Flavour of the Month Report: Sentinels

[tjknight]

So the Flavour of the Month report is out. I'm surpised we're not discussing it here yet. What shocked  me the most were the top three most popular Sentinel Power combos: 

On 8/30/2019 at 9:45 PM, Cipher said:

1 Electrical Blast Electric Armor 2891

2 Fire Blast Fiery Aura 2886

3 Radiation Blast Radiation Armor 2564

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by tjknight

[Hopeling]

What interests me is that there are 151 entries for Sentinel combos ranked by popularity at 50. Sentinels have 13 primaries and 12 secondaries, so there are 156 possible powerset combos. That means there are five combinations that literally nobody has ever played to 50 before.

 

I haven't made a grid to figure out which five combos those are, but if you're looking to try something new...

[Haijinx]

very curious which combos they are

[Midnight Blue Mage]

12 hours ago, Hopeling said:

What interests me is that there are 151 entries for Sentinel combos ranked by popularity at 50. Sentinels have 13 primaries and 12 secondaries, so there are 156 possible powerset combos. That means there are five combinations that literally nobody has ever played to 50 before.

 

I haven't made a grid to figure out which five combos those are, but if you're looking to try something new...

One thing I was hoping would be added to the FotM summaries (which I love btw) were the 0s; combinations that had never been 50'd. I am super curious!

[Sovera]

Sentinel just suffers from an unjust stereotype perpetuated by the fanbase and who is then picked up by others without any basis for them to do so. IF we want to ABSOLUTELY  min-max and IF we narrow it down to something specific like pylon killing, then yes, most Sentinels will lag behind. But how often to do we hit something for 2-4 minutes in a row? In most cases that's when lore pets come out and they destroy whatever 'hard' target there was.

 

95% of the game is AoE and a Sentinel's (usually at) 25 second recharge T9 will be there with a large radius. It does not matter if a Brute can do lots of little damage with two auras ticking and placing Burn and etc if a Sentinel swoops in and T9's a +4 spawn to half, usually leaving lieutenants at a sliver after a couple more AoEs still empowered by Aim. And if a Blaster can go BOOM with higher numbers their T9 recharges still recharges at about 40 seconds which means they usually go BOOM every three packs or so.

 

In practical non-spreadsheet terms a Sentinel as a ranged scrapper alternative just rocks, and I say this despite currently leveling a Blaster to 50 and in the process of gearing it.

 

 

 

Also, this breakdown was simply funny 😄 Poor Beasts/Traps 😄

[nihilii]

33 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Sentinel just suffers from an unjust stereotype perpetuated by the fanbase and who is then picked up by others without any basis for them to do so.

I think inertia is a strong factor.

 

Looking at the stats, we see save for a couple farm-related outliers (spines/fire brutes, fire/kin trollers) most of the builds are theme-related, familiarity above all.

Sentinels are the new, the unknown. Even though blast+armor is a familiar trope in the hero world, it might be a while still before players feel comfortable with it.

Plus, you can't pigeonhole them into specific team roles... What a pain. 😉

There's been a couple times where I send a tell, the leader replies "powersets?". I oblige, then there's a lull. Then comes the answer: "sorry, filled".

It feels pretty surreal to get denied on a 8-man team for a TF you've soloed. 🙃

[oldskool]

Not surprised by: 

Dual Pistols popularity, from both forums here and Reddit.  A little surprised on Blasters though.  

 

Ice Armor lack of popularity.  We hardly talk about it here and I've started to focus my eye of Sauron on it. 

 

Regen popularity - Its strong for PvP.

 

Top 6 power pairings are all theme linked.  Electric, Fire, Rad, Energy all pairing with their secondaries.  Dual Pistols and Willpower is seamless game play.  Dark/Dark is peanut butter and jelly. 

 

A little surprised by: 

 

Lack of Ninjutsu popularity in general as well as Super Reflexes.  These are predominately tied to Dual Pistols as a pair but little else.  

 

Assault Rifle being in 15th place as a combination with Willpower.  I get why the pair works but just surprised it is more popular than I would have thought.  

 

Invulnerability not being that popular beside having a lot of pairings with Energy Blast (Ironman inspirations most likely). 

 

Other notes: 

 

I wonder just how many of those 424 Psi/Regens are PvP builds.  The ability to use a Fortunate Hypnosis (Placate Proc) in Will Domination is obnoxious as hell combined with stacking CC in Scramble Thoughts + Dominate.  Same goes for Ice/Regen also a strong PvP build. 

 

Pleasantly surprised to see a wide range of Dark Armor representation.  Per the popularity list, it doesn't seem that popular but per the pairings it is scattered across the lists.  

