oldskool

I'm not condoning some of the harsh tone, but the information isn't off. There is a myth that assault weapons are inaccurate which isn't true. Assault weapons are essentially rifles, which are intended to be accurate by design, with fully automatic modes for high rate of fire. Assault weapons are tactical in nature allowing a soldier to deploy more than one rate of fire as necessary. The term machine gun describes weapons which fire in fully automatic mode and are designed for rapid shots. The terms of assault weapon, assault rifle, machine gun, sub machine gun, and battle rifle are often used interchangeably. These aren't the same kinds of weapons though. [Edit: There is also a misunderstanding that machine guns can't be accurate either due to recoil and high rate of fire. This is why support stands (bipods) exist and you see soldiers training to fire heavy high rate of fire weapons on the ground with a stable base. With training you can certainly send high amounts of rounds towards a target with precision. Smaller submachine guns can be pretty accurate in close quarters combat even in fully automatic mode. The FN P90 can be considered compact submachine gun and that weapon is highly effective for what it was designed to do.] Furthermore, the design of the 5.56 has its origins in the 1950s where NATO was seeking to have a unified cartridge for weaponry. The 7.62x51mm was eventually determined to be too heavy for mass carry. The 7.62x39mm can sometimes be confused here though those work with the AK series of rifles. The 5.56 was adopted since it was determined to have adequate stopping power while offering a lighter total cartridge for troop transport. We're talking holding the carry of multiple rounds vs just what the rifle itself holds. The 5.56 wasn't adopted for the reason you state. It was adopted for its stopping power while addressing an issue of logistics.

Challenge accepted... I didn't opt for a full rebuild ala Pimp My Ride. You avoided purple sets and so I didn't include any. You mentioned the ATOs so I put those in. So I ultimately just shuffled some ideas around to see where it could go. Hopefully, the identity of the character is still here. My thought process: Basilisk's Gaze - 4pcs are pretty good sets and you can get them in two powers (that's +7.5% recharge x2 that works with LoTG and slight ranged defense). Kismet in Hover - Keeps you accurate on +4 enemies. You don't need to solo +4/x8 but I'd wager you'd still like to hit them if you team up. Avoided procs - Ok, there are procs in the ATO and in Obliteration, but they aren't focal points of the build. Preventative Medicine - 8.75% recharge Reactive Defenses - See Preventative Medicine. As an alternative you can go 5x Red Fortune + 1 LotG for even more global recharge. I don't think you need it at this point and I happen to like the bonuses for this set. More total Global Recharge without Hasten [Though Agility was already selected] - 100% ain't too shabby. Build-Up (Gaussian's proc... c'mon gotta have it) and Hail of Bullets available in just under 35 seconds. Hoarfrost a bit over a minute of downtime. Smooth sailing pistol shots of Executioner's Shot -> Pistols -> Dual Wield -> Pistols. Under ANY outside recharge effects OR the constant low bonus of Ageless (if you take it) you can shorten that to just Executioner's Shot -> Dual Wield -> Pistols. You can weave in Ice Sword or Chillblain as you like or stack holds from Suppressive Fire and Freezing Touch. World's your oyster there. The losses of some recharge bonuses if you exemplar lower aren't that horrible. Using Pistols twice to every Dual Wield means Executioner's Shot can take as long as 4.224 seconds to recharge. You also have other powers to fill gaps, but this largely won't be a problem. End for days. Frigid Protection already gets you a ton of endurance and Dual Pistols isn't super end-intensive when built like this. Hoarfrost slotting - It looks like you're going to cap HP with Hoarfrost and you won't be too far off with Accolades. So I opted to think a little outside of the box and go for Unbreakable Guard for the minor end discount, energy/neg resist and slight smash/lethal defense. Hover speed is going to be slower but still it is as fast (slight faster) as Sprint + Swift. So that shouldn't too painful. Flight can keep the original set if you really like it. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1573;729;1458;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EF74A660690B54E45DA0A52008B4D0E8DE28A8210A69347| |1679A016A199C4C9B3E882CDD199F891B234F35BA70E183F8FA478C1A75E1D2170F| |352A89E0783ADFB18CE924EDEFCC77EF3DE7DC73E6DE91B3439E0747CEED1792775| |057B3D9F841FACF2532E5A36A2E9F5175418F673495310207A6134692064868E649| |F1E32A491391A1BCAAC7635A3697D2B3817F6327F2E9742A938B0C8F27E223AAA1A| |5F3BA9AD352866FD8984C6412068DB0E18EA5527AE4B0AE2527733ECB1E36A6B5AC| |36A6E95A6EA65411BE43696D3C3298D227C87321D84C036515A15F63B5E0C7748A5| |B84A822CA6E833B16988B60C512F326785E14D74AE2866469E159B089FC4AEC5772| |2A96E65098025424A6032C93C1665A2B63AD223F47ACCAC760F513E653B0EE19E8A| |7354E2BA069BAA9E4E59C57F916F2F16F82174975619ED3B5225B5AC71770F707E6| |47E627B0EB33D84A31DCF02BBB5F3884685184E735F32558F90A7451025EC451BCB| |588DDBA25ACB1D6370EBCBF0583EFC04B345CC57957F5625FE17B186BA3D83EAEA7| |6F09F9EC5C64CE82BBE698F360DD02789956D560ADA809C2EF05422DFBAB3D03AD6| |B8A791AEC493227991AD842B9D4737FEAB93F0DDC9F06EE4F13F7A789FBE3A57A34| |A21E5223D7C35F0D5E299C10AE6BF37D681DCB60FF4330FA0814755442DE4B0BFB0| |9523E6DBC973613F50A08EC3DF09BDF37B9D65BCC3FE0555AD5CEB1DBB9A721EE69| |887B19E2DE26C96527F62077DE912CADEF2E185EFE3F4F8DE676F377D6FD0DB9EC5| |965AE31D7C1FEAFCCEFE07B8F10BD9C53EF06B4BE9FCC5F60F4073825E31C17EA11| |E16FA68A6A3DC0DA00D768A582CE23F2115208F3D6ECDA49CC5BB56BDD98B7BEAD4| |9D235D4ADE33AE8578A7740E1E899A60816143E893D25A303254AB444D95BA2EC2B| |518ED99530F28C29C53B4748D62CD7F64D626ED09713E5BC66E92839599FB3D9F33| |6FB684F318219ABB0EE38CB3E65B3559B3D66B3FF0249150E95| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

