evetsleep

I have a similar take, but it's Stone and Pretty (stone/EA)...love the crunch of both combos.

If you think it's fun I don't think it matters! That said stone is a great set, but be prepared to slot endurance reduction first in every power. Energy blast is an acquired taste. I'd look to slot kb->kd in your AOE attacks as a priority to avoid upsetting teammates if you're teaming.

I enjoy /rad (the new ninjas are SICK with it), but I think the biggest problem with the set that hasn't been mention (and for me is really the larger problem) is the 15ft radius of the toggle debuffs. Darkest Night is 25ft by comparison. Other sets like nature have a similar 15ft radius, so it's not unique to /rad. Just wish it was like darkest night.

I liked to call ninjas paper dragons... But now they are more like cardboard dragons. They actually are pretty solid with good defense and a self heal after the 2nd upgrade. Like all defense pet set they are easy street with a defense secondary. Secondaries like force field, ice, and time go particularly well. I personally would highly advocate for trick arrow or traps (I have all the above.. they're all fun). I do like unusual pairings too. Currently working on ninja/storm and it's every bit the chaos machine you'd expect. Next up will be the inconceivable pairing of ninja/sonic. Honestly you can't go wrong probably...pick a concept you like and go wild.

Pretty sure (but happy to be wrong) that the Gaussian's proc applies to you and not the pets. It's why some folks will put it in Thugs enforcers as a way to give them a little boost (not worth it IMHO).

Remember Ice Arrow does a lot of nasty things. Yes procced out it can do respectable damage, but the debuffs are quite nasty.

I have a few *\stone sentinels now and I will say \stone is thirsty. If you go the stone route, be prepared to slot in some IO's that give +END and a lot of end reducers. That said my fire\stone, psi\stone, and beam\stone are monsters. Beam can be a monster for single target damage no matter what you pair it with. For the pure fun factor I like sets where you can run in and nuke things that have a useful secondary effect and this often means pairing a melee nuke with a defense set. Super Reflexes is really nice if you like to live a little on the wild side (dp\sr is a classic now and for good reason), but energy aura and ninjitsu are nice compromises that provide heals and end recovery (at the expense of DDR). Maybe consider rad\(energy aura | ninjitsu) or sonic\(energy aura | ninjitsu). I have a sonic\energy aura and she tears into things and is pretty darn tanky. Set energize on auto and just run into spawns and nuke them and then stand back and take off what is left with the cones and stuff (if you can get past the sounds). Dark blast is nice since it has so many proccable attacks if that's you bag and the T9 -tohit can be really useful (I like to feel like I'm helping the team in some way at higher levels). Electric\Regen is easy street and I'd highly recommend it if you haven't given it a shot if you're looking for a version of electric blast that is a smooth ride from start to finish that hover blasts. I have given ice armor a solid try (dp\ice) and it's ok, but not where near as survivable as other defense based secondaries. My 2 inf

I really like defense secondaries. I have a seismic/super reflexes that is a ton of fun, but lives a little on the wild side with no true heal. If that feels a little risky, ninja would be a solid pairing. Of course there's always seismic/stone which probably is both thematic and functional.

Really! Neeto. I didn't know. Thanks for that. Helps minimize the alpha by starting with Flash Arrow. I thought the reverse power boost needed to be applied to improve the -tohit for those that resisted it.

Something to consider. Some mobs resist -tohit (only half of flash arrow is unresistable). If you cast poison gas first, then flash arrow it should make them resist -tohit by a lot less.

Boy you're going to get 100 different answers from 20 different people! What's fun is going to be different for everyone. That said I would offer two opinions: Melee pets: ninja/trick arrow. They used to be paper dragons....now they're more like cardboard dragons. Trick arrow pairs with them really well with Flash Arrow being the cornerstone of the set. The genjin will crumple from time to time, but they're easy enough to resummon and since the main survival bit comes from flash arrow, there are no shields to re-apply if you need to re-summon. It's TON of fun. Ranged: thugs/dark. Really dark maisma goes with everything, but thugs is sooo much fun. Especially the bruiser and footstomp. Between the high defenses from thugs and the debuffs from dark marry really well together. It's a fantastic pairing. Thugs/dark will be a little more tanky, but if you're willing to roll the dice a little ninjas can payoff with the fun factor they provide.

I normally blaze one and switch targets and if they didn't die I blaze them when they come back for more...or just push them into a wall and toast them into submission. I have a number of fire blast sentinels and that's generally how I've dealt with the repel to the point that I don't even notice it anymore.

Sure does.

