oldskool

I don't frequent the Dominator forums much, but for Defenders you have folks like Bopper and Redlynne who haunt there frequently. I tend to find their posts very well thought out.

These and the Guassian's proc (in Tactics specifically) were also tested in the Defender forums. If you haven't checked that subforum out, I highly recommend it. Sentinels and Defenders are kindred spirits in using one of their powersets to open slotting options like procs (at least prior to many of the "Proc Monster..." threads).

The Sonic cones hit more targets than many of the cones in other Sentinel Primaries. So while you may not care for them, they are more functional than many of the other sets. Most of the Epics have only 1 good PBAoE power with varying levels of use. Fire Sword Circle is probably one of the strongest direct damage ones maybe followed by Engulfing Darkness. For simplicity, I'll take Tashibishi from Ninja Tools if I can devote some slots to it for damage procs. I do not mind if enemies run since I run all ranged attack chains, but enemies will try to flee the effect area. So that may turn you off.

With Super Reflexes helping to push perma-Hasten, you will never need both of Ice Bolt and Ice Blast. Super Reflexes can sustain itself on endurance well enough that Defensive Opportunity becomes superfluous and the healing also becomes unnecessary due to Master Brawler plus procs like Panacea and the new one in the End category. Honestly, with Master Brawler granting me over 400 absorb on my two SR Sentinels, I find the heal from Panacea is all I need, but I included Power Transfer twice because I could. Take Ice Bolt since it grants you Offensive Opportunity, and that in and of itself is a mild DPS increase at 50 due to how it works. Here is the order of strength of Sentinel Ice single-target powers: Ice Blast = Ice Bolt -> Chilling Ray -> Bitter Freeze Ray -> Bitter Ice Blast. The latter two are the ones you're going to want if all you care about is damage. From Darkness Mastery, Netherworld Tentacles is going to be hot garbage without dedicated proc slots. I see you're trying to push more to-hit on top of having 50% defense, but why? You can't be immune to being hit in this game. 5% chance will always exist and streak breakers will ensure something tags you at least once out of a full cluster of enemies. Adding on more to-hit debuffing isn't going to stop the inevitable. This is why Master Brawler is soooo F*ing good on Sentinels and layering passive healing like Power Transfer/Panacea can get you near immortality. If you're thinking of using the to-hit debuffs on AV/GMs, then just know they will resist that effect heavily. Darkest Night out of the Darkness Mastery pool has a base 10% and even fully enhanced will drop into the single digits. The best thing about that power is the damage debuff but that doesn't matter nearly as much if you aren't getting hit often in the first place. Plus, Darkest Night is a fairly large end drain and your end management isn't that great. Forgive some of the build below if you will, it is really early, and I came up with pretty quick. - Sentinel ATOs - In general these suck. The Ward effect is pitiful since it is effected by enemy level. Do not expect this to save your bacon because it will likely grant you an absorb shield in the teens vs the hundreds. Opportunity Strikes seems to work pretty well in AoEs if you can manage it there (i.e., nothing better to slot). Opportunity Strikes will work in Blizzard, I've checked, and it will trigger once. When it does go off it will give you a large boost which can likely cap your bar or get you close (I've seen it add 37.5 meter like similar powers - Whirlpool, Ice Storm, Rain of Fire, etc.). The recharge for Blizzard is 23.43 seconds. That puts availability at 8 seconds after each Opportunity cycle which is pretty good. The Sentinel ATOs are valuable for their recharge and other bonuses though. Ice Bolt will be a mule and only trigger your Opportunity so the Ward set there is purely for bonuses. Enduring - This has some end benefit and the two procs you want. Stamina gets one too, if you want it. Bitter Ice Blast/Bitter Freeze Ray - You want some accuracy/end/damage here and 3x Thunderstrikes aren't bad for that. You could handle this a few different ways too and those IOs can be +5'ed for more benefit. What's really important though is adding damage procs to those attacks because that is how you push damage in this case. Netherworld Grasp does this too on a whole different level. Smite is a pretty good attack and it would replace Chilling Ray in melee. At range I guess you could weave in Ice Bolts. Engulfing Darkness opens up the Fury of the Gladiator -20% resistance proc. You should use it. Defenses drop a bit. 48/48/47 is still a respectable set of defense and damage should be considerably higher than what you started with. There are still some Gift of the Ancient Speed buffs, and you get the Flight suite (Fly/Hover/Afterburner). Hasten is still perma. I'd recommend Degenerative or Reactives for Interfaces vs Spectral but YMMV. You could also consider Rebirth Radial over Barrier if you wanted, but I do enjoy Barrier on multiple builds. Barrier will grant you a minimum of 5% defense and resist so that is something to consider. It is very very tough to include everything you seem to want (4 powers in Darkness Mastery, 3 powers in Fly, meaningful damage, 50%+ defenses while also stacking multiple to-hit sources). Another thing to consider is exemplar content. I think you'd want a second build to include more low level powers (basically everything skipped) for running content where you cannot access your full suite of powers. I personally just run Chilling Ray/Bitter Ice Blast/Bitter Freeze Ray with damage procs and I am happy enough with that. I use Frost Breath/Ice Storm too but I am not one to make multiple builds per character since I have so many to begin with. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1480;701;1402;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EFB453A12DEF42CBA3D0428596160A55176A34248A18041| |202891BC15ACBA5546B695A4C70E9BFE0C68D92B83171E35FE273E773EF46404C8C| |0BB59E99EFB3103B69F39BF9EE3973BF7BEE3DB3B03DDDF4FCF2FD2965B45C2C642| |A95F4B22E6EE58BBAE05AC8E4F259655D0DF2EFF9A7A79732C59C5E4BCE6675FA82| |646C856A23D37A5D172B3AB97CB7A4CBE925BD5ED0DBBAA2BC8B9B9B85E44C219FD| |BD86AC6BD759B2FE65AEDA7799D59D3E5CA46BEE4B19F974B5AAFF55E2AE5B3C9C3| |5767CAB7D30B329B2EDFEB163B31F9FF8C2A5E55977A6B2A953255F40DF9028CBF2| |45F81E3AFC16BD60B0C3BD7A9BA0C5B3BD6097ADAC0261FB822B106638DFF621B19| |DBC858AFD4CA094FCA1951B66688E6A2E6AACAA57E455154518C8604A23CCF1C36A| |FCB6C6E8C99EEB0134E82604B3F1819008F8740B7BCCC0B87CAFB5BD06FAA76D19A| |A1399A4DB9894A7C23E9063332572B57D6FA00F3B73D24F750A98E1FE01FF1DCCE6| |AB73F86E78E2760E70E9942AEFF8BC3F6E07F6AD8748A171FBDF8FCD0BA03E0C009| |ACC194982EC4B8BA0EA00DEC82E13D707C9FFC064E7C07872437805C2360D7B3417| |59355F1DD43DF3DF4DB4BFFBDF41DA4CF60869EEE60376F4A7DFA58D7BE712B5676| |C62F21DCCDFE39CC6F1DC710E7087D46BDC29FC877E0E07BF203F911CC4AEE106B3| |3C4D315E1E98AF074ED48CC30CFC4701C351E19211364148CC6C0D5517489E52976| |1EDAE839F23479068C9F05535358CF8AE426989B60CDC6661133C6DA8CB156138F9| |47D9652DCF31B3269927B91E47A2678DE56656C9263931C4B712C68D6BA597E5697| |DC1AB57AD4EA9C6A355E373A59A7A4EA949375CAA93A65FEA8C23D5E34F97110CDB| |0A3DC6DB5BEAE7EF5D4BE07CA60C6DEA1E630AE6265E615ACCC1C4455778FE6C550| |D57DCF916F0B3BD0C10E748411D3C20E9CF309108B6B267028FC054EF4E7CA| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Oh I didn't take it as criticism at all. I just want to caveat that I do not consider my builds "be-all-end-all". I often find myself shuffling slots around every few months on my favorite characters to squeeze out some tiny bit of performance that I felt was lacking here and there. As you play with a build for a prolonged period, you start to find that what sounded good on paper may not work as well as you thought. Build boredom can also set in, or in general preferences can do a 180 degree turn. As of now, I wouldn't bother running the ATO sets in powers like Blazing Arrow or Perfect Shot, for example. I'd try to fit them elsewhere and maybe do something else in those powers. That means I would likely shift Apocalypse out of Stunning Shot (maybe). I've done a complete rebuild of my Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu character in order to run a bunch of the powers from Ninja Tools. My IO choices let me completely drop Maneuvers (everyone, clutch your pearls!!) and still maintain 48%+ defense. I don't think that loadout will replicate with Archery as the recharge needs are different, but it wouldn't stop me from maybe experimenting more.

Simply because Combat Jumping is cheaper to run from an endurance perspective than running Sprint is. Shinobi-Iri already makes you run plenty fast at the mission level so my preference is to not run additional speed powers (Sprint/Ninja Run) indoors. It was also built on preferences from a different character I play that runs Ninjutsu and so the slotting was similar there. In the end, that slot is "extra" as it didn't feel necessary anywhere else. YMMV That build was also posted months ago, and if I were to do it over again I would likely change some things. So if there are IO placements that don't work for your style, then by all means shuffle things around until it works for you.

