drbuzzard

Beam Rifle/ Electric Armor Next up on the sentinel parade is my Beam Rifle/Electric Armor sentinel. This is a solid combo which gets the best resistance numbers of any sentinel I’ve put together. He has 75% (cap) to energy/lethal/smashing/fire/cold, and 40s for psionic and negative energy. It is best to not think about toxic damage when looking at electric armor. As I have mentioned before, the resistance sets are also regen sets, and this is definitely pretty strong in this. Without any clicks, the build regenerates 37 HP/sec which ain’t bad when it resists most things at 75%. Clicking energize will get it to 49/sec after a strong heal. Energize can be kept up all the time (22 second recharge for 30 seconds of regen boost) if needed. I have perma hasten of course. Electric armor has a couple of downsides I should mention though. The knockback and immobilize procection are in grounded which requires you to stick to the ground. This rather makes hover blasting not a great option. I suppose you could skip grounded, and add combat jumping for immobilize, and a knockback proc, but I’m not sure that saves you much, and you would lose a fair chunk of negative energy resistance. Owing to grounded, this is one of my very few sentinels which doesn’t fly. Beam rifle may well be my favorite sentinel set. I like the nice, simple understated animations (you aim a rifle and shoot it), and the disintegration mechanic is both entertaining (watching ‘Disintegration Spread’ floating over the heads of targets is just cool) and adds useful utility without demanding a whole lot of attention or care. It has a lot of AOEs (2 ranged bursts, 2 cones), yet still does very solid single target damage. I liked it so much, I rode it to 50 again on my BR/Dark sentinel. Like water blast, all the attacks can be done at range, so safe distance can be maintained. Also, I have beam rifle on a blaster, and only after making that alt did I realize that sents actually get the better version of the set. You trade a snipe for refractor beam, which is a great AOE. I’ll take the AOE any day. Single Shot - basic bread and butter tier 1 attack. Good DPAS, and will debuff regeneration when disintegration is up. I have this six slotted with superior sentinel’s ward. Arguably this wastes the proc because the recharge is so low and it might be better off in a long recharge attack. Charged Shot- this is another bread and butter attack, but with much lower DPAS than single shot. Thus when I did a recent respec to clean up the build, this one went away. Cutting Beam: this is a nice wide cone that lightly cheats on the sentinel cone rules and hits six targets max. Damage is solid, and animation isn’t too long. As I’m always a proponent of AOEs, I took it of course. It has a 5 ragnaroks plus a lady grey damage proc in it. Disintegrate - while this power by itself really doesn’t look all to special, it makes every other power in the set better. It should be your lead in attack just to get more out of your other attacks (unless of course you just drop overcharge to start because NUKE!). DPAS is nothing to write home about, but you should use it often to be sure disintegration is up on as many targets as possible. I have 5 slotted devastation in it for fire/cold resistance mostly. Aim: Of course you take this and Gaussian proc it. I have the proc plus 1 recharge reduction IO in it. Lancer Shot- this is your sledgehammer. It has good DPAS and also hits like a ton of bricks (especially if disintegrate is up). Take it, use it, love it. I have it slotted with 5 of superior winter’s bite (for fire/cold resistance) and a gladiator’s Javelin proc (see- I can proc too). Refractor Beam- now this is the money power from the sentinel version of Beam Rifle. It is exclusive to sentinels, and I just love this power for coolness factor. It’s a chaining burst AOE hitting 10 targets. Now in actual effect, the chain is really no different than a normal burst, but damn I like how it looks. I have it 5 slotted with superior winter’s blast plus a lady grey proc. Piercing beam- this is the other cone AOE which adds in some resistance debuff and hits quite hard. However the animation is quite long, the arc is microscopic (5 degrees- seriously) and can hit 3 at most (and that’s a trick to pull off). Basically it functions as a single target blast which debuffs resistance. With the animation being so long, and the AOE aspect being basically not there, I dropped it in my last respec. It hurts your attack chain DPAS. Overcharge: As always there’s plenty to love about this fast recharge tier 9 nuke. If applied after disintegrate, it hits harder than the rest of the nukes (via DoT) and can be applied from a nice safe distance. I have superior opportunity six slotted in it. Electric Armor - this is the sentinel resistance king (really only weak to toxic and a bit weak to negative energy or psionic). You could patch the psionic hole more than I bothered to do, but it’s just not that common a damage type. I worked to get negative energy patched, but that’s not easy. One often overlooked aspect of