oldskool

Energy Aura by itself will not get you soft-cap defenses, but you can achieve that with additional powers. The specific slotting of Energy Aura is going to vary wildly depending on more factors than any single build share could provide. Instead, I'm going to give you the powers that you can use to easily soft-cap with using anything more expensive than the two 3% defense globals. Let's just assume you take everything except for Overload. Energize and Power Drain aren't contributing to defenses in this example though they could with certain sets. OK. So Weave, Maneuvers, Hover or Combat Jumping, and Link Minds. Those pool powers, Link Minds comes from Psychic Mastery, will all stack with Kinetic Shield, Power Shield, and Repelling Force. Slotting... At least 3 slots with a Defense, Defense/Endurance, and Defense/Endurance/Recharge (Or Defense/Recharge) in all of the mentioned defense powers except for Hover/Combat Jumping (a common IO is fine). That will soft-cap you on all damage types except for Negative and Psionic. Negative will softcap the moment you use a full Sentinel ATO or some Thunderstrikes in your attacks. You could easily go into 50% Smashing/Lethal defense with the other Sentinel ATO. Psionic isn't worth stressing over. Your resistance to S/L can be 45% or higher but who is to say exactly where this lands without specifically building for that (you shouldn't need to). OK, so there you go. Slotting of Energy Aura made simple. If you skip Link Minds, then your Fire/Cold/Negative defenses will be areas that set bonuses catch you up (S/L/En is easy). You can easily cap those with Aegis in resistance powers or various offensive sets for AoE/Ranged. Your S/L defense may dip a bit below 45% but it isn't a big deal. My personal Fire/EA uses expensive sets so it wouldn't be as useful for someone looking for a cheaper alternative.

^ I think stuff like this is really helpful. Soloing enemies like AVs is a pretty common bar for a lot of players. Sentinels can do this. Maybe it isn't as fast as other ATs but they are certainly capable of it. I solo plenty of things that seem challenging. I do not bend over backwards to build characters to handle all enemy groups like Malta or Carnies. I do just fine on my Sentinels. Most of my Sents aren't even min-maxed on damage. They are just balanced around doing damage that I feel is adequate while having high survivability without hover (though I do gravitate towards specific secondaries). The game isn't that hard even on +4/x8 for most of the content. More enemies on a map just makes progress slower for me due to target limits. That isn't a challenge so much as it is tediousness.

Not in this sticky, and not in a sense that I *think* you may be asking. However, there are a number of older threads about the value of the Epic/Patron pools in this sub forum. I'll summarize as best I can and just reduce that clutter into this thread through... 1) Most of the pool choices allow for some kind of movement control (e.g., AoE Immobilize, slows, etc.) with the exception of Psi Mastery which has Mass Hypnosis (useful on some Task Forces). 2) Not all melee attacks are created equal, but they generally are good to have if you can fit them into your build. 3) Not all of the holds are created equal either, but they too can be good depending on build. 4) All of the Epics have some utility power baked in late into the selection. These include Darkest Night, Warmth, and Link Minds to name a few. The value of these varies wildly by pool and by build. A running theme here is you should not look at these optional powers (and they really are optional) in a vacuum. The only exception to this is Psychic Mastery. Psychic Mastery is the undisputed king of Sentinel Epic choices due to proc abuse and innate design of two powers (Mind Probe and Dominate). Those two powers slotted for aggressive play (i.e., procs in Dominate) can eclipse an entire primary's selection of powers. They are that good when slotted in a very specific way. Then, on top of this, you gain access to Link Minds which is another +defense (and +to-hit) source which can be made permanent with enough recharge. The other two powers offered in this pool do not matter in the Min-Max realm though procs in Psychic Shockwave are another option. Dark Mastery, Fire Mastery, and Electrical Mastery offer some competitive options on damage too. Powers like Smite, Cremate, and Havoc Punch are really solid melee attacks. The AoE options of Dark and Fire can be rather strong too (Electric is a bit of a gimmick without the Immobilize). Ninja Tool Mastery is a quirky. The Caltrops variant (Tashibishi) can be fantastic if you like that power. It forces movement from the enemy and when they run (slowly... while taking minor damage) they aren't attacking you. It can be a useful tool to relieve pressure if you get swarmed in melee. This is effective if you're not going for the hover-blaster style of play and it creates space. The range you have as a Sentinel isn't a hinderance when being in close quarters. This actually utilizes that to your advantage as you shoot enemies in the back. There are a lot of AoE immobilize options that unlock at level 35. That's a really nice advantage that Sentinels have that no other ranged AT gets. These are Controller-style powers that can stop movement of multiple targets at once as long as the power hits (these have accuracy penalties - keep that in mind). This can work really well with rain-style powers which also force movement (Rain of Fire, pretty much all of Ice Blast, Whirlpool, etc.). You do not need to go deep into these choices to find value. On almost every Sentinel I make I pick 1 forced movement power. That is either Caltrops or an immobilize that meets the theme of my character (so Ice Blast gets Ice Mastery for that immobilize). I only go really deep into Psychic Mastery on one character and it is to min-max that Sentinel. However, the abuse used in slotting here will likely get fixed at some point (the Homecoming devs are going to do something about procs). So I'd keep that in mind to enjoy whatever you come up with now and understand this is likely to change.

