carnalchaos

Its the activation time on impale its a real killer. I keep looking at thorn barrage and get all excited but I am not sure how to get a decent attack chain out of it. (Plant/thorn) Maybe try working in more of minds controls but slotted for damage procs? Something like thorn barrage, mesmerize, dominate recycle if you can get the times that low? But I would try leaving out impale just because of its incredibly painful animation.

I love them for ranged damage with mez protection, that alone is worth the price of admission. I find them similar to scrappers a very good solo toon if you want to play by yourself and adequate on teams. Plus they have some real fun and inexpensive IO options so they are cheap to toughen up and increase damage on. I think perhaps their biggest "perk" is they show you how to blast properly. That is to say use the mob AI response and secondary effects to aid in your survival. I used to hate playing blasters and doms as I kept face planting which is the exact opposite of feeling super in my mind, butt playing sentinels turned on the light for me when it comes to ranged toons. I have played a lot more blasters and dominators since I returned. Good starter toon for new players, fun introduction to blasting sets, great toon if your slightly off your game that day and a fun addition to the game!

Isn't Ninjitsu a sentinel secondary or did corruptors get something really neat while I wasn't looking? I have heard people say that Time plays like an armor set and I can kind of see this argument. But if your really looking for the best defensive abilities on a blasting toon not sure you can trump a defensive armor sentinel. Ninjitsu is a bit clicky but has all the toys you could want, wow I ended up at DP/Ninjitsu...I thought for sure it was going to be time. So having said that I much prefer the sentinel armors with some damage boosting capability in particular, bio armor and fire armor. With some mid tier IO's you can easily push up on 50% damage buff.

Just ran a Moonfire task force with a petless MM that used the whip attacks and fighting pool. We were 4 missions in before I realized he was petless! He was really great, made me roll a demon MM just for the whips. Vas'xxxx something on Exceslior.

Both are fun! Trick Arrow tends to encourage you to play more at range and I think that gives it a nice boost to its survivability. I really enjoy trick arrow but cant seem to find a combo that I just have to play and I think its because it pushes you into one style of play. Plants is really fun and versatile but I agree that spore cloud toggle is very disappointing. It does look amazing making giant mobs grow mushrooms but the debuff is sub par. Gun to head, I pick Beam/Plant.

It will work from range but its got an awful lot of melee hard hitters you will be skipping over. Your life will change with energize which makes you a regen blaster. If you build for hit points and add in power boost before you click on energize you can get over 40 hp/sec pretty easily. I think you picked a fun combo! I would be very careful switching from a blaster to a sentinel the drop off in damage is significant and blasters are in a really great spot right now.

I personally love the teleport in and then dragon tail combo. Fun, stylish, decent damage and if you ever drop down for the lower task forces a real viable combo and defensive power. Any spot to squeeze in that FF+recharge proc is amazing too. You can steal slots from it to optimize your build else where but I would keep it if you are doing lower level stuff.

In my experience dominators are a bit of a late blooming toon even with all the damage options. It could be lack of slots but the recharge boosts are a big part of it too. Once you hit the thirties you get the slots you need and start working in the mid tier IO sets for recharge bonuses. Dominators really turn into engines of destruction at this point where you know what your key powers are and they are cycling fast enough you don't need much filler. For some reason some sets just don't feel really great on a dominator to me and I think it just comes down to how fast the main alpha breaker is on each set. Plant, Dark and Fire all really work great, seeds of confusion, terror and flashfire all feel like fast and reliable alpha breakers that with recharge slotting can be up for every fight. As a dom you will find yourself pushing the pace and opening a lot of combat if you don't have aggressive brutes or scrappers on a team. As dominators recharge and powers speed up anything that slows you down feels like a hindrance. Once you get perma-domination on one you will really fall in love with the AT. It gives perhaps one of the most rewarding end game experiences and changes to game play that I have found. You will start wondering about other combos and what they will be like at perma-dom and you will be hooked.

I like Sentinels and enjoy the combination of ranged damage with status protection and some shields. It is fun. Having said that the Sentinel blast layouts are almost identical. It needs some variety and spice, how we get that spice is what will make or break the arch type. Changing the inherent is the easiest thing to do and also perhaps the most boring. What I would really love to see is some variety in the primaries. I know its unlikely since the homecoming team doesn't have much time, but a true aoe control, buff, pet, or debuff in the place of one of the redundant blasts in each of the sets. Right now we are arguing over minor secondary effects and dps numbers, lets get spicy and step on every other arch types toes!

