drbuzzard

Sentinel Powersets Advice part 1 : Primary Ok, I've played through all the primaries and secondaries to a reasonable extent by this point, and I figure it might help some people if I proffered a bit of advice about the sets. I have earlier guides in here, but things have changed and experienced has been gained. Ignore those, profit from my experience. This will, of course, be based upon my preferences, but also will be numbers based since I'm rather a performance oriented kind of player. For the offensive side this will be primarily focused on single target DPAS, which is damage per activation second. This is what ultimately defines how much damage you can do with a power because chains of attacks incorporating optimal DPAS attacks will take down a hard target the fastest. Hence sets which have a bunch of high DPAS attacks will be the kings of taking out AVs , monsters and other high HP enemies. One caveat, animation times listed in game are not animation times in practice. Due to artifacts of how things are actually animation and the game clock, there is a distortion which ups animation times, and it falls proportionally heavier on faster attacks. This is known as ArcanaTime based on the initial poster who discovered it. You can look this up or use a formula to calculate it- (round(time/0.132)+1)*0.132 Some sets are more focused on AOE, but really with the AOE target caps on sentinels (6 for (most)cones, 10 for bursts), you will always lag a bit in that are. The other thing which makes up in mass damage is the fast recharging tier 9 nuke, which puts you back on the map. I tend to build sentinels around recharge simply because I want the nuke up as often as possible. There's a few sets which can be solid on AOE (lots of 10 target attacks), but they usually give up some on DPAS. My other considerations are convenience of play (is there a gimmick required for this to work well), and aesthetics. Personally I don't really like sets which require you to build a stack of X to make Y work better. I generally like sets which just perform well all the time no matter if I'm playing like a methed up squirrel at a keyboard. I'm playing a game, and beyond the effort of carefully maximizing my build, I don't want to work too hard about playing to my powers when I'd rather spend the brain effort of analyzing and dispatching threatsI also prefer to play by hover blasting. Some sets make this either much less convenient or near impossible. As to aesthetics, I like things which aren't excessive in their graphics, and there's some amount of appeal to things which look like old school comic book art. This last bit is of course just my taste and yours may well differ. I will treat each set individually in a fairly condensed fashion. There's plenty of resources which will provide the numbers (even in game, but those do need some caution) in game or out. I'll start with offensive sets, then defensive. I will also include some useful binds which should make your life easier. I don't use mids, so I don't make builds for people. I concoct a build as I play the character up through the levels. The following advice is very general, you should look up builds on the sentinel forum after that, or devise your own. Archery: This set has a lot of high DPAS attacks. Stunning shot, perfect shot and blazing arrow are all excellent DPAS, not sentinel top, but good for all being in the same set . The tier 9 nuke is nice because it's ranged , but it is somewhat low damage with a 95 second recharge for some reason. You will want to use a bind like /macroimage Rain_of_arrows "Rain of arrows" "powexeclocation target Rain of arrows" (there's an error in this with the token in your tray, but the button will work). This macro will enable you to work the power by picking a target and hitting the button rather than picking a target location. Alternatively you can use /bind lshift "pow_exec_name rain of arrows" which will drop the power on a space designated by a shift left click. One thing to note about this set, snap shot is pure crap, skip it. It has horribly low DPAS. Update: The tier 9 is now on the normal 90 second recharge. but the damage is still poor for a T9 sentinel attack. It is in fact the worst of them all. I've since made a new alt using it, and it does work quite well especially if you make a nice chain of perfect shot, stunning shot, and blazing arrow. This is a devastating single target chain which will melt bosses. The tier 9 still has the issue of variability. It's potentially 1, 2, or 3 hits of damage, and it rather disappointing if you get just the one, and the values are comparatively nerfed compared to other ATs. The variability also isn't even in chance so you get an average of 2 hits which would make it acceptable, you get somewhere in the range of maybe 1.5 on average. Assault Rifle This is a very AOE focused set (3 cones, and 1 burst). The set is very strong on single target DPAS now with 2 attacks in the 70s and ignite at 133. However you cannot chain the three by themselves without a fair sized gap, so you need to squeeze in something appreciably lower (60 DPAS or so) . IMO it's a good idea to put a knockback to knockdown IO into M30 grenade to avoid scattering targets. The set is a nice simple drive where you just target and shoot, no need for any binds. If you are more concerned with AOE, this set is fine, though you can do better. Also the nuke is a bit on the weak side being the next