Riverdusk

Hyperbole, much? Sentinels stand at range. Shorter range than Blasters, sure. But still at range. As for damage? Blasters: 1.000 melee, 1.125 range Sentinels: 0.95 melee, 0.95 range Defenders: 0.550 melee, 0.650 range Corruptors: 0.750 melee, 0.750 range Sentinels, clearly, are MUCH closer to Blasters than Defenders (or even Corruptors) in terms of damage potential, especially in melee. Meanwhile, their defense scale is 0.700 .... just short of Scrappers at 0.750. Essentially, they are a Blaster with Scrapper secondaries, and then all of it watered down just a tiny bit to keep from becoming an all-powerful Tankmage. I actually saw someone in help channel the other day insisting that defenders do better damage than sentinels. Of course he might be right in very specific combo's (say kinetic/sonic), but of course he didn't qualify it and just called the whole AT junk. I didn't even bother getting into it with him beyond the silent facepalm I did.

He said in another post he wants to run dual blades, so suggesting shield isn't going to work for him. My suggestion is to just go with Ninjitsu if that's what you want. It may not be the absolute "uber" choice, but especially with the right IO's it will do great. Pre-IO's it is actually one of the better choices. Good defense as well as a heal and endurance regain powers and a built in stealth/travel power makes for a very easy time in "normal" content. I'm not an expert in it as my katana/Ninj is only lvl 31, but mine has been amazing so far and one of the easiest leveling scrappers I've tried. As I said in another thread it almost feels like a scrapper/stalker hybrid to me with the way it plays. The build I have planned anyway, I still manage to get around 50% s/l resist and around 40% to most others (including toxic). It can actually be one of the best sets at psi resist as it's psi resist is on a click that can stack, so psi would be pretty easy to cap actually. Only resistance "hole" on mine is energy/neg which is only around 20%. That was just my first tentative build try. Also, we're talking scrapper here, some combos might be a bit better than others, but in the end they are all just different levels of awesome.

Great summary. Also doesn't take into account the scrapper ATO's which increase crit rates. I'm not sure how those compare to the brute ATO's.

It is the same, you can see it in the power description. You might have been fighting something with immob resistance on one but not the other. Vaazh zombies for instance are resistant to immob.

Dark blast is actually one of the better t1 dom attacks. Be thankful you don't have to put up with psi dart.

Only one I know of is: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_Slot_Abilities Click on the ability name of each to see details, for instance click on 'Radial Superior Ally" for any of them and you'll see abilities of each. It is missing info on the newest sets though and doesn't give exact numbers, just what abilities they have. Not perfect, but good enough to see for example that you probably wouldn't want the support side of storm elementals as monsoon elementals have hurricane. It even gives some idea of dps for each listed at the bottom. Again not totally updated however.

Even on the single target focused set dark melee I prefer scrapper as I just love soul drain too much and stalkers lose that. They also lose dark consumption. For my DM/Shield in particular they also lose out on some defense (phalanx fighting). My katana/ninjitsu would seem to be perfect to go stalker instead, but I'd miss my Lotus drops aoe and the "free" travel power I get in Shinobi, as well as once again the endurance management power. In a way my katana/ninjitsu seems almost a scrapper/stalker hybrid anyway as I get an almost guaranteed crit to start every battle with the stealth strike huge crit bonus chance shinobi gives you. And with the scrapper I can start the battle with a lotus drops and see a sea of crits on pretty much everyone it hits instead of just the crit on one target. It really comes down to individual sets and what each get more than anything else to me. I'd look at each combo you are considering to decide which would work better for you. Personally so far though, I always seem to prefer the powers I get for scrapper over a stalker.

Honestly rather than skipping EM Pulse, I'd skip Flash, at least in an end-game build. They both end up being situational, and they both have horrible long casting animations and the drawback of being PBAoE. So for an AoE hold, EM Pulse is better, sadly enough. A 60 foot radius is stupid good. EM Pulse also has almost twice the base duration, better accuracy and adds even more -regen for your toolkit, although for only a short time.

Phantom army is a clear cut you want to, if not perma, at least near-perma power. Phantom army is your strongest source of both damage and control (through their built in taunt), so to me it really is the keystone to the whole set. You want to get as close to perma as you possibly can without completing forgoing other things. IIRC I got my illusion/dark PA back on live down to about 65 second recharge and that was sufficiently close for most purposes, even the GM soloing I tried, although it did let a pot shot or two through during the downtimes, it was typically survivable. You also want as much recharge as you can get for howling twilight to keep its -regen debuff up on AV's and GM's as much as possible. Don't forget the easy and cheap +20% recharge buff you can get from a supergroup base now.

Actually AoE immobilizes turning KB to KD instead of complete immunity is pretty common now. All the controller/dom ones at least were recently changed to work that way. You no longer have to worry about the AoE immobilize happy controller/dom on your team completely negating all your knockdown powers.

One thing I was thinking of for that issue is putting a theft of essence +end into siphon life. Anyone try this and how much does it help? Checking it more closely it is a 3.5PPM, and on testing it, it gives you 10% endurance per activation, so assuming it actually triggered that often, even with base 100 stamina, it'd give you on average 35 end a minute, or average a .58 end/sec recovery, which is extremely nice. With some endurance bonuses from IO sets or accolades, even better as you could probably get it up closer to giving you 12 endurance per activation. All assuming you fire it off as often as possible, but it is part of the best attack chain anyway. Would just need to sacrifice a slot in the power of course, but if you are having end issues, I'd say it should help a lot.

