Why Sentinel vs Blaster?

[Apparition]

My level 50 Dual Pistols/Temporal Manipulation Blaster can solo the rooftops in the ITF just fine, can solo Borea missions at +3x8 just fine thanks to the Clarion Core Destiny, and can nuke every seventeen seconds.  Blaster all the way. 

[Sovera]

29 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Wouldn't say the Blaster at 50 tricked out compares to a Scrapper defensively.  

 

But maybe say they can sort of survive +4 stuff, usually.  

 

I've found I can roll along just fine on my softcapped blaster, churning out the big orange numbers .. then 3/4 into the mission .. oops Stunned .. BAM! More progress on my next Debt badge.

 

I will say a blaster does way more damage than a scrapper, even ST.  Since they don't need to be touching the bad guys, just TAB and blast.   

 

 

Why would you get stunned? CC is the big gigantic hole in the AT and Clarion, even just at T3, fixes this. I didn't even bother going to T4 Clarion and was never again stunned. Maybe in an ITF, sure, because there is so little CC floating there, but all toggles suppressed at the first hint of CC is a death trap. You're going to probably say you went for recharge or endurance, but seriously, both of those can be fixed within the build, but not CC protection.

 

ITF is something that kills me easily since a blaster has no DDR, but my ninjutsu Sentinel dies just as easily since its DDR is just not enough. Since I play a gimmicky build that relies on /Atomic's -ToHit in Beta Decay and that only has a 15 yard radius I'm squishy to big death rooms (hello there, final room in LGTF) but that's what purples are for when the situation gets chaotic.

[modest]

I did quite a bit of testing of Sentinel Damage, Blaster Damage, and Corruptor damage at the incarnate 50+3 level. Here is what I found:

 

The highest single target DPS Sentinel that I was able to build was a Fire Blast/Bio Armor sentinel. My attack chain for this sentinel was Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. In absolutely perfect conditions this resulted in 197 DPS at a cost of 5 EPS (endurance per second). This was with the following: Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial.

 

Aim was available relatively often, ~33% of the time. When Aim was up, my DPS reached 269 DPS with the same attack chain. I experimented with adding Char to the DPS chain and this increases the average dps by about 5, but then I sacrificed the ability to trigger opportunity.

 

My Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor deals 270 DPS at 5 EPS without considering any of the storm summoning skills. That doesn't factor in scourge. The attack chain here is Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Fire Blast works as well for 267 DPS and 5 EPS). Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.

 

With Scourge included, the same attack chain of Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares deals 296 DPS. When Aim is added, the DPS climbs to 331 DPS with the same attack chain. Again, this is without any of the storm summoning skills.

 

If I include the storm summoning skills, then lightning storm adds roughly 109 DPS and it can be stacked three times per minute. Tornado's DPS is trickier to calculate. I estimate that it adds an average of 40 DPS. The total DPS with storm summoning skills added to fire blast is roughly 663 under optimal conditions (not factoring in Aim). Practically, I rarely find that much sustained damage to be useful. I also find it difficult to sustain an optimal attack chain because there are so many skills to juggle: I have to interrupt my fire blast chain to stack tornados and lightning storms every time they are available.

 

I am currently working on a Fire Blast/Atomic blaster. The optimal attack chain on this blaster is Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. This results in an average of 427 DPS for 5 EPS. Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.

 

This build has Aim every 24 seconds and Ionize every 26 seconds. With these factored in, I reach 527 DPS with the same attack chain. These numbers do not include a Blaster's stacking damage bonus from Defiance.

 

In summary, here's a comparison of three end-game builds:

• Fire Blast/Bio Armor Sentinel: 197 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. (Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (no storm skills): 296 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (with storms): 663 DPS. Tornado --> Lightning Storm --> Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares.
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (without aim, without ionize): 427 DPS. Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.)
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (with aim, with ionize): 527 DPS.

From this I can conclude that Sentinels at Incarnate 50+3 deal roughly 67% of the damage of a Corruptor without factoring in the Corruptor's secondary. Sentinels deal roughly 46% of the damage of a blaster without factoring in the blaster's Build Up or Defiance.

Edited September 8, 2019 by modest

[Apparition]

7 minutes ago, modest said:

I did quite a bit of testing of Sentinel Damage, Blaster Damage, and Corruptor damage at the incarnate 50+3 level. Here is what I found:

 

The highest single target DPS Sentinel that I was able to build was a Fire Blast/Bio Armor sentinel. My attack chain for this sentinel was Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. In absolutely perfect conditions this resulted in 197 DPS at a cost of 5 EPS (endurance per second). This was with the following: Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial.

 

Aim was available relatively often, ~33% of the time. When Aim was up, my DPS reached 269 DPS with the same attack chain. I experimented with adding Char to the DPS chain and this increases the average dps by about 5, but then I sacrificed the ability to trigger opportunity.

 

My Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor deals 270 DPS at 5 EPS without considering any of the storm summoning skills. That doesn't factor in scourge. The attack chain here is Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Fire Blast works as well for 267 DPS and 5 EPS). Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.

 

With Scourge included, the same attack chain of Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares deals 296 DPS. When Aim is added, the DPS climbs to 331 DPS with the same attack chain. Again, this is without any of the storm summoning skills.

