Sylvan vs Sent

Kiet

As evidenced by my recent thread about the state of sentinel, I'm a little less than confident about sent as a class after the rework. That said, the thread did alleviate some of my worries, so at least I'm not eager to ditch the class. Sylvan is looking really interesting after talking to some people in game, though, so I was wondering if it'd be worth the switch (or multi-classing it).

From a quick glance at the weatherweaving/propagation ability lists, it seems like sylvan has a lot a more affliction power and flexibility than sentinel. The actual affs/second are probably not quite as good, but they can pair all the important things from what it looks like. The damage route for both classes seem decent, but sylvan seems like it has a lot higher/harder to mitigate damage, and apparently it scales off afflictions given, which is a lot stronger than just the single broken limb condition. They also seem to have much better group combat with lightning for LoS and similar roles when in melee.

That said, I would miss sent's absurd mobility, hide/stealth, and traps. I'm also pretty certain sent's probably superior at 1v1 ganking people which is a good part of what I like to do, though since marks apparently don't get a whole lot of contracts anymore I'm not sure how useful that is.

If I multi-class sylvan, I'll have JUST enough to tri-trans it if I buy the lesson/cheap 300 credit package. That leaves me with no room to really learn riding, and I'm not sure how willpower-intensive sylvan still is, so no room for philosophy.

If I just switch class to sylvan outright, I've got enough left over to get at least mountjump and some philosophy without even spending a penny. Of course, then I only have one class which is its own con, but only if sylvan can't really satisfy me all on its own.

Either way I'm also left with the question of race. I don't want Kiet to be a frog so that leaves tsol'aa with its bad con. Why is siren so good stat-wise but locked off? I guess if I multi-class, or maybe even if not, I can just go human for sylvan. For sent single-class I'd maybe go troll, but xoran would be more multi-class friendly I guess. Not keen on a lizard either. I'm not sure how valuable that last point of int/str will be. If I remember right, viridian gives + 2 int, so maybe that extra int won't make as much of a difference there whereas sent has no help with str.

tldr: For a mixture of group and 1v1 and hunting people, what are people's thoughts on sylvan vs sentinel? I want the class that allows for the most flexibility and creativity and ability to outplay the opponent(s) in the end, and the one that's most solid at a base level. Classes can get tweaked but the base mechanics rarely change, so I'm also considering which is more viable and deeper despite possible nerfs/buffs. Should I just bite the bullet and multi-class?

Rangor

multiclass + grook.

Kiet

But I don't want to be a frog

Kiet

Another idea I just had was changing to sylvan and saving up for serp as a second class in the future. Serp has all the mobility/sneaking I like about sent except magnified, and wormholes make up for track. Then I'm even more screwed on race choice since they're hyper-dependent on dex now apparently but eh.

Rom

I'd vote to straight up switch rather than multiclass unless you are rocking a lot of lessons, multiclass is pretty expensive.
Sylvan is much more solid 1v1 than Sentinel and much more intuitive, but in groups I'd rather be or have Sentinel (outside of non-adjacent LoS in which case Sylvan is godlike). When it comes to ganking Sylvan is pretty shitty if the target doesn't want to fight you, but most classes are. Wildgrowth is alright and you have great paralysis spam and kill times but Arcane Power mechanics are absolutely terrible for chasing people. You will miss Evasion and hide and traps but Sylvan is a very fun, polished, and versatile class that you shouldn't regret switching to. It's also totally new to you which is a great segue into having a lot of fun .

Viridian is +2 int and +2con, it's awesome since you will want to minmax intelligence entirely for obscene damage. Diadem is awesome if you have one too, opens up a lot of options.

Kiet

Does arcane power decay over time?

Rom

No but in order to start earning AP on someone you will first have to Disrupt in the room which will make a little cloud, this takes like 1.5s of EQ or so. Then once a room is disrupted you can cast feedback at a target which is balanceless, once feedbacked you will gain AP against THAT target every time you attack them with any direct weatherweaving spells. The AP you gain from a disrupt 'cloud' is tied to that cloud (that room), and the cloud will completely disperse after (30 seconds?) of not being used. There is no decay, it's from all to nothing. So if someone walks out of the room after you've been hitting them with weatherweaving stuff and building AP then it is basically all lost unless they go back to that room before the cloud disperses. You can however make a new cloud in their new room before the first dissipates, it will just start from 0 AP again. AP builds pretty fast though and you can kill people without using weatherweaving at all for the most part.

Kiet

Hm, that sounds really annoying for contract kills, yeah. Definitely a con for sylvan that I'll have to consider. Doesn't that mean people can just move rooms and ruin everything you're doing pretty easily?

Rom

Technically yeah but most people don't, you also have Wildgrowth which is akin to occultist Tentacles in that it will often punish their attempted movement by knocking off balance instead, so a lot of the times people won't try to walk away (they'll fly instead). Also Sylvan still has access to limb prep kills so you can just win out that way a lot of the time, if not by combining both aspects.

Aerek

Yeah, Weatherweaving is strong, but I feel like the world forgot Heartseed exists and is pretty viable against a large percentage of targets. I haven't sat down to really look at combining the two, but it seems like you could set up some pretty rough tactical forks if you were patient enough to do the prep work.

I have no idea how Sent works anymore. Every time I start to learn about them, they overhaul the class. It's nearly a running joke for me at this point.

Kiet

Yeah that's true, heartseed still exists, but I guess it's just not as exciting for most people (me included). I spent a little time looking at forks earlier today, actually, but I don't know what the eq times for heartseed/etc are so it's a lot of guess work. From what I can tell, though, you need a diadem to really fork them up.

Mizik

Heartseed works as a third leg break. Combine it with lightning holos, lacerate untargeted thornrend and stormhammer finishers. I can't tank that.

Talysin

You won't have to worry much about keeping people around long enough to kill them. You can kill people as fast as an occie can - 20-30 seconds!

Kiet

Yeah that's true, but obviously my experience trying to fight most people is them trying to spam east or whatever from second 5 or earlier. Sents have traps for that and sylvans wildgrowth, but I suspect traps win out slightly there.

What's sylvan willpower drain like these days? Do I need like trans philosophy + circlet + megalith or is it manageable?

Talysin

I do fine with trans philo. No circlet, no megalith. Propagation has a wp regent ability too

Makarios

A few things of note:

- Sylvan arcane power tends to fluctuate very heavily for a lot of the tactics. I.e. its fairly easy to build/burn it very quickly, rather than say, fashions where it is build/build/build/execute (although that is also doable if so inclined).

- Sylvan is intended to be a better duelling class, but sentinel is a better jumping/aggressive utility class.