oldskool

Brutes are generally better with damage auras since Fury makes them more powerful. All powers adhere to the recharge cap regardless of things like FF +recharge. There is a ceiling on that availability you're not going to break with that proc. Still, if you can squeeze out an extra second or so of availability, why not. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear are far more valuable for their CC than proc deliveries (even if no damage exists in the Stun sets). Toggles check procs every 10 seconds, not per pulse of the power. Cloak of Fear has a very low base accuracy. So every time it misses during that 10 second window is a time where a proc never landed that extra damage. You're unlikely to see multiple foes being tagged by procs without also running something like Tactics. You'd be piling on a lot of endurance drain to experience a gimmick. The procs there just aren't reliable enough to justify the endurance cost. There is an argument to be made about the merits of CoF as both a mild CC ability (due to how fear works) and its minor to-hit debuff. I personally no longer find the power worth it. That includes having run it with Dark Melee to purposefully stack fear with Touch of Fear (its a cute gimmick but completely unnecessary in an IO world). If you're willing to use some inspirations and other tools like envenomed daggers, then AV hunting isn't exactly out of your grasp. This is why I highly suggest you try to get at least melee defense to 32%. That means a small defense inspire will get you an additional +12.5% defense (so 44%+). You could also use the defensive booster temporary power or other things. These tools aren't cheating. AVs have very high regeneration rates and resist a ton of effects. If you don't have enough damage, then they will just regenerate whatever you do to them while largely ignoring the tiny debuffs you apply. Dark Blast can be turned into a pretty hard hitting primary with damage procs in Abyssal Gaze/Life Drain. Enough that it becomes competitive to other sets like Fire Blast. Fire Blast can do pretty heavy damage all on its own and in many ways is very flexible in build designs. Either of these sets can accomplish your offensive requirements. Dark Blast/Fire is going to be better defensively than Fire/Dark. Fiery Aura on Sentinels comes with a heal over time and a direct heal power. That is worth its weight in gold as you don't need to rely nearly as much on green inspirations. On top of this, Dark Blast brings a -35% to-hit debuff in Blackstar. Its massive. Its duration is 20 second too. Remember when I said you can drive the cooldown on the T9 to 23 - 26 seconds? That means you use Blackstar on cooldown to maintain its debuff (even against AVs this is high enough that it will still inflict some noticeable - though minor - debuffing). Any time your enemies spend missing you is you buying time to heal up through toggle and Life Drains. Fire/Dark has a lot less defensive synergy. Obscure Sustenance is no where close to Dark Regen as a heal. So you're stuck with temporarily high regeneration (Obscure Sustenance has a tiered effect I have written about multiple times in this subforum) and that's about it for the extra mitigation. Otherwise you're just relying on whatever defense you stack and resistance you can muster. Dark/Fire is far better at battles of attrition but Fire/Dark still has potential to be quite damaging even while running full sets or Cardiac Alpha. In the case of Fire/Dark, I'd think you'd have a FAR easier time justifying the use of Winter IO sets for more defensive gains as the overall slotting potential of Fire is minimal (and it really doesn't need extra proc damage). TL;DR: Brutes are largely better at damage aura use and their general AoE hammering is very, very effective at high fury. Between Dark/Fire and Fire/Dark one is definitely more defensive in nature and the other more offensive. Though the reality of which is what isn't that obvious.

