oldskool

It was with Incarnates BUT my goal was never to take out Pylons for the purpose of doing a results post. So there are caveats here that I need to express. 1) All initial testing was exploring attack combinations focused on recharge and exploring ways of including Gaussian's in Tactics (solo this is really poor, but group wise has potential). 2) Initial tests ran with T1 Musculature Alpha, Reactive, and Assault (turned off). Never used Ageless on this character - still don't have it. 3) Once I felt more comfortable discovering what I preferred I tested again around T4 Musculature Alpha, T3 Degenerative, and T1 Assault (turned off). I've experimented with tossing out caltrops first, then Hail of Bullets, and then rotational powers. I've experimented with just hammering attacks and ignoring the T9 too. When I say about 230~ that's running the Incarnates in #3 opening with Hail (Edit: actually, that may not be true - I may have just used single-target attacks. See below in the suggestions regarding Opportunity) and going into single-target. Suppressive Fire was running 5x Apocalypse + Unbreakable Constraint. Pistols ran 3x Thunderstrike, Achilles' Heel, Lady Grey, and PvP. Finally, Executioner's Shot ran Lady Grey, PvP, and Impeded Swiftness (I believe)). Global recharge was around 180. Since then, I have changed my build. Those three attacks all carry 3x Thunderstrike (Edit: with +5 boosters each). Pistols carries Lady Grey, PvP, and Decimation: Build-Up. Executioner's Shot carries Apocalypse (the proc only - rest of the set mules in DW), Lady Grey (or maybe PvP - haven't logged in a few days), and Achilles' Heel. Suppressive Fire runs Unbreakable Constraint, PvP hold (Lethal), and PvP toxic. Global recharge is between 150-160. I think my build at the time cost 500~ million? Certainly not the most expensive character I have and there are no Winter Sets in my build. There are just the PvP globals and a few procs. Everything else is standard for purple sets and LoTGs. Pricey, but not super fancy. AoE is my lowest defense at 45% and Ranged is my highest at around 48%. One of these days I do plan to go for Ageless in the DDR path, not the other path, but for the time being I have Rebirth and Barrier. As far as defensive Incarnate options go, I'm good. 😉 Attack sequence is Executioner's Shot to apply Achilles' Heel - Pistols to try and trigger Decimation - Suppressive Fire to take advantage - Pistols to retry Decimation and trigger Offensive Opportunity. Repeatable into infinity with my current endurance recovery rate. I only click the endurance heal in extreme cases which is very rare, but incredibly handy against Malta/Carnival. I do have Dual Wield slotted with 5x Apocalypse for the recharge bonus. This is largely a mule but I keep it in my back pocket for Defensive Opportunity on those occasions where I do not wish to click either Nin powers but still want some health/endurance recovery. If I use DW, then I follow up with Bullet Rain. Empty Clips and Bullet Rain house the Sentinel ATOs. The Ward is in Bullet Rain and the other is Empty Clips. I really don't care about how Empty Clips is slotted the set is purely a mule there. Hail of Bullets has the PBAoE 5x purple set with fire proc + PvP resistance debuff proc. I'm going to toss out several ideas for the attacks you have listed, but forgive me if you thought about it already. I'd love to try Piercing Rounds with Annihilation Proc first (-12% resist) -> Executioner's Shot with Achilles' Heel second (-20% resist) - the other two. However, there are some possible issues with this unique to Sentinels due to the Opportunity mechanic. DW, Suppressive, and Executioner all generate 13 meter per hit landed. Piercing Rounds will generate 18 meter per successful activation. It appears to only add this once and not per target. Been a while since I have used it in testing so that may not be true anymore. (Edit: Hail of Bullets only generates 1 opportunity meter per activation and it totally ignores the number of targets. The Opportunity Strikes proc will convert this to 100% meter like it does in all T9s. So all discussion on attack routines below completely ignore Hail of Bullets as it totally botches the entire point of building and spending meter with Dual Pistols. If you plan to use this attack consider running 5x Opportunity Strikes plus Fury of the Gladiator to try to get -40% resistance going as soon as possible. That's quite possibly worth doing, but that is a guess at best.) So the conundrum here is that using those 4 attacks is 2.64 second Arcanatime plus 3 attacks all with 1.848 second Arcanatime animations. That's 8.184 seconds for your first volley. That's 57 opportunity meter built in 8.184 seconds (13 + 13 + 13 + 18). On rotational pass #2 you will hit 88 opportunity before the 3rd attack assuming you are starting off with Piercing Rounds. So if DW is attack #3 then it will build over 90 meter BUT it cannot trigger Opportunity when it also builds the requirement for itself. I've tested that multiple times, and if the attack lands you at 90% meter it will not also trigger on top of itself. You'd need to swap out Suppressive Fire as attack #4 with Pistols (if you have it) or else you will delay triggering Defensive Opportunity until you either interrupt the routine with DW or wait to keep the cycle running. Alternatively you use DW as attack #4 after Suppressive Fire which will guarantee Defensive Opportunity at over 90 meter. Delaying Opportunity is a loss of -20% resistance against a tough target even if you use Defensive Opportunity exclusively. If you use the rotation you propose you will miss out on Opportunity until your next pass unless you swap out Suppressive Fire for Pistols when the inherent is available. You're looking at 13 + 13 + 13 + 18 (57) on pass one at 8.184 seconds. Pass two DW again 70 meter (10.032 seconds) -> Suppressive Fire 83 meter (11.88 seconds) -> Executioner's Shot 96 meter -- Opportunity available 13.728 seconds -> Piercing Rounds 114 meter (-14 since overflow is ignored) 16.368 seconds. Pass #3 - Dual Wield automatically triggers Defensive Opportunity after 16.368 seconds granting you 15 seconds of uptime. You will wait 16-17~ seconds before you trigger it again. (Edit: MOAR edits) Alternative idea - Piercing Rounds - Executioner's - Suppressive - Dual Wield Opportunity first pass builds 57 meter. Second pass you will build 101 Opportunity by the second activation of Suppressive Fire. This guarantees Dual Wield tacked on at the end will trigger the effect on a target. This takes 14.52 seconds to build up. That's not horrible and may be the best way to ensure uptime on the inherent with that rotation. Maybe. Just napkin mathing here and I could be VERY wrong. 😉 Alternative #2 - use Pistols over DW. Pistols has higher DPA for lower damage per hit but the recharge and animation are favorable. Proc chance using 3.5 PPM items is in the 30% per activation ballpark. Pistols generates 8 meter per shot and would shave off some time it takes to unlock Opportunity and in this case Offensive Opportunity would also increase damage for 15 seconds on top of the debuff. Replacing DW with Pistols would change the build time of Opportunity to 13.86 seconds (2.64 + 1.848 + 1.848 + 1.188 + 2.64 + 1.848 + 1.848 + Opportunity triggers). Long form math to show my work. 😉 The above is exactly why I don't use Piercing Rounds on the Sentinel anymore and why I shifted completely to just Pistols(or DW)/Suppressive Fire/Executioner's Shot. Pistols animates in 1.188 seconds (if I recall that right) and the other two in 1.848 seconds each. If I can squeeze out enough recharge (and I have run this before) to run just those 3 that's a 4.884 second animation cycle give or take some lag. However, since I use the procs that I do my actual rotation is extended to pad out time. So I use Pistols twice per cycle which is fine since it recharges ridiculously fast on just global alone. So my current playstyle favors 6.072 animation blocks per attack cycle. That builds me 42 opportunity first volley. Pistols only builds 8 meter per successful hit (8 + 13 + 8 + 13). By cycle pass #2 I will build up 84 meter. The very beginning of cycle #3 will net me 97 meter. My very next attack is Pistols which will automatically use up the meter to trigger Opportunity. I do not need to think about this or when to use the attack. It is built into timing of the sequence. The time it takes before I can use Opportunity is 13.992 seconds. This is of course assuming 0 misses but I have built my character to have 95% accuracy on 54's (T3+ Alpha even overshoots). So a stray shot is possible but tends to be unlikely more often than not. Still they happen. When that happens I can swap Suppressive Fire with Dual Wield to trigger Defensive Opportunity. If that misses then I use Pistols again immediately after that. (Edit: So what I currently use is 0.132 seconds longer which is hardly noticeable than the alternative previously show [PR -> ES -> Supp -> Pistol]. I'm fine with this. With recharge boosting from teammates [on those occasions it happens] where I can run Executioner's Shot - Supp - Pistols this changes. In this set up you use Exectioner's Shot and Suppressive Fire 6 times and Pistols twice. That will build Opportunity in 13.464 seconds. At one point in time I had higher recharge in my attacks making that possible but now I just take advantage in teams when things like Accelerate Metabolism pop up. A difference in the half second range isn't something my old timer self really notices.) Why tell you this? Well, as I am sure you are aware procs like Fury of the Gladiator and Achilles' Heel last 10 seconds. I want to cram as many attacks into that window with my damage procs as possible. I want to cram as many Pistols hits as I can every 3 seconds in order to fish for Build-Up which has an effective of circumventing the low per hit probability through increased rolls of the dice. These all coordinate with trying to have as much uptime on Offensive Opportunity as I can manage without running the Opportunity Strikes proc (which is rather unreliable in Dual Pistols) as possible. Occasionally I do miss Piercing Rounds. I include PR in my Defender/Corruptor builds though so it is a simple matter of swapping characters if I want to use it. I've updated my write-up on DP in the Collaborative Project thread multiple times now after experimenting with a few different set-ups. I can't assume I have thought of everything. So I am genuinely curious to know how your experiment turns out.