 

If I include the storm summoning skills, then lightning storm adds roughly 109 DPS and it can be stacked three times per minute. Tornado's DPS is trickier to calculate. I estimate that it adds an average of 40 DPS. The total DPS with storm summoning skills added to fire blast is roughly 663 under optimal conditions (not factoring in Aim). Practically, I rarely find that much sustained damage to be useful. I also find it difficult to sustain an optimal attack chain because there are so many skills to juggle: I have to interrupt my fire blast chain to stack tornados and lightning storms every time they are available.

 

I am currently working on a Fire Blast/Atomic blaster. The optimal attack chain on this blaster is Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. This results in an average of 427 DPS for 5 EPS. Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.

 

This build has Aim every 24 seconds and Ionize every 26 seconds. With these factored in, I reach 527 DPS with the same attack chain. These numbers do not include a Blaster's stacking damage bonus from Defiance.

 

In summary, here's a comparison of three end-game builds:

• Fire Blast/Bio Armor Sentinel: 197 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. (Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (no storm skills): 296 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (with storms): 663 DPS. Tornado --> Lightning Storm --> Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares.
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (without aim, without ionize): 427 DPS. Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.)
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (with aim, with ionize): 527 DPS.

From this I can conclude that Sentinels at Incarnate 50+3 deal roughly 67% of the damage of a Corruptor without factoring in the Corruptor's secondary. Sentinels deal roughly 46% of the damage of a blaster without factoring in the blaster's Build Up or Defiance.

 

Yep, and Blasters can fix the CC hole by taking Clarion Core Destiny, or Rune of Protection and Melee Core Hybrid.

[Tsuko]

40 minutes ago, modest said:

I did quite a bit of testing of Sentinel Damage, Blaster Damage, and Corruptor damage at the incarnate 50+3 level. Here is what I found:

 

The highest single target DPS Sentinel that I was able to build was a Fire Blast/Bio Armor sentinel. My attack chain for this sentinel was Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. In absolutely perfect conditions this resulted in 197 DPS at a cost of 5 EPS (endurance per second). This was with the following: Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial.

 

Aim was available relatively often, ~33% of the time. When Aim was up, my DPS reached 269 DPS with the same attack chain. I experimented with adding Char to the DPS chain and this increases the average dps by about 5, but then I sacrificed the ability to trigger opportunity.

 

My Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor deals 270 DPS at 5 EPS without considering any of the storm summoning skills. That doesn't factor in scourge. The attack chain here is Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Fire Blast works as well for 267 DPS and 5 EPS). Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.

 

With Scourge included, the same attack chain of Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares deals 296 DPS. When Aim is added, the DPS climbs to 331 DPS with the same attack chain. Again, this is without any of the storm summoning skills.

 

If I include the storm summoning skills, then lightning storm adds roughly 109 DPS and it can be stacked three times per minute. Tornado's DPS is trickier to calculate. I estimate that it adds an average of 40 DPS. The total DPS with storm summoning skills added to fire blast is roughly 663 under optimal conditions (not factoring in Aim). Practically, I rarely find that much sustained damage to be useful. I also find it difficult to sustain an optimal attack chain because there are so many skills to juggle: I have to interrupt my fire blast chain to stack tornados and lightning storms every time they are available.

 

I am currently working on a Fire Blast/Atomic blaster. The optimal attack chain on this blaster is Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. This results in an average of 427 DPS for 5 EPS. Incarnates are Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.

 

This build has Aim every 24 seconds and Ionize every 26 seconds. With these factored in, I reach 527 DPS with the same attack chain. These numbers do not include a Blaster's stacking damage bonus from Defiance.

 

In summary, here's a comparison of three end-game builds:

 

• Fire Blast/Bio Armor Sentinel: 197 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Fire Blast. (Offensive Adaptation, Muscular Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Assault Radial)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (no storm skills): 296 DPS. Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial.)
• Fire Blast/Storm Summoning Corruptor (with storms): 663 DPS. Tornado --> Lightning Storm --> Blaze --> Fire Ball --> Flares.
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (without aim, without ionize): 427 DPS. Flares --> Blaze --> Flares --> Fireball. (Musculature Core Paragon, Degenerative Core Flawless, Ageless Core Epiphany, Assault Radial Embodiment.)
• Fire Blast/Atomic Blaster (with aim, with ionize): 527 DPS.

From this I can conclude that Sentinels at Incarnate 50+3 deal roughly 67% of the damage of a Corruptor without factoring in the Corruptor's secondary. Sentinels deal roughly 46% of the damage of a blaster without factoring in the blaster's build up.

I have issues with sentinels. Like really. I dont specialy like or dislike them but i honnestly dont know what to do of them.

 

BUT : you go in details and numbers, so allow me to do the same :

 

- 197 dps for a sentinel "endgame" is low : blaze is mandatory in a fire rotation but flares ? really. no mind probe, smite or knockout punch ? other set as ice or psy offer tons of procs build possibilities fire will never have.

 

- Blaze is mandatory in a fire rotation but flares ? really. no mind probe, smite or knockout punch for sentinels ? No Blazing bolt for blaster ? Flares is the most terrible power of fire blast. where are the juicy epic power in those rotations ?

 

- All the /storm builds are extremly powerfull... when stars aligns : storm are the master of rikti pylon AKA killing something which dont move. How do you fill the enormous endurance drain of storm ? ageless ? so no clarion. I would like to see your corupter solo to do the same in almost any +4 content with no statu protection.