You're on the right track with both ideas but they could still use some refinement. The Fire/Dark, as it currently is, has a slight edge especially at range. The Dark/Fire catches back up in melee due to Smite. In both builds you completely skipped the crowd control protection powers (Obsidian Shield [Dark] and Plasma Shield [Fire]). Those powers you skipped would protect you from holds, sleeps (Plasma Shield), fear, and stun (Obsidian also includes the latter). Both sets trend towards more melee and you'll likely get eaten alive the moment anything CCs you. Fire Blast doesn't offer much beyond more damage so it doesn't necessarily bring synergy with Dark Armor. However, Dark Armor on Sentinels plays a bit differently from the melee ATs. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear are entirely optional if you intend to Hover Blast. I disagree with @CaptTastic here. Obscure Sustenance has longer range than Dark Regen does and it doesn't trigger off multiple targets since the effect doesn't stack. You don't use that power in the same manner as you would Dark Regen. Obscure Sustenance is more of a maintenance power you cast to grant yourself its bonus where Dark Regen works more like a snap "oh shit" heal. As long as you hover within 35ft of an enemy you can tap a single enemy with Obscure Sustenance on cooldown and reap its benefits. I've honestly really soured on Cloak of Fear. The accuracy in it is horrible and its endurance cost is massive. If you really want a to-hit debuff in a toggle, then use the Purple Proc in Oppressive Gloom. Not only does Oppressive Gloom have legit base accuracy by default, it costs substantially less. If you're fully intent on holding enemies up close, then Chain Fences + Lightning Field + Rain of Fire sounds fine on paper. Last note on Fire Blast just to keep this from turning into a novella. If you plan to run Cardiac with Dark, then I do think Fire Blast is a good choice. Dark can get expensive if you use Cloak of Fear, but Fire Blast IS is expensive to chain Blaze - Fireball - Blazing Blast. Oh, dump Fire Blast (the attack - not the set 😄). You should build without it and go with Flares. Flares is much better in general and can be much better considering a total build revamp. Dark Blast can bring synergy with any set. So it's actually a pretty intelligent choice with Fire Armor. Fire Armor lacks in mitigation and Dark Blast brings an absolute crapload of to-hit debuffing in Blackstar. Furthermore, Blackstar is PBAoE and so is Burn. I don't think you can hover very far and still use Burn. So that's something to think about. I could be wrong through. I just haven't tried it in years. You've got the right idea with Abyssal Gaze; proc the hell out of it. You skipped Life Drain though which can do very similar things. With procs it is quite powerful. Hell, with high enough recharge you could run Abyssal Gaze, Antumbral Beam and Life Drain only as your ranged attacks. So Gloom vs Dark Blast is a coin toss. Take Dark Blast if you can get your endurance under control otherwise Gloom can help due to how the inherent works. When in melee, Smite, can either replace or supplement your range attacks. I actually rather like the Dark Mastery pool and especially when paired with Dark Blast due to more to hit debuffs. I'd probably push the slotting you have in Burn to Engulfing Darkness. So, fun ideas... Both primaries bring a PBAoE T9 power. That means both can take that Fury of the Gladiator debuff with a clamped 90% chance to proc it. That also means both can run the Armageddon set. However, that Engulfing Darkness ain't a bad place for those IOs either. The Opportunity Strikes ATO can be useful in the T9 for both recharge reduction and high burst of near guaranteed opportunity meter. I have a few characters with 23 second recharges on their T9. Opportunity runs for 15 seconds. 15 - 23 = 8. You can effectively turn your T9 into an Opportunity generator and drive down the lag between Opportunity uses. It does work. However, I'd only bother to do this if you're running a worthwhile PBAoE that can take the Armageddon/Fury combo. Otherwise putting those in the T9 is very strong. Unless you plan to group with 6+ members per group that Gaussian's Build-Up can better off in Aim. If you group with big groups, and especially ones bringing pets, then Gaussian's in Tactics can potentially be better. Still, you lose total control over the proc that way vs Aim and that can be a significant kick in the pants if you time your Aim + Blackstar/Inferno. Cauterizing Blaze is a heal over time power. It's not regeneration. Its heal over time. That's generally better and that power is worth considering. If you plan to get into the melee realm of things with either build, try to plan on getting 32% melee OR to damage types you plan to engage in commonly (like Smashing/Lethal). The more defense the merrier, but I've found 32% is a nice sweet spot especially for playing in +2/# difficulty missions. If you start to go for +3 or +4 enemies solo, plan to get pounded on in melee. You can hover of course, but both builds as you have them benefit in melee. You don't necessarily need to softcap, but the more defense you can stack with high resistance the better off you are. The more mitigation you can layer in general, the better off you are. That said, Dark/Fire has a lot of potential mitigation there (to hit debuffs, multiple heal sources, resistance, etc..). I have a Water Blast/Dark Armor/Psi Sentinel. She can handle some fairly rough fights as long as she can leverage the stuns she brings (Oppressive Gloom/Geyser/Psi Shockwave) and she includes some additional healing in Dehydrate. I have 32% defense from multiple sources and fairly high resists without Cardiac. She runs Musculature Core Alpha for damage and as with all things in this game... downed enemies are the best mitigation.

I've been tinkering with a few Sentinel changes lately... DP/SR and AR/SR. Both similarly designed and both using 5 procs in Tashibishi (caltrops). This was done with a few rounds inbetween work assignments so the times are as close as I could record while juggling my attention (its give or take some seconds). 😝 DP/SR (T2 Musculature only), Approximately 6 minutes or 360 seconds for roughly 234 DPS AR/SR (same) Approximately 8 minutes or 480 seconds for roughly 207 DPS DP use: Executioner's Shot - Pistols* - Suppressive Fire - Pistols* AR use: Incinerator - Burst* - Slug - Burst* Pistols/Burst swapped with Tashibishi, heal inspires (as needed) or Aim in the case of AR. Neither of these began with their respective T9's as that wasn't the point of what I wanted to see. I just wanted to see how Tashibishi would alter things with 4 damage procs and a resistance debuff. The results are hilarious... Edit: All attacks used in the chain run at least 2 damage procs plus 1 utility where applicable. Suppressive Fire uses an additional damage proc due to my preferences. Put the time estimations in which I forgot.

Time Manipulation is probably one of the most egregious ones that comes to my mind. TM was a newer set before shutdown and it is incredibly powerful with a complete build. Far Sight is a team buff that grants defense to all and it can be made permanent with recharge investment. On top of this, you also get a set loaded with other tricks (a hold, a few aoe control powers, enemy debuffs, healing, and recharge boost to the team). The Force Field Generator in Traps can protect the team from a lot of status effects as well as providing defense to everything. Cold Domination also brings +defense to teammates while offering other effects (slows, resistance debuffing, regeneration debuffing, and so on). Those are just some sets off the top of my head that deal with defense buffs and include other features. Radiation Emission and Dark Miasma are also very strong enemy-focused debuffing sets with a few other tricks thrown in for good measure. I wouldn't steer you away from FF if that's what suites you. You can contribute to teams just fine and if you choose to exemplar down for lower level TF's those force field bubbles can still be very, very welcome.