That isn't correct. If you mean the alternate build you can select at the trainer, you choose it and can immediately train to whatever level your primary build is at (so if level 50 you can immediately train to level 50, just like a respec basically.) It is correct you have to enhance it with all new stuff.

Can second this one for everyone. Trick I learned to get around the tendency to "hoard" inspirations is to make a rule to always keep at least a couple of inspiration slots open at all times. Those I click on as soon as I get them, no matter what they are, even if I don't think I need them at that moment. Awakens are kind of a pain as those I have to delete instead of just use. But basic rule, your inspiration slots should never be all full for more than a second. As for tracking stats, another one I always track is "last hit chance". Lets me know if I've just been unlucky, or has my accuracy been debuffed?

So, was doing some checking on the stats of Electric blast Voltaic Sentinel. Per the in-game stats for each AT at level 50, they are as follows: Blaster - 44.49 damage, -5% endurance Corrupter - 44.49 damage, -5% endurance, + can scourge Sentinel - 35.39 damage, -6% endurance Defender - 35.39 damage, -6% endurance All other stats are identical for each version. So, the obvious question to me, assuming the in-game stats are correct, why does a sentinel (supposedly a more damaging AT), get the weaker damaging defender level version of this power? I know there are a few pets/pseudo pets out there that are the same across AT's, but when there is actually two different versions, seems like Sentinels should get the stronger one in this case imo, and an extra 1% endurance drain isn't going to make a difference compared to 25% damage boost.

Only thing I dislike about it is that Fade seems to give an annoying flickering graphic effect to everyone. I don't remember it doing that on live though, so I wonder if it is just a bug or graphical glitch that I'm getting. Not sure if anyone else has that issue with it? Even beyond that, in general it is another case of I wish there was a minimal graphic version that doesn't turn everyone in my team into looking like a wraith. I'm not a fan of forcing such a big change on other people's looks (just like I didn't like turning everyone into an ice cube with /cold).

If only there was a Low Visual FX option for some of the skills in Nature. Otherwise, it is a great combination! :) If this is all you're going for, the lower FX option for this is /radiation. From all I can tell entangling aura is basically a reskin of choking cloud. I assume you meant more than just the one power though. Personally I think pretty much every single power should have a minimal Fx option, so I am with you there.

For me the DD in mace (poisonous Ray) isn't about the damage it is about the guaranteed -38.75% resistance debuff (when you put an achilles heel -res proc in there). At 3.5 PPM and Ray's 24 sec base recharge, it is 100% chance it procs. That it also does -20% defense and some energy and toxic damage on top of it is just extra. Definitely worth the redraw when you are fighting a tough boss or AV.

One thing I've never been clear on, for the one that adds +50% critical hit chance, does that mean it adds to your crit chance by 50%, so your base 5% becomes 55%? Or does it mean it multiplies it by 50% so that the base 5% becomes 7.5%?

That phantom army does knockback is the myth that won't die. Phantom army does NOT do knockback. Now, putting that proc in them to actually give them a chance for knockdown might work out well though. But very not necessary.

Only sent I have is like lvl 16 (elect/elect) and I've found it amazingly fun and has a very good killing speed during the lower levels compared to most others. That is all solo and no DFB. Just got sidetracked and kind of waiting to see what further changes are made before I invest too much time in him. I assumed, if anything, sentinels might become more of a slog later at higher levels when the damage gap between AT's becomes more noticeable, until you get incarnate stuff and things even out a bit more again. Definitely concentrate more on attacks at lower levels imo, stuff at low levels doesn't tend to be dangerous enough to need to worry as much about defense.

As usual everyone seems to forget about /cold. Some of the best debuffs in the game for taking out an AV. Great defense ice shields for your pets. Would take bots/cold over the usual boring bots/FF anyday. But even bots/cold was a bit too boring for my taste so I went bots/storm. :)

A 10% boost to base damage is actually a lot better than assault's +10% since a base damage boost is then in turn affected by enhancements and other damage boosts, whereas assault is flat. I wouldn't judge it by assault in other words. Some good ideas. I do agree the more fun and unique buff would be to improve Opportunity. I'd like to see it trigger more and give it some more -res and maybe some -regen on the offensive choice. Honestly perhaps ditch the defensive choice that most don't use and combine both offensive and defensive into one. I'm not sure that "choice" will ever really be much of a real choice 95% of the time. Would also fix the issue of having to take both powers, make it so either tier 1 and tier 2 both activate the same thing so you can use either one.

That's an awfully big leap you're assuming there, and that's awfully uncharitable. Sure that's not what you WISH was the case, rather than what's ACTUALLY the case? An exaggeration in general of course yes (although I'd bet there are some where it wouldn't be). However, I notice you didn't answer my question. So how much of a damage boost do you think sentinels should get? I think unless some specifics are thrown around instead of just "sentinel damage - oof" , it doesn't help much.

I am curious as to exactly how much damage would make sentinel's "acceptable" to those that complain about their damage. Get the feeling unless they got full blaster level damage we'd see complaints.

According to the description hardened carapace is also suppose to give +regen and yet it doesn't. Noticed that on my scrapper. Maybe bio was still in flux and so some of it's descriptions weren't updated when its powers were adjusted?