oldskool

I don't think there can be any serious conclusions about which one has better synergy without more context. Water Blast offers the same utility to both secondaries. Bio Armor's damage boost is very obvious and direct. Electric Armor's recharge bonus is less obvious and direct on its impact. Pitfalls, on either pairing, would be worrying too much about soft-cap defenses. You can potentially give up a lot pursuing that goal, but you need to do what makes sense for you. Bio Armor can conceal the damage shortcomings a bit with Offensive Adaptation, but temper your expectations. Electrical Armor is a bit more forgiving due to that recharge boost. I think you already realize this though.

IO bonuses can cover F/C. I've run Ice/Ice two ways. First was to softcap the types other than Psi, and this certainly possible. Its a tight build though if you're not wanting to use Agility Core to close some gaps, and I didn't want to do that. The second way to go is to just say F it and try to shoot for 32.5% defenses and lean on purple inspires. One should be able to easily overshoot that goal. I wasn't even trying that hard and got to 35% defenses. Here are some other issues: - End management of Ice is pretty terrible compared with most other Sentinel Sets. It's end management is linked to a drain power that also boosts defenses and its not great. At times it feels like Consume in Fiery Aura is better, and that's saying a lot since Consume is pretty crappy too among Sentinel end management solutions. - Icy Bastion will cover your endurance really well, and layers with Ageless to help mitigate the point above. Now you're highly reliant on post 38+ powers to cover end. That's not uncommon, but it isn't fun if you exemplar a lot. - Hoarfrost can cap your hit points along with Accolades making the level 35 power nearly worthless. The slow resistance is about it for that power and you can try to pick that up with a travel set of IOs. - You've already touched on Frigid Shield which I wish worked like its Blaster counterpart which is light years better. Now, when I ran with 35% defenses I could still attack from mostly range and survive just fine on x2/+8. Once you get the level shift x3 may feel OK, but I think it just takes too long. Softcapping all the things makes even x4/+8 feel OK as long as you're not getting hammered on -defense. The time to kill issue was a bit worse though because the 35% defense take ran damage procs in the single target powers. TL;DR: Take Energy Aura and color it like your primary. You'll still have typed defense set that is superior in every way besides slow resistance. Who cares about how much ice resistance you have? Anyway, this is what I ultimately did (switched to Ice/EA). Ice Armor for Sentinels needs some work to make it friendlier to the leveling process and fix its current problems within its loadout.

I try not to make assumptions on what is or isn't cheap to others. Buy it now prices aren't a problem for me, but they may be for others.

On Sentinels and Blasters I spent 99.99% of my time running Incendiary Ammo these days. I do have Dual Pistols on a Defender and Corr. I feel swapping ammo can be a bit more exciting on those ATs due to higher debuff modifers. That said, I spend a lot of time in Incendiary Ammo on those characters too. Sentinel's Ward in Bullet Rain is a fine choice. I have it there myself. Opportunity Strikes has some really good bonuses all the way through the full set. The proc it comes with isn't that great, but it can work a little better in the area powers. Since the proc isn't critical, I tend to prefer it in Empty Clips. I find I would much prefer my single-target attacks to be bolstered with damage procs over a random chance to boost my Opportunity meter generation. Opportunity as a mechanic isn't available enough to warrant worrying about with that proc. If you keep improving the rate of fire with the attacks I suggest, then you'll find you can build Opportunity fairly quickly AND more reliably without that proc. Still, it can trigger off multi-target powers so once again Empty Clips isn't a bad spot for it. Sentinel Epic/Patron choices all have possible value. I don't know about you, but I really don't like having my weapon characters spontaneously sprout weapons. So I tend to avoid additional attacks because it just messes with my groove. This doesn't mean the attacks are bad, but it just creates an aesthetic I don't care for. The elemental powers don't really fit with my weapon/natural themes either. I will often take Tashibishi from Ninja Tools though because Caltrops is just a Swiss Army knife of good stuff. It can force enemies off of you while making them move slowly, they'll take minor damage, but you can still pepper them with your ranged hits. Its like an active layer of mitigation. Its not for everyone, but it works for me. AoE immobilize powers can also have their merits. If you like the idea of including a melee attack, then most of the sets offer a good choice. You don't need to get super min-max about it either. Havoc Punch, Knockout Blow, Midnight Grasp, Smite, Cremate, or Mind Probe are all good attacks in their own way. The Ninja Tool attacks are pretty much hot garbage. OK, maybe not caltrops or the AoE attack; though caltrops is the best choice there in my opinion. Really the world is your oyster here and which one is "best" is going to depend a whole hell of a lot on your own preferences plus the end goal. Another way to go is not bother with the Epic/Patron powers at all. They can be good, but they are still just options.