electric armor is that it makes you nearly impervious to endurance drain. You can stand and laugh at sappers while the rest of your team runs in terror. Revel in that. Charged Armor- gives resistance to lethal, smashing and energy. Of course you take this. I have it five slotted with titanium coating. Yes, I could have done the glamorous Aegis or Unbreakable Guard but the combination of some negative energy with decent lethal/smashing meant the uncommon set was just better. Also at 5 slots you get a regeneration bonus which plays to the strength of the set. Charged Shield: This is a very fine power. It gives you a solid bit of regeneration and pumps up your maximum endurance (by 10 which then improves every bit of endurance recovery). Only the regeneration aspect can be enhanced. I have 4 slots of numina in there (to get to the global healing boost- though I didn’t know the boost was only heals not regen, so it’s not as compelling). Conductive Shield: This is your other main armor power covering resistance to cold, fire, energy, and negative energy. Again I have it five slotted with titanium coating for the same reasons. Energize- this is simply a great power. It’s a heal. It’s more regeneration. But wait...there’s more! It also acts as conserve power on top of all that- cutting all endurance costs while it is up. You will take this power. You will love this power. It will save your hiney. I have it six slotted with preventative medicine for the resistance bonuses and the global recharge boost. Static Shield- here’s your status protection power, though it lacks the knockback and immobilize protections most of this sort of shields do. You do get psionic resistance in exchange which isn’t bad. Again with the 5 slots of titanium coating. Grounded: Knockback and immobilization protection are important so you take it. It’s also an auto power, so there’s no cost. It even throws in a bit of energy (pointless) and negative energy (helpful) resistance. The limitation that the protections only work on the ground is fairly annoying. I have a single resistance IO in it. Lightning reflexes: Nice little auto power which boosts your movement, resists slows, and boosts global recharge by 20%. I’m reasonably sure god has a supply of kittens to kill for when people skip powers this good. I have it slotted with a run IO. Power Sink: This is your endurance recovery tool. It allows you to drain a lot of energy out of enemies while replenishing your blue bar. That’s pretty handy if you start blowing through too much endurance. It’s not particularly useful if you think you’re going to keep a target drained and useless though (perhaps with electric blast, it might synergize, but honestly if you want to be a sapper, sentinels are not the way to go) you are sadly mistaken. It has more endurance cost than I like, so you can’t get too low before you pop it or you might drop your toggles. I’m actually considering getting rid of it on a respec as between conductive shield and energize, I shouldn’t have endurance issues. Currently it has six slotted efficiency adaptor for the recharge bonus (and some regeneration). Power Surge- as with all of the tier 9 ‘oh shit’ powers on too long timers, it is to be skipped. It’s only really good for negative energy or toxic damage, and you can deal with those fairly rare damage types with incarnate powers or inspirations without blowing a power and slots to make it useful. Skip it. Pool powers- I did leaping pool for movement. While fly is my favorite, superjump gives you good 3D mobility and speed. Superjump has 2 Winter’s Gift IOs in it for fire/cold resistance (the movement and the 20% slow resistance) Of course you also grab combat jumping for a place to stick a LotG global and the Shield Wall +5% resistance all. I also have a stealth from unbounded leap in there so I can actually be effectively invisible when running stealth. You of course want fighting pool for toughness as capping lethal and smashing resistance is crucial. They are the most common damage type after all. I have 4 Aegis in there as I wanted the l/s resistance and I included the psionic resistance boost. I also have weave, but only to slot a LotG global. I don’t run it because it’s a big endurance hog, and would be basically all alone providing a fairly laughable amount of defense in the build which is all about resistance. (I have boxing also, but really, it’s just a barrier to entry). Next is concealment- stealth, invisibility, and grant invisibility all as LotG global slots. I run stealth most of the time, though drop it when endurance gets iffy. Last but certainly not least is speed for hasten, which of course is perma-ed. It has 2 50+4 recharge reduction IOs in it (though with tier 4 spiritual alpha, it’s not really necessary to do the boosts). This is a tough build which can blast with impunity at range. If you end up in the thick of things it can get a bit dicey. I might well dump power sink and replace it with the caltrop power from the ninja epic pool. That’s a handy tool to make things keep their distance which I use on my BR/Dark sentinel.