It does.

160 DPS? Are you planning to use procs? I could see 160 running Piercing Rounds with no procs and just trying to push recharge. Sentinel Incendiary Ammo seems to brute force past the resistance debuff. This is true too on Blasters but not at all on Defenders and to a lesser extent Corruptors. I'm totally spit balling here from my own observations, but it looks like all of the other ammo types take on AT debuff modifiers. Incendiary Ammo isn't a debuff. It gets AT damage scale. The reverse is true on an AT like a Defender that gets their scalars on everything that too. That'll favor the debuffs over Incendiary every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Sentinel and Blaster Piercing Rounds debuff in standard ammo is -9.6% resistance. Defender... -20%. Corruptors -15%. The resistance debuff is just as resistable as any other that isn't explicitly flagged "non-resistable". Incendiary Ammo adds something like 13~% more damage to Piercing Rounds (running off memory that was done on napkin math from a months ago) and just under 9% on the other attacks. Fire is largely uncontested as things go currently so I think Incendiary was averaging out within a few points of better DPS than juggling Standard Ammo. The DoT is also very short in duration so it will likely fall off before you reapply it. Piercing Rounds can take Annihilation's proc which is -12%, but Suppressive Fire animates faster, recharges faster, and can take on the Hold purple proc. Adding in Achilles' Heel is kind of a wash since it should go in the routine, and my preference is Executioner's Shot for the higher chance. I'll use ES roughly every 4.22 seconds anyway so there are plenty of chances to refresh the debuff or apply it for the first time. Even though Suppressive Fire doesn't gain benefit from Incendiary Ammo for damage it still does very well purely due to taking on multiple procs ideally at least one purple (from the Hold group). Dual Wield can potentially out perform Suppressive Fire purely gauging just Incendiary Ammo and no procs. Just baseline damage they are close when running fire. More fun tangents, Piercing Rounds on Corruptors can make use of the that AT Chance for Negative damage as well as other procs. That's a purple quality proc in a power that can hit 3 targets with a decent chance to pull it off since the narrow cone isn't that awful on PPM calcs. Anyhoo... My DP/Nin runs Pistols, Suppressive Fire, and Executioner's Shot with damage procs. The last time I bothered to time a Pylon was June of last year at 230~ DPS. That was before I did a respec and changed my slotting. Maybe higher or lower now, but I'm very comfortable with the performance. Chain is Executioner's - Pistols - Suppressive - Pistols unless under the effects of more recharge like Ageless/Accelerate Metabolism. Under those heightened recharges I just simplify to Executioner - Suppressive - Pistols. Pistols at the end guarantees Offensive Opportunity every 13 seconds like clockwork barring any misses. It is possible that ammo dancing between Standard and Incendiary is worth it, but that is far too cumbersome for my lazy self to bother with.

