stryve

Personally I've found the trick for Traps on fast moving teams is to cycle one, maybe two traps per fight until you run up against a hard target. Trying to get everything out every fight just means constantly playing catch-up without accomplishing much.

Knowing SirBronco, it's more likely to be a Regen Stalker. In any case, here's a rundown of non-temp self-rez powers. Armor Sets: Dark Armor - Soul Transfer Fiery Aura - Phoenix Rising Regeneration - Revive Willpower - Resurgence Power Pools: Presence - Unrelenting Ancillary Pools: Blaster Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Controller Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Defender Dark Mastery - Soul Transfer Defender Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Corrupter Dark Mastery - Soul Transfer Corrupter Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Dominator Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Mastermind Fire Mastery - Rise of the Phoenix Epic ATs: Peacebringer Luminous Aura - Restore Essence Warshade Umbral Aura - Stygian Return I might have missed something, but that should be all of them. Overall, looks like you can only get two self-rez powers on a character without temps. Unrelenting from the Presence Pool (an easy pick for you), and then one from either an armor set or an Ancillary Power Pool.

Beam Rifle comes to mind, with the snipe being exchanged for a Targeted AoE. Also, Disintegrate gives a 12.5% damage boost, which can be stacked once for a total of 25%.

Quick build I threw together. Undoubtedly there's a lot of room for improvement, but it should at least give a starting point. Hero Sentinel Build plan made with Mids' Reborn v3.7.5 rev. 21 ────────────────────────────── Primary powerset: Assault RifleSecondary powerset: Super ReflexesPool powerset (#1): LeapingPool powerset (#2): FightingPool powerset (#3): LeadershipPool powerset (#4): FlightEpic powerset: Fire Mastery ────────────────────────────── Powers taken: Level 1: Disorienting Shot A: Superior Opportunity Strikes: Accuracy/Damage3: Superior Opportunity Strikes: Damage/RechargeTime3: Superior Opportunity Strikes: Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime5: Superior Opportunity Strikes: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance5: Superior Opportunity Strikes: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 1: Focused Fighting A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed7: Luck of the Gambler: Defense7: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Endurance9: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Endurance/Recharge9: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Recharge Level 2: Focused Senses A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed13: Luck of the Gambler: Defense13: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Endurance15: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Endurance/Recharge15: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Recharge Level 4: Buckshot A: Superior Sentinel's Ward: Accuracy/Damage17: Superior Sentinel's Ward: Damage/RechargeTime17: Superior Sentinel's Ward: Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime19: Superior Sentinel's Ward: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance19: Superior Sentinel's Ward: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime21: Superior Sentinel's Ward: RechargeTime/Chance for +Absorb Level 6: Agile A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed21: Luck of the Gambler: Defense23: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Recharge Level 8: Slug A: Apocalypse: Damage23: Apocalypse: Recharge/Accuracy25: Apocalypse: Damage/Recharge/Accuracy25: Apocalypse: Damage/Endurance27: Apocalypse: Chance of Damage(Negative) Level 10: Master Brawler A: Preventive Medicine: Heal27: Preventive Medicine: Heal/Endurance29: Preventive Medicine: Endurance/RechargeTime29: Preventive Medicine: Heal/RechargeTime31: Preventive Medicine: Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance31: Preventive Medicine: Chance for +Absorb Level 12: Aim A: Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: Chance for Build Up31: Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: To Hit Buff/Recharge Level 14: Combat Jumping A: Kismet: Accuracy +6% Level 16: Enduring A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed33: Luck of the Gambler: Defense33: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Recharge Level 18: Boxing (Empty) Level 20: Dodge A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed33: Luck of the Gambler: Defense34: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Recharge Level 22: M30 Grenade A: Bombardment: Damage34: Bombardment: Accuracy/Recharge/Endurance34: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge36: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge/Endurance36: Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage Level 24: Quickness A: Invention: Run Speed Level 26: Flamethrower A: Bombardment: Damage36: Bombardment: Accuracy/Recharge/Endurance37: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge37: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge/Endurance37: Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage Level 28: Evasion A: Reactive Defenses: Defense39: Reactive Defenses: Defense/Endurance39: Reactive Defenses: Endurance/RechargeTime39: Reactive Defenses: Defense/RechargeTime40: Reactive Defenses: Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime40: Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resist Damage Level 30: Ignite A: Bombardment: Damage40: Bombardment: Accuracy/Recharge/Endurance42: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge42: Bombardment: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge/Endurance42: Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage Level 32: Full Auto A: Ragnarok: Damage43: Ragnarok: Damage/Recharge/Accuracy43: Ragnarok: Recharge/Accuracy43: Ragnarok: Damage/Endurance45: Ragnarok: Chance for Knockdown Level 35: Fire Cages A: Gravitational Anchor: Immobilize45: Gravitational Anchor: Immobilize/Recharge45: Gravitational Anchor: Immobilize/Recharge/Accuracy46: Gravitational Anchor: Immobilize/Endurance46: Gravitational Anchor: Chance for Hold Level 38: Maneuvers A: Shield Wall: +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)46: Shield Wall: Defense/Endurance48: Shield Wall: Defense/Endurance/Recharge Level 41: Tactics A: Adjusted Targeting: To Hit Buff/Endurance48: Adjusted Targeting: To Hit Buff/Endurance/Recharge Level 44: Assault A: Invention: Endurance Reduction Level 47: Tough A: Gladiator's Armor: TP Protection +3% Def (All)48: Gladiator's Armor: End/Resist50: Steadfast Protection: Resistance/+Def 3% Level 49: Weave A: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance50: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance/Recharge50: Red Fortune: Defense ────────────────────────────── Inherents: Level 1: Brawl (Empty) Level 1: Opportunity Level 1: Sprint A: Invention: Run Speed Level 2: Rest A: Invention: Interrupt Reduction Level 1: Swift A: Invention: Run Speed Level 1: Health A: Panacea: +Hit Points/Endurance11: Numina's Convalesence: +Regeneration/+Recovery11: Miracle: +Recovery Level 1: Hurdle A: Invention: Jumping Level 1: Stamina A: Performance Shifter: Chance for +End