So none of what you described is what I experienced while leveling Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu so long ago. I'm a bit hard pressed to see how it is that you're having such a hard time against a boss to the point where 5-6 cycles of the rotation you suggest cannot kill one. On the low end of time spent, that's 40 seconds. That's over 3,000 damage dealt with those powers, not accounting for resistances, and that's with the slotting you have in that text file. Some of this is a bit of growing pains. You don't have all of your slots filled. Some of the slotting you have isn't very efficient. Some of your power choices are also not as effective. I cannot promise you that the recommendations I'm about to make will fix everything. Not saying what difficulty you're leads to assumptions. Since you're stating it is taking you that long, if you're being honest, to take out a boss you may be pushing beyond +3 solo difficulty. Scale that back if that is the case. You have neither accuracy nor the fluidity of an attack chain to be handling that difficulty. Even taking your statements and slotting at face value, you have more than enough DPS to take out +0 to +1 bosses. You do not need to make a proc monster to do that. I didn't even bother with procs until after level 50. Prior to that I ran generic IOs and tangled with AVs on teams and held my own. Now is the time to take a real hard look at pruning some attacks. You have too many. They're stretching your slots too thin and you haven't even filled all of them with enhancements (if the empty slots are correct). Here goes. I'm not fond of Piercing Rounds on Sentinels. It can be an OK power if you know how to leverage the debuff it brings, but that's really only effective on teams vs solo. I'd highly recommend you dump it. The 2.64s animation time is killing your effectiveness and how it is slotted isn't helping. Dual Wield. Unless you plan to load this procs and do something creative with it, this too can go. You can use Empty Clips as a filler if you really need to. Start setting up Empty Clips as a carrier for Opportunity Strikes if you like. You don't have to, but it will make sense in a moment. Bullet Rain is fine. Dump the Overwhelming Force pieces from Executioner's Shot. You don't need that set, and it isn't that useful for you here. When you run Incendiary Ammo the knockback is replaced by the fire damage-over-time. You have more accuracy in this power than it really needs for handling lower level difficulty. Consider swapping an accuracy with a damage mod. Suppressive Fire. Dump that stun duration if you're running Incendiary Ammo all the time. It is literally useless. Suppressive Fire turns into a hold, not a stun, under Incendiary Ammo. That's not a recommendation to enhance the hold either. That's only about 2 seconds long and not worth the effort. Go for a 3rd damage socket. Start enhancing Pistols with new stuff. The training wheels IOs stopped being effective a long time ago. Oh, and use Pistols. Pistols may not hit hard, but it is still a better power than Dual Wield or Piercing Rounds. You want an accuracy, 3x damage, end and recharge. Weave that attack in between everything you do if you can manage it. Get used to doing this because it helps to learn it now. It can be a core component to your damage later. Consider embracing speed. No, not the drug. Don't do drugs. Consider that Sentinel Dual Pistols has the opportunity to really lean heavily on faster animating attacks. Leverage this by shortening the cooldowns. Consider Hasten. OK, Hasten is kind of a drug, but do consider it. Even better ideas.... Start looking into getting Thunderstrikes for Pistols, Executioner's Shot, and Suppressive Fire. Look for the Accuracy/Damage, Accuracy/Damage/Endurance, and Damage/Endurance. That's just 3 slots. The remaining 3 slots start looking into damage procs if you like. Pistols, Suppressive Fire, and Executioner's Shot can all take on several. These will help add in damage types you don't currently have. For Pistols at least try to get your hands on a Lady Grey: Chance for Negative. Get two while you're at it, and put the other in Executioner's Shot. For Executioner's Shot look for Explosive Strikes and Impeded Swiftness. Both of those procs are smashing damage. For Suppressive Fire look into the Ghost Widow's Embace: Chance for Psionic damage, and Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic damage. If you cannot afford those right now, use the last three slots to run generic damage, endurance, and recharge. Those will compliment the Thunderstrikes until you can replace them later. Once you have more cash you can always attune the Thunderstrikes, or use unslotters to get high level versions. You should be able to run Pistols, Suppressive Fire, Executioner's Shot without much issue. You will fill that downtime with another application of Pistols, and Empty Clips is actually a fine filler.

