*** Sentry (Dark Avengers) ***

Sandmaker

I think what we're seeing is the beginnings of a nerf. They're messing around with backend stuff for how the ability work.

Unknown

I do wonder how many people are going to try to fit one or two more matches in compared to their normal hopping and get burned.

Unknown

It's faster for everyone, so I don't see the problem.

It was pretty stressful to see the damage from WR when you were just expecting to shield again...

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

It's faster for everyone, so I don't see the problem.

It was pretty stressful to see the damage from WR when you were just expecting to shield again...

Because anything that makes shield hopping more efficient makes the game more pay to win.

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

It's faster for everyone, so I don't see the problem.

It was pretty stressful to see the damage from WR when you were just expecting to shield again...

Exactly. More people can kill your team faster too. Doesn't it kind of evens out?

Spoit

Ben Grimm wrote:

Well, back when I ran the 3* buffs poll, someone did vote for Sentry, so apparently we need to find this person, because they're the one who has the developers' ear, apparently.

Probably the same person who got nonce de-modded

Unknown

BBBomber wrote:

arktos1971 wrote:

It's faster for everyone, so I don't see the problem.

It was pretty stressful to see the damage from WR when you were just expecting to shield again...

Exactly. More people can kill your team faster too. Doesn't it kind of evens out?

No because the delay before your team becomes noticed is a relatively constant number. Let us imagine it takes exactly 1 minute for people to notice that your team is unshielded. If it takes 1 second to win a game for anybody, you could potentially win 60 games and then quickly reshield again for some truly insane scores. If it takes 1 minute to win a game, then you can only win one game before you've to worry about other people start hitting your team. The lower it takes for anyone to win a game, the more games you can squeeze in between the time you broke your shield and the time people started hitting you.

Phaserhawk

Sandmaker wrote:

I think what we're seeing is the beginnings of a nerf. They're messing around with backend stuff for how the ability work.

I think you are spot on

Unknown

We'll have a PvP to test the "new" Sentry.

Thing is, if they plan to nerf him, maybe they could do it BEFORE that PvP, so that people could respec accordingly if necessary...

And yes, I did not think about the time it takes so that you appear as unshielded...

wymtime

D3 meeting room with Hi-Fi:
Hi-Fi- the community is loving how fast speed shot is with MHawkeye. The community is also complainng about really slow animations.
Dev's-Well if the community likes speed shot lets just speed up world rupture. We already have programing so it will be easy and less work for us so we can concentrate on other things. This way we eliminate the slowest animation in the game and everyone will be happy!!

Shield hoppers rejoice!!!


And as sarcastic as this ism it is probably close to the truth.

Magic

Last event gave me 2 Setry covers. Plus potentially one in PVE (if I can beat that nod). So he is 2/5/2 now (with potential for 3/5/2). I could lvl him to 114 (not sure how high with the extra red).

That's the intro. The question is should I lvl him to max or keep him soft capped at 94. I am in transition. I have all the best 2* at 94 (not Mags and I might not have him for a while, and my OBW is still not there - I need 2 more blue covers and I can't get to 1600 points in the simulator for one). I don't have any other 3* that is even close (I still don't use them in regular PVP - only 2* are worth it).

I know that he could kill my scaling in the PVE and I don't want this is i will not gain a lot in the PVP (a lot is maybe being able to score 800 points, maybe 700 without a problem).

My brackets are recently horrible - I would need over 1100 points to be top 10 in last PVP. I don't understand how tanking could help (I just detest the idea of loosing on purpose so unless I understand the process I don't think I will tank). If I tank I won't be able to score a lot in my current bracket and I won't get the rewards (or maybe I will - please explain how it works in a bit more elaborate way than - lose on purpose to get better opponents).

If I don't tank the 114+ Sentry could damage my chances of winnable fights even more.

Please advise on this.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

D3 meeting room with Hi-Fi:
Hi-Fi- the community is loving how fast speed shot is with MHawkeye. The community is also complainng about really slow animations.
Dev's-Well if the community likes speed shot lets just speed up world rupture. We already have programing so it will be easy and less work for us so we can concentrate on other things. This way we eliminate the slowest animation in the game and everyone will be happy!!

Shield hoppers rejoice!!!


