oldskool

Fair points above. Geyser, and most T9's, will have high chance to trigger a given proc despite how area factor may influence things. That's the benefit there for having a very long cool down. This makes certain proc effects, like Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge, pretty interest effects to place there. You can have a high degree of probability that the effect will go off on the cast and it being an AoE helps in this case. However, you're also right that due to the nature of a power like Geyser, you probably want to reduce its cooldown for more frequent availability. A nice benefit for most Sentinels is having a T9 available in a 23 to 26 second cooldown range if you build a lot of recharge. That's potentially very significant when you align that with Aim's cooldown plus the Gaussian's Build-Up. It ends up being quite a bit of damage and even more so since Water's version of Aim buffs Geyser. Whirlpool has a lot of potential, but do exercise some caution there. Don't conflate chance to trigger on cast as being the same as chance to trigger per target. The proc effects are not guaranteed to hit all targets. You can have a situation where a target does not receive a proc effect at all and others might. Whirlpool does offer the chance to improve some general damage output by combining both the Achilles' Heel and Annihilation resistance debuffs. Due to the factors of Whirlpool, it is also pretty good at triggering Opportunity Strikes even with the full 6 slot set. Whether or not you decide to proc out your AoE attacks or your ST attacks is a matter choice. Single target damage on Water Blast is one of the lowest out the sets and compensates by having fairly high AoE damage. You can potentially even this disparity out by putting procs in some of the single target attacks. At least, that is what I opted to do. Dehydrate, even with common PPM 3.5 procs, is still going to trigger those effects over half the time. That's not bad. Steam Spray may be pretty close, if not a little better, but the decision to build that way is just one way of doing it. Another thing to be mindful of is your attack chain and how coherent it will be pushing tons of procs. Then, on top of that, your endurance drain per cast. Steam Spray has a base 20 second cooldown. Whirlpool has 60s. Steam Spray costs 18 endurance per cast. Whirlpool costs 15.6. On the other hand, Dehydrate costs 8 end and recycles every 8 seconds. If your goal is create situations where your have large moments of burst, then procs in attacks like Steam Spray aren't a bad way to go. However, if you have to give up some recharge in the attack then your attack chain can suffer. On top of that, when you fight the big bad guy you'll still need to leverage an AoE as a single target attack which will drain your end. That means you need to rely more Seishen-teki Kyoyo where the cast time is going to be a DPS loss. My Water/Dark character has 162.5% global recharge. Steam Spray recharges in 6.08 seconds for me with 66.25% recharge modification since it carries a set. It still costs me 15.62 end per cast due the endurance reduction of the set which isn't a lot. Dehydrate does slightly more average damage per cast due to the procs it carries potentially every 3 seconds for 1/3 the cost. If I change my build slightly I can get 3 procs in Steam Spray with some better end reduction at the cost of 5% global recharge (157.5%). The average damage goes up by 30 pts over Dehydrate yet has a 7.77 second recharge time and still a high end cost though slightly reduced from how I currently slot it. However, Dehydrate still maintains a better damage-per-activation metric. Hell, even Hydro Blast can. Water Jet most certainly does. You're ideas aren't wrong if AoE burst is what you want, but the above is just there as stuff to think about. Its burst vs sustain damage. I know that concept can be casually dismissed at times, but things like bosses, elite boss, and arch-villains do exist. I find it very inefficient to pound away at those kinds of enemies with a high reliance on area attacks. Some sets can be exceptions to this like Fire Blast's Fireball is just too good not to use (and mine has procs there too).

Animation times and base recharge times influence chance to trigger procs. Aqua Bolt is a very fast casting (1.188s Arcanatime) and fast recharging (3s) power. This means that the default chance to trigger a given proc, even like Lady Grey, is actually fairly low. The Build-Up proc's innate chance to trigger, the proc-per-minute rating (PPM), is even lower than the Lady Grey. Other powers in your kit like Hydro Blast, Dehydrate, or even Water Jet will have high chances to trigger those effects. The high the chance to trigger the effect, then the more average damage that the proc will contribute. For Aqua Bolt to be truly worth slotting in that manner you'd have to use it very frequently in order to roll the dice as often as possible. Even then, Aqua Bolt is likely a better carrier for a set bonus and the proc plan pushed to a different power that can abuse the mechanics like Dehydrate.

I run heavy proc caltrops on some characters. I find it fun, but do temper your expectations. What generally doesn't happen is this... "You cast caltrops" -- ALL procs go off against ALL targets. The above isn't reality. You may find a target doesn't get hit by a proc at all or a target may get hit by multiple procs at once. The ability to potentially get another -12.5% resistance from the Annihilation proc is pretty fun but just don't count on it being a constant. I'm usually only looking for the procs to do anything relevant at the point of the pseudopet spawn vs constant proc explosions over the duration. That isn't realistic either. If you have the slots left over to explore this option, then go for it. It can be fun, but it may not be as potent as it looks on paper.