You can squeeze in two more LoTGs if you want. Afterburner can drop the flight speed for one, and you could drop a slot from Flight for another into Hover. You'd be missing out on about 7 mph of travel speed from what you initially had, if that matters to you. The 8% regen from Freebird isn't something you'll miss. Keep the stealth there or not... Can do whatever you like on Frigid Protection, but the Preventative Medicine set isn't too pricey. The Absorb proc functions off a condition (low health). Still, another source of absorb is never a bad thing and you're currently missing out on it. That's about as far as I'd go on advice without shuffling slots completely in order to grab specific set bonuses.

There probably isn't enough general interest in the Sentinel given all of the poo-pooing of the AT since its release. There are several folks that have shelved their Sentinels and moved on to greener pastures out of disappointment. Might be better to just post it and let feedback come as it does. I seriously doubt you'll find "experts" in their preferred sets unless all you really want is a deluge of people talking about Fire Blast. 😉 Edit 1: FWIW to anyone else, I've read it and it has some good things that can be helpful for a lot of folks. More eyes on it can help refine it. Edit 2: Can you change "New" to "Need" in the title?

Well how did I over look that? 😉 That changes a lot. I also went in game and confirmed watching the pet drop some damage. The DPA is actually far higher than I thought. What's also funny is the actual damage average is higher than the game's tooltip reads. So that gets to put Full Auto pretty much on par with Thunderous Blast. Mid's has the wrong DPA value so I tested that too and it is better than the builder suggests (for whatever that's worth). At least FA has company.