worst to archery. Nuke are remarkably consistent across sentinel T9s except archery and AR. The problem with the nuke is an issue of odd math in their pursuit of balance. I won't get into it in detail, but the other nukes have a high core damage area, and full auto instead has a chance of a damage boost to that core damage value. Note on archery and AR: On blasters the tier 9 nukes actually recharge faster (60 secs) and do lots more damage. Also since they do lethal damage, that can be a pain since by end game many, many critters highly resist lethal damage. Beam Rifle This set is a touch deceptive in the numbers because in game published numbers at character creation roll in the damage over time effects of disintegrate condition into all attacks where it applies. This distorts how good a lot of the attacks look. In a sustained chain of attacks, as on an AV, it is valid so for hard targets the set is good as long as you have disintegrate as part of your chain. The set is also appreciably better in AOE than the blaster version as the snipe is traded for a neat chaining burst power-refractor beam. The nuke is a solid ranged nuke with good damage. The disintegrate mechanic where it 'infects' other targets on its own in a random fashion is kind of fun to watch. This set gets a 2 thumbs up for being both effective and fun to play. Dark Blast The set is loaded with utility function, but seems to trade off damage for this. All attacks apply a -to hit debuff, which should help keep you alive, and you even have a self healing attack. . My view, however, is your secondary is to keep you alive, and your primary is to keep them dead. I don't like crossing these things over. The high DPAS attacks are pretty good (antumbral beam and abyssal gaze), but not top tier among sentinel single target attacks. The nuke is a PBAOE which makes you mix it up to deliver it. This isn't all that hard to pull off usually, but if you're accustomed to hover blasting safety, it greatly increases risk. Not my favorite set. I did a replay on it recently, and was definitely in 'meh' territory. It's not outright bad, but you can do better. Dual Pistols Again we have a set which gets distorted numbers from the in game listing. Once you get to swap ammo, it has appreciably better DPAS than is listed on the in game numbers. The animations are often kinda long, but the damage from incendiary ammo keeps up the DPAS. Average DPAS is pretty high, though none of the shots are top tier in sentinel single targets. The nuke is another PBAOE. For me I can't stand the animations since you're playing games with guns when you should be shooting, not showing off. I probably would like the set a lot more if they had alternate animations where you just take time to aim instead of the odd stuff. If you can stand the animation and don't mind the PBAOE nuke, it's not a bad set. Electrical Blast Yet again we have a set which gets distorted impressions from the in game numbers. This time it is because there's a mechanic in electrical blast now where an infection shock is applied by attacks and they count this under your single target damage. However, even when you take this out the single target damage is very solid. The burst AOE actually has great DPAS itself, which is an oddity for AOE powers. There is a hold included which is nice, and the nuke is a good ranged one. I like the look of the lightning bolts a good bit, so this one stands as my top sentinel attack set. The shock mechanic pads your AOE damage, and your attack chain is good for single targets. One thing to note, don't skip voltaic sentinel. This is an odd little power which produces a toggle based pseudo pet which blasts with the tier 1 blast from time to time. It is a nice bit of free damage, though you can't really predict what it will bother to target. It is indestructible, so you don't have to worry about losing it. While the damage isn't really all that hot, it does build up the shock mechanic for you and that's well worth the power slot and toggle cost. Energy blast The damage numbers for the set are actually legitimate in game. The DPAS is OK. Nothing is top tier, but nothing is awful. The tier 9 nuke is PBAOE. You do suffer for doing knockback in varying degrees. Some powers do it all the time, some do it as a random chance. Personally I dislike knockback, and having it in every power is like a penalty to me. Aesthetically it's a great set with a strong feel of Jack Kirby or George Perez in the blasts with little bubbles in them (look at the art and you will get me). If you can deal with the knock back, or even like it, the set is OK, though not top tier. Fire Blast This set is probably the damage king. It has 4 single target attacks where 3 of the 4 are very solid. A recent revision to the animation of fire blast cut the time substantially, and it is now 70 DPAS or so. This means you can chain fire blast, blaze, and blazing blast for a very mean chain. It is not possible to remove knockback from blazing blast since it is both knockback and repel, so don't waste any effort on it. The nuke is also PBAOE (but high damage). Blazing blast is what turns me off about the set, if you either like that or can deal with it, you can't object to the set's damage. Fireball is another very high DPAS AOE attack. The other AOEs are a rain and a narrow cone, so I consider this less of a great AOE set than it is commonly billed as. Looks are great with lots of burnination to make you