A thought on when to boost: Boost generic level 50 IOs to increase their effectiveness while also lowering the number of slots needed. What that looks like in practice is using only two slots for Hasten with general level 50 recharge IOs. In your build, applying +3 boosts (booster x3) to each of those IOs will lower the cooldown to 120.6 seconds. With just two lvl 50 recharge reducers and NO boosters the cooldown is 123.9 seconds. With two +4 boosts the cooldown is 119.9 and two +5's is 119.7. So there is some diminishing returns to consider vs a mindset of "+5 all the things!!!". With 3 slots and general IOs, as it currently exists in your build, the cooldown is 118 seconds. You could spare a slot. What you do with it would be up to you and it isn't really that critical. Other considerations: You accuracy against +4 enemies is mostly above 95%, Eye of the Storm is slightly less, so Tactics isn't necessary. You may want it for other reasons, like its Perception buff or whatever. However, for covering your accuracy you're good to go against most things. For single targets, you can sandwich Precise Strike between Serpent's Reach to build focus stacks before Assassin's Staff (Precise Strike - Serpent's Reach - Precise Strike - Assassin's Staff). If you wanted to explore a little more damage you could put that new found slot into Precise Strike and move the ATO out of Serpent's Reach. You could add the Apocalypse 5pc set + Decimation Build-Up. Serpent's Reach accuracy would drop a little without Tactics, but you could +5 the Acc/Dmg/Rch and Acc/Rch Apocalypse pieces to get you up to 94% against a +4 again. You could potentially move a slot else where to grab the Kismet +6 to-hit vs using boosters or any number of other strategies. You mentioned you're in information overload so please don't feel like that idea is necessary. Its not, but it could be a route to take for improvement whenever you're ready to explore it. There are a few other ideas for using Staff attacks that you could consider (though what you have is fine). Mercurial Blow with Achilles' Heel is a possibility. Sky Splitter can be interesting with procs. My own plan for Staff uses both of those attacks minimally slotted for accuracy/damage/endurance with remaining slots devoted to procs. Food for thought.

Why? Because other build decisions (e.g., Incarnates, Epics, etc.) can blur the lines on just how effective Dual Pistols can get with other ATs. Defenders/Corruptors can potentially get Soul Drain to be available on cool down. That makes for a huge replacement to the missing Aim. There is a noticeable damage difference for Sentinels that use Suppressive Fire rotationally as it gain significant damage and cooldown changes. Even without procs, a Sentinel Dual Pistols build can still be competitive to Blaster single-target damage. Complete build packages would change in favor of one AT over the other, but the lines can still be a little more blurry than they appear. That can go out the window if you make a glass cannon Blaster and load up on all the damage options available. Generally Blaster builds don't need to do that, but Sentinel builds can with impunity. A few Defender/Corruptor build options aren't far behind.

May as well ignore all the tools available to the other ATs while you're at it.

This side tangent is such a weird argument in the context of all of it. Dual Pistols is one of the only ranged sets in the game to not have both Aim and a Snipe. You can literally design the exact same attack sequences across all the ATs with Dual Pistols. The biggest exception is how one handles Suppressive Fire. Seeing as how Sentinels, Defenders, and Corruptors can all have a far easier time closing defensive gaps than Blasters, those ATs can explore a lot of damage in procs. This is one of the rare sets where a Sentinel build using Dual Pistols can potentially do more damage in a purely ranged contest than its Blaster counterpart. AoE will always be largely better on a Blaster, but the single target potential is a lot more blurry than it may look.

In a very simple way of looking at yes, the DoT is gravy and the general numbers of the base damage remain the same. The DoT duration is also very short. So its more like additional damage on a small delay. I think Piercing Rounds has one of the longest versions of the DoT at 3 seconds. That number may not be exact, but it is most certainly shorter than you can get the cooldown of the power to be in a practical build. That does also ignore the fact that the split damage type when running an ammo power will check against a different resistance with the potential to grant you more damage overall to susceptible enemies. Suppressive Fire is always a hold when running any of the elemental ammo powers. Suppresive Fire's default mode is stun when no ammo powers are active. That's it. Easy peasy. Suppressive Fire doesn't gain many of the other perks from the ammo system either. It doesn't gain a DoT with fire ammo, for example. Suppressive Fire is unique though that its modular damage ratio is different from most of the set. The elemental damage ratio is about 50/50. Suppressive Fire is a fine hold power on non-Sentinels and can be jury-rigged into a damage power with procs for non-Sentinels. For Sentinels, Suppressive Fire's hold/stun durations are dramatically reduced and the power overall has a damage increase. Of course, it can still take on procs to push its damage further making it more a build decision vs a utility power. Hail of Bullets will always keep its defense bonus it grants (duration is 5 seconds~). Hail of Bullets will have 100% chance to knockdown at the end of the animation with standard ammo. Running any kind of element will change the knockdown chance but not completely remove it. Chemical ammo's debuff does not stack with itself but will stack with other sources of damage debuff. Piercing Rounds is not particularly good as an AoE power nor is it particularly good as a ST power. It can offer some utility to Corruptors and Defenders though. For Defenders, it brings a -20% resistance debuff in standard ammo. For Corruptor's that's -15%. For Blasters/Sentinels it is -9.6% and the rest of the set can brute force past that damage contribution with procs and rapid animation times. PR can do interesting things with procs. Most notable is the Annihilation resistance debuff proc. PR has a pretty decent chance to trigger it for being an "AoE" due to its narrow cone nature. This can let you stack yet another source of -resistance when running standard ammo. Its worth considering for the team utility at the expense of some personal damage. Pistols, the first power, is actually quite strong for its damage-to-animation ratio. So don't under estimate it. Its second only to Executioner's Shot. Suppressive Fire can become a very heavy hitting power though its long recharge may not make it rotational unless you're a Sentinel (again, their version is different). Dual Wield can be decent with procs added but it can also be substituted for Empty Clips. Bullet Rain is your AoE with the best coverage so may as well take it. Note that several powers can take the Force Feedback: Recharge proc. That's Dual Wield, Executioner's Shot, Empty Clips, Bullet Rain, and Hail of Bullets. You don't need all of those powers to hold that proc but the AoEs will check against every target. Don't under the value of Decimation: Build-Up in one of your attacks either. You don't necessarily need the full set, but the proc can be woven repeatedly in your ST attack cycle. If you're not using the long animating Piercing Rounds, then all of the other regular attacks have 1.848 second animations or less in the case of Pistols. This can lead to full attack routines (where your longest recharge power) is available within 5 seconds, depending on your global recharge of course. I occasionally see folks bemoan the "long animation" times of Dual Pistols. It seems like total BS to me. Hail of Bullets and Piercing Rounds are the only powers that are longer than 2 seconds. Everything else is less animation time. I think there is a perception that due to Piercing Rounds unlocking at 26th level must mean that it is the strongest power. Its not. Its optional.