This is a great point. Sentinel don't have narrower cones. They do have shorter cones. Almost all Sentinel cone attacks are shorter in length than the other ATs. Archery is an exception as Fistful of Arrows is slightly wider, Full Auto on Sentinels is wider, Sonic Blast's cones are largely untouched, and Psychic Scream is new to the Sentinel version of that set (so not a good comparison). I've already stated what I think needs to be changed. Too much AR's effectiveness is weighted into Burst and Disorienting Shot. I feel that damage could be smoothed out a bit across other powers in the set. Incinerator has very high base damage within the context of the set, but it could use some help. In reflecting, the animation review to shorten it some would increase its overall DPA which I would be happy with. There are other sets that could also use damage passes and animation checks too so AR isn't alone. My reasons for wanting to see those kinds of changes is due to the issue that AR has been historically an AoE set. Its AoE was largely focused into cones, but those were changed for being a Sentinel. The overall single-target, which Sentinels can be very good at, wasn't really changed. So in an ideal world Sentinel AR has some of the worst single-target potential, about middle of the road AoE potential, and a version of Full Auto that is a bit worse off as it becomes dependent on Aim. Aim should be a great buff to make sets experience some burst but shouldn't be the tool that fixes changes made to a set. Survival of +4/8 wasn't my issue with Sentinel AR/Bio. Everything that irritates me about the set stems from how it feels in actual play and the design decisions that made it happen. I had a hard time getting into AR/Dev on Blasters in the past, and the Sentinel version kinda soured me more. As to the idea about using planners and skewed perceptions, I wholeheartedly agree. The last time I used Mids the scalar was still off and some powers are wrong. That's not what I base my judgment on. All I have to do is go in game and look at the tool tip of the power to see the base damage, recharge, and then calculate off animation and Arcanatime. Assault Rifle still comes out behind. There is a bit of hyperbole about the set being dead last for single-target and AoE. Water Blast, without procs, is probably dead last on single-target [Edit - It is.]. Psychic Blast is very likely one of the worst sets for AoE within the entire AT [Edit - Psychic Wail is the only redeeming feature]. Psychic Scream and Tornado have some "meh" base damage with over 2 second base animation times. I don't think either of the DPAs even break 20 or not much over it. Even the worst AoE power in either Assault Rifle or Dual Pistols is still far better than anything in the set other than Psychic Wail. Psychic Wail is more than twice as effective as Hail of Bullets or Full Auto. Dual Pistols players have to run Incendiary Ammunition for Hail of Bullets to not completely suck wind. Full Auto would be the worst T9 in the entire AT if Rain of Arrows didn't exist[Edit - Fixed, I was wrong using old info (shame on me!) and Rain of Arrows is far stronger than I realized]. Archery gets to be the winner of the worst damage to animation ratio on T9 in the AT [Edit - So all of that is wrong. Oops] followed by Assault Rifle, then Dual Pistols, and then Electrical Blast (Thunderous Blast suffers from a really long animation) [Edit - Thunderous Blast and Full Auto are in the same league. Hail without Incendiary isn't anything to write home about either.]. With Dual Pistols running Incendiary Ammunition then Hail of Bullets comes close to Blackstar in Dark Blast, Nova in Energy Blast and within spitting distance of Geyser, and Atomic Blast [Edit - A lot of the T9's all hover around the exact same DPA since they have the same base damage and animation time. Fire's is only slightly better.]. Everything else is better (Beam, Ice, Sonic, Psy, etc... all have better T9's) [Edit - To be fair, Ice, Sonic, and Psy absolutely need their T9's to be worth taking]. Edit: So despite the errors in the tangential rant above, Sentinel Assault Rifle isn't a total loss on its AoE potential. Sure, Full Auto could use a buff but the set still has 3 other AoEs. Full Auto has a 10 target cap like many others of its tier so a slight DPA difference out of the others in the mediocre range isn't that big a loss in practice either. Flamethrower's a fairly damaging extra cone that many other primaries don't get. All things considered Assault Rifle isn't really last at anything, but it doesn't excel at anything either. The last part there circles back to my feelings mentioned earlier in this long winded post. AR is just "meh" at everything and its worsened by having its former legacy of AoE clipped a bit on Sentinels. Its still very playable but for really pushing its capabilities I'd recommend pairing it with Super Reflexes (for procs, more recharge, easy of play). My Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu handles +4/8 just fine. I've solo'ed TFs too. I'm pretty happy with it, but I've also improved the damage through proc abuse too. It's not close in damage, not by a long shot, to my Scrappers or Stalkers. That's ok. Even before the Tanker changes my Dark Armor/Titan Weapons could give clear times on my Sentinels a run for their money. Now, it is a monster nipping at the performance of my main Scrapper while also being largely resistant to all damage except toxic (all others at 90% during ATO uptime - seriously). I do not need my Sentinels to out perform my melee characters, but I would like some design decisions at least revisited for some smoother operations.

You're very welcome!