You're welcome! Keep the ATO that you got with merits. You can convert them into superior with a catalyst (each enhancement needs a catalyst). Those can be a little pricey if your budget is tight right now, but you can basically make what you have into the purple (superior) quality version later on. So all is not lost!! Maximizing procs is really just loading up on them. If a power can take multiple procs, then you put those procs into the power. Now that's really dumbing it down, but it is a general concept. What's tricky about that strategy for slotting is the more procs you add the less general enhancement benefit you gain AND you lose out on set bonuses. What I mean by general enhancement benefit is attributes like accuracy, endurance, recharge, and damage. You could load a power with nothing but procs (if it had them available - not all powers do) but there is a high chance that your average chance to hit a higher level enemy would run in 60% range. With that big of a hit gap the benefits of stacking damage procs becomes more of a liability than it does a benefit. Also, since you're missing out on direct recharge enhancement you'd want to have global recharge enhancement to ensure your attacks still have smooth transitions with little downtime. The more recharge you gain the less likely you need to hold onto powers that don't compare well to your heavy hitters (since they're available more often). So in order for a build idea like this to work you'd need to look for sources that can give you back everything you lose out on to procs. [I'm also generalizing here. There is a lot more to proc calculations than this and there is a guide for it around the forums.] The easy, but expensive, way to build recharge back is stacking Luck of the Gambler with as many purple sets that make sense. That's 5 x 7.5% from the LotGs and 5 x 10% from the purples (or as many as you can get away with). There are potentially other sets to boost your recharge too and these might be sought after sets (Positron's Blast, Decimation, Preventative Medicine, Reactive Defenses, Red Fortune, and so on). To build back some missing accuracy you can use powers like Tactics and/or an IO like the Kismet +6% to-hit. Ninjutsu can be tough to deal with on streamlining your attacks down by skipping set bonuses to allow for proc stacking. Even then, Sentinels don't always do that well with trying to proc out every single attack. Defenders/Corruptors may get away with that a little bit better since certain support sets dramatically alter the fundamentals I just listed (i.e., Time Manipulation or even Kinetics). So Sentinels probably want to pick either their single-target powers or their AoE powers to get silly with procs. Do not take that as gospel (anyone reading really) because I've seen the occasional build that goes all in. Anyway, having a much higher budget for the stronger IO sets gives you a lot more wiggle room to close gaps while exploring alternative damage options like procs. All that said, its a mouth full, you do not need to do any of that. If you are happy with what you have, then that is all that truly matters. It can be fun to talk about min/maxing, but that is just a different side set of end game. Costume slots and design being the other side of true end game. 🤣

I guess Mids still lets people use both the regular version of the ATOs and the Superior. That doesn't work though. You could change the set in Hydro Blast to just Thunderstrike. That'll get you your ranged defense back up. You could slot Steam Spray in a similar manner to your other AoE powers. To make sure the procs trigger as frequently as possible you want to be mindful of recharge from enhancements, not sets. So in the case of Detonation you could replace the Damage/Recharge with Damage/Endurance/Range. You're not maximizing procs for damage here. You're just adding a proc here and there to add a little something extra. Its a totally fine way to go, but if you wanted to get more extreme then it would also require a vastly different approach. Since you stated that this is about the budget you're willing to tolerate there isn't a whole lot else I'd change. Your melee defense would be a little lower, but that could be fixed by a Steadfast or Gladiator's 3% defense to all. I would not recommend using another Shield Breaker in a power like Dehydrate just to get your melee defense up. Aqua Bolt is a pretty lackluster power and the loss of enhancement to damage isn't that big a deal. Screwing over Dehydrate would be far more noticeable for very little gain. Having 43% melee isn't that bad when enemies have to get in your face. You have Whirlpool to slow, and knockdowns to reduce that threat. It wouldn't be worth the hassle to hinder any of your big hitters for minor defense boosts. Money making is an understandable hurdle if you've just come back. While money making can be pretty boring for some, there are a few guides in the Market subforum that you may find helpful. As you run content, like Task Forces or complete stories, you can get reward merits. You can use reward merits to either A) make money passively or B) bypass the high cost of market-based enhancements. So while you don't have some of the more expensive IO's right now, and the ATO's tend to be in the same price range as things you've mentioned, you could afford it. IOs sets like Winter or Purple ones run around 20+ million per slot. Sounds like a lot now, but it probably won't be so bad months from now. Still, for a budget build what you have works within the confines of the limits set. Also, keep the slotting in Water Jet and Geyser. Neither of those Superior ATOs are game changing. You could swap either, but its not going to move the needle much.

Please do!

Not quite. Abyssal Gaze has 5 procs. You could easily swap something for Cloud Senses if you don't want two with Psi damage. You could, potentially, go with all 6 slots as procs. Antumbral Beam has the three damage procs that are available to it. I opted not to put Decimation: Chance for Build-Up, but I definitely thought about it. Life Drain has 3 common damage procs and those are there as the purple proc is in Antumbral Beam. You could potentially put a Decimation: Chance for Build-Up or Theft of Essence here. I'm not sure it is worth doing that. Dark Blast has a rough 30% chance to trigger a PPM 3.5 proc if it had zero recharge in it at all. Frankly, the average damage boost for that isn't really worth giving up the set bonus in my opinion. You could totally do it if you wanted, but you'd drop 10% recharge, and 2.5% ranged defense in process of picking up a small amount of DPS. Gloom isn't necessary for regular use here as Life Drain's average damage supersedes it. So stuffing it full of procs doesn't make a lot of sense if its only use is to exploit double Opportunity.

I don't disagree. BTW, I actually think it is great that you're enjoying the DP/SR build you have and I also think it is great that you're expressing how it runs in +3/x8. I think it is incredibly helpful to have another voice saying "yes this AT can perform on this level" beyond my own.

