Midnight Mystique

I tend to skip piercing beam on sentinels, keeping both single and charged shot, at least until you have enough recharge to cycle lancer shot and your fast casting shot. The cast time on piercing beam is just way to long and although in the past I have had SOME luck hitting two targets at once, its only rarely - they basically have to be in a straight line away from you and NOT move before you start casting. My current BR sent is L42ish and even with 85% global recharge plus full slotting still needs to alternate single and charged shot while waiting for lancer to recharge. (4.55s recharge on lancer, about right for lancer->single->charged->single->lancer, with the second single skippable if I have outside buffs). Not sure about your second question, I usually switch targets if disintigrate is up again to spread the effect more. I am pretty sure dot's should stack but would need to test it to be sure.

I don't have a full build for a water/regen sent, but I do have a L50 incarnate storm blast/regen (sb/regen), so I can give some advice on regen. For water blast the advice Exqzr984 is on target, you basically want to have water jet up as often as possible for single target and geyser up as often as possible for AoE, with one or two of the other 3 aoe's filling in the time when geyser is down. With a good recharge build you can likely have whirlpool+steam spray/water burst to fill in the gaps. Sentinel regeneration has 3 good main powers (reconstruction, Instant Regeneration and Integration) and some support powers that range from great(quick recovery) to ok (dismiss pain and resilience). Unlike melee regen it is not a clickly set, you only have the one heal so you either need to do a lot of hit and run (as Exqzr984 recommended) and/or build in some extras. First lets look at the 3 main powers: Reconstruction: A decent heal, you want it up as often as possible and to max out the heal. Any of the heal sets would work here, depending your build goals. I slotted preventative medicine on my SB/Regen for the global recharge and the absorb proc (which is a nice emergency save that kicks in when you hp are low). Instant Regeneration: Your first core power, it generates an absorb shield tick every 2-3 seconds (maybe? not sure). You can stack up to 5-6 ticks at a time. At level 50 fully slotted I was seeing 95 hp per tick for a total of 475 hp. As long as you max out the healing, it doesn't matter what you slot here. I put a set of panacea in mine for the global recharge, it also give you a steady heal tick and end boost from the proc. Integration: Your main regen power, slot it up for max heal. I put 3 numina's in it for the +hp and +regen. The support power that are worth taking: Quick Recovery: a full blue bar is a good thing, 1-2 slots for an end enhancement and possibly a Perf Shifter +end proc is all you need Dismiss Pain: A boost to your max HP. This is a GOOD thing, because the more hp you have the more you get out of your regen. I put 2 L50 heal IO's here to get the max out of it. Resilience: Not really a great power, but still worth taking, 8.75% resistance is not a lot but it make a great mule for resistance uniques like Steadfast prot +DEF. That is what I put in my sb/regen. Unless you have a ton of extra slots it really isn't worth adding any more. Even fully slotted out for resistance you are only going to pick up 4% more resistance. Fast Healing: An ok boost to your regen, although nothing on integration. Its worth taking, but I wouldn't add more than 1 extra slot to it, if that. 1-2 L50 heal IO's will give you the most bang for your buck here. Ok, the next thing to look at is build goals. Other than the recharge you need for your attacks there are 3-4 things you can focus on: DEF: DEF is usually king, as not getting hit trumps resistance, regen or healing. The problem here is that with no base def to build upon and no def debuf resistance, focusing on DEF in your build is going to cost you a lot more than it is worth. If you can fit the fighting pool in your build, its worth taking weave and slotting the two +DEF unique's (Steadfast Protection and Gladiator's armor). Slotting all 6 pieces of the Sentinel Archetype sets will pick you up 5% E/NE, 5% Melee, 2.5% ranged and 2.5% S/L def plus you get the other benefits of the sets (10% recharge and 7.5% range boost per set are nice bennies). Slotting up tough with a 4 piece Unbreakable guard set will get you 3.13% melee. That doesn't give you a lot of def, but it is enough to take some of the edge off, avoid a few hits and buffer your absorb/regen. Resistance: You do have a small RES base (about 10% to all with a single slot) and can add in tough for another 15% to S/L. If you can afford purple sets most of them give you fire/cold resistance as well. There are a lot of other small res bonsus you can get from other sets that might be worth pursuing as long as they give you other bennies (usually recharge). Regen: There are a lot of 10% or so regen bonuses out there (LoTG, Numina's, etc) and while you can stack a few of those up they really only add a small amount compared to integration+fast healing. So don't focus on it but take it when you can get it. HP: Here is the best boost you can get. HP multiply your healing, where regen boost just add to it. Slot as many +HP sets and uniques as you can without sacrificing recharge or slotting. The Unbreakable Guard +HP unique, Numina's and LoTG are just a few of the HP boosts you can get. While boosting your regen is nice, you already start with a lot of it. Your goals should be recharge, to get your damage powers and your heal up as often as possible, followed by HP, to give your healing a mulitplicative boost, with just enough investing in resistance and defense to take the edge off the incoming damage. Here is my SB/Regen build as an example: MonsoonThunderCurrentL50.mbd I managed to stack a small mount of DEF, primarily focusing on melee since even with range boosts I need to be in fairly close for all my AoE's. For my Ancilliarly/Epic pool I went with electricity mastery, mostly to stay in theme and for chain fences, as storm blast tends to scatter things a lot when you get going. Otherwise I focused on recharge, resistance and +HP (since you almost always get +regen in the same set as +HP, I didn't really focus on that, I just picked it up on the way).