This is stretching the truth in order to make a point. Aim grants +50% to-hit and damage for 10 seconds. The Gaussian proc has to be slotted in order for it matter. The effect of that proc is +80%, and whatever level of to-hit I don't need, for just over 5 seconds. Yes, Gaussian's is 80% on Sentinels. Please feel free to log in and check for yourself. I know I did. Mid's states this and it is correct. Hail of Bullets has an animation time that consumes the bulk of the Gaussian buff window. You could queue another power before it was over and gain benefit into another attack. If Aim existed it would have less than 6 seconds remaining time. Another note, Mid's has the incorrect values on Sentinel attacks like Empty Clips and Bullet Rain. The real values are higher than what the planner shows. This is yet another example of where I can literally log into the game and see this information side-by-side. Hail of Bullets has a downtime. If we're going to play this game of No True Scotsman, then No True Sentinel needs a few parameters. No true Sentinel skips Aim. No true Sentinel skips adding the Gaussian proc. No True Sentinel skips building towards having a 30 second or less T9 availability. We could be a bit more generous and pretend that all Sentinels work their T9 + Aim to 25 seconds or less. So 130% bonus damage to Hail of Bullets compromises 50% more damage? What time frame are we talking about here? Just how much damage do you think you really do within a 25 to 30 second window? I do enjoy playing my Dual Pistols characters. I am not so much of a fanboy that I can't see some faults in the set. Criticism of the kit can hold merit, but only when we're being honest with the discussion and not making some pretty wild claims.

Manageable - "able to be managed, controlled, or accomplished without great difficulty" Crippling - (definition 2, because we're not discussing a person/animal) - "causing a severe and almost insuperable problem" Dual Pistols without Aim can still accomplish content in this game without great difficulty. Yes, it can take longer to take down spawns without controllable Aim + Gaussian's, but it is neither severe nor is it an almost impossible problem to do so. Inconvenient, yes. Impossible to play? Hardly.

I miss Aim sometimes with Dual Pistols, but it is manageable. While there are plenty of great points here some if it is really just splitting hairs.

The one you enjoy the most should be the one. AoE = Water Blast >> Ice Blast = Dual Pistols... Maybe not quite equals. Depends on how well you leverage Ice Storm and if you took Frost Breath or not. Otherwise Dual Pistols maybe better. ST = Ice Blast > Dual Pistols > Water Blast... This is generally going to be true if you use procs or not. The gap between Ice Blast and Dual Pistols is fairly small but the ability to use Aim should allow Ice to pull ahead.

You could browse this thread: And this thread: And this one too: Tons of ideas there. Just some quick stuff to think about. Costumes are always the real end game. While most of the Beam kit is useful you can have valid internal debates on keeping Single Shot vs Charged Shot as well as Cutting Beam. On my Beam/Invul I have all of the Beam attacks because it suits me to do that, and I use at least one power a set mule. The best attacks are Disintegrate, Lancer Shot, Refractor Beam, Piercing Beam, and Overcharge. Take Aim. The first 3 attacks have their uses too, but if you have to drop one or two later it won't really hurt much. Super Reflexes can get away with not taking Elude. I tend to recommend it for leveling builds and then just drop it later. This is going to vary depending on your own personal comfort level. You can always use purple inspirations to pad things out if the crash on Elude doesn't sound like it is your jam.