 

- In the rikti pylon thread, one for the main rule is NO ASSAULT USED cause this incarnate with pets / summons is extremely powerfull for the the time you can use it, and allow unrealistics "builds" think to burst down a immobile target (AKA a pylon) in less than 1m30 (the time of assault).

 

- That's a lot of numbers... based on what builds ? which conditions ? how do you calculate your "dps" ? do you have recorded "dps" runs ? i can come to this very forum and say :" look my sentinel does over 9000 dps" too.

 

 - Sentinels Blaze DPA : 130 / Blaster Blaze DPA : 170 / coruptor blaze DPA 113,9.

Using the same terrible rotation (Blaze / flares / fireball) on both sentinel and coruptor, how do you end up with more dps on the corupter than the sentinel ?

 

- All coruptors secondaries will not give so much "theorical" dps, as /storm : i'm really not sure than an Empath Coruptor will "deal roughly" whatever % out of your imagination more than any sentinel build.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Tsuko
typos, sorry for my rusty english

[Sovera]

Blazing Bolt is bugged on Sentinels, so they lose their T3, so testing the damage of a Fire Sentinel is moot until this is fixed. But Flares on a Blaster, really? Not Positron Cell with four damage procs? Flares? Wat?  The scrapper pylon thread has Fire/Atomic doing 2 minute pylon runs.

 

My Rad/Ninjutsu Sentinel had 287 DPS pylon with Rad only attacks for a 4 minute Pylon. If I was to remake it as a Rad/Bio, perfectly doable with what I've learned since then, this will be boosted by another 30%. I won't try to guess exactly the boost it would be since variables, but once Justin as test server is back I'm tempted to try it.

 

Nihiili's Fire/Rad Sentinel (again, using Fire is gimping ourselves since the T3 is busted) achieved 3 minute runs so more than 287 DPS.

[modest]

37 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

- 197 dps for a sentinel "endgame" is low : blaze is mandatory in a fire rotation but flares ? really. no mind probe, smite or knockout punch ? other set as ice or psy offer tons of procs build possibilities fire will never have.

 

- Blaze is mandatory in a fire rotation but flares ? really. no mind probe, smite or knockout punch for sentinels ? No Blazing bolt for blaster ? Flares is the most terrible power of fire blast. where are the juicy epic power in those rotations ?

I invite you to share a build that deals better DPS on a single target rotation.

 

Flares on all archetypes has a great DPA. On a sentinel specifically, Blaze, Fire Ball, and Flares have the highest DPAs in that order.

 

Mind Probe does have a great DPA, but it requires you to play in melee range. Substituting Fire Ball for Mind Probe raises the DPS of the attack chain by 12. Substituting Smite actually lowers DPS, but you can raise DPS using the chain Blaze --> Smite --> Fire Ball --> Flares --> Blaze.

 

37 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

- All the /storm builds are extremly powerfull... when stars aligns : storm are the master of rikti pylon AKA killing something which dont move. How do you fill the enormous endurance drain of storm ? ageless ? so no clarion. I would like to see your corupter solo to do the same in almost any +4 content with no statu protection.

 

- In the rikti pylon thread, one for the main rule is NO ASSAULT USED cause this incarnate with pets / summons is extremely powerfull for the the time you can use it, and allow unrealistics "builds" think to burst down a immobile target (AKA a pylon) in less than 1m30 (the time of assault).

 

- That's a lot of numbers... based on what builds ? which conditions ? how do you calculate your "dps" ? do you have recorded "dps" runs ? i can come to this very forum and say :" look my sentinel does over 9000 dps" too.

 

 - Sentinels Blaze DPA : 130 / Blaster Blaze DPA : 170 / coruptor blaze DPA 113,9.

Using the same terrible rotation (Blaze / flares / fireball) on both sentinel and coruptor, how do you end up with more dps on the corupter than the sentinel ?

 

- All coruptors secondaries will not give so much "theorical" dps, as /storm : i'm really not sure than an Empath Coruptor will "deal roughly" whatever % out of your imagination more than any sentinel build.

I agree with your assessment of Storm. Did you read what I wrote? We are in agreement. You seem to be arguing strenuously that we agree, so I will argue back that yes, we agree.

 

Your DPA calculations are significantly off. Even if the only incarnate that I use is Musculature Core Paragon:

• Blaster Flares: Damage 177, DPA 149
• Blaster Fire Ball: Damage 193, DPA 162
• Blaster Negatron Slam Damage, 292 DPA 170
• Blaster Blaze Damage 457, DPA 385

Sentinel with Offensive Adaptation and Musculature Core Paragon:

• Sentinel Flares: Damage 121, DPA 102
• Sentinel Fire Blast: Damage 287, DPA 101
• Sentinel Fire Ball: Damage 148, DPA 124
• Sentinel Blaze: Damage 341, DPA 287

I agree that all Corruptor secondaries will not give as much theoretical dps. That's why I included numbers without the storm secondary skills, and with. They're measured numbers, not "out of your imagination". 😘 No need to be rude.

 

26 minutes ago, Sovera said:

But Flares on a Blaster, really? Not Positron Cell with four damage procs? Flares? Wat?  The scrapper pylon thread has Fire/Atomic doing 2 minute pylon runs.

