oldskool

All of this just needs to be emphasized.

The original big red cheese was largely a Superman clone without the heat vision or frost breath. His ability of strength, durability, stamina, speed, and flight were basically the same. He also had superior intelligence and wisdom. The original Captain Marvel/Captain Thunder, did not hurl lightning bolts as the Mu epics would suggest. The newer version, post New-52, can as the new incarnation of the wizard Shazam. The original call to Zeus, through the shout of Shazam, had the lightning bolt directed at Billy/Captain Marvels current location. This was later changed by writers into an offensive maneuver where Billy could dodge the bolt and allow the mystic blast to hit someone else. Captain Marvel used this against Superman more than once.

I don't think you really missed anything. I'd probably drop one of the Blistering Colds in Blinding Feint for Gaussian's Build-Up proc. It'll be a nice little damage boosting surprise when it goes off. You don't really need the extra fire/cold defense from the full bonus anyway.

It is up to you; It's your character. Usually when I speak about damage potential, I'm talking about adding in procs. Electrical Blast can make use there in Tesla Cage, but you seem wary of going too far from sets for defense. That's OK, and this pairing doesn't need to go too nuts over it anyway. So I won't go too far down that rabbit hole. Still, think of damage potential via frankenslotting IOs as being on one end of a seesaw and full defensive benefits being on the other. When you start to add more of one of those options the of the end is going to have fewer options. My initial response wasn't really intended for you to completely dump Lightning Field if you wanted it in favor of Short Circuit. It was just more of a statement to engage in discussion. These are just some of the ways I may approach this build. You could mix and match whatever you like. I generally do not use any travel powers and I don't ever double up on them. If that's a quality of life feature you want, then by all means go for it. Its tough to keep those features and stack a lot of defense on Regen as there is an opportunity cost of missing things like Maneuvers/Combat Jumping. Still, you can make that up through using defensive amplifiers via the Pay-to-Win vendors as well as through the Incarnates I mentioned before. #1 Least defense, better damage potential (compared to the other two) #2 More melee defense to make using Lightning Field safer. Damage is roughly the same. #3 Lots more defense. Somewhat less damage.

That's a pretty good take on it as it is. I'm not sure you really need Tactics. There are pros to having it, but Assault isn't an awful choice for Sentinels either. There is a coin toss on enhancements between TK Blast here and Psionic Strike. Psionic Strike can do a non-trivial amount of direct damage but it comes with the cost of having a very long animation time. Its animation and damage ratio aren't quite as good as TK Blast. TK Blast has the advantage of being partially smashing damage. I'm on the fence about that one. If total time to arrest isn't that big a deal then having an attack like Psionic Strike can feel a bit better against things like robots. Have you given thought to your Incarnate options yet? I'd still suggest looking at Musculature for the Alpha, but there can be reasons to use something like Spiritual here.

There is an old saying... "F' 'em if they can't take a joke." -Bette Midler Haters gonna hate and zealots gonna zealot.

@Rathulfr, thanks. You sell your own advice too short. I think you often present valuable insights since we both have different perspectives on how to approach the AT. As I said yesterday, what you present isn't wrong.

I've written about Willpower a number of times. There is a synopsis of it in the sticky of this subforum, and if you scroll down a bit there is a discussion on Fire Blast/Willpower to another curious user. I somewhat disagree with @Rathulfr about pairing Fire with Willpower. In fact, the advice I give on pairing Fire Blast and Willpower comes back to everything @Hjarkiis discussing. That is using Winter sets in order to bolster defense. I don't generally like recommending that path, but it certainly a possibility with Fire Blast and Willpower. You can build up to 40%+ defenses while still having high hit points, regen, and modest resistance. Fire Blast is self contained enough that it isn't hindered that much by the loss of procs. Now, what @Rathulfris really saying about pairing a highly offensive primary with Willpower on Sentinels relates to the leveling experience. There is going to be a very big gap in how Fire/WP plays from levels 1-49 vs how it will play with full nuts-outs superior versions of defensive heavy IO sets at 50+. So I only somewhat disagree because some narrow bands of primaries plus Willpower can work out reasonably well at endgame. Some combos will have a slightly smoother transition from level 1 to 50. Few, if any at all, accomplish both while simultaneously keeping a majority its damage (referring to overall damage potential, not ED capping) intact. Willpower is an OK set on Sentinels. With the right primary and a plan at 50, it can probably be very good. However, IO set diversity on Sentinels just isn't at the same level as it is on melee ATs. That makes closing Willpower's (and by extension Bio Armor) gaps more tricky. Its not impossible, but it just doesn't come across as intuitive to me. YMMV though. Some folks love WP in all its forms. Here, it trends on taking a backseat. Invulnerability is nearly better in every way in this AT. The biggest difference there is Psi resist and that can be overstated on occasion.