Water Blast as a whole is very friendly to damage procs which can seriously up your damage at the price of skipping over 5 to 6 piece set bonuses. The one power that is easy to skip is Aqua Bolt. I'd recommend you strongly consider all the others. If you like adding in a procced out Dominate and Mind Probe those can also add significant damage to single targets of which WB is very weak too overall.

I think the answer there is in how the balancing seems to trend across Sentinel sets. What may have been one primary's "thing" on other ATs isn't necessarily the same "thing" on Sentinels. Seems like most, if not all, powers with a hold duration of 9 seconds on ATs like the Blaster (e.g., their version of Abyssal Gaze) were changed to roughly 2 seconds on Sentinels. I don't foresee a direct port of Freezing Ray without a change to how all of the Sentinel primaries work. It's hold would be dropped to a 2 second duration under the current trends. A neat interrupt sure, but if you'd be expecting to hold bosses like the other ATs can, then I think we may all be disappointed. Bitter Freeze Ray on Sentinels has just over a 7 second duration per the in-game info box (Mid's has it listed as the same duration as other ATs). Since Sentinels have an entire secondary devoted to passive defense (including toggles as passive) there appears to be some harsh penalties in the AT for active mitigation (like holds). Tacking on sleep to Chilling Ray seems like an afterthought, but the alternative would be a gutted version of Freezing Ray either way. So the "why not" appears to be that the "balancing" decision was leaning against the Sentinel using effects like hold for mitigation. So Freezing Ray was replaced with a new power that includes Sleep since that effect isn't too egregious. Sleeps were also mentioned to be under review at some point to make them better. So asking for a change to a hold may not work out as well. We'll see. Regardless, what CC effect Chilling Ray has wasn't a deciding factor in why I took it. It was because it does more damage than Ice Blast or Bolt. However, that too is a different complaint... What irks me more about the change of this power isn't the lack of a hold, but its damage change. Freezing Ray is pretty close in DPA to Bitter Ice Blast. Chilling Ray isn't close to Bitter Ice Blast at all. My issue there is that the change appears to have no rhyme or reason to it. Chilling Ray was given damage similar to Slug and Stunning Shot from Assault Rifle and Archery respectively. Other primaries have a more damaging power in that same slot with Fire having Blaze as an outlier at that level. P.s., I couldn't tell you what Ice Blast's "thing" is supposed to be on Sentinels. If using multiple holds as a form of mitigation was the thing elsewhere, that identity is gone and replaced with nothing really. This is also a trend in Sentinels. Power set homogenization. Though for Devil's Advocacy, I always saw Ice as the "slow everyone" set and that hasn't really changed.

So Sentinel Ice Blast should have access to 3 powers with a Mag 3 Hold?

Or I can just use an unslotter. If I could go beyond 6 slots in Enduring, I probably would. 😉

I just recently swapped my Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu Sentinel over to Dual Pistols/Super Reflexes. I liked my original /SR plan so much I decided to also remake my original Assault Rifle character again (like the 3rd or 4th time now) with /SR. Both characters are now 50. My Dual Pistols/Nin character has been completely respecced with a a different loadout more to the liking of the original concept I once had. Anyway, Super Reflexes on the Sentinel shouldn't be compared too closely with its melee cousins. So I'll parrot a bit of the Pros/Cons from @MTeague with a few differences... Cons: No AoE defense until Evasion and then you get A LOT of AoE. - Recommendation: Plan to take Boxing/Kick, Tough and Weave before level 26 to give you some foundation. You can push off Dodge/Agile for a while. You are largely dependent on defense and this can feel dangerous while leveling. Defense debuff resistance is less than that of Scrappers and Stalkers due to only have a 0.7 defense modifier vs 0.75. You can potentially be overwhelmed, but it does take a lot of successful hits in order to really be a bother. Still, if you can swing it, aim for more than 45% to give yourself a buff. I recommend that for Scrappers/Stalkers too. That's it though. Skipping Elude is a non-issue when you see what it does. Sentinel SR has built-in endurance management. Elude's bonus recovery is superfluous. Sentinel SR can soft-cap defenses and your Incarnate Destiny choices become wide open for any level 45+ content. You could leap frog Elude and Barrier if you wanted, but I see little value in doing that. Pros: Master Brawler. This power trumps the con of "no real resistance". This power gives me +400 HP absorb right now. Its cooldown is stupidly short. This power is very strong and shouldn't be dismissed. I have around 20-25% resistance to Smash/Lethal/Fire/Cold. I was running some farm maps of those types yesterday. I survived just fine through a combination of proactive Master Brawler and straight up dodge tanking. Auto-Hit attacks, which aren't common in normal content, would be a problem. For most other things SR is very, very, very safe. Enduring grants you a 30% recovery buff right out of the box. This is slightly stronger than Stamina. It also grants you some Psi defense. I personally don't feel it is worth the time to enhance the defense much, but this still grants you a lot of opportunity for slotting (e.g., a LoTG). SR can feel like it needs a lot of powers, but it really doesn't need a lot slots. I have just the default slot for both Dodge and Agile. Both mule a single Luck of the Gambler for recharge. My Melee and Ranged defenses are still over 47%, respectively. I opted to minimally slot Evasion (just 3 slots) because the AoE defense you get is very high. Quickness makes you run faster. This combined with Swift, Sprint, and Ninja Run is close to baseline Fly (perhaps better if you slot some movement speed bonuses). I have a 67mph run speed and 42ft jump height. No other travel power necessary beyond purchasable flight packs or using the jump jets for areas that require more vertical movement. Super Reflexes can basically cover all your defense needs easily with some additional support out of the pools (e.g., Weave, Maneuvers, Combat Jumping/Hover, or IO's). This lets you run wild with procs in your primary if you want since you don't need to worry about chasing multiple Thunderstrikes to cap a defense category. Accuracy can become an issue if you push that too much (so Tactics can be considered), but still you don't need to fully slot attacks for more than recharge bonuses. Both my DP and AR builds leverage procs for single-target damage. If you're planning to go with Energy, then you could run Gladiator's Javelin, Explosive Strkes, and Force Feedback for procs in a few attacks with little performance hit in terms of your defense. In my opinion, Sentinel SR has far fewer downsides than it has upsides. It is the strongest defense-based set out of the mix, it allows you to build offense without sacrificing defense, and Master Brawler/Enduring really close its gaps. As others have said before, Sentinel SR is likely the best version of the set that exists much like Sentinel Regeneration. You may hit some rough patches while leveling, but the wait is well worth the effort it takes to fully realize the set.

