oldskool

I definitely want all the aggro. How is Bio/Spines on Tankers?

I mentioned my rationale in this thread. I acknowledge that Psionic Strike can hit hard, but it has a damage-per-activation (DPA) that is rather poor in conjunction with the rest of the set. If you're building towards using an Epic Pool like Psionic Mastery then Psionic Strike becomes a superfluous power choice in the build. Psionic Strike may hit fairly hard when it lands but you can get more damage over a period of time by not using it. So its a matter of burst damage vs sustained damage. Psionic Strike is good for one but not both. As always, I will state that a high level of min/max isn't necessary in CoH, but it is a form of thought exercise that some people do enjoy. Whatever you heard about Sentinel Dark Armor is only partially accurate. Dark Armor can be endurance heavy as it includes an extra defensive toggle over all of the other sets. Dark Armor comes with 3 resistance and 1 defense toggles as the backbone mitigation set up where most secondaries only have 3 toggles at most. So right off the bat Dark Armor has one more toggle that costs 0.26 endurance no other set has. No one is forced to take Cloak of Fear or Oppressive Gloom. No one is forced to run both of them at the same time. Though to be fair to Oppressive Gloom its cost is pretty low. Sentinel Dark Armor has a brand new power with some unique mechanics called Obscure Sustenance. In some ways it works very similarly to Drain Psyche vs Dark Regeneration (melee Dark Armor). On activation Obscure Sustenance will heal the player if it hits a target (the amount is minor) and then it will grant 3 buffs to both regeneration and recovery. The duration for each regeneration and recovery buff is different but the effects stack. So for 10 seconds all 3 regeneration and recovery buffs will run at the same time. Once the first set of buffs fall off the other ones will continue for another 10 seconds and then drop off too. For 10 seconds after that there is a minor recovery buff that persists then fades and the minor regeneration buff continues for 30 more seconds. So in summary, Obscure Sustenance has a 60 second cool down that grants series of regeneration effects that run its course over 60 seconds and it grants a series of recovery buffs that run their course over 30 seconds. Sentinel Dark Armor can easily support all of its toggles and then some but it really needs to manage the up time of Obscure Sustenance in order to do it. Sentinel Dark Armor doesn't have a passive endurance buff but it most certainly has an active one.

I'd swap the slots of Tenebrous Regeneration with Obscure Sustenance. Putting that Preventative Medicine set into OS reduces the cooldown from 22 seconds to 17 seconds. Portions of Obscure Sustenance can be enhanced. Moving the set there not only improves your regeneration (from over 800% to over 1,000%) it improves the uptime on the strongest part of the endurance benefit. With a 17 second cooldown you can refresh the power, as long as a single target is in range, on the tail end of the second part of buff's cycle. That will give you more endurance over the long run. With the current recharge you'd refresh it at the beginning of when the buff is at its weakest point. 5 seconds won't make or break this build, but it is what I would do.

Definitely props for set choices using some cheaper sets. Slotting is pretty sound since it is tough to get a lot of defense on Dark Armor. Couple notes: You don't really have 193% recharge. You have 193% for a few seconds during Ageless. The peak of the buff drops off pretty quickly before the duration completes. You'll more often than not run around at 133~ish% recharge (during the bulk of Ageless) and 123% for all content under level 45. Your defenses are really good but Support Hybrid will have periods of downtime. Still, the combination of your regeneration, resistance and defense are going to serve you well. Good job! You can go with Dominate - Will Domination - Scramble Thoughts - [slight gap] - Will Domination - TK Blast most of the time. You could lose the gap and drop TK Blast during the height of the Ageless buff. Without Hasten active you'll resort to using AoE attacks as fillers. Not a big deal since most of time a single-target chain only matters against Elite Bosses+. Generally you'd just hammer out Psychic Scream and Shockwave to clean up after Wail. Word of caution... That attack chain will drain your endurance extremely fast. You're looking at a rough 5 endurance per second for all of that plus your toggles (1.46). Obscure Sustenance will grant you around 5 endurance per second (that's including Stamina + Accolades) for 10 seconds before that buff drops off. I'm working on my 5th Dark Armor character (I've made 2 sentinels, a tanker, a scrapper, and a stalker). Every time I tend to weigh in heavily on Cardiac Core as my Alpha of choice. I do love Musculature and Radial is a decent idea. However Cardiac is going to dramatically cut down on the costs to your attacks and Psychic's can be pretty expensive. In messing around with your build Cardiac shaves off enough endurance drain to put your consumption just under 5 endurance per second. So for 10 seconds you shouldn't notice your blue bar move too much. After that you'll notice and your Obscure Sustenance will have 16 more seconds left to recharge putting you into the 3rd phase of the buff. I'm totally spit balling this since I don't play Psychic Blast with Dark Armor, but I have played a lot of Dark Armor now so just leveraging that experience here. You don't have perma Mind Link. The non-Ageless recharge would have around a 16 second or so downtime. Still, you have a lot of various defenses in the low 20's or into the 30's. So you're doing pretty good there. 2 Membrane Exposures (which aren't cheap) would help shave more off that downtime. Another option is to try and frankenslot it with Defense/Recharge from sets with +5 boosters. Membranes would be the most dramatic path to take and +3 versions would be a big drop in recharge reduction. You could also push more global recharge with more rare sets elsewhere, but that'd be a longer term project.