Definitely enjoy this for as long as it lasts. You may know this, but this isn't how Opportunity bar building functions on all primaries. Sonic Blast cones do this and Assault Rifle's Flamethrower does this (Buckshot *does not*). Some primaries can exploit a glitch and stack Opportunity (i.e., running both Offensive and Defensive simultaneously). Whenever the team gets around to "fixing" Sentinels I wouldn't be surprised to see all of this go the way of the dinosaur.

I'm not a fan of Fiery Aura on Sentinels. The mitigation is low, the damage pay off isn't worth it, and Consume isn't as strong as other end powers. That said, if this is something *you* think would be fun, then go for it. There are some folks that have posted about Fiery Aura and actually enjoy it. They may also like getting punched in their crotch, but we don't kink shame here. With Fire, if you're using Burn and Whirlpool get ready to be in melee a lot. Then watch as enemies run from it (even if slowly). By 35 you may want to give consideration to an AoE Immobilize to stop that annoyance. Unlike Brutes/Tankers, Sentinels don't have aggro magnet abilities to keep enemies in the ground patches.

1) Range and building for it is overrated on Sentinels, in my opinion. The default range with hover is more than enough to avoid melee damage. 2) Building for regen rate is a waste of resources. Build for hit points and recharge (you want those clicky powers in Bio available often).

Your first challenge is going to be trimming down powers because squeezing all of that in is going to be hard. You can skip Resurgence in Willpower if you want. You could skip Strength of Will too, but I'd suggest you play with it first to decide you want it or not. That's about it for Willpower. Willpower slotting is really straight forward and pretty easy. Slap a 1 end redux and 3x of the type (defense, heal, or resist) in the toggles. 2 or more slots in the passives depending on what you're going for. Beam Rifle can utilize almost all of its attacks. You could pick either Single Shot or Charged Shot and ignore the other. You could skip Cutting Beam if you like. That's it. Disintegrate, Lancer Shot, and Piercing Beam are your core attacks. You'll use either Single Shot or Charge Shot as filler. Refractor Beam is unique to Sentinels and worth taking. Aim is useful to line up with Overcharge. 5 to 6 slot your attacks. If you take Fighting you likely know the drill. Leadership take at least Maneuvers and you may not have too much room for more depending on how far you go into Psi Mastery. Speed for Hasten is an easy choice. Pick your favorite teleport power but going too deep is going to be tough. In Psi Mastery you're going to start struggling for slots depending on how you've designed this. Mass Hypnosis can be good on 1 slot for solo PvE. The real gem is Link Minds to get you more defense and a bit more to-hit. That is shared with your team so that's nice. Mind Probe, Dominate, and Shockwave can open up new damage paths but you're spreading thin. It's workable but it will backload the power of the character which can be annoying. Quick Recovery and Stamina with some Performance Shifter +end procs won't make toggles too bad. Turning them all on if you die sucks, but it is what it is. Most important tip... Have fun. Don't over think it too much and enjoy the ride. Another possible choice for Cable is a Blaster, Corruptor or Defender using Beam Rifle and Time Manipulation. Teleport for travel and then whatever else you wanted to squeeze in. Oh, and the other problem is going to be figuring out what to put in all of those pouches you'll need to have on your costume. Thankfully, there are plenty of big shoulder pads. 😛