I actually have a Seismic/Electric Sentinel that is a lot of fun. Seismic does so much KD it adds a fair chunk of mitigation, which helps compensate for the lower resistance caps. Plus Energize is a decent fast-recharge heal that also grants global Endurance Discount and Regen for 30 seconds (same as on Energy Aura). That combined with +MaxEnd/Regen from Charged shield and End Drain/Recovery Debuff Resistance from Static Shield mean you don't usually have to worry about running out of blue even if you skip Power Sink

Also keep in mind you can anchor Shifting Tides on an ally or pet, which is one reason Marine pairs so well with Masterminds and Controllers. Barrier Reef works alright for that, even if you have to recast both every few minutes. Still saves some time on the per-fight setup.

Electric and Arsenal Control both have AoE Sleep patches that will continuously reapply Sleep for their duration. Don't remember the specifics on Electric, But Sleep Grenade from Arsenal just needs a few Sleep/Recharge SOs to be reliably permanent.

A few things about Enduring on Sentinels. First, Enduring grants Psionic DEF, Endurance Recovery, DDR, and scaling Damage Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy). Enduring replaces Lucky from SR on other Archetypes (except Stalkers, who swap Lucky with Hide), trading Auto AoE DEF for Auto Psionic DEF and Endurance Recovery (the loss of AoE DEF is added into Evasion, the AoE toggle, but that does mean if your toggles drop you loose all AoE DEF). DDR and scaling Damage Resistance are both present in Lucky on other Archetypes. The Psionic DEF does cover one of the holes built into SR, but the values are low enough it's not much of a difference even enhanced to ED cap. Considering how rarely one encounters Psionic attacks with no Positional component, it's probably worth slotting DEF Enhancement for the increase to total DDR more than the Psionic DEF itself. The Recovery increase is pretty great (30% boost base, compared to 25% from Stamina), and the lack of any built-in sustain is absolutely a weakness of SR on other Archetypes.