Are you thinking of sunk cost fallacy? That is when one views previous investments as justification for further expenditure. Like the continuation of a project is rational since it has funds already spent despite forecasting showing little (or even no) return on investment. You've sunk cost and you just keep going regardless of the negative outcome. We can look at our time as investment. We can look at our devotion to an ideology as investment. All of these can potentially be sunk costs too. There are plenty of folks that can argue that playing a Sentinel is inherently sunk cost fallacy. You could also argue that not playing very specific builds are a part of a sunk cost fallacy, but let's not do that here. Can you take any level of influence/infamy investment and pour that into another build that will perform higher? Yes. It is also incredibly narrow-minded thinking in this context since we ignore a few things. First off, there is very little risk in the relation of investment in City of X. You invest time, which has value, but what you get out of that time is (hopefully) enjoyment. If you are not enjoying your Energy/Rad character, then it is a sunk cost to keep going. If you enjoy playing this character, then the time/influence investment is rational (not sunk cost). Your perception is what makes it sunk cost or not as the negative outcome is time invested at your own pleasure. That's harder to quantify. I'm not an expert on Sentinel Energy or Radiation. I'm not an expert on builds either. Regardless, I want to chat with you about how to think about using Mids to evaluate this stuff on your own. You may not be too confident in your Mids skills, but it really isn't that hard if you give yourself some guidelines (that's what I'll try to do). Let's get the Q's out of the way real quick: 1) Yes, I'd consider this a decent pairing. All Sentinel pairings are effectively "decent" by my own standards with some pairings being exceptional. Do these do as much damage as my other characters? No, but that isn't the only thing I care about. How fast I can down a Pylon is not the be all end all of character effectiveness for my tastes. 2) This is where tinkering in Mids becomes important - see below 3) Yes, of course there is, but if you like Energy Blast who cares? 4) No I haven't. Ok, let's look at #2 in a broader context. (sorry wall of text will critically hit) Here is how I approach tinkering in Mids when I am totally clueless to the powersets. I plan to take everything from the primary and the secondary. There ya go. That's my secret! I'll take a look at the Mids options for DPS ratings of the attacks. I know these metrics are off due to scalars, and if I see something that doesn't look right I will reference in game. Things that don't look right would be powers like Screech on a Sentinel showing 13 damage when in reality it does more. Always double check in game, but sometimes these tools can be helpful when they are in the ballpark. For simplicity here is the list: Power Bolt - 46~ DPS Power Blast - 48~ DPS Energy Torrent (Cone that hits 6) - 42~ DPS Power Burst - 52~ DPS Aim - Burst damage booster Power Push - 70~ DPS Explosive Blast (targeted AoE that hits 10) - 26~ DPS Focused Power Bolt - 55~ DPS Nova - 53~ DPS (TL;DR edit: Power chopping block choices in Energy can be Power Bolt vs Power Blast (have to pick one), Power Burst vs Focused Power Bolt, and Energy Torrent vs other. If you run with a lot of Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge then Power Burst, Power Push, and Focused Power Bolt all have value. Power Blast isn't a bad running up in that strategy over Power Bolt. Explosive Blast and Nova also exploit how procs work. Radiation has a lot of strong powers so trimming that down isn't something I would do.) Between Power Bolt and Power Blast you have to pick one. Whichever you pick (or take both) depends a lot on how you feel about Offensive or Defensive Opportunity. Note, Power Bolt does about 52 damage with a 1 second animation (not counting system clock functions) and Power Blast does 86 for slightly longer animation. Yet, these two powers are within 2~ points of effective DPS from either. Power Bolt has almost half the recharge meaning you can fire it almost twice as often as Power Blast. Sounds great! Recharge will change this, but that is a build question. More on that in a minute. Energy Torrent looks fairly poor since it does less damage than the other two attacks. However, it can hit 6 targets which actually raises its effectiveness. Explosive Blast is in a similar boat. Since it can hit more targets it gets more efficient against larger groups. Now, there is a catch here with these two powers. You could plan to take additional AoE from your Epic/Patron pools. These are often point-blank AoEs (so melee range) that will also hit 10 targets. There is synergy in the melee range here with Nova so that's a plus. They will likely be more efficient than Energy Torrent OR you could try to take them on top of both. This is a decision point. Yes, Explosive Blast's damage is rather low BUT this is not the only set with a metric like this. Some even have worse numbers and some have better. Let's just disregard that for moment though and plan out with what we have. Power Burst does rather high (triple digit) baseline damage at the cost of a fairly lengthy animation time. Depending on how the build goes this might end up better than Focused Power Bolt. Why? Power Burst animations faster and it recharges faster. Call this one a decision point too. Aim makes for bigger explosions and the cooldown can be lowered dramatically to align with Nova. No reason not to take this. Power Push looks like a keeper as it has the highest damage per activation out of everything else you have. This attack will be a focal point of a final build deserving 6 slots if you can manage it, but no less than 5 to house the bulk of the Apocalypse set if you feel you need the benefits of the set. Focused Power Bolt does the highest direct damage of the powers next to Nova, but it has a very long animation time. It also has a longish recharge at 16 seconds. You could comfortably skip this power OR you could take it. More on this in a minute too. Nova is the T9 and it is the highest damage AoE you have. Regardless of its DPA ranking you really should take this. Ok, so now we have a general concept of what the powers do in a quasi-vacuum. We know we're likely going to use about 4 out of 5 single target attacks, at least Explosive Blast due to its radius, and Nova along with Aim. Out of 9 powers we've got 2 possible on the chopping block. In order to seal the deal on power skipping there is a another question one needs to ask here. How much recharge do I need, and do I want to exploit damage procs vs getting full set bonuses? This question gets some helpful answers from what our secondary can provide. Right off the bat, we know Radiation Armor is a resistance set with some bonus goodies. Resistance sets will struggle trying to build a heavy amount of defense. I'm not going to say you shouldn't build some defense, but this more in the realm of do not worry too much about hitting 45%. Knowing that Radiation can grant an absorb shield for bonus effective health as well as using Meltdown should guide the build on where to go next. Radiation also has some inherent recharge boost (20%) which works well with Hasten. This also works well with trimming down our number of attacks. So global recharge would be nice, but we haven't answered the other question about damage procs. Building up high levels of global recharge will likely require chasing nearly full (5 piece) set bonuses in the attacks OR really pushing set bonuses in the secondary. Decisions decisions. Either method is valid as Meltdown is your other burst damage booster. The other idea is a mix of effects using Incarnates like Ageless to help grant bursts of high recharge benefit to super charge offense. Energy Blast can benefit a lot from procs. In going about a build like this you may want to consider 3 Thunderstrikes (Acc/Dam, Acc/Dam/End, Dam/End). If you have the means to do it, then boost those 3 by +5. Use the other 2-3 slots in your attacks to exploit Explosive Strikes: Chance for Smashing Damage, Javelin's Volley: Chance for Toxic Damage, 1 Apocalypse: Chance for Negative Damage, and potentially as many Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge as you can get away with. I underlined that one because it may be the key to solving some of the build problems. Recharge. Grant every damn one of your attacks a chance to proc 100% recharge for 5 seconds and you should be able to juggle bursts of recharge to drop Hasten's cool down dramatically. Now, this comes back around to powers on the chopping block. Focused Power Bolt has a base animation of 2.67 seconds and a recharge of 16 seconds. This power is as close to perfect for abusing Force Feedback in your single target kit. Power Push already does good DPA and you want to use it on cooldown. This becomes a good candidate for that Apocalypse proc as well as Explosive Strikes and Javelin's Volley. You plan to spam this which means you get more rolls of the dice even if the per shot chance isn't a guarantee. Alternatively you could potentially abuse Focus Power Bolt too. Explosive Blast and Nova both exploit the hell out of Force Feedback as they can tag 10 targets. Your opener, Nova, virtually guarantees a burst of recharge in this manner where as your follow-ups have chances to keep it cycling. If abusing procs, I may drop Power Bolt from the equation and add a least Force Feedback to all my remaining attacks. I may also drop Energy Torrent depending on other options. I sometimes like cone attacks, and sometimes I don't. Ok, so recharge may be solvable through attacks. That means for Radiation focus on resistances and healing where practical. If you plan on taking outside picks like Tough, Weave, and Maneuvers you can even plan for defense. Upper teens to low 20's are good returns on investment and stack with purple inspirations when times get tough. You also have an absorb shield so make sure you put some healing IOs in there. I can't think of much to skip in Radiation so the build would likely get pretty tight to additional toys, but you should be able to squeeze in a travel power of your liking. After writing all that, hopefully it helps and isn't overwhelming. There are many ways to approach any build and they are matters of preference. Its a slow morning. 😉

