oldskool

Yup, similar boat. This looks very similar to something I started with. That first run was very apprehensive about giving up Defensive O, but it really just isn't an issue after a certain point. So I'm going to see about shuffling things to find out if I like Ninja Tools again. I really don't feel like a Ninja without a smoke bomb. :(

Overall looks good. I've seen the Opportunity ATO in AoEs a few times. Perhaps I have been doing it wrong, and maybe I need to test this. I've been building and tinkering on Justin under the assumption that the Opportunity ATO is probably best in an attack with a couple points of criteria. 1) It will be used actively, and 2) the base recharge is reasonable long. This usually leads me to putting the ATO in the longest cooldown single target shot OR an attack with the "narrow cone" property used in a single target rotation. All Sentinel attacks add an amount to your Opportunity bar. The ATO adds a chance of bonus Opportunity. So I've been treating it very much like the Brute Fury ATO and placing it in non-AoE powers. Maybe it doesn't improve Opportunity uptime as much as I really think and I need to test it in other powers. I honestly haven't seen a lot of talk about it, and I've just sort of applied ideas from the Brute set. Hmmm.... The Ward ATO probably has more value on SR than it does on many of the builds I play, and I can see it in the power placement here.

I'm excited to see what you come up with! ;D Edit: The original text here was written in a manner that wasn't appropriate to the original question. In my original attempts to offer broader insight, the results were unintentionally clumsy. It wasn't necessary as anyone can see from the following discussion. So instead, I'd like to focus on the original spirit of my comment. Sentinels as a whole have lower defensive values than ATs with the same sets. However, additional power selections and IO sets will close the defense gap (it is only 2%-ish within the base kit). This may or may not be something to factor as you build the character depending on personal preferences and budget. Sentinel SR also has new perks added which are nice. Other than those two points, Sentinel SR is going to feel very familiar to those that have used it before.

I'll use the above, but I'm really addressing that follow-up. I hope you don't mind my chiming in Redlynne. ;) A completely selfish "look at my DEEPS" chain with the recharge you suggest could be: Single Target 1: Incendiary Ammo -> Piercing Rounds -> Pistols -> Executioner's Shot -> Pistols, rinse-repeat. Single Target 2: Incendiary Ammo -> Pistols -> Executioner's Shot -> Pistols -> Piercing Rounds Single Target 3 (slightly advanced): Turn off all ammo -> Piercing Rounds -> Turn on Incendiary Ammo -> Pistols -> Executioner's Shot -> Pistols -> repeat (including the juggling of ammo) Single Target 4 (supportive): *Ammo [use what is most beneficial to the team - default/toxic/cryo] -> One of the chains above depending on ammo selection. Piercing Rounds takes priority with standard ammo due to the -Resistance if you think that is going to be the best benefit (probably will be) otherwise it really doesn't matter if you open with it. AoE: Opener - Hail of Bullets -> Bullet Rain -> Empty clips --- Caveat here should be that generally there really isn't an AoE attack chain. In CoH grouping is often too chaotic for that. Use a priority system. For 3 targets+ Bullet Rain should be your first choice, and Hail of Bullets is going to be the highest damage opener you have. Forgot Piercing Rounds but only if you're actively enhancing the range to expand the narrow cone. If you aren't building like that, then view PR more like a single target shot that can occasionally tag another target. I generally don't think about it because I don't enhance it like Redlynne does, but that idea is awesome regardless! Burst: Play a Stalker. No, I'm not trying to be flippant (OK, I guess maybe a little), but this isn't going to be the AT for burst damage. I'd also argue that DP isn't the best set to be saying "burst damage" nor is it a high DPS set for most AT's that get it. Even using Incendiary Ammo (the dps option) the set is about middle to lower middle tier on AT's that get it. That's not a bad place to be, but it isn't exactly Fire Blast either. I'd worry FAR less about personal DPS on a Defender. It's just not a strength of the AT, and worry far more about how you make everyone else do higher DPS. In a solo situation run Incendiary Ammo for your 'Fender to help speed things up if you like, but in a group you're going to be better off using the debuff options in the set. Applications of the debuffs are worth their weight in gold. You doing more Incendiary Ammo damage isn't worth a hill of beans more often than not.

