oldskool

I'm currently running Mid's Reborn 2.6. I won't be able to post a data chunk build until after work. I'll see what I can come up with though.

The more and more I consider /Regen on Sentinels, the less attracted I am to trying to push hard for defenses. If you're already making a mostly ranged build, then that is a pretty solid defense in and of itself. Plus Water slows and knocks down. You should be able to buy time to regeneration. Focus on recharge FIRST because that makes Second Wind/Reconstruction available more. That's your real "regeration" just as it always has been for all versions of the set. All that said, I hate the Winter ATO's for the most part and try to avoid their overpriced and overhypedness like the plague. You can build reasonable defense by accident by just focusing on more rational aspects to the build. Building for resistance is a waste of your time. With more recharge you can prune your attack chain down and you shouldn't need Aqua Bolt. You can keep it to mule a set or trigger Offensive Opportunity, but it should start to take a back seat. Water Blast can get incredible with damage procs. Even though you don't need the heal from Dehydrate, check out the types of damage procs it can take from all its sets. I'd reconsider it and try to rig in more damage output. I like the Opportunity Strikes ATO as a possibility in Whirlpool because that set is good at 5 pcs, it can proc there due to the long ass recharge, and you should use Whirlpool pretty much on cool down. Slap a -resist in there too and call it a day.

Let me know if this works. Also worth noting that Dual Pistols vs Radiation Blast has some variance in slot allocation due to different powers. I only use 3 procs and 3 Thunderstrikes as a bit of a cost break vs @Knottewe's build. If I had the Hami's for it, I'd probably consider it. There is no kill like overkill! | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1443;673;1346;HEX;| |78DA6594CB4F135114C6EF6DA7145A0A2DEF770584165A86565DA8D1982862E425A| |1892BB54EE815069B69D3D64497FE0B3E579AB874E346A36EDD8B8F9D8FB8F7C543| |FD03C633733E8BC94CDAFC3AE77EDFBDF73B97CBE2F599E627676E9E10B2E554D1A| |856F33965D54C4B1583B9555359AB4A384F90BEF17F23F915C35A53057DC5289846| |CD2C59F993E4ACF5D6C767D415655595BE645A1B66AD7A4D44964BA5A23E6BAEAD9| |3602DE4BEE5CA4A155ADD9F0BCA28A84A75DD2C87595874947DA7CBE6AABE37A951| |B99A5FA47554E5460F6D678CBEA1A4C06307C423425613530FC087E02B9F10ED9A9| |8DEF4B9EFD369BFCBB38E57BA5E9FE8946E2DDD014699E12424C2D6E4178DFD1F98| |D98FE027F033B3993C7EECC9FF9E6BDA3BE6D06B66629339F986997ECB8C9037006| |F00791A90A701791A9123811C8906E2A0265A927C4CE495C194A30D8AC6C7AC9DA3| |B126646D42D610B28690759E3461D604C27F78EEE6DFE036B36507DC65467F3117C| |81B713B658B884D8F58A44A2B92B4DEE75D44EF31F7DF026F837798E377A1236F0C| |DE58966B6D19708A399C0675E628BAB244DE7678DBB778771D3FC1AFCCAE6FE077E| |6D00FA6A4F675B25774BA29FC54E946DFBABBA4DBE79E6EB08719A3157BF137D2FB| |92CFA8EF05F89439F00C7CCE3C479E7E9E57F41FE0D54768AD41AEC9419CDF10D84| |6FA38D6881FE7A4FB8E8147C0C3E8C851A646F38D60EF2338F3519CF928CE3C469A| |3168C6A01987661C9A655A3B898E260D9E7BE2327801BCC89CBC04E699619A3F858| |EA6DC8E36514547721D2B8A2E21325065E6B91B035AFD66D3C7716E4C38F7D5B91D| |B63DE919CD782A594FE5A0A772C85359F05496B5FAFF00213943B47EC3EDAD108DC| |AFF4777F62A3E799E13FA8639953647EF094D6C7B5CBB7B1529713F7CB8377F01DC| |0DF0EA| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Ah, that's good to know! Looks like the new version of Mid's Reborn fixes a lot visual stuff that was throwing me off too!

I just tinkered with your build in Pines. You're capped on multiple sources of regeneration and you aren't gaining any bonuses fro those. You can only get benefits from 5 IO sets. The Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge is a special one that stacks with itself and other sources that are not LotGs (e.g., Panacea's 7.5%). I count about 7 sources with 12% regeneration as IO bonuses (2 of these do nothing for you at all). There are also several sources of 10% regeneration which are suppressed. You are technically regenerating quite a bit per second, but your overall health is around 1700-something in Pine's. You could ease off the regeneration percentages, since you're over cap on set bonuses, and find sources of more IO set hit points. That might lower the regeneration number, but the higher hit points is a better buffer on direct damage. We'd be looking at less regeneration per second in the low single digits. You could also benefit from other IO global perks like those from Steadfast and Gladiator's for 6% more defense. Other sets could yield you other +defense perks to get you over 20% if you were interested. You could also just chuck down inspirations if that is the plan. Either works.