I didn't chime in on your other thread about it, but since you bring it up here... Dual Pistols can run around 205-215 DPS prior to getting your Alpha slot unlocked. That's considering a build with procs and the more you stack the higher the DPS gets up to a point. This has been tested by 3 different folks, my self included, and the results on builds have been pretty consistent. The damage is "low" when compared with builds that are pushing meta combinations. However, if one bothered to look at some builds earlier on the Pylon thread they'd find some results of 180+ even on ATs known to be doing more damage. Its a whole beauty is in the eye of the behold thing while simultaneously reinforcing the idea that procs are very powerful and build decisions matter.

You're welcome! Gloom's 20% res debuff is Defensive Opportunity. It will be available on a single target for 15 seconds and have a downtime related to how long it takes to rebuild to 90% in the meter. So its not nearly as reliable as something like Achilles' Heel would be, but it is still a good effect on tough targets. I don't want to get into a drawn out discussion on the failures and merits of the inherent though. Gloom's base damage is actually higher than Life Drain (90 vs 86). The higher base damage and faster cast time makes it have better DPA. However, Life Drain has more proc potential and that slightly favors Life Drain. So if you went with a proc LD it becomes a viable replacement to Gloom. Why chase FF procs when you can just build for perma-Hasten? I'd think that's the entire point behind picking Super Reflexes, Energy Aura, Electric Armor, or Radiation. Take a gander at the build in the block below. It has 185% global recharge which is more than enough to perma your Hastens. I didn't change any powers to do it. I just changed the slotting. BTW, KO Blow has a base 40 second recharge which really puts a hurt on that plan. Thunderstrike isn't much better at 36 seconds. The Epic pools with some Goldilocks zone potential would be Psychic Mastery, Dark Mastery, and Fire Mastery. Those sets have a melee power which animates and recharges within reasonable ranges while also doing respectable damage. The holds in those sets can be made to work but Dominate is the best for the whole Goldilocks zone set of attributes. What I mean by this is the animation and recharge impacts to proc chance are juuuuuuust right. Not too long and not too short. Opportunity Strikes is hot crap for the proc. The entire set bonus is pretty good though. The Sentinel Ward set is the same way. The bonuses are pretty good and the proc itself is absolute garbage. That said, the build below includes both because the set benefits can be worth it. Its also how the build goes slightly above 45% defense while also attaining 185% global recharge. Anyway, I don't think you'd gain much for using Ragnarok since the point of that set is 10% recharge which is already included. I don't want to tell you how you should build or play. So everything below is 100% up for revision by you or anyone else. Its not intended to be considered "perfect". However, the slotting strategies should serve as an illustration of what I am talking about. Couple other points... In the originally posted build a conceptual attack routine of Antumbral Beam, Abyssal Gaze, Gloom, Dark Blast sounds fantastic on paper. However, there is a pretty significant gap there before Antumbral Beam becomes available again. So if you went into the Window options and clicked "DPS" Mids will tell you that attack chain does 191 DPS. Its also bull$h!t. Abyssal Gaze to DB is 4.884 seconds of animation and that gap (0.39 seconds) before the next AB will lower the DPS which isn't accounted for. Still, this is actually a good chain to shoot for because Gloom is a really good T2 and Dark Blast, despite is low per target damage, is a good T1. However, if you up the recharge you can dump Gloom for Life Drain. You can run Antumbral Beam, Abyssal Gaze, Life Drain, Dark Blast (Mid's won't count DB in the routine which is silly). There is still a gap, but it is significantly smaller (0.12 seconds). More damage is loaded into Abyssal Gaze and damage from Antumbral Beam is spread into Life Drain. You could still use Gloom if you like, but it will likely lower some damage over time. That just hypothetical napkin mathing and in real play you probably won't notice. The only time really nitpicking this kind of rotation counts is if you're gunning for AVs where piling on that much damage can matter. You could tinker with the slotting in DB and Gloom. Sometimes I mule Apocalypse 5pc for the recharge and put the proc into a power that has no recharge modification (i.e., Antumbral Beam in this example). You could change that up and go a different direction. The difference is likely going to be small.

Some food for thought. Passive +damage from sets is something you add to base damage. Now, look over the two hardest hitters besides Blackstar which are Abyssal Gaze (112 dmg) and Antumbral Beam (145 dmg). Work backwards and remove a 4pc Devastation set. You just lost 3% damage to all. That's a loss of just over 4 pts of damage on Antumbral Beam. Worth it? Now, remove the Acc/Dmg/Rch Apocalypse from Antumbral Beam and swap in some Acc/Dmg instead. Notice the damage go up because the proc average changes. You can repeat that with Abyssal Gaze by removing the recharge carrier in the PvP set and just replace it with Ghost Widow Acc/End. You could gain some more damage in Abyssal Gaze with Unbreakable Constraint: Chance for Smashing. You could gain around +30 pts of average damage in Life Drain by using the PvP proc, Touch of the Nictus, and Cloud Senses procs. For good measure you could have the Theft of Essence. A Nucleolus Exposure +3 could go there for Acc/Dmg and a Thunderstrike Acc/Dmg/End could also work. You could of course mix and match. Sentinel Life Drain has the lowest healing modifier out of all of the ATs. What Mid's is showing as 6.67% is not a typo. The other ATs have Life Drain that heals 10%. That includes Masterminds. Compound a baseline 6.67% health return on top of an AT with fairly low hit points and SR has no other measures of building that up. Life Drain used for healing on Sentinels kinda sucks. I think a fair point can be made that Life Drain, slotted how you have it, when combined with Master Brawler can pull more weight than it may with some other combos. So that's something to think about, but I'm not real sure it is worth it. I have a couple of /SR Sentinels and the lack of a heal, even without Defensive Opportunity which I don't bother with, hasn't been a problem. Its also kind of a shame to not see the Gaussian's proc in Aim. That proc in Tactics won't check often if you run solo more than you team. If you team more, then just ignore this concern because there can be a solid case where it can be better. Still, one more thing to think about. I'd think you'd end up doing more damage scrapping the entire mentality behind chasing +damage bonuses. I know it was something I did earlier on last year, and I was wrong. With SR there is a very high potential to hit very high recharge (well over 170%) and I think there is room to grow in the build there. The defense side is fairly easy to deal with and this is where the magic happens. SR gives you room to play with procs because your defense and recharge have innate boosts few other sets can even hope to get (Energy Aura being the runner up). What you have is totally fine if that is what you want. You do you and all that. However, if you're wanting to push it further there is certainly room to explore more options. P.S. And I see no reason why the build as is couldn't handle +2/x8 or better once you get your Alpha slot to T3.