Gmredux beat me to it on the Sentinel part. I'll leave the rest (heh): Defenders get the highest to all of it, the VEATS share the same number for Maneuvers with Defenders but have Controller/Corruptor values for everything else. Controller/Corruptors are just behind Defenders in total values. Maneuvers, at the very least, is worthwhile for every AT in the game. Sentinels are no exception there. The other toggles are going to depend on personal preferences/set IOs vs just power gaming (because Assault isn't worth it for THAT).

I've only recreated two of my original live characters. That's a SS/WP Brute and Mind/Psi Dom. Those happen to be my favorite power combos from their respective AT's. I also got their names locked in pretty early. I feel if I didn't do it, I'd regret it. ;) I have used the same names of other characters I had previously but I have done either variants within the AT or gone a different direction entirely. I had a Bane that I invested heavily in, rifle one not mace, and while the new version is an homage I plan to go Crab. My old Fortunata is now a Widow. I have an Illusion/Radiation Controller, again, but I didn't remember the name or the concept. So now he is something completely new plus he uses Sorcery. I've converted a few old Dominator concepts into Controllers. Mostly because there were aspects of the Secondary I remembered not liking, and some of the new sets fit conceptually. Like my Plant/Nature Controller works more for what I wanted. I had an old Sonic/Sonic Corruptor because I liked Red Side back in the day. That is now a Defender on Blue side. That's not the only one like it either. I've basically swapped all my Corruptors to Defenders now. That's mostly because I never gave the new inherent a real chance and my overall tastes have changed. Since I find I don't solo much, if at all, Defenders and their glory of heavy debuffs are exactly what I want in those characters. I've been spending a lot of time playing Stalkers and Sentinels. Sentinels probably the most. There are weapon sets like Dual Pistols/Assault Rifle I never took very far. That was largely due to re-draw. Well, not only is that not an issue anymore, I can play an AT with less activity in the secondary on top of it. My original favorite AT was Scrapper. I haven't re-made my first 50 which was Dark/Dark Scrapper or even my first big alt which was a Dark/Dark Defender. I think, sadly, my original "main" will be forever retired to the dust bin of history even if I am still a Dark-set fan boy. I have a Dark Miasma/Dual Pistols Defender in the works, but the original D/D 'fender suits better as a Dark/Dark Dominator (which I never played that combo). Alt-itis has been a problem.

Gloom, Abyssal, Antumbral are the highest damage of single targets in the set. If you're going to spend time juggling attacks, those 3 are going to be your best performers. I don't max the slots in Dark Blast. I have about 4 there and it mules a set. It can be substituted in the attack chain to activate Offensive O and that's about it. Abyssal should be able to take other sets beyond damage which opens up proc opportunities. While the base DPA is good, it can get even better depending on what you stuff in it. Anyway, Incarnate wise, I feel T4 Musculature Core is the way to go most of the time. For all but the Destiny/Lore slots, I'd suggest poking around the Scrapper/Stalker boards to see what they focus on for damage. Sentinels have a lot in common with them there and the defensive options in Alpha can take a backseat due to the secondary. For Destiny you have some options depending on what you feel you're missing, how you group, and all that. Lore, take whatever pets make you happy. You can take whatever nuke you like too, but the Ion and Voids are popular for good reasons. Beyond that I'm finding Incarnate choices are pretty binary for Sentinels. Good on defense? If yes, go damage. Need defense/endurance while IOing out? Go Alpha, and so on.