They just rolled out a fix for this, you have to log out and re-patch in the launcher if it affects you.

Just logged in after downloading the issue 28 patch and I email is not sending properly for me, nor do I appear to able to receive it, at least on my main. If I try to send email with and attachment to my global (@Midnight Mystique) I get the error "Emails with an attachment may only go to a single recipient." If I send email without an attachment it sends, but I never see it (at least not so far). If I send email to my local, Midnight Mystique, without the ampersand, it sends with or without an attachment but I never see it. I can send email to a character whose name has no spaces, I tested with my chracter Nega-Wasp (Nega<dash>Wasp) and it sent and was recieved correctly. I reported this online as a support issue, since I am not sure it is just my account or all names with spaces.

I was testing on a controller when I ran into the problem, haven't had a chance to try it out on the dom I created last week but it does sound like it is controller specific EDIT: I just checked sleep nade out on my dominator and it works just fine, you get a targetting circle when you activate the power and the nade fires off when you click on a target area. Definitely a controller only problem.

the latest version of sleep grenade cannot decide if it is a targetted AOE or a location AOE - when you click on the power, you get a location target cursor but attempting to click the cursor on a target fails with a invalid target floater. Attempting to use a "powexec_location target sleep grenade" macro also gives and invalid target floater and fails.

So my Storm/Regen just hit 45 and I am on my way to L50 so I am working on a L50 build and while I have what looks like a decent build, I have a few questions that I hope some folks can answer My current build goals are as follows: 1) Recharge to keep Cat5 up as much as possible 2) Resistances to take the edge off damage to buffer Instant regen's absorb and my overall regen. I chose to slot for resist instead of def as regen has at least some base resist in resilience but no def. 3) Mixing in as much non-cold damage as possible, which is why I took electric mastery and picked up paralyzing jolt which has ok damage plus nice stun 4) otherwise slotting as much +hp, +regen and whatever def I can get without burning a ton of slots on it. In general, I don't build with a lot of purples. I have a lot of alts (like, 100+ currently, about 15-20 at L50) and I don't do +4/x8 solo tough task force builds so in the past I haven't considered anything but the archetype sets worth picking up, as they cost about 8 mill a piece plus the cost of the catalyst to upgrade to superior (<= 1 mill, but I run enough L50+ raids with my current 50's that I get a lot in drops) vs the 14=16 mill cost for most other purples. However, I have been running a lot of hami raids lately (1-2 a day when I am playing) which are generating enough merits (120 per run) that have been picking 1-2 sets per new 50. The recharge on my current build is just, possible even to much so what I am looking for at this point is suggestions on any tricks to squeeze out more resistance and feedback on a couple of build choices I made: 1) I can't decide if I am better off taking gust vs hailstones - while the second power is better damage, that plus cloudburst means most of my single target damage is cold dots. Gust does good damage in a storm cell and is smashing, so not sure which is best. 2) I am looking at taking lighting field (electricity mastery) in place of chain lightning for extra aoe - some of the feedback I have read on chain lightning is that the secondary damage is sub-par compared to the primary plus it doesn't proc well, which is ugly for an 18 end, 20 second recharge aoe. Mids gives me an exception when I try to do a forum export through build sharing, so I am just attaching my saved build: MonsoonThunderL50respec.mbd A last note on procs - I am not a huge fan of putting procs instead of enhancement sets that buff damage and give you a lot of set bonuses on AT with decent base damage. I will certainly include procs in enh sets that have them and add in the occasional extra proc, or proc out a low damage power like electric fences, but otherwise I am not big into them, which is good as the feedback I have seen on storm blast is that it sucks for procs. Thanks for any advice MMystique

Proc's in general are bad in storm cell and a lot of the other powers in storm blast. Check over in the sentinel forum for some analysis of why but the conclusion there was to slot for set bonuses and damage rather than proc's. (Check this thread in sentinel forum)