happy. You won't likely go wrong picking this set. Ice Blast The strange numbers from the game strike again. For reasons I don't understand, both in game listing and City of Data (which takes from the game database) list Chilling Ray as hitting twice when in fact it does not. This doubles the DPAS and makes the set look like DPAS king because it would have 2 attacks over 100 DPAS. In actual fact, the set is merely upper tier with one attack at 117 DPAS (bitter ice blast) and the rest appreciably lower (next best is 67). AOEs are a little weak since there's no burst. You have a rain, a nuke rain, and a cone (cones are generally weak sauce on sentinels). Since your nuke is a rain, you might as well use both in sequence and that's how I play it. Nice thing about rains in that while they can't hit more than 10 targets at a time, as targets are eliminated, they hit something else, so effectively have a higher AOE target cap. Here's some useful binds for the set since you're using location based rains: /macro B "blizzard" "powexeclocation target Blizzard" /macro IS "ice storm" "powexeclocation target ice storm" The set is generally quite strong and definitely a top tier one. The damage error is a bit annoying though. Looks are fine. Psychic Blast Oddly enough this is the best version of the set across ATs. The single target DPAS is very solid with a 100 DPAS attack and 2 near 70. Avoid mental blast like the plague it is, with the worst DPAS of any sentinel single target attack in the primaries. AOEs are not brilliant with a cone, and a DoT burst. The nuke is another PAOE which I disfavor. A bit of a warning, while psionic damage can shine at times (for example the EBs in an ITF go to unstoppable and psi damage goes right on through), it is really weak against robots, and robots get very common at higher levels. If you're fighting the right stuff, the set is fine or even above average, but when it's against the wrong targets, it really lags. Radiation Blast This has a fairly meh set of single target attacks, with no very high DPAS (75 is top), and OK for the rest. The AOEs are a PBAOE, a knockback cone, and a burst with overly slow animation. The nuke is also a PBAOE. About the only positive to this set is it can take more procs if you're proc happy since all attacks do a little bit of defense debuff. There's really no good reason to take this set. Animations are fine, so at least it looks good. Seismic Blast This set has some plusses and minuses. It contains the DPAS king of sentinels with enhanced stalagmite coming in at 150. That's damned good. However you have to charge up for it with other attacks, and you are required to be standing on the ground (so no hover blast for you). Otherwise the blasts are pretty OK, with none overly low (except non enhanced stalagmite) and one at 75. There's 2 AOEs before the nuke, with a cone and a burst. The cone is fast animating, but still only 6 targets. The burst also has a fast animation, but damage is a bit delayed. The nuke is also location based, and has a fair bit of lag before it hits. This can be plenty annoying on teams where you drop your nuke on corpses that that team has already dispatched. This macro will make your life easier. /macro M "meteor" "powexeclocation target Meteor" or /bind lshift "pow_exec_name meteor" The animations are very flashy and can obscure a lot of what is going on in a battle, so I tend to find them annoying, but YMMV. I should reiterate that this set very much depends on you standing on the ground since you get a knockdown field benefit from charging up your powers, and it's best attack also needs it. I initially tried a hover sentinel for my first attempt at this set and it was markedly lacking in effectiveness. If you don't mind standing on the ground, and can time your nuke use carefully, it is powerful. I just find the downsides in appearance and convenience too much for my taste. It gets a conditional thumbs up. Sonic Attack Sonic is a solid middle of the road set which resistance debuffs targets along the way. Nothing wrong to say about that. It used to be far worse, but got some love recently. A couple suggestions for the set would be skip the tier 1 for the tier 2 as the DPAS on tier 1 is rather poor. On a perma hasten build you can chain shriek, shout, screech for a pretty solid single target routine. Siren's songs is now a badass cone, not to be skipped. I suppose all the cones now do reasonable damage, but Siren's really stands out. The nuke is another PBAOE which is a bit annoying especially in a set based on cones which are all about ranged positioning. This is a perfectly good set these days. It may well not be my favorite, but there's no loss going with it. Water Blast This set is probably the king of sentinel AOE. It's got a cone which hits 10 (anomalous), a burst for another 10, and effectively a rain, all before your tier 9 ranged nuke. This is a whole lot of mass slaughter (er, mass arrest?), and if you want an AOE focused sentinel, it's a solid choice. Single target is a bit weak with only 4 of them (effecively 3 since one is a self heal, but it's actually better DPAS if slotted for damage than the first 2, which are simply lousy), and the high damage one is conditional on charging up (which makes it quite good at 100 DPAS). Personally I find the graphics to be too busy and screen filling, so I don't play this anymore. If you don't mind that, it's a great set for AOEs, just not for beating down AVs.

