kiLLaBiyte

Got it. So Energy Punch it is! 🤜🤜

Oh, gotcha. So basically, take either one but don't worry about them too much as they will be phased put/not really used in the final builds?

Quick question, because I'm definitely going to build a new EM, should I take Barrage or Energy Punch for my starter attack?

Wow! Awesome chain! Thanks man. I'm looking forward to your tests with Power Crash!

Wow!! Is it hitting that hard due to the recent updates and changes or was it always?? I thought I recalled people saying that "previously" it was neutered in Single Target Damage thanks to it's long animation times and lowered output. Was that resolved? Is it actually better than Psi Melee now? My absolute favorite toons on Live were EM's and DM's. I miss my lvl 50 EM Stalkers tremendously. Do you think he's worth re-rolling here, for PvE and PvP?

Okay, old thread, but some solid discussion (and reveals) was happening here, so here it is again... So, would the general consensus be that either Shield Defense or Bio are the best Stalker armor sets for damage. - With Shield being better for dealing with "groups" of enemies after your initial Shield Charge and strike when AAO can kick in for clean up. - And Bio being better at harder single targets by giving a flat +25%(?) boost to damage for your alphas, that doesn't require mobs other than the one you're attacking. Not to mention the -regen advantage for EBs/AND. Then for Primaries, it sounds like... - Street Justice and Psi for single target smashing (with maybe Street Justice being slllllightly better overall in the PvE endgame if you're taking full advantage of the combo system). Would these assessments/conclusions from this thread be right? How would Radiation Melee or Dark Melee compare or fare against Psi or Street Justice if paired with any of those two armor sets? I know DM adds some utility, but also has a lesser resisted "void" damage type, and Rad Melee has some pretty solid heavy hitters from what I can see... And, with the recent Energy Melee changes since i27, is it a contender again in Single Target Damage? Gosh...all these thoughts!!! 🥴 Haha it's like the 'good old' days again!! 😅😊 I love it!!

Hmmm, so I guess the "general consensus" is that, basically - Fire, Ice, Sonic, or Dark (and about in that order) paired with /Mental is the way to go for this topic?? And trying to be "different" aside and prove that other sets can find a way to do it too....the absolute powerhouse best is...this?....or what? I'm curious on this too... Would Beam Rifle fit anywhere into this equation? It has some nice -regen and effects also..

In a perfect world, all of this makes sense. However, that's not the vacuum that we play in. There are often times when my opportunity is ready to go off, but that would mean wasting it on a minion that's almost dead. In which case, I have 1 of 4 decisions to make: 1.) I fire off Defensive Opportunity (if it's up) in order to not only finish off the minion but also not break attack chains (the "upside" I get more survivability/end management whether I need it or not). 2.) I waste Offensive Opportunity on the minion at which point he dies immediately and the benefit of Opportunity is entirely lost. 3.) I wait for one of my other harder hitting attacks to come back, and essentially "waste" those on deleting the minion as well...while at the same time wasting precious time for dps. 4.) I attack a completely different MOB and ignore my initial target, until I'm ready to use Opportunity on a different harder target MOB, then switch back to the first minion to clean him up with a proper low damage attack, and then switch back to the harder target that I triggered Opportunity on and commence fighting him... In none of these situations is this "ideal" in any way shape or form. There is far too much thought process for this. And yes, Number 4 is typically the route I would take, as to "not" lose out on Opportunity. This, is not Opportunistic in any sense. It's cumbersome. We can't play this game in a vacuum or a perfect world sense...and as such, we can't expect attack chains to flow perfectly with Opportunity. Sometimes they do, often-times they do not. And when they don't, it makes our one primary inherent utterly useless. No other class has to worry about that. Scrappers are the closest AT that does as their inherent is entirely "chance", but they have enough base damage output and survivability that it doesn't matter - the Critical's are just the "icing on top". Without Opportunity, there truly is no reason to pick a Sentinel over a Blaster or Corruptor in team play. The only time being, that I can think of, is if you lack any healers/debuffers on your team, which is very rarely the case. So, we are left as a more "solo" oriented class, which just doesn't seem right in an MMO. It's what killed Stalkers back on Live until they fixed/changed the way Assassination works - making them so much more team friendly and WAY more useful. So, Opportunity, being our real "crutch" power to be included in a team, needs to function properly. We should be able to "pop" it when the "opportunity" arises, and grant the debuff/buff that we want (or maybe just make it do both). This would make the power oodles more useful for us. Anyways....just my thoughts.

VERY VERY good point!! In my HONEST opinion, I think that the devs should look at Iron Man, the Punisher, etc for inspiration on how they should re-design this AT!! Like, look at what else they bring to the table for a fight or for a team!! It's a lot of raw firepower, but its also so so SO much more!! Hopefully they can find a way to make this happen...within balance of course.

I agree totally. I'm hoping that the changes the devs are considering are helpful. One definite change I'd like to see is the base damage modifier being brought up to at least 1.0 ....that would go a long way to help the AT's damage output. I'm worried about what the dev's have in store for changes to this AT....as they said they want to focus on the name portion...."Sentinel"...I don't want this AT to become a Defender with an Armor Secondary....ugh....not at all.