The Luck of the Gambler recharge IO is its own bonus but it is limited to the rule of 5. So you can have 5 of that IO but you can also have 5 sets that also grant 7.5% recharge. This breaks a rule but the IO itself is not unique nor is it a set bonus. Hence why it is so valuable for builds. If there is a hard cap on defense it is so high as to be practically useless. For most content having 45% defense is generally considered "enough" but even going over that number is fine. There are enemies with enhanced to-hit values or enemies that can debuff your defenses. So going over 45% gives you buffer. Incarnate content has a higher soft-cap which is around 59%. You could, hypothetically, hit this number if you wanted to but I generally do not bother. Inspirations exist to help pad things, many group mates often run Maneuvers, and things like Barrier help. Retsu is the single highest source of defense debuff resistance in the Nin set. This is yet another difference from Super Reflexes. Super Reflexes has more DDR spread out across its powers. Nin has less of it, but then consolidates that power into the T9. So the power has some value, but there is little reason to go out of your way to enhance it. If you're running at the soft-cap without that power, then you likely won't use Retsu beyond the niche power it is. I usually turn off Ninja Run at the door of a mission and turn on CJ. Or many times I forget to do that and just run around with Ninja Run active and be lazy about it. I do this a lot on almost all characters. 😄

Boosters in Mids made easy... Right click the enhancement. Cursor over the enhancement. Press the + key to add boost. Press - key to remove boosts. Alternative method. Go to the top bar and find "Slots/Enhancements". Find "Set all relative levels to..." and select the boost you want to add or remove. Do note, this will add boosts to enhancements attuned by default (i.e., ATOs, Winter Sets) which will give you some results that aren't realistic. I rarely spend the cash to boost every enhancement. I generally target Hasten for the two generic IO's I place there first, Assault's single endurance IO for that reduction, and then prioritize powers which haven't yet hit 95% accuracy to whatever difficult I want to hit. That's a real simplistic method, and not truly reflective of all my thoughts, but it should help get you where you want. You have 5 LotG already (Ninja Reflexes, Danger Sense, Shinobi, Manevuers, Weave). You can't stack it higher than that so the Concealment pool is wasted for that purpose. You'd need to go from 175% global recharge to 180% global recharge in order for Hasten with +3 boosters to refresh in 120.6 seconds. With two +4's that's 119.9 seconds. Two +5's is 119.7 seconds (not worth the expense). You can hit 180% global recharge with 5pc Adjusted Targeting in Aim. This will lower your defenses to ranged just below soft-cap. A power like Combat Jumping (1.75% def to all - unmodified) will put you right back to soft-cap against most enemies.

And what level were those snowmen? Was the purple patch involved? Its been a while since I bothered to pay attention, but I think both procs are impacted by the purple patch which is just bonkers. The Ward set most certainly is. This is why I was able to get +1000 absorb off a level 1 Hellion in Atlas park but get around +14 absorb from level 54 targets. I feel like I saw similar behavior from the Strikes ATO where it would generate something like +100 meter off weaker enemies and a bit less as difficulty scaled. AoE powers with the Strikes proc have been pretty consistent at around +30~ opportunity with some funky powers double dipping. Powers like Flamethrower or any of Sonic's AoE will build meter faster and seems to work with the proc. Its kinda useless in that respect if a power is already generating 80% meter for it to have a random chance to build 100%+. Anyway, more thorough testing is helpful and I ended up giving up on the effort since no one seemed to care. It was already an easy conclusion to make that there are better ways to build the AT than to rely on its ATO procs.