I do think there are some good general ideas in the build. Good job. I did opt to tweak some things just to show a different way to go. In the first build below I just dropped the proc use. In powers like Touch of Fear they really aren't as good as they look in practice vs on paper. Fury does a lot of the heavy lifting on boosting ToF's damage in practice. The loss of the proc in Midnight Grasp is a damage loss, but you have 2 free slots so picking that back up isn't a big deal. Here is a thought with Gloom and Cardiac vs Energy Mastery with Musculature. What is interesting here is that despite the lack of the extra proc in Midnight Grasp the new attack routine (Smite, Siphon, Midnight, Gloom, vs Smite-Siphon-Smite-Midnight) for single target does more damage due to Gloom. On top of this Cardiac makes the routine easier to sustain *and* boosts the resistances. You lose some AoE damage potential, but it isn't that much. You gain sustain and some resistance. I think the trade is sound.

I think you got some concepts swapped in your statement. Oppressive Gloom has standard accuracy. Cloak of Fear has an accuracy penalty. If you're only going to 2 slot CoF, then I highly recommend going with the */Endurance/* variants for those slots. The damage proc will check once per 10 seconds and it is subject to the hit chance of the power. That chance to hit isn't guaranteed even with Tactics against +4 enemies. Once you get your Alpha set up, it will be better, but still not guaranteed. To make up for this, the Fear pulses pretty fast, but that doesn't influence the damage proc. I wouldn't worry too much about enhancing the defense debuff in CoF either. Reduce the cost to run it and the power works really well as it is. You skipped Touch of Fear though which got a buff and was useful even prior to that when paired with Dark Armor. First, ToF has a substantial debuff. It is the highest modifier of -to hit out all your core options. Second, it stacks magnitude with Cloak of Fear which can fear Bosses and reduce their attack rate. It can fear enemies with purple triangles too when those drop. Lastly, the power does AoE negative damage which ticks with your Deathshroud and benefits from Fury. It also ends up being available more frequently than Soul Tentacles or Dark Obliteration. Food for thought. For Dark Regen, I happen to like running 4x Scirocco (Acc/Dmg, Acc/Dmg/End, Dmg/End, Proc), plus Theft of Essence End Drain and perhaps even Fury of the Gladiator -resistance. I find as long as I can get DR within a 12 second recharge from global recharge efforts most Dark Armor characters of mine are nearly unkillable. Less recharge on the power is good too, but without Theft of Essence you're going to tap your endurance hard. Dark Consumption can't keep up with it by itself. I think you undersell Maneuvers and over think Tactics. The side effects of Tactics are pretty niche in PvE but Maneuvers stacks with everyone's defense. Even a single generic +5 defense IO pushes you up to 40% melee defense. It's almost 4% more defense than you had which is substantial damage mitigation all by itself. Sure, you don't have DDR, but the fewer times that enemies can even start the cascading defense the more time your -to hit has to actually work. This compounds with Touch of Fear. Furthermore, I'd suggest always looking to open with Soul Drain since it is going to boost your ability to hit. Thankfully, Soul Drain already has a high chance to hit so Tactics is even less useful for that purpose. Your endurance slotting could use re-tinkering. Weave, Cloak of Darkness, even Stamina all look underslotted. You're going after high resistances, which makes some sense, but it is at the expense of sustainability. This could be reduced with Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection. That would also allow you move some slots around to bolster defenses even slightly. Cardiac Alpha will also help and get you into the 80% resistance range on S/L and Psi at least. That's pretty darn sturdy for a Brute and having Dark Regen to constantly feed your health pool will make you nearly unstoppable. Currently I run Dark/Dark only on a Stalker which is really durable for what it is, but I can promise you endurance can be a challenge. I spam Dark Regen and Theft of Essence makes that possible that is including Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection. My Dark Armor/Titan Weapons Tanker also has to manage endurance, but doesn't run Cloak of Fear to help in that.

