5% more damage. I suppose if you're on a team and not taking fire, this is fine, more damage is always nice, but it better be a team which divers aggro away from you. The set has some powerful tools in it (you can get pretty high regen going in the right circumstances), but I found it to be very clicky, and the animations are not all that fast for some of the clicks, so you spend more of your time actively trying to survive rather than killing (definitely a vast difference between this and willpower). 

I'd like to disagree a bit with your input on Offensive Adaptation.  In addition to the +25% damage mod it gives +7.5% to-hit AND it adds an effect to your attacks that causes bonus Toxic damage.  I'm not sure on the #s for Sentinels, but for Scrappers the Toxic dmg is about 10% of the base damage.  -7.5 resistance to all damage is a comparatively higher cost for Sentinels than other ATs given our lower base #s, but barring an odd situation where you're the primary tank for a large group I think Offensive Adaptation is well worth it. 

 

In a bit of a different vein, for whatever reason, BR/Bio felt significantly weaker than my Dark & Water /Bio Sents.  My anecdotal assumption from my time playing him is that BR doesn't look like it gets as big of a boost from the +toxic portion of Offensive Adaptation, probably due to how the set is balanced around the Disintegration mechanic & as such the base damage of the abilities (& thus the toxic damage) is lower, but I have no empirical evidence for this.  It could also simply be due to the fact that the other options have better defensive bonuses in their kits (Water has significant KD, Slows, & a self-heal in its main rotation,  while Dark has a lot of to-hit Debuffs, a short hold, & a bit of Knockdown itself), or it could just be that the AOE doesn't seem very strong without some Disintegration luck... IDK.  But he felt significantly less damaging than the other 2.

[Sunsette]

Alright, here's my preliminary suggestion for a powerset evaluation format:

 

• Powerset Name
• Basic Qualities:
  • If damage primary: High/Med/Low Single-Target Damage, High/Med/Low TAoE Damage, High/Med/Low PBAoE Damage
  • If survival secondary: High/Med/Low HP/Healing, High/Med/Low Defense, High/Med/Low Resistance, High/Med/Low "Clicky-ness". Note any type or positional weaknesses here too, before IOing.
  • If pool: The main purpose of this pool.
• Special Qualities:
  • For primaries, list secondary effects here: knockback, knockdown, -regen, -res, -def, etc. Do not include the benefits of Passive or Active Opportunity.
  • For secondaries, list things that aren't defense, resistance, healing, absorbs, or max HP here. So +recharge, defense debuff resistance, any notable mez protection the set lacks or is weak in, etc.
  • If pool: Can skip
• Beginner's Notes: Any powers or strategies that are especially beneficial to low level or new players to this set.
• Skippables/Must-Haves: For primaries or secondaries, list the powers that typically are considered optional or bad. For pools, list powers that are the strongest in the set. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Slotting: Suggest notable IOs for slotting at mid-levels (try to keep it under ten million) or at 50 (sky's the limit for budget). Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning. 
• Base Rotation: The standard attack rotation leveling up or at early 50s, for people to refine. Note any cooldown benchmarks that may be necessary for a specific rotation if it requires over 70% or so enhancement or global recharge. 
• Strong Synergies: Suggest any primary, secondary, or pool (save ones that are mutually exclusive with this one) that synergizes with this one, and explain why. Ex: Energy Blast synergizes well with pools that contain an AoE immobilize with knockback protection and a strong melee attack to make the most of position with Nova; Dark Blast synergizes well with Dark Mastery to completely floor the opponents' accuracy. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Potential Conflicts: Suggest any powersets you think do not pair with this one well generally, or may have specific problems. Ex: "While this primary works well with Bio Armor, they both demand a lot of power choices, which may be difficult to fit into some builds" or "Dual Pistols already drops opponents' defense a lot, so Ninja Tool Mastery may not add a lot of benefit at 50." Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Incarnates: Would skip this for pool powers generally speaking, but incarnate powers that pair notably well with this powerset. Whenever possible, please explain your reasoning.
• Other: Anything else that you think should be noted about this powerset.