I'm of the opinion that the term "min/max" is a bit misused in the context of CoH. Min/max here really just means optimization. Hell, at its core, that's all min/max ever was. Min/max is a legacy term from pen and paper RPGs, especially Dungeons and Dragons. In DnD you often rolled randomly for attributes. If you were using the option to assign those attributes, you could place your highest rolls into the attribute necessary for the class and then toss the low rolls into the "dump stats". The randomness could get you anywhere between a 3 to an 18. On the more extreme ends of min/max, you start dumping other things in order to push focus into a singular role or thing. This kind of min/max would create highly specialized characters, often times Fighters or Wizards, that weren't good for anything other than their one trick. When min/max gets to a point of being disruptive this term isn't used nicely. Its used as an insult. Playing a "munchkin" is a term that derived from highly disruptive min/maxers. These players built characters in order to "win" in a game system where "winning" was loosely defined. There is a card game series that is called Munchkin, and this is an homage to this kind of jerk game play. In essence you build cards, steal cards, and try to build a character that is as ridiculous as it is powerful. A legendary "munchkin" build in the past decade+ was "Pun Pun the Shapeshifting Kobold". City of Heroes isn't really built for that level of obnoxiousness but the term min/max is so overused it is just a part of regular gamer lexicon. What you see in build discussions is attempts to optimize defense and/or resistance. There is a ceiling for optimization which varies wildly across character builds. However, in the end what you want to try to do is get as close to the soft-cap of defense (which is 45%), and the hard-cap of resistance (which is 75% for all but VEATs/HEATs/Brutes/Tankers). That's just optimizing damage mitigation. If you can also swing it, you want to balance this with trying to improve damage output. The most common way to do that is increase recharge and remove the weakest attacks from your selection. Alternative measures also include incorporating damage procs if the attack set can manage it. The value of damage procs is going to vary greatly across the different ATs and should not be viewed as universal or in a vacuum. Now that is out of the way, Sentinel armor sets (0.70 scale) are numerically weaker than those found in Scrappers and Stalkers (0.75 scale). However, in actual play those numbers fall around 2% difference [Edit: Also worth noting that an IO build plan can reduce this difference to zero. Several sets can hit 45% defenses or cap Smashing/Lethal Resistance at 75%. This creates a "so what" situation. So what if a Sentinel's Psi resist is 38% vs a Scrapper's 40.5% Psi resist.] So it isn't much. Many Sentinel secondaries offer variants that include new mitigation features that don't exist elsewhere. Usually that's absorb shields like how Super Reflexes has Master Brawler or Regeneration's Instant Healing. Where those absorb shields actually function well (some like Frigid Shield don't) that makes the set more durable than its base numbers might suggest. This appears to be the case with Regeneration and is compounded by limiting enemies to just ranged attacks. What I think you may be seeing is that enemies with ranged options often do less damage than their melee attacks. That's not really new. It is just going to be noticeable if you kite enemies a lot and then swap to a melee character and mix it up. Several bosses also have multiple melee attacks while maybe only having 1 ranged attack. That can also be significant damage avoided. Those enemies will cast their 1 ranged power and then run at you. If you can maintain distance they can't hurt you until that ranged attack recycles. This is why I don't mind powers that cause enemies to run on my Sentinels. This makes the caltrops power in Ninja Tools functional as both an offensive tool and defensive tool. Enemies will turn around and run, slowly, while I shoot them in the back. While they run, I am not taking damage. Worst case, they turn around and shoot at me. That's still better than eating whatever high DPA melee option they might have had ready.