This is a very fair question. However the current gap between sentinels and blasters in damage is simply huge. Between a higher damage scale, more targets for AOEs, and Defiance, sentinels are simply not in the same area code as blasters for damage. Getting them up to a decent number would be nice. They certainly should not exceed blasters, but right now, I think the characterization of around 66% of blaster damage is probably pretty correct. This is far too low for a DPS class. Getting it to 75% or maybe 80% would be reasonable I think.

Captain Powerhouse has stated that sentinels will get revised and the goal is damage on the order of scrappers. I'm holding out for this hope. I do agree that they are a bit lacking in damage. And actually their armors are slightly weaker (in direct numerical comparison, though modifications to the sets makes comparison more complicated).

It's been a long time since regeneration has been nerfed. It probably could use it again just because.

While I do have 2 proc builds (1 sent, 1 def), I prefer not to rely on them since they limit the ability to get set bonuses together. I'm pretty sure you're right about energy and AR. I almost made an AR build out of nostalgia (my first CoH character was AR/Dev), but numbers won out. I had an energy blast build once back on live, but that was a case of going all in for knockback as it was a storm/energy defender.

I haven't gotten around to my archery and dual pistol reviews in the collaborative thread, but I can say neither will be favorable. Archery losing the 60 second recharge that Rain of Arrows gets basically made me lose any interest in the set whatsoever on my sentinel. Dual Pistol has a blow average nuke for damage, and generally seems to be lots more flash than substance when you look at the numbers (and it certainly feels that way playing it). While I have not done AR or energy, of the sets I have played, archery and DP will never get another play through on a sentinel by me, while I'd consider pretty much every other one. My defender/sentinel comparison was : Defender- traps/radiation Sentinel- radiation/invulnerability. The traps defender does great support work, and debuffs fairly well. They are also fairly durable, with lots of positional defense which they to a large extent share with a team. They also have status protection which I hate doing without. However the rad nuke is actually a bit gimped on everything but sentinels (likely because it has a hold), and didn't want to do the PBAOE route on this one since it was a bit softer than I like for mixing it up in close quarters. If I want to do AOE damage on him I set up a trip mine ambush, and then do pretty solid damage. It's just not really a good team option since it is slow. It is a pretty good build on BAFs I'll say since you have time to mine up the prisoner paths and can just leave a massive pile of mines on Nightstar. The Sentinel is a reaper. Invulnerability is far more durable than I expected, though truly only crazy durable against lethal and smashing. I have that one set up with stacking PBAOEs on rapid recharge and I can just dive into groups with impunity laying down atomic blast, irradiate, and psychic shockwave in rapid succession until everything is laid waste. There might be a bit of clean up left on bosses, but it's not much. Oddly enough that one is my only procced out sentinel with damage procs in cosmic bolt and proton stream instead of my normal sets.

Water/SR Sentinel This is a very effective build that is designed to slaughter lots of targets in a hurry. Water blast is pretty much AOE focused, and is actually a bit weak in single target work. However as it includes a fairly good healing power, this synergizes well with Super Reflexes which lacks a heal. Water has four AOEs in the set, a nice wide cone, a ranged burst, a rain type power (whirlpool may not look like a rain, but it works the same for all intents and purposes), then the nuke which is again a ranged burst. This makes water a very survivable set since you don’t actually have to mix it up in melee, you can keep your distance. This makes it amenable to hover blasting. There’s a mechanic which gets special results from either tidal forces or building up tokens through attacks which give the same effect. This will do a variety of things depending on the attack. I think perhaps that detail is why I don’t play the set so much because it takes a bit more care to have it work well, and I like easy. One rather nice aspect though, is that it mixes both fire and cold damage. Both are not very resisted in play, and using both means if you hit one of the select mobs that does resist one of them, it likely won’t resist the other. SR on sentinels is, IMO, the best version of the powerset. It adds in a power just like quick recovery, and also gives you the option of switching from a click status protection to a toggle system (making your first two toggles your status protection) and giving you an absorb shield. SR has the best defense debuff resistance around, gives you 20% recharge, and has scaling resistance at low health. It’s really quite easy to get softcap going with it, so with all it has going, it’s a very durable set. The only downside is that you will only want to skip the T9 (Elude) as it is rather redundant since you should be softcapped. Water Blast Aqua Bolt; You basic tier one attack It a low amount of smashing and cold damage, but recharges fast. The DPAS is nothing to write home about, but the number is about the same as for the tier 2, so picking one over the other is no mistake. I have it six slotted