True! Forgot about that in my other reply. Pine's accounts for the old % method and doesn't accurately reflect the actual PPM value or its chance to proc. It tosses around 58% in just about EVERYTHING then shaves off more average damage for every bit of recharge increase. The game doesn't handle procs like this so it makes a very deceptive view of how much damage these contribute per power.

Pine's seems to continue to calculate all sources of recharge, including global recharge, and this isn't how the game actually does it. Pine's also tells me DP/Nin with T4 Incarnates should be doing around 178 DPS which is frankly F*ing laughable. I ran a series of pseudo lazy tests prior to finalizing my build on Justin first. That was around 234 DPS (edit note, found my test notes! 🙂 ). Knowing what I know now, my current output is better than that. Take Pine's with a grain of salt. It's useful, but it some of the metrics are straight bullshit.

The support player in me has a heart attack seeing this, but I can get why a Blaster would go for moar damage! 😉

Shameless plug, but I have updated some of the write-up on Dual Pistols on page 3 of that thread. Dual Pistols is a really nuanced set that can be run a number of ways and that is something I find truly refreshing in this game. I get the complaints that I see from Blasters about it, but I can't help but feel it misses the forest for the trees. So I'll reiterate that I really do enjoy the Devastation Set use you present since it works so nicely with changing Suppressive Fire from a Stun to a Hold via Swap Ammo. It also takes advantage of the longer recharge value in Executioner's Shot since the PPM value of the proc is 3. Have you done a side-by-side comparison of building up the 720-ish% regen with pushing more max hit points? Perhaps you can save a slot here and there by going with 4 each Numina vs just pushing the ED of regen values. Numina at 4pc gets you some more hit points along the way as well as a global healing bonus which will stack 5 times (like all other bonuses do) IIRC. That bonus should effect regeneration rate too since it is considered a form of healing. You have a lot of potential sources of high health bonuses in the sets you're currently running so you might cap on 5 sources pretty fast. I can't pull up Pine's here so I am really just spit balling ideas, but generally pushing hit points was the path to greater regeneration values. While the high percentages are nice on paper, the real number you want to consider is hit points per second. High max health = more health restored even at a lower overall Regeneration %. Your build may already be on point for that, again I can't see the numbers myself, and if so you can just ignore all of the food for thought above

I think its well within line of the topic. This thread is about both Dual Pistols and Regeneration, and we're chit chatting about Regen specifically. The different perspective on why you decided to slot the way you did can be valuable information to others. It is actually far more valuable to me than just seeing a dump of a Pine's build. Often people just dump builds but never really explain where their head was at when they did it. This allows individuals to make all manner of assumptions in order to fill in the gaps without questioning the source. Your take here is certainly interesting and it is a serviceable build. I was just curious as to the thought process since there is no way in hell, outside of Incarnates, you're going to touch the regeneration cap for the AT. If you're going to eventually run Incarnates like Ageless then the slotting you're going after now is going to be overkill during the height of the Ageless buff. That would smooth out over time giving you a bit more buffer for the duration. The Melee Hybrid would also give you a big regen boost when surrounded. So my thought on asking "why" here is also a little tied to opportunity costs with the attacks. Devastation has sizeable hit point bonuses though so I can see a reason for that set even if I am not a big fan of the Hold proc itself. That's absolutely my own bias for how I prefer to build Dual Pistols and characters in general. Anyway, it looks like a clever solution for making a survivable DP/Regen.

I play my Archery/Tactical Arrow in the spirit of my old Trick Arrow/Archery Defender. So my selection of toys includes everything from the secondary and treats them like Defender-lite powers. Except Glue Arrow which mules damage procs. I was on the fence about using damage procs in Electric Net Arrow and Ice Arrow, because c'mon that's broken stuff, but opted not to do it. So I say... why not both? 😉

Singy and Fluffy are complete BFFs too. I feel that the later sets like Time and Dark just opened so many doors to Gravity. Sure, those sets are amazing on every control primary but I just thoroughly enjoy Time Manip with Grav. The extra control in the secondary is everything I ever wanted for one of my favorite primaries in the game.

Rad Blast is OK. You can check out Defender and Corruptor builds for ideas on what to do there. Just replace the snipe with the Sentinel equivalent. I'm not a fan of X-Ray but it has value for Defensive Opportunity. For Rad Melee, I'd not worry about trying to soft-cap defenses. You can, and should, pursue some defense boosting through pool powers but chasing high defense values is trade off to more damage potential. That said, there are good melee oriented set bonuses like Unbreakable Guard which can make close range safer. I'd probably lean into that strength and get scrappy.