Is there a reason why you can't just skip the melee powers in Devices and just go all in on this ranged-only concept? I think you'd find that if you started to pair other secondaries this is going to be the same question. With Tactical Arrow you could skip utility powers just for the sake of layering defense bonuses. The end result is identical though in both cases. You're skipping powers in order for you to fulfill a concept.

Some other food for thought... Water Jet has a cool down on the Tidal Power effect. You can't constantly spam it. You could substitute Tidal Forces use by interweaving a different consuming power like Water Burst or Geyser. That's probably realistic for most players as it is. Aqua Bolt vs Dehydrate can have a valid argument about when one should be taken/used. The slotting strategy is going to matter, the content being faced, and the need of using Tidal Forces for other powers. I've run both before and found that Aqua Bolt can have merit at times. Ultimately, I switched to a procced out Dehydrate and I've noted an improvement in my performance for it. I prioritize Water Jet when I can enhance it, but 15 seconds is a long time to allow Dehydrate to consume some stacks too. Running Aqua Bolt makes it far easier though and that can have its own value to people.

First thing you should know. You're not locked into an Incarnate option. You can only use one Incarnate option at a time per each category, but you can have several different options sitting on the bench. This means you can swap some effects out of combat. There is a cool down to this so you can't reconfigure everything on the fly, but with some planning this can open doors. Judgment - I tend to feel this is a take what you want category. There are a number of good options for different reasons. Ion though is just really easy to use since it has a large range and bounces. Aiming it just isn't a big deal. Interface - I like Reactive or Degenerative. I'll work on both, eventually, but where I start depends on what content I play. Reactive is fairly generic damage boost and Degenerative (focusing on the debuff) can be better for tougher targets like AVs. Destiny - Clarion Core is probably the one you want to get first. Hybrid - The melee options can be good if you blap a lot, and the assault options are good for damage. Which one in each branch would kind of depend on what your build is like. I wouldn't stress too much about it as you can fix this with time. Lore - Similar to Judgment. There are certain pets, like Longbow or Banished Pantheon, that bring an effect you may want from their intangible pet path. You could also just go in for theme. I've picked non-meta choices before and haven't ever regretted it. Lore pets do significant damage.

I think some of the above needs a bit more clarity. Several Sentinel powers that are heavy on control in other ATs were converted into damage powers. Suppressive Fire in Dual Pistols normally has a long base cool down, very low damage, and a reasonable duration to the control element (stun or hold). The Sentinel version does far better damage, has a shorter cool down adding reliability/sustainability to the rotation, and has a fraction of the control duration. Some Sentinel control attacks, as found in the other ATs, retain a reasonable duration on some effects while also improving damage. That's not the norm though. Some Sentinel attacks completely trade their original version for something entirely different (e.g., Ice Blast). These attacks are generally only better because they cause damage while having the capacity for a minor interrupt, but they aren't always strong control options due to the diminished duration. Sentinels have no sniper attacks at all. So this cannot be worse because it doesn't even exist. A different way to phrase this could be Sentinels replace sniper attacks for new abilities and sometimes those effects do not pan out very well. There were some winners in the sniper replacement world, and some sets that lost something for it. Generally though the Sentinel attack rotations are fairly smoothed out and less spikey without snipes. Better ultimates is debatable. Sentinels can get their ultimates on pretty short cooldowns, but the cousin version of certain sets can also do that in other ATs. So what if my Blaster or Defender's Hail of Bullets recharges in 30 seconds vs my Sentinel's 25 seconds? The Blaster will do more damage. Sentinel Archery and Assault Rifle have longer cooldowns on their ultimates with some additional changes to help pad that out. I'm not sure I'd say "better" is the appropriate term. It is just different. For several other sets though the Sentinel can have their ultimate available with a bit more frequency and that can be a very significant contributor to team damage. Sentinels have the exact same debuff modifiers as Blasters do. Bringing up Defenders/Corruptors is kinda pointless since the Sentinel isn't a support AT. The rest of the commentary can be true but it can also be assuming a lot of conditions. It is also assuming a certain kind of mindset with builds within the AT and how it relates directly to the philosophy of another AT. That's a recipe for misunderstanding. Damage procs and ED capping damage don't need to be mutually exclusive. Damage procs won't benefit from team buffs like +damage, but they still interact -resistance. The Sentinel itself happens to bring some -resistance. That effect has two parts. One is a small persistent benefit, and the other a burst option. Sentinels improve everyone else's damage along with their own; procs included. There is some merit to the spirit of that argument, but it isn't detailed enough to give anyone an informed opinion.