Theft of Essence can indeed give you some endurance back, but on a single target heal it might not really be worth it. It's far more useable in powers that affect multiple targets so you get multiple proc chances (like Dark Regeneration, Twilight Grasp, and Transfusion).

I think you'll find that ninjas can go with just about anything now. To be a little crazy while testing on Brainstorm I made a number of different builds that, pre-page 5, you'd call me a madman. They ALL worked to varying degrees... Even full resist sets like sonic and thermal worked really well. I personally like trick arrow.

Not everything has to be a wrecking train. Some things can pass as just being fun. Even better if it's fun + effective. I have been having an absolute blast with my seismic/super reflexes sentinel and it performs reasonably good to for me. That's good enough for me.

I have a seismic/sr sentinel that is ground based and working out really well. It also has that constant CRUNCH like stone melee that makes it a lot of fun. It feels like one of those blast sets that can go with just about anything. I ran a few missions without putting KB2KD in Meteor and the yeeting that was occuring was hilarious. Things literally would get blown off screen and vanish. I've tried a few stone armor sentinels on Brainstorm pushed them to ~35. They're all extremely tight builds. I do like stone armor but every freaking power wants to be picked and slotted. Seems like it'd go better with a primary where there are a good number of skipable powers.

I agree with you to a point. Mainly the mercs attacks are the most skipable. The big winner, for me, are ninja bow attacks where each adds 3% crit chanceb across the board. Necro attacks spawning specters are nice, but not sure how helpful they really are yet other than a way to spread threat. So some of them have useful side effects and really don't have a huge slot requirements.

I know absolutely nothing but there are some builds/ATs that can do some pretty amazing things with procs. Whether that merits a rebalancing is debatable though. I enjoy it while it lasts. I for one love throwing out fully procced put Carrion Creepers in large spawns and seeing all the orange numbers 🙂

Dual pistols on Sentinel's is surprisingly good. It's particularly sexy with super reflexes, energy aura, or invulnerability (from my stable anyways). Bio is ok, but a bit squishy for a melee nuke. Of all the sentinel blast sets I have played dual pistols the most fun and it never gets old. It does lean a little heavy on procs, so the day that system gets revamped will probably sting.

This is the beta forums and should have the instructions you're looking for.

It's all pretty darn beautiful honestly. The one area where there is clearly some debate is the change to bots. The changes in particular to ninjas and mercs really will open the door to some really interesting builds. I do wonder what be to these changes will do to sets like thugs and demons when the same model is proliferated. But you're right the zombies are pretty dang interesting now. The new spin on soul extraction is particularly interesting. It's kind of akin to gang war in a way. Will be interesting to see how bad it can be abused.

Not really a numbers feedback, but of a general feedback. The stone armor set has so many goodies that when making some my normal test toons and pushing them to 35 (where I spend most of my time) makes for some extremely tight builds. This is true of almost all stone armor capable AT's. Almost all of stone armors powers are worth taking (and slotting) that any time I've made one it almost always results in some really tough choices. Not a criticism, but just an observation of someone who makes a LOT of alts. I realize this isn't an issue at 50, but 2/3's of the way there (where things tend to really slow down) builds are frustratingly tight.

Go over to Brainstorm and make a few different merc MMs to see what feels good. Currently there are page 5 changes on Brainstorm that buff Merc significantly. I have a number of Merc MM's. Traps and Trick Arrow are the stronger ones on live servers, but the page 5 stuff will toss that all up in the air.

Took one of my recent Sentinels out on Brainstorm (fire\inv) to see how he'd perform. One of the things I almost immediately noticed, compared to the production servers, is that he huffing a lot (low END). Admittedly he's still a baby (lvl 31), but even with (2) performance shifters (+END) and 1 Panacea (+HP/+END) and 1 Numina (+REGEN/+Recover) the removal of Defensive Opportunity (that I utilize all the time on live servers with some builds like this guy) seems to be very noticeable. I know that the vast majority of Sentinel's go for Offensive Opportunity on the production servers (even I do often), but some builds I prefer Defensive Opportunity since the extra HP and END makes this more ... manageable (secondaries like /SR and /INV typically benefit from this while leveling). I appreciate the capability that the new Opportunity gives, but it doesn't offer up any sort of compensation for losing Defensive Opportunity. Is that because most Sentinel's don't tend to use defensive opportunity, so it's considered a fair trade since it offers an all-out offensive based inherent? Most of the more popular builds use a secondary that has an endurance recovery built in so this may not be a big issue for some, but I'm surprised how much my proced out Fire/Inv Sentinel is gasping for air compared to how he performs on the live servers.