Flares is a rather incredible skill on a Blaster. It has an exceptional DPA and almost always raises the DPS in a blaster's attack chain. I like Positron Cell and use it, but Positron Cell built for damage will have an effective DPA of 101. Flares will have a DPA of 155. There's no comparison. Adding Positron Cell actually lowers your DPS because of its high cast time: 1.85 seconds with Arcanatime factored.

 

Edit: I take Blazing Bolt on my blaster and corruptor, but I haven't tried to add it to my regular damage rotation. It has a great DPA on my blaster (~250) but I'm entirely comfortable with the way that instant snipes work now.

 

Based on the pylon damage formula, a 2 minute pylon run seems almost exactly right for the Fire/Atomic numbers that I posted... Are you agreeing with me? 🤯

Edited September 8, 2019 by modest

[nihilii]

A 2 minute Pylon run with Flares - Blaze - Flares - Fireball would be quite a feat.

[Sovera]

11 minutes ago, modest said:

Flares is a rather incredible skill on a Blaster. It has an exceptional DPA and almost always raises the DPS in a blaster's attack chain. I like Positron Cell and use it, but Positron Cell built for damage will have an effective DPA of 101. Flares will have a DPA of 155. There's no comparison. Adding Positron Cell actually lowers your DPS because of its high cast time: 1.85 seconds with Arcanatime factored.

 

Based on the pylon damage formula, a 2 minute pylon run seems almost exactly right for the Fire/Atomic numbers that I posted... Are you agreeing with me? 🤯

I don't know if we are yet. I know Flares used to be the go to filler skill, yes, but it was before the new PPM formula was brought up which shuffled things. Positron having a longer cast is not a problem as long as the other skills are not recharged by the time it has finished casting, and an attack chain eschewing Fire Ball and Flares seems to only win both in endurance and time spent casting if we are using only Blaze, Blazing Bolt and Positron Cell.

 

Looking at the build I cooked up with 45% Musculature:

 

- Flares at 156.

- Fireball shows as doing 182 damage with 4.77 recharge.

- Blaze at 417 and 2.77 recharge.

-  Positron at... it's hard to tell, 388? 422? with 5.5 recharge.

- Blazing Bolt at 345 (I doubt this is correct with the new snipe formula though I have 21.7% ToHit) and recharging in 3.46

 

 Blaze, Blazing Bolt, Blaze, Positron, Blaze has a one second between Blazes. Blaze being the monster hitter of the set and turned into the filler works well even with the one second gap between skills.

 

Though I prefer that rotation there is also Blaze, BB, Positron, Fireball that shouldn't have a gap anymore but that's a lot less Blazes going out per minute.

[modest]

32 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I don't know if we are yet. I know Flares used to be the go to filler skill, yes, but it was before the new PPM formula was brought up which shuffled things. Positron having a longer cast is not a problem as long as the other skills are not recharged by the time it has finished casting, and an attack chain eschewing Fire Ball and Flares seems to only win both in endurance and time spent casting if we are using only Blaze, Blazing Bolt and Positron Cell.

 

Looking at the build I cooked up with 45% Musculature:

 

- Flares at 156.

- Fireball shows as doing 182 damage with 4.77 recharge.

- Blaze at 417 and 2.77 recharge.

-  Positron at... it's hard to tell, 388? 422? with 5.5 recharge.

- Blazing Bolt at 345 (I doubt this is correct with the new snipe formula though I have 21.7% ToHit) and recharging in 3.46

 

 Blaze, Blazing Bolt, Blaze, Positron, Blaze has a one second between Blazes. Blaze being the monster hitter of the set and turned into the filler works well even with the one second gap between skills.

 

Though I prefer that rotation there is also Blaze, BB, Positron, Fireball that shouldn't have a gap anymore but that's a lot less Blazes going out per minute.

This is a viable attack chain, but it produces lower effective DPS than the attack chain that I posted. In theory, with the new instant snipes, Blaze --> Blazing Bolt --> Flares should deal more damage than either of our DPS chains. I can't substantiate that theory because I haven't tested it.

 

I am assuming that you're using the following procs: Ghost Widow Chance of Damage (Psionic), Gladiator's Javelin Chance of Damage (Toxic), Gladiator's Net Chance of Damage (Lethal), Apocalypse Chance of Damage (Negative). This gives a DPA of 146 which makes it competitive with Flares. Flares still deals more effective DPA, as does Fireball. Negatron Slam also will deal more damage.

 

If you're willing to repeat Flares once, that will result in a DPS chain of 470.6667 according to Pine's. If you add Fireball, it lowers the DPS but provides an uninterrupted chain.

 

Negatron Slam also lowers the DPS, but reduces EPS significantly.

 

Positron Cell (with the 4 procs that I mentioned) also lowers the DPS.

[Sovera]

8 minutes ago, modest said:

I am assuming that you're using the following procs: Ghost Widow Chance of Damage (Psionic), Gladiator's Javelin Chance of Damage (Toxic), Gladiator's Net Chance of Damage (Lethal), Apocalypse Chance of Damage (Negative). This gives a DPA of 146 which makes it competitive with Flares. Flares still deals more effective DPA, as does Fireball. Negatron Slam also will deal more damage.