Its Arthur the Blaster yelling "Not in the Face! Not in the Face!" while side chatting with the Controller as to why their costume is a moth and not a bunny. Meanwhile... the Tick Tanker is just soaking it up being mighty (which is also his super power).

Heck, you can fear the boss too with Touch of Fear stacking magnitude with Cloak. This was, and still is, one of my favorite things about Dark/Dark. I used this years ago when it was Scrapper only. I used it on my Dark/Dark Stalker, and I would absolutely do this on a Tanker or Brute. ToF adding ticking damage to join in with Deathshroud is just icing on the cake. Fearing AVs when the purple triangles drop is complete joy to me.

Spines/Bio Brute can be a very early aggro magnet, but loads of fun. Bio on Brutes can be a little bit of a chore to raise the resistances on but on the Scrapper you won't feel so bad if you only hit 75% (since it is the cap). Still... fun combo and can be a thematic pairing. EM/Rad also feels a bit thematic as a pairing and would be great on either AT.

There are several threads about this, but one the more recent postings had already started off with a competent result. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/26549-waterbio-build-review/?tab=comments#comment-325591 Water relies heavily on its AoE powers since that is its greatest strength. As a power set, it is somewhat greedy. You'll probably want most of the attacks except for either Hydro Blast or Aqua Blast depending on your preference (No, Sentinels really *don't* need both Opportunity attacks). Water Burst is skippable too. Bio Armor can also be somewhat greedy for powers and slots. That depends on just how far you want to push recharge since healing sets like Doctored Wounds or Panacea can crank your recharge. Generic overview of how Water Blast plays: Build Tidal Power and spend Tidal Power. Spenders include Geyser (increases its power greatly), Water Burst (gains some cold damage and improved knockdown), Dehydrate (buffs the heal), and Water Jet (removes the cool down and increases cast speed). Water Jet has an internal cool down of 15 seconds so you can't just hammer improved WJ over and over. What will likely happen is you will end up dumping stacks into Dehydrate, and/or Water Burst (if you take it). Caveat, this doesn't play like a combo system. You can hold stacks if you don't take all the spenders and just dump stacks on to the powers you want. Whirlpool is an AoE that works like a Rain power so enemies will try to escape it. It's still a really strong ability, but some folks don't like it. The Aim power, Tidal Forces, should be used with Geyser. Its guaranteed full stacks which buffs Geyser considerably. The goal should be to try to get their cool downs to align. So aim to get both in the 24 to 30 second cool down range (this is doable). Bio Armor: You don't get the damage aura. Rebuild DNA is different and Parasitic Leech is a Cone. Furthermore, without heavy access to melee powers or PBAoE powers the melee/smashing/lethal defense hole can be a pain in the butt to fix. Bio Armor is still a heavily offensive secondary here, but it isn't tanky without a heavy investment that may block off damage slotting (i.e., more full sets vs frankenslotting via procs). Since both sets can be greedy on powers and slots adding epic powers maybe a challenge, but it just depends on what you want. None of the epic pools are necessary to make a good Sentinel, but Psychic Mastery *is* the most powerful for extreme power gaming.