Dual Pistols trades out Aim for Swap Ammo and it loses on some burst damage there. I'd think pairing Dual Pistols with a secondary that includes Build-Up would be a welcome addition. Empty Clips and Bullet Rain can be a quickly recharging AoE damage combo but another AoE with decent coverage would be welcome too. You can potentially skip Suppressive Fire and Piercing Rounds as a Blaster. Both/Either have their uses but they aren't must haves without some specific gameplay elements in mind.

Its a pretty good set, but it isn't so good you should create a build around it. I did swap a 5x Positron's with Bombardment in my Water/Dark Sentinel. The minor recharge loss wasn't a big deal and it got me 2.25% more S/L which is nice. Dark Armor is a bit finicky to cap S/L resistance through IOs alone and the set has always had a weakness to in energy resist. I don't have a slot to spare for the full bonus but the large resistance perk would be nice to have. Regeneration is another secondary where Bombardment can play a role in the build. And for whatever its worth... Dark Armor is viable. All of the secondaries are viable. All of them. What is optimal or not is a different question.

That's a really good build @Anmorata. I run less defense and resistance for more recharge as a matter of personal preference. I'm very survivable as long as Dark Regeneration is available. That's not so much a critic on the build but just a different perspective of experience. As long as Dark Regen is available to heal you, it is very difficult to die with Dark Armor. My primary build leverages control options during some solo play through Touch of Fear, Cloak of Fear, and the backup Placate. Is this necessary? Not really, but it is fun to make a boss cower in fear as both Touch and Cloak stack. Placate I take as a backup because I find I miss it if I skip it. The Stalker's Guile proc turns Placate more into a nice to have utility vs a must have to leverage gameplay. With enough recharge and end recovery, especially through stacking Superior Conditioning & Physical Perfection, Ageless Radial becomes attractive mostly for its DDR protection. I personally need neither the recharge nor the end benefits. Barrier also works well for me since I'm neither softcapped or hardcapped in defense/resistance. One of these days, I will complete a Patron arc to unlock Soul Mastery. I may create a second build to include Moonbeam for more damage and Shadowmeld for the pocket defense buff. I enjoy my current build too much to dump it entirely.

Soul Noir is the best thing that happened to this game, period. 😉

Scrappers don't get Superior Conditioning do they? Body Mastery opens up Conserve Power as a choice which can be nice to overkill. Physical Perfection unlocks after at least one pick in that set (Conserve Power vs Focused Accuracy). Superior Conditioning is available to Brutes and Stalkers though. Regardless, any of these choices will help. One thing Werner mentions really needs emphasis.... If enemies cannot kill you within Dark Regeneration's recharge window - they can't kill you. This may make spamming DR and watching its cooldown far more active (and maybe a little stressful at time) than you care for. The Theft of Essence proc for +endurance makes spamming it possible though you may need other endurance sources if it doesn't trigger (happens sometimes). Having more defense stacked up will give you breathing room and softcapping will likely make using DR a once in a while thing. I have played Dark Armor on all the ATs. With IOs and Incarnates the endurance issue isn't really an issue anymore. That feels more like a hold over from the core game or those wanting to play only with basic IOs or SOs. For example, running all of the DA toggles plus other pool powers (Tough/Weave) can easily push your endurance consumption to 2 end per second in just toggles. Baseline endurance recovery is around 2 end per second. It is also possible to stack on enough toggles to passively drain your endurance to zero... without any enhancements to reduce it. When you start to slot endurance reductions then it gets manageable. With IO's can you lower toggle costs (running multiples) to 1.5 to 1.8. The fewer toggles the lower the end drain. However, your end recovery can go over 3 end per second maybe even into 4 end per second if you slot Physical Perfection + Accolades. Then the passive procs of Performance Shifter and Panacea will generate more end than you can spend in attacks. This really can be a non-issue with proper planning. Also, as Werner said, your primary doesn't matter. Its all about the planning.