I wouldn't exactly trust HD's DPS calculator. I have no fundament for saying this other than their PPM formula isn't kosher just yet. As for Positron I fled from the Psi and Lethal procs to avoid the damage being resisted in the end game. It's two ACC/DMG Hamis, Gladiator's Toxic, Apocalypse Negative, Unbreakable Constraint Lethal (bah for lethal, but it's a purple proc) and Superior Blaster's Wrath Fire (it has recharge, which lowers the overall proc chance, but it counts as a purple which evens out IMO).

Edited September 9, 2019 by Sovera

[modest]

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I wouldn't exactly trust HD's DPS calculator. I have no fundament for saying this other than their PPM formula isn't kosher just yet. As for Positron I fled from the Psi and Lethal procs to avoid the damage being resisted in the end game. It's two ACC/DMG Hamis, Gladiator's Toxic, Apocalypse Negative, Unbreakable Constraint Lethal (bah for lethal, but it's a purple proc) and Superior Blaster's Wrath Fire (it has recharge, which lowers the proc chance, but it counts as a purple which evens out IMO).

Thanks. I'll have to try that on Justin to get real numbers.

 

The DPS calculator isn't great, but it's a good estimator. I've found that it calculates DPA correctly for all skills other than snipes, and skills that are slotted with more than one proc.

 

PS: you can easily calculate the DPA of chains yourself by adding the DPA together and referencing it across a few arbitrary times: 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, etc. That's how I discovered that Fire Blast deals roughly 20% less sustained damage compared to Flares if the battle takes more than 60 seconds.

Edited September 9, 2019 by modest

[oldskool]

11 hours ago, modest said:

Thanks. I'll have to try that on Justin to get real numbers.

 

The DPS calculator isn't great, but it's a good estimator. I've found that it calculates DPA correctly for all skills other than snipes, and skills that are slotted with more than one proc.

 

PS: you can easily calculate the DPA of chains yourself by adding the DPA together and referencing it across a few arbitrary times: 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, etc. That's how I discovered that Fire Blast deals roughly 20% less sustained damage compared to Flares if the battle takes more than 60 seconds.

The damage scale of the Sentinel AT is off, it constantly lowers DPS of damage procs regardless of recharge, and some of the powers are flat out incorrect. 

You can get an accurate gauge of on how an attack chain can be built due to recharge and get a semi-accurate view of what a version would look like without gaps.  That's about as far as I go with giving that DPS calculator any semblance of validity. 

You said your highest DPS Sentinel was a Fire one with 197 DPS.  One of my earlier test cases on my Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu build had the DPS calculator telling me I'd pull around 150-160 DPS.  An actual test of that averaged 230* (about 6 minutes on a Pylon).  That was a ranged attack sequence experimenting with multiple powers I no longer use.  I've changed a lot of things since then and streamlined my attack sequence greatly from that point.  I haven't re-tested to see what the new DPS is, but I know from actual play that stuff goes down faster than it did prior to my testing. 

So definitely take that calculator with a big helping of grains of salt.   

*Edit: I don't even have the old build around anymore so I can't say exactly what the slotting was like.  I just remember taking the Pylon down in 6 minutes which was a nice decrease from other times that started with 12 minutes, then 8 minutes, and then down to 6.  That was before I streamlined my proc selection and placement, removed the ATO's entirely from my single target sequence, and with the Barrier Destiny.  This was a test about how I may actually play the character not at all anything resembling a Pylon DPS race.  If I wished to go back to test, I'd need to run Ageless for the endurance because in real play I use the Nin Click endurance restore which is a DPS hit every time.  Or if I had substituted Dual Wield to trigger Defensive Opportunity, it would be less of a DPS drop, but it would still be one.  Ageless would completely remove that issue and let me focus entirely on my attack chain plus gaining Offensive Opportunity every 13-ish seconds as I do in live play.  Just adding some clarification as to where my methodology was since it wasn't truly aimed at seeing how much DPS Dual Pistols is capable of.  It was more about answer the question of "how does this work in real play, and do I really like Barrier here".  The answer to the latter part there is, I have Barrier and Rebirth crafted before Ageless, so yeah. 😉

Edited September 9, 2019 by oldskool

[Radiaria]

On 9/5/2019 at 4:38 PM, Hopeling said:

 

I would contest this claim. My Blaster has mid-30s S/L defense, 60%ish S/L resist, and about 500% regen via Sustain. My /Elec Sentinel has mid-30s S/L defense, 60-75% S/L/E/F/C resist and 40%ish psi/negative resist, and 700% regen plus the actual heal from Energize. On healing alone, my Sentinel can survive about twice as much incoming DPS as the blaster, and has only a toxic hole instead of an "everything except S/L" hole.

 

Like yes, Blasters can have comparable numbers on their best defenses, but it's rare for a blaster to have significant defense and/or resists to more than one position or damage type, while it's very common for a Sentinel. In practice, this means that even with IOs and epic shields, Blasters tend to feel brittle, because they can still die almost instantly when they come under fire from the wide swathes of enemies they aren't specialized in defending against. Sentinel defenses are much more robust.

 

On the damage front, considering that Opportunity boosts your damage and everyone else's by 20%, and that Sentinel base damage is only about 15% lower, Sentinels are actually reasonably competitive for ST. Blasters remain the kings of AoE thanks to their higher target caps, and I do think that Sentinel damage is a bit undertuned in general, but it's well above the corruptor/defender level that it's sometimes compared to.

