Sentinel Class Spell change Suggestions

[RazorBrains]

Intent of these suggestions is to make these spells feel impactful and unique. It is not the intent to make this class OP. Other class spells may need to be balanced with these changes. These are just my ideas on how to improve the spells after playing at level 22.

Not in any particular order

Reinforce
Stamina = Same as First Aid (base heal)
Cooldown = 3 seconds longer than First Aid
I would change this to 6-7 ticks that heal for 125% of First Aid. The pro for this spell is its efficient if it is allowed to get all ticks. Downside is if someone else heals the target to full the ticks are wasted. Also LOS change see below (first aid)

Distraction vs Weaken, personally I think these should be substantially changed where one is single target highly effective with a short time it lasts. Basically used on high level mobs used like a heal but to prevent damage. The others spell I think should be an AOE shout that DOES NOT break any CC. This would be useful in situations where lots of mobs are on multiple targets to reduce incoming damage overall.

Distraction
Stam cost = 10%
Cooldown = 1-2 min
Duration 30 secs
Effects 3x effectiveness of current, lasts 30 secs

Weaken
Stam cost = 20%
Cooldown = 1-5 min
Duration 30 secs
Effects AOE Shout, 1.5x effectiveness of current, lasts 30 secs, all mobs in range

Fortify
Stamina = no change
Cool Down = Instant
Cast Time = Instant
Duration = Permanent in or out of combat, recasting it turns it off.
Leave this spell going both in and out of combat no recast required. Currently overwrites Knight Aura spell Inspire, allow it to combo other auras and not overwrite them.

Bolster Armor ---> Magic Shield
I would substantially change this spell, every class I think should have a get out of jail card or OP ability, like fear, stun ... this class could have this where you change to a magic shield like Power word shield in WoW. Have it last for XXX damage until it pops. Basically used when you get a bunch of threat from mobs but has a long cool down.
Cool Down = 2-5 min
Cast time = Instant
Stance = In Combat
Stamina = 5%

Bolster Armor - If you don't go with above change then I would suggest the following at least, however in general I just hate the concept of this passive spell out of combat. How can you even use while sitting which is what you are doing out of combat.
Stance = All
Duration = 5 min
Effects - Does not go off regardless of hits taken, lasts the entire duration.


Base Abilities
Assailing Strike = No Change

First Aid - Only thing I would change is the line of sight check and the range check on the back end of the spell. So I would do a range/LOS check on the initial cast, however what the target does after that it doesn't matter and still will go off regardless. As it is now it feels really clunky especially as players are moving around, running through you, barely behind you or standing right next to you. By this change I think it would fix a lot of that.

Screen - Suggest rename to Bolster Armor ...
Effects - Last a specific amount of time like 30 secs, regardless of damage mitigated.

 

[Rev]

I will agree that I would like it better if I could do bolster armor while in combat stance. Keep the 0 movement in so we can't do it on the fly. I don't mind it only lasting for 5 hits and having to reapply it.

 

[AdricLives]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. As I noted in the previous post Weaken is currently broken, but all the discussions around it pulled me into testing it and finding it not working. So thanks for pushing me towards that

I would change this to 6-7 ticks that heal for 125% of First Aid.

The base ability currently heals for 30-40% more than First Aid. Uses slightly less stamina but has a longer cooldown. Note when comparing to First Aid too, First Aid scales up healing the lower the health of your target. So A max heal First Aid will be comparable to a full length Reinforce (Replenish). The duration could be extended out closer to the cooldown (15-20s), but this feels like a tossup of better/worse depending on the scenario.

Distraction vs Weaken,

Distract was originally designed this way to basically ensure a miss within the next few attacks. Unfortunately this meant Sentinel stacking could chain debuff this and prevent mobs from hitting ever. Most of these abilities were strong and short duration, but they were not desired because supporters found it was more useful for them to just save the stamina for heals most of the time. So we transitioned these to long duration debuffs so you can open a fight with it and reap its benefits for the duration of the fight. It is definitely better now, but I think some balancing needs to happen between abilities increasing in power and also starting strong enough to be noticed.

Abilities like this have shorter cooldowns because they help on the offensive side of things while solo, especially any that deal damage like Distract. Which is why weaken is much less stamina cost since it has no offensive component. It doesn't break CC atm,

Giving large cooldowns is not really useful because you can simply take it off your bar and swap in something else while waiting for the CD. We could look at locking you into a skill while its on CD, that could help balance things that we want to be strong with long CDs. But the user experience of this may not be ideal.

Weaken does not currently break CC since it has no damage component and is useful to throw on a CC'd target. With the caveat that Weaken was broken as I mentioned in the other thread and I'm changing it to just have straight -10DMG until I get back around to another skill pass.

Leave this spell going both in and out of combat no recast required. Currently overwrites Knight Aura spell Inspire, allow it to combo other auras and not overwrite them.

Yea both these are on my wishlist from Undone, Auras are fairly limited in their flexibility atm.

Bolster Armor

yea these Battle-Prep abilities that I liken to like Rituals in D&D (longer cast times, easy to interrupt, cost little to nothing, offer some lasting benefit) have been an experiment. I think its OK to remove the trigger component from this or at least increase the count substantially. All these I'm leaning more into them and allowing them to last longer and for more hits on my next pass.

Effects - Last a specific amount of time like 30 secs, regardless of damage mitigated.

This seems too easy to have 100% uptime with multiple supporters. If 50% damage reduction is the norm then anyone not using this approach would have a terrible time.

 

[AdricLives]

I will agree that I would like it better if I could do bolster armor while in combat stance. Keep the 0 movement in so we can't do it on the fly. I don't mind it only lasting for 5 hits and having to reapply it.

yea most of the stance locking is because the animations look really bad tbh, we have some masking but stuff just looks like you're poking a sword through your head or twisting your atm through your body when you can do these things sitting or while in combat stance.

 

[RazorBrains]

Giving large cooldowns is not really useful because you can simply take it off your bar and swap in something else while waiting for the CD. We could look at locking you into a skill while its on CD, that could help balance things that we want to be strong with long CDs. But the user experience of this may not be ideal.

I think swapping skills out with the skill menu during combat is a very bad implementation. So yes I think skills should be locked if under a cooldown. I am all for more skills but if this becomes the meta, having to swap in combat via the menu, that would be disappointing.

This seems too easy to have 100% uptime with multiple supporters. If 50% damage reduction is the norm then anyone not using this approach would have a terrible time.

Good point, which is why I really don't like this spell as currently implemented, if you wanted sentinels to have more armor 100% of time, it could just be added to the armor weight. So yes 100% uptime is not ideal. Which is why I suggest it lasts only 30 secs but has a higher cool down 2-5 min. More of a help! get this off me button. If multiple sentinels are in a group, having another with this I am not sure what the advantage would be, other than just healing, how could they get threat to use it. I don't see how this is an advantage compared to say Warlord fear which reduces 100% damage due to mob being feared.

Thanks for the explanation. I will think on this and will reply back if I can come up with better solutions.