Yes and yes.

Oh, that comment wasn't directed at you! I didn't think *you* over thought *anything*. That was directed at the OP who's follow-up took my commentary out of context by stating how bummed they are that Radiation is "near the bottom". That wasn't my intent! Then you're commentary made it seem like I was deliberating ranking them. That's on *me* not you for misunderstanding what I was trying to communicate. I didn't take any of that as a dig. It's just a situation where I was already thinking that was me putting my foot in mouth once again, and sure enough it appears it was. LOL We're good! 😄

Preach! Water Burst also is a sphere AoE so it has a higher target cap than Steam Spray which is a cone. I dropped Steam Spray from my build. It is a good power, but it was what I decided to drop in favor of other powers. As @drbuzzard says "you can't have too many AoEs" and that's true. At least until said AoEs may conflict with something else you want or how you like to play. 😉 Also, Water Burst is another Tidal spender that gains additional cold damage plus greater chance for knockup. I kept Whirlpool because it is integral to my play style and build.

Penelope Yin was the first TF I solo'ed on DP/Nin. I did it completely on a whim and I didn't even buy any resources to do it. I just had to play hide and go seek with Clamour when she would drop my defenses to -15%. I'd run away, hide from her line of sight, click my heal and wait out the debuff. Then it was peek-a-boo John Wick time until her hits actually landed on me to start the kiting cycle again. Also, +1 to you too for suggesting to try something out and see what works. Some builds definitely take time to fall into place. +2 for Grav Controllers. 😉 One of my favorite builds right now is Grav/Time because its just so cosmic and nerdy at the same time. Gravity, which I played first as a Dominator on the old servers, is a slooooooow set. Its great with the right combinations, but so damn slow to get there.

You mentioned previously, and I was about to quote it, about perceived weakness with Rad due to DoTs/long animations. That's spot on! That's really what I was wanting to get at. The only Sentinel primary I am actually disappointed with is Assault Rifle and that is largely due to the cone heavy choices and Sentinel caps. I did proc out Burst and Slug to improve my damage. Still, it is the one set I have played on the AT that just never clicked with me. Its actual performance, at least with how I built it, is lower than some of my other Sentinels. So for the investment I put in to it I felt it wasn't worth it, but there are those that will love it. For me arguing the worst Sentinel sets is like arguing Marvel movies. While I may think that Thor: the Dark World is the worst of the bunch it is still better to me than Justice League (which I cannot even watch for more than 20 minutes without turning it off). Thor: the Dark World is in my opinion the worst MCU film, but it is still an MCU film which I find very entertaining.