I don't fully agree with this. With RoP + Melee Core and rotating the two for constant reliable +res and then taking barrier core (basically makes you invincible for 20 seconds and gives a permanent +5% defense and +5% resistance to all), that blaster becomes MEATY! If you pair this with something like /rad as a secondary that gives high regen + -to hit... this becomes even more survivable.

 

There is a real endgame for blasters that does softcap S/L/E/N/Ranged and gets 40-60% resistance to everything just on rotating one, and will almost hardcap all damage if activated together. Trust me, there is hope and there IS an endgame with blasters. They become machines of destruction and can survive a hurricane when built right and having good incarnates. 

 

You could do this same thing with a Sentinel though and they'd be even more survivable but with them you'd sacrifice damage output a little bit, for sentinels they would really get a big benefit out of Assault Core (they don't have the luxury of aim + build up in most scenarios to rotate).

 

Defender-level... definitely agree there. Absolutely above their damaging level, there are a few exceptions though that are strong competitors like storm/fire kin/fire defender but even then probably not. Corruptor-level... that's a different story. 

 

Corruptor-level damage is highly variant. Just from primaries alone, damage favors Sentinels. There's one catch though that most don't really pick up on. Corruptors have access to a snipe. That's pretty big... Additionally, they have a chance after the enemy's health is below 50% to deal double damage. Huge boost there. Top this off, they could run Storm Summoning and well... Storm's DPS contribution is immense, paired with the scourges and the fact freezing rain isn't a chance (reliable -30% enemy resistance... can be even more with procs) like sentinel's opportunity and it provides more team party buffs, you're going to have a hard to arguing that one.

 

-- another interesting note if people want to argue on "effective" damage. It's not hard with storm to constantly keep an enemy where they are if you properly kb -> kd IO'd something like Tornado and then combined freezing rain + snow storm... 

 

-- another topic of discussion is -regen. Corruptors will hands down solo AV's/GM's faster than anything else. Why? Their secondaries get -regen. That's not something most sentinel sets offer much/at all. Corruptors do lag far behind sentinels and blasters though in AOE damage.

 

But for the majority of Corruptor combinations, they won't significantly outpace sentinels or outpace at all really but do expect that some Corruptors are so significantly damaging that even Blasters cannot keep up this level of damage, that's just how damaging storm summoning and scourge really flat out is. 

 

Keep in mind that to get those to shine, they require lots of incarnates, lots of investment in IO's, and if you just started to play them, they're awful. Sentinels' T9s are far more reliable and they're constants, they're very nice, especially an ice blast Sentinel who wouldn't have gotten a snipe for the Blaster version regardless and gets their T9 cooldown shredded in half, but even a fire Sentinel, their infernos are up roughly every 20-28 seconds, thats a lot more useful even if it's not as damaging as the 38-45 seconds on blaster inferno. In their early levels too, because they're ranged where a lot of enemies need to be in melee and they're also given a defense-based secondary, they are far easier to maneuver or operate than a Blaster or Corruptor and with incarnates they will deal a lot more damage and are going to be very nice. Sentinels are always a welcome addition on any team, they're very useful, very fun, and indeed still very damaging. There's a lot of times that the tradeoff for damage is *very* worth the tradeoff for sustain and *MORE CONSISTENT AOE NUKES!*

 

So here's an interesting point of discussion. A lot of the game's weekly task forces aren't going to allow you to run all your powers, in fact, many task forces and strike forces and ouro missions are not going to enable you to run incarnates to really fix your flaws. For these tasks, a Sentinel far exceeds blasters. In fact, the small amount more damage that a Blaster can deal versus a Sentinel at these levels is so minimal that you may very well feel the tradeoff for sustain so you can actually deal your damage is far worth it. Retrospectively, only about half of the game really exists in 50. So much of the game is 15-40's. Would you rather have power *all* the time and be good in *all* scenarios even if in some of them you aren't as obscene as others are? Or would you trade that for being a fraction as useful half of the time. This is why I've actually been making Sentinels, they really can do excellent things. 

Edited September 9, 2019 by 3333053222

[Beul]

Blaster all the way like you've seen yourself. Once IOed up and with the higher AoE target cap there is no comparison. Blasters rule.

[Radiaria]

I think there needs to be more discussion as well on the topic of CC...

 

/Fire Manipulation is hands down one of the best secondaries if not the best one IMO for CC protection and AOE... how? why? what? let me explain.

 

Hot feet with Blaster CC protection ATO. I never get mezzed at all anymore. It procs it. It's a godsend. It's up every mob, often procs twice or more. You've gotta put this for the set bonuses anyways somewhere, PUT IT WHERE YOU'LL ALWAYS HAVE IT UP!!!!!!!! I'm not kidding, it is TREMENDOUS, and then you get burn for max'd out AOE, it's pretty damn amazing. And you get Caut aura to combine to give you double damage AOE auras. You also get FSC. You also get a DPA attack that is only slightly behind elec's for DPA damage in your ST chain. Fire Manipulation and Atomic are beautiful. No questions about this. There's also the acrobatics pool which can help greatly with KB and Hold, combined, this can give you immediately +3-4 magnitude protection to holds. That's huge. 