You're not going to softcap defenses on Sentinel Dark Armor and you really don't need to. With Link Minds it is possible to get around 30-32% to Melee/Range/AoE. I'm not convinced it is entirely worth chasing beyond 30% personally. 75% resistance ain't gonna happen beyond Smashing/Lethal and in order to do that you're going to need to focus a lot of sets to make it happen. Reactive Defense has a Smashing/Lethal bonus, Preventative Medicine has a Smashing/Lethal bonus, and so on. Those are some sets I stacked on my Water/Dark and she has 71% Smashing/Lethal. However, she also has the Reactive scaling resistance so that does pad that out as her health goes lower. Her Melee defense is 30% and 28% to the others. My Water/Dark had a similar plan to what you're going for. Just soft controls (in her case more Knockdown) and use that to help pad out the defenses. Take it all as a layered approach. 71% Smashing/Lethal resist, 30% melee defense, and a whopping 1100% regeneration during the height of Obscure Sustenance (75 hit points per second!) on top of mass knockdown and/or Stuns (Geyser + Oppressive Gloom) is more durable than it should be. You can push some pretty silly levels of resistance for a short duration with Sorcery's Rune of Protection (effectively hard capping almost all resistances!) but that takes out a lot of other powers. Anyway, good luck! Toss out the build here if you still feel you need some help. There are plenty of folks that don't mind tossing out their 2 cents.