Hah! So this is why these kinds of vacuum discussions are silly @Traegus. I feel I need to add even more clarity to what I wrote since @Sovera uses the term "rankings". I didn't rank anything. The power sets I listed are in alphabetical order not order of effectiveness (which I should have noted since the OP stated that Radiation and Energy are last -- they aren't necessarily). Radiation is last because R comes after E. If you want to play Rad Blast, @Traegus, then go for it! Your follow-up is also completely ignoring the part where I mention you're over thinking it. Also, like Sovera and Nihilii mention procs will change how Radiation Blast plays. Energy Blast is in a similar situation where adding in things like Explosive Strikes, Force Feedback, and Javelin's Volley make every attack better. Energy Blast would be hypothetically better than Dual Pistols or Assault Rifle even before procs. Incendiary Ammo in Dual Pistols makes that set much better and damage procs push it even more, but that isn't just a view of baseline performance. Also, for @Sovera and @nihilii I stated "damage that isn't that impressive without procs". If I remember right, someone building a Rad/Nin character was bit disappointed with performance in their previous builds before they started searching a primary to add 3+ procs to their attack chains. I know from my own personal experience with Dual Pistols that adding damage procs and changing my attack routine reduced my own Pylon tests by half from where I started (before Incarnates). If the OP doesn't intend to run the gamble game, which in turn is part of a build, then I stand by my assessment that some of those sets might seem lackluster. The 4 min proc damage time is 287 DPS. Without procs what is that? Nihilii also posted a Dark Blast/Invul build that could push something like 270 DPS (might have been more), but again without procs it won't do that. No one is going to replicate that damage without using a build as the set itself isn't natively that damaging. I'm not mad. This is good stuff because this proves why I shouldn't have bothered with trying to pick some sets to avoid without context to their builds. Which was the direction I was originally writing that ended up a lot longer than I wanted it to be. In hindsight, maybe I should have done it? I doubt there would be 100% concurrence on such a ranking but that was also why I avoided it in the first place. Anyway, all this does is just confirm to me that builds matter more than looking at the sets themselves. Fire is clearly a winner but the other primaries can be made to achieve performance that isn't so clear at first glance. For that, I thank you two for continuing the discussion in that way. 😉 Also @Traegus, and any others curious, please note @carnalchaos wonderful statements of "Still a good build can solve a lot of problems. If all you want is higher damage I suggest you look at the secondary's not the primaries.". And, as I mentioned originally in addition to how secondary sets matter a lot in making builds so does the decision to use any of the Epic/Patron attacks.

I don't disagree. I think what was jumping out at me was that a lot of build discussions with Electric Blast revolve around sapping which makes it seem gimmicky. It is also a build choice which I didn't want to really dive into. I've also seen complaints about Electric's damage in the low levels and it just stuck out to me. I've seen complaints about every single Sentinel primary except for Fire Blast so it is difficult to filter out the hyperbole.

TL;DR Before I get into below, this sums things up: If you are looking to play a Sentinel, and you're wondering about viability of its solo capacity, then don't worry so much about it. You really do not need to over think your selection looking for the absolute best pairings. All Sentinels, even the lowest damage ones, are capable of enough damage to stalemate* AV regeneration. This means no matter what primary you pick you're going to contribute damage to a team or solo. If you're looking for big game hunting builds that is where min/maxing matters. Even in those kinds of set ups you'll want Envenomed Daggers to speed up AV killing. Ok, now to addressing the original post. The question reads more like "what sets should I avoid" vs "what is best". Fire Blast is one of the easiest sets to pair with anything in order to produce high damage outcomes. Sonic Blast also has a lot of potential. Water Blast has a lot of build potential to raise its weak single-target while maintain its high AoE. Then there is everything else with varying degrees of success. Sets that you may wish to avoid due to clunky mechanics or general feeling of shortcomings by the community: Assault Rifle Dual Pistol Electric Blast Energy Blast Radiation Blast These power sets have either clunky mechanics (Dual Pistol's ammo system, Energy's knockback), or damage that isn't that impressive without procs (Assault Rifle, Electric, Radiation Blast). In a vacuum those are sets that I might recommend avoiding. And yes, I main a Sentinel with Dual Pistols that can solo just about anything short of Giant Monsters. However, I am not ignorant of the sets shortcomings or the communities frustrations with it. Instead, that power set happens to be a part of a build that includes means of overcoming those weaknesses as best it can. Even more important than what primary you pick is what secondary you pick. There are real winners in that range of selection for a wide variety of solo capability. Sets like Energy Armor, Invulnerability, Ninjutsu, and Super Reflexes (in no particular order) are excellent at avoiding hospital trips. Other sets are good, but those mentioned are great. Finally, if you truly are concerned about damage, then plan to take a melee attack from the Ancillary/Patron Pools at level 35+. One single attack like Mind Probe or Cremate offer more DPA than almost everything found in each of the sets other select ones like Fire Blast. Yes, picks from your Ancillary/Patron can trivialize almost all of your choices in various primaries due to just how good melee is vs ranged. So pair up one of those melee attacks with your most efficient primary set attacks and watch your DPS raise by a considerable amount. Edit: *I know going toe-to-toe with an AV and not watching its health go down in an appreciable amount of time isn't the most awesome metric in the world. The point of that though is this is baseline performance with little investment. I went toe-to-toe with Marauder on SO's using Dual Pistols and Ninjutsu in my early 40's while teaming up. Everyone died but me. I held his health at about 50% (where it was before everyone dropped) for about 5 minutes while everyone else got their act together and started running back or using wakies. Maruader's use of Unstoppable was an issue and it made me start running out of gas so he regenerated. Though it was fun seeing everyone's responses on just how long I held him at bay. Plus, once everyone was back up his Unstoppable was on cooldown, so screw him! Post-50, this character has solo'ed Task Forces and Dual Pistols is considered by some to "bad". I've even solo'ed defense debuffing heavy enemies on Ninjutsu which is a weak point of that set. Yeah, gotta run away and recoup, but I've done it. 😉 Sentinels strengths are in its pairing and less so in its primary. Though for ease of use it is hard to argue the efficiency of Fire Blast.