Not at the moment, but I can tell you what sets I use as best I can from memory. I use 3x Luck of the Gamblers in Ninja Reflexes, Danger Sense, Weave and Maneuvers. I use the LotG global in Combat Jumping. I use the full Reactive Defense set in Shinobi-Iri, but there are other ways to slot this with the travel sets. I also 6 slot Preventative Medicine into my click heal. Those sets all provide the bulk of the non-purple recharge. I 6 slot the endurance restore with full Performance Shifter for the 3% AoE defense. Coercive Persuasion is slotted in Blinding Powder for all of its merits. I mule the Shield Wall Global in the T9, but you could steal a slot from Health and slap that in any of the other defenses. I have a Positron's Blast (5pc only) in Empty Clips, Sentinel's Ward in Bullet Rain, and a purple set in the T9 (Armageddon specifically, but Ragnarok would do the same for others). I have Opportunity Strikes 5pc sitting as a mule in Dual Wield. I only ever use DW to activate Defensive Opportunity. DO lets me keep a steady stream of attacks in AoE packs without ever having to get animation locked using the /Nin endurance restore. I still use that power, but DO lets me use it only in emergencies. The proc didn't seem to do much for me so I rarely worry about where it goes for Dual Pistols specifically. That leaves my other purple set, Apocalypse, to live in my Executioner's Shot. That's 111.x% recharge before Hasten. This sets me free to slot Pistols and Suppressive Fire with procs. I could quad slot these, but I do prefer having some endurance reduction from 3pcs of Thunderstrike. The set bonuses are just icing on the cake. Anyone could go at this a different way and still come out with good results. This is just what I found works best for me. Health is slotted pretty much standard with procs and Stamina only has 2 pcs of Performance Shifter. With lucky procs, this is all I ever need, but I have a few other layers (Defensive or Clicky) to keep me going. I have had risk of running out of end on tough fights like AVs and I didn't have blue inspires. I think I drain something like 1.3 end a second and my attack routine is over 4 endurance a second. Anyway, that made me revisit how I was handling endurance so I made changes. I decided to focus more on my single target output hence the procs. However, I don't feel my AoE is all that bad. I can juggle Empty Clips and Bullet Rain with a minor gap. I usually open with Hail of Bullets into Void Judgment then Bullet Rain and finally Empty Clips. I will also toss around some caltrops (Tashibishi) to create some NPC confusion to exploit AI behavior or use Blinding Powder as an opener to obnoxious enemies like Malta.

I triple proc 2 attacks and double proc 1 with my DP/Nin. I have 181% global recharge, 46% melee defense, 49% ranged defense, and 44.98% AoE defense. Hasten recharges in 119 seconds (enhancement boosters). I don't use Force Feedback at all, but did at one point.

I've only ever dabbled in Electric attacks from a Dominator perspective, but the Sentinel version looks like a promising set. I'm about as fond of Radiation as I am things Dark, and Radiation Blast has a lot of potential for damage procs. In edition to the Achilles' Heel proc, the set can take the Lady Grey, Shieldbreaker, and Javelin damage procs. That's a pretty good chunk of damage for even a power as lame as the T1. -Res procs will also skew effectiveness on solo tests but it does get a bit murky on teams. The -res procs do not stack effects. On teams where everyone has an Achilles' Heel, it is probably a bigger benefit to have a damage proc in its place. That's really just some Devil's Advocacy since I do not build my characters that way. I tend to enjoy grouping with random people so I like making my characters as self sufficient as possible. This strategy works well when I solo. There is a valid argument to be made for being a bit more selfish in your build choices on more dedicated groups. Anyway, I greatly enjoy reading your ideas on the various sets!

The other sections offer a lot of broadly applicable things to a pretty wide audience. Maybe there will be more discussion on those topics than specific sets. I'm hoping I can get to crafting some write ups for the other sets I dedicated myself to this week. Maybe some of the defensive sets. Dual Pistols turned out to be far more complex to write about than I originally anticipated. Even Friday I was tinkering with some options and discovered something new I liked. The other blast sets I opted to discuss are more straight forward topics and hopefully won't be nearly as long.

Nice guide on SR. I'd exercise caution on advising Tactics + Gaussian's + Dual Pistols. I address that combo in my write-up on the set, but I wouldn't generally recommend it.

Are all of those basic IO's a place holder for a set later on? Looks like you're hitting a lot of diminishing returns for little gain if not.

That's an interesting point too. On paper, WP can meet or exceed the passive regeneration of Regen. However, those click heals of /Regen do bring a lot to the table. Reconstruction and Second Wind are no joke. Sentinel /Regen is a good set especially if you can guarantee your distance with Hover.