Mental Blast is currently a trash power. It sucks. It sucks a lot. Offensive Opportunity really won't add that much damage once you start building in quality enhancements for damage. I'm talking even 3 Single Origins (so level 22+). The resistance debuff from Opportunity is triggered from either of those powers. Telekinetic Blast also has far better slotting options since it can take on enhancements from the Knockdown/Back category which allows for some build creativity. Psionic Tornado is a targeted AoE. It animates in 2.5 seconds or so with Arcanatime. While Psi Tornado does a little less base damage than Psi Scream, 'Nado hits twice the number of enemies. Tornado has an enemy cap of 10. Like Telekinetic Blast, this too can take on the KB/D sets which opens some options. Psi Scream has a target cap of 6 with an Arcanatime animation of 2.9. Scream has some value for the -recharge, and it does slightly more damage. However it isn't as efficient as Tornado can be against larger groups. If you can take both, then I'd encourage it. If you want to skip one and take Shockwave from the epics, then I'd actually skip Scream here not Tornado. I often try to take both. You didn't bring up Psionic Strike. I'd encourage you to tinker with it and see if you like it. It can do considerable damage per hit, but its actual damage-per-activation ratio is pretty poor. You've mentioned long animation and I sense (with my own Psychic powers) that is kind of an issue for you. So you may be inclined to look at Scramble Thoughts as a toss away power. It's not. Scramble Thoughts has two important features going for it that make it unique for Sentinels. First, this power has a base recharge of 20 seconds. Second, it has an animation around 3 seconds. I know that animation sounds gross, but hear me out... This power has one of the highest chances to trigger the Superior Opportunity Strikes ATO proc. That proc, the purple version, has a PPM of 2 and Scramble Thoughts is the only single-target skill in the whole AT where this ATO is work a damn. I state this with importance because the current implementation of Opportunity includes a 20% resistance debuff. That debuff is VERY important to your high level play since Psionic damage is the most resisted damage type against high end enemy factions. So in summary, the important powers: TK Blast (you have to take one) Will Domination (This power is honestly broken AF with a base DPA just under Psychic Wail... that wasn't a mistype. Its your second most damaging power next to the T9.) Psychic Focus (your AIM) Psychic Tornado (your most efficient AoE - 10 target cap) Scramble Thoughts (special slotting attention) Psychic Wail (T9 - 10 target cap) That's it. You can feel free to skip Mental Blast, Psychic Scream, and Psionic Strike (if you like). You can potentially run an attack chain of Mind Probe (if in Melee) -> Dominate (because it is amazing with procs) -> Will Domination -> Scramble Thoughts -> Will Domination. You won't be exemplar friendly with this attack chain but you can easily sub in TK Blast -> Will Dom... etc. May need Psionic Strike if you do that. I'd have to play with a build to find out. Also, may I introduce you to Force of Will? Weaken Resolve grants you another source of negative resistance and it can take the Achilles' Heel proc for more -resist. This power doesn't do damage on its own, but it can take on the Lady Grey and/or Shield Breaker procs. The base animation and recharge makes those fairly reliable sources of additional damage while making all your other hits matter more. Wall of Force is a cone with a lot better slotting potential than Psychic Scream. Unleash Potential has its merits too. These may be too much to squeeze in to your build, but they are thematic as well as being decent substitutes. Tenebrous Regeneration is 100% regeneration without enhancement. Health is only 40%. Put your endurance management procs into Health and consider actually enhancing Tenebrous Regeneration. Skip Obscure Sustenance at your own peril. The +recovery only lasts 30 seconds. However, the effect has a cascading feature (not reflected in Pine's/Mids) where the strongest version of it only lasts 10 seconds. So for 10 seconds the power is at its maximum, for 10 seconds after that it is a bit less powerful, and for the final 10 seconds it is far weaker. The health regeneration aspect runs for a total of 60 seconds but its maximum potential is around 20-30 seconds (I forget exactly, but I detail in the write-up in the stickied thread). Anyway, aim to get enough recharge to refresh this power at least every 30 seconds for the endurance benefit. If you can get this down to 16 seconds or so, I can promise you that your endurance drain will be an after thought. Also, unlike other powers such as Dark Regeneration this one only ever needs 1 target in range. Already mentioned Dominate. If you put damage procs in to it, then it is amazing for you. Mind Probe is also amazing. Mass Hypnosis isn't worth it in my opinion. You can stack stun between Psychic Wail, Shockwave (if taken), and Oppressive Gloom. You'll neuter the threat of minions with just Oppressive Gloom. Sleep is cute for solo, but even then this is probably overkill. Link Minds can be made perma. It cannot take normal recharge enhancements but it can take IO sets with recharge in the enhancement. Like it can Defense/Recharge, Defense/Endurance/Recharge, or Endurance/Recharge.

I'm biased to Willpower since I have one. Tanker Willpower can get you softcap defense to the typed (Psi is a little tougher) and hard cap your Smashing/Lethal resistance. Psi resist can get pretty high, even hard capping if you want, but the other resistances are trickier to hit 90% on. You do get some hit point booster with High Pain Tolerance and then some sweet regeneration with enemy saturation. Against Smashing/Lethal enemies I don't notice my health move because I regenerate whatever pathetic damage does hit me pretty quick. Now, Willpower's taunt is attached to Rise to the Challenge and it is weaker other sets. So you may want to seriously consider taking Taunt from the primary if you lean towards skipping it on some combos. I too have a DA tank and also an Invulnerability tank. Invul is just classic and therefore, I recommend it. I haven't played much of Super Reflexes (made one, but didn't go far with it) on a Tanker, but that too has some interesting possibilities.

Make sure you run on foot to the mission door without any powers and when you get to the mission door let the pushup emote cycle 100 times. Then you go solo the AV in record time. If there is a situp emote (haven't checked), then do that 100 times too. Its the only way.