Those builds are older versions before the newest Mid's was released. TL;DR: Lots of thoughts below to explain WHY I take Oppressive Gloom/Cloak of Fear below. In short, sometimes I build Dark Armor characters (I have at least 1 of each AT now) with a mind towards tactical play. Other times I just take the set because I like it thematically and let my inner emo teen run rampant. Dark Armor is fun to me because the final 3 powers are all optional unlike how other sets play with more powerful picks in those later levels. This opens up a lot of creative build options that appeal to me. Also, I care about the actual control values vs the side effects like to hit (which is rather small in Cloak of Fear for its cost). Oppressive Gloom, Cloak of Fear, and Soul Transfer are all optional. You don't need any of those three powers. Dark Armor gets all of its most important powers by Cloak of Shadows. Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear do not stack magnitude on their own effects. That means when you run them they will only ever effect the targets they effect and nothing more. For maximum minion control both powers will work together. Let's say Cloak of Fear will fear 10 targets when it hits. Well any targets not already feared will be stunned by Oppressive Gloom. So in essence these two powers can let you potentially control more minions when working together. However, in practice I find that much minion coverage to be nearly pointless. If and when I decide to include either Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear it is because of some synergy with a primary exists that I wish to enhance. If no major synergy exists then I skip both. I also almost never take both together. For the Sentinel I tend to find Cloak of Fear to be a near worthless power pick as there is no other Fear power to enhance the magnitude. As a matter of personal preference, I actually care about the control and the debuff it provides is superfluous with Dark Blast. Honestly, the only power combo in the game that I actually consider worth pairing with Cloak of Fear is Dark Melee because of Touch of Fear. They stack magnitude and debuff which is how my first character ever was able to solo many of things it did. Oppressive Gloom on Sentinels has a few opportunities to stack magnitude in power sets like Psychic Blast, Beam Rifle, Assault Rifle, Archery, and Water Blast. Any power set that an ability with chance for stun works. I do run Oppressive Gloom on my Water Blast/Dark Armor Sentinel. See, I don't run Oppressive Gloom on my Water Sentinel to control minions. F minions. They drop like a house of cards after Tidal Forces + Geyser. However, Geyser (backed by the Tidal mechanic) and Oppressive Gloom becomes a high magnitude stun which will effect everything short of a Giant Monster/AV. When played for maximum carnage, a Sentinel should be deleting weaker enemies in roughly 1 to 2 attacks at the start of combat. Your T9 nuke (Blackstar) followed by your next highest coverage (10 target) AoE (Dark Obliteration). Blackstar has so much to hit debuff baked in to it (-35%) that any enemies that live through that attack and were hit by it will be blinded. Using Obliteration afterwards imposes another -5% to hit debuff if it lands. If those enemies aren't dead arrested they will be at -40% to hit if they aren't resisting it. Even if they resist that debuff will still be in the -30% range. You'll only need a small bit of actual defense in order to dodge their attacks. Now, enemies not debuffed will have better odds to hit and since they won't miss as often you should make them priorities. You can tell who is debuffed by the black clouds around their heads. If you see targets with clear heads, then help them out by blasting them with darkness so they don't feel left out. Odds are if they are Bosses, they won't give two damns about your Oppressive Gloom in the first place and they cannot be controlled by Cloak of Fear on its own. If they are minions then they should be isolated targets and likely not much of a threat unless you're punching too far above your weight class. Don't try soloing +4/x8 missions until after you've gotten your T3 Alpha unlocked at the least so you can have better accuracy scaling. At 50, and IO'ed even somewhat you should be able to handle +2/x6-8 reasonably well. It may not be super fast, but you can survive it. Edit: Cloak of Fear is also -5% to hit on 60% base accuracy at an endurance rate higher than any other toggles in the set. With the way Obscure Sustenance works you can handle that endurance drain for roughly 10-20 seconds before it will become an issue. Since the base accuracy is so low building that power with enhancement slots is necessary in order to not make it just behave like an endurance sink for little return. The fear won't work on big targets but the debuff can. Though with Dark Blast there are more economical ways to apply the same to hit debuff while also doing damage to speed things up. In other words, if you're in a battle of attrition, then Cloak of Fear can potentially reduce that. That mattered in a world of just Single-Origin enhancements. With how tanky you can build DA these days that level of attrition management might not be worth the endurance cost. Same can be said for Sentinel Darkest Night. It is very expensive to run it when your endurance can just be funneled into damage. While the to hit debuff looks nice on paper, see above comments about Blackstar which makes Darkest Night highly situational. The reduced enemy damage in Darkest Night is also pretty small for the endurance drain. Then again, I play Dark Miasma on a Defender so my bias is to scoff at such peasant magic. 😉

I always ask this, but what is good to you? Also, have you searched this forum with just the term "dark"? There are two Dark/Dark/Soul builds that could be adapted to Dark Mastery instead. You'll find them just searching that one word on page 1 of your results. Those builds were ones I posted for the purpose of that discussion, but my actual Dark/Dark/Dark is different as I do not bother with Darkest Night. I know have run my mouth multiple times about both Dark Armor and Dark Blast separately in other topics. So a more broad search of the basic term should yield you some results vs a narrow search. If you have read over the search results already and still having trouble, then circle back to "what's good to you". Its possible you feel stumped by trying to do too much with powers like Cloak of Fear, Darkest Night, and trying to find out how to cap defense/resistances. If that is also the case, then I can tell you from experience to just pick a path and stick with it. If you're investing heavily in to hit debuffs, then you can get away with less general defense (though more defense always helps). These kinds of questions and thoughts that run through my head are why I do not start with just dumping a build. What works for me is probably a complete turn off for you (and I've been told that in not so many words more than once).

This is such a good statement it is worth bolding, underlying, and making italic. Incarnates choices do make a world of a difference and help blur the lines on certain Sentinel builds.

If you're talking about the thread I think you're talking about, I'd take it with a grain of salt. While I don't disagree that AR needs some love, some of her old metrics make me scratch my head. Its like we're playing two different games. She had a post showing Dual Pistols with sub-200 DPS potential. I still have no clue where that comes from or what skills she was using. I can pull 50-60 more DPS than she lists with that set. Some of her calculations for Fire Blast included epic melee attacks, but seem to ignore them in the other primaries. Energy Blast also stinks, but built with procs it isn't as bad as it was made out to be. Finally, I don't want Sentinels to get Venom Grenade or a quick snipe anything. Venom Grenade can remain a VEAT exclusive. No Sentinels get snipes, period. So AR shouldn't. If Incinerate was swapped with some direct damage attack like LRM Rocket, fine. Assault Rifles issues are in power design across the tiers. Disorienting Shot being the most efficient attack is a shame, and the AoE was hurt significantly with the target caps. - Reduce Disorienting Shot's DPA - Spread that efficiency between Slug and Incinerate -- there is no reason these attacks should be WORSE than the Tier 2 - Buff damage across the board if necessary (it probably is) - Review animation times as some are longish - Consider granting Flamethrower its original target cap of 10 vs 6 letting it cheat the Sentinel caps like Sonic Blast does with its cone attacks.