3. Bio Armor can do this, but Psionic Blast + Epics drains endurance about as horribly as Ice and Fire Blast. Primary recommendations are these: Get your Accolades - These will help. Try to get Rebuild DNA as close to perma as possible (the build below does this) as it contains +End. Try to lower the downtime of Parasitic Leech as much as possible. Even 1 enemy will drastically boost your recovery for 30 seconds. Endurance procs are gold. Musculature Radial can also boost your recovery while still giving you some damage (I selected this in the build). 4. Current Psionic Blast doesn't exemp well if you're trying to push its damage (actually a lot Sentinel primaries have this problem). You may want a second build that takes Psionic Strike and maybe even Psychic Scream. Psi Strike hits pretty hard but its animation is slow. Still, this will pad out your attack routine in the lower levels when recharge is an issue. This power conflicts with the current use of Dominate in the meta. Pick one or the other but both is too much. 5. The build below increases the uptime on Ablative Carapace and Rebuild DNA (effectively perma) which should help survivability. You can hover blast to manage range if you need, you can preemptively use Parasitic Leech to gain a powerful absorb shield and a large spike in regeneration. DPS is doubled even outside of Psychic Focus. Psychic Focus -> Psychic Wail is possible as the two cool down within seconds of each other. OK, so build below overview. There are a lot of challenges to reduce here and this is only one way to skin this cat. I also like to build Bio Armor for more recharge (160% or more), but I opted not to do that here. You can also build in more defenses using Winter Sets, but I also opted not to do that. Primary challenges to consider: Endurance management, and Wet Noodle damage. Defense has to take a bit of a back seat. Yes, in Efficient or Defensive Adaptation you're going to be fairly safe and especially so at range with Hover. However, in Offensive Adaptation I just didn't bother to shore up the weakness. Instead, lean in on damage. Secondary challenges: Psychic Blast and Bio Armor are incredibly greedy power sets for completely different reasons. Bio Armor gives more to the Psychic Blast relationship here and Psychic Blast acts like a selfish lover. This combo can work, but it is going to have some tough choices on what the priorities are because Psychic Blast is such a prick in the relationship. As mentioned before, some primaries just gobble endurance when optimizing their damage. Ice, Fire, and Psychic Blast are all members of that club (Dark Blast can be too). That said, you can get base recovery to eek out a bit higher than standard SOs with procs. The value of 2x Performance Shifters + Panacea isn't shown in the build but that fixes a LOT of problems. You may not even need Musculature Radial and may opt to go full Core (pick one for damage purposes - skip the defense ones like Agility). The Ageless Destiny paths will also help provide endurance and recharge. I highly recommend that for offense. Barrier is great for defense. Your choice in Interface and Hybrid should also focus on damage to arrest Bosses and EBs faster. Having access to Ablative Carapace and Rebuild DNA more often are also extremely helpful. At times, I have 5 slotted those with the Panacea set (7.5% recharge that stacks with the Luck of the Gambler 7.5%) and I'd do this for Parasitic Leech too if the slots allowed for it. I like PL to have a 75 second cool down if possible but that was tough to do here. Some design conflicts and lack of tinkering prohibited that. Diversifying damage is also helpful. TK Blast can leverage some procs like Explosive Strikes (more smash damage) and a Toxic proc. That helps reduce some of the psychic resistance struggle later. All of the premium damage procs (purple hold, and damage) go into Dominate to maximize it. Dominate has more than just psi damage at that point (toxic, negative, smash) and should help a bit there. I'd love to squeeze in some more toxic procs, but I just didn't for this build. It can be tough to juggle a balance and Bio Armor is a heavily offensive secondary. A couple other ways to think about this... Higher recharge and say F it to procs and defense. You can still leverage decent damage in the late game because faster recycling of Will Dom - Scramble - Will Dom - TK Blast is still pretty freaking good. You could also leverage a lot more defense at the expense of overall damage and some recharge. You can balance a few of these (decent but not stellar damage with modest defense and good recharge). So the below is a bit of one extreme while trying to be mindful of other things.

So you have a build, but are you looking for more specifics? The above is just regular SOs which is fine, but are you looking for set recommendations? Are you looking for certain metrics related to defense, recharge, or damage? The base you have is good. Sure, some slots could shuffle depending on what kind of sets/goals you're going for but it is still good. I don't play this combo and this subforum is rather dead. However, if you can help me to help you I can cobble something together. I am familiar with both of these sets separately.