Eh, don't feel that way. Sentinels have a 0.7 modifier on mitigation powers vs the 0.75 of Scrappers/Stalkers. That's vs the baseline 100% of Tankers. What this means is that 0.05 difference is slightly lower values on the defenses and on top of that Ninjutsu has lower values than Super Reflexes. So in order to softcap the positional defenses on this secondary you do need to stack it from multiple sources. If you're OK with using Barrier to cover the remaining gaps you can get 5% defense and resistance at the lowest values almost all the time once you hit T4 there. Ironically, Nin gets its AoE defense earlier but due to distribution of IO sets can have this weird issue where you miss out on softcapping that one. Here are some things to think about on fixing that. 1) the full Gaussian's set. You've got 5 pieces. I'd go big or go home here. If I can't get all 6 then I usually just go 1 generic recharge IO and the proc in Aim. That'll save you some slots if you can't the 6th for the defense benefit. 2) Performance Shifted 6 slots. A full set of Performance Shifter in Seishin-teki Kyoyo would softcap your AoE defense (+3.13%). 3) Hasten can run on 2 slots and the use of enhancement boosters (just +4 each) reduces the need for that 3rd IO. So if you look at cutting slots on step 1 and 2 you could get the remaining AoE defense if you felt like it. You could have a few other slots to spare for Tough if you wanted. Good low investment powers for the final 3. Tashibishi (aka Caltrops) from Ninja Tools. This is a love it or hate it power. If you love it, then you're going to see the utility it can bring to give you some breathing room. If you hate it, then you'll ignore this. ;) Combat Jumping or Hover. Either one of these with a single common defense IO will get you near 45% (just over 44%) to AoE without you having to mess with any of your current slotting. Assault. Sure, it's really a really low damage boost to just base damage, but it will still add a few DPS to your rotations. On top of that it will also apply to any team members so it works as a mild force multiplier. A common end reduction with boosters makes the end drain not too terrible. If you have any spare slots make sure you get the 3 commonly recommended health uniques (Numina, Miracle, Panacea). Those 3 plus Stamina and Seishin-teki Kyoyo will cover your endurance just fine. I'd consider putting a +Stealth IO in Sprint. I'd put one of the +resistance uniques in Kuji-In Retsu. You could put the other in Combat Jumping/Hover if you like or not at all. Up to you.

Have you checked out the sticky at the top of the forum? Nin and SR are both covered there and its even on the same page! I've also said this before, but I'll do it again: Ninjutsu Pros: More control over your resources (has a click for health and stamina). Earlier access to AoE defense. Access to a quasi-movement power in Shinobi-Iri. Shinobi-Iri also grants some stealth. Possibility of shenanigans with Blinding Powder. More IO set diversity due to the kinds of powers accessible in the set (Confuse, resistance, defense, travel, etc...). That means Nin has potential for an extra purple set (Confusion) which is also a really strong set. Potentially more powers to skip if you don't care about Blinding Powder. This means the set generally matures around level 28 vs 35. One of the most comprehensive mez protections around that also buffs psionic resistance. Cons: Slightly lower overall defense values which can be fixed with a good IO plan. Building can be a little bit of a pain depending on what you're trying to do. Can get slot hungry if you plan to use Blinding Powder to mule all 6 pieces of the Confusion set (it's got damage %, recharge, and ranged defense). Significantly lower defense debuff resistance than Super Reflexes. Static, not scaling, resistance. No KB/KD protection until level 28 and even then it isn't a lot (it's generally enough though). Clicky mez resist. Clicky heals for health/end can feel like an interruption to doing damage. Super Reflexes Pros: Slightly higher positional defenses as a baseline which makes building more of it easier. Evasion has slightly inflated values like the Stalker version since it absorbs Lucky. More Defense Debuff Resistance. A movement speed increase and 20% global recharge modifier. Master Brawler is potentially a strong absorb shield while giving you passive mez resist if you want it. The set isn't very slot intensive or demanding making it rather flexible. Passive endurance recovery. Cons: While slots aren't too tight, the powers are. Elude can be skipped and that's about it. AoE defense doesn't come on line until Evasion (level 35) and you may want to plan on taking Weave in the 20's to give you something for that. No native resistance meaning you have to rely on the scaling resistance buff on an AT with lower hit points making this a bit risky (Master Brawler helps though). Quickness isn't as flashy as Shinobi-Iri nor is there as many quality of life features built in. Passive endurance recovery means you have no immediate means of resource restore. No click heal (once again Master Brawler is kind of a work around). Both of these are potentially great choices. You could say Super Reflexes has a slight power edge to how it assists in performance where Ninjutsu has more utility/quality of life features. Either one of these can be made to soft cap your positional defenses. Super Reflexes can be easier plan for that than Ninjutsu but this is a very very minor quibble.

IIRC, there are two tag types. There are positional tags and damage type tags. For most practical purposes having a higher value in the melee positional is just as good as having smashing/lethal defense. This is because most attacks have both a positional tag and a damage type. The game cares which of those you have with the highest value to determine if you dodge or not. So technically Super Reflexes doesn't protect against "every other damage type" at all. In fact, generally speaking Super Reflexes doesn't enhance any of your typed damage defenses. The Sentinel version has a minor buff to psychic defense in Enduring that the other versions do not get. Is it worth slotting Enduring for defense? Maybe if you have spare slots, but probably not. Psychic damage without a positional type is generally rare and often linked to crowd control. Crowd control powers usually do fairly low damage and you'll often ignore the mez portion anyway. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you're planning to layer other powers from the pools know that those are universal defense to everything. So you could end up like I did where I have over 20% Psionic defense without even trying for it. Is that enough to really stop an attack? Nope, but it isn't worth it to really push it beyond that. I'd suggest sticking to the plan an slot Enduring up for endurance recovery. That's a sound way to go. Bonus note. While Lucky is gone the values of that get rolled into Evasion. This is something Sentinels and Stalkers share in common (since they too skip out on being Lucky).