So is Hail of Bullets doing something similar? Hail of Bullets and Rain of Arrows aren't the same kind of power under the hood. Rain of Arrows summons a pseudo pet that does the actual combat much like Blizzard and several other powers. Hail of Bullets isn't like a typical "rain style" power so if its getting minor bonuses to each individual tick of the channel that is an interesting finding. Edit: Looks like the Hail of Bullets damage functions like several of the others. That's not too surprising giving that it is like a spherical version of Full Auto which gains bonus damage like the other non-summons.

I wonder if you're going to see that happen again with other summon powers like Blizzard in Ice... Wouldn't surprise me and its not the first time powers behave differently. Like Sentinel PBAoEs interact with Opportunity meter building differently than other types (and its not for the better either).

So probably not perfect here, but this is hopefully to give you some guidance on where to go if you're thinking of spending that much influence into a build. Not there is anything wrong with that. It's your character, and if you really love it go for it. Things to think about running Fiery Aura: 1) Endurance management. Your initial attempt has very poor endurance management. The build below brings Consume back, it can be nice, but aims to ease the pain a little bit. It will still feel a bit tight on endurance use until you can get into Incarnates. For your Alpha slot, I highly recommend Cardiac and work your way to Cardiac Core (the T4). That will shift the 65% resistance to Smashing/Lethal up to 70%. Get your Accolades (Freedom Phalanx Reserve, Portal Jockey, Task Force Commander, The Atlas Medallion). Once you get the Cardiac online, and your Accolades the endurance issue will pretty much disappear. I highly recommend taking Hydro Blast over Aqua Bolt for Defensive Opportunity. That endurance restore will also help with your long term sustain. 2) Accuracy. You want one of two goals. Either you want to make sure you have 95% accuracy on enemies +3 levels over you OR you want 95% against +4. Your T3 Alpha slot in the Incarnates will pretty much turn any level 54s into 53s for the purpose of your accuracy. When you exemplar below 45 that goes away. So I tend to like to shoot for 95%. You don't have too, and this is purely personal preference. It is also meant to be entirely educational. Hover is taken early and a Kismet +6% to hit is placed there so you can have an easier time exemplaring if you so choose. [By default I set the accuracy in "Options" - "Configuration" - "Exemping..." tab to 39% vs 75% to represent hit chance on +4 enemies] 3) For Water Blast, I personally like Opportunity Strikes in Whirlpool because it has unique behavior there. The power has a 17 second cooldown during Hasten and Opportunity has a 15 second duration. This power slotted in this manner has a good chance of giving you an opportunity meter burst early and it lines up to having a 2 second downtime. With lucky procs in a big spawn you can really push your Opportunity uptime. This still functions well as a strategy against single targets. 4) Like the other poster says, Geyser should hopefully be used early and often. The cooldown in this build is about 25 seconds and Tidal Forces is 27 seconds. Tidal Forces -> Geyser -> go to town. 5) For tough single targets you can run Water Jet -> Dehydrate -> Hydro Blast -> repeat. The first time you run this combo your very next Water Jet will auto trigger its special perk (shorter cast time + immediate cooldown drop). That has a 15 second cooldown. Your next pass of attack should allow you to lead right into Defensive Opportunity without having to worry about when to press the button. It's just built into the attack chain. 6) Water Burst, Whirlpool, Fire Cages (to hold rascals in your Whirlpool + Burn), and Burn should be enough AoE. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1455;696;1392;HEX;| |78DA6593594F135114C7EF4C07A194AD2265A7B42C5D80690BA808A251B1264A132| |2893E368D5CCB98A690B624FAE8835FC098F8E21E1770E1C9257C07D737D7774D44| |4CD4A8893A9E99FFA19074D2E63773EEF99F7BEE39E7264E4F542D1F3ABB5728350| |732A97C3E392DB305232B3315898542AA60CC6585F594D3BF757D297934954DCB19| |FD78AA2073C9FD242B6CAC4DC893329B977ADC90B933C97D0BB994704DCDCD65F47| |8C648CF16AAF16EBD1AD974ADFD3529533332979F35E62BEDEFE97929675A0ECE1B| |27F462D8B89193C904ED44519B28995EFAB707053F6699B84E8869A2EE06F332E8B| |902365D655E03775A5AC5D63AC477876D6BF9C1FC05C67E821D4176A57D94579A6D| |6B7BC97C0A763C633E67BE007791D601ADEAF88878BD9FC1C027D04B3E651CBFEC0| |1745BEE3317C1AA25B0E62EF31ED81944732C6DF9926ADB2A169937C1CA5BCCDB60| |D51DD0454227B4C2D985BAF8289E8BE3B93E600FDF7BB0FB35F31DD8FB86F916745| |2BC6AD454A96E5050C3BF56A3343146716BB1A6D67A14DB166A6436817EF271F3DE| |EE1872DC1A65F683DB746604F45C22F78026C6495B6F77C954EB4DAC05FE30FF810| |AE5D7C0E76D30E9110EB234F21434F21484780AC2EB53F01B1CA51D9AE12B9A0761| |DB43B65644D45AC7B14B78377304EC1F658E811AEDD9CE9568E72A0DAC21DEC037B| |09BE27AB912DE1DD0750E328798C3A06F3BF31C7881B47ECEC9BF82CE743D643E62| |3EE64E3E01974342F4704E3D3CA5119ECEC82AE8A6BC83EC13E4BCFBE39CF711D04| |F3E7D3C017D7DD644394584394279E95C3FDD8769131E21A2DC9128C76CD38AB79A| |7E56974E85ACBB6ADD10D30C97AC464B2CB112CB508965B8C432596299D28AF75E2| |8B6C55957BCCDE66A25ADF27994019C676DC3A62AC7701EEDB0624FA8E6438DBE6C| |D605A1FBBA59775EB5EBA55E443FD54ED4CF4AC0FC0F0673F0B5| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Most characters won't feel OP at level 22 running brand new level 25 IOs. When you see folks talking about the extreme nature of TW consider they are also referencing high levels of global recharge, endurance management offsets, and likely Incarnate choices too. If you're struggling, lower the difficulty and revisit that issue once you're looking at more available slots in the 30's. Once you hit 50 you can finalize your build with whatever higher quality IO sets you're shooting for and start to see why the combo is so powerful. Though, Particle Shielding should help. It just won't make you OP on its own. Its a complete package sort of thing. I love my Dark Armor/Titan Weapons Tanker, but you can imagine what kind of endurance nightmare it was before 35+ (for Conserve Power and beyond). Now that I've had the character with IO sets for months its so much smoother, and the Incarnates just make it better (though I designed it to exemplar). I also know just how to pace myself with the attacks because it can still run out of gas if I am not careful. Stick with it if you like it. It will get better.