So I worked around this by making sure to pick up Tough/Weave in the early 20's. The two 3% global defenses and Weave really helps to tide one over on AoE until Evasion later. I agree though Nin has it a little easier early on due to gaining its best tools very early. The full control over health and end bars is nice. The stacking mezz can also be nice. The stealth can make for far easier set up of Hail of Bullets later (which is now buffed on the Test server with lower animation time). Nin can be a bit tricky to fully soft-cap all positions when running heavy procs. There are solutions for this (like full Performance Shifter in the end clicky/stamina, or an PBAoE sets in those kinds of powers), but it may be cumbersome. SR is just easier to build with, imo. Power wise, I find Nin and SR pretty close and both are good for different reasons. Nin does lack DDR (it is baked into the T9), but I've solo'ed plenty of things on my former DP/Nin. So it does work just fine.

This renders all arguments against the character invalid. Well played.

Well... this is a really simplistic view of all things being stated. The *and better damage* is a MASSIVE... maybe. Why do I say this? Well, Tankers did receive a base damage bump. Their default melee modifier is on par with the Sentinel's ranged modifier. Unfortunately, melee attacks trend towards better damage, but with the caveat that they need to be real close. Sentinels can be close-quarters fighters too but the range is more forgiving. Also, Tankers can hit more targets in AoE now which is potentially significant. In other words, due to absurd power creep, Tankers are potentially better at a baseline than the current Sentinel is. (thanks multiple buffs to ATs that arguably didn't need that kind of treatment) However, we can't declare this in a vacuum. I don't know how you build or play your Tanks. I know how I build *mine*. However, ever, if you're the kind of builder that likes full set pieces vs frankenslotting, then the Sentinel is going to come across poorly, potentially at least. Though if you like the idea of frankenslotting plus some proc use, then the Sentinel isn't that bad. It may not compete with your Tankers but once again there are so many variables here that... *shrug*. Same goes for the Dark/DP Defender. That is a HUGE can of worms on potential power. This completely depends on how you built that character and how you leverage the nutty power that exists in Dark Miasma. I play this combo myself. I run Dark Mastery/Dark Miasma/Dual Pistols. Soul Drain -> Tar Patch -> Attacks is a lot of potential damage while solo. It also isn't too shabby in groups either. One good thing about the Sentinel version of Dual Pistols, actually the *only* good thing, is that you can explore a whole new attack chain with it. You can, potentially, completely dump Piercing Rounds out of your loadout. Sentinels get the absolute worst version of Piercing Rounds when it comes to the resistance debuff. It makes stressing over running anything outside of Incendiary Ammo a near total waste of your time. Sentinel Cryo ammo gets a slight variant, but who cares? (Rhetorical question, I know at least one person that loves it). So when it comes to answering whether or not you'll like this combo there is an awful lot of unknowns. Dark/DP Defenders can be built like absolute monsters with FAR more functionality than a Sentinel could hope for right now. That same combo can do some good to great damage under certain conditions and that damage is AoE (due to how Tar Patch works). The Sentinel doesn't really match that, ever. Tankers have been buffed and stupidly strong for the kind of mitigation they have. OK, now that all of that is said, the Sentinel can be a lot of fun if you don't try to make comparisons to other ATs. You may (or may not) be really disappointed if you do. Sentinel Ninjutsu is a great secondary set. Dual Pistols can be a lot of fun. These power sets together can allow for a character with soft-capped defenses and additional damage from procs. I've played it. I enjoyed it when I did, but ended up recreating the same character with DP/SR (SR is just hands down superior for what *I* wanted). The Ninja Tool Epic or even Psychic Mastery (Link Minds) are good compliments for them or potency. One last diatribe to get through. Your build will matter a lot. Sentinels pretty much need the Musculature Alpha slot if they want to tread water with the DPS meta game. If using things like Agility, then your Tanker *will* do more damage if not match it. Thankfully, Nin enables aggressive building if you want to do that. Just fair warning.