That depends on how you built your Sentinel, Robert. Many of the Sentinel sets have very similar AoE capability because there is a lot of similarities across the various sets. Just about any of them have good AoE. Some of them have better single target than others. When I say this I am talking about baseline build designs using full invention sets in the powers. Basically just maximizing the base damage of the power. A few Sentinel sets work very well on just improving base damage alone, and in that respect they are very easy to build. Other Sentinel sets may not perform as well on just baseline damage upgrades alone, and may require additional damage sources like "procs". Out of a list of 13 power sets, there are maybe 3-4 that work real well with an easy build approach. The other 9-10 require a bit more thought, and when a player puts the effort into that can get rewarded with a very strong character. Maybe not the best thing ever/world destroyer, but still very capable. Dual Pistols is an awfully complex set. Almost every single power in the kit can have a purpose. Without really getting into the weeds on it, it can be real easy to make what seems like a lackluster character with Dual Pistols. Dual Pistols on just base damage enhancement alone is not nearly as great as it is often made out to be. People enjoy exaggerating when they have their own pet sets. Dual Pistols can sometimes be that set. Does this mean Dual Pistols sucks? Absolutely not. At least, not in my experience. When viewed entirely in a vacuum the set is roughly middle of the road for Sentinel damage when using certain powers as its best option. That's honestly not a bad place to be, but it isn't exactly the best set either. There is the potential to try and play Sentinel Dual Pistols as one may in another archetype and fall far short of even that middle of the road potential. As I mentioned before, I have four different characters with Dual Pistols. Technically 5 since I have a second Sentinel with it. If I couldn't get this kit to work, I wouldn't play. The animations are over the top, and the general side effects it brings are pretty cool too. Its a decent set. Now, if you take Dual Pistols and improve its damage beyond just the baseline with additional sources it becomes a lot better. Can it match all the other sets toe-to-toe? Not really, but it doesn't need to either. It can bring just enough damage to get the job done. If you're looking to just run super casual then it has to be Fire. Fire Blast has the following going for it: 1) Basic damage with it is pretty good. 2) Doesn't have much in the way of additional damage sources in the primary (you can manipulate Fireball with slotting, but that's advanced building class 105 down the hall). 3) Fits with just about any secondary because all it has going for it extra damage and brings no real mitigation to the table (it has a repel, but who cares) 4) Has multiple powers that can be skipped making it highly flexible. 5) Generally the min-maxer choice, but this is going to be completely meaningless if you don't know what you're doing For whatever it is worth under the definition of "Good", I've solo'ed some archvillains and task forces with Dual Pistol characters. Its totally fine, but often exaggerated to be a lot stronger than it is. Moral of the story; don't follow FoTM BS. Play what you want to play because it can be made into something special. Most Sentinel pairs can work. Only a few combos struggle. Those are generally anything looking to run Fiery Aura or Ice Armor because both of these sets take a lot of resources to fix their problems. Beyond that, go nuts.

Could have been slotting. It could have been power selection. It could have been a combination of both. Folks do enjoy praising Dual Pistols and I often see folks sing praises like it is in the X of Y list of damage when running Incendiary Ammo. Then I'll see a build and it makes me scratch my head. Rose colored glasses are a real thing, and Dual Pistols has a lot of fans that can't seem to admit it can lack some oomph without a certain kind of slotting approach. I say this as having some form of Dual Pistols across all four ATs that have access to it. I genuinely have grown quite fond of that set. I am a sucker for an underdog. However, vanilla Dual Pistols damage is every bit of lackluster damage that people complain it to be. Especially for Blasters and even more so in all ranged Blaster builds. That said, Dual Pistols has a multitude of proc opportunities available to it, and it vastly improves its baseline damage. The set just cannot overcome the lack of Aim all on its own, but it can definitely make up for a lot of damage lost via procs. A good secondary pick that can add slotting opportunities to shoe-horn Guassian's in can also help a lot and even more so in team situations if this is housed in Tactics. Obviously I'm highly opinionated on this set, but there is a very good reason why my Dual Pistols Blaster is actually a Blapper, and all of my other Dual Pistols characters are jacked up on proc damage.

