*** Sentry (Dark Avengers) ***

Unknown

There are tons of fun ways we could make sentry less insane.

I like the idea of it being a shockwave so center tiles go off sooner, and farther out countdowns have more of a delay as the quake radiates outwards.

CrookedKnight

I made a topic about fixing WR in the Suggestions forum a while ago. My favorite idea that came out of it was to have WR generate 3 or 4 countdowns that destroy a group of tiles each when they go off. So it's not just one countdown to match away and there's still multiple application of strike tiles and cascade potential, but they're both reduced to the point of merely being very good.

Unknown

Make Green cost 11.
Make Yellow cost 10.
Make Red cost 13.

You just fixed Sentry.

Unknown

acescracked wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

Instead of just saying there's a problem, let's say how it could be fixed.

You're assuming there is a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't see any issues with how the character is currently setup. Seriously, not being sarcastic. Nothing broken for me.

*Checking your roster*
What a shocker. level 166 3/5/5 Sentry and level 162 3/5/5 Hood.

I sincerely doubt you are able to not be biased in this regard.

It's human nature to not want something taken away from you.

wymtime

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

Something that might work is if WR only affected the targeted enemy and not the whole enemy team.

I think this would be the biggest fix. If they do do this they need to eliminate the damage it does to allies. It will still do massive damage and with his yellow will down 1 character but if there is still self damage it is a really high cost. This would also make Sentry's red much more interesting as his main AOE attack.

Unknown

Having all the tiles explode at the same time does not fundamentally impact the damage interaction since you can already do this with a level 5 Intimidation and it doesn't make the skill do any less damage, though tiles all exploding on the same time will usually lead to less cascades and will be a nerf.

The fix for WR is simple. Make it that you only get the benefit from strike tiles once on WR instead of on every CD. If this somehow isn't possible then make it get nothing from strike tiles. It's a 7 green AP ability and it's not supposed to be super awesome to begin with.

Sacrifice is likely too good as well but it's impossible to evaluate the skill as long as it can be comboed with WR into an instant game over because that's going to skew perceptions wildly even if it was fair.

GrumpySmurf1002

wymtime wrote:

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

Something that might work is if WR only affected the targeted enemy and not the whole enemy team.

I think this would be the biggest fix. If they do do this they need to eliminate the damage it does to allies. It will still do massive damage and with his yellow will down 1 character but if there is still self damage it is a really high cost. This would also make Sentry's red much more interesting as his main AOE attack.

Yup, this was my suggestion when someone posted it in the Feedback forum.

It makes little sense that Sentry is the only character with multiple AoE attacks. Change WR to single opponent strike, and it basically becomes a 3* Juggernaut headbutt, just with CD tiles. No one likes getting hit with a 6AP headbutt, but no one complains about the cost either. They'd be perfectly fine with a 7AP one that is on a time-delay.

laughingMAN

What if WR cost stayed the same but procc'ed your attack tiles when damaging his own team? That would naturally make a lot of characters soft-counters to him, or at least push him into more difficult decisions on when to deploy it.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

It's a 7 green AP ability and it's not supposed to be super awesome to begin with.

Agreed, and therein lies the problem. This was suppose to be an odd but cool board shakeup ability but has evolved into so much more. By itself the skill is reasonable, still a bit under costed but reasonable, but how it works with strike tiles is the problem.

So the options are

1.)Keep the # of strike tile interactions the same
2.)Reduce the # of strike tile interaction by some
3.)Reduce the # of strike tile interaction by a lot
4.)No strike tile interaction at all.

I don't think 4 is possible since it would be the only damaging doing skill that doesnt interact and would probably be too problematic reprograming.

If you want option 1 then you are going to have to increase the cost of the skill. It cannot cost 7 for what it does.