I've had a lot of fun with Storm/SR, personally. Solo I generally stand in the middle Storm Cell / Cat 5 to encourage mobs to stick around, though Chain Fences helps with that once it's available. Picture: Text:

So, to start off I don't consider myself an expert builder. I do well enough, but there are plenty of folks around who can eke out a lot more from their builds. In fact, I really got started reading through the old 'Collaborative Project: A guide To Sentinel' thread. The thread is no longer stickied, but still has lots of great content. You just have to be aware of what has been deprecated by the changes in Issue 27, Page 5 a couple years ago (mostly any mention of Offensive/Defensive Opportunity and the AT's low base damage modifier; Armor sets came out unchanged). If you want a really in depth look at Dual Pistols, I highly recommend oldskool's post here. He updated it in May of 2023, so it's fully compliant with the set as it currently exists. For Energy Aura, Sunsette has a great writeup here. That one was never updated, but the Armor set is unchanged. I built my fist sentinel using that as a guide (BR/EA), and didn't need to change anything after the Sentinel balance pass Issue 27, Page 5. I do have a few bits of advice from my own experience. Most folks have their own build style and preferences; I lean towards set bonuses over procs, and tend to prioritize Global Recharge, even if I often skip taking Hasten. I also spend a lot of time Exemplared so I prefer builds that work all the way up, not just as a post 50 Incarnate. For Sentinels specifically, I try to get a seamless three-power single target rotation. Dual Pistols: Empty Clips is a cone but does decently in a single target rotation before Executioner's Shot is available, the the End cost is a bit steep. Suppressive Fire works best when running one of the Swap Ammo toggles. Using Standard Ammo (no toggles) at level 50, you do two single digit ticks of Lethal Damage, and a Stun. Cryo and Incendiary Ammo both do around 200 Cold or Fire, while Chemical Ammo does around 100 Toxic. They also swap the Stun for a Hold. Here's a screenshot of the Power Details from my DP/WP Sentinel, confirmed in actual combat: Piercing Rounds is very similar to Piercing Beam from Beam Rifle. Extremely narrow 3 target cone, essentially a line. In practice a single target power that occasionally gets 1 or 2 extras as a bonus. High damage per hit, 9.6% Resistance Debuff, very long cast time. Piercing Rounds is actual worse on that last: 2.5 seconds as opposed to 2.33. I like Piercing Beam but could never get into Piercing Rounds. Guess that little bit extra Cast Time is just too much. Hail of Bullets is a PBAoE, which is little annoying since everything else in the set can be used at range. It does give a short Positional DEF boost, though. Cryo Ammo gives a 33% Global Range Boost while toggled. I am uncertain how that interacts with other Global Range Boosts (such as from the ATO sets, or from Bio Armor Offensive Adaptation), but it's still nice to have. Energy Aura: Like all Sentinel Armor sets, Energy Aura is a little different than on other ATs. For instance, there is no Stealth built into the set. However, different does not equal worse. Kinetic Dampening is equivalent to Dampening Field, an auto RES power. Trades END Drain RES for Negative, Toxic, and Slow RES. Energize comes earlier than on other ATs, but is just as good. Main thing is really the END Discount (60%), so I always try to get the recharge equal to the 30 second duration. Entropy Shield is your Mez Protection toggle, but also provides DDR, End Drain RES, and a flat 20% Global Recharge Bonus. Takes no sets, only Recharge and End Reduction enhancements, so slap a single End Reduction SO/IO in and call it good. Power Armor is an auto power that increases HP and resistance to all damage types. Not huge amounts of either, but still well worth the pick. Repelling Force is another auto power, this time for all Defense. Again, not much, but still well worth it. Power Drain is the only power in the set that requires being in melee with enemies. Power Drain has no +DEF component, unlike Energy Drain from other ATs. Strictly self +End, foe -End/Recovery. Situationally useful, more so if your End Recovery can't keep up with expenditure. Overload is a typical old-school T9: huge bonus, crippling fall-off, base recharge long enough to make even 50% uptime difficult. In conjunction with Power Drain it is possible to manage the fall-off, but it isn't exactly recommended. Skip or use as a mule for set bonuses/unique IOs. Now, for actual builds, here's one I threw together tonight. Not sure what your preference for travel powers is, but Combat Jumpin/Super Jump could be swapped for Hover/Fly without issue. Really, everything past level 26 is a matter of preference, so don't feel obliged to hold to everything exactly. Also, I usually get my Primary and Secondary out of the way first, but it wouldn't hurt anything if you wanted to shift things to get a travel power in sooner. 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I've done both DP and EA on Sentinels, though not together. Both are solid sets, in my opinion. In general you can make EA quite survivable without heavy investment, leaving more room offensive slotting. I'll try to put together some more specific advice when I get home from work.