Nice to see you here @Bopper. Just to add some more thoughts. SR's got you covered on defense. Enduring can be slotted to stack endurance recovery as if you were running Willpower. What you don't get out of the box is accuracy. When you start playing with procs you reduce overall global set bonuses. Some of the most available bonuses around are +accuracy. The Kismet +6% to-hit unique helps offset losses and only costs 1 slot within all of the ample defense powers you can have. I'd considered it. When attacking enemies that are +4 levels over you the accuracy you have will drop considerably. You can set this in the configurations in Mids vs the default 75%. Drop it 39% to see if you're still in the 95% range against +4 enemies. That accuracy is relevant if you plan to exemplar below level 45. Your Incarnates can make you into a 50+1 therefore changing endgame enemies into level 53's. To hit them reliably, change the settings to show 48% as the base accuracy of your powers vs 75%. That will help you start to map out what the build is going to look like when you start gutting set bonuses for procs and will tell you if you need to add in Tactics on top of the 6% Kismet. This is all about just how far you want to go too. You can run lower accuracy but you will miss hits against higher leveled enemies more often. Dark Blast as a set has two gems when it comes to proc slot opportunities. Abyssal Gaze and Life Drain. Abyssal Gaze can take on all of the normal ranged damage set options, accurate to-hit debuff option (Cloud Senses), and holds. The Hold category lets Abyssal Gaze use the Unbreakable Constraint proc which is a substantial damage gain. An Epic Hold (like Dominate) can have a longer cooldown allowing for a more reliable proc chance for the same proc. So that is something to consider. If you're not using an Epic hold for that purpose, then by all means consider Unbreakable Constraint in Abyssal Gaze. Life Drain, in my opinion, is a rather lack luster power on Sentinels but it has multiple proc options (ranged damage, accurate to-hit, healing). If you take this power, then it should have as many procs as practical in order to make it worth casting. The heal isn't that great and its overall damage isn't either. Overcoming to-hit/accuracy/endurance/ED damage... You can get decent accuracy in your powers and some endurance reduction in just 3 slots. You can get fairly high to ED-range damage in those 3 slots too. The Alpha slots can push your enhanced damage well over 100%. There are a number of ways to handle this. One way to go is use 3x Thunderstrikes. Use only the Acc/Dmg, Acc/Dmg/End, and Dmg/End. Use boosters to increase these by +5. That will get you to 59.62% Accuracy, 89.92% Damage, and 59.62% Endurance. Musculature Core Alpha pushes my damage modification to 126.16%. Alternatively you could slot a +3 Hamidon Nucleolus Exposure, a generic level 50 damage IO, and a Dmg/End of your choice. That will get you 38.30% Accuracy (which in one of my builds is 92% accuracy vs 95% --- against +4's), 98.66% damage, and 33.13% endurance modification. With Musculature Core Alpha the damage enhancement becomes 130.91%. Another ways is to use some of the Winter IO sets. Specifically the Accuracy/Damage and Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (i.e., Winter's Bite). Some of the other sets in the AoE categories (i.e., Frozen Blast) also have a Dmg/End too. Finally, you could eschew worrying about endurance entirely and just use 2 slots to push enough accuracy to hit whatever level range you intent to play in plus a bit of damage. Then you can cram in 4-6 procs if you really wanted (you'd likely need Tactics for the ability to hit). If you seek to ED cap damage (prior to Alpha slots) then you will eek out a slight DPS gain. You may sacrifice some endurance but you may be able to handle that depending on your build. You can certainly handle it if you're planning to run Ageless. Again, exemplar content can be considered to determine if your endurance drain will be impacted much (if at all). I happen to use 3x Thunderstrikes in a lot of my builds due to the minor bonuses within that set (some end recovery and ranged defense). Any of the other methods can be good choices if you weigh the consequences. For me, a loss of -4% over-ED damage modification isn't that much of a worry. I've spent a lot of time writing about the ability to hit, but attack sequence is also important. That will be designed by your global recharge. If you intend to mostly use Abyssal Gaze, Antumbral Beam, and Life Drain, then you won't need to worry too much about the slotting of either Dark Blast/Gloom. You're forced to pick one, but you're not forced to devote a lot of slots to it. So if neither are integral to your attack chain, then you don't need to worry about damage procs there. Instead decide if you want to slot it to mule a set or not bother with it beyond a single accuracy enhancement (it needs to successfully hit in order for the inherent to work). Finally, when trying to push damage the highest it can go for Sentinels the strongest power set isn't a primary set. Its Psychic Mastery for the combination of Dominate and Mind Probe. Other epic choices with a relatively quick recharging hold + melee attack are also good (i.e., Fire Mastery or Darkness Mastery).

If your end use with all toggles is 1.51 then that isn't as bad as it sounds with having 3x Performance Shifters. I say that from experience. 😉 The Theft of Essence in Dark Regen will also be pretty noticeable when fighting groups of enemies. You should be fine. If you really feel you need more end management, then Cardiac Alpha and/or Ageless in the Incarnate options can eliminate that worry for any content upto level 45 (lower level exemplar stuff not so much). So are your 45% defenses truly that in game while Hide is combat suppressed or what Mid's is reporting with it turned on? Mid's shows Hide's full stealth defense. Hide's combat defense is more like Shadow Dweller's and that single LoTG should enhance Hide to 2~% defense. So turn off Hide and add 2% back to get an idea of what the real defense is. As the post above notes, without a data chunk it is hard to say as one would have to rebuild everything just to see what you've done. Even if your true defense is a bit lower, Cloak of Fear will slow down incoming minion damage while you deal with them. Dark Regeneration's cooldown is also another factor to keep in mind for staying up right. The quicker it is available, the more often you can drain health and potentially get endurance back. These two things both help offset some lower defenses if that is the case. Stalker DA really doesn't need to be constructed like a brick house as you aren't tanking damage. You have no Death Shroud to generate aggro and Cloak of Fear will terrify enemies. The more defense and resistance you can build the better, don't get me wrong, but it isn't necessarily as important as it is on say a Scrapper due to how all the mechanics work. Also, how does this build handle knockback? I don't notice any of the anti-KB IOs like Karma, Steadfast, or even the travel power ones. It'd be nice to have at least 1 of the 4 KB protection IOs for PvE (I personally try to go for a bit more).