Yea, I saw that thread after I made this, however because it's still in the extremely early stages I think that adding my suggestions still applies. For me, after reading that they were considering actually scrapping Opportunity altogether, I was worried. It's a power that definitely needs "refined" and "tuned" to be more effective and made better....but losing it altogether (even with the thought of being "buffed" in other areas) is alarming to me. That power is one of the key things that makes us stand out as Sentinels in groups and solo play. Right now, it's kind of clunky though, and I think it could be refined to be made much more effective and much more useful. So, hopefully, as the Dev's gather to start coming up with solutions, they keep in mind some of my suggestions above.

Ah dang...really?? When do the Tanker changes go live?

I'm not sure how possible this is with the game in its current "private server" state...but if it is possible to update/tweak powersets, I have an amazing suggestion for the Sentinel. My first suggestion is more of a quality of life suggestion, while the other suggestions would be for the performance of the AT as a whole but might not be as important. Quality of Life Suggestion: Please, make the trigger for "Opportunity" be a clickable button that becomes active once your opportunity bar is built up high enough. Similar to "Domination" for Dominators, only we would have two separate Buttons: "Offensive" & "Defensive". My issue with the way the current system works is several fold - Firstly, when you do have your opportunity bar built up, unless you are ready to use it, you are forced to forego your tier 1 and tier 2 attacks until you feel it's time to use your inherent power. This, quite frankly, sucks. It removes a lot of potential DPS from the Sentinel during those periods. Being that the Sentinel is already an AT that is trying to find its place on a team, this makes it even harder to (you're lacking even more damage now behind a Blaster/Scrapper/Stalker) simply because the inherent mechanic you have nearly forces you to stop using 2 powers in your attack chain. Secondly, if you were to just "not care" that your Opportunity is up and keep blasting and you "use it" on, lets say, a minion mob or LT, you're NOT going to have it up and ready for the next boss that comes up. This effectively prevents you from carrying out one of your primary functions on a team - which is granting Offensive Opportunity on hard targets. Bad design. Thirdly, you are forced to take your Tier 1 attack if you want to carry out your primary function on a team. Literally, forced. This is kind of absurd for a primary powerset. While some primary powers are totally fine taking their first attack, others really shouldn't build around it. If you're a Sentinel, however, you are forced into it. The only other AT's that are forced into their Tier 1 attacks are Tankers, Dominators, and Defenders but that's because their tier 1 attacks are in their secondary powerset pools, so it makes sense. With a Sentinel, you are FORCED into both Tier 1 Powers from BOTH your primary and secondary powersets...and that just seems wrong. Fourthly, with the way the current system works, you truly have "less" control over when you are able to utilize Opportunity, due to he reasons stated above. Having it trigger off of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 attacks limits this class in SO many ways. By having Opportunity become a "clickable" power that worked more similarly to Domination, it would allow us to better utilize the strengths and power of this AT. We could find better "Opportunities" to utilize this power when it's needed, and not have to break our attack chains or alter our builds to do so. The suggestions below, are just overall suggestions, that I'm not sure could be or need to be implemented, but would help to give the Sentinel AT a little more ground in a team. Also, I'll list each suggestion as it's OWN separate suggestion, not combined. These would be "stand-alone changes." First Idea: Increase the -20% res from "Offensive Opportunity" to -25%. This is a small change, but would make a decent impact on a hard target, especially coupled with the AT's already inherent -5% res, for a total of -30% Res to a target. Not bad, and definitely noticeable by your teammates. Another idea is: Just combine both Offensive and Defensive Opportunity into ONE power. Besides the endurance return on Defensive Opportunity, it's really not all that much to write home about. Instead of the confusion, just go ahead an combine them into one singular power. Heck, even keep it tied to the Tier 1 Attack Power if you do this. One other idea: There is a glitch in the game, currently, that will sometimes allow you to keep chaining Opportunities. It's not common, and it's extremely hard to reproduce, but it DOES happen from time to time....where you can re-activate Opportunity just before it drops off....well, how about we allow this to happen ALL THE TIME?? As long as we are chaining attacks within the allotted time frame?? It's not guaranteed that you will keep your opportunity up since it requires you to continuously move and attack in order to do so, but the possibility is there. So, lets capitalize on this "glitch" as its already in the game and actually make it a more functioning mechanic. Whenever this glitch happens, I always feel soooooo much more useful to my team, and I feel like I waste a LOT less Opportunities when I accidentally use a Tier 1/2 attack on something I didn't intend to. The glitch, could become a feature. Let's just capitalize on it and make it happen more often. Anyways...those are my suggestions. I absolutely LOVE this AT, one of my most fun toons so far. But, there are some QoL changes and adjustments that I would love to see in order to bring this AT into the fold more with groups/end-game content. Again, not sure if these kinds of AT/Powerset adjustments are possible on private servers, but if so, some of these options would definitely be helpful and warranted!! Thanks!!!

I agree with what you've said here. I'm really loving my StJ/SD Stalker right now. His damage is solid with the chains provided and Against All Odds +damage bonus is just the cherry on top 🙂 I've been leveling him up too, and he's been great in teams. I don't think I've seen anyone compare to my Single Target Damage on tough targets.

Thanks again @nihilii!! I like SD, but Bio does look reeeeally juicy too with it's +damage in the set as well. I think the only place where SD might shine "over" Bio is when I'm surrounded by like 6 or more enemies, as my damage bonus will be greater after Assassin Strike, and ramps up as high as +55% damage if I have 10 enemies around me. The only problem, is in a situation like that survivability without a healer/buffer becomes really risky, at least at my current level fighting +2 missions. The added +55% damage however, with Against All Odds on SD, does make me want to consider rolling an Elec/SD....the AoE carnage sounds like it would be pretty amazing 😄