Stalker Dark Armor isn't so different from the others that you couldn't borrow some ideas off the other ATs. Its not like the IO sets change between the ATs. For example, the Reactive Armor set can be just as good for Stalkers as it is for others. Stalkers make the following trades in Dark Armor: Death Shroud is replaced by Hide. Cloak of Shadows is replaced by the Passive (forgot the name). Everything else is the same. All the sets you see in the resistance toggles on any Scrapper, Brute or Tanker build will be just as applicable to a Stalker. The slotting for Dark Regeneration won't be any different other than your own personal preference. I'd suggest taking a peek in the Scrapper thread on Dark Armor builds because the resistance caps are the same and they also gain access to Shadow Meld. So there is a lot in common there with the Stalker. You just replace slotting concepts for Death Shroud with more defense-based sets since you have Hide. One thing that I find nice about the Stalker version is that since it only has the 3 resistance toggles the endurance drain in the secondary is a bit lighter. Obviously end drain going to increase if you add in Cloak of Fear and Assassin's Strike can make an attack chain endurance heavy. However, you don't have to worry about Death Shroud AND Cloak of Fear. I have a couple Dark Armor characters now across Sentinel, Tanker, and Scrapper. I'm planning out another one, a Stalker, and I'm using the same logic I put into those other ATs into the Stalker. I often decide on taking Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear but I generally don't take both. I often take Oppressive Gloom since there are more attacks that can stun vs fear. The to-hit debuff is nice in Cloak of Fear, but the attack check is so low as a baseline that I don't rely on it. Decisions decisions. Some people don't like Soul Transfer, but I've grown to love it. I used to skip it on live, but I take it every time now. I love the theme of it.

A Saiyan in City of Heroes would be a character that door sits screaming for most of a mission until they've finally achieved enough power to face down the final threat for an amount of time equal to the time spent screaming. I'd totally play this, and sometimes I do when I just sit and scream at my monitor.

A Homelander build is really easy. Steps: 1) Make a character 2) Flag RP to "on" 3) Be a horrible person Step #3 maybe better off with RP flagged in the Rogue Isles where being a jerk may be seen more as tongue-in-cheek.

Couple things about Beam and the inherent. Your instinct about not really needing Charged Shot for Defensive Opportunity is sound. You may miss it if you exemplar but chances are Energize will still hold up. Players seem to wrap their heads around Opportunity as if it is necessary to have access to both. Hell, I thought that when I started playing Sentinels. From my experience, needing to take both the T1 and T2 is all in one's head. The damage effect provided by Offensive Opportunity is not so high that it is earth shattering post level-22. That damage additive cannot be enhanced so once you start increasing the quality of your damage modification with SO's and common IO's around level 22 the value drops for Offensive. Defensive Opportunity has value to some builds. I have used it on Dual Pistols/Ninjutsu as a method of avoiding the need to click my endurance heal. That method gives me an option of regaining health & endurance per target struck while still using a clickable that does damage OR I can just forsake damage for an immediate hefty endurance heal. For my Dark Blast build I completely skipped the T1 and took on the T2 (Gloom) not for Opportunity but because that power was the better choice for the build. So Opportunity can offer some tactical play for certain builds. Opportunity does not offer tactical play for all builds. Energy Aura already has a lot of really good endurance management so yeah, Defensive Opportunity isn't nearly that important. To be fair though, as I stated before, Offensive Opportunity isn't that amazing either. Since I've beaten the horse of Opportunity value enough I'll put this into context of Beam Rifle. You have a choice between Single Shot and Charged Shot. So, what to pick? Well, ideally you want to run Disintegrate -> Lancer Shot -> Piercing Beam (or some variation of that sequence) as often as possible without the need to rely on your lowbie attacks. So in an ideal world where you have the recharge to support those 3 good powers your choice of T1 or T2 changes a little. Single Shot has a debuff attached to it that has some value against hard targets like AVs and it also provides you Offensive Opportunity. Charged Shot's damage is a little better if we ignore the debuff and it also has the option of taking the Force Feedback recharge proc. However, if your use of the power is light then whatever procs you put in that power really don't matter. So I may lean more towards Single Shot, but really the choice here isn't a game changer. Your planner is out of date. Refractor Beam cannot take Decimation. If you aren't going to use Charged Shot much, or at all, then I'd highly recommend putting that ATO in Refractor Beam. Your version of Mid's won't allow that but you can do it in game. Alternatively you could put either ATO in Overcharge too. You have some very rare sets in your build plan, so I may as well suggest you put the Apocalypse set in Lancer Shot vs the Strikes ATO. The Opportunity Strikes ATO can go in Disintegrate, Piercing Beam, or Overcharge -- dealer's choice. If you take that set, then consider taking the chance for Opportunity proc. The proc isn't the most amazing thing the world but a random chance for more Opportunity meter has its merits (sometimes). I'd also consider putting the Annihilation chance for resistance debuff into Piercing Beam. (Edit: So the one thing about Opportunity that is worth your time is the -20% resistance which is applied regardless of the T1/T2. The Strikes proc can improve uptime on that debuff even if it is unreliable.) In short, prioritize slotting Disintegrate, Lancer Shot, and Piercing Beam. Refractor Beam is a good AoE so I'd 6 slot it with either the Ward ATO (has a chance to trigger per enemy) or go with damage procs (it can take a few). Cutting Beam is fine as is. Overcharge... I feel you can take it or leave it at 5 or 6 slots. I do like a 6th slot there with Achilles Heel, but I find I can also live with just 5 slots for a set bonus. That leaves Single/Charge Shot. Which ever you take you can slot it as little or as much as you like. You don't need to fully slot it since it shouldn't be a staple attack for you but you'll want some accuracy to land Opportunity as well as when you exemplar down. By dropping an attack you'll end up with more slots even if you devote a few to Disintegrate, Lancer and Piercing Beam. So if you can manage it try to 6 slot Aim with Gaussian for the extra defense. The largest bonus from that set is positional but you will still get some extra padding on the typed defenses. Without playing with it more that's the bulk of what I have. Oh, before I scuttle off. You can go into the options of those planners and change your accuracy in the exemplar options. Against a +4 target you'd have an effective 39% base to hit. You can lower your base to hit in the exemplar section of the option down to 39% and the planner will recalculate your accuracy for all attacks. I bring that up because you're running multiple copies of 4x Luck of the Gambler (9% accuracy bonus), the Kismet to hit AND Tactics. If your adjusted base to hit still shows a base accuracy over 95% you've got too much accuracy which may be better slots elsewhere. Keep in mind, once you get to T3 Alpha in the Incarnate system that level shift will boost your accuracy even against level 54 enemies (who would be effectively level 53 to you).

