drbuzzard

The sentinel version of regeneration is pretty solid. The trick they used there was turning IH into a quick replenishing absorption shield called 'instant regeneration'. This works pretty damned well. It gives a lot of the feel of old regeneration, but without being over the top. Personally I think just porting that version over to the ATs would be the best solution. Well, other than nerfing regen for the sake of tradition.

Actually it's not weak. That provides a good bit of healing.

Oh, that's a pretty compelling reason. Didn't notice that.

I guess I tend to be biased about AVs since I do mostly ITFs, MLTFs, MCs, Tinpex, and Kahns.

Now this is an interesting question. Now for normal missions, 5% for AVs is likely accurate if even high. However for TFs, I wonder if it is, by time spent, actually a low estimate. TFs always seem to come down to the AV beatdowns taking the most time.

Electric is great for all the reasons Nihilii said. The things which make it weak on other ATs are cleaned up, and the secondary effects really help with the damage/AOE. SR is as mentioned by many, the best version of the set on any AT, and truly the easiest sentinel secondary. I noted that I'm the only one to vote for soul mastery. Now I'd be the first to admit the set doesn't have a lot going for it, soul tentacles is a decent ten target cone, though DoT. It also helps to lock things in place with immobilize. For my sentinels which have ranged nukes (so they can always stay at range), it is my go to for epic pools.

Yeah, I would always go with tactics instead. It's cheaper for a larger boost at that. Was just looking at the numbers, and oddly enough, sentinels get the corrupter/controller/tanker level number for tactics (10% to hit). The coordinated targeting is only 5%. For other ATs focused accuracy is lower in to hit bonus than tactics for more endurance. Of course you have to buy into leadership, but at the least maneuvers is a lotg mule.

One other thing, when people say the sentinel debuff is weak, they are ignoring the fact that it ignores level differences. If you're running on a +4 team, then the debuff is better than a single corrupter debuff most likely.

In the ice pool, I just look at frozen aura as part of my sequence with PBAOE nuke from the primary and it's all good. It helps clean up the trash. I rarely find a set where I can't have a clean chain of single target from the primary. Though a random thing I've been thinking about. So for the Trapdoor challenge measurement of clear times, blasters (and corrupters) are allowed the defensive boost so they don't get mezzed all the time. Doesn't that kind of mean you're ignoring a key aspect of the ATs? What makes sentinels strong is the mezz protection and defenses. Mezzed blasters don't blast real well (t1 & t2 only). A more fair comparison would give the ATs with mez protection the offensive boost to be even handed.

Sentinels raise their hands and ask "Really?"

I've always thought the shard was the most magnificent looking zones in the game. However the content in it is fairly meh. Of course it is really old and hasn't been revised, so it's not particularly fair to dump on it. The TFs are generally too long with too much travel, kill alls, and hunts. They could all use revision which mostly would only require streamlining IMO. Remove the kill alls and hunts, then keep the missions in the zone unless completely necessary for story. If zone travel is necessary provide a portal or transport. The stories are all good enough and can remain. A revision wouldn't be that flashy, but I would guess the work could be kept minimal, and it would greatly increase zone appeal having TFs worth doing for other than WST purposes. The repeatable missions are meh, and honestly I don't know what to suggest there. I'm not sure they are worth working much on. People hate fighting Ruularu enemies and are unlikely to chase repeatables no matter how shiny. Perhaps restore kora fruit to the old glory at the least. That would be comparable unimportant but offer something. The geysers can either be replaced by portals or work as suggested above (by Lemming) without influence of travel powers so they aren't a trap. Some sort of zone event like a MSR raid but fighting Ruladek or whatever baddie is appropriate in the Storm Palace would be pretty damned cool, but perhaps more work than is worth it. Also, I support the coop notion. The shard hosts world ending threats and villains mostly want a world around to loot or rule.

One ninja is badass. A bunch of ninjas are creampuffs. Fighting hordes or ninjas would be?

Just to be a bit different- there's really nothing wrong with the 5th column being the creampuffs of level 50 content. Something has to be the easiest. If people want harder, they are welcome to grab Carnie or Malta missions. PI radio groups are often a way of high level people helping lowbies get some XP while actually playing instead of standing at a door in a farm. Council makes it so those lowbies can be in the fight at least somewhat instead of examining the floor close up if the fight were Carnies or Malta. When half your team is under 20, lvl 50 Council isn't really that easy (depends on builds etc, I know some people solo +4x8 council by facerolling on the keyboard). I know a half lowbie team fighting Malta or Carnies is a questionable endeavor.

SR is the easiest fire and forget sentinel secondary if you wish to just blast like a caffeinated adolescent. Being that it is my preferred play style, I favor SR.

I like speed runs. I also like KM runs. It depends on the character and need. They should be made explicit when recruiting of course.