There are some fair points to consider here. Still, I prefer defense-based. This has worked out in practice far more than it hasn't. Furthermore, I'd be very cautious in recommending Winter sets as a universal defense hole plugger for the Sentinel AT. Those kinds of builds are the precise reason why there are numerous threads in this subforum running on for 5+ pages of people bickering about damage. Any other AT with a higher damage multiplier and more consistent inherent can easily make use of the Winter sets without the loss of performance that Sentinel's experience. Loading up on Winter sets to gain several of those +5% bonuses can be a fine strategy with a limited number of sets. Those would be the ones with the least amount of options to explore damage proccing exist (i.e., Fire Blast, Archery, Psychic Blast, Electrical Blast - partially). I get that many folks do not like that procs help raise Sentinel damage to what becomes more competitive with other ATs. However, that is reality of the current game implementation. So yes, what you present is certainly an option. It is why I point out Radiation and Electric armors specifically vs also talking about Dark Armor in that same sentence. Radiation and Electric both have other consistent effects that make them better than just resistance-based. Their particular layering of mitigation options works well with any level of defense investment where the more is the merrier. However, this idea does not work with all Sentinel combinations. The Defense sets are generally easier to do this with, and still allow for flexibility in damage dealing. It is a more universal approach vs a specialized one.

I tend to lean towards the following secondaries: Super Reflexes Energy Aura Invulnerability Ninjutsu Any of those 4 trend towards being some of the easiest to build while also including enough perks to be worth their while. You can soft-cap any of those 4. Invulnerability may not be as easy, depending on the build, but it most certainly has the potential. Most of the other sets range in effectiveness. I generally lean towards defense-oriented secondaries for lower hit point cap ATs like the Sentinel/Stalker. However, Radiation Armor and Electrical Armor are very strong resistance-oriented sets. There are only two secondaries that I would caution taking. Fiery Aura and Ice Armor. Fiery Aura gives up too much, in my opinion, for what it gains on Sentinels. Ice Armor only really works with a big investment in IOs, and even then it has multiple powers that really suck. Both Fiery Aura and Ice Armor from Sentinels incorporate powers that exist in Homecoming Blaster secondaries. The Sentinel versions of these powers pale in comparison. Ice Armor on Sentinels has Hoarfrost, just like the melee version, and it can be made perma. That will cap your HP if you give even any passing thought to it plus collect your accolades. This turns one of the final powers into a near useless choice that really just gives you more slow resistance. Fiery Aura and Ice Armor are generally big losers on Sentinel endurance management tools when viewed against the other sets design choices. Sentinel Ice Armor does include Icy Bastion like Stalkers for its T9. Its an awesome power that has a really long downtime. You can make either work, but you may feel like pulling your hair out while you level. For primaries, well you can generally make any of them work. Sentinels aren't exactly Pylon time award winners, but they can be made more effective than their reputation may sound. There are certain power sets that trend towards being better than others, but most of the sets can turn out well if you're not completely turned off by damage proc slotting. Assault Rifle and Energy Blast tend to be the sets that have the steepest hill to climb when looking at pure full set bonus builds. Even with damage procs they'll only ever be "OK". Archery can seem to struggle for some player's tastes. Archery doesn't have much going for it in the way of additional proc slotting potential which in turn lowers its optimization ceiling when compared to some other sets. Still, despite its perceived failings I tend to enjoy Archery. That set just works better with a very high amount of recharge to cut out the need for its weaker starting attacks. Water Blast is a solid set but its single-target is notably light. You can build this up, again with procs, but the highlight to the set is its strong AoE potential. Since many players navel gaze at the lower caps on AoE targets of the Sentinel, Water Blast offers a set that overrules that design choice. Sonic Blast does too for that matter, but I'm not a big fan of it. Electrical Blast actually is a solid Sentinel set if you'd like an alternative to Fire Blast. If you're feeling bold and like the proc idea, then Ice Blast can be turned from chicken crap into chicken salad. Psychic Blast, if you don't mind some of the hurdles it faces, has the hardest hitting single target power out of the entire AT. Dark Blast is a flexible set and includes a bit more mitigation than other primaries. Do not bother taking Life Drain for the heal. Sentinel Life Drain has the lowest healing percentage out of every AT in the game. Do take that power if you want to proc it out and convert it into a more effective attack.