with thunderstrike for ranged defense. Hydro Blast: Slower animation but a lot higher damage makes a choice between this and aqua bolt really just a matter of your preference. Arguably if you want to get a good single target chain together, you should take both this and aqua bolt, but i didn’t. I use epic powers and just focus on AOEs. Water Burst: This is the first ranged burst power in the set (geyser being the second). It does decent damage, and can do knockdown or knockup. Damage is cold and smashing. It’s very similar to fireball, but with a slower animation. I have it six slotted with superior opportunity. Dehydrate: This is the healing power. I suppose if you’re feeling short on single target damage, you could slot it for damage. I’d only do that if your secondary has a heal, though I think only SR lacks a real heal, so feel free. It does a pretty good job when slotted for healing though. I have it five slotted with touch of the nictus (minus the proc). Tidal Forces: This is the aim equivalent, but because it boosts the tidal effect, it does less damage boosting (25% vs. 50%). I have it with some recharge and the Gaussian proc. Whirlpool: While it appears on the ground instead of dropping from the sky, this is really just a rain power. It does area based DoT with a fear effect. The damage is pretty high, like the rain powers, but the fear effect will scatter mobs and make AVs run like bards. I used to use it, but the way it makes AVs run, and does so much scattering I dropped it. I used it have it six slotted with positron. Water Jet: This is the sole high end single target attack in the set. You will want to take it and slot it up well. It gets a boost from tidal effects and does hit pretty hard. I have it six slotted with thunderstrike for ranged defense. Steam Spray: This is a nice wide (50 degree) cone that does fire damage. It’s easy to line up lots of targets, and it cheats on the Sentinel cone rules allowing 10 targets instead of 5. It is definitely a worthwhile power to grab. I have it six slotted with annihilation for defense bonuses. Geyser: This is the nuke, and it is a nice one. It does some smashing and a lot of fire damage. As you will probably run tidal forces before hitting this, it will do stun and knockup. As with all sentinel sets, this is the power you are building for. Get your recharge up to perma hasten, and pop this every combat. Super Reflexes Focused Fighting: This is your melee defense toggle. It also offers knockback and immobilization protection if you do master brawler. You need this. I have it slotted with 2 lvl 50 IOs and a LotG Global. Focused Senses: Here’s your ranged defense toggle. It, with master brawler, includes the rest of your status protection. You need it as well. Same slotting as focused fighting. Agile: This is an auto power which gives you more ranged defense. You take it. It has the normal 2 lvl 50 IOs and LotG. Now we get to a choice, you can either opt for the standard from SR- practiced brawler which is a click status protection, which is easy to stack, and is quite good, or take master brawler which puts all your status protection in your first two toggles and then you have a click which gives an absorb shield. As I like to get perma hasten running and have it with my auto click, I opted for master brawler. The absorb shield really is a nice survival tool. I have it six slotted with preventive medicine. If you were to opt for practiced brawler, you could just put a couple recharge IOs in it and be done. Enduring: This is a basic endurance recovery power which is stronger than stamina. You take it. It also adds a couple of other small benefits, you are going to take it. Who doesn’t need more endurance? I have it with a performance shifter proc and a couple lvl 50 end mod IOs. Dodge: This is the melee defense autopower. You take it and slot it. (2 lvl 50 def IOs + LotG global). Quickness: This improves your movement speed (BFD) and gives you a 20% global recharge boost (woo hoo!). You take it and drop in an IO for whatever travel method you like. I have a fly in there. Evasion: Here you finally get AOE defense, and honestly it’s a touch on the late side to finally be picking this up, but it is what it is. On the positive side, the number is pretty high since there’s no autopower to supplement it. You will take and slot this of course (2 lvl 50 def IOs + LotG global). Elude: This gives you a massive amount of defense, more endurance recovery, and more run speed on a very long recharge. In my opinion the only value to this power is that you can skip it without any regret. Pool Powers: I like flying so flight pool, hover, fly, afterburner. Since SR has so many places to put LotG global, I didn’t have to use these. I also have fighting pool, with boxing, tough and weave. I have 2 slots in tough for the 2 +3% def procs, but I don’t run it. Weave is slotted up with just defense IOs and an endurance reduction IO. I have speed pool for hasten, which has 2 lvl 50 rech red IOs (spiritual alpha core covers the rest). Epic pools: Psychic pool as usual with Mind Probe with 5 slots of hecatomb, and then Dominate with a full lockdown set, though I would probably be wise to redo that for a damage proc set up. This build ends up as a very durable crowd killing machine. You get to stay at range and just hand out death(er, arrest?) quite fast. Durability is very solid since defense debuff resistance is 75% (best among sentinels), add in a heal from the primary, plus the absorb shield, and you get a pretty tough cookie that with a hover blast approach simply doesn’t die much at all.