Invulnerability offers exactly 0 protection against anything other than Smashing/Lethal at level 14. Temp Invulnerability at level 14 with nothing slotted is giving you 21% smashing/lethal resistance. Resist Physical Damage will only add 7 more to that. At level 14 your base hit points aren't much either. By level 16 you can get Unyielding which is going to get you 3.5% more smashing/lethal resistance and 7% to all but Psi. I experienced something similar early on when I was first running a Beam Rifle/Willpower character. That's when I stopped trying to solo at that level and looked for teams. You really want to get into Single Origin enhancements or generic IO's of level 25+ as fast as you can. I feel that holds true for most, if not all, characters too. The early teens can feel especially dangerous since that is also when a lot of enemy factions start casually getting more CC in their attacks too. I still remember when the Trolls felt like a threat to me on my old Regen Scrapper prior to getting Integration at 16. Keep in mind, the grass isn't greener for Electric Armor at level 14. By level 14 you'd have Charged Armor, Charged Shield, Conductive Shield, and Energize. That's 24.5% resist against most Smash/Lethal/Fire/Cold, 49% Energy, and 14% Negative. The Circle of Thorns have enemies that deal Negative damage some of which use Midnight Grasp, a Tier 9 Scrapper attack (back when DM was Scrapper exclusive). Energy Aura will likely feel worse. You won't have but 11 to 14% defense to some attacks (variable based on type), and no higher than 10% resistance to a few elements. What you really want is higher chance to be missed by enemies and that's not going to happen any time soon. Yes, your defensive options prior to SO's is going to feel a little light. Try to get into some Positron's teams and let others take the aggro for you. I know I have seen the Sentinel listed as "the solo AT", but just try to ignore the total BS of "common forum knowledge". You need to establish a baseline of defense and offense before you can really get rolling. In order to do that effectively, you want Single Origin enhancements or better. That means get to level 22 ASAP and its best to do that with friends (or random people you can tolerate). If you're still running without Aim then you're also creating battles of attrition in which you will lose at that low of a level. That is also a problem that isn't going to go away. The ranged attacks you have are going to seem like they are hitting like wet noodles. That is in part due to the disparity of ranged damage vs melee damage, and also due to your options for enhancements being pretty crappy between training/dual origins. So repeat, team up if you are struggling and re-evaluate at a later date. I can guarantee you that you will likely find similar issues with any of the other armor sets. I find it very doubtful your time to kill is going to improve a lot by making comparisons of sets up to 14th level either. Fire Blast would yield you more damage, but that is so slight for level 14 it isn't the issue. Radiation Blast, at level 14, is actually going to do less damage than Energy Blast. Again, while it is likely technically less, it is going to be droplets in an ocean. The real issues between power sets doesn't start to become prevalent until you start analyzing nearly complete characters (i.e., full power/slot load out) and their specific gearing parameters. In other words, you're still too low for any of these decisions to be real game changers.