I can confirm this too. Not only they can be slotted, but they also fire off regardless of ammo type. I've been running procs in pistol powers since last Summer.

I've recently gotten my AR/SR to 50 and she's been a lot more enjoyable. SR is what makes it work. The bonus recharge helps me hit 190% global and the high defense lets me decide just how far I can push damage procs. The procs allow AR to do some damage. The recharge can even let me ignore Incinerator which I have found to be a damage increase. AR definitely needs work as a set, but SR at least lets you jury-rig some effectiveness.

That Footstomp slotting has the Superior Avalanche proc in it. So his Footstomp is likely to send things flying. Both procs are entirely unnecessary.

The best response. Slotting Taunt can be a viable strategy for using the bonuses in sets like Mocking Beratement or Perfect Zinger. No added slots, 4 slots (for some bonuses) or all 6 slots. Any of these can be correct depending on what you're doing.

I'd think one would consider Agility more for the defense and recharge boost vs endurance. The end reduction boost Alphas (like Cardiac) can be far better than the end modification Alpha (Agility) as they also reduce the end costs of your attacks. Musculature Core would be fine if you feel comfortable with everything else. No Alpha slot is going to make that dramatic a difference for your elemental resistances like Energy and when you get surrounded by 10 targets Rise is giving you 162 hp a second. That should be plenty. The Superior Might of the Tanker can stack 3 times if you can get it to happen that fast but still even 1 instance of that buff is 6% more resistance. So your Smashing/Lethal resist will cap as long as you keep applying the ATO. My own WP/SS Tanker uses Knockout Blow for that ATO and I can stack 3 times. I'm also pushing more recharge at the expense of defense (I sit around 37% to most types with Psi at 32.9%). My non-S/L resistances get just over 50% and Strength of Will gets me to just under 70% to everything that isn't capped for 2 minutes. I know some folks think it is an auto skip, but I've always used it. I only regenerate 130hp with full RttC saturation and I've never been dropped by S/L mobs in normal content. So you could conceivably back off of the defense you've built. This is especially true on TW since Defensive Sweep can handle your Melee defense, but I understand if you want to avoid casting that power every 10 seconds or so. Other Incarnates to consider: If your end management feels right, then Barrier will close a lot of gaps for you. Melee Hybrid Core is resist-based and builds per enemy in range like RttC. With these you could juggle their uses and close a lot of gaps in your resistance. For AV/GMs, diamagnetic will get ignored like it never happened. Degenerative though will reduce their HP and as a side effect their regeneration. Regardless of which you pick, always bring Envenomed Daggers that you can purchase in order to reduce their regeneration rates. Otherwise, you may feel those fights are tickle-fests since your recharge isn't high enough to really push TW damage in the first place. Your potential damage isn't bad, but it isn't optimal since Arc of Destruction has such a long cooldown. You'd end up weaving far more Crushing Blows than you could Follow Through. If your goal is to push defense harder than offense, then I wouldn't really bother changing up much.