I don't know about less than defenders. I did specifically make a procced out defender to try and see if I could do better. While it is possibly better on single target, it's not even close when it comes to AOEs. As I view AOE damage as king (and given how rewards work in this game, I'm correct), I'd rather have a sentinel.

Do I sound like a twink because I miss the bug where single target tanker attacks used to work on stacked up mobs? To properly date this one, it was a hell of a thing to herd up much of a map of wolves into a dumpster, and pop them with energy transfer, only to kill yourself.

I wouldn't argue with a buff, but honestly the power works pretty well IMO. I find it does a pretty damned good keeping my fire/fire alive so that I rarely need healing flames. Mind you, I'd certainly welcome an end buff as fiery aura has one of the weaker end boosting set ups of the secondaries. It's not the worst, ice gets that, but it's not great. Consume is just too long a recharge IMO.

Fire/Fire Sentinel Honestly I don’t recall if I made this one or the Water/SR one first, but it doesn’t make a big difference, they will all be written up eventually. At first glance, I had some crazy idea that the fiery aura resistance numbers were just too small so I should just focus on healing and add in medicine pool. I was mistaken. It is possible to put up good defensive numbers with this set, and the durability I achieved did surprise me. It is funny that this is one of the 2 sentinels where I bothered to take and slot up the tier 9 (bio being the other) and it’s a power I would normally skip. I’ll explain that madness when I get to the power. On top of fire being better than expected defensively, it offers a nice little buff to damage in molten embrace. Fire Blast powers Flares: While this may seem like a minor damage power (and admittedly it doesn’t do big damage), it animates very fast, so the DPAS is good. It also recharges extremely fast, so it’s a great chain filler. Take it, slot it, love it. I have 5 decimations in there (no procs). Fire Blast: While you may take this on the way up in levels, it’s just not a terribly good power- the DPAS is simply bad, so it has no place in your final build. Fireball: This is simply a great power by any measure. It does solid AOE damage with a quick animation. Heck, it does better DPAS than fire blast. If you have the endurance, it is no mistake to use this in a chain. I have five of the positron set in here with no proc. Blaze: It comes fairly early, but it is the best single target attack in the set, and unless my less than stellar memory fails me, the best ranged attack for DPAS among sentinel primaries. It will be the cornerstone of your single target chain. I have 5 decimation, no proc in there again. Aim: self explanatory. I slotted 3 parts of gaussian in it (including the proc of course) Fire Breath: As I hover blast, the narrow arc of the cone isn’t too hard to use well enough, and with only 5 targets, you don’t really need a huge cone. I have 5 annihilation in it because it’s fairly cheap, and the bonuses are handy. I was bluffing my energy/neg energy resistance, and this helps. Blazing Blast: I admit to having mixed feelings about this power. The DPAS is pretty solid, but it does knockback. Now knockback is something I don’t like, but can be controlled with a proc so it’s usually manageable. However whoever cooked up this set decided that knockback wasn’t sufficient to annoy me, they added in repel on top of it so you can’t proc the effect away. I used to have a SBB set in here to control the tossing around of enemies, but with the repel, it was never a full fix. Currently it has all six superior opportunity ATOs. Rain of Fire: This does good damage, and on your own the fear can be a useful tool of self preservation. However, it also makes groups scatter, and AVs run like bards. As I always team up, I just skipped this one. YMMV. Inferno: Ah, lovely, lovely inferno. This is among the highest damage T9s (due to DoT after the big blast). It hits very hard. My build is fixated on getting this to fire early and often, and my recharge is around 23 seconds. Every fight starts with inferno as it should. I have the full superior sentinel’s ward in here. Fiery Aura: Fire Shield: The basic bread and butter lethal, smashing shield, but with fire resistance and some of your status protection as well. How could you not use this? I have it 4 slotted with titanium coating. Why? Well it’s fairly cheap, and it gives me energy/negative energy resistance, even if only a little bit. All those little bits eventually add up. Molten Embrace: This is free damage. Damage is good. Endurance cost is basically negligible. If you don’t take this, God will kill a kitten. It takes only endurance reduction, and doesn’t even really need it. Healing flames: A fast recharging fairly powerful heal is not something you skip. I filled it with preventative medicine mostly for recharge, but the l/s resistance helps too. Temperature protection. While it would be nice to have the slow resistance from this (the fire resistance is pointless, and the cold resistance is too small to care), there’s better use for a power slot. Skip it. If you do bother to take it, I’d just drop in a proc of some sort and not waste slots. Plasma Shield: This gets you energy, negative energy, and more fire resistance. It also rounds out your status protection. You would be a fool to skip it. I have 4 titanium coatings in there again. Consume: You know running all these toggles can get you quite an appetite. That’s when you consume. OK, this isn’t the greatest of the endurance recovery tools as it actually has to hit, and the recharge is fairly long. However the endurance cost is very low which makes it usable when you’ve flaked out and drained your bar almost all the way without dropping your toggles. I have an efficiency adapter set in there mostly for the recharge. Burn: While I suppose someone might find a reason to take this, I didn’t. If you want to burn things, make a tank or brute. I hover blast, burn is not compatible. Cauterize: Now this is probably the cornerstone of survivability in this set. It amounts to a decent healing pulse which ticks off quite often. This will keep you alive, and bring you back from bouts of stupid quite well. I have 2 50+3 IOs and the Panacea proc in there. Rise of the Phoenix. Now this is a power which has been justifiably mocked, since a tier 9 power which requires you to die first seems a bit silly. So why the hell would I have it six slotted and with a full set in it? If you look at the numbers, it’s actually a very high damage attack. I have it slotted with the summer blockbuster set to control the knockback, and honestly don’t mind dying since I can do slightly above nuke damage with it. The rest of my build rounds out with flight pool (fly, hover, afterburner, 2 LotG procs, and the +5% resistance PvP one), fighting (boxing since I have to, tough with again 4 titaniums), concealment (stealth, invis, grant invis) all with LotG globals, and speed for hasten (2 slots with lvl 50 IOs, spiritual alpha gets it the rest of the way). Epic pool: I have the psi one, as I always seem to end up. Just mind probe (5 Makos) and psychic shockwave (5 obliteration). This ends up being a fairly durable build (not as durable as SR, or EA certainly), but not really something to tank with. You can dive in to drop your nuke on things, and most likely you’ll live to tell about it, but you will want to get clear since too much aggro will wear you down (though if RotP is charged up, meh, die and make them pay). As it comes with a damage boosting power in the secondary it is one of the higher damage builds you can do, for both AOE and single target work (though again, proc builds can do better single target). I have a fair amount of fun with this build. This build ends up with 74.7% l/s 75% fire, 51% energy, negative energy, and 21% cold resistance (negligible psi and toxic). As follows my build style, I ignore defense, though you could do a nice job of layering things. This is about resisting the damage and healing it up, and it works pretty well.