I really only ever care about Offensive Opportunity in cases where I can actively build to shorten the downtime of Opportunity in general. I generally want my attack chain to build up Opportunity in less than 15 seconds. Ideally I want that in 13 seconds or lower. Psychic Blast can potentially have issues with that. Some sets are really good about it. Especially sets with very strong T1 powers (Dual Pistols, Fire Blast, etc). Some sets that are less reliant on their T1 or T2 make that choice easy as well as I can weave it into my rotation when Opportunity is up vs being largely dependent on it (Archery, Beam Rifle, Ice Blast, Dark Blast, etc.). If I can't get the kind of damage I want within a 13 second window, or if the T2 is just far better (Psychic Blast, Water Blast, etc.) then I worry less about Offensive Opportunity. If I am incorporating Dominate/Mind Probe, then I worry about it even less. Those two powers contribute to letting me prune down other attacks as well as bring strong proc options. I'm not sure Offensive Opportunity is doing that much for you. It can be a positive DPS gain, but the amount of that really does depend on how fast you're cycling Opportunity. The below is ONLY thinking of single targets. In large spawns any set can generally build Opportunity quicker because AoE powers contribute more to the meter (its reverse Defiance). Still, even in builds where I actually include Offensive Opportunity I think my DPS gains are single digits. I can get a proc to do that to my overall damage. I always say that Sentinels pick up a lot of pennies though and going with Offensive Opportunity can help there. Right now, Scramble Thoughts has a 7.55 cooldown. So I'll use that as an anchor point. Will Domination - Mental Blast - TK Blast - slight pause - Will Domination - Mental Blast is 7.524 seconds without the pause accounted for. Mental Blast will get you 8 points of Opportunity meter. Most of the other powers are 13 pts. I don't recall off hand is Scramble is the same. Some powers like it have been 14 pts of meter. For now, we'll assume its lower though. Over the 7.5+ block of powers you generated 55 meter. If this was sandwiched by two Scramble (eggs?) Thoughts it would come up to 81 pts. Total time 13.86 seconds. You'd need 9 more points to actually activate an Opportunity. Will Domination will get you there and the following Mental Blast will automatically trigger it [Mental Blast cannot both contribute to 90% meter AND activate the effect. It is one or the other in my experience]. That's an additional 3.168 seconds (funny enough that is Scramble Thoughts animatione time). This means it takes around 17 seconds to rebuild opportunity on a single target. In cases where you're hammering AOE it can be a bit faster. By including TK Blast in the mix you run the risk of triggering Defensive Opportunity if your Mental Blast misses. On the plus side, Mental Blast + TK Blast is an easily repeatable 1-2 punch. Just Mental Blast sucks. And yes, all of this thought I put into how Opportunity works is a very big reason why I think there is a problem with it. [Edit notes: I decided to revisit my own Psychic Blast Sent to check on Mental Blast + Offensive Opportunity vs TK Blast (generic sets) vs TK Blast frankenslotted with procs. TK Blast generic set contributes slightly better DPS than Mental Blast and that's including Offensive Opportunity. The longer the downtime of Opportunity, the less value Mental Blast contributes because TK Blast spam is that much better. TK Blast with procs can be better than either, but that only helps when there is enough recharge to make it work that well. With lower grades of enhancement slotting there could be room for Mental Blast plus Offensive Opportunity, but that downtime between activation is a real killer to its effect since it just doesn't contribute that much on its own. Couple that with long animations and recharges in the later powers of Psychic Blast, and well the inherent kind of falters for the set. The -20% additional resistance debuff is handy and can be nice against resistant enemies. Thankfully, you can still get that with just TK Blast.]