Dark Regeneration is the best regeneration.

Its certainly a good concept. Some of the numbers are off though. Sentinel's Opportunity is 20% for 15 seconds on a single target and this stacks with the 5% that is applied on all hits (that's where the 25% comes from). The wording of vulnerability in the game isn't great. The Sonic attacks with resistance debuff are 9.6% so that's accurate. The 3 PPM proc you're referencing is likely the Annihilation AoE set proc. That's 12.5%. Sonic Blast cannot slot Achilles' Heel which is 20% (Nothing stopping you from taking Weaken Resolve in Force of Will which can take that proc). However, Dreadful wail *can* take the Fury of the Gladiator Proc which is -20%. You may be referring to that proc, but it wasn't clear. Sonic Blast isn't super hot at boosting its own personal DPS through damage proc abuse, but it can contribute as a force multiplier. It is still decent at that while also offering a substantially better version of Screech. This means when helping out on an AV you can still run the same kind of max debuff chain but this time your Screech actually does more than tickle. One way to approach this is to pair Sonic with Super Reflexes. SR would let you soft-cap defense and gain some recharge. You could use the single target attacks to stack Thunderstrikes or Decimation or whatever other set bonus you want. These attacks aren't great for procs as there are so few options. However, that isn't the case for AoE powers. You could run Annihilation, Bombardment, Positron's Blast, etc. and also use that to help punch past the Sentinel's damage cap. The damage procs take advantage of the lower resistance too. This is an opposite approach to how I normally build, but it could be pretty effective with what you're gunning for. Edit, Heck, I may even try this myself. I've been trying to find inspiration to breathe life back into my original Sonic/Sonic Corr back from before the snap. I've made a few Sonic/* Sentinels and nothing really clicked for me, yet. Maybe I will revisit my Sonic/Energy Aura idea. I felt some of the effects of that looked like sound waves.

You could make a surprisingly effective Sentinel. Take Pistols as the first power choice vs Dual Wield. However, if you want to "Blap" you may not need it. Suppressive Fire has a lower cooldown on Sentinels and actually has decent base damage. It also can ride every proc that all other versions can. You can use this plus Executioner's Shot as your one-two ranged attack punch. You can skip Piercing Rounds. You can decide if you really want Empty Clips or not, but do take Bullet Rain (hits more targets which has benefits). Take your Fighting Pool things. Take an epic pool melee attack, and maybe even a single target hold (for more proc abuse like in Suppressive Fire). Some of the better melee options can include: Havoc Punch, Smite, Mind Probe, or Cremate. Knockout Blow sounds great but that cooldown is massive. Same goes for Midnight Grasp. Pick a secondary that doesn't require a crap ton of investment like the Sentinel version of Invulnerability or Super Reflexes. Sure, you'll want all the powers other than the T9, but these don't *need* a lot of slots to be effective. Plus, you can skip at least 3 attacks out of Dual Pistols and replace it with melee. Cross Punch does really well. So do the other powers I just suggested. This is especially true with procs. Yeah, take your lawlz meme character and then realize it actually does damage. Who's laughing now? *Edit* Also, for closed quarters but not necessarily playing with "lol melee" Dual Pistols plus Traps for toe bombing on either a Defender or Corruptor can be really good. I personally run Dark Miasma/Dual Pistols/Dark Mastery and have good lawls with Soul Drain in Tar Patch into Hail of Bullets. Can't do that every spawn, but still hilarious. Working on a DP/Traps Corr (again). So can confirm these work. I prefer to blap on Blasters (DP/MC), but you can get creative here. You're not going to exceed a Blaster, but you can still be effective even with this semi-joke build. It is should be pretty obvious that Dual Pistols and Martial Combat on Blasters works well together as will any other blap-friendly secondary. However, Blasters aren't the point. *Edit Edit* Just because I like stuff like this... You could slot Gaussian's Build-Up proc in Sentinel's Invincibility variant in the Invulnerability set. You have no control over the proc, but it will fire off. If you want to group a lot, then Tactics can run that plus the full set for defenses. You'll get some mileage out of it when you have more teammates. Having more sources of to-hit like this (Invincibility, even Link Minds in Psi Mastery, Tactics, etc...) lets you worry less about accuracy to slot more damage procs. This is how folks abuse stuff like this on Pylon tests even with the Sentinel to do higher damage than the AT is otherwise capable of.