Thematically I'd say electric. They seem more like a get hit but resist damage kinda thing. Electric is the most resistance of the resistance sets.

Energy is a good solid secondary, well rounded in defenses. I've always been fond of it.

Not sure I agree with all of this, though I agree with most. Electric armor only loses it's knockback protection if you're not on the ground. It's only one power, and really not that big a deal. I'm working on a hover sentinel with /electric now. I think it will work fine. My main concern is that the heal is too slow, like in the case of electric tankers. At least in sentinels you've got an offset of regeneration in conductive shield. Bio armor is great for damage output, but it's very 'clicky' if you want to be a durable as possible. I try to keep the absorb shield up all the time, which requires an annoying bind (auto click is on hasten, so you need a trick to do another), so I dislike playing it. However they are kings of damage. I don't actually play any of my bios anymore (got 3). Fiery Aura: You're right about burn, but on a ranged character you skip it anyway. Molten embrace gets a bad name IMO. It's basically half endurance price assault if you ignore the fire proc (which is small enough to ignore- it should be looked at). The quick heal is important, but you didn't mention cauterizing blaze, which is a great healing pulse toggle, which coupled with the resistances means fire is pretty tough to kill unless you have an AV beating on you (or you have delusions of tanker with 8 person spawns). Heck even temperature protection has regen in it now. Consume needs some love since you need to dive into melee to get your endurance back, which is not a good design decision. I'd prefer if they made it like obscure sustenance where it's a massive enough radius that it acts more like an attack. Ice armor I one I found annoying to try to softcap, and it uses its endurance power at the start of combat to build defense. Bleah. It's got a good 'oh shit' button, but has to lean on it too much. I think you are a bit too harsh on willpower. It's pretty durable since it's got a ton of regeneration, and most everything is covered by either defense or resistance. It does completely lack DDR which can be an issue, but if you like to play a hover sentinel with minimal concern about your secondary, it's fine. It does not, however, do anything for offense which is actually rare among sentinel secondaries.