 

Taking suggestions to improve this format. We'll need to set benchmarks for the High/Med/Low before people can submit even if they like this format, so don't rush to submit anything.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Sunsette

[Croax]

This threat sounds great! Keep up the work, i am looking forward to tge informations here!

[XaoGarrent]

3 hours ago, Seroster01 said:

I'd like to disagree a bit with your input on Offensive Adaptation.  In addition to the +25% damage mod it gives +7.5% to-hit AND it adds an effect to your attacks that causes bonus Toxic damage.  I'm not sure on the #s for Sentinels, but for Scrappers the Toxic dmg is about 10% of the base damage.  -7.5 resistance to all damage is a comparatively higher cost for Sentinels than other ATs given our lower base #s, but barring an odd situation where you're the primary tank for a large group I think Offensive Adaptation is well worth it.

7.5 To-Hit is more than Focused Accuracy gives. Given that multiplies against your accuracy bonuses, it's actually substantial.

 

Toxic is one of the least resisted damage types in the game, you can pair it with a blast set that is primarily elemental, and I *think* (I'm not sure, I haven't tested this, I'm just eyeballing) the toxic bonus is outside the normal buff stack. That's actually pretty significant since even if the bonus is small it's not getting dwarfed by random auras, buffs and FS on your team, but instead multiplying off them.

 

-7.5 only applies to resistance, not defense or HP, and is *flat* and not multiplicative. Y'know what this means? If you start piling on resistance IOs, the percent of resistance lost doesn't scale. Shield wall will almost completely make up what you loose in resistance alone.

 

Offensive Adaptation is A+ on Sentinels. It's good on Brutes and Scrappers, sure, but it gives Sentinels an in-set damage boost, something they're sorely lacking in.

 

3 hours ago, Seroster01 said:

In a bit of a different vein, for whatever reason, BR/Bio felt significantly weaker than my Dark & Water /Bio Sents.  My anecdotal assumption from my time playing him is that BR doesn't look like it gets as big of a boost from the +toxic portion of Offensive Adaptation, probably due to how the set is balanced around the Disintegration mechanic & as such the base damage of the abilities (& thus the toxic damage) is lower, but I have no empirical evidence for this.  It could also simply be due to the fact that the other options have better defensive bonuses in their kits (Water has significant KD, Slows, & a self-heal in its main rotation,  while Dark has a lot of to-hit Debuffs, a short hold, & a bit of Knockdown itself), or it could just be that the AOE doesn't seem very strong without some Disintegration luck... IDK.  But he felt significantly less damaging than the other 2.

It's the latter reason. Bio benefits MASSIVELY from any powerset that can interrupt incoming damage in an AoE, due to its reliance on regen and click heals/shields. Willpower and to a lesser extent Regen on your bog standard melee has always been like this too, due to how RTTC works, but Bio seems to benefit even more. The reason why this is important is that some sentinel sets do have ONE thing going for them that melee typically doesn't: An improved ability to reliably hit a large area with something that interrupts incoming damage.

 

...Honestly, I would rank Bio as the #1 Sentinel powerset right now.

[drbuzzard]

5 hours ago, Seroster01 said:

I'd like to disagree a bit with your input on Offensive Adaptation.  In addition to the +25% damage mod it gives +7.5% to-hit AND it adds an effect to your attacks that causes bonus Toxic damage.  I'm not sure on the #s for Sentinels, but for Scrappers the Toxic dmg is about 10% of the base damage.  -7.5 resistance to all damage is a comparatively higher cost for Sentinels than other ATs given our lower base #s, but barring an odd situation where you're the primary tank for a large group I think Offensive Adaptation is well worth it. 

 

I didn't see any mention of toxic damage when I was looking at damage numbers in my combat log, but I was checking on a tanker for bio armor rather than my sentinel and I probably wasn't paying enough attention. I'll fire up my archery/bio and take a look. If it adds that much it is pretty respectable. It could well be I'm just so deterred by the nerf to archery that bio got a bad name from me. 

 

Though I will still argue that SR is the best of the sentinel sets simply because of defensive utility (it does lack an offense boost like some sets admittedly of course). 

Edited July 26, 2019 by drbuzzard

[drbuzzard]

on a +2 nemesis sniper for toxic as a damage percentage for single target. 