While a guide would be nice, there are a lot of caveats that need to be considered. Bio Armor responds well to the IO system, but it takes more than just slotting in Bio Armor to make the character effective. Some power sets are largely self-contained where they require very little outside help in order to meet their mitigation goals (like Super Reflexes). Bio Armor's merger of IO system use is going to be dependent on your secondary and pool power preferences. That word preferences is really important in my opinion. Not everyone likes travel powers, or some like specific travel powers, some like the Fighting Pool, some want to build without it, and so on. Since Bio Armor works well with the IO system, expense is also something that needs to be taken into consideration. Anyone with an unlimited budget can create an amazing Bio Armor (or any) character. You can soft-cap multiple, if not all, defense and have high resists. The Incarnate system can also play a role here. In other words, Bio Armor character builds are more about the complete package vs just the primary. All of that said, Bio Armor is kind of like a hodge podge of design decisions from Willpower and Regeneration. You have layered defenses like Willpower along with some active/reactive healing potential like Regeneration. Willpower builds often seek to raise Smashing/Lethal resistance and get as high on typed defenses as possible. Bio Armor builds should be seeking some ideas there. Regeneration can work very well with an emphasis on recharge to bring heals up often. Bio Armor builds can make use of lowering its 3 click powers too, but on some Tanker builds these may not be the clutch heals they are on Scrappers/Brutes/Sentinel/Stalkers. For defense toggles, a basic idea is to 4 slot them with 1 end and 3x resistance OR defense. For passives 1-3 slots depending on taste of its type. For passives with multiple effects the slots can expand up to 6 and basic slotting can be a mix of effects (3x endurance buff + 3x heal, or 3x heal + 3x resistance, etc.). For damage toggles, like Genetic Contamination, I like a mix of accuracy and endurance before damage though I nearly always 6 slot them. Damage toggles are completely idiot proof damage add-ons that will work even if you get distracted chasing your cat off your keyboard. Furthermore, damage toggles can be a good choice for the Might of the Tanker ATO proc (the full set ain't bad either). This will passively trigger the bonus resistance effect for you and has the potential to stack multiple times (up to 3) without any real thought from the player. The more enemies around you, the more likely the stacking. I have it slotted that way on my Dark Armor Tanker. It works. For the healing powers, especially within Bio, you need to evaluate for yourself how necessary these are to your survival. I personally want Parasitic Aura to have the highest uptime I can on any AT because I find the power to be very strong. This means I want to devote some slots there, but it really depends on where the rest of my build is going. DNA Siphon and Ablative Carapace can range in slots depending on recharge goals. The more global recharge you build, then more available these become. It is very possible to get their cooldown to meet their durations even on minimal slots. Still, I like at least 3 slots in all 3 of these heal powers if I can manage it. Now, for specific IO set bonuses there are a number of ways to skin the proverbial cat. You need to evaluate what your goals are and where the priorities need to be for the content you're shooting to do (regular, incarnate trials, a mix). Know too that there are various resources in this game that can give you temporary bonuses and those too may weigh into your build plan. Temp powers and inspirations can be as much a part of a build idea or playstyle as the IO plan itself. Current influence/infamy budgets are also a factor. A plan for a future respec if your dream build is too expensive is also a factor. I like to build towards "just enough". Just enough damage that I don't bored with a character, and just enough defense to survive standard content. For iTrials, there are boosters, teammates, even secondary builds if I really want to push it. I tend to play a lot of generic team-up content and solo. So I like all-around builds. General goals: 32.5% defense puts you 1 small purple inspire away from 45% defense. Barrier Incarnate will grant you 5% defense and resistance at its lowest point. Melee Hybrid can buff your defenses and regen. Temp Powers can make you immortal in situations. 90% resistance to at least Smashing and Lethal damage which is the most common type. Energy resistance is ideal for 50+ content, but you get what you can get here. I don't suggest breaking your character to shore-up a single weak point. Global recharge, and ideally Hasten, especially for Bio to make things like Parasitic Aura up more frequently. However, this greatly depends on what secondary is involved. Also, if I have an idea to build high defense/resistance already, then the heal powers start to lessen in priority. Sounds complicated? It should, because not all of these decisions translate into characters that all players like. That's the 500lb gorilla in the room of writing guides. You can't please everyone and sets like Bio Armor are so flexible they fit multiple playstyles on the Tanker. The higher your budget the more of a God you can create but a guide should not assume everyone is dropping $500m to $1b per character in order to make it function. If you have a specific pairing in mind, then it is FAR easier to talk about that combination than it is to offer advice in a vacuum.

What exactly doesn't make sense? It is incredibly difficult to max out resists to all types on Dark Armor for non-Tankers. Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers, these are all in the same boat with you. You should be able to get to the upper 60% range on Smashing, Lethal, and Psi with some planning. Energy and Toxic are notorious holes in the set and incredible pains in the ass to improve even for Tankers. You can temporarily max out, or get nearly max, resists to all types with Rune of Protection if you're willing to take some Sorcery powers. Optimizing damage has a lot of "what abouts" going on. Dark Blast as a set can make use of multiple damage procs. Damage procs push damage but the more you add the less deep IO set bonuses you get. It is a trade off. At level 35 you can access Epic/Patrons and those contain varying degrees of good to great powers. Dark Mastery fits a theme, includes some to-hit debuffs, and contains some great powers. Smite is pretty good for a single-target attack, and Engulfing Darkness is also very good. Netherworld Grasp can be converted into an attack by adding damage procs. The Tentacle power isn't worth your time, and Darkest Night can quickly turn into a trap pick if you aren't careful. Otherwise, this pool is fantastic for theme/damage. Psi Mastery is also a gold standard for adding damage with Mind Probe, procced Dominate, and access to Link Minds which can be great. Here are some other recommendations: 1) Try to aim for getting into the 50% range to all resists except Energy/Toxic. You may get those to be higher depending on your IO set preferences, but try to plan around them as a weakness. 2) Try to aim for getting your melee, range, aoe defenses to 25% to 32%. Dark Blast has a lot of to-debuff and Blackstar can be an amazing contributor to your survival. 3) Try to get Obscure Sustenance's recharge as low as possible. This has a cascading effect and its strongest benefit is around 10 seconds long. Try to cast this around that 10 second window but don't let it delay longer than 20 seconds. The full endurance benefit drops off after 30 seconds and the full health regen is a full minute. Still, the strongest benefits are in the first 10 to 20 seconds. 4) Try to get Blackstar's cooldown as low as you can for both damage and defensive benefit (it is an amazing T9 on Sentinels). Overall, think in layers and realize that Dark Armor on Sentinels is more of a jack-of-all-trades master of none set. Dark Blast gives you lots of to-hit debuffs to give you breathing room on anything short of AV/EB/GMs. Dark Armor has modest, not particular high, resists without IO bonuses taken into account. It has some baseline defense in Cloak of Shadows which other pure resistance sets don't get. This power grants you some minor stealth and another +Stealth IO can compliment it. Obscure Sustenance is a deceptive power. It grants a very large health regeneration benefit for 10 seconds and then it starts to degrade. One build I had got almost 1,200% regeneration for 10 seconds with a 6 second cooldown for it. Its like playing a Regeneration character but having some resists and defense on top of it. Obscure Sustenance does not operate like Dark Regeneration does. Use Obscure Sustenance as early as you can get a target (ideally after Aim + Blackstar) and then maintain its strongest benefit you can on cooldown. Do not use it is a reactionary power like you might with Dark Regen. This one is a proactive power that needs some maintenance by the user.