I'm a big fan of regeneration on sentinels, it's the best version of it in the game. As for the primaries, I'd say I favor ice and electric. I'm still a bit miffed that people howled about the sonic updates that were on beta a while back since they would have been great for sonic's damage potential. I did try a seismic/stone when they became available, but I didn't really much like either. Some of this is aesthetics because seismic is very showy, and can obscure the battlefield at times. This may not bother you as much as me of course. I didn't much care for stone since almost every power is necessary (one can be skipped with minimal loss), and needs to be slotted up to get all your protection. I find that constraining. It also leans heavily on the tier 9 oh crap button (which is quite good, but necessary). I've made comments about how little I like ice because it's got a couple of issues. First off it has a power which gives an absorb shield, but so tiny as to be meaningless (which I guess means skippable power). Then it relies on your using your endurance recovery power at the start of combat to get your defense up, which kind of defeats the endurance recovery angle. I found the set rather lacking. The tier 9 is a good oh crap button, but I prefer sets which are durable without leaning on such.

I thought the question was 'why didn't they nerf regen'?

I have a rad/axe tanker and a axe/Energy brute. Both are good as the set is drastically improved. The brute has (near) perma hasten, and this smooths out the single target chain. Though really by just using cleave as a single target in the chain, you don't give up much. There's a lot of AOE going on (which is the strength of the set, especially now), so I'd definitely opt for a set which includes endurance recovery.

Given that I'm a person that sticks to range as much as possible on sentinels, I agree about burn and consume. I'd prefer if they found a way to fix those powers to be more useful. However I do like having powers you can skip. The new stone armor set has just one power IMO which isn't necessary to survivability. Fire ends up with far more (burn is unnecessary as I see it) powers which can be skipped which gives more build flexibility (temperature protection is so so, but improved, consume at range is usable, but not great, RotP is often skipped). Yes, there's no fiery embrace, but there is molten embrace which I'd argue is better. Fiery embrace gives a good bonus for fiery melee, not so good for everything else. Baseline before enhancement and outside recharge effects is 11% for FM and 4.4% for other sets. With lots of recharge this can get pretty good but only really for FM. Moten embrace is a bit more flexible and consistent. It's always 10% damage bonus, and a fire proc which I can't even vaguely translate from city of data though it has to be something increasing that number. I like ME primarily because it's always on and a toggle.

I tried it with the KB>KD and found it didn't really help enough to be worth wasting the slot. I just took it out and deal with tossing things around. The beef I have is that you basically have to make a choice between using your second highest DPAS attack and throwing things out of your target cluster or skipping it to keep things in the cluster. If the power just lacked the repel, it would be all good. People who like the knockback could just use it as is, and the rest could fix it with the IO. I just don't understand what the repel adds. It means something in PVP, but is there a practical difference in PVE by adding repel?

That seems to be about par. I'm not wasting any more time on you.

Yes, I only use it once per time I log it on to avoid tossing 'things'. Really? The second part of this 'argument' doesn't hold a lot more water. The target gets tossed out of AOE range. I've had a fire/fire sent for years now. I tried to limit the impact of the knockback with KB>KD IOs, and they don't do it because of the repel. Do we need COH 101 or something? Spawns have opponents of different toughness, some require more damage to kill. Hence you kill mooks with AOEs and bosses with high damage single target attacks. Sometimes you need a cycle of AOEs to finish things and oddly enough sometimes those AOEs are not up. This doesn't even bring up the concept that you can be on a team, and tossing away a target being engaged by a melee teammate is kinda rude. How about you accept that you like the power as is and I don't . Furthermore, how about we avoid specious arguments as to why I have my opinion. I don't ask the power to be changed other than having the option of no KB and repel. I don't wish to take away the way you like to play it. If my option is not feasible, I can live with playing electric blast instead, which I do.

I would certainly like the option of ending the repel. I'm not fond of tossing things around, YMMV. I like things bunched up for AOEs.