Just curious. Between the two builds there are things that stand out that may be more beneficial to a PvP-oriented build. For starters the use of both Super Speed and Super Jump stands out to me since those are common there. Then you have a lot of Knockback protection, far more than necessary for PvE but would potentially have value in PvP. I started working on a build of my own to show what I was thinking of, but I stopped because I thought maybe you're looking for non-PvE ideas. What's most important for you? Are you really wanting high defense or more damage or a combination of damage/recharge? I don't think its possible to do everything with this build. Maybe I will come up with a few different build ideas and just illustrate what I am talking about. You can then decide what you like or don't like.

Is this for PvP or PvE?

I've yet to encounter a team that declined to take my characters along just because they were Sentinels. I have been on a team where some knucklehead decided to get passive aggressive about my value to the team. So I just opted to solo the rest of the entire TF without the team while they all meandered around with their thumbs in the ass. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

This current train of thoughts has been a fun read. Here is my takeaway: How individual players build their characters have a heavy influence on their view of the AT. I've seen Bill's builds for Claws/SR. He was one of the early posters in the Pylon thread too. That build's Pylon murder time has evolved over time, but Bill still has some preferences to his build that are different from Nihilii's. Bill's preferences also influence how his Fire/Time Blaster build came out when it was shared in a thread. I can see why certain opinions get formed just due to how people view the problem solving approach of builds. Rathulfr stated that ATs should be self sufficient and not reliant on things like procs or EPP for DPS. That is going to have a very heavy influence on how one plays a primary. Furthermore, look at the list of primary heroes for Rath. They're all Energy Blast. I know he has other characters in his stable, he's more than helpful to show those from time to time, but Energy Blast on Sentinels is crap all by itself. It can take some procs and become better. It can incorporate EPP and be a lot better. However, Energy Blast's core damage is not in a good place when compared with a set like say, Sentinel Electrical Blast or even Psychic Blast. None of you are wrong in your assessments. Not at all. They're just different perspective influenced by personal choice in how the characters are built. It makes comparisons on what's wrong or right very difficult to garner consensus on.

@tidge There is still some room for YMMV moments. I've chatted with others that absolutely swear by having that %Hide in other powers for their own reasons. Generally though, those reasons never revolved around slow AS hits in hide. It was usually something else they were after within their rotation. So depending on what you're going for the guile proc could go somewhere else. It may be a niche decision, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad one.

No problem. If you decide you want to go all-in on AoE and keep all the Water Blast AoE's, then consider looking into some of the Sentinel Epic/Patron pools that open up at level 35. There are several that include an AoE immobilize like what you find from Controller primaries. Whirlpool is a ground targeted AoE with a slow component and constant damage. It works like powers such as Ice Storm, or Rain of Fire. So enemies tend to try and run out of it and that is the major reason why some folks don't like it. I have absolutely no issue with it personally, but my character running Water Blast also stuns frequently making their ability to escape difficult. You could still pair Whirlpool with an AoE immobilize and force most enemies to just sit there and take it. So there are a lot of ways to approach the gameplay effects from Water Blast. Have fun with the ride to 50, and feel free to ask questions either on this sub or direct message.