I am playing a storm/ice blaster, currently level 28 and its going pretty well. I slotted frigid protection with 2 heals and a slow so between that, ice patch and all the kb/repel in storm blast it makes for a pretty hardy blaster even without any def or res. My only real complaint about Storm blast is the T8 single target, cloudburst - it cast time is ok, but it takes extra time for the animation of the storm cloud to move to the target before it even starts doing damage then the damage takes nearly 3 seconds to finish - it's DPA may look good, but in groups I find it almost a waste of time to cast on anything but bosses and solo it just doesn't kill fast enough. I find I am missing gust, which I dropped when I respecced at 27. The damage isn't great unless you have storm cell up, but its fast casting and fast recharge. Hailstones is ok , the DoT on that attack is so fast (1s) you don't even notice it. Love the animation on the snipe. One interesting thing I did notice with storm blast when comparing Blasters and Sentinel's is that the sent's storm blast is very close in base damage to the blaster version, like only 5% less and while the Sent loses the snipe (getting a decent tier 3 blast in its place) they get a 90s recharge tier 9. which on my L29 Storm/Regen Sentinel is up almost every other set of mobs. Storm cell + Category Five = Chaos. Just an FYI - I have found that you can use water blast in Mids as a rough placeholder for storm blast, at least as far as enhancement set slotting goes - the first 4 powers match up almost perfectly (2 single target, a ranged AOE (water burst) and a location AOE (Whirlpool). Dehydrate mostly works for direct strike, you just can't slot snipe sets and water jet/steam spray mostly match up to cloudburst/chain lightning, just level swapped.

I find the best way to get merits solo is to run story arcs in oro flashback. You don't have to work your way through a contacts 'get to know you missions', plus you can use the pillar in oro to teleport straight to the contact when necessary. That said, I don't know which are the fastest arc's redside as I mostly do this blueside. I do know that there are a lot of blueside arcs that stalkers or other stealth capable characters can speed run very quickly, including the old Sister Psyche's TF which gives 50 merits. I find I have averaged about a merit a minute on the better ones. The drawbacks to this are you can't start until L16(blueside, not sure about redside), the flashback will act like a task force in that you can't interrupt it to do other things and you will be sk'ed down. I usually do arcs in level group just below me so that I was never SK'ed more than 5 levels down (which means you keep all your powers) - so at L16-19 i would do the L10-15 arcs, and at 20-24 the L16-19 and so on.

The new sets/proliferations finally tempted me back after a year or so break and looking at updating some of my older chars. I have a fire/traps corruptor who is currently L34 and I am looking at slotting a full malice of the corruptor set but can't figure out where to slot it. My natural thought is in rain of fire or inferno in place of a bombardment or obliteration but looking over a lot of fire/* corruptor builds folks are sticking it in blaze and other place. It would seen that the fire proc would be best in a long recharge power, although that is an even better arguement for the scourging blast proc. What do folks think and why? Thanks

I slotted it primarily for the def bonuses, but its still worth keeping the build up proc rate up so it sounds like musculature is my best bet. Thanks for the advice folks