If you want option 2 a proposed change was to halve the number of tiles but double or triple the damage, this isnt' bad. Another was to create even fewer tiles but to have them blow up a small area, like 2x2, again cool. This could be worked and still keep the skill at 7 AP

If you want option 3 than basically you want all the tiles to expolde at once but not like what Indtimidation does, they just all go boom and disappear like Surgical Strike when it snags a color, this isn't a bad option either, it does reduce the cascades but fixes the strike tile abuse.

I for one would be for any of those 3. Supernova is about right, although I think it should be 12 AP. Sacrifice is one of those high risk high rewards. You give up health for damage, it's powerful but not broken. So if they could just implement one of those 3 options we would still have a top tier character just not uber powerful.

And to those that said, well then everyone goes to X-Force and he'll be the next to get nerfed. I disagree.

X-Force----does 3441 max damage and destroys 15 tiles
Fireball----does 3390 max damage and destroys 2 red tiles but you gain the AP

both cost 8 at first, with Fireball essential costing 6 after that.

Recovery----assuming you are going 5/5/3 all this does is 678 damage if you match it and he heals for 4.2K however it's on a 3 CD tile. This is far from overpowered and can be dealth with.

Surgical Strike

---

This is unparalled, this is going to be the one you can argue but....it does cost 11 and you can keep it relatively at bay. You can counter it by running an odd strongest color as primary like Deadpool, then it's just an 11 AP 5K singe target nuke, which is no different than Magneto's Magnetized Projectile. The AP generation is what makes this quote, unquote "overpowered" but again it can be played around and you can always down the guy that would be using the AP first, thus negating the steal, but look at Thunder strike, it's essentially the same thing. Both are high cost, massive damage target nukes that net you AP. I am more fearful of Thunder Strike since I'm going to be eating 2.4K plus cascades, into a massive amount of green, that is going to get me hit with 2.2K AoE plus an addition 2.2K to current target.

In short, while X-Force is really strong, he can be dealth with, Sentry just can't. It's like trying to deny Daken Chemical Reaction, you just can't it's so low costed it's all but impossible to keep going off. World Rupture and Sacrifice are roughly the same, they are so cheap you just can't deny it.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

4.)No strike tile interaction at all.

I don't think 4 is possible since it would be the only damaging doing skill that doesnt interact and would probably be too problematic reprograming.

With the original release of teamup tiles, they were not affected by strike tiles, so it has been done and could be easily done again.

Nellyson

After NUMEROUS Sentry posts, I think these are the best 3 in my opinion. Now, I have a soft Sentry, but he's still helpful if/when I shield hop. However, since he's lower than most of my characters, I don't use him really all that much. But I'd like to cause honestly, once you hit top level, if you're not using Sentry, you're not trying to win. So the 3 best to me:

1. Make WR an actual rupture. Center tiles start at 1 then CD timers increase for each tile that goes outwards. This makes the most sense in terms of the descriptor. Plus, you'll still be hitting people for a good chunk of damage with those 4-8 (depending on how far out you consider center to be). I like this one the best. To me, it makes the most sense.

2. WR needs to cost more. That's probably the easiest fix and the one that causes the fewest outrages. No one has a problem with a green skill costing 12-15AP. 15 is probably way high, but 12 is a great cost for what WR truly is. I think I saw someone saying that WR seemed to be more of a board shake up and that makes sense as you get KILLER cascades from WR. But making it cost more for the damage it deals would be perfect. Plus, when running with Daken, it just means more possible strike tiles. And it eliminates the fast hoppers and makes them normal, without limiting people from reaching that 1300 Holy Grail.

3. Have all the CD act with a trap mechanic and have them go off at once. This helps most when facing Sentry/Daken, as no additional strike tiles can be made from the cascades. You still get the possibility of cascades, but WR has already hit your team and can no longer continue to kill everyone. This one is just ok to me, but the 3rd best option out of all the options out there.

Unknown

So this weekend I'm gonna spend cash to buy sentry and daken up to full covers/lvls. In doing so I feel entitled to free wins. No need to fix anything, nothing's broken.