So I loved the entire response, but very much like what stated "like" isn't enough even for this sentence. There will be nothing but disappointment if one tries to do a Blaster vs Sentinel comparison. Sentinels just don't have the AoE that Blasters have. However, depending on a build it can get pretty close on single-target sustained damage. Sometimes that can even exceed some Blaster builds. A Sentinel vs Stalker/Scrapper isn't going to win on single-target even if it nips at the heels of those ATs. A Sentinel can do significantly more AoE damage than either of them. Sentinels really do exist in their own bracket when it comes to what is or is not valuable to a team. A question like "Why bring a Sentinel when you can bring a Blaster" is almost certainly going to be focused around clearing trash mobs as fast as you can since AoE is godly in CoX. You know what we don't ask enough of in these forums? Why bring a Scrapper when you can bring a Sentinel to an AV fight? Most high-end Sentinels won't exceed the single-target of most high-end Scrappers but they can get pretty close. Furthermore, the Sentinel is going to help clear the content on the way to the AV better than most Scrappers due to those Aim + T9 nukes they can drop. Then you have the protection from the secondary + easier times to kite while doing damage (if necessary) adding a whole new layer of survival that melee ATs don't have. Sentinels could use some tweaks for sure, but they aren't so bad that they have no place. I think the AT to AT comparisons can get pretty myopic. We can spend so much time looking at what Sentinels don't do that we lose sight of what they can do.

Easy now. We've got a lot of Ninjutsu fans in here that may not take to kindly to folks saying "less optimal". 😉

Its not quite "one player ... just nuke an entire spawn regardless of archetype". Judgments are powerful but they aren't that powerful. Judgment do allow everyone an opportunity to contribute where maybe they didn't quite have it before. No judgment is going to turn a Controller into a nuking monster like a Blaster, but if everyone is leap frogging the cooldowns on it you're going to drop minions/LTs within seconds while severely damaging bosses. But if you have two people dropping judgment at once then most of the targets are going to be defeated. It only takes a little bit of clean up to finish a spawn. There have been times where I have run to the next group, my T9 is on cooldown, and my judgment is on cooldown, and the only power I get off is 1 application of Bullet Rain (1.848 second animation) before target is dropped. That's not just the judgments doing it, but everyone else contributing. Still, less than 2 seconds to defeat a spawn isn't an unreasonable or even unrealistic expectation for Incarnate enabled players to achieve. Once everyone's judgment is on cooldown things will slow down, but once they are back... its speedy defeats all around. Furthermore, its not like every team up at 50 is with a full 8 of Incarnates unless you happen to know them. I still get into pick up groups with folks below 50 or just at 50 with barely their full IO loadout. So don't sweat it too much. Most groups leveling steam roll content and that doesn't change at 50. The only thing that changes is that it can be faster and in some cases it can be extremely fast. That's all.