Easy there sparky. I spent quite a bit of time testing Opportunity last summer. For a few weeks I devoted about 4 hours a week, mostly in a single play sessions, sitting on the test server when it was call Justin observing behavior. BUT since you decided to say I was 100% wrong and so erroneous on my conclusion, I just logged into two characters I have at 50. One has full IOs, and the other doesn't. The one without a full build only has a single Performance Shifter +End proc which easy to monitor since it has its own message. My full IO build for this is Dual Pistols/Nin. In triggering defensive opportunity my endurance gain during the 15 second duration was a net positive vs running without it. My build drives my attack chain cost very low though and my natural restore is far greater. Still, even using Bullet Rain on the Comic Con map, I notice an increase in endurance. Panacea and Performance Shifter procs have their own message in the combat logs. The other character has very low end management since it isn't complete. Its a Water Blast user that an old hold over for tests. I drove down her endurance to 65% out of 100% (no end buffs). During Defensive Opportunity her endurance drain held between 62% and 66%. Without Defensive Opportunity running endurance fell off from 65% to 33%. I triggered Defensive Opportunity, and endurance went from 33 to 38%. Then the endurance held between casts and slowly started to creep upwards. Edit: And during the summer I ran a few Pylon tests with Dual Pistols. I noticed a difference in endurance drain without using Defensive Opportunity before I had finished my build. I included Dual Wield in my tests there after since using it to trigger Defensive Opportunity was enough end drain halt/return for me to ignore using the Endurance heal entirely. This became a minor DPS increase vs using the click restore since that power has a long animation and DW at least does some damage. Edit 2: Logged into Brainstorm and rolled up a Radiation Blast/Random Secondary. (All toggles turned off - only attacks drained end) 1) Gave myself xp to 50 via Freebies macro 2) Went to Rikti War Zone for the dummies 3) Used Brawl, X-Ray, Neutrino, Irradiate only. 4) While building Opportunity, endurance drained from 100 to 75. 5) Waited for X-Ray to recharge and triggered Defensive Opportunity at 90% end. 6) Attacked until 15 seconds were over 7) Noted endurance-- 100% 8 Restart test to build Opportunity 9) Used Neutrino to trigger Offensive Opportunity 10) Ended 15 second run at 80% endurance 11) Let endurance build to 100% again. 12) Built Opportunity - Triggered Defensive again. 13) Initiated attacks at 90% endurance. 14) Ended with 100% endurance 15) Repeated Offensive Opportunity. Started at 90% endurance and ended at 75% endurance. Conclusion: Without using either Opportunity it is easy to drain endurance from 100 to 75. Using Offensive Opportunity drains end at the same rate as not using any inherent effect at all. Defensive Opportunity ended the attack sequence at 100% each time. The above can be replicated by anyone. Knock yourself out. Improving endurance efficiency can convert Defensive Opportunity into positive gains for the duration or so I have observed when I actively build for that. Trying to hammer out really expensive AoEs may change end return. Radiation Blast's base costs run 18 for Irradiate and 15 for Haze and Bomb. Conversely, I run Empty Clips which is a base cost of only 10 and Bullet Rain which has a base cost of 16. When I just tested my level 50 I was noting positive increase to my endurance during Empty Clips (modified 6.48 end) and there were no procs from Panacea or Performance Shifter. Though both of those did proc the moment I stopped attacking. So even without endurance modification in powers of a level 50 Water Blaster and a level 7 Radiation Blaster they were seeing either neutral endurance loss or positive return (due to lack of a full chain there is time for natural endurance restore, sure) during Defensive Opportunity. In a character with actual slotted endurance management, Defensive Opportunity became positive endurance gain during AoE situations. Though it really isn't necessary for that character since they have layers of end management. Edit 3: - Leveled to 50. Rad Blast/Rad Armor - none of the passives that help endurance were taken. 1) No passive endurance added, no enhancements to Stamina slotted 2) All attacks run 1 accuracy common IO, 1 end reduc and 1 recharge reduc 3) Proceeded to use the 4 single target attacks same as before. 4) No inherent and Offensive Opportunity would drain endurance down. Defensive Opportunity always ended in the 90's to 100. Conclusion: Yup, Defensive does build endurance. Yes. Combat log tells you exactly how much health you gain back. It also has a message to the effect (paraphrase) "and you restore some endurance". In order to see the endurance doing anything positive I use the Combat Attributes monitor to see exactly how much endurance is running in the bar. You can watch endurance drain with an attack sequence with and without Defensive Opportunity and literally watch the numbers vary only slightly. If you build additional endurance management this can turn into positive gains.

Fixed that. Smashing/Lethal/Negative/Psi/Fire/Cold are all the ones with the easiest time to raise. Energy and Toxic are tougher, even on a Tanker.

I have this combo. You can get away with a lot due to what Staff brings to the table. Guarded Spin can get you to the melee/lethal defensive soft-cap with a bit of help by your build. This means you don't need to go all out on defense. Cardiac Core can help you close the cap on Smashing/Lethal resistance, but again this depends on what direction you took to build it. Musculature Core is the bee's knees for adding more damage, but I opted for quality of life. I only skipped Placate and Cloak of Fear from their respective sets. I have little use for Placate but I view all of the Staff powers like a set of tools. Cloak of Fear just offers me too little for the endurance but Oppressive Gloom at least works with Sky Splitter. Shadow Meld is nice, but optional. You could go with the endurance boosters in the epics instead if you like. Try to build for 32.5% melee defense at least. Guarded Spin will push you further. Try to build for 70% smashing/lethal resistance. Then go for as much recharge as you can muster. Don't forget to socket some KB protection IO somewhere. Shouldn't be too bad as long as you aren't trying to soft-cap everything, hard cap all resistances, and then skimp out on recharge/damage.