I know it probably isn't perfect, but this should give you an idea of what I mean by layering defense. It's also expensive, but the other versions aren't cheap either. Plus it is just to see what potential looks like, right? ;) Plus, if this is going to be your main, then is a labor of love! Maybe my ideas will help make that a reality. As I say below, feel free to pick it a part to whatever you like. You won't hurt my feelings, this is about helping you move to a path that nets you the most enjoyment for your time, right? 30-ish% defense to Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negative/Fire/Cold. Psi, 24.5% not really trying for it. Positionals kinda blow here. I have an easier time bringing up AoE as an afterthought on melee. I'm not convinced it is worth going out of my way on Sentinels due to how limited the sets are. You could change some powers, squeeze in melee ones and maybe get something better. Still, for the most part you're just shy of 45% with a small purple inspire. You'll need to be careful about targets with defense debuffs, but a little planning goes a long way anyway. For most general skirmishing you should be pretty comfortable, I'd think. I tried to keep the attacks you had so I skipped Energy Torrent and Power Push. Everything else you have in there with 6 slots and a free slot for most. I put Fire Cages in there so you could consider that as your KB blocker for your attacks. The 6th slots could be whatever I guess. The 3 slots in Fire Cages get you some hit points. Speaking of... With Accolades that's just over 2,000 health recovered at 60 HP per second. With Accolades you're sitting on 4.13 endurance a second, but the drain is 1.45 (could be better). Smash/Lethal resist 54.7%, (75% with Strength of Will), Energy/Negative 22.% (36%), Fire/Cold 27,4% (41.2%), Toxic (whomp whomp) 13.9% (27.7%), Psionic 36% (49.8%) So fairly medium defenses at all times with some hard capped Smash/Lethal resist during Strength of Will. Feel free to pick it apart, rebuild it better, stronger, faster than before. Have fun! P.S. Oh yeah, mezz resists. Indomitable Will is already a very good power there, but check out what Strength of Will gets you for the duration. "Don't mezz me bro" isn't going to be an issue. Just managing damage in take. For an Incarnate, I've been leaning heavily towards Barrier for the Destiny slot on Sentinels I tinker with, but Ageless is also good for recovery/recharge if you need them. Rebirth can be hilarious on melee Willpower giving you basically original style Instant Healing rates for a short duration. Not sure I'd go for that on Sentinels though. I usually go for the usual damage enhancers in all the others like Musculature, Chance for Double Hit, etc... | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1469;681;1362;HEX;| |78DA65944B4F135114C7EFB483B52D50B094675B682B943E185B40A34663A280894| |252A88F95696A7B29A375685A1265E9573046444D5CB872E3CE6FE123EE7CC48F80| |1011D1159ECEFF5027994927BFD373EFFD9FFF3D7367161ECCB4BFB9FCF082503A2| |F558B8D46212F8D35DD905557BEA44BA32445F372D11D3C1C292C158D8A2C6BB386| |AC57D60B1769D9DA606B70462E4BA321B59B7AB55A5BBD2FEBC2935B5DAD6AF99A9| |465AF19CE55F5CACA5A07E266A81B159FF96F5E16CBB2DE58D16B83B335BDA4B554| |E7F4BA2C2C5021595FEF2733E3746FC7055F076DE20521AE8A23CFC1A31BCCA7A06| |7139C38A04BC8E6728557F6511052853AE914224B0AD71593138BCC3C78E21AB813| |E7A5B456C93ACC9C2703B6A7991360A706A6CDAA15AAEA4455C579036A6A04557F9| |26A1BABB67D52B1FA1DD8F59EF9013CF651B5A846E9D9B858D5951298C15CA18A6E| |8C39DC01544C5C45C5E42EE8A5F55E54165E537197BC7420E3E878851DF4BC047B5| |F836F1342F8A0ACFA46A0D41B04FB43CC30981E06F748B79BF7D87D0A3A8393CC29| |3038CD3C09264D4777681F7EDEA3FF113BDA0097692C803167E00F2A457E31F7C0D| |83EA8D05EFBE0C0D9972344E9B92E3297C06C1EFC4D6E07D8EDC07774FCF867E617| |E65730FE4DB5B8BD4B8E86B8EB43DCF5780FB30B74929310BB0EB1EB30BB0EB3EBF| |05F709F9C0CC3893A7C1EBB1E39C73CCD3C0346CE822AE947D943943DC4B876CC0F| |DE239FA3DC8D51F630C61EC6D8C31877AE9BF4C6596FFCF024B15E82F5DC3427853| |922C5731E530D8DCF92F60CB9EC26F309287A85C8F009CC981D0CAAAD379B7ECD4C| |D296C9D832595B66CA9699B665E66D999CDA7AC3856266DC5DF4E62273B0E5A151C| |53ABAFD3FA3285714F33BE3D842DF7ED866EF5867F35976F059CE799A59D4B96589| |8B96F8B625FE07AA180E04| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Are you thinking of Resurgence? Strength of Will is a resistance and endurance recovery buff with no crash that lasts a few minutes. Since WP has low baseline resistance to elements, Strength of Will can pretty much double those values while potentially getting you hard caped to Smash/Lethal (easy to do with Tough). I happen to like the recovery boost the most about it, and well.. there is no downside other than you cannot make it recharge faster. I think I agree with the other statements you make.