Also molten embrace has a chance to give a fire DOT to every attack. Not sure why you are arguing blasters do more damage, that's a big no duh. If you have played blasters then you know having status protection, a heal, endurance management and shields is kind of fun. I could never stick with blasters because of the lack of status protection and admire the heck out of anyone that leveled them to 50.

No, no he's right please buff fire armor its bad. Can I have more damage, and a better heal...maybe an absorbance shield. Definitely fix the endurance recovery power, I need more endurance. Ok I am not kidding on the last one, that needs to be fixed it's recharge is brutal. Telling people not to take burn? That's crazy talk if your not taking burn why even take fire armor its the entire trade off the set makes for lower numbers overall. Burn on teams has a different function, its a get off me right now power and fight me at range. It also can be used as a pseudo/control barrier between the melee and squishies since you will usually be in that area due to the reduced range anyways. Burn is awesome just don't think of it from brute/tanker perspective where if he mobs don't stay in it till it expires its wasted, its not. The damage is that good even a few seconds exposure to any mob is worth it and the fear is a valuable tool in your toolkit. All kidding aside I found water/fire to be an odd fit trying to jump in and out of range. If your familiar with how spines plays its got a similar feel, very active playstyle.

The real problem is the odd archetype mechanic and our damage seems to plateau in the 40s right as a lot of other archetypes are taking off or keep ramping up. Still a good build can solve a lot of problems. If all you want is higher damage I suggest you look at the secondary's not the primaries. The primaries are incredibly similar in layout with only Assault rifle, water and sonic bucking the trend of 2aoe, 1nuke, aim and single targets for the balance. In particular I would recommend bio-armor and fire armor both have damage boosting powers and if you add in assault you can hit 20/35% damage boost. I particularly love the devastation IO set because 4 gives you another 3% damage per singe target attack. I got to 50% damage on one sentinel which tickled me pink. Seriously I turned bright red and cackled like mad! Sapping is very viable and my favorite combo is Electric/Energy Armor. It does take a while to get going but very robust and got a tank/controller type feel as you dance in the middle of the mobs. I have an electric/ice armor that is languishing but it could work with heavy IO love if you have the cash. Electric blast feels fast and fun, plus the different color options are amazing.

Look you can make /electric armor work by spending a fortune on it or you could just make and electric/EA or Electric/IA sentinel. I have both in the low 40s and they both work well with the EA being clearly superior. EA is more cohesive set that lets you weather alpha much easier but it blooms later than IA in terms of sapping. I can see a world where a ton of time and IO's makes IA superior late game but EA works great for leveling. Either way both sets have two distinct advantages defense and a heal and that layering makes all the difference in the world. Electric Armor gets a lot of love for being able to cap more resistances than any other set except maybe DA but with a cap of 75 versus 90 you diminish the value of its biggest advantages. Defense/Heals/Absorb all give you time to sap and you need that with electrics aoe having such long animation times. I just don't see Electric Armor ending up a top performer, viable with a fortune in IO's but definitely limited.

Short circuit has such a ridiculous windup could you stealth in and get ball lighting and chain link fences off in same time frame? I am honestly curious I haven't tried this on my sapper. I really love the short time on chain link fences that's a really fun power but not sure how the endurance drain is on it. Also I will reiterate my prior point to squeeze in lighting field, I know with resistance set you don't want to eat the alpha but once you have them sapped its a great power to keep them sapped while you finish off the spawn.