@Frostweaver Psychic Blast can feel a bit slow for both its animations and its cooldowns. My Psi/EA has perma-hasten level global recharge and it still has some gaps. That's partially due to the amount of frankenslotting I've got going on with TK Blast, and Will Dom. To help counter this somewhat, I run a Force Feedback in TK Blast to give me a chance at some recharge bursts. At full range I have TK Blast, Will Dom, Scramble Thoughts, and Dominate. Scramble and Dominate refresh in just over 5.5 seconds. TK Blast doesn't recharge within Will Dom most of the time but the gap is less than a second. Plus, FF can iron that out on occasion. Ageless can also help, but I don't like being fully reliant on it. However, that's with purple sets and all that goodness. What you have is more budget friendly, and I think you can still salvage it. It doesn't need to be all that crazy either. Think about dumping Mental Blast. Think about picking up Psionic Strike. Yes, Psionic Strike. Since you're not pushing a procced out Dominate, Psionic Strike isn't a bad filler. Or more importantly, Psionic Strike is a better filler than Mental Blast. You're not going to suddenly move mountains but it would be a slight upgrade. Whenever you're not in melee range you don't have Mind Probe to fill in gaps. So when you're attacking from full range you have to run Mental Blast as a filler due to the general animation/recharge time frames. Psionic Strike has a 2.9 arcanatime animation but it's still better than Mental Blast. It also does have higher base damage to compensate the slow factor. That power can help make the ranged attacks feel a bit smoother, and you can probably drop it for Mind Probe when you need. I'd take the full 6 slots and set from Mental Blast and shift it to Scramble Thoughts. May as well ED cap the damage and get 62% recharge into it while you're at it. You could consider swapping Entropic Chaos with another 5pc Decimation. Its a little better on recharge mod and accuracy than Entropic while still giving the same global recharge bonus. I'm not that fond of the heal proc though. You could go a minimalist slotting route on Psionic strike. Like 3x Thunderstrike or whatever. I don't know if I'd really worry too much about how I enhanced it since it is low priority and filler. Still, I'd want to at least hit harder. Everything looks fine though for the most part. If you ever complete Accolades then you'd be over cap on hit points. You wouldn't need to slot Dismiss Pain that way anymore. You could just go with a Heal, Heal/End without the boosters and be about 10 hp over vs 100. You could move the proc to Health or Fast Healing. With the way this build is set up, Bio Armor is really only adding damage from Offensive Adaptation. The mitigation may or may not feel better.

That's still pretty broad strokes. Technically all ATs have some combination that can pull off damage plus staying alive. If you're looking at ease of play, then stick to the simple ATs. That's Brutes, Tankers, Scrappers, Stalkers, Sentinels, and maybe even a VEAT. Another Sentinel or VEAT may be complicated on how you build them. However, most Brute/Tanker/Scrapper/Stalker combinations are easy to build and play without requiring a PhD in how this game works. Blasters/Dominators/Corruptors can all contribute significant damage when built right, but their ability to stay alive is a process of maturity. Defenders and Controllers will likely feel a lot slower until you get them tricked out with a solid build plan. I happen to love Controllers and I play several, but they are not for the weak of stomach or faint of heart. The HEATs can offer very interesting opportunities, but I find they can be very complex to pull off. So I'd exercise caution with jumping in on a Peacebringer/Warshade. Absolutely look into them because they can be fun as hell, but maybe not super easy to just jump in with. Masterminds are also an option. Their level of complexity has a lot of range. They can feel really simple or you can go very deep into the weeds with it.

The "sans fly" is kinda funny. I don't run with any travel powers in my Sentinel builds at the moment. I don't count Combat Jumping. I generally do not play with Hover/Fly outside of my Controllers. My Blasters do not hover blast, period. My Defender can jump right into the thick of things too. This is all from main play of Scrappers/Brutes back from live. I tinkered with Psi/Regen real quick though. I went for Psi Mastery to include Link Minds as well as all of the other damage goodies. Link Minds allowed me to hit 30% melee, 31% Energy/Negative, 24% Smashing/Lethal, and 25% Ranged. The others... around 16-18. Can't have it all. Recharge landed around 155%, not enough for me with Psychic Blast, but Ageless would help. Hit points nearly capped and a proc or two in every single-target attack. It reminded me why I prefer Super Reflexes/Energy Aura/Electrical Armor. That 20% from those sets is a big deal to me. Still, a Psi/Regen could be pretty good. Probably not great, but pretty good. Bio Armor is a lot better in my opinion but that pigpen effect may not be what you want.