I agree with the points already brought up. However, there is a question related to "pulling" and "Do people play this way?". The answer to that question is a generally no. I have been on groups where someone playing a tanker has insisted on trying to line of sight pulls to "speed things up" by piling enemies into a neat cluster on them. That can work for some groups and it can work in lower levels. You will often find at the level 50 and beyond level that groups just make everything explode. The Incarnate system grants everyone an extreme damage area of effect power. Blasters will usually be the top burst AoE damage dealer, but everyone can contribute something in the post-50 game. It isn't unrealistic to run around clearing pack after pack with one or two folks dropping a judgment + T9 nuke, and then in the next pack someone else does it. Not only is handling mass groups of enemies post-50 trivial, but it is also creating a lot of identity crisis issues across archetype. The ability for practically everyone to contribute to massive AoE damage makes control less important. Specific controls like sleep become essentially worthless outside of soloing. Having a character devoted to being a speed bump for enemy damage, like a Tanker, is unnecessary when all threats are on the floor in seconds. There is specific content where roles can be more important but majority of teams will likely just steamroll everything. Sentinels fill a damage dealing role in practical terms. Just how good they are at that is a source of argument, but there is nothing wrong with the community at large having multiple DPS options (Blaster/Stalker/Scrapper/Sentinel).

The obvious choices are going to be sets with additional effects that stack with Radiation. Sets like Sonic Blast (more negative resistance), Dual Pistols (multiple options within ammo), Dark Blast (to hit debuff) and so on. Defenders aren't hurting for choice when it comes to secondary sets with good utility. If you haven't played with Water Blast yet, then I'd recommend taking a look at it. Water has some debuffs but more importantly it has some unique mechanics with its Tidal system. If you're inclined to build for IO procs you'll find Water has a lot of options. The set also has a lot of AoE attacks.

I don't play my Sentinels in a vacuum. However, I think you're missing some of my points and conflating them with something else. I'll restate my point if that helps clear it up. Dual Pistols can run an attack chain of Executioner's Shot -> Suppressive Fire -> Pistols with enough recharge. Opportunity highlights at 90%. The aforementioned attack chain is over 4 seconds long. The 3rd time you hit Suppressive Fire you will have built up 94 Opportunity making the third Pistols attack automatically trigger Offensive Opportunity. That's not perfect world sorcery. That's just math. The attack sequence is over 13 seconds in length and every 3rd Pistols shot will be a use of your Opportunity. Dark Blast can also do this by using Antumbral Beam -> Abyssal Gaze -> Gloom (or Dark Blast). Every T1 attack generates 8 meter. All of the other single-target attacks generate 13 to 14 meter. You can make Opportunity predictable and you can adjust your attack chain to accommodate it. Archery doesn't need its T1 or T2 in its attack chain. Its best attack sequence has Stunning Shot, Perfect Shot, Blazing Arrow. That means when Opportunity lights up, you can insert Aimed Shot or Snap Shot at your leisure. Psychic Blast can built similarly and so can Beam Rifle. Again, none of that is perfect world day dreaming. You can legitimately map this out and execute it in the game. Furthermore, you gloss over the notion that I don't care enough about who is on the receiving end of my Opportunity in most content. When Opportunity is just a part of my attack chain, it really doesn't matter if I nail a minion with it or an LT in most groups. Everything gets arrested so fast it doesn't matter. Besides, the side benefits of Opportunity (+damage or +resource) apply to every enemy hit for 15 seconds. So it doesn't matter who had that resistance debuff because their buddies are still going to get smacked with bonus energy damage or return heal/endurance to me. If I am going to fight a hard target like a Boss/EB/AV/GM they are going to be the focus of my attacks anyway and therefore they are getting tagged with Opportunity naturally. I realize that the effort I have put into learning Opportunity is not something that most players care to do or even has bothered with. That's why I am all for seeing a change to something less frustrating for the broader player base. So my Devil's Advocacy wasn't just imagining something in a vacuum. Its me describing how I play not just one Sentinel, but several of them. There are 13 Primary Sets. I've played 8 of them. Half of those have 0 need for both the T1 and T2 to make a competitive attack chain. Other sets where I do use both the T1 and T2 (e.g., Water Blast, Assault Rifle) I do not worry about which version of Opportunity goes off. I don't delay my attack chain because the Opportunity side effects aren't so massive they make or break my damage when playing in mission maps or deleting trash targets. Even against AV's which version of Opportunity doesn't make a big difference in my time-to-kill. Its the resistance debuff that matters and that is provided from either version and resistance debuffs really only matter against hard targets. In other words, what you view as a problem is something I have learned to play around it. It doesn't bother me that much, but I do empathize with others do feel it is a clunky inherent. Anyway, I'm on your side even if I disagree with the perception of what the problem is.