This sounds like a fun pairing. Would you seek to run Cryo Ammo most, if not all, of the time? Some food for thought about Dual Pistols... Pistols and Dual Wield are both potentially worth having. That's not because of how the inherent works with Defiance, but because how they interact with the rest of the set. Pistols and Dual Wield are actually pretty close to each other in the terms of damage per activation (Pistols is slightly ahead). Both of these powers accept a multitude of procs if you can fit them in. Even if you can't fit those in they can still form a foundation of a solid attack sequence with Executioner's Shot. An attack combo of Pistols/Dual Wield/Executioner's Shot can be pretty effective and its available to every archetype with this set. Suppressive Fire will become a hold when running any elemental ammo. This means it has some use cases and synergy with Freezing Touch (2 holds!). There is a lot of slotting potential in either or both. Maybe not be your cup of tea, but I have ideas... After playing through Dual Pistols on the other 3 ATs (Corruptor, Defender, and Sentinel), Piercing Rounds is a wild card pick vs being a mandatory one. Blasters and Corruptors both get an ATO set with a damage proc. Piercing Rounds can potentially make good use of that set if you're interested. Its got a slow animation though which can feel like a drag. Still, this has potential but I really recommend you run it in your build for a bit to see if you like it. I pretty much ignore the existence of the resistance debuff in the power EXCEPT for my Defender. On the Defender that -20% resistance becomes a reason why I have the power in the first place. On my Corruptor it is one of those nice to have in my back pocket for team support (-15%). On my Sentinel, I just say screw it and don't bother juggling ammo powers. In practice that -9.6% isn't worth the trouble of turning ammo on and off. If I remember right, the Blaster version gets the same -9.6%. If its higher then it can be something to consider. YMMV though. The rest of Dual Pistols builds itself. Empty Clips, Bullet Rain, Swap Ammo (important for stacking slow effects!) and Hail of Bullets are pretty much givens to me.