 

In addition to all this, which I highly recommend for blasters, RoP + Melee Core. You can constantly cycle these together, give yourself HUGE damage resistance, and LOTS of mez protection. These are HIGHLY underrated right now for blasters. These are GODSENDS to make you unmezzable. These are 10/10 going to take your blaster to the next level and eliminate all the holes you ever had. Combine this with Mace Mastery's Scorpion Shield, you can easily softcap S/L/E which is so much of the content, and you can get pretty nice ranged defense with the blaster ATO's too and some slotting around, that's going to basically turn you into nigh-unkillable territory. 

 

There really IS a BIG endgame to blasters.

Edited September 9, 2019 by 3333053222

[Apparition]

Or you can be a crazy person like me and take Tier 4 Clarion Core Destiny and Tier 4 Melee Core Hybrid and have mez protection out the wazoo, along with high regen and near capped resistances. 

[natewest1987]

On 9/5/2019 at 2:20 PM, 3333053222 said:

Late game, a blaster is a completely new class. With sets and IO's and incarnates, that squishy blaster that always died and was awful, a pain to level, and made you tear at how bad it is becomes an actual machine of devastation and sheer absolute awesomeness. 

 

However... remember when I said it's a pain, awful, and made you tear up during that leveling process? 

 

This is where sentinel makes a much needed and helpful appearance. 

 

They're somewhat of a scrapper/blaster/defender AT. They can give a really nice -res in their opportunity and they do have still decent damage. Their T9's have typically much less of a cooldown than the blaster versions do, some by a substantial amount. Ice blasts' blizzard for a blaster is a 170 second cooldown base. Ice blasts' blizzard for a sentinel?... 90 seconds. 90 SECONDS... almost HALVED! So yes, the damage is a less, but when you can use it TWICE AS OFTEN... that really does shape up quite well for a sentinel, and quite honestly, when you consider that also for ice blast the difference in single target vs blasters really isn't much especially when ice blast never had a sniper to begin with... it becomes actually quite OP! Pair this with a secondary that provides something you're not getting that gives excellent damage mitigation and you've got a character that can really do it all and do it well. Sure, late game they may not be as exceptional as a blaster but damn they've got a solid nice good ride the whole way through!

This has me really interested in sentinels.   But I'm unfamiliar with how their opportunity thing procs.   Does it only apply to a mob if you use your first level nukes ?   Or is it possible to charge up opportunity and then use an AOE to spread the -res?

[oldskool]

20 minutes ago, natewest1987 said:

This has me really interested in sentinels.   But I'm unfamiliar with how their opportunity thing procs.   Does it only apply to a mob if you use your first level nukes ?   Or is it possible to charge up opportunity and then use an AOE to spread the -res?

From Page 1 of this thread:

 

Opportunity -

 

All attacks impose a minor resistance and defense debuff (about 5%).  This does not stack per attack but can stack per Sentinel. 

Sentinels have a 3rd meter called "Opportunity" and it works in some ways very similar to Domination on Dominators.  All of your attacks fuel the Opportunity meter.  When the meter reaches 90 out of 100 then your Tier 1 and Tier 2 attacks will gain a circle around them.  The Tier 1 attack triggers "Offensive Opportunity" and the Tier 2 triggers "Defensive Opportunity".   You'll have to land a successful hit with either of these attacks to trigger their specific mode and it will fill the meter completely and hold it there for 15 seconds.  Everything below lasts for that 15 second duration.  These modes are not intended to stack but some claim to have done it (probably a bug).

Both versions of "Opportunity" always impose a 20% resistance debuff on a single target.  This appears as a giant target under a single foe (the color of this matches whatever your power is colored - so these modes can be different colors if you want).  

Offensive Opportunity adds minor energy damage per attack and this is regardless of target.  So you gain the buff even against enemies without the giant target under them. 

Defensive Opportunity adds minor health and endurance return per attack regardless of target. 

In a nut shell, that is it.

[Steampunkette]

The correct answer is: Why not Both? Which is what the Devs did.

 

Though one particular thing about Sentinels? They've taught me which Blast Powers are actually Pseudopets! Specifically every 'Fireball' style power that explodes on your target is a Pseudopet power.

 

Sentinels build their Opportunity Meter through individual hits, not through the damage of a given power. So when you throw a single target attack you get 10 points of Opportunity added onto your bar. But when you use a Cone power, it checks every target in the area of effect for a hit. And each one adds to your Opportunity bar -separately-. So if you hit 10 targets with a cone your bar instantly fills. But fireball powers -don't- do that. So it must create a pseudopet on your target which creates a PBAoE classified as range with inherited damage values and proc chances.

 

Very cool stuff!

 

Also: USE CONES ALL THE TIME. Seriously, Sonic Blast on Sentinels is -godlike- 'cause you can fill up your bar with any one of 3 powers.

[natewest1987]

4 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

The correct answer is: Why not Both? Which is what the Devs did.

 

Though one particular thing about Sentinels? They've taught me which Blast Powers are actually Pseudopets! Specifically every 'Fireball' style power that explodes on your target is a Pseudopet power.

 

Sentinels build their Opportunity Meter through individual hits, not through the damage of a given power. So when you throw a single target attack you get 10 points of Opportunity added onto your bar. But when you use a Cone power, it checks every target in the area of effect for a hit. And each one adds to your Opportunity bar -separately-. So if you hit 10 targets with a cone your bar instantly fills. But fireball powers -don't- do that. So it must create a pseudopet on your target which creates a PBAoE classified as range with inherited damage values and proc chances.