I've played Sentinel AR. Sentinel AR is a powers hungry set, and so is Invulnerability. This won't leave you with a lot of room for extra toys, but that's OK. Invul is pretty durable and doesn't really need a lot of extras even on regular old basic IO's. Invulnerability can also get away with a lot of underslotting (non-max). On basic IO's you can put 2 resist IO's in the passives if you like, and up to 4 in toggles (3 resist 1 endurance). This might make slotting on the primary kind of tight. Thankfully, Burst and Disorienting Shot don't require a ton of recharge slotting so you can underslot them a bit on basic IO's too (4-5). I do not recommend skipping anything in Assault Rifle on Sentinels unless it is a min/max build using IO sets. If you really felt you wanted to skip something, it would be Slug and only after you've finished making it. Let me explain why (it's a preview of what I'll put in guide sometime soon). First off, Disorienting Shot is the best attack in the set and you can get it at level 1. It's damage-per-activation is very high for what it is and its not a typo. Burst is your only power that comes with a debuff (-defense) and both animates and recharges fast. In fact, if you want to go on the cheap and just 3 slot this with Thunderstrike (acc/dmg, acc/dmg/end, dmg/end) then that's fine. The defense debuff from Burst helps a little with accuracy early on and the power itself can be available frequently due to its short cool down. Slug completes your attack sequence until level 26. That's why I don't recommend skipping any of those. Even at level 50, if you ever exemplar AR will be stuck with only 2 attacks for single target if you skip these. Furthermore, Incinerator at level 26 comes with a 15 second long cool down meaning long gaps if you skip something. You could supplement your single target attacks with an AoE, but AR's attacks aren't great for that. AR is a heavy AoE set offering 3 cones and 1 targeted AoE. Buckshot is possibly a skip option, but if you drop Slug you'll need it to supplement your attacks early on. M30 Grenade may not look like much on paper but it is your only source of a 10 target attack on the Sentinel. That alone makes it valuable. Flamethrower comes at 18 which matures your AoE earlier than it does your single target. The capstone power, Full Auto, is the final cone. There is no reason to skip it. Finally, there is Aim and everyone enjoys a burst of damage. Again no reason to skip it. For basic IO leveling, I'd prioritize Defensive Opportunity making Disorienting Shot even more valuable. All of your AoE's will contribute to restoring health and endurance. So the build should feel very energizer bunny-ish against groups of enemies, but may be a little "meh" against tough targets. Maybe, maybe not.

Sentinel Archery is great! I'd recommend either Super Reflexes or Ninjutsu though any of the secondaries can work. I'd suggest you take both Aimed Shot for Offensive Opportunity and the other T2 (forgot the name) for Defensive Opportunity. For max damage, you want Stunning Arrow, Blazing Arrow, and Perfect Shot. You'll want to push recharge (SR is helpful here as is Electric/Radiation/Energy etc) so you only ever cycle those 3 attacks over and over. You'll substitute either of the two weaker attacks for which ever Opportunity you want at the time.

35ft radius 1 target max. Pine's is a little deceptive about the regen and recovery aspects, but with high recharge it is easy to have it active as needed. Obscure Sustenance does a lot of stuff. It heals about 10% health up front. Then it triggers 3 regeneration and recovery benefits. The first regeneration/recovery effect is the strongest and only lasts 10 seconds. The second tier regen is identical (172%) but the second tier recovery is slightly less (38% vs 60%). The final tier regen is 100% for the full 1 minute of the buff. The final recovery benefit is 10% for 30 seconds. The above is essentially 3 separate buffs which all stack but have different durations. Just tested this and even without any enhancements the endurance recovery jumps to 7 end per second for 10 seconds and then down to over 4 for 20 seconds. 60 second default recharge which can be brought down to 15-17 seconds in many builds. Dark Blast and Water Blast are pretty great with it.

Invulnerability, Willpower, and Dark Armor can all get to around 32.5% defense vs their respective categories. Dark Armor will want to include Psi Mastery for Link Minds to get it that high, but it is possible. Invul has an easier time hard capping S/L resists than WP. Dark won't cap resists without Rune of Protection, but it can still run with nearly 50% to many types. Psionic resist on Dark is higher than all the other sets baseline and it is laughably easy to exceed 60%. Dark Armor for Sentinels has pretty ridiculous amounts of regeneration. The knockback hole is still annoying. Dark Blast won't be the greatest solution to squeeze in a soft-cap alternative at all times due to AoE target caps, but against those targets their to hit can get wrecked.

Do you have a copy of Pines or Mids to play around with a final build? It makes it so much easier to plot it out. Fire is a great Epic and there is nothing wrong with the Flight pool You could respec and make some changes, but I highly recommend tinkering with a build planner first!