Defensive already restores endurance. This kinda reminds of me of some of the suggestions thrown around last year. Like folks would say the AT needs a 10% damage boost over what Mids was reporting. Which was like "Well, you're in luck because the in game scalar is 0.95 not 0.75". Or other humorous musings like giving 5% damage buff. People didn't notice that their powers already impose a minor defense and resistance debuff at all times. What got me to notice was seeing powers that have 0 debuffs on other ATs have them in the Sentinel power description. These effects also show up under a Power Analyzer used against targets. The inherent for Sentinels is utterly cryptic and clunky. It is no wonder people hate it because it isn't easy to understand nor is it easy to use. On top of that, it isn't at the level of class defining that others end up as like Domination or Fury. So on top of tweaks, it also needs a clear description of what it does. Flavor text is nice and all but it sucks for making informed decisions.

I've never noticed the bar depleting faster based on target choice. When I was testing this last year it seemed pretty constant regardless of target priority. Post combat, the bar will deplete after a delay sort of like Domination and Fury. In combat there is very minor decay but it is offset by the frequency of attacking. At least that has been my experience. You don't need 100% meter to trigger the inherent either. The rings will appear as soon as you hit 90 out of 100. In both cases, the target of the opportunity will receive a -20% resistance debuff for 15 seconds. This is highlighted by a big target under the enemy. The color of the target matches whatever color you have chosen for your power. Yes, you can have different color targetting flashes for your T1 and T2 if you want. Your teammates will now do more damage to this specific target for the next 15 seconds (or until it drops). That's the extent of the team effect. The Sentinel gains a personal damage or resource restore (restore = both health and endurance) buff depending on which version of opportunity is running. Offensive mode gives bonus energy damage, that was appearing to be proc-based, and that bonus damage is unenhanceable determined by base damage of the power. So the more you push enhancement diversification into a power, the less meaningful Offensive Opportunity becomes. For my characters running 132+% damage enhancement Offensive Opportunity contributes somewhere in the ballpark of +3 DPS overall (give or take a point or two). Defensive Opportunity isn't enhanceable either nor does it scale well, for the healing, in later levels. Defensive Opportunity does return endurance and it appears to be the exact same amount regardless of character build. The endurance return can be very noticeable when hitting 10 targets with an AoE. That and the resistance debuff make Defensive Opportunity fairly valuable otherwise it isn't worth worrying about. Offensive Opportunity is better for damage but only in such a minor fashion.

You're trying to do too much. You seem to try to do too much in every discussion on builds I've seen. I too like to tie concept to characters, but I have to scale things back in these games. Also, if you're questioning the durability contribution of Invulnerability as a secondary powerset through the lens of level 13, then your expectations might be a tad too high. I haven't found my Sentinels to be all that squishy in comparison with Stalkers/Scrappers of similar levels. Hell, even at level 13 for a Tanker you can feel a bit squishy but at least Dull Pain is easy to fit in before 10th level. My thoughts... Skipping Aim is a big mistake. If you think the damage of the character is slight, then why skip the one power that gives you bursts of damage? Yes, it has a cool down but it has 10 seconds of uptime. You can build for 25-30 seconds of cooldown. That's significant damage you're leaving on the table. Power Push is literally the best attack in the entire set and you're skipping it. Cross Punch without slots is a waste of time for damage. It looks like you'd like to have a little bit of a melee attack routine for close quarters. Air Superiority, Boxing, and Cross Punch does very, very, very little damage*. If you keep this slotting your ranged attack sequence is going to do 4 to 5 times the damage. If you think the damage is anemic now at level 13 using just the blasts, you ain't seen nothin' yet. (*I helped someone build an Emma Frost character that mixed the pool powers with some blasts for fun. If you take both Boxing and Kick then Cross Punch gets a bigger boost. Cross Punch with slots can do decent damage all by itself. Not slotting any of that though is pretty much a waste of your effort. Unfortunately, Energy Blast is a bit hungry for powers and slots making this hard to pull off.) Leviathan Mastery has Knockout Blow. That power is worth getting, but only if you plan to slot it. It can give you that Super Strength punch that you seem to be looking for. Boxing/Air Superiority are pretty much garbage though. Blasters and Dominators mix ranged attacks and melee attacks FAR better than the Sentinel can. Melee for Sentinels is nearly an afterthought since the worth while selections are so backloaded (level 35+). I have an homage character similar to yours. They weren't full energy in form, but very similar in scope to the Eternals. So the character could do a lot of things like manipulate energy, use super strength, be durable, use telekinesis, and be a telepath. That character was a Gravity/Energy Dominator at one point, and is now currently an Invulnerability/Energy Melee Tanker. The Dominator gets the power selection fairly right but the durability is the trade off. The Tanker gets the melee right, with Lazer Beam Eyes for flavor, and the durability right. That build has to give up all the other esoteric effects. The overall slotting isn't worth discussing because an IO build can have very different allocations vs an SO build. Like you may not want 4 slots in Weave when you can get the set bonus you want in 2 or even 6. The best thing you can do, is build this character as a Sentinel first and rationalize your character's concept to it second. Make this a container for what the character can do in this game instead of trying to mimic another medium. You'll be far happier with the character because of it.