 

Very cool stuff!

 

Also: USE CONES ALL THE TIME. Seriously, Sonic Blast on Sentinels is -godlike- 'cause you can fill up your bar with any one of 3 powers.

Does this count for pseudopets like burn and all pbaoe attacks or only cones ?   Cones are usually classified as targeted AOE, not PBAOE, i thought?

[Steampunkette]

Just now, natewest1987 said:

Does this count for pseudopets like burn and all pbaoe attacks or only cones ?   Cones are usually classified as targeted AOE, not PBAOE, i thought?

Cones are actually TAoE which means you get credit for each target you hit and fill up your bar.

 

Pseudopets don't count as hits for -you-, so Burn Patches don't give you Opportunity Percentages for every target hit.

 

Fireball style AoE (Ranged TAoE that isn't a Cone) uses Pseudopets, So you don't get credit for every target hit.

[Hopeling]

3 hours ago, 3333053222 said:

There is a real endgame for blasters that does softcap S/L/E/N/Ranged and gets 40-60% resistance to everything just on rotating one, and will almost hardcap all damage if activated together. Trust me, there is hope and there IS an endgame with blasters. They become machines of destruction and can survive a hurricane when built right and having good incarnates.

Yes, of course there's an endgame for Blasters. Blasters are one of the most popular ATs in the game and clearly do quite well. The question of this thread was whether there's an endgame for Sentinels in their current state.

 

The claim I was contesting was that Blasters have a way bigger advantage in damage than their disadvantage in durability. If the Blaster focuses very hard on mitigation and the Sentinel doesn't, sure, that durability gap gets pretty small, but like you say, the Sentinel could do the same thing and be even tougher. Or if they focus on offense, they'll still be about as tough as the toughest blaster, and narrow the damage gap. A similar argument goes for Clarion, which some others were talking about - sure, a Blaster can patch their mez hole that way, but they're still only getting mag 3 protection for half the duration, and in exchange they're not using Rebirth or Barrier, which widens the durability gap.

[oldskool]

Just now, natewest1987 said:

Does this count for pseudopets like burn and all pbaoe attacks or only cones ?   Cones are usually classified as targeted AOE, not PBAOE, i thought?

Definitely doesn't work like that for all Sentinel sets.  I can't speak to Sonic doing weird things like filling your bar, because Empty Clips most certainly does not do this. 

Empty Clips (a cone), and Bullet Rain (targeted AoE) both generate 13 Opportunity.  Doesn't seem to matter if you hit 1 target all of them.  It's 13 pts, period.  Dual Pistols is my most played Sentinel, and I have a thread about this very thing elsewhere on this subforum. 

PBAoE's do not seem to interact with Opportunity very well, but change when using the Opportunity Strikes ATO proc.  Hail of Bullets (T9) is one such PBAoE and it generates 1 Opportunity per activation.  Just 1.  I've tested this a few times, and it definitely only adds 1 point to the bar.  With the Opportunity Strikes ATO Proc, it *can* fill the bar completely. (0 to 90+ in one activation). 

Geyser (T9), in Water Blast, is a Targeted AoE.  It definitely generates more than 1 point of Opportunity. 

In fact, there is a rough trend on single target attacks of the T1 power granting 8 Opportunity and all of the other single target attacks granting roughly 13 to 14 pts depending on base recharge.  AoE's vary between 13 to 20+ depending on type.  Like Umbral Torrent, a cone, generates 21 but Empty Clips, a cone, generates 13.  So there is variance based on sets and factors which may relate to animation/base recharge.  I haven't extensively gone through all the sets yet to confirm exactly how it works on that granular of a level though.  So far, my findings are observational and on going.

[Radiaria]

4 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Yes, of course there's an endgame for Blasters. Blasters are one of the most popular ATs in the game and clearly do quite well. The question of this thread was whether there's an endgame for Sentinels in their current state.

 

The claim I was contesting was that Blasters have a way bigger advantage in damage than their disadvantage in durability. If the Blaster focuses very hard on mitigation and the Sentinel doesn't, sure, that durability gap gets pretty small, but like you say, the Sentinel could do the same thing and be even tougher. Or if they focus on offense, they'll still be about as tough as the toughest blaster, and narrow the damage gap. A similar argument goes for Clarion, which some others were talking about - sure, a Blaster can patch their mez hole that way, but they're still only getting mag 3 protection for half the duration, and in exchange they're not using Rebirth or Barrier, which widens the durability gap.

My blaster permanently has 10-23 magnitude protection to most mezzes. I don't use Clarion. RoP and Melee Core both give 10 (each) to most mez. However, you can only get Melee's benefit and the permanency of mez protection once you're 50'd, so your only mez control is Hot Feet's proc at 38. That's still a long way to go but still provides you with some mitigation against enemies, even 1-3 mag protection helps a lot. In general, when building them this way, you get far more out of it and yes, you can easily go without ageless as a blaster (simple way: PS + end x2 one in caut aura/regen power, one in Stamina, and then slot panacea +end/+health in health. You'll never run out of end.) This makes Barrier the clear winner because for 20 seconds you basically become indestructible and enter "god mode."