@Crimsonpyreobviously, you can take whatever I have to say with a grain of salt, but I looked over your build for Shadowspawn. The ideal powers to focus on are generally Smite, Assassin's Eclipse, Siphon Life, and Midnight Grasp. If you can get those powers into place where they are available when you need them, then Shadow Punch becomes a skip power. I prefer Hecatomb in Midnight Grasp. I run that same set but use a Damage/End vs Damage/Recharge in Midnight Grasp. On top of that, I have 6th slot for a Cloud Senses Negative Damage proc. Works like a champ. I have a full Mako's Bite in Siphon Life for both the 6 pc bonus and the lethal proc which works nicely in SL. Our Smite and Assassin's Eclipse slotting is the same. I use the Armageddon 5pc set for the recharge in Shadow Maul. I had it with 6 slots and a Fury of the Gladiator -resistance but decided I didn't need it. Dark Regen with a Theft of Essence is a nice thing to have. I ended up changing my slotting for this to 4 Sirocco Dervish (acc/dmg, acc/dmg/end, dmg/end, lethal damage proc) plus Touch of the Nictus negative damage and Theft of Essense endurance. There is 0 recharge modification in that power so its chance to trigger those 3 procs is pretty good. Helps give the Stalker a little more AoE damage. I kept Touch of Fear because I like that power, but dropped Cloak of Fear. I enhance it for -to-hit debuffing; specifically the full Cloud Senses set. Touch of Fear is the largest singular source of -to-hit you get between the two sets. The fear and to-hit debuff are two different things. A target can resist the fear and still get their accuracy hindered. Sure, their resistance value will reduce the overall effect, but its a nice big modifier to stack with all of your other debuff sources. So I'd say consider enhancing this power for the debuff vs the fear duration. Base duration is already pretty long. That's a pretty substantial amount of time to inflict a to-hit debuff that is stacking with your attacks. I still run Oppressive Gloom and Soul Transfer. I actually reduced Build-Up down to just the default slot with the Gaussian's proc. I'm all in on having Assassin's Mark give me Build-Up and completely forgoing any recharge in it. Against full spawns this works out very well as Shadow Maul tends to proc it regularly as long as the zone has recognized that I used Smite previously. Against single targets it is hit or miss. So that's a trade off to think about. I've decided to do this on my other Stalkers too unless I can spare the slots for a set bonus (depends on the build). Your build as it is, isn't in a bad place at all. Even with having Siphon Life and Midnight Grasp running non-damage sets. MG is just a brutal power and especially so when it crits. If you opt to refine somethings even just a bit, you can reap some pretty large DPS rewards. Dark/Dark has returned to being one of my favorite combos even in Stalker-land. The only other Stalker I have that adore nearly as much is my DB/EA build.