My first level 50 sentinel was a psychic/willpower build. Hence, I’ll start with that Psychic Blast This set often gets busted on because people view psionic damage as being very resisted. While it is by some enemies (robots in particular, though it varies by robot), it’s not nearly as commonly resisted as lethal, nor to the same degree. It does have the strength of bypassing some defensive powers which are very frustrating for every other damage type (untoppable, moment of glory). It’s not a really good proccing set since there’s not a lot of good secondary effects with damage proc potential. A plus is that there’s 2 powers well worth skipping, and I’ve found in my time making builds, the ability to have more freedom to take non primary/secondary stuff is nice. The sentinel version of the set is solid, with the normal base number of AOEs (cone, burst, and PBAOE T9). It has some very heavy hitting single target attacks, so it could be looked upon as more of a single target set. Though given that sentinel sets all get at least 3 AOEs, you don’t really have an issue of any set being all that AOE weak. I’ll go down through the powers and give some commentary. The considerations are for when you are done with the build. As you level up, you might have to weigh things differently as a full attack chain beats gaps any day. Mental Blast- pure garbage. Long animation coupled with low damage means it’s a really crappy filler unless you want to lower your DPS. It is the worst DPAS of all sentinel attacks. It's really that bad. Telekinetic Blast- in contrast to the T1 attack, this has a fast animation and good damage. Be glad this is a primary so you don’t have to take the T1. Only downside to this power is (IMO) the knockback. As I’m no fan of knockback, I drop a knockback to knockdown into it. I view this as an annoying tax, but the DPAS is worth it. Think I have 5 thunderstrike (for defense bonus) and a knockback to knockdown in it. Psychic Scream- decent enough cone attack. Of course as a sentinel cone it is limited to 5 targets, and cones are always a bit inconvenient to use. However it is your first available AOE, so you will take it, and ultimately, you might consider keeping it if you don’t grab one from the epic sets. Skipped it ultimately due to playstyle. Will Domination- This is the best single target attack in the set with a high end DPAS of 87, which beats most set's top one. It does add sleep which is a crap mez (IMO) and isn't particularly proccable. I have five of apocalypse in this (no proc). Psychic Focus- aim by another name. Drop a Gaussian proc into it and use it before you nuke. Don't put in any recharge or you will screw up the proc rate on Gaussian. Psionic Strike- while this does hit pretty hard, the animation is unreasonably long, so it actually hinders you DPS in a chain. Skip it (once you can). Psionic Tornado- this is an interesting AOE. It’s got a nice targeting style (like a fireball, burst at target), and has a very nice knock-up side effect. The downside is that it is pure damage over time and the damage is a bit low and slow. However, since it is easier to target and affects more, so I prefer it and use it in my final build. I have 5 ragnaroks in there with no proc. Scramble Thoughts- This is the hardest hitting power of the set, but like in a lot of the sentinel sets it has a rather long animation, so the actual DPAS is only so so (59). You will want it though since it makes for a big chunk of your attack chain. Psychic Wail- As I might have mentioned elsewhere, the strength of sentinels is their 90 second recharge T9 nuke. It’s the gem of every set, and your build should be made (IMO of course) to focus on dropping it as often as possible, on as many targets as possible. If you can drop other attacks in to support it, all the better. This one hits for the normal damage of the sentinel nukes, and it’s pretty damned good damage. It also adds a stun on top of it which is nice. With aim (psychic focus) and possible build up (from the proce) added in, it lays down a wallop. The six sentinel’s ward superior are in this. Willpower- this is a great set for easy play. It’s basically a set and forget secondary with very solid survival potential. It combines resistance, defense, and regeneration. I managed to cap lethal and smashing resistance to 75% and get defense to fire/cold/energy/negative energy to around 40% which means you are quite survivable owing to the high regeneration level you get from the set. The main weakness would probably a lack of debuff resistance (on defense, resistance inherent resists debuff). Also, regen debuff will hurt. High Pain tolerance- as a T1 secondary power, you have no choice, so it’s a good thing this is actually a good power. It boosts your resistance and your maximum HP. Given how small the resistance numbers are, the return on resistance slotting is a bit smal so I just used resistance procs in it, the 2 +3 def and the +7.5% HP . I also have 2 50+3 heal IOs in to boost HP. (so 5 slots total) Mind over Body- this is your basic resistance shield for lethal, smashing and psionic damage. You will want to take this. This is a good place for an aegis set(4 slots). Fast Healing- self explanatory regeneration power which you really should take. ~150% regeneration after enhancement is worth your time. You can drop a heal set into this if you have the slots. Numina’s has a nice lethal/slashing resistance number, so consider that (though it does take 5 slots for that). If not, consider 2 lvl 50+3s and some procs. I did the 2 slots. Indomitable Will- this is your status protection. Of course you will take it. It also offers a bit of psionic defense, but the number is low enough that I don’t bother to enhance that aspect. Nice thing though, is that this defense aspect means it is a place to drop a luck of the gambler global recharge (that is all I slot into it). This is actually a very nice status protection power since it also works against confusion, which is not commonly done. Up to the challenge- this is your big regeneration power (200% base). While the version on the melee sets potentially can get you a lot more regeneration, this is always at a pretty good number, and you don’t have to be in the mix for it to work. I have a numina set in there. Quick Recovery- more endurance recovery is a no-brainer. You take this and you slot this. I have a performance shifter proc, the end mod from the set and a lvl 50+3 IO. Heightened Senses- this gives you a negligible defense against lethal and smashing, but an acceptable start for fire/cold/energy/negative energy. I think I put a goodly bit of luck of the gambler in here to get to the lethal/smashing resistance (5 slots- 6 is diminishing returns with the psi/toxic as they just aren’t common enough damage). Resurgence- meh a self rez power. Since 2 inspirations is about the same, easy to skip. There’s probably a better power to choose somewhere in a pool. If you have the bright idea of dropping an endurance or healing proc into it, don’t- it won’t work. Strength of Will- I should start this first sentinel commentary with my general disdain for defensive T9 powers. They all have overly long recharge such that they are only Oh Shit! Powers. Alternatively inspirations do that as well, and eventually so do incarnate options. Devoting a bunch of slots to these powers is something I consider a waste as you can get better returns from set bonuses to your defenses which are up all the time. However, as such powers go this one isn’t awful. It boosts resistance and endurance recovery, and has a fairly mild crash. It also has a relatively short recharge time which can’t be lowered (as opposed to the older T9s which have huge recharge times that need to be lowered). I skipped it. Pool powers- This is of course a flexible business to some extent. However, given my design philosophy here’s not that much flexibility. I always take a travel power, I have yet to make a sentinel without fighting pool because the return is so large, and I also think permahasten should be a goal on every sentinel to get your T9 up as often as possible. Now if I didn’t abhor superspeed as a travel power, this might be a bit more flexible, but I do, so that’s basically locking in 3 out of four. My last pool choice was concealment for stealth to hold luck of the gambler global recharge (I do a lot of this). I really enjoy flight (with afterburner) and hover blasting, so that’s the travel choice. It would be possible to take leadership instead of concealment since between secondary and flight, you only need 1 more place for LotG. I didn’t. Really what it comes down to eventually is taking powers you know you don’t intend to add slots to because you need those slots elsewhere. Tough got 4 aegis and weave got 5 LotG. Epic pools- I have found that while looking across the epic pools available to sentinels I almost always end up with psionic pool. Part of this is because I love running ITFs and having a few psionic damage attacks really speeds up killing the EBs in that TF. Also it has a couple of other big plusses. Mind probe hits like a truck and animates fast, dominate can be slotted and procced into a mean attack, and psychic shockwave is a great PBAOE with a great target cap and good damage. Also if you want defense on top of it, link minds is good stuff. For attacks I have mind probe and psychic shockwave in this case, which have a mako’s bite and armageddon respectively (5 slots in each). I also recently added in link minds and it holds 3 shield wall (def, def/rech, and the +5 resistance) and a red fortune def/rech.