To get even more simple with the ideas... Sentinels gain access to caltrops from Ninja Tools as one of the first options. Caltrops is a pretty flexible power that can do non-trivial damage over time as well as controlling positions of the enemy. Enemies will generally run out of the caltrops, while taking damage, and do so slowly. This creates a buffer zone around the Sentinel with limited to no melee attackers. That can yield additional survival perks to a build while still keeping some enemies in range for you dispatch. Any AoE immobilize. Some AoE powers like Whirlpool (Water Blast) will make enemies flee (like caltrops). The immobilize will hold several targets in the zone of effect allowing them to do more damage. Otherwise, an immobilize is a similar concept to caltrops which is battlefield control. Instead of forcing movement away; you deny movement way or towards the Sentinel. Mass Hypnosis in Psi. Sleeps aren't always amazing on teams, but some TF's can make use of someone creating mass sleep or having a sleep at all. Link Minds/Darkest Night. Either of these are nice survival buffers. Those are the better ones in my mind, but the other sets have their share of reasonable picks. The post above covers the damage aspects which can be worth looking in to even without procs. These powers expand IO set diversity into the melee sets. Those sets are generally better than the ranged categories. On top of that several of those powers are pretty good in their own right.

Finally, it has been said.

Just to add on about why I think the comment by Thanos matters a bit. The common core complaints about the Sentinel are as follows: 1) Opportunity - in general. There are a number of varied complaints that define why it sucks for different people. 2) General damage dealt. 3) Range of attack. 4) AoE caps #3 & #4 are very much related to how people tend to view Sentinels as some kind of Blaster alternative. Personally, I think this is an enormous mistake by players and it really shows just how misunderstood the Blaster AT is. While the Blaster can play at range it can also be so much more than that. The AT isn't always my cup of tea (I only really have 2 I can tolerate), but I see so much potential in it beyond just running */Devices or #/TA and capping S/L/E/Range. I hate to make a statement that makes it seem like I somehow view myself as the smartest person in the room on this. That's not how I feel. Yet, I can't tell you the number of times I have seen Blaster builds that are praised as "good" that look like it is only using half its potential. I just cannot understand this and that's because I don't play Blasters in half measures. Then again, debt badges aren't that big a deal to me. #1 and #2 are also linked. There is a correlation to be made of Scrappers/Stalkers with their general damage dealing capabilities when combined with critical hits. The criticals are their inherent. It helps and it can also play cover to otherwise poor build choices. Blasters, and by extension Corruptors too, have inherents that directly aid in their damage. For Corruptors, Scourge makes them look like they do a lot more damage than they really do. That last statement may make some folks double take, but I'm serious. Corruptor damage is largely overrated. Certain Corruptors are most definitely extremes, but even a Kinetics Corr is aiding their team. Its not just all their damage and sometimes it seems people forget that Fulcrum shift is going to make higher base damage ATs better than you. Whenever folks ask for a build here I always ask the same questions when I see the same requests. "What does 'good build' mean to you?" The response is almost always "decent survival and decent dps". That last part also begs me to ask... "What is decent DPS to you?" You know, to this day, no one has ever answered that question. Not once. No one has ever said "I want my Sentinel to down a Pylon in 2 minutes". Saying things like "I want to maybe fight some AVs" or "I want to contribute to my team" aren't answers to that question. Those are just generic statements of people that just want their character to feel strong. The Sentinel can actually do that, and it can do that right now. What it cannot always do is win awards for the fastest Pylon times. The former is an issue with perception and how well the class is designed from a point of entry. It is not necessarily encompassing of all build possibilities. The latter statement is absolutely about build possibilities and those can get very limited on Sentinels when trying to achieve a particular standard. So, what's the problem again? (haha)