In order for Sentinels and Blasters to have roughly identical ST DPS, then the AT needs a significant overhaul. The scalar difference right now is 0.95 vs 1.125. On top of this, Sentinels almost always impose a -5% resistance debuff. Once you attack a target successfully, that debuff is there, and it will constantly refresh as long as you're hitting a target. The only Sentinel set that had no significant change to its core rotation or power constructs was Water Blast. Dehydrate and Whirlpool are in different selection orders. Geyser was normalized like the rest of the Sentinel T9s. Other those things there was no CC power conversion nor was there a snipe. That's the only set that is as close to apples to apples as it comes. All other sets have some change that makes a true one on one comparison impossible. Snipe powers really do impact Blaster damage quite substantially. Many of those, even run on just basic fast snipe damage, do nearly double the damage of the highest damage Sentinel power. That doesn't mean that Blaster ST does double that of a Sentinel, but instead it creates a far more significant contributor to overall damage. In order for Sentinels to get near Blaster single target right now, Sentinels have to stuff powers with damage procs. The more the merrier, and a fully procced Dominate is ideal for true e-peen waving. A PPM 3.5 proc is 71 damage. 71 damage is more than a 100% increase in damage over the common T1 power (which are often 52 dmg). Even if the expected average damage contribution of a proc is only 20~ damage, that is still a significant damage improvement within just one power slot. It can get exponentially better. Some of the better heavy hitters of the Sentinel do around 120 to 140+ damage. That means the average proc is around half the value of the entire power's damage when it activates. The general trend of powers is the higher the damage the longer the recharge and sometimes even the animation. This means the average expected rate of proc trigger is even better than a T1's. In other words, you're getting more than +20 dmg per slot on average. The other day I was doing some testing with some snipes. Even baseline fast snipe damage can be a significant difference over the best of what a Sentinel can offer through just basic damage slotting. Rotations across the primaries are still different enough that the gaps have a lot of variance. Still, these DPA power differences are hard to dismiss. What I'm saying here is that a jump from 0.95 to 1.0 isn't enough. Improving the current implementation of Opportunity won't be enough either unless it can be made permanent, and that is probably unlikely to happen. Blaster snipe powers plus Defiance's regular availability are both contributors to single target damage disparity. So it isn't just an AT scalar issue. There are individual damage scalar issues on top of having an unreliable, and often split, inherent. If the Sentinel's AoE capacity is to remain lower than that of a Blaster's, then, I think it is fair that Sentinel single target be compensated higher. I agree that it should take Blaster melee in order for them to exceed Sentinels, and that should be inclusive of Sentinel Epics [edit: by the way, this is already largely true. Most blapper or range/melee mix are going to out perform most Sentinel builds handily. It isn't that hard to build a Blaster to do this, but it can get more complicated for the Sentinel to try to narrow the gap. So current design works. However, the gap can be tightened to allow for easier build creation for 90% of the player base vs the tiny few min/maxers.]. This maybe a tall order that sounds easier to say than do though when considering current use of procs in epic holds (an issue in every AT that can abuse it). The more I think about it, the more my position evolves. This is the issue as I see it: What is the baseline of comparison? -- Blaster comparisons are utterly flawed. Blasters are not a ranged only AT. Their secondaries are wildcards that can open up more damage from the early levels up through the end game. There just isn't any point in comparing half of that AT's damage potential with the vast majority of the Sentinel's all range design. If the comparison point is more like Scrappers, then Sentinel balance needs to consider its wider AoE potential against Scrapper ST DPS. Perhaps the happy middle is Sentinel AoE > than (most) Scrapper AoE but Sentinel AoE < Blaster AoE. Sentinel ST > Blaster ST, but Sentinel ST < Scrapper ST. This isn't a really clean view of the current state of the game either. Some Blaster builds can out damage Scrappers in ST and AoE. So I'm not sure if the idea of even using Blasters as a measuring stick is worth anyone's time. Blasters are a conceptual island. They effectively have two primary power sets just like Dominators do. Team support. Should the Sentinel have any at all? Is it an alternative ranged heavy damage AT with defensive properties or is it some jack-of-all-trades VEAT-lite AT? I don't think the idea of a "role" for the Sentinels needs to be all that complicated. Blasters are, by design, the most singularly focused damage AT in the game. The fact they can play almost exclusively at range is a feature, but it isn't necessarily all they do. Scrappers by their original design were durable single-target specialists. This is readily apparent in their power designs of legacy sets, and I've played the game long enough to remember the developer chats. Sentinels fill a niche role that didn't exist. That is one of nearly full range damage plus durability. Whether or not it can off-tank is about as important to me as tanking on my Stalkers. That's to say, not at all. The idea that the Sentinel has an inherent that can benefit teams is nice, but there is absolutely nothing else in the primaries or secondaries that support that design. So do they need to have that niche too? If we're going to go down the rabbit hole of Sentinels offering nothing to teams due to their primaries and secondaries, then what about Scrappers or Stalkers? Especially Stalkers. What do Stalkers bring for team support? Sneaking to glowies is a nice side benefit of the AT but it isn't exactly how the AT is advertised. It is a single target damage specialist. DPA of powers. Scrappers/Stalkers work well by design because melee power sets were designed against defensive secondaries. Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes, and now Tankers all do very good self-contained damage within their melee sets because those sets where designed like that. Ranged attack sets clearly were not. Blaster design is just damage. It isn't ranged damage, it isn't melee damage. It is all damage. Since the original design team believed that range was a huge defense tool, and it can be, they opted to make things like snipe situational bursts of damage plus crash-included large scale T9 nukes. Melee sets = sustained damage, and ranged sets = bursts. That seems to be the original concept. We've moved away from that because in practice being so heavily dependent on range sets doing bursts of damage really kind of sucked for Blasters. So now they have crashless T9 powers and snipes that are rotational. Sentinels are effectively playing with design paradigms that are now several issues old and aren't going to be sustainable if this trend continues. I'm not really sure where this AT is going to go. Its functional for my tastes right now. I can play in +2/x8 or +4/x8 easily, and I can do that on Stalkers/Brutes/Scrappers/Tankers/Blasters too. The AT certainly does need some cleaning up, but minor scalar changes won't do it. At least not without something that dramatically addresses the DPA disparities between various powers. Edit: Ideally, I think the pecking order should be something like Stalker -> Scrapper = Brute -> Sentinel on a single targets. AoE could be reversed. I think, again totally ideally, comparisons of Sentinels vs Blasters/Defenders/Corruptors needs to be dropped off into the dumpster. The Sentinel is about as analogous to those former ATs as my cup of coffee is to a nuclear reactor. Sentinels have more in common with the melee ATs than they do the ranged ones. Even then direct parallels aren't close to perfect. Sentinels already fit into the pecking order laid out. They just need some tightening up to narrow whatever gaps exist in the dev's eyes. What we peon players think is just our own speculation.