Hiya welcome to the wonderful world of Sentinel's. I have looked at this combo several times and it looks pretty amazing. I would caution you about going defensive too early in the build you really want to slot up your attacks if your leveling this build up. If its being farmed up then don't worry about it. So as to water blast they are all good and early on as you level I would take them all. Once you start loading up on recharge you can trim some out and aqua bolt would be he one I drop as well too. Word of warning, currently only your first two attacks trigger opportunity so you will be limiting yourself slightly if you don't take them early. IMHO you need steam spray in there its really a heavy hitter with a wide cone and a decent timer. If anything I would maybe argue that whirlpool is the one to take out but I hesitate to recommend that since I don't fully understand the tidal mechanic minigame in the set. Bio armor is slightly different on Sentinels and I think its actually ideal in this form. Our heal is no longer a sapper type but a stand alone heal and with the low numbers on the res/def shields the set revolves around the absorbance shields and heal. So it blooms late but you are just fine using range and the base armors till then. Finally late game you can go a lot of different ways and really tank up the set as you did with fighting pool. I like s/l resistance along with f/c/e defense. With the two absorbance shields alternating up time you can skimp a lot on defense or resistance if you want. The layering effect is really powerful. Oh and athletic regulation is an incredible combination with hover it almost feels like regular speed flight...its not but its close. Close enough that you can probably drop fly as well to save a power pick. So the level 28 and 35 powers are somewhat optional but I almost always try to find a way to fit them both in. About the stances with the penalties on Sentinels I always run offensive or efficient and almost never the tank one. The level 35 bio armor power almost perfectly cancels out the penalty so I usually squeeze it in as my last power in the build. Also personal taste but you already took maneuvers and inexhaustible is such an amazing endurance recovery power that I would look to squeeze in assault as well. 35% damage boost is nothing to sneeze at and with devastations or purple sets you can squeeze out another 10-15% for an amazing 50ish percent boost to damage.

I'm dumb, reading is fundamental, sorry about that. Just really enthused over sentinels and sapping at the moment. I am not in love with electric blast for damage or sentinel damage levels overall at the moment. I would argue against trying to beef up a purely resist set simply because of the 75% cap we get. You will need some form of secondary mitigation and with this combo that kind of has to be sapping or defense. I hate the medicine pool on a resistance based armor set. Maybe work in maneuvers and swap epics to psychic so you can add mind link for a bit more defense? The aoe sleep in psychic is kind of sneaky powerful for breaking up the alpha or controlling adds.

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It looks like a fun combo! I have a couple sappers with ice armor and energy armor an they are really fun. I hate to say it but I really like the defense in EA over any other possibility for sapping but I have no idea how that will play out at +4. I am hovering at low thirties without spending a ton on IO's. I would try to work in the lighting field power to help keep the at zero endurance and maybe I am missing it but are you missing power sink? On my electric/EA its the four powers lighting ball, short circuit, energy drain and thunderous power that let me sap groups of mobs of endurance and its the first three that are my mainstays. I think power sink has to be in there.

Its a fun combo but dare I suggest to much AOE at the expense of single target damage? It feels a lot like spines in that regard. My argument is simply burn is so good you want to be using that as often as possible and the knockup attack (forgot name) lets you set that up perfectly. But the cone late in the set is amazing damage as well and is tricky to combo with burn. On teams you wont have time to setup burn and it is more defense than anything else but I questioned the fit enough to shelve it at 33. Fire armor is great on sentinels, just enough to keep you alive. Healing Flames is the cornerstone with decent resistances and great quality of life and of course the reason your here to begin with...burn! For leveling purposes I would work towards raising s/l resistance and working towards f/c defense with aegis. f/c defense is pretty easy to find and getting it to 15ish lets you pop a purple and be fairly rugged. For a top end build...eh no idea but if you find a good one for fire armor I am all ears. You can stack tough, weave and maneuvers but the number of toggles gets pretty ridiculous quickly. One of the things I enjoy about sentinels is for the most part 3/4 toggles and your pretty rugged.

I picked for the set hoping to find a gem in the making and to create a sapper toon with electricity and ended up wishing I had gone EA. I really am questioning whether or not the set is working properly. In particularly the absorbance shield which seems like one of the key design features to make it different. The absorbance shield is tiny I would compare it to the blasters versions in temporal and marital but I am not sure its working. Its definitely slower on recharging between hits. Ran just it and wet ice and when I got hit I got hit for full damage. Maybe I don't fully understand how absorbance is supposed to work but I was lead to believe it would mititgate hits up the level of damage on the shield or block one hit altogether. It was a very impromptu test against a DE in founder falls but when he hit me it was for the same number each time. I was expecting to see a partial damage value or an indication that my absorbance shield blocked the attack. Maybe a successful absorbance shield hit reads as a miss in the combat log? Just no mention of the absorbance value doing anything. Overall the set works but I cant in good conscience recommend it over EA. The two types of armor overlap in function so much that I would rather have EA's superior quality of life powers even if Icy Bastion is wicked fun.