Sentinel Willpower can struggle at times earlier on since there is zero enemy scaling on Up to the Challenge (unlike Rise to the Challenge on melee). This means if you get swarmed you're not going to heal any faster than if you were at range. This can hurt earlier on as the defense layering takes some work to really build it up. That said, Willpower is very hands off and rather easy to build. With investment down the road it can be "OK". Quite frankly, Sentinel Invulnerability does much of what Willpower does and does it better. The only thing Willpower really has going for it is Psi resistance here and that's generally overrated. Why is Invulnerability so good here? 1) Invulnerability also has an absorb... Sentinel exclusive. 2) The same power that does the absorb also buffs your endurance which buffs your recovery. That means you can have really good sustain on a set that wasn't really known for its sustain. Having Dull Pain is just icing on the cake. Bio Armor, you didn't bring it up but I will, has some similar early game issues to Willpower. The clicky powers it has to heal/absorb reduce that frustration a bit, but the asymmetric defense design is very very similar. Investment into IO sets can help close some holes just like it does on Willpower. Regeneration has a slightly smoother ride earlier on while everyone's defenses/resistances are still building up. Having a regenerating absorb shield helps and then you have Reconstruction to layer that with. Later on the lack of any baseline defense makes shoring up that weakness a very big challenge. A challenge that generally isn't worth it and may not even be necessary to fix depending on what you're doing. Regen and Willpower both lack defense debuff resistance so anything you do build via IO sets is still vulnerable to cascading failure. At least Regen has multiple click powers to respond to that where Willpower does not. This is not assuming the use of certain Incarnate powers to help mitigate either set's weaknesses (i.e., Barrier or the Ageless path with DDR).

First thing I'd change is the Romanized spelling to Ninjutsu. I think the set compares fairly well for Stalkers since it gains additional tricks like caltrops, smoke bomb, and blinding powder at the expensive of raw mitigation tools. This gives the set a level of distinction from Super Reflexes and also fits the feel/flavor of playing certain Stalker builds. The inclusion of a personal heal is also a very nice boon for Stalkers vs Super Reflexes at times. Ninjutsu's port in Sentinels/Scrappers has certain strengths but the lack of the original tools can make it feel like a watered down version of Super Reflexes. The inclusion of new powers like Shinobi-Iri, Seishin Teki Kyoyo (seishinteki is oddly joined as one word maybe because it can't be hyphenated?), and Bo Ryaku are great but also remove so much of the flavor of the set. This is both unfortunate and understandable. The missing power caltrops already exist in Weapon Mastery for Scrappers. Sentinels can pick up both Smoke Bomb and Caltrops in Ninja Tool Mastery. While I do like the changes of the Scrapper/Sentinel versions, I would have liked Bo Ryaku to exist a bit earlier. This is really a very minor complaint. The KB protection there is welcome far earlier than level 28, but this is easily overcome with IOs. Still, I'd rather not be so reliant on the IO's to provide a slight bit of protection like this and Shinobi-Iri could easily swap space there. I do love Shinobi-Iri, but I could also live with it coming later. Speaking of Shinobi-Iri... The damage bonus for first strikes is cute, but also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. I would love for there be other ways for Scrappers/Sentinels to use this bonus beyond a first strike. As it is, it is a really weak effect and more of a bone tossed out as a nod to the background concept. Its a nice touch, but feels like it should be used a bit more without completely stomping on shtick of Stalkers. Kuji-In Retsu... This is really just an Elude knockoff which was always a missed opportunity even for the basic vanilla Stalker version. This mantra, "Retsu", is the mastery of space and time. In an SO world, this power making you untouchable seems like it fits that concept. In practical play, it never lived up to the name sake. For Scrappers/Sentinels this could have been something new to interact with Shinobi-Iri and be functionally different from Smoke Bomb (which Scrappers don't even have and is nearly useless for Sentinels). It could have been more like an offensive buff. For this we could have had Kuji-In Pyo which is the expression of utilizing one's energy. Kuji-In Rin is/was generally a pre-battle meditation focusing the fire element (certain ninjutsu is real big on elemental harmonies with chakra) and Pyo is the following mantra to use this energy. I know that's real nitpicky, but Kuji-In Retsu is far too abstract to do it any level of justice with how this game works. A Stalker could also have a version of Pyo, but it would likely have to express itself differently. An stealth mechanic is already there for Placate so that's kind of out, but some kind of offensive buff wouldn't have been out of line with the original version. OR the Stalker version could keep Retsu as the defensive tool since Shinobi-Iri adds a bit more defense to the Scrapper/Sentinel version IIRC. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I genuinely like the set as it is, but it has a few points of copy-paste from Super Reflexes that could have been changed for more identity.

You're not going to ever pull off apples to apples so what you have is fine. You could just make note of their differences and design your test to around that. For example, on paper your DP/Nin actually has better DPS on a single target than the Blaster does. I'm serious on this. I know someone will read that and wish they could stone me for it, but it is real stuff. It takes Defiance to drive the Blaster's performance higher with that build, AND how you leverage the secondary. You've got Gun Drone's cool down low enough you could pull a second one out before the first expires. As long as the summon lives it is going to inflate your ST DPS effectiveness alongside Defiance. That's assuming you don't take Opportunity into account, but Defiance is guaranteed to be more consistent. Since you're not testing specifically on bosses this consistency of the Defiance effect is relevant information to test for time. I think the real question here is, how much time is saved due to those bolstering effects? That's a good basis for the test. Your DP/Nin has slightly faster cooldowns on its AoE and that includes Hail of bullets. Your DP/Dev has more options including Piercing Rounds and Trip Mine. That is on top of the expanded target caps native to the Blaster AT. Once again, the question becomes do all of these tools shorten time-to-kill (hypothetically it should) and if so, how much? You could measure the times by limiting the use of Blaster powers like Trip Mine, but that isn't really a good use of the test. I don't think it is interesting to find out if a Blaster with its right arm tied behind its back is somehow equal to a Sentinel. I think most people can see that Blasters should have an edge in doing damage, but the real question is just how much does it save time. Anyway, both builds look fun and this concept to test is pretty interesting. I don't have anything comparable to pull of myself as I don't play Dual Pistols on a Blaster as a ranged-only build. If I were to say that my own DP/MC build out damages my DP/SR build that has as much to do with Martial Combat powers as it does with target caps.