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by oldskool

[tjknight]

Well one thing that's obvious to me, (and others have said it) people like themed pairings. Which makes perfect sense since this is a comic book themed game. Most iconic characters  have elemental themes (Iceman, Killer Frost, Fire, Liz Sherman, Black Lightning, Electro, etc.. etc..). So after some thinking the top pairings for Sentinels makes sense, people overwhelming choose theme over min-maxing.  

 

My most played Sentinel is my Rad/Rad, and he'd be 50 by now if it weren't for my altaholic tendencies :). My Dark/Nin would actually be a rarer choice to level up, since there aren't that many of them. 

Edited September 2, 2019 by tjknight

[ericc191]

Can someone post an "all out" Fire/Fire build? I've been trying to put one together for a friend and I'm finding it quite difficult! I like to think I do a good job on building toons, but Sents for me stumped.

 

I wanted to give her soft capped Ranged defense and then go for resistance and recharge, but it seems like I may need to build for soft capped Melee defense? Thanks!

[ParaBruce]

 

I pulled together a simple spreadsheet with the level 50 results:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rCBSKg8oL260CUsH-uhbKnKll_DCAutMPmHKDEKW9eg/edit?usp=sharing

 

Here are the combos nobody's yet gotten to 50:

 

• Archery/Energy Aura
• Archery/Ice Armor
• Archery/Invulnerability
• Assault Rifle/Ice Armor
• Assault Rifle/Radiation Aura
• Energy Blast/Ice Armor
• Energy Blast/Ninjitsu

 

So if you want to make your mark, there are your targets. 🙂

 

Random notes while transcribing:

 

Archery shows up for the first time at #46 (Archery/Ninjitsu), Assault Rifle at #54 (Assault Rifle/Willpower). Those are the bottom of the barrel as far as primaries go.

 

Regeneration is the first secondary to be represented paired with every primary, from ice Blast/Regeneration at #4 to Archery/regeneration at #90. Willpower is the second, from Dual Pistols/Willpower at #7 to Archery/Willpower at #100. Those are the only two secondaries to do so in the top 100, too (and there are no primaries with all secondary pairings represented in the top 100).

 

Of all things, Psychic Blast becomes the first primary with complete secondary coverage, from Psychic Blast/Regeneration at #19 to Psychic Blast/Invulnerability at #128. Wasn't expecting that. Fire Blast is the second, from Fire Blast/Fiery Aura at #1 to Fire Blast/Dark Armor at #129.

 

 

 

[ParaBruce]

9 hours ago, koldkore said:

Can someone post an "all out" Fire/Fire build? I've been trying to put one together for a friend and I'm finding it quite difficult! I like to think I do a good job on building toons, but Sents for me stumped.

 

I wanted to give her soft capped Ranged defense and then go for resistance and recharge, but it seems like I may need to build for soft capped Melee defense? Thanks!

I'm curious about this as well!

 

[KaizenSoze]

10 hours ago, ParaBruce said:

 

I pulled together a simple spreadsheet with the level 50 results:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rCBSKg8oL260CUsH-uhbKnKll_DCAutMPmHKDEKW9eg/edit?usp=sharing

 

Interesting, I though water/rad was more popular. I have one of only eighteen at 50.

 

It is a very busy-clicky build.

[Funkenstein]

18 hours ago, ParaBruce said:

Here are the combos nobody's yet gotten to 50:

 

• Archery/Invulnerability

 

 

Got one on Resurgence named Fleche de Fer. Very strong combo. It quickly became my favorite toon.

 

 

[Fire Chief]

Rad/bio on the journey just lvl 36 right now but deff my main alt.

[Rathulfr]

On 9/3/2019 at 1:33 PM, Funkenstein said:

 

Got one on Resurgence named Fleche de Fer. Very strong combo. It quickly became my favorite toon.

 

 

Resurgence?

[oldskool]

I'm sure some of you have seen the other breakdowns in the General subforum, but if not here you go:

 

Levels 2-31:

 

Levels 32-49:

 

Level 50:

 

Dual Pistols, quite possibly the most experimented with powerset around but not enough to hold the interest all the way to 50. 😉

[Generator]

On 9/2/2019 at 9:06 AM, nihilii said:

There's been a couple times where I send a tell, the leader replies "powersets?". I oblige, then there's a lull. Then comes the answer: "sorry, filled".

It's appalling to me that that's a thing that happens here.  If I get asked that one, the answer will absolutely be, "Yes, I have two."

Edited September 5, 2019 by Generator