Welcome to Sentinels, I hope you enjoy your stay. Builds in and of themselves are largely worthless concepts without knowing specifics from the user. Sharing them without context or thought can sometimes be more harmful than helpful. Water/Energy is a great combo because both power sets are individually wonderful. Water Blast's greatest strength is its area damage. It is a bit weak on single targets, but it can manage. Just don't have high expectations on obliterating the highest challenges with the default kit. Energy Aura is a mixed mitigation set that leans heavily on typed defense. One thing I love about defense sets is that they can run perfectly well with low slotting investment. They can also be great on full (all 6) slots. This is due to great IO sets like Red Fortune, Luck of the Gambler, and Reactive Defenses. So often when folks are new to playing Sentinels, and looking for builds, I'll just suggest take the powers as you go. That's probably not what you want to hear, but you should explore the sets on their own merits. Sentinels have interaction with powers like Aqua Bolt and Hydro Blast. So I highly recommend you experience that for yourself vs someone telling you "what's best". What is best in this game is not universal. Primaries and secondaries can sometimes behave differently in various combinations. Keep that in mind as I will share with you what powers you could potentially skip, if you so chose. In Energy Aura, you could potentially skip Overload which is the final power. Overload will grant you soft-capped defense to almost all of the typed defenses (i.e., Smashing and Lethal) for its duration. It can do that just within that single power. It also has a substantial endurance recovery benefit, a max hit point benefit, and defense debuff resistance. Energy Aura can built to soft-cap all of those types without Overload. Energy Aura has more than one endurance recovery related effect. So really Overload comes down to a HP increase which you don't need and DDR which is useful though not worth the power pick. If you're still new and you have a slim budget, then consider taking Overload to fill the gaps until you can drop it completely. Some folks skip Power Drain too as it is an endurance solution that you may not need. I tend to always take it though so YMMV. So that's 2 powers you could potentially skip. In Water Blast, you can potentially skip Aqua Bolt. While you're still leveling up the character, or running non-min/max IO sets, then Aqua Bolt still can benefit your build. Aqua Bolt brings with it Offensive Opportunity which includes the side benefit of a minor damage boost for 15 seconds. This benefit will drop off the more you pile on other +damage modifiers. It may still be beneficial to your end build. So while Aqua Bolt is skippable since its general damage is the weakest out of your options, it can still provide some conditional value. Water Burst or Whirlpool could potentially be skipped. I wouldn't drop either while leveling up, but you may find you don't care for how Whirlpool functions. If that's your preference, then I can see skipping it. Steam Spray is actually far better than it sounds on paper. I used to recommend skipping it since it is a cone, and some folks hate cones. I won't do that going forward. Steam Spray is well worth taking since it is both high damage and it breaks the mold for how Sentinel target caps function in cones. Do consider taking everything else. Slotting. Prioritize slots for your attacks. Sentinels, regardless of their reputation, are a damage AT. They're not tanks, off tanks, or supports. I don't suggest you try to build like one and instead just stick to the strengths of the AT. Energy Aura doesn't really need heavy investment into its toggles and passives. You can even potentially get away with just 2 overall slots in powers like Energy and Power Drain (if taken). The toggles can be fine on 3 to 4 total slots. I'd recommend a regular endurance reduction SO or common IO plus generic +defense/resistance in their appropriate powers. Entropy Shield cannot take any sets and it doesn't need any additional slots. Just put a regular endurance reduction there and call it a day. You could take all 8 attacks, fully slot them at 6 each, then the 7 core EA powers and slot them between 3-4, and still have around 15-18 slots left to play with. You'd have 8 additional powers left over to do whatever you wanted. General goal though should be to soft-cap (or get very near it) most, if not all, of the primary types of damage. You get there by filling in with powers like Weave (Fighting Pool), Maneuvers (Leadership), Combat Jumping (Leaping), Hover (Flight), Stealth (Concealment), and/or Link Minds (Psychic Mastery). You can't take all of those, but using those powers to fill in gaps is how you do it. Then there are the 3% to all defense IOs from the Steadfast and Gladiator's Armor sets. The rest of the recipe is pure personal preference. There are a lot of ways to solve this problem. I have my own ways of going about it, but I've seen equally valid approaches to a competent build. Defense, and getting it high enough, is one of your first priorities. Next up, I'd say you want to get some recharge to make Energize as near permanent as you can. Its a big endurance cost discount AND it will boost your regeneration rate. You can improve it via slotting it heavier OR pushing more global recharge. Energy Aura is excellent for this since Entropy Shield can get you 20% global recharge right in the set, and eventually you can stack all 5 Luck of the Gambler +recharge pieces. Final issue to solve is damage. You can enhance the powers through full sets if you like, and that is the simplest way to go about it. Water Blast also has a lot effects in each power which can present unique IO opportunities like damage procs. I find that Sentinel Water Blast AoE damage is pretty good on its own. I don't generally put a lot of procs in my AoEs (some are fine though). I do like to heavily proc powers like Hydro Blast, Dehydrate, and Water Jet if I can manage it. Since Energy Aura can cover your defense and recharge this becomes a pretty attractive option. Anyway, if you've read all of this, hopefully you understand why dumping a build isn't that easy. There are a lot of considerations that can go into a build, and what is good or not is a personal decision. Maybe you don't care about min/maxing the single target damage. Maybe you do. Or maybe you're just looking for a power combo that works well together. Well, Water/EA does work well together, and it isn't that easy to break it. It can be potentially tough to optimize it, but almost anything you do with it should work for 90% of the game.

