“I foresee the end of all cycles and the coming fall of winter”
Welcome the Vainglory Hero Spotlight, today we will be looking at Sentinel, an observant Halcyon Well Guardian that visualizes his opponent’s downfall.
Sentinel offers his team powerful zone control and an abundance of vision. When played correctly, there is nowhere in creation for enemies to hide.
HEROIC PERK: Paralyzing Gaze
Sentinel and his Avatars possess a 20-degree VISION CONE that extends outwards to 5.5 meters in their facing direction. Enemies who remain inside this VISION CONE for 2.5 seconds are ROOTED for 0.5 seconds.
If Sentinel and his Avatars are hit by hard crowd control they lose their VISION CONES and are DISARMED for 1.8s.
Sentinel’s basic attacks are waves that deal 45-118 crystal damage (+ 60% Crystal power)(+10% Weapon Power) that are unleashed from his VISION CONE and pass through all enemies inside
Sentinel summons an Avatar of himself at the target location that lasts 7s. The Avatar possesses the same VISION CONE and 40% basic attack damage of Sentinel himself.
Each Avatar grants vision only through its VISION CONE and scans around itself continuously.
Avatars basic attack enemies in place of Sentinel if he is within 6 meters of them.
Cooldown: 6.5s/6s/5.5s/5s/3.5s
Energy Cost: 45/55/65/75/85
Cast Range: 6/6/6/6/8
SECOND ABILITY: Dispel
Sentinel gathers power within his VISION CONE for 0.9s before unleashing it in the targeted direction dealing damage to all enemies caught within.
Enemy heroes damaged are SILENCED
Sentinel can cast this ability via his Avatars if he within 6 meters of them.
OVERDRIVE: Sentinel can cast this ability via his Avatars if he is within 8 meters of them.
Sentinel channels for 3 seconds while summoning Avatars above every enemy hero. After the channel ends he consumes all Avatars. Sentinel and his Avatars are granted true sight for 1s for each Avatar consumed. The cooldown of Envision and **Dispel are refreshed after channeling.
The Avatars grant VISION in a radius around their targets and apply Paralyzing Gaze.
This ability cannot be cast with less than 3 existing Avatars
This ability can be disrupted by disabling Sentinel or Avatars with hard crowd control.
Passively each rank in this ability increases the duration of the ROOT
Paralyze: this mechanic is not balanced in any way. Basically you have to continuously move, because otherwise you can’t do shit, you can’t attack nor move. And the best part is that it’s triggered by both the hero and the sentinels. In a 35° cone with 7 range? Just no. That alone is better than most ults abilities.
Damage: 35-167 crystal damage with 120% CR in AoE. To compare it, Celeste has 125+75%, Malene has 136+60%, lorelai has a 50%, idris has a 85%. And all of them in single target damage. This guy has like double their damage in a 35° cone with 7 range in AoE. This completely lacks any sort of balance.
range: 6.7? With all he has? This is busted. He also has, for some reason the defence of a warrior while being ranged.
it has 40% the hero’s damage, which that alone is comparable to the other mages damage, again in AoE.
triggers the passive
lasts for 6 base seconds, but hey, it can even last for 12! With 2s cooldown. And in 8 range.
gives vision, true vision on overdrive.
This ability alone is so over stacked that puts Malene to shame.
silences in a cone, how much? Not stated, but I guess it’s a broken duration.
Lorelai ult? In AoE? So you basically make cc useless.
so you summon all the avatars in your enemies head, so… they all get paralysed? In AoE in a circle. And can’t be dodged because it’s in their head.
and then you can cast your B with them. Completely not broken.
bonus stats: of course, paralysing the enemy for 1.7s is balanced, and reducing the time for it to affect is also balanced.
I have a question for you: what is it’s counterplay supposed to be? CC is useles, diving is useless (thanks paralyze), kiting doesn’t work either with the A and C, invisibility doesn’t work, mobility doesn’t work… As I said, this hero is broken beyond belief. You can literally take away his B and C and he would still be stronger than 90% of the current roster, just with the passive and the A. This is probably the closest to an instawin button I’ve ever seen. I even doubt kensei with the epic talent would do anything,
I could make the vision cone 20 degrees with a 5-meter range. The ability also does not stack with other Avatars. Also, the effect takes 2.5 seconds to be applied. Keep in mind that enemies can see where the vision cone is.
I can simply just lower the base damage and ratios to something more balanced.