Have you played with Time Manipulation yet? I think everyone needs to experience the joy of that set be it on Mastermind, Corruptor, Defender, or Controller. Its just so good. I'll vouch for Plant/Nature. Its not only thematic but it is strong. Nature is really solid support set and looks great. Plant/Storm was an idea too as was Earth/Storm and Earth/Nature for my Druid theme. I just went all in on plants and its not disappointing. Gravity/Time is just a nerdgasm and it is effective. Gravity/Traps may hold some amusement of Wormhole -> Bomb. Its not a combo that I love, but fun with Wormhole is a thing. Darkness Control. You haven't played Dark yet! I have a Dark/Dark and I love it. You already have Dark Affinity so I'd consider throwing out Dark/Time since both would be new experiences.

If Opportunity were to be decoupled from the attacks, then I'd love to see the effects of both rolled into one thing. I'm not opposed to having a button like Domination that when triggered gives me bonus unenhanceable energy damage, applies a resistance debuff to $Target, and fuels my blue/green bar for the duration. I feel a need to play a little bit of Devil's Advocate with your complaints about the current system though. I do not feel forced to use the T1, period. I do not feel forced to use Opportunity, at all. Hell, for several sets I have designed my attack chain to include Opportunity to the point that I do not even need to think about it. For example, my Dual Pistol build fires off Pistols precisely at 94% Opportunity meter which can be built up predictably every 13 seconds like clockwork. Sure, a missed attack can be a little disruptive, but I also have the T2 which I can substitute. Did I feel forced to take the T2? Hell no. It mules a set. It just happens to be that if Pistols misses I can still trigger the resistance debuff with the other attack. The damage boost of Offensive Opportunity is so small as to not really be all that big of a deal if I don't maintain it every cycle. The resistance debuff is what really matters for damage output not the other perks. Dual Pistols is not unique in being able to do this either. Dark Blast can also be built up to tack on Gloom or Dark Blast after its two hard hitters which will also trigger Opportunity in a completely predictable pattern. Beam Rifle, Psychic Blast, and Archery can be built to have 0 use for the T1 or T2 in their attack chains. The decision to use whatever Opportunity variant in those power sets can be completely flexible and not nearly as disruptive as stated. All that aside, everything I have learned about building attack routines to make Opportunity a thoughtless rotational feature is the selling point for decoupling it from the attacks. The game doesn't teach you how to handle Opportunity making it feel clunky and not everyone is going to have the patience to experiment with it. So if the mechanics changed for the better to appease the wider audience, then I am down for that.

Is it worth it for just your character? Not really. Is it worth it to bring more damage to an entire 8 person team? Yes. If you can spare the endurance and the power picks always take the Leadership powers. They aren't just for you. 😉

In the most basic lowest common denominator sense, I would agree that more control heavy primaries (Mind, Earth, etc.) are widely beneficial to Dominators and more offensive oriented primaries (Gravity, Fire, Plant, etc.) are more widely beneficial to Controllers. Due to the differences in power prioritization, Dominator builds tend to feel more straight forward and Controller builds feel more nuanced. So it is very difficult for me to say one set is better or worse for either because it completely ignores Controller secondaries. Edit: Not saying the question isn't an interesting one. It is. I sat here struggling to really finger point at a say "Yeah, I'd rather play that on a Dominator" as some form of universal axiom. I say this because Mind Control is strong on Dominators for its control but so is Earth. Then I thought "is there a secondary that I feel really matters with Mind Control on a Dom" and I just couldn't think of one. There are multiple sets that work with Mind Control or Earth Control or Ice Control, or well you get the point. Though when I start to weigh the pros and cons of Mind Control on a Controller the secondaries matter to me quite a bit more.