Dark/Dark is a fun pair to get your edgelord on. I guess you could color it differently and do something else too. 😉 Dark Blast's AoE may not be as varied as Water's but the attacks themselves are pretty good by Sentinel standards. You could also pick up an extra PBAoE from the Epic (I know obvious is obvious) and I'd recommend checking out Dark Mastery. I personally like Dark Mastery over Soul on Sentinels as I feel it gets a slightly better deal on animation/recharge times. Plus, the general power choices are all pretty good. You don't need it, but it is possible since you can skip quite a few things in either Dark Blast or Dark Armor. Psychic Mastery is also very strong, but can be a bit boring due to its power gamey nature.

I think the world is your oyster at that difficulty. Which concept do you like more?

In my opinion, /SR is a bit easier to build for survival than /DA is within this AT. However, you're mileage may vary depending on what kind of difficulty level you're looking to push. If you're comfortable running at a lower difficulty (while solo), then it really doesn't matter which pair you take. By difficulty, I mean +2/* vs +3 or 4/*. Dark/Dark can rely a lot on -to-hit which can diminish greatly the higher you spike personal difficulty on missions. /SR doesn't feel those difficulty spikes nearly as much due to fairly reliable nature of high defense plus Master Brawler. I find either primary fun.

If the first part bothered you, then I apologize. Was it too far to use "bestest"? Perhaps, and I'll be careful on that. For the latter, I think you're looking for insult where none is given. Not once did I call you elitist. I wrote "It comes across as". I do get how that could be taken personally, but that is a misunderstanding. The indictment is against the use of certain loaded language and not the authors themselves. If we can't have a discussion where a party expresses how it feels to read degrading commentary, then we really can't get very far in conversation here. I find some of the loaded commentary I mentioned inflammatory. I don't disagree that the AT could use a buff. However, the current role is ranged DPS. Just because it may not live up to whatever potential it should doesn't mean it doesn't have a role. It just isn't as good at that role as it could be. Much of your statement is really no different for Tankers as it is for Sentinels. The difference is the perception of current effectiveness. Since the Sentinel isn't as effective as it should be, it therefore it has no role. Am I missing something in this interpretation? It has a wide range of reasons when you start reading between the lines. 1) Some people are holding on to how ranged blast sets function in legacy ATs like Blasters, Defenders and Corruptors. This is a lack of acceptance that Sentinels do not do the exact same thing with the same powers. 2) Some people do not understand the inherent, and that isn't their fault. It is too complex for its own good. Its effects are also measurably weak and exacerbated by the lengthy downtime of the clickable effect. 3) Some people are making direct comparisons, apples to apples style, with other ATs. Most notably the comparison point is the Blaster, and this seems to be a leading cause of the misunderstanding. Sentinels aren't comparable to Blasters. That's not just for damage, but due to entire AT mechanics including secondary power interaction. Sentinels are, conceptually, more comparable to Scrappers. It is plain as day to see where discrepancies lie. 4) Some people are making direct comparisons with outlier builds as justification for comparisons to Sentinel failures. Maybe we're not seeing that directly in this thread, but some posters here have done exactly that in the past. 5) There are inevitable comparisons to experiences of only a portion of play and not holistic view. 6) There is the occasional parroting of common forum knowledge. It can be apparent, at times, when some people haven't really explored the AT beyond a certain point. That's fine to find that the AT in its current form isn't meeting expectations. Its not cool to diminish others based on a narrow band of experience. I don't intend for the above to be all inclusive either. Some folks just won't like anything about the Sentinel because it won't click with their style. That's unlikely to ever change until it fits within whatever box they've decided to build. Sorry, I need to cut out some of the extra text. I'm not real sure they do a good job of supporting your argument so I'm looking at what stands out. We already know that the dev team does not feel like the current implementation is the best it is gonna be. You can sideline this AT if you don't like it as that is your prerogative. However, we know it is going to change. The Sentinel not really bringing anything unique isn't really going to change much unless the devs truly due a full uprooting. Just working the inherent into something different doesn't change the fact the AT still has blasts with shields. You're also making the comparison of "weak blaster" here. You're entitled to your opinion, and I want to respect that. However, Blasters have a lot of flaws in comparison here. Yes, the Sentinel has less than a Blaster's AoE capability. However, that isn't the point of comparison. The Sentinel has larger AoE than Scrappers. The Sentinel has an AoE nuke for a T9 that Scrappers do not have access to. I'm not going to bother debating the merits of the level of quality of this AoE difference. I'm just stating that the intent of that design is what has been expressed. I feel you're making my point for me. You could substitute "Sentinel" with "Blaster" and it works just as well for the first 2 sentences. You play a Fire Sentinel, or Energy Sentinel for their effects and for that reason or theme. Whether or not the Sentinel is worth playing for your goals is going to be personal preference. I get the impression you'd rather play something else. That's great, and there is an AT that exists that checks the boxes in the Blaster for you. However, this mindset is not universal. Even in its current form, the Sentinel fills a void for some players (my self included) that hadn't existed in the game. We can agree to disagree on whatever points you wish here. If you like we can take this to PM and not derail this further. As it is, I think I'm done. I'm not really offering ideas to change anything of the Sentinel at this point but merely discussing semantics on where to drive productivity. My efforts aren't probably doing much of anything at all other than to get misconstrued in a manner I don't want.