With the nerfed damage from the passive, this will be a bit more manageable. The whole point of the first ability is to extend the effective range of his passive which his entire kit is built upon.
I can simply increase the cooldown of the ability and remove the bonus linger duration. Or I can make it so you can kill Avatars with 3 instances of damage.
I can remove the true sight and instead move it over to other parts of the kit.
The silence duration is based on the enemies shortest ability cooldown which I very CLEARLY stated.
I can just remove the cleanse. I was a bit iffy on giving Sentinel a cleanse. I personally felt at some points however that a cleanse would thematically suit an Eldritch eyeball monster.
I can make it so the Avatars cannot apply the passive during the ultimate so it will instead be a 3-second global reveal of all enemy heroes.
I can remove the bonus stats and remove the ability to cast his second ability while channeling. I will instead shift the passive true sight via vision cones onto when you overdrive this ability.
PS: You should review all my other current heroes and the fan lore I wrote @Guest_78
Think for example in Saw and Baron, what are they supposed to do? There is no way the can dodge that, so you basically prevent them from playing? Same for ringo without the B, kinetic without the B, Silvernail… rip all snipers but kestrel (A) and Skye. Rip every non hyper mobile hero.
I don’t though it would stack. Even if they can see the cone, doesn’t make it easy to dodge for how impactful it is.
I will have to see that, butcause it needs a very heavy nerf.
And I understand that, but the passive is more broken than Maxbob.
No, you said it depends on the shortest cooldown of the enemy, but didn’t specify how. Is it 100% of that cooldown? 50%? Base duration +X% of that cooldown?
But one thing is it being coherent with the kit and the other thing is it being broken. Balance should always be prioritise. It was just unnecessary.
So now it “only” gives true vision? That’s not worth using considering how op the passive is.
The problem is still the same, the passive is still op, and the hero doesn’t have any kind of counterplay yet. When designing a hero, think what his strong points are, what his weaknesses are, what counterplay he offers, things like that. Currently, even with all those nerfs, he still lacks counterplay and weak points. This hero is completely useless against Skye and reza, while being almost insta win against the rest. Making a hero based in preventing the enemy team play isn’t fun to play against, it’s frustrating and will never pass the draft mode. It’s also unhealthy for the game and makes the players feel useless, why play a game when you can’t even play?
I’m usually a carry player, so I’m probably more sensible to those things that would affect them. Honestly, if I was playing any hero except reza and Skye and the enemy picks Sentinel, I would just dodge or AFK, because it’s a waste of time when you can’t even play.
He seems much more balanced now, I would even increased a little bit the damage of the A given that it no longer apply the passive, and who knows, you could even give it a small slow (ex: 15%+0.015% of bonus health capped at 30%) to incentivise the roam path?
The silence of the B could be increased too. 16 cooldown for 0.5 silence doesn’t seem too good.
0.5/0.6/0.7/0.8/1→1/1/1/1/1.2?
I would increase the range he needs to be within to activate it when overdriven to match the range of the A.
About the C. Given that it now consumes all the avatars, how about making it refresh both the A and the B? This would allow to root+A+silence+A slow one of the enemies. Just throwing some ideas. My QoL change here would be to make him automatically spawn all avatars needed to cover all enemies, so for example you already have 2, after activating it, you summon those 2 +3 to complete the 5 needed for the enemy.
He now is much less frustrating to play against and offers some kind of counter play. Being said that, I don’t think he needs many more changes, but you can give him some of its power back and try to give him comboes. I would make something with the C, it’s consumes all the avatars available, which is a cool mechanic that could be used for something else like a buff that scales with each avatar consumed? For example, consuming 5 avatars (don’t know if there is any kind of maximum) makes the vision cones give True Vision temporary or increases the duration of the passive… thing like that.
Do you mean the basic attacks? Cause Sentinel’s first ability does not do any damage and his Avatars still apply Paralyzing Gaze which only roots now. Just really confused.
Yeah,
I can definitely increase the Silence duration but I might make the overdrive duration 1.5s instead of 1.2s.
^ You mean like this?
I thought you meant it like this way. How I interpreted what you said was he will always summon 5 Avatars above enemy heroes but to actually use the ultimate he needs to have 3 Avatars already on the field. this is also why I lowered the cooldown on his first ability.
Do you mean like this? ^
Also, you should read my other hero ideas like Mulj, Solaris, and Beretta?