There is some of this for most sets (though not all, though I can't think of the negative examples). For example, in sonic screech for a blaster is just a stun, while in a sonic it's a high damage attack plus a stun. In archery, blasters get stunning shot which is merely a stun, for sentinels, it's a high damage attack again. In electric tesla cage is a hold for blasters with little damage, but sentinels get the hold plus big damage. This is common across the sets where individual powers which are just utility in blasters, get damage (usually big damage at that) added. I can't think of any sentinel sets where you get a mez power that lacks decent damage (stalagmite is a bit weak damage wise, but still attack worthy).

The other day I ended up having to pull both Nightstar and Seige with my sentinel in a BAF. I don't suppose too many blasters do that. (there was no tank, and a very soft brute)

Well you are comparing the best blaster primary set against some of the lesser sentinel primaries. That's not entirely fair really. Try a fire/regen or elec/regen, those should do a better job of impressing you.

You are correct. How did I get that wrong? I was just looking at the wiki. Thanks for the correction.

I've been thinking about the vulnerability power. It's interesting, but given that it ignores the purple patch, you end up with a debuff which exceeds what a corrupter can do at +4. It can be maintained pretty much permanently on a single target. Sentinels are now competitive debuffers. Let's have the math to back it up. Purple patch is .42 against +4s. Most corrupters debuff resistance at 22.5% (there are outliers). Actually the crossover for corrupters is at +3s for +3 targets .65x.225= .14625 for +4 targets.42x.225=.0945 So if you're doing your normal +4 stuff with an alpha shift, at least for resistance the sentinel is superior. Of course the corrupters will stack, so that's back in their favor. For defenders: for +3 targets .65x.3= .195 for +4 targets.42x.3=.126 So against +4s (and above) sentinels are the resistance debuffing kings now. So the moral of this story, is keep up vulnerability on the hard target, your team is counting on you.

More like high plains.

You are correct about the lackeys. You are wrong about the AVs. The sentinel powers amplify the rest of the team with the type of debuffs. Solo? Yeah, not real strong on an AV, but you better have a good build if you're doing that kind of stuff. Also, another vote for envenomed daggers. These are way underappreciated. They can drag a lousy PUG over the finish line in many a TF.

This question comes down to teaming vs. solo IMO. If you want to tank for a team, go tank. While a brute can do this with the right build, it is ultimately easier to make a tough tank, and the ceiling is higher for durability. If you want to solo missions, a brute will definitely be better since they are damage focused. Aside from that super strength has known issues, and when the devs tried to fix it a niche crowd howled like it was the end of the world, so I doubt it will get fixed any time soon. The change in when powers are available does help the set a fair bit since you can avoid jab now.

BA is drastically better. Almost every power has had the DPAS improved, and I'd guess it's easily top half now instead of bottom half.

Yeah, the debuff ignoring the purple patch is pretty huge, though the lack of stacking is a bit disappointing since it denies all sentinel superteams. That was deliberate no doubt. They would have been reaping machines.

The problem with regen debuffs is that you need to know the inside baseball before you count them much. AVs resist the heck out of those rebuffs. Thus a 12% debuff is fairly meaningless. Against mooks, it doesn't really mean much either, they don't live long enough to regen. It's pretty good against EBs and monsters, but that's about it. Though really, just go buy some envenomed daggers if you want regen debuff. They are a much higher number and are quite cheap. I imagine the -regen is considered important in the pylon crowd since they don't resist debuff and are not subject to purple patch since they are always even level. Actually the most interesting thing from the patch notes, that I've not seen discussed is how the vulnerability debuff is listed as not subject to purple patch. That's really quite a huge improvement over before. Considering +3 is .65 and +4 is .48 for your debuffs and damage, not having it almost or more than chopped in half is a big deal. Not having your effect chopped down hard means it's always a good buff to your damage. I used to do the math to math for sentinel/blaster comparisons and when you've got stacking purple patch applications it really hurts.

Nah, I default to 'run like a bard' principles.

I find that fire is overly frowned upon. The damage toggle is kinda nice and cauterize is pretty damned nice. I did skip burn since I almost always hover blast.