Ok, finally finished the last of my project to try every sentinel secondary (and take them to 50). The last one was the Dual Pistol/Ice Armor build. While I started it before I got around to trying dark armor, I ended up making a Beam Rifle/Dark Armor build and it ended up much better than I expected so it got to 50 because I liked playing it (I'm a big fan of BR on sents). The DP/Ice eventually got dragged across the finish line, and I can't see myself spending the effort on incarnating it out properly. I'd have to like it first. I'm going to do a more in depth analysis of all the sets I'm familiar with in the context of my builds. This will skip assault rifle and energy because just perusing them shied me away from them. I dislike knockback quite a bit. Energy is loaded with it and AR has a fair bit, so I see no reason to annoy myself. I've played both sets in the past (back on live), so they hold few mysteries or appeal for me. I think up front I should explain my design philosophy for my way of building sentinels. First off, it should be recognized that they are a bit low in the D for a DPS class. This is fairly universally accepted. Their biggest strength damage wise is their tier 9 nuke on a 90 second time. While it 'only' hits 10 targets, it hits them quite hard, and a case could be made they are the best AOEs in the game. Thus I feel that doing everything to leverage that is how you make the best sentinel offense possible. This means you get your recharge boosted as much as possible- so permahasten is basically a must. This will not make you a single target death machine and get you good pylon times. I really don't care about that, so if your goals lie in that direction, you should ignore my advice. Others offer counsel in that direction. Then my approach to the protective secondaries is to figure out the strength of the set and play to that. So for resistance sets, I try to push the resistance as hard as possible. For the defensive sets, I try to softcap. For mixed sets, I try to softcap defenses that are possible, and push resistance as high as possible (getting to 75% can be often done for l/s). An interesting thing I figured out when doing all the secondaries, is how most of the ’pure’ resistance sets really come out feeling like regeneration sets. This means electric armor, fiery aura, radiation (radiation is a bit off an oddball in this, but will be addressed when I get to my ice/rad sent), and dark armor. All of them can achieve high resistance values for a lot of types, and maintain constant levels of regeneration or pulsed healing (fiery aura). So while people usually say sentinels are lousy with resistance sets because of their relatively low health (compared to other ATs with defensive powersets), I found that the resistance/regen combo usually made them quite resilient. Regeneration actually has some fair amount of resistance (and with tough can get above 50% resistance), so it might be considered with these. The most durable sets, however, are the strongly defense based sets. This means SR, Ninjitsu, and Energy aura. All three of these can be softcapped to most things relatively easily (with weave and set bonuses). EA has psionic and toxic holes, but it adds in a fair bit of damage resistance to a lot of types, so it almost verges into the hybrid types. The last two sets, Invulnerability and Ice Armor are sorts of hybrid sets. They have mixes of defense and resistance, with fairly balanced quantities of both. However, I found that it only worked out for Invulnerability and not for ice armor. I will address particulars in each build section.