Making my final points for me. 😉

"Mess up the build" is pretty subjective. While there are things I like in the build that was posted it isn't necessarily how I would go about it. Does my opinion invalidate the other person's? Nope, not at all. Its just a matter of preference. If you prefer fly, then swap out Super Speed for it. If you want Fire Blast and Fire Breath, then maybe consider dropping the Psychic Mastery powers for them. Psychic Mastery is a great Epic set, but I hardly think it is necessary. Fire already does significant damage among the Sentinel primaries. Pushing damage further with heavily procced out Dominate isn't necessary for completing content in this game. It is only necessary if all you care about is doing the highest possible damage in the current state of the game ("the meta"). I've solo'ed plenty of things with other Sentinel builds of mine that do not push bleeding edge damage. No, they won't get a medal for pushing the fastest Pylon times but I can still handle AVs or +4/x8 missions just fine. The major difference is that it will take me longer to solo these things than it would if I went hyper focused on damage. I'm OK with that because in the end these are characters that I find fun to play, and that's all that matters to me. Use the ideas of IO sets presented as a sort of fluid blueprint for your own build. See how the bonuses interact with the powers. Like Unbreakable Guard's 4pc set granting a high melee defense buff but also boosts smashing/lethal. It's that smashing/lethal portion that has meaning here, but you could just as easily substitute that set with another. You said yourself that you just want some direction on where to go so use that info and play around in Mid's. Don't feel ashamed to share and ask for pointers. Just know you'll get an opinion from everyone that responds and that each opinion may be entirely different than the last. In the end, it is your character so take advice with the grain of salt it deserves and build something you'd be happy with.

Nah, too cold, too cold.

Hail of Bullets considers part of its knockdown chance a secondary effect. The elemental ammo types replace whatever is flagged as "secondary effect" with a new one. Hail of Bullets does a number of things all the time (e.g., defense buff during the animation) and regardless of what ammo power you have running (and running none at all is still considered a power) you have a chance to KD at the end of it. It just so happens that running Standard Ammo (so no element) makes that KD chance 100%.

How so? Is the Blaster version different from all of the other variants? Does Blaster DP keep the knockback on its attacks like Dual Wield/Empty Clips while running Incendiary/Chemical/Cryo ammo?

Ninjutsu for Sentinels and Scrappers get a new power called Shinobi-Iri. This power grants movement speed bonuses, stealth, and a damage boost to the first attack in combat. That's on top of providing defense to all positions. Shinobi-Iri will toggle off when you activate powers like Super Jump, Super Speed, etc. Shinobi-Iri will not toggle off when you use Ninja Run and/or Sprint. Shinobi-Iri stacks with Combat Jump (the latter will toggle off during Ninja Run). In effect, Shinobi-Iri works a lot like a lite version of a travel power. My Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu Sentinel runs at a speed of 70 mph with a 59 ft jump height. Sure, its slower than a build with Super Speed but it's not as bad as it sounds. It's faster than baseline Flight and only slightly slower than Afterburner. I can get around most maps well enough with the jump height to beat a lot of people to mission doors, especially fliers without Afterburner. Hasten isn't the obsession. Trying to achieve some concept of maximum effectiveness is. Hasten is a means to an end and it is a power boost. Furthermore, it is the context of these kinds of threads that is also missing. The people that try to help aren't necessarily "obsessed" with Hasten, but the people asking for a powerful build often want additional quality of life perks like Hasten. There is a difference in damage dealt by shortening your attack sequence to the strongest powers available. Still, point taken. I do agree that competent builds can be constructed without Hasten. They can be made without spending 600 million to 1 billion influence too. Though when people talk builds one has to understand what the expectation is because your definition of a good build is very likely to be different from mine.