The TL;DR - Keep your current build as you continue to build up more influence. Whenever you do get that dragon's horde of funds for an expensive build, do something OTHER than what was offered to you because it sucks. The more expensive build would be capable of slightly higher damage, but in all honesty it is pretty crappy given the expenditure. This is especially true when the question is about which does more damage. It looks like someone is giving you advice based on how both sets behave in other ATs and doesn't really stop to understand how either works as a Sentinel. Regen on Sentinels includes an absorb shield. Regen on Sentinels can be fairly sturdy all by itself and especially so at ranged gameplay. Electrical Blast on Sentinels isn't quite the same as it is on say, a Blaster, but the slotting looks a LOT like someone is feeding you Blaster ideas. The inclusion of Havoc Punch is nice, but there isn't really enough recharge to really push its value. Lightning Field makes absolutely no sense based on the defenses in the build. What's the point? While I get the general slotting choices on Maneuvers and Weave, there is a better way to go about it. Fly without Afterburner isn't really worth it. May as well just keep Hover and forget the rest. I'm going to continue to be frank. The use of the Winter sets isn't well thought out, the slotting of Tesla Cage is laughable, and overall the build is pushing a lot of defense for little gain. In other words, the defense slotting is all over the place. There is no real rhyme or reason to any of it. There is so little damage gained there would be little reason to spend that influence and swap away from what you already have. Agility Core? Why the F would someone suggest that to you? Agility is adding around 1% defense. The recharge benefit isn't meaningful enough to burn the Incarnate materials for since the build isn't pushing much recharge in the first place. Here are my suggestions: Determine where you want your character to play from. Do you mostly play ranged? Do you want to use some melee in your back pocket to clean-up, or would you like to play psuedo-scrapper? The latter question will determine Havoc Punch's real value to you and whether or not you should bother with Lightning Field. Tesla Cage should be handled like a damage power. You should consider at least 5 slots of a damage set and ideally +1 slot for a proc. If you don't want to use the Epic Holds, then Tesla Cage can take on another purple proc (Unbreakable Constraint - Smashing Damage). Ideally, this power should have 2+ procs. You won't always need both Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt. You could drop Lightning Bolt BUT it isn't a bad power really. I tend to prefer Regeneration built for recharge and then hit points. If you do plan to stick mostly at ranged, then the Sentinel version of Regeneration can survive very well even with low-ish numbers on defense. At least that was my experience. Recharge does a lot for this combo. First, recharge makes powers like Reconstruction, Second Wind, and so on available more often thus improving your reactive defenses. Second, recharge makes your offense available more often. Sentinels have a hidden gem in their AT. Shorter cooldowns on T9s that can line up with Aim. You skipped Aim in your original build. That power is worthwhile. You can potentially have both Aim and Thunderous Blast available on the same cooldown cycle. The ability to pop Aim + Thunderous Blast is the burst damage combo that Sentinels have. This can be done every 25-ish seconds with recharge investment. Finally, pushing recharge in your build through bonuses means your Incarnate options open to more damage. You don't need Agility or Spiritual if your baseline build already gets you near perma-Hasten. Musculature Core ends up being far better and you aren't shackled to only one kind of Incarnate. You could absolutely work towards multiples of each Incarnate category.

I decided to log into the Sanctuary team's server and check out their changes. For those wishing to see what it may be like to play a Sentinel along the lines of what some of these suggestions, I highly recommend you do so. I think it is very unlikely that Homecoming will implement Sentinels (basically change them to that scale) in the way they do. Warning though, stuff is a little unpolished, but this is what I found so far: Opportunity doesn't exist. The bar is there and the icon in the bar is there, but this works like Defiance on Sanctuary. Each of my blast powers was granting me a damage bonus. The blast sets have a lot of commonality with the "norm". Unfortunately, they do not include snipes but they do revert changes to CC powers. So powers like Suppressive Fire (Dual Pistols) are identical to their Blaster/Defender/Corruptor counterparts. The secondaries are carbon copies of Scrappers and in some cases Stalkers. Their version of Ninjutsu is the Stalker version complete with Hide at level 1 and Caltrop within the set. This also means you get PBAoE damage auras in the sets that had them. Freezing Ray exists there... its just a hold. The Sentinel ATOs are not implemented yet since they seem to be tinkering with the implementation to make it different. So far it seems like a direct Blaster primary + Scrapper secondary. AoEs retain their original target caps. Assault Rifle is almost identical to the Blaster version except Sniper Rifle is still replaced by Incinerator. That means no Aim, but you do get Ignite. Disorienting Shot is replaced by Beanbag, etc... So far some powers also do not work at all. Dual Pistols (my go-to) can't seem to access Swap Ammo despite selecting it, and Bio Armor's Adaptation is also missing. Conceptually the Sentinel is described as a sturdy Blaster with the ability to distract (I guess hold some aggro momentarily?). So a place out there in the wild west of private servers does exist in order to test at least some concepts being tossed around. You could potentially see for yourself just where things are lacking (or not) with these suggestions in at least some capacity.