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Post by n7double07 on Feb 20, 2023 4:18:33 GMT
I have a Tech Armor-less (apparently not, since it's appearing despite me having removed all points from it) Sentinel in ME3 on the back burner right now. I'm considering taking Stasis as a bonus power at some point.
In 3 Stasis has a perk where it has a 30% chance of not causing a cooldown upon use. The Sentinel's skill tree has a similar perk but with a 15% probability instead of 30%. Given this, would it be possible to chain three powers in succession (Stasis -> Warp -> Throw, etc.?) I found a similar post on the old forums, but it was asking if the probabilities were additive (would give a 45% chance of no cooldown instead.) I'm wondering if there's a function preventing this that recognizes when a cooldown bonus has already been given and prevents any more for one cooldown period.
For context, I don't have a Sentinel I can NG+ right now and haven't unlocked Stasis as a bonus power in the LE yet.
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Post by RedCaesar97 on Feb 20, 2023 13:48:11 GMT
No you cannot chain Stasis > Warp > Throw. Warp will detonate Stasis, but it will not prime after detonating a biotic combo. Overload > Warp > Throw will work as a chain.
The only double-biotic chain I have seen is Slam > Lash with Javik because of how those powers work.
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Post by n7double07 on Feb 20, 2023 22:57:31 GMT
No you cannot chain Stasis > Warp > Throw. Warp will detonate Stasis, but it will not prime after detonating a biotic combo. Overload > Warp > Throw will work as a chain. The only double-biotic chain I have seen is Slam > Lash with Javik because of how those powers work. I was using that as an example of successive cooldown effects; the priming doesn't necessarily matter. What I'm asking here is if both of these perks on one character could allow me to cast three powers in a row, no cooldown whatsoever.
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Post by RedCaesar97 on Feb 20, 2023 23:28:57 GMT
No you cannot chain Stasis > Warp > Throw. Warp will detonate Stasis, but it will not prime after detonating a biotic combo. Overload > Warp > Throw will work as a chain. The only double-biotic chain I have seen is Slam > Lash with Javik because of how those powers work. I was using that as an example of successive cooldown effects; the priming doesn't necessarily matter. What I'm asking here is if both of these perks on one character could allow me to cast three powers in a row, no cooldown whatsoever. If you are lucky, yes. The 15% chance from Offensive Mastery is about 1 in 6 chance (or almost in 1 in 7 chance) of not causing a cooldown, so it will occur but not often. It can help Stasis and Lash the most since they have evolutions that give a percent chance of not causing a cooldown. Will it be worth it? Maybe? Probably? Depends on how play the Sentinel and whether that matters. Most of the time you probably will not see it nor care. It can be useful when it does occur, but you also may miss it as well. Like if you are taking Javik and Liara with you, then they will probably be doing most of the priming for you on most enemies (Singularity and Pull) with you just using Throw to detonate; not much use for the no-cooldown thing if you do get it. But that is not always the case. It could be good against tougher enemies like Brutes for example, where avoiding the cooldown on Warp could help a bit when it does happen. Try it out for yourself and see what you think.
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Post by n7double07 on Feb 21, 2023 1:56:37 GMT
I was using that as an example of successive cooldown effects; the priming doesn't necessarily matter. What I'm asking here is if both of these perks on one character could allow me to cast three powers in a row, no cooldown whatsoever. If you are lucky, yes. The 15% chance from Offensive Mastery is about 1 in 6 chance (or almost in 1 in 7 chance) of not causing a cooldown, so it will occur but not often. It can help Stasis and Lash the most since they have evolutions that give a percent chance of not causing a cooldown. Will it be worth it? Maybe? Probably? Depends on how play the Sentinel and whether that matters. Most of the time you probably will not see it nor care. It can be useful when it does occur, but you also may miss it as well. Like if you are taking Javik and Liara with you, then they will probably be doing most of the priming for you on most enemies (Singularity and Pull) with you just using Throw to detonate; not much use for the no-cooldown thing if you do get it. But that is not always the case. It could be good against tougher enemies like Brutes for example, where avoiding the cooldown on Warp could help a bit when it does happen. Try it out for yourself and see what you think. Yeah, given the probabilities, I think it would be too inconsistent to build a strategy around. It's something I've been curious about for a while now, though. I figured I'd try that and no tech armor in the same playthrough.
I've become somewhat disillusioned with the Sentinel in 3. I find it boring compared to the Adept, and I think I might rank it lower than Engineer at this point. I recently (as in within the past couple of days -- yeah, I've been a lot of ME lately) discovered an Engineer build that I enjoy centered around Sentry Turret (which I previously found to be nearly pointless,) Combat Drone, Cryo Blast, and Sabotage. Sentinel has no such builds that I find enjoyable. It feels like a disjointed caster that needs a bonus power to make it somewhat exciting (as you can infer from my OP and this post, I have a number of partial playthroughs of Sentinel in the LE that I never bothered finishing.) It's a shame because I used to really enjoy the class when I was younger.
While Adept and Engineer have some problems with redundancy in 3, they have a huge advantage over Sentinel in their freedom of choice with bonus powers. Their redundancy also gives them a level of flexibility with the powers they already have, and with the right skill-tree upgrades you can create some interesting interactions with other powers and bonus powers. In the case of the Engineer it seems I just needed to find the right set of upgrades to make it enjoyable. Now it doesn't feel like some worse-Infiltrator-but-with-Overload-I-guess.