Don't forget the 'Shock' mechanic added to Electric Blast a while back. Basically, the lower a target's End bar is, the higher chance an Electric Blast power will trigger extra Energy damage (approximately 20% of the base power damage), along with an extra -50% Recovery. Not clear on the exact formula, but in practice once you get an End bar under 5-10% full Shock will always trigger. I've found this to be a pretty significant damage boost on my own Sapper Defender, running Cold Domination/Electric Blast (slotted for EndMod in all attacks, rather than Damage). Pretty sure all versions of Electric Blast include +endmod in Charge Up (Aim clone). Between that and the built-in -Recovery, I consider Electric Blast to be the best option for any Sapper build. Even kitted out for Damage rather than EndMod, my Electric Blast Sentinel can significantly affect AV End bars. I also ran a Dr. Kahn TF with an all Electric group a couple months ago. We didn't have a good spread of debuffs to go with the sapping so it took a while to whittle Reichmann down, but he spent the vast majority of the fight just standing there staring at us. So it absolutely is a viable tactic, if you really lean in to it.

I've been playing around with comparative testing with my Storm/SR Sentinel off and on since build one, just to get a feel for the proposed changes. Per Player-1 Sentinels were not affected by the Storm Cell bug, so that has not colored my experiences. The toon is level 50, with full IO sets and Tier 4 Incarnates for everything but Judgement. For context, I actually enjoy Storm Blast as it stands on Live, in spite of it's shortcomings. I realized early on just how much the set incentivizes using primarily it's own powers to increase the rate of Storm Cell and Cat 5 procs, so I went Sentinel with a non-clicky armor (in addition to just plain liking Sentinels in general and SR in particular). Things tend to scatter under Cat 5, , but the armor lets me dive into the middle of groups to keep their attention, and Sentinel Ancillary Pools have a good selection of AoE Immobilize powers to mitigate spread (I went with Chain Fences for theme, and also the fast animation). Finally, Storm Cell is slow and has unreliable target selection so I built for recharge to be able to recast it at need (this also lets me keep Cat 5 up almost constantly, and use Intensify often). Most of my comparative testing has been Peregrine Radios for equivalent groups, so Arachnos and Carnies. However, for a more controlled comparison I ran the first few missions in Levantera's "Join The Vanguard" arc at +4x8 this morning. I have found that the proposed changes are an improvement over Live in most every metric, with combat feeling smoother and groups being cleared more quickly. However, RC3 is a significant step back from previous builds. The Storm Cell strike lockout increasing from 1 to 2 seconds, and Cat 5 strike lockout increasing from 5 to 6 seconds, is very noticeable. Especially when a group starts getting down to just the surviving hard targets. The normalization of damage between Storm Cell procs may also have an effect here: it's a minor buff for the Spread proc, but a minor decrease for Split and a major reduction for Focused. Additionally, the increased odds for additional targets as a fight goes on is a little hard to parse out what is actually happening. How quickly do the odds increase? Do the odds reset when Storm Cell is recast? At least with the damage and lockout normalized between procs it won't matter if you have fewer than 4 targets, since it doesn't matter which hits them. As an anecdote, last week (RC1) I was running Carnie Radio missions on Live then comparing to Beta. At the time, it felt noticeably smoother and faster on Beta than Live, which was satisfying. Later I realized I had Notoriety set to +3x8 on Live, but +4x8 on Beta. After RC3 came out I tried again, and felt about the same or maybe a bit less effective on Beta compared to Live, but that time both were set to +3x8. The last thing I wanted to discuss is Chain Lightning. I'm not the best at picking individual effects out of the scrum, especially when things get as busy as Storm Blast does at high levels, so I don't often notice how well it's performing. There's lot less going on at low levels, so it was easier to see what was happening during the Posi 1 and 2 I ran on Live with some friends yesterday. I definitely noticed missing the first target several times, which does feel pretty bad. On the other hand, I also noticed several instances of the chain spreading through an entire group stung out along a passage, which was pretty amazing. A really well placed ranged cone might have been able to pull something similar off but not easily, and cones have a lower target cap anyway. That said, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have happened at all with a 10ft jump radius; every time I saw it happen there were multiple gaps that would've been too wide. In summary the increased Accuracy is great to help prevent disheartening misses, and the reduced Recharge makes attack chains a little smoother, but the decreased Jump Distance is going to hurt a lot in anything but a tightly packed group (I'm not familiar enough with chain mechanics to comment on decay, delay, and fork changes).