I'm not sure you were doing yourself any favors by copying that build. First off, Incarnates. You don't need Clarion, at all. You could pick up Barrier instead, or Ageless, or Rebirth for that matter. Support Hybrid is OK if that what you're trying to pull off. Supporting a team. If you're intention was getting more defense, then Melee Hybrid (either flavor depending on where the build goes) can be a bit more useful to you personally. The Assault hybrids are there for damage. The damage is OK (purely because Sentinel Electrical is pretty good by default), it could be better, but what you have is OK. There are several things I generally agree with in the build, but there is just so much more of it that begs the question of "what is this?". I personally don't understand the appeal of Lightning Field in this build and the skipping of Short Circuit. Short Circuit is also PBAoE and complements that choice. However, melee defense is pretty low compared to your other categories. That seems somewhat contradictory. I'm not sure if you know this, but Tesla Cage has the highest base damage of any of your single target attacks. Unenhanced its 120 dmg at 50. Slotting it like a damage power and enhancing it by the 126-134% like your other powers will give you a substantial DPS increase. Tesla Cage is one of the rare powers on Sentinels where it has a reasonable base CC duration (8 seconds), but its damage is real value of the power. In a Blaster/Corruptor/Defender build it can make sense to slot the CC powers for their CC. Those ATs do not always have passive defensive abilities in their non-range powers. Sentinels have an entire secondary devoted to mitigation. There is very little reason to kneecap your damage to chase CC duration that isn't necessary. Lightning Bolt can potentially be a good choice. It will depend a lot on where you'd end up on recharge if you change your build plan. You could run Tesla Cage (seriously, slot it for damage) -> Charged Bolts -> Zapping Bolt -> Charged Bolts on tougher singular targets. Charged Bolts would need to recharge within Zapping Bolt's animate (1.188) to pull that off. As it is right now, you'd have a minor 0.1 gap for the second Charged Bolt. Even slight gaps aren't that bad. Average human reaction time generally won't notice even a quarter second of lag time from visual mediums. Anyway, you don't necessarily need Lightning Bolt, but you probably do want a bit more global recharge. Regen benefits a lot from global recharge to make powers like Reconstruction available more often. Second Wind too. Hell, even Moment of Glory. Let's talk about how MoG interacts for a moment. Moment of Glory has a 15 second duration and it is practically guaranteed immortality for that time frame except vs psionic damage. It does have a long recharge, and it cannot be made permanent. It is not an "oh crap" button. It can be, but I find heals are better for that, especially Second Wind. MoG can work just as well as "that spawn looks tough, let's be nearly immune to the alpha". Furthermore, MoG and Barrier can play leap frog with their effects. Barrier when activated will have a huge spike in defense and resistance then wind down to just 5% to resist/defense for the remaining duration. This is also why I brought up Melee Hybrid (though Support could work too). You'd end up with 3 powers to juggle eating certain alpha strikes when you deem it necessary. That kind of strategy can help you ease off trying to push high defenses with IO sets alone. The logic of pushing high defenses on Regen is actually tough to do on Sentinels (largely due to a number of limitations in set diversity plus power damage scaling) without hindering your overall damage potential (which you're doing with this build). So that's the big topics. I won't go into each power specifically beyond what I've said. I tend to prefer pushing more recharge first. If I can get defenses to 20%, then great. Otherwise, I don't chase Winter sets for their lopsided Fire/Cold defense unless I am specifically trying to tackle those kind of enemies. Energy, Smashing, and Lethal defense are far more common, and you could use more of those bonuses. You don't need to try to soft-cap Regen, and really you shouldn't unless you're OK with the decline in damage that comes with it.