The first part isn't true for all primaries. The second part is true for Sonic. All 3 cones behave this way, and it seems like a bug. Flamethrower in Assault Rifle does this too. Furthermore, these powers also double dip on Defensive Opportunity making it better than it is on any other primary (not worth building around, imo). Sonic's cones also break some targeting rules like how Water Blast does. On top of all that Screech does decent damage. The Sentinel version of Sonic blast is pretty good. Probably has a lot to do with: "Blaaaargh" "Raaaaagh" "Hooooooooooow"

A Brute or Tanker would be good. Whirlpool will force enemies to flee which may annoy you, but taunt them back in. Later on, Mu Mastery can get you Electric Fences and the Sentinel will have a range of options for AoE immobilize if you want it (Fire Mastery, Ice Mastery, etc...).

Master Brawler isn't a toggle. Master Brawler shifts all of the mez protection that you would have gotten out of Practiced Brawler into the toggles you'd use anyway. Then, as a completely separate effect, Master Brawler has a hit point absorb barrier that it creates as a click effect. So if you use Elude and your toggles drop, you don't even have to click Master Brawler. You just turn your toggles back on as you would have done anyway.

You can build for S/L resistance cap, but you may be better off getting *almost* there. The scaling resistance unique IO can cap you when your health gets low and inspirations exist. You could, hypothetically, build ranged defense cap, and/or melee defense cap. However, this isn't necessary on Rad Armor and even less so if you play more at range than in melee. So, do you need to focus on resist or defense caps? No. Dead enemies are always preferable to extended battles of attrition. So defeating them faster is a good overall plan. Now, building for "damage" kind of depends on what you mean. Building for damage percentage in sets, no. Building for damage procs, yes. You could leverage a mix, but the % damage in set bonuses are so individually small. These bonuses also don't do much for the Sentinel's innate damage scalar nor is there anything really compounding that damage from Opportunity. When it comes to procs you can go really all out or target some playstyles. Maybe you want to boost single target damage but use sets in your AoE (this is what I tend to do). You could go the reverse of that and proc your AoE and use ST powers for things like Thunderstrikes (ranged defense). You could just go all out and proc out all the attacks you could. There is some risk there on missing accuracy bonuses and other effects like global recharge. However, Rad has some recharge built in so it isn't the end of the world. Edit note: Just to be clear too 75% resistance cap is a hard cap on Sentinels. As in you can't gain any additional benefit here if you go over 75%. The remainder is just wasted. Defense is different. There is a soft-cap of 45% for normal content. You can build more defense than this. There is a different soft-cap for Incarnate content. You can also exceed that too using Inspirations, Barrier Destiny, some T9 powers (i.e., Elude, Moment of Glory, Overload, etc.). Sentinels can build into the 60% to 75% Smashing and Lethal *resistance* range on resistance sets. How easy it is to do that will vary with secondary and the kinds of IO set bonuses used. Resistance secondaries have 0 baseline defense which makes building up to 45%, even in one category, a potential hurdle. So it benefits your build to determine if you will spend more time in melee range or more time at longer range. This can help you tailor your mitigation plan. Also, if you want to push really hard content solo, then lean on your strengths. Like if you are building a bunch of S/L resistance and defense, then don't be too surprised when ranged energy enemies take your lunch money. The healing you get can help offset some of this, but no secondary set is universally good against all enemy types. Well, unless you're playing a Tanker and abusing some of the absurdness they can reach.