DB is fine. If you like it, then go for it. The overall community for Homecoming is a fraction of the size of live. Having expectations about high amounts of chatter on all powers or combinations is going to lead you to disappointment. A lot of returning players are veterans too. So a large amount of conversation is going to be focused on new powers and new IO set combinations. There really isn't new territory to unlock with Dual Blades, but the lack of discussion doesn't mean it suddenly sucks. DB is usable on any archetype, period, full stop. DB gets better and better with the IO system. That's your 30,000 ft view of it. To get a bit more granular, the DB combo system excels more on Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers than it does on Stalkers. I do not care for the combo mechanic on the Stalker at all. However, if you build for heavy recharge to only use Assassin's Blades, Ablative Strike, and Sweeping Strike the set becomes one of the top damage dealing primaries. For Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers you can also build to ignore the combo system. However, the basic Blinding Feint into Attack Vitals combo is easy to build for while still yielding very high returns. DB doesn't really offer great synergy, in my opinion, with any particular armor sets. Instead, it is the choice of armor set that will be working for Dual Blades. If you want a high recharge build to focus on the highest possible damage, then you really want to consider secondaries with recharge boosts like Super Reflexes (you have several choices now FYI). If you don't care about that and don't mind using the combo system, then your secondary doesn't matter nearly as much. I happen to have a Dual Blades and Dark Armor Scrapper. I appreciate the damage aura it brings, but honestly it isn't necessary. DB has AoE options already built in. I'm just adding icing on the cake.

This is better in the Suggestion's sub forum, but how cool would it be to have a Shield Toss Primary to go with it?

Those kinds of classes were the inspiration for playing Dark Armor/Titan Weapons as a Tanker. I wouldn't consider Stalkers much of a "knight". Even if you're going the route of an Anti-Paladin they still are heavy armor wearing warrior types and not shadow skulking rogues. I'd suggest SD/WM Tanker for being the in-your-face brawler type that this kind of archetype suggests.

Exactly. Also, there are no direct Rocky movies after 4 (Creed is a spin off). I also hear there is no other Ghostbusters movies than the one that premiered in 1984.

The short end of it: I don't think it is worth wasting resources to plug the Psi hole. Enduring does provide some defense against Psi, and you can enhance it beyond just endurance mods. You have 2 powers left. Maneuvers, like Weave, is Defense to All so that will add some more Psi defense. Combat Jumping, while running, also is Def to All. You should be able to hit 24%+ without thinking about it too hard. In the Maria J arc you do face off against a lot of Carnies. Note, most of them do not have Psychic attacks. Attendants/Jugglers - these do lethal and energy damage. Your energy resist is very low and your lethal isn't much higher. They shouldn't be hitting too much unless you're pushing higher difficulty where they gain to hit buffs against you. Any Strongman - these do mostly smashing damage and they have a lot of attacks Fencers - these do mostly lethal Any Illusionist - their offense consists of Spectral Wounds (which doesn't hit very hard) and Blind (which also doesn't hit very hard). Seneschals - fire damage of which you have little resistance to. The psychic damage you're likely experiencing is Psychic Visage. That's the PBAoE that goes off when you kill them and it also drains end. There is a very easy way to deal with this... kite them a bit when at low health and don't be too close when they die. This can be tough if a bunch get in your face but taking multiple Carnies out in close proximity means you're eating a lot of Visage blasts. Don't try to tank those if you can. P.S., Your Overcharge slotting is fine as is. It is the least of your worries.

Just one slight nitpick, @underfyre. Defensive Opportunity does in fact return endurance per target hit over the duration of 15 seconds. That's per target hit and it currently includes AoE. That would mean a power like Fire Ball becomes endurance positive against multiple targets. Now, is that a great reason to take Fire Blast in this write-up? Probably not, but it is worth noting that the real value in Defensive Opportunity is linked to endurance return not its heal. Also worth nothing, PPM is clamped to a 5% floor and 90% ceiling. If you're weaving Flares between every attack you're getting a 6%~ chance to trigger Decimation every 1.188 seconds (Fire Ball and Blaze animations) or 1.848 (Blazing Blast). That becomes significant over a longer period of time BUT I do like that proc in powers that can trigger it with more reliability if I can manage it. Dominate is one such candidate.