So I just hit 50 on my electric/shield stalker and opened up her alpha slot - now I am left to decide which alpha to build for her. I am torn between the following: Agility: While I don't really have any end problems (having slotted all 3 end boost procs - perf shifter, numina and miracle) this is one of the few options where ALL of the enhancements are usefull. I am slightly short of the def cap on melee/ranged (about 1.5%) and more recharge means LR/SC up more often, so going partial core revamp -> Core paragon would mean no wasted enhancments. Musculature: Extra damage is always nice on stalker, but pretty much every other enhancement it gives me is useless Spiritual: The more often LR/SC and AS are up, the more damage I can do and a secondary boost to healing will help true grit push up my HP, so this is a possible alternative to musculature. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated - I have included my build below, its from Pine's v2.23: | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1447;630;1260;HEX;| |78DA6594CB6F524114C667E052CAAB8058680BA5502954A05750F72E6C35312569D| |2C48D0FBC85116EBC691168A24BB7BE62DCB8F2199F1BFF28EB63E563E7C2071E38| |1F20B93721BF3BDF9CEFCC393377A8DC58F7BF3F7BEB949081D396D1E954B7BB867| |54DB55D15A361D69C821E37FD9290AB156529A56F58AAD66D9B35C3626134BDAEAE| |AADD8ED2B79BA6B2EAC3A1F06DEDED59FA19CB6C34BB017EEFBF9ABB8DE060B4A98| |CBA6A779A66CB3F1CB76832B6D1326BFA68E9FD6AC5E87455FBE61C55B442BFDB1E| |81A7A7098350D6846307AC31B53AA89817724439F008312B07DA1D0F24CA2391670| |A79A690671A79A691E72E799CEC71397F39069AF737F887E9FF0BF698D1BE83788F| |BC2EACE7C27A33586F06EB85B05E08EB55A96E37D7ED727BB9EE437930C931878B6| |08CF4454DCC41BF485E0F7B9D9E346B51CC0D63CAA08F8EDBC7B5091F62EF53BD01| |6881026B97286790351984B6003EA0F830FA0BA3BF05F497407F09F497447F57285| |F44CAC11A11AC7B39C747D4AF7B368378F498C438759CF75452DD31D418EBD1239C| |A4CCB3DB318F8CA9E224358A8923268E98747292618A5944CC627A72B7867C481D2| |FE16B586AC17F9D79A40D76C17D6606BBB5435D2EC3BB0C6F06DE0CBC5978B2C891| |8537E2E69BD0F7AEBCE4AFECE82BF035F886997F0BBE631ED0C6ADC2BBFA98F3E59| |F308B4FC167E073E6DA0BE64FBF1005780B1FF804D60EC08FCC639FC0CFE0176694| |6AD6710375EC5F8DF6A084D32BE164E3DAE876F712E3F7FE904E376F534A36A56C5| |34ED894933665D3A66C69A3FF0721078A2734BAFDBDAF5E9A95FFCF7E1F2B529EE7| |3B9A3B47CC69E29B2DFAC75871C814F79E1BF2119FD53F50FCE590| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Its funny, everyone who has replied so far has touted their favorite secondary but none of them actually answered your question directly by giving numbers/info on performance. I took a look at all the numbers in character creation as well as on a few of my blasters, here is a list of the sustain powers in each of the secondaries: Atomic Manipulation: Level 20 Metabolic Acceleration(toggle, +225% regen, +50% recovery, +20% recharge) Devices: Level 20 Field Operative(toggle, +stealth, +225% regen, +50% rec, +1.75 def) Darkness Manipulation: Level 20 Touch of the Beyond( Single target attack, 10 sec rech, 80' range, mag 3 fear, -10.5% to hit, +225% regen, +50% rec for 60 sec) Energy Manipulation: Level 16 Energize(click power, 120sec base recharge, 60 sec duration, 80% end reduction, 225% regen, small heal) Electric Manipulation: Level 20 Force of Thunder (PBAoE stun+kb, 30 sec base recharge, +225% regen/+50% rec for 60 sec) Fire Manipulation: Level 20 Cauterize(PBAoE Damage aura toggle + small heal, 225% regen, 50% rec) Ice Manipulation: Level 10 Frigid Protection(30'r PBAoE slow toggle, +50% rec, 5.13 absorb tick) Martial Combat: Level 20 Reaction time(30'r PBAoE slow toggle, +run/fly/jump spd, +50% rec, 5.13 absorb tick) Mental Manipulation: Level 20 Drain Psyche(PBAoE Click, base recharge 2 min, 10'r, 10 target max, -250% reg/rec to targets, +75% reg/rec per target for 30 sec) Ninja Training: L20 Kuni-in Toh(Click, 3m 20 sec recharge, 3m 30 sec duration, +225% regen, +50% rec, 7% psi resistance, 3.8 fear prot) Plant Manipulation: L20 Wild Fortress(toggle, +50% rec, 3.15 confuse protection, 5.13 absorb tick) Tactical Arrow: Level 20 Eagle Eye(toggle, +20% Acc, +120% perception, +225% regen, +50% rec) Temporal Manipulation: L20 Temporal Health(toggle, 2.05 + 5.13 absorb tick, +50% recovery, resistance to slows and regen debuffs). Some notes on these - for all the powers that offer 225% regen, only half can be enhanced. The toggles that give you 5.13 absorb tick result in a pulsing absorb shield that renews itself about every 3 seconds and is good for about 30hp of damage at around L20 (as observed on my /ice and /martial combat blasters) with only a single L20 heal IO slotted in the power. I have no idea how well the tick heal on Cauterize performs but considering that you waste every tick that occurs when you have full health, it strikes me as a bit less effective than the other powers. Basically all the powers are roughly the same when it comes to end recovery - all of them give you +50% end recovery except for Drain Psyche, which gives you a variable amount based on the # of targets you hit, and Energize which gives you End Reduction rather than recovery. So to answer the question you originally asked (" which blaster secondary has the highest recovery? ") is probably energy manipulation - as an 80% end reduction on all your powers is FAR more effective than even the huge amount of end rec Drain Psyche could give you if you hit the 10 target max. Energize is also fairly easy to make perma - 3 L25 recharge reduction IO's and its up every minute. Now, I don't actually like energize - the sound the power made firing off every 60 seconds drove me crazy and I ended up deleting the fire/energy blaster that I used to test the secondary out but that's personal preference, the performance of the power is great. Ultimately all the secondaries have good end recovery and either a nice regen boost or some other hp recovery/dam prevention method, so its really up the other things each secondary offers. I like Tactical arrow for the thematic fit with archery but I also like Ice manipulation for the huge slow field (30' radius) and ice patch.

Cool to know, thanks for the response Sunsette