That's a direction I started to take with a new Fire/Energy Aura I'm experimenting with. I didn't go nearly as all-in as this build does, but adding procs to Fireball is definitely a way to go.

This.

You're in luck. Thankfully, Fire Blast doesn't have great slotting options for damage procs nor does it need them. You can explore some full, or nearly full sets. Are you ready to break your wallet? Good, because general Willpower on Sentinels is incapable of soft-capping defense of any type, and it doesn't naturally cap its resistance to smashing/lethal damage (at least not without Strength of Will, the T9). What can turn Willpower from 'meh' to pretty good are IO set bonuses. The melee ATs have far better options, and generally more numerous powers, in order to make use of the IO system. Bear in mind, Willpower came out around the same time as IO sets and seems very much like it was tuned with it in mind. Sure, the old devs could say "nah bro", but c'mon. Its pretty obvious. So how do you turn things around and abuse set bonuses here? Things to think about: Both 3% to all defense IOs. You can slot these in High Pain Tolerance if you like. I'd consider 6 slotting that power and combining it with... Unbreakable Guard in as many powers as you can stuff it. That's High Pain Tolerance, Mind Over Body, and Strength of Will. Strength of Will can have its uses beyond just a mule so consider taking it. [Forgot Tough, take Tough] Aim - you get Aim! - Full Gaussian's set grants defense to all types and slightly more to positionals. Sentinel ATOs - Both of these give you defense to Range, Energy/Negative, Melee, and Smashing/Lethal. Use all 6 pieces. The Opportunity Strikes isn't horrible in Flares since you can potentially weave it between most of your attacks. The Ward set... pick a spot. The proc is pretty awful so it doesn't matter much where it goes. Superior Winter's Bite. Put this in a single target attack like Blaze or Blazing Blast if you took it. Superior Frozen Blast maybe optional. Its mostly focused on Fire/Cold and AoE defense. Call it a maybe depending on your powers and slots. Superior Avalanche in either Inferno or an Epic PBAoE (i.e., Psychic Shockwave -- going Psychic Mastery specifically, you'll see why) Superior Blistering Cold - at least 5 pieces for the Smashing/Lethal defense (5%) in a power like Mind Probe. Link Minds (available by taking Mind Probe + Psy Shockwave) - Depending on your overall recharge this may have some downtime, but it can be worth taking. Weave Maneuvers Your choice of Combat Jumping, Hover, or Stealth depending on how many power slots you have left. In Fire Blast you can potentially skip the following: Fire Blast - the Tier 2 Fire Breath Rain of Fire Skipping those easily opens up opportunity to include Psychic Mastery or whatever other Sentinel Epic/Patron pool your heart desires. If you opt to skip Link Minds, just try to pick up an Epic ST melee and PBAoE. Devote some slots there and use the Winter Sets if you're really intent on pushing high defense. I'd advise against choosing any of the Alpha slot options that do not provide you with +damage %. Agility may look tempting, but let Blasters pick that stuff. Spiritual may seem tempting too for more regen and recharge. You likely don't need either. You should be able to reasonably exceed 32-35% to all of the typed damage other than Psi and achieve at least 68% smashing/lethal resistance when Strength of Will is down. Strength of Will can cap your S/L resist. Now, this is very much a "I don't give two F's about global recharge and all I want is high defense" approach. Here are some other alternative things to either include with the above or look for later. - Barrier Destiny will grant you 5% defense and resistance at its lowest value. The T4 version is pretty much on all the time. - Melee Hybrid options, defense or resistance. Inferno is PBAoE and so this Hybrid option has some synergy being in melee range. - Defensive booster from the Pay-to-Win vendor. You can buy 1 hour and stack its duration up to 8 hours if I am remembering that right. I tend to worry less about soft-capping Willpower, and more about improving recharge. You can still get around 26-32% to most of the types while improving your attack availability with recharge. You can leverage any of the other alternative options to boost your defense conditionally. There are also purple skittles. Keep in mind, Willpower has 0 defense debuff resistance. So no matter how high you stack it, it is always vulnerable to cascading failures as enemies can easily chunk your defense once they start landing hits.

I generally think this is fair advice. However, there is enough room in build considerations/combat flow dynamics that a persons mileage may vary. I've certainly found that putting the +res proc in my quick recharging, low chance powers, was not the direction I wanted to take some of my Tankers. Sometimes it works well, but it doesn't necessarily always work well.