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Post by RedCaesar97 on Feb 21, 2023 20:01:03 GMT
You and I clearly have different opinions on the ME3 Adept and Sentinel. The only real difference between the ME3 Adept and Sentinel is that the Adept has native quick-priming biotic powers for health-only enemies (Pull + Singularity). I suppose the Sentinel has Lift Grenades for that, but they are a limited resource so I tend to ignore them, much like I ignore Cluster Grenades on the Adept most of the time.
With the ability to take Liara and Javik with you for about 90% of the game, the Adept and Sentinel can play pretty much the same:
- Enemies with health? Liara and Javik use Pull and Singularity > you throw.
- Enemies with armor? Use Warp then throw.
Sentinel has an advantage where you have native Overload to remove the shields from the few enemies that have them > Liara/Javik with Singularity/Pull > you throw. Sentinel also has Tech armor for native damage protection. So for most of the game the Sentinel feels like an Adept but with more tools. Adept can get damage protection (Barrier/Fortification/Defense Matrix) or shield removal (Energy Drain) from bonus powers, but Sentinel already has those tools natively.
Calling the Engineer a "worse-Infiltrator-but-with-Overload" is kind of odd. I mean I get the sentiment but Infiltrator with Energy Drain (and no cloak) does not quite make it an Engineer. Since Overload can both prime and detonate -- Energy Drain can really only prime on most targets -- Engineer can alternate Overload and Incinerate on tougher enemies to alternate fire and electrical explosions. Also, Sabotage > Overload cannot be dodged and can kill groups of weak enemies quickly.
You can play around with powers to make the Engineer interesting, but any Engineer build outside of Sabotage + Overload + Incinerate is just a gimmick build. Gimmick builds can be absolutely be fun -- fun is good! have fun! -- but they are still gimmick builds.
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Post by n7double07 on Feb 23, 2023 3:41:12 GMT
1. You and I clearly have different opinions on the ME3 Adept and Sentinel. The only real difference between the ME3 Adept and Sentinel is that the Adept has native quick-priming biotic powers for health-only enemies (Pull + Singularity). I suppose the Sentinel has Lift Grenades for that, but they are a limited resource so I tend to ignore them, much like I ignore Cluster Grenades on the Adept most of the time. With the ability to take Liara and Javik with you for about 90% of the game, the Adept and Sentinel can play pretty much the same: - Enemies with health? Liara and Javik use Pull and Singularity > you throw. - Enemies with armor? Use Warp then throw. Sentinel has an advantage where you have native Overload to remove the shields from the few enemies that have them > Liara/Javik with Singularity/Pull > you throw. Sentinel also has Tech armor for native damage protection. So for most of the game the Sentinel feels like an Adept but with more tools. Adept can get damage protection (Barrier/Fortification/Defense Matrix) or shield removal (Energy Drain) from bonus powers, but Sentinel already has those tools natively. 2. Calling the Engineer a "worse-Infiltrator-but-with-Overload" is kind of odd. I mean I get the sentiment but Infiltrator with Energy Drain (and no cloak) does not quite make it an Engineer. Since Overload can both prime and detonate -- Energy Drain can really only prime on most targets -- Engineer can alternate Overload and Incinerate on tougher enemies to alternate fire and electrical explosions. Also, Sabotage > Overload cannot be dodged and can kill groups of weak enemies quickly. You can play around with powers to make the Engineer interesting, but any Engineer build outside of Sabotage + Overload + Incinerate is just a gimmick build. Gimmick builds can be absolutely be fun -- fun is good! have fun! -- but they are still gimmick builds. 1. I used to like Sentinel better than Adept, too. It's the lack of ability to consistently lift that makes Sentinel now boring in comparison for me (You can take Slam as a bonus power, but that's hardly an equivalent to Pull; and you can only self-detonate it a small percentage of the time if you choose the right perk.) Slam is only really worth taking on non-biotic classes to set up combos, more so in ME2 than ME3(Reave exists.) I personally love Cluster Grenades and use them liberally, haha. So there's that also -- actually, that's definitely a non-trivial part of why I enjoy Adept, as vapid as it may seem. Lift Grenades are rarely useful. Despite their name they're very rarely even useful for lifting enemies: they're clumsy, a time-sink (latency,) and prone to miss or lift in a wonky way when they do land.
As for Overload, Sentinel has an advantage there, but not having Overload isn't a big deal in ME3. In ME2 it's a bit different, but you can still work around it. Since Tech Armor lost what made it a selling point for Sentinel in ME3, Sentinel was reduced to being a "flat" caster. I'd rather my PC be reasonably well-rounded and not need to depend on companions to lift. It certainly doesn't feel as satisfying to me when companions are doing it.
I've posted about the ME3 Adept before on here. In all likelihood, we don't disagree on much. At the meta level, I think it's the most poorly designed class in the game. Still, it currently ranks as my fourth favorite class in 3, ahead of Soldier and Sentinel currently.
2. I think you might have misunderstood what I was getting at here. When I said "but-with-Overload," I meant that's one thing that gives it an undeniable advantage. I'm not saying that the Infiltrator is literally a better-Engineer, more that Infiltrator already has a lot of the essentials plus a much better pair of class-specific abilities. In fact, I'm essentially just echoing the same sentiment you are for Sentinel in relation to Adept but for my own reasons. I found a build of Engineer that mitigates those feelings to an extent, but as you said, it can certainly be characterized as gimmicky since it involves a certain level of withholding and seemingly arbitrary micromanagement at the expense of easier, DPS-maxing solutions.
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