Oddly enough WP gives more actual regeneration, but regeneration has the great absorb shield in instant regeneration. The survivability of each set is pretty different really. I would say WP is probably more survivable for things that it covers (l/s or the energy types when you're not debuffed), but any debuffs will make WP fold like origami. Regeneration is not the more durable set, but if you are not killed outright in a hurry, you'll live. It has no real holes since healing is healing, and as far as I know there's no absorption debuffs. One thing to note, however, if you're playing the character up instead of being PLed, is that WP gets status protection much earlier than regeneration (10 vs. 20). Of course the low levels fly by if you know how to do it (2XP buff then a couple DFB, on to Posi 1 and 2 and you're over 20) so it's not that big a deal.

Psi blast on sentinels is a reasonable set when it comes to DPAS (damage per activation second). DPAS is what really matters since it determines how much damage a chain of attacks can do over time. Let's compare a few sets for single target DPAS: Psionic blast Mental Blast 33 Telekinetic Blast 68 Will Domination 101 Psionic Strike 57 Scramble Thoughts 69 Radiation blast neutino bolt 51 X Ray Beam 54 Cosmic Burst 58 Proton Stream 75 Fire Blast Flares 50 Fire Blast 70 blaze 132 blazing blast 72 (if these numbers appear to be a bit off from what you see in game, they are generated using arcanatime, which is the actual time needed for a power to activate rather than the listed value- the effect is greater, the shorter the activation time) A few things stand out. Psionic definitely has some good hitters. Radiation doesn't really have the major wallop powers of other sets. Psi isn't bad, nor is it king (yeah, fire is). One thing I like to do on sentinels is make a chain of the three highest DPAS powers (mind you, I make every sentinel with perma hasten, so if it can't be chained in my builds, it likely can't really be done). For fire that's fire blast, blaze and blazing blast. Chained this is devastating. On rad the best you can do is X ray, Cosmic, and proton, and it is far behind fire, but it does chain smoothly. For psi it would be TK blast, Will Domination, Scramble, except these won't actually chain. There's a noticeable gap. Yes you could work in psi strike, but it will lower your DPAS and require resources to slot it up. So one reason psi seems a bit clunky is the chaining difficulty of the best attacks. Then there's the slow animations as the bolts slowly waft their way to target. This is a bit annoying as well. Last part of why psi doesn't get a whole lot of love, is how robots resist the hell out of it. Sure, in some cases psi is badass (say a cyclops doing unstoppable on an ITF and psi cuts right through it), but there's a lot more robots out there than baddies that use unstoppable.

Yea, I've gone with this approach to the sentinel sets as well. The procs are garbage, but the bonuses are not to be skipped, so stick them into burst AOEs where they won't go off since you don't care.

As I am lazy, and don't want to type a bunch, You mentioned liking regeneration, and have fond memories of it back in the day. Thus I'd suggest trying sentinel regen since it's the most like old times regeneration that exists. Pick a primary you like (I like electric, but YMMV). Both electric initial blasts are good DPAS wise (damage per activation second) so grab what you like.

Closer examination proves that it does not. I confused hardened carapace with ablative carapace. Derp. Nevermind.

Must have missed this when it was posted. I must disagree here. There are a number of reasons not to go bio. I've a number of bio armor sentinels and never play them anymore because I simply don't enjoy it. They are too 'clicky' (to get your damage bonus you must keep ablative carapace up, and there's also the heals which you will need, auto will be on permahasten as always) . They, even on minimal fx, screw up your costume. They lack the recharge boost of other sets which makes perma hasten harder to attain. They have no DDR. I certainly concede they are the highest damage option, but they are defensively much more tricky to play than SR for example. I like my sentinels to be nice and easy to play. I put on my toggles and blast away. For this super reflexes has become my favorite, though regeneration really isn't bad either. Perhaps it's just that I'm a duffer who wants to be able to faceroll my keyboard.

Bingo.

That would be interesting, but the sentinels get the powers on higher recharge at lower damage that the other ATs (by scalar). There's a rational for it with FA (which I find to be rather weak, but at least it exists). There's no excuse for RoA for being the absolute worst sentinel T9. You recharge in 30 more seconds to do less damage than other ATs. Blaster RoA: 75 (adjusted for scalar )= 73 Corrupter RoA 51 (adjusted for scalar ) = 73 Defender RoA 43 (adjusted for scalar) =73 Alas, the sentinel with 90 second recharge (compared to 60 above) does 62. (to be clear this is a single damage tick in the RoA field where there can be up to 3, average being 2, so sentinel RoA does 122) I rather imagine the fact that RoA doesn't have some area damage function is how they rationalize it doing crap damage, but that's weak.

I use binds for the shift-lclick stuff like teleport or the ldoubleclick, and macros for the target a location based power. those are about all. I used to use the macro_image but I got it to work right so rarely it almost always had an X icon in my tray. Now I just use macro and letters which stand for the power (ie CB -combat teleport). Basically I use binds and macros which help with performance functionality. I don't actually use any 'fun' ones.