Invuln is surprisingly good (to me at least), but you need to take everything but unstoppable and slot it all up plus throw in tough and weave, plus some set bonuses. The endurance bonus from durable does a nice job of making you have plenty of endurance for all the toggles (at least with a bit of help from IOs), and running around with 40ish typed defense to l/s/e/ne/f/c is quite solid on top of 75% l/s and around 30% for e/ne/f/c. Electric is more interesting in that since it carries a ranged nuke, I'm of a mind that you should stay at range, which invuln is rough enough to make you very survivable. You want to skip voltaic sentinel since it is a very close approximation of worthless, and as your nuke and other AOE are both nice ranged bursts, you might as well skip short circuit. While it is always tempting to play the energy drain game, there are far better ATs to do it with, so I'd suggest not being tempted. As always I advocate building up lots of recharge to get to perma hasten so you can drop your nuke as often as possible.

It would take more time than I have now to give a proper fix. However some simple things: Flares has much better DPAS than fire blast, and because it recharges so fast it can easily fill gaps in chains. Take it instead. Skip fire blast altogether. I have a fire/fire sentinel. As with all sentinels I have perma hasten and the single target chain ends up something like flares, blaze, flares, blazing bolt, repeat. There's basically no gap and good DPAS. If I'm in closer I throw in mind probe. Invulnerability is slightly tricky as sets go because there's only one power I deem worthy of skipping (unstoppable). Everything else goes to good use. Make sure you find space for 5 LotG global charge boosters (hover, afterburner, invincibility, tough hide, weave or mind link will all take one). Get rid of the leadership pool, it's a brutal endurance hog for little gain. You can do much better by dipping into the psi epic pool and getting to mind link. I have a rad/invuln sentinel and the build has perma hasten, around 40% (+/- 3% before mind link) typed defense to all but psi and toxic, as well as capped l/s resistance. It's quite hardy. You should be able to achieve something like that.

I know my inability to pay attention would result in me getting mezzed if I didn't have it on auto click. Heck, I managed to get my rad/SS killed because I wasn't paying attention to my health bar. Yes, a rad tank- and they didn't need to be at all. Sometimes I just space.

Ninjitsu is quite nice on sentinels, with many features not present on other ATs. It's just if you like the click status protection. Given that I really like perma hasten on sentinels, it holds me back from endorsing it (have a dark/nin at 50 though), but the set is still quite solid. It's quite easy to double stack it.

I think it's just a matter of the absorption being so damned tiny. You probably just don't notice any effect because it's only part of a hit worth of damage. I really don't get the point of it. It's funny because on other sets the absorption is the cornerstone (looking at regen in particular).

I managed to really prove to myself the damage issue with sentinels. Now how did I do this? I make a proc monster defender to see what could be done. With 3 or 4 damage procs in all the slow recharging attacks, the damage doesn't really seem much behind a sentinel build (traps/rad, so don't assume I was damage capping). When I can basically catch a DPS class with a support class just using procs, there's definitely an issue. I was certainly behind in AOE damage since as I always harp on, the 90 second recharging t9 is the only currently offensive strength of the sentinel, but in single target work I didn't really feel much off. I can see why so many go proc happy on their sentinels. Of course I also did a bit of testing, and oldskool was dead on correct about spiritual alpha not being something you do with procs. Damn, just base spiritual collapsed my proc rate. Though while the proc damage build is interesting, the fact that so many powers are basically constrained out of having decent set bonuses is pretty annoying. I really am not motivated to chase proc optimization on my sents.

Yeah, I've been dreading doing up dark armor since it looks to be a bit soft on sents. I'm also out of primaries I want to bother with (down to AR and energy). I'd sooner rehash things I've done and try new combos. Thanks for the warning.

Fair enough. Though even though I have been stocking up on winter IOs, I won't bother. The build is DP/Ice and to be honest, I don't much care for either side. There are much better secondaries to invest in.

OK, where is the ice/fire defense coming from? The only powers in the set which give fire/cold defense are wet ice and moisture absorption and that's around a whole 6%. You must have a heck of a lot of set bonuses in place to carry it that far.

Yes, sentinel SR has no endurance troubles at all in my experience.

Icy bastion has a 5 minute recharge with 30 seconds of uptime. Posting the stats while it is active is (IMO) pretty disingenuous. That's 10% uptime out of the box, and even if you get to perma hasten (which you should of course on a sentinel), it's then on a 81 second recharge, so only up slightly better than 1/3 of the time. Yes, so 1/3 uber, 2/3s suck. I'm working up a dual pistols/ice armor sentinel now (my self designated goal is something in each set, except perhaps AR and energy blast, because I really dislike those). It's really rather flimsy. I had some hope that the frigid shield absorption would be enough to make the set at least decent like the absorption power in regen does for that set, but the amount is so damned tiny as to be negligible. I do have a build worked up which can softcap s/l/e/ne and resist cap cold. However chasing the other holes (and fire is certainly a hole) is a waste of resources. So you're basically completely open to psi and barely protected at all against fire and toxic. That's a whole lot of holes IMO. I guess I can see why people would laud icy bastion since it's probably something you pop every time it is up just to try and recover from the beating you take when it's not up. I will drag the build to the finish line eventually, but I'm not terribly enthusiastic. I've often lauded the great jobs the devs of sentinels did on their secondaries, but I admit there's certainly a few duds. Bio is better in other examples vs. sents, and ice is pretty much lousy. I'll get around to dark sooner or later, but it doesn't hold much promise from what time I've spent looking at it.

The build includes a knockback protection IO in case he does want to hover blast.