Straight up worse is just subjective evaluation of the sets. What do you value in a character you make? Stalkers are already weaker at AoE as a feature of the archetype. Sure, there are some primary sets that break the mold but AoE isn't what the AT is great at. So losing out on the AoE damage boosting capability of Death Shroud isn't a big surprise given the nature of what the Stalker is. In a world of IOs, Dark Armor is whatever you make of it. My Stalker actually ends up with slightly better defenses and resistances than my Scrapper. The characters aren't identical so the primaries offer different slotting opportunities between the two to bolster certain strengths or shore up weaknesses. In the case of these two characters the Scrapper is better at AoE due to Death Shroud, but that was obvious to me well before I ever bothered building it. I find Dark Armor a fun set to use, and I have characters across several ATs with it. Personally, I think that Tankers made out well with getting Dark Armor and it is the best version of the set given their higher mitigation values. Any Tanker set that can get a pulsing damage toggle to increase AoE contribution is worth looking at in my opinion and the ability to cap almost all resistance totals without a T9 is pretty awesome too. Edit: You do touch on a point of Cloak of Fear being a bit overrated. While it does offer a to hit debuff its base cost is very high and its base accuracy is very low. Its basically an endurance sink if you don't plan for it properly while having mediocre results in actual play. Oppressive Gloom is often underrated though. Soul Transfer too. Revive powers are also going to be a personal preference thing, but Soul Transfer isn't as useless as the origin post suggests.

It looks good. It won't feel as strong as a stalker, but the AoE should be a nice change of pace.

I've helped someone make a build that does something like this. It used Boxing, Cross Punch, and the Epic melee for blappermode with some mixing of the ranged attacks to fill the gaps. Seemed like a fun experiment. With the right Epic melee you can make a pretty high damage Sentinel (as far as Sentinels go at least) so its not as silly as it sounds. Obviously its Kheldian in name only as the Sentinel lacks all of the benefits of being in that AT, but for a fun concept build you can make it work. Will it be "optimal"? Maybe not (depends on how you approach it), but it should get the job done regardless.

In a manner, you're asking for someone to craft you a build that is also reading your mind as to what you want. Whatever anyone hands you won't be what you envision. If you want all of your attacks to have Sudden Acceleration KB/KD then plan for all of your attacks to have 1 occupied slot. Then you work backwards (maybe forwards?) from there. Do you want a set like say.... Entropic Chaos? That one caps out at 5 slots. Are all 5 pieces valuable to you? If so, then now you're looking at 5x Entropic Chaos + Sudden Acceleration for the KB/KD. Building your character doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. What's your goal for the secondary? What are you looking to accomplish with it in actual play? What will make you happy with it? When you say "this is a concept build not min/max" - what is the concept? Why does "not min/max" even matter? If the latter is due to costs, then what are you trying to get at? If the build is truly concept-based (for whatever that means) and you don't see it as needing to be min/max how is anyone supposed to help? Furthermore, you mention you want KD/KB change IOs in the attacks, you want flight, hasten, and tough/weave. How much more of a build do you need? Exact slotting on some nebulous description that doesn't mean much outside of what you want? To me it looks like you have a build already. That's 5 attack powers with at least one slot dedicated to changing knockback/knockdown, flight, hasten, tough/weave, and a secondary all picked out. I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I just want to understand what you're expecting to get out of this discussion. I'm not sure if anyone around here has a price list on every IO set in their back pocket either. Do you want to know what powers are good out the two sets you're talking about? Do you want to know what some slotting strategies are to get you to your goals? (If so, what are those goals?) Give us a little more, and many of will try our best to help you get there.