"Sentinel > Fire Blast > Blazing Blast: Should now do 13 ticks of damage over time." Yay!

Dual Pistols with Ninjutsu is a fun combo. It can feel a little slow going at first, and really a lot of Sentinels can, but it will get better. The lack of Aim means no means to create situational bursts of damage which is were I found the low level struggle. In higher levels, the build decisions with the pairing is very open ended. So if you feel you are about to hit some tough content early on, then pack some damage inspirations.

Given what you've said about your preferences, I really doubt you'd like either of them. I'm REALLY forgiving when it comes to powersets (Dual Pistols is fun, its functional for what I want it to do, but it isn't a top tier set) and even I don't care much for Assault Rifle. Energy Blast on Sentinels is weak by itself, but it does have proc options that can make it a little better. You never seem too fond of procs and both of those sets really do want them in order to raise their performance from dumpster fire to just burnt dumpster. ;)

I've had the opposite experience, but I also choose set pairs that would create more AoE damage on purpose. I've played the following sets across ATs: Dual Pistols - Sentinel, Corruptor, Defender Archery - Sentinel, Blaster, Defender, Corruptor Archery is hands down superior at AoE on everything other than the Sentinel. The Sentinel just has no answer to a 14 second Rain of Arrows which is possible on everything else. Sentinels can potentially get lucky Force Feedback procs in Explosive Arrow... BUT so can the other ATs. Blaster Tactical Arrow also offers more recharge in Upshot which gives me something like 200% global recharge. My Defender build turned out far better than the Corruptor I was working on. This is both due to higher debuff values and better buff values in powers like Weave/Maneuvers. The Trick Arrow/Archery Defender has ample build room to covert other powers from 0 damage into micro-nukes outside of the Oil Slick cool down. I've made my Blaster build as like a Frankenstein's Monster build from what I have learned from the other ATs. My Blaster gets pretty good defense, I don't think I hit 45% completely, but also includes a procced Ice Arrow as a rotational attack along with procs in other things like Glue Arrow and Electric Net Arrow. It's performance should blow away the other ATs on damage while having just enough defense to not be complete glass canon it is a work in progress though. If I didn't build my Blaster the way I did, then I would still consider Sentinel Archery on single-targets. Sentinel Archery is quite good though lethal resistance muffles that performance. Dual Pistols is unique on the support ATs because they can get Soul Drain from either Soul or Dark Mastery. That effectively adds Aim/Build-Up back to Dual Pistols where it didn't exist otherwise. If you play a support set with access to AoE resistance debuffing with saturated Soul Drain, then the AoE damage potential spikes pretty high. It is also pretty conditional. The Sentinel at least has a lower cooldown on Hail of Bullets but both my Defender/Corruptor can maintain a damage buff from Soul Drain between spawns. So while those ATs may not have their T9 active they do have damage boosted Bullet Rains/Empty Clips on top of being able to slap the next spawn with a resistance debuff field (Dark Miasma, Tar Pit is up quite often with my recharge). If I played Time Manipulation with Dual Pistols the AoE disparity would be pretty big there too. I've played a procced up Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast Defender but I have no analog to a Sentinel. That one runs very similar to my Dark Miasma though the combination has pretty ridiculous levels of defense debuffing and to hit debuffing (-44%!). For other proc silliness, the Controller is also in a realm of tank-mage. Controllers get some dumping on in groups since controls kinda suck in some groups, but that's why I converted support powers into more explosions. My Gravity/Time and Dark/Dark Controllers are proc whores that also soft-cap their own defenses. They aren't as ridiculous on Pylon time tests as other damage dealers but they do far more damage than they should be allowed to do. I also run a Plant/Nature build but that is less about procs and is my own true support character. Though Plant doesn't need a lot of help because it is F'ing amazing on its own, and Nature is equally wonderful in its own right. So that's a lot of extra chatter which kinda looks like it derails the topic. In order to get back on point, let me just say this. I used to always play melee or support on the old servers. The Sentinel has gotten me to completely rethink everything and appreciate the build process in a way I never thought of previously. The Sentinels I have made have been absolute blasts to play, and I still enjoy them greatly. My Sentinels can't hope to touch the damage of the Stalkers or Scrappers I have in single-target, but absolutely miss my Sentinel AoE when playing them. My two Scrappers are Dual Blades/Dark Armor, and Spines/Bio Armor. Both of those have damage auras and AoE options but it still pales in comparison to dumping a T9 AoE every 25 seconds. The only melee character I play right now that I regret NOTHING on is Dark Armor/Titan Weapons tanker because holy shit... that shouldn't be as effective as it is. So yeah, the Sentinel is an AT I never new I needed in my life because it has completely changed my perspective on the game. I don't enjoy it because it is the best at any one thing. I enjoy it because it is a consistent performer in a wide variety of categories across all levels of play. I don't find that level of consistency much outside of the melee ATs or Masterminds (currently playing 2 of down from 6! ...lol). Edit: Damn, I have a lot of time spent in my characters. At one point I had a lot more, because why not? Now I limit myself to about 20 characters 3 of which are Sentinels. In 2020, the Sentinel is probably the only AT that I will devote more characters too, but that won't be until I finish a couple builds. I've taken a break so I need to farm up cash to polish off my Blaster, and a few others. Once that is done I will probably explore 2 or more new Sentinel sets I haven't really gotten in to yet. Despite the ATs short comings I still really like it.

Just for others that browse, the highlighted is an exception and not the norm. This coming from someone that actively plays a proc heavy damage oriented Defender.

Because that is where your inner Scrapper lives.

Never had this issue myself. Without seeing your build one can only speculate as to what you're doing differently. Mind sharing your build so people can see what IO sets you are using?