79.8 for 7.28 9.1% toxic

95 for 10.71  11.27%

185.97 +5*11.85 for 21.01 8.56%

216.33 for 24.4 11.27%

 

Ok, from some testing on the archer/bio in offensive mode. 

43 mentalist (-2)

efficient mode

snap shot 72.66L

aimed shot 86.5L

blazing arrow 169.31L +5*16.36F= 251.11

perfect shot 196.96L

offensive mode

snap shot 81.96L +10.68T =92.64

aimed shot 97.51L +15.71T = 113.22

blazing arrow 190.89L+5*5*18.44F +30.81T =313.9

perfect shot 225.05L +35.85T=260.9

 

So 

snap shot 27.5%

aimed shot 30.89%

blazing arrow 25%

perfect shot 32.46%

 

Ah, so with the toxic, the stated 25% increase in offense is actually understated. That is pretty solid if you want to focus on offense on your sentinel. 

 

Mind you some of the variability above could be a function of debuff being present or expiring as I didn't pace the shots off evenly with a long wait. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by drbuzzard

[Sovera]

Those percentages include the damage boost from Offensive or just the toxic damage? Sunsette mentioned the actual numbers from Offensive being actually 12.5% rather than the proclaimed 25%.

[drbuzzard]

Those are the raw data from combat log yielding percentages. The %s are from a 45 archery/bio sentinel shooting a 43 rikti mentalist with his single target attacks in efficient mode, then offensive mode. 

 

Hence they are the total effect including the enhancement boost from offensive mode as well as the toxic damage. The various damage types are broken down (suffixes of L=lethal, F=fire, T=toxic). 

Edited July 26, 2019 by drbuzzard

[Sovera]

So it sort of averages as a 30% boost with offensive's raw damage boost *and* the toxic damage tick. Not as much as I thought but still pretty good.

[drbuzzard]

The description claims 25% so exceeding that is pretty good. 

[Seroster01]

4 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

on a +2 nemesis sniper for toxic as a damage percentage for single target. 

79.8 for 7.28 9.1% toxic

95 for 10.71  11.27%

185.97 +5*11.85 for 21.01 8.56%

216.33 for 24.4 11.27%

 

Ok, from some testing on the archer/bio in offensive mode. 

43 mentalist (-2)

efficient mode

snap shot 72.66L

aimed shot 86.5L

blazing arrow 169.31L +5*16.36F= 251.11

perfect shot 196.96L

offensive mode

snap shot 81.96L +10.68T =92.64

aimed shot 97.51L +15.71T = 113.22

blazing arrow 190.89L+5*5*18.44F +30.81T =313.9

perfect shot 225.05L +35.85T=260.9

 

So 

snap shot 27.5%

aimed shot 30.89%

blazing arrow 25%

perfect shot 32.46%

 

Ah, so with the toxic, the stated 25% increase in offense is actually understated. That is pretty solid if you want to focus on offense on your sentinel. 

 

Mind you some of the variability above could be a function of debuff being present or expiring as I didn't pace the shots off evenly with a long wait. 

Given your powerset & choice of target, these %s may be a bit skewed.  Near as I can tell the non-minion Rikti (especially the bosses, but it's not clear from your post if this was a boss Mentalist or the Lt. version) have noticeable amounts of S/L resistance, & as was mentioned Toxic is almost never resisted.  Since the bonus toxic damage seems to be a % of the base damage of a power rather than a % of the actual damage done by it, the actual increase for most mobs may be smaller than this testing indicates (because the Mentalist is resisting a significant amount of the lethal damage while having little to no resistance to the toxic).

[drbuzzard]

Good point. However it is hard to find things at lvl 45 which don't resist lethal. Sure, there are carnies, but they actually take extra damage from lethal, so it would skew it the other way. 

[Sunsette]

5 hours ago, Sovera said:

Those percentages include the damage boost from Offensive or just the toxic damage? Sunsette mentioned the actual numbers from Offensive being actually 12.5% rather than the proclaimed 25%.

Just to be  clear, my research was on offensive opportunity, not offensive adaptation -- I have never used nor tested bio as a set. 