There are still several power sets missing write-ups because no one ever devoted the time to do it. When I originally started contributing it was with sets that I actively played either on the live HC servers or in an isolated environment. So any sets missing have nothing to do with how good a set it is. If you search the general subforum with key word "regeneration" you'll find a lot of chatter about it. To more directly answer this though, regeneration is actually a very good secondary on Sentinels. Hell, Sentinels arguably have the best version of regeneration that exists in the game right now. There are still limitations on what regeneration can handle, but that can be true for anything. Beam Rifle is also a very good primary and it gains an additional AoE attack that no other AT gets. So you're picking two power sets where the Sentinel gains something over its cousins.

Most horrible to play: Bots/Force Field. Why? I found it boring AF not because it's not capable. Some of the most fun I ever had on live: Ninja/Storm. Why? Chaos.

I overlooked this comment before, but this is really worth coming back to. There has been another instance where someone had Gaussian's in Tactics (maybe 2, 3 builds?). I went into this elsewhere, but not here. There is obviously a misunderstanding on how this works. Gaussian's doesn't work this way, and I have tested this. Running Gaussian's in Tactics does not make the proc run all the time. The proc has a 5 second duration and toggles do not check that frequently. Toggles pulse once every 10 seconds and then they roll the dice based on the proc per minute calculations (PPM). Gaussian's has some wonky behavior here in a toggle. During the pulse the proc checks against allies including the player. The PPM factors that get included are things like Area Factor. Tactics has a huge area factor. A proc like this gets floored into the ground on % chance. The math yield something like 2.5% chance to trigger BUT procs can never go below 5% or above 95%. So every pulse of the Build-Up proc has a 5% chance to apply to the player. That's 5% chance per ally in range. That's your team mates and their pets. If you're grouped with a bunch of Masterminds that is a lot of rolls of the dice to apply the buff to yourself. For solo, you may see it trigger once every 12 minutes like I did. This kind of slotting of Tactics can work with some team oriented builds however if you want actual control over when it triggers put it in a power you activate.