I am afraid I agree, I lost interest in the combo in the mid 30s. The damage is just so lackluster and the single attack chain feels clunky. The -def is noticeable on a good team but its just not enough to make the primary competitive. If a high level build like you created cant keep you interested then I feel safe in moving onto a different combo. I do like the radiation secondary but will need to find a different primary to combo it with.

Like a few folks alluded to here it actually made the low level zones and content important. I had a lot of fun on low level teams in Perez park and Kings Row and you spent real time in those zones. You appreciated your travel power and looked forward to level 14 something fierce. Pickup groups was a big part of the game an something I really love, trying to find a way to mesh your powers with how others are playing and benefit the team. It was revolutionary versatility in a game or it was to me :). Having said that putting in all that time to get to the mid twenties and discover the powers you were excited about sucked and had to start over was brutal. It did force all of us onto the forums and to talk to one another more and probably was key to building such a tight knit community.

I think throwing out ideas here is useful brainstorming. Maybe towards end of it we could summarize them and setup a poll? I liked the mention of a perception power and making us a kind of foil for stalkers but agree that is somewhat limited in pve. Maybe a team wide debuffing removal tool? A clicky break free for the whole team with a perception buff attached? Squishies would love us, and would give us a friendly team power with some tactical usefulness. Its strong but it doesn't really benefit us since we get status protection anyways, probably too strong though.

Crazy middle of the night idea but I was thinking about how the sentinel bar reminds me of the dominator bar and the idea popped into my head what if we got an adaptive version of Domination? Only instead of control power it boosts three different team friendly options in an aura around the sentinel. So we would have three greyed buttons that would light up when Sentinelization (eh its late) is maximized. They would be something like the following: 1. Damage Buff-say 10% damage for 20 seconds in 25ft aura (Teammates and friendlies) 2. Damage Debuff-say minus 7.5%damage for 20 seconds in 25ft aura (Enemy mobs) 3. Heal/End in an aura-say 20%heal & 20%end in 25ft aura (Teammates and friendlies) This would seemingly use the existing mechanic to give us a team friendly power as well as giving the player options. Start of battle and the bar is full power up the team, mid battle debuff mobs and end of battle heal/restore team to speed them along. Also nothing ridiculously overpowered number wise that we are stepping on the support toons toes. I really like this idea since it kind of caters to our in between range/playstyle. We are either between the squishes an melee or up close with the melee. Another option I find less appealing but would be to brute it out. Make the different buffs only for the self so when sentinelization (its growing on me) is up our damage would leap forward but fall back when not active. I think this would work and be fun but I personally prefer the team support option. There would have to be some precautions to prevent it from becoming abused through a high recharge perma build. I think the easiest would be to make the buffs lower so they could be tweaked upwards and downwards as playtesting indicates. Perhaps most importantly this seems like a fun solution that wouldn't be a total rework since the first half of the mechanic is already in place and might be easier to implement by the devs.

I have baby one of these at level 29 and I am enjoying the combo so far. A couple things jumped out at me, 1. Cosmic Burst 5 slotted? I love this power and think it deserves six 2. Shouldn't aim get at least two slots? 3. Do we need this much recharge? It seems really high and we might be able to sacrifice some of the recharge for more defense or health/regen? What are you shooting for, alternating Atomic blast/ground zero every other spawn? 4. Why stealth, superspeed and invisibility? Is this a pvp thing? 5. Should fire cages have slots for aoe? We don't have a rain attack that they will run from so if its a place holder isn't there a more useful one? (I honestly don't know). Now I have some questions for you to help me with, whats the best chain of single target attacks? Cosmic Burst/Xray/Proton stream? That feels like what I would want to shoot for is this why your loading up the recharge? Also I have hover and like the combo of electron haze with a KB->KD IO and irradiate from over their heads can I combine that with GFS circle at later levels or do I have to be on the ground to execute that? Is fallout shelter worthy of six slots I thought it was just our status protection? Keep on pumping out those neutrons!