I do have the obligatory Willpower/Super Strength but I don't count that as a flavor of the month. Its more like flavor comic books and all eras. I have started work on a Dark Armor/Titan Weapon Tank because of a costume combo I found that matches a concept. What's the synergy? Well, very little. Defensive Sweep is a welcome power to add more defense but that is about it. Knockdowns can be cute too. There are no to hit debuffs/stuns/fears to stack with Oppressive Gloom/Cloak of Fear making them skippable. Now, both of these do have two mantras in common: "The endurance bar is EVIL and must be punished!" "Your influence gains are EVIL and must be distributed in both sets!" I did not pick these two sets for playing with SOs or necessarily going around doing exemplar content. Both of these sets love them some IOs and the more expensive the better. In fact, that was another reason I really want to pursue this character project. Its all about playing with the invention system to really rig out how I want to approach closing the Energy Resistance gap while simultaneously building in enough endurance management to use some TW attacks. The character is all about the build challenge and it is stylish AF. I'm still tweaking my build but I know the paths to take to hit my goals. Even just messing around leveling it is a beautiful thing, but I wouldn't recommend playing it without some endurance procs.

As many as I can get away with.

Welcome to Sentinels. I've included some links below because this is not the first time this pairing has been discussed. Maybe those threads will give you some ideas. There are some builds in those as well as a lot of discussion. Sorry I am not posting a build, but I have a reason for that. That reason is that Dual Pistols is incredibly flexible. You can make entirely viable builds in so many different ways with the set. I wrote about Dual Pistols (and Willpower) in the sticky of this subforum (also included below). The Dual Pistol write-up is really long. It is that long because I find the set to be that complex. I also update it as I discover new things. So my recommendation to you, or anyone else taking a look at Dual Pistols, is to explore the set as a first time user. Seriously. Just take everything as you go and see what you like/don't like. Homecoming gives you a free respec every 10 levels. By level 50 that's 5 respecs. I've used far more than that on the live server even after spending hours on the test server playing with builds. To distill this advice even further... Willpower. Its an incredibly simple secondary that doesn't require any attention (no real clicks to manage) and doesn't require a lot of slots (see the second link). You can skip Resurgence (self revive) and maybe Strength of Will (proactive resistance enhancer - personal preference on use). Dual Pistols. For Sentinels the single-target damage attacks mature by level 18. All 4 of them (Pistols, Dual Wield, Suppressive Fire, Executioner's Shot) are valuable in their own way. Only skip one of those if you're planning on having a lot of recharge in your build. Otherwise, don't skip them while you level. Empty Clips can work as a filler for single-target if you like, but it is better for its purpose as a cone attack. Bullet Rain is a targeted AoE meaning it hits the highest number of targets (10) making it very efficient against large groups. I don't recommend skipping it. Piercing Rounds is a unique power that is a very narrow cone (hits only 3 targets) but does high damage at the cost of long recharge/animation time. Both Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds can be skipped if you wish. Hail of Bullets is the final power and it does the most area damage in the set, temporarily boosts your positional defense, and knocks down targets at the end of the animation (variable chance depending on ammunition status - see my write-up for more). Finally, Swap Ammo is the tool that makes your powers flexible in terms of what kind of effects they can impose on enemies. If nothing else, Incendiary Ammunition is a straight up damage increase that you should not sleep on. Check out (Edit: In my reply in this on this link, which was months ago, I talk about chance for Build-Up procs negatively. I currently use the Decimation: Chance for Build-Up in my build. However, I recognize that the chance to activate that on paper is pretty low. In practice it works due to how often I use the power it is slotted in. Still... I stand my statement on being very cautious on trying to shoehorn in Build-Up via procs. Just because a planner like Mid's shows a massive DPS boost during that effect does not translate into actual game play. It can be useful, but it is more advanced discussion as to why.) And And for more in depth reading