I'm curious to know how you think Beam Rifle, even with procs, is going to go so far ahead on damage that is Blaster levels of DPS. Procs in Refracter Beam and Overcharge are good, but they aren't that good. The Sentinel as an AT has a 0.95 damage multiplier. The Blaster has a 1.125 multiplier before Defiance stacks. The above is ignoring resistance debuffing from procs, but in general both ATs can use the same sets in the same powers. In the case of the Sentinel vs Blaster Refractor is another opportunity for Achilles' Heel. In practice its not that big of a game changer. Depending on the Sentinel primary, and slotting plus total recharge, there can be variance in uptime on Opportunity's largest debuff. Its not that difficult though to have a 50% uptime in a fully realized build. However, in a non-optimized build Opportunity uptime can be all over the place so that 20% resistance debuff is not a 20% damage increase. Even the Offensive Opportunity bonus damage effect isn't that great in a final build as it only contributes about half of its baseline value when you consider damage enhancements. There are Sentinel sets that had their power load outs changed to the point where their best single-target options are in fact better than their Blaster counterparts (when considered purely in a vacuum and Defiance is ignored). Then there are sets like Beam Rifle that aren't that dramatically different. Then to further muddy the waters the to-hit buff changes for sniper attacks add damage. Blaster Beam Rifle gets Penetrating Ray which is a pretty boss power. On top of that, as a sniper attack it can take the Manticore Toxic proc on top of the Javelin PvP proc while still getting a 5 piece bonus out of the deal. This also completely ignores that one of the Blaster ATO sets includes another purple quality proc that can be mixed and matched with Apocalypse. Anything you can slot into Overcharge on a Sentinel a Blaster can too. So now you're looking at comparing Refractor Beam (multi procs) vs Penetrating Ray (2x procs). Without playing with those numbers lets call it a wash (and I really doubt it is). Now you have base damage comparisons of Disintegrate, Lancer Shot, Piercing Beam, and Overcharge. The Blaster wins on that contest before Defiance even starts. For Refractor Beam to really take advantage of its damage potential with procs, it needs to be hitting multiple targets. AoE's with procs vs single-targets aren't nearly as reliable on average. Is Refractor with procs a nice multi-target nuke? Yes, and in this case it gives the Sentinel something the Blaster set doesn't have. Evaluating primary sets without context to a build is going to really distort the reality of these powers. Sometimes I like to use Archery as a horse to beat on. Archery's single-target and AoE potential is an interesting contrast between Sentinels and Blasters. Blasters hands down have better AoE potential and it isn't close. The change to Rain of Arrows severely weakens what Sentinels ended up with while Blasters have a potentially 14 second cool down T9. It really is a big deal in both theorycraft and practice. Single-target wise Sentinels have Stunning Shot to choose from vs Snap or Aimed Shot on Blasters. Even given the sniper changes the potential here can favor the Sentinel before Defiance kicks in. You realize that potential through a build though because comparing the sets in a vacuum won't show it. However, there is more. Blasters have an entire secondary devoted to damage and a couple that are more utility. So we can't compare Aimed Shot - Blazing Arrow - Ranged Shot (Blaster) vs Stunning Shot - Blazing Arrow - Perfect Shot (Sentinel) anymore. Furthermore, for the Sentinel to get even close to competitive with its Blaster cousin its going to need to account for Incarnates like Musculature Core Alpha. That's part of why a build makes the difference. Most Blasters don't go for pushing damage in the Incarnates and many, many builds do not push procs. They can though... So I made an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster that gets just shy of 45% on Smashing/Lethal defense (edit: Was thinking of my Defender that DOES raise this defense. The Blaster hits mid 30's.) and 40% ranged defense (edit: this number is correct on the Blaster). I purposefully skimped on defense to play with procs in the secondary (Tactical Arrow). Now the attack sequence comparison can substitute Electrified Net Arrow with multiple procs (the procs are responsible for upfront damage vs the loooooong duration DoT) and Ice Arrow with nothing but procs. Since the Blaster benefits from pushing to-hit at 22% to maximize Ranged Shot, this has a side benefit of making a lightly slotted accuracy Ice Arrow REALLY powerful. That's because a power like Tactics becomes a no-brainer choice and 6 slotting it with Gaussians adds defense. Such synergy! 😃 So I end up with a new comparison of Electric Net - Ice Arrow -Blazing Arrow - Ranged Shot (Blaster) vs Stunning Shot - Blazing Arrow - Perfect Shot (Sentinel). The Blaster doesn't need to run Musculature to utterly crush this comparison. AoE is no longer just in the Blaster's favor it becomes light years different considering damage procs in EMP Arrow and Glue Arrow. The durability of even 40% defense is still really damn good, and Tactical Arrow has great endurance management. We haven't even compared the burst potential of when Upshot is active. [Edit: My Blaster Build had two evolutions. One where Electric Net had procs but the overall defenses were lower, and one with slightly more defense focusing on Ice Arrow. Since I don't play this character anymore the exact slotting is gone into the recycling bin but I can get fairly close tinkering it back into Mids.] Granted a lot of Blaster builds I see do not go there. A lot of them get tunnel vision on 45% defense and quite frankly the AT already does reliable damage. Its when a Sentinel build does lazer like focus on damage, while having high durability by default, that the AT can even start to dream about nipping at the heels of a Blaster that is truly optimized for max damage. Your run of the mill highly optimized Sentinel will probably compare well with even the most lazy Blaster. And in this I'm ignoring Fire Blast because I won't compare Fire Blast Sentinels vs a Water Blast Blaster running Devices. In AoE the Blaster is still going to be great, but single-target the Sentinel will likely be stronger, again before Defiance. Fire Blast on Sentinels is in its own tier all by itself and leads even heavily procced primaries like Radiation/Dark Blast/Dual Pistols/etc by a good bit. There is a reason why Fire Blast is popular and it really is the king of damage on Sentinels. So again, saying that Beam Rifle on Sentinels gets "ridiculous" and "Blaster levels of DPS ridiculous" is really dubious in the realm of raw set vs set comparisons without any build considerations at all. In a manner, you may have been spent the last 2 weeks doing things we have tested since April of last year or maybe not. Maybe you are even on to something that others haven't though of. I don't know, and I'd still love to see what you've come up with.