In reality tho just make shields cost more and make WR's CD increase with covers. If it was a 4 turn CD and shields were expensive enough to make hopping cost prohibitive, then the problem would be solved... hell, you could even buff WR's damage to compensate.

Now, a buncha people are gonna repeat my facetious opening... and the hilarity is that they will be serious!

OnesOwnGrief

Defense tiles. To be honest, if you want to nerf fast wins then state so. Trying to rally behind "Nerf Sentry" is not the problem because Fatal Attraction should have made it clear enough that it's entirely possible to kill Sentry/Hood/Daken. Of course, nobody wants to actually use characters with defense tiles because it's not fast enough for them.

Raffoon

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

Defense tiles. To be honest, if you want to nerf fast wins then state so. Trying to rally behind "Nerf Sentry" is not the problem because Fatal Attraction should have made it clear enough that it's entirely possible to kill Sentry/Hood/Daken. Of course, nobody wants to actually use characters with defense tiles because it's not fast enough for them.

The issue isn't whether it's possible to kill Sentry Hood Daken, even though it does happen to be more difficult than many other combinations on defense. The issue is that in the time it takes other teams fully boosted to win two matches for a shield hop, Sentry Hood Daken has won 4 and is less likely to be attacked while they're unshielded since almost any other team is preferable to attack given equal points. If you want to use Fatal Attraction as an example, then go for it. I would think that the people with Sentry Hood Daken finishing at 1800 in Fatal Attraction while everyone else with maxed teams hangs out at 1100-1300 would indicate that there was indeed an issue with that team comp being far above any other option, though.

Pylgrim

As others have said, the only really necessary fix is have the WR countdown tiles go off at once, hence, only benefiting from strike tiles once. Additionally, I'd suggest that the AI shouldn't be able to user Supernova. SN is a ridiculously powerful ability that you use in a pinch, knowing that it will win you the game, at the cost of having to spend two-three health packs to heal your own team. That's a drawback that allows such a powerful ability to be relatively cheap, but for the AI, there is no drawback! It can basically spam Supernova, as long as Sentry stays alive and it costs it absolutely nothing additional.

I_am_Zero

LordMojo wrote:

In reality tho just make shields cost more and make WR's CD increase with covers. If it was a 4 turn CD and shields were expensive enough to make hopping cost prohibitive, then the problem would be solved... hell, you could even buff WR's damage to compensate.

That's a terrible idea. You are now punishing everyone else who use shields normally because the top 1-5% use Sentry to shield hop. This will also make it feel more p2w since shields are almost always necessary to guarantee high placement in pvp.

I_am_Zero

Pylgrim wrote:

Additionally, I'd suggest that the AI shouldn't be able to user Supernova. SN is a ridiculously powerful ability that you use in a pinch, knowing that it will win you the game, at the cost of having to spend two-three health packs to heal your own team. That's a drawback that allows such a powerful ability to be relatively cheap, but for the AI, there is no drawback! It can basically spam Supernova, as long as Sentry stays alive and it costs it absolutely nothing additional.

I don't have a maxed Sentry, but if I did, why the hell would I want to cripple it on defense? The AI is already crippled by having only 1 TU power and it's not as smart as you since if it was too smart and you kept losing, no one would play.

Unknown

LordMojo wrote:

shields were expensive enough to make hopping cost prohibitive, then the problem would be solved

Think of the F2P - my shield budget is 150, either 2 3 hour shields or 1 8 hour shield depending on the end time.

The shield fix would be to put a clock on it. After a shield break, must wait 15 minutes before purchasing next shield. Hops just became more dangerous no matter who you are using.

Unknown

The second post was the answer /close thread

Seriously, just make WR go off at once so sacrifice doesn't get to stack each time.
- Unreall

Pwuz_

Has anyone else noticed that the countdown tiles for World Rupture speed up today? I was using the rental one in the PvE and set off World Rupture, and was surprised by how quickly they each triggered. Stealth Update?