And as sarcastic as this ism it is probably close to the truth.

I think D3 really don't get that at the highest level of this game it's all about time management in both PvP and PvE, and particularly in PvP, anything that can deny your opponent time is extremely valuable even if it has practically no gameplay impact. Or maybe they know but just pretend it doesn't matter, even though it's pretty much everything in PvP.

Raekwen

The amount of time that it takes for people to notice you once you become unshielded is almost negligible. If you want to add that amount of time to the amount of time it takes for someone to decide to snipe you and beat your team, sure.. you might have a 30 second buffer or so? That assumes people are going one fight and reshielding, which really only happens at the highest end. The end result is that the window to be out has shortened some, but it will really only affect players that play slowly.

Unknown

raek13 wrote:

The amount of time that it takes for people to notice you once you become unshielded is almost negligible. If you want to add that amount of time to the amount of time it takes for someone to decide to snipe you and beat your team, sure.. you might have a 30 second buffer or so? That assumes people are going one fight and reshielding, which really only happens at the highest end. The end result is that the window to be out has shortened some, but it will really only affect players that play slowly.

If the time to notice you're unshielded is negligble then shield hopping would never work in the first place because at that range you're fighting teams with similar if not identical characters and by definition if the lead you've for shield break is not significant then in the time it took you to beat someone, someone else would've beat you and shield hopping wouldn't work. But this is clearly not what happens.

Since the cost to skip is not trivial not to mention people have better things to do with their lives then hitting skip all day, the lead time for breaking a shield can be significant, and it must be significant or shield hopping could not have worked in the first place.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

D3 meeting room with Hi-Fi:
Hi-Fi- the community is loving how fast speed shot is with MHawkeye. The community is also complainng about really slow animations.
Dev's-Well if the community likes speed shot lets just speed up world rupture. We already have programing so it will be easy and less work for us so we can concentrate on other things. This way we eliminate the slowest animation in the game and everyone will be happy!!

Shield hoppers rejoice!!!


And as sarcastic as this ism it is probably close to the truth.

Then why does the newest character they added have the slowest animations of the game? Even Daken's purple never slowed the game as much as Dock's black does. And the blue is glacial as well, but at least it's not a passive.

Unknown

Sentry plays about 40 levels higher than actual. You can level him to 94 and he will play like 130 or 140. That said, he will cost you healthpacks. so use him as your defensive team, probably with oBW or babyDaken and you will scare some attacks off. That said, probably better to level him to 100 to put a little more fear into people.

Unknown

Is it me or Sentry stops dealing damage to my team when the enemy is killed ?

Whereas before, that was not the case ?

If I did not daydream, it's quite a BUFF... It's not only the speed of WR animation...

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

Is it me or Sentry stops dealing damage to my team when the enemy is killed ?

Whereas before, that was not the case ?

If I did not daydream, it's quite a BUFF... It's not only the speed of WR animation...

No he still does. It's an effect of the speedup, the numbers add so quickly you don't notice the change. All tiles go off doing appropriate damage to each side.

Raffoon

Around a month and a half ago, it was stated in this thread http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14801&p=211280#p211276 by IceIX that:

- Sentry is going to be looked at with an electron microscope after this since he's obviously the second most popular niche strategy. He's still very low on the actual userbase usage rate, but we can't be sure how that will change once the Patch / Magneto situation changes.

Judging by the fact that somewhere around 8/10 to 9/10 of teams placing in the top 10 are using Sentry, I'd think it might be apparent looking through someone else's prescription glasses that he could use some toning down, much less a microscope. At this point, it's barely a choice any more: You're either using Sentry, or you're handicapping yourself against people who are.

Now, we all remember the Daken nerfs. They were set to go into effect right after he was a major prize for the first time. Right now, we've just seen a slew of new Sentry covers introduced to the playerbase, and you can bet that a lot of people are going to want to invest some more ISO into him.

What's the word devs? Is our ISO safe in Sentry, or has the microscope exposed a fungus and a whole lot of people currently investing their ISO are about to be disappointed?

Mawtful

There was a big public outcry for the Daken incident though, so I'm sure the devs have learned a lesson or two from that. Looks like it's back to "stealth" changes - that way people will keep on spending ISO on Sentry, even in the hours, minutes before the nerf.