[Seroster01]

18 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Good point. However it is hard to find things at lvl 45 which don't resist lethal. Sure, there are carnies, but they actually take extra damage from lethal, so it would skew it the other way. 

This is certainly true, but I mostly brought it up because the higher-tier Rikti seem even more resistant to S/L than most other mobs at those levels.  Anyway, I was mostly bringing it up as a "keep this in mind" rather than a suggestion for more testing. 

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

Just to be  clear, my research was on offensive opportunity, not offensive adaptation -- I have never used nor tested bio as a set. 

Ah, reading comprehension is not my forte.

[Sunsette]

4 minutes ago, Seroster01 said:

This is certainly true, but I mostly brought it up because the higher-tier Rikti seem even more resistant to S/L than most other mobs at those levels.  Anyway, I was mostly bringing it up as a "keep this in mind" rather than a suggestion for more testing. 

If anyone is interested in testing, then I strongly recommend doing so on Rikti Pylons, if you can survive them. They output in Smashing damage, which is one of Bio's weaknesses until you've spent a lot of cash, so that may not be feasible. 

 

That said, I would really like to direct conversation back towards the question of analysis formatting for now... we can split up discussion by powerset later. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by Sunsette

[Hjarki]

I'm going to issue a strong note of caution: the damage potential of Blast sets pre-slotting and post-slotting is wildly different. If you're just looking at the basic attacks in the set without considering their slotting, you're going to get a false impression of the power of the set.

 

Consider Water Blast. Now, if you're just dumping 6-set bonuses into it, it's not a very good ST set.

 

However, let's say you put Apoc +negative, Gladiator's Javelin +toxic and Impeded Swiftness +smashing into it. The proc rate for these effects is based on the normal recharge/activation of the power. But the actual rate at which you use it (as well as the activation time) is altered by the Tidal Power mechanic, meaning that these procs occur about 50% more often than they 'should' - and add a correspondingly higher amount of damage.

 

On the flip side of this would be Fire. Fire doesn't have many slotting options normally, but it loses slotting options as a Sentinel since it no longer has a Sniper attack. Likewise, the change from Hold to Sleep on Freezing -> Chiling Ray in Cold has devastating implications for the rotation because Holds have the only purple-quality proc in a non-damage set.

 

So before you say "X Blast Set has Y performance", you really need to break down what rotation you're analyzing and how that rotation is slotted - because chances are if you're just looking at a rough description of the powers, you're not talking about the optimal damage rotation.

 

In terms of the armor sets, slotting also makes an appearance. While it may seem like Sentinels are a more durable version of Blasters, they're not actually much more durable because Blasters receive defensive toggles in Epic pools while Sentinels do not. Obviously, a single toggle isn't going to replace an entire armor set - but it comes pretty close for practical purposes since your actual defensive concerns are focused. The fact that the Sentinel version of the build has better Toxic resist than the Blaster while both have equal S/L resist just means that in 99.9% of the game, their defenses are the same. The upshot of this is that Sentinels struggle with durability just like Blasters do - and until you've slotted out the build, it's hard to know whether you can get enough resistance on a Ninjitsu Sentinel or enough defense on a Radiation Sentinel.

[Sunsette]

I agree with much of your analysis, to be sure. 

 

I attempt to defray these concerns by discussing slotting separately for mid level and max level, as well as basic rotations with necessary recharge breakpoints to make. I understand that judicious use of procs from attacks with multiple proc categories is a good way to get one or two attacks significantly up in power.

 

But in most cases I've encountered this, most of your attacks need to ideally remain 5 or 6 slotted with a set in order to get enough recharge to make good use of this on your attacks generally.

 

Re: Survivability. I won't get too much into Sents vs. Blasters generally right now but to say I agree in many respects at 50. Leveling up, though, is a very different matter and depends a lot on the blaster secondary too. I think calling attention to powers and IOs that should be taken early would cover much of this for leveling yes?

 

How would you recommend that the breakdown better encompass this?

Edited July 26, 2019 by Sunsette

[BrandX]

Should mention, Sentinel's version of RTTC in /WP lacks the Tank/Scrap/Brute's -To-Hit component.