I actually really like these questions. They cut to the core of everything I'm talking about and precisely a difference of perception. Do I think the Sentinel actually brings anything to the table other classes don't do better? Well, that's easy on the surface. Of course not. Guess what? I feel that way about a lot of classes. Here's another thing to toss on to the pile. I don't care. You're first question kind shows at least two lines of thought here. There is The Sentinels must do something better than and/or bring something better than some other AT line of thought. It is the zero-sum argument. Then there is The Sentinel fills a niche for an individual that the other ATs just can't line of thought. Its a more carefree argument. I definitely feel the later. On top of feeling that way, I also recognize this game isn't so difficult that the Sentinel's current performance hinders my ability to complete objectives in this game. Oddly enough, you note towards the end of your reply "but they are capable of doing content with no problems with their DPS and survival and they are fun". That last part, they are fun, pretty much trumps the following "but there are definitely better class choices available that do it... better!". Not quite. I'll grant you that through a very narrow lens of viewing this game others ATs can do certain things better. However, this isn't a determining factor for why I play a Sentinel. Also, just to be real clear my feelings do not mean my thoughts about the AT getting a buff are somehow mutually exclusive. I enjoyed rolling up the Sentinel because it let me pair up ranged weapon sets (Assault Rifle, Dual Pistols, Beam Rifle, Archery) with secondary power sets that don't force constant redraw. I really hate redraw in either of its optional forms as it really breaks character for me. While I could play a */Devices or */Tactical Arrow Blaster the outcome does not achieve the same thing. I can tell you I've tried it, and it doesn't work for me. The Sentinel does. I know exactly where my favorite Sentinel build sits on DPS as it is right now. I know precisely what it can do and how certain environmental factors (needing to click a heal, or inspires) impact my damage. I can tell you that level of damage is less than certain Blaster builds, but it is not so much lower that it hinders my enjoyment. At the same time it is not so low that I cannot still contribute to a team. Additionally, this AT helps me play around in exemplar content without a need to worry if certain IO bonuses that are carrying my defense or just go poof. Nor is the AT so dependent on Incarnates that is unplayable at a lower level. Mind you I also play some Stalkers. I'm well aware of the disparities in damage, but it is not so great that it ruins the AT for me. Before I move on, I just want to point out a few things. 1) Bringing up Tankers post buff as some kind of "See!! Even Tankers do more with bonus AoE too!!" is more than a bit disingenuous. Tankers had a balance pass. The Sentinel has not. Likewise goes for any comparisons of current fast-snipe. Both of these buffs to Tankers and Blasters, respectively, are power creep. I don't find it all that fair to be comparing ATs with buffs that bolster their damage as they did to an AT that hasn't yet even had its balance pass. I think more to the point, we could use those concepts as methods of evaluating how to make Sentinels better, but to just say "See, X AT post buff is now better!" is just BS. 2) You're skipping over Masterminds and Night Widows. 😉 If the only thing anyone gives a care about is the highest end of performance, then you really need to consider changing your "If, then" list. Completely drop the the ATs non-sense altogether and just cut to the chase. Why play anything other than Fire Blast on a Blaster? Not just a Blaster, because not all Blaster combos are fantastic, but a Fire Blaster. Scratch that. Why bother playing a Fire Blaster when you can just play a Fire/Kinetics Corruptor? Why play those when I can just play an Illusion/Storm Controller that can trivialize most content on its own? This entire argument can get awfully circular, and it is why I'm not fond of it one bit. The rest of the list is just a series of binary logic. It boils everything down to just a collect of metrics. If that is yours or anyone elses idea of fun, then I won't stop you. It isn't mine though. I tend to look at my characters more as "will this work on X AT or Y AT". I don't think just in terms of "well, Blasters are the most bestest at damage therefore, I must play Blaster". Again, if that is anyone's bag, then express you're inner suicidal maniac that nukes sites from orbit (its the only way to be sure). However, any of that pigeonholing isn't really necessary in this game, and you even note that. So once again, how much damage does the Sentinel really need to do? Anyway, can the Sentinel use better damage? Sure!! I'd love a buff!! Does that suddenly give it a niche it doesn't already fill? No. If Sentinels did more damage it just end up finding a place on your personal shelf of Blaster/Stalker/Scrapper/Brute/YoYo Master/Sentinel hierarchy. That's fine too. However, for other players the Sentinel will still fill the niche it already does and it will just do more damage. Its a win/win for me. Once again, I do appreciate the reply. P.S. Going over all of that misses a lot of the point about why I don't care for "role" or "...has no place" kinds of commentary. It comes across as being elitest in a game that is pretty easy by default. We're not rushing Mythic+ 10 for the keys to get a minor upgrade so we can crush it on a progression raid. This game isn't that competitive and if non-DPS ATs like Defenders can roll content without having a need for a Tanker then the entire concept of roles is just ridiculous in my opinion. This game hasn't needed specific compositions for teams in a long, long, time. Even at release it didn't always need them. I'm totally fine if the Sentinel's only real niche is that its power set selection is different from some other ATs and it is.