Did some more Sleep Grenade testing at both low and high levels on Release Candidate 2. First, I finally had the Combat Log open when Sleep Grenade failed to trigger: looks like there's a To Hit check when Sleep Grenade is fired, and if it misses nothing else happens. 95% chance to hit with one +3 Acc SO, so it's no wonder we weren't seeing it often. Also posted over in Bug Reports. Decided to see what Sleep Grenade looked like right out of the box, so I went Street Sweeping in Atlas Park at level 4. Only a single Acc SO slotted here. A little dicey on such a large group, but it worked. Next jumped to level 5 so I could slot one Sleep and one Recharge SO as well. This went a lot more smoothly. Still have to be wary of Bosses, or other Sleep resistant mobs, but still pretty smooth. Also at level 5, 0x4 Lost with Bosses. (not shown is the first try against this group, where Sleep Grenade missed and I didn't notice. Que frantic fleeing). Jump up to level 10 to see how things work with Liquid Nitrogen. I reiterate: still have to be wary of Bosses. Especially when there's two in a group. The rest of the group was held up enough to recover, though. 0x4 Hellions with Bosses. Last of the low level tests was my old nemesis (not to be confused with Nemesis), Vazhilok. Sleep Grenade really showcased it's improvements over Build 4 here, though Smoke Canister helped as well. Level 16 0x4 Vazhilok with bosses, though none in this group. On the high end, I started with a +1x8 Safeguard Mission. The Arachnos bank robbers were a bit too frantic of a fight to showcase Sleep Grenade, so I went and found a nice group of Carines outside. Deliberately restricted myself to just Smoke Canister, Liquid Nitrogen, and Sleep Grenade until most of the group was down. +1x8 Carnival of Shadows with bosses. Next I took on the new Council. Didn't restrict myself as much here, but still shows how much of a group can be shut down just with Arsenal Control. +1x8 Council with bosses. Finally, an unrestricted run against new Circle of Thorns at max difficulty. +4x8 Circle of Thorns with bosses. Overall I have to say Sleep Grenade is now in a pretty good place. With only minor slotting it's very reliable at low levels, and remains useful all the way to end game (though I still prefer slotting for Slow rather than Sleep at 50). This obviously will be subjective, depending on playstyle and player preference. I haven't tested things with a team yet, but I expect it to be at least as effective as Static Field from Electric Control, which I do consider worth using in teams. I saw some complaints early on about damaging sleeps, but personally I like that three of the five AoE powers in Arsenal Control can reliably trigger Smoke Canister's Confusion. Only Smoke Canister itself and Tear Gas can't. It wouldn't really make sense for the former, and the recharge is too long to pull it off anyway. For the later, there isn't much use for Confusion when the enemies are busy purging their last three meals.

Pretty minor, but looks like some text was left over from "Devices - Field Operative" when Clocking Device is activated.