I've played WP on every AT now. I played a SS/WP Brute on the live servers pre-Incarnate with perma-hasten and the force feedback +recharge in Footstomp. So my AoE chain on that character was basically Footstomp every 4 seconds. Anyway, defense wise I never got past 32% and the knockdown is really what made him unkillable as it would allow his 1,000%+ regen to work wonders on the hit point stacking I had. That was pre-Incarnate stuff. I never did get to see the glory of layering all of that with Barrier too, but I plan to now. I also played a Dark/WP Scrapper. I currently play a StJ/WP Stalker, a re-creation of the aforementioned Brute, and Beam/WP Sentinel. Here are some general tips and advice. Regeneration rates can look great on paper but if you check the advanced totals the actual hit points per second may not be much to write home about if you skip maximizing your health. I know, it sounds obvious, but I am being serious. Pushing regeneration rate and hit points should be going hand in hand. Just raising regeneration for the sake of it is a waste of time and resources. Not accusing these builds of that, but just sayin'. On recovery, WP is toggle heavy (well, I consider it that because I layer it with other pools - needed some clarity here) and Quick Recovery helps pay for that, at first. However as a build matures and you start adding stuff like Accolades Quick Recovery + Stamina start to shine. I have felt that 1 end mod + the chance for endurance is all I need. That's 2 slots in each power. Furthermore, Fast Healing and Health are just fine with procs. I'm particularly fond of slotting only the procs related to endurance in those. I generally skip Regenerative Tissue but I do like the absorb proc. Anyway, that makes those two powers a total of 2 slots as well since I'm only seriously looking at maybe 4 procs. Up to the Challenge is my Sentinel's heavy lifter for overall regeneration. Willpower (and Bio Armor/Energy Aura) is a typed defense set. Melee AT's have a luxury of different sets with bonuses to either positional or typed defense. The Sentinel doesn't have that without picking up/slotting some melee. Ranged sets just suck for defense bonuses in the current state of the game. Willpower needs to layer defenses. Relying on just baseline regeneration and defense isn't really enough. Your effective hit points gain some mileage from resistance too and Tough from Fighting helps Sentinels a good bit since their Smashing/Lethal defense will always be a challenge to raise. I'm not a fan of Warmth on Sentinels. I'm even less a fan of Warmth with no slotting. The heal just seems too low to be valuable at all. Willpower can get overwhelmed since it's base defense kit isn't dedicated to any one thing. A small heal isn't going to keep you from face planting. I'd think it would be better in practice to focus on immobilizing others, building up defenses (either typed or just Ranged), and letting the passive regeneration take care of it. Speaking of pushing defenses, Willpower has no DDR to speak of. Machine gun enemies are pretty common. That's -7.5% defense each time they land a hit, and they will eventually land a hit. Your defense on WP is going to get stripped down. Doesn't matter if you have 45% or not. The moment a single foe hit you with a defense debuff, the cascading failure starts and it is just a matter of time before you're eating more and more damage. So that in mind, there is some argument that pushing for 45% in *something* is better than not doing so to help buffer the cascade. I tend to lean towards pushing moderate defense (like 32%), accepting the risks, and bolster other aspects of the defense (like hit points/resistance) with fewer slots. This strategy also lets me build up some global damage % on all of these characters using WP. For my Sentinel I have to slot a melee with Kinetic Combats to round out my Smashing/Lethal which is around 31.X% I think. I'm ok with that. Just some food for thought.

I have not checked that about the Hold. It is an interesting thought, but I can't commit much time to test it unfortunately. At least not this week. Anyway, I agree with where you are going. I like Pistols for the proc possibilities and did that myself. Looking good!

Gloom, Abyssal, and Antumbral do the most damage out of the 5 single target attacks but if you are comfortable with what you have no need to change. I skip Life Drain, but that is it.

Dark Blast (the T1 is also the name of the set), Gloom, Abyssal Gaze, and Antumbral Beam are your highest DPA picks in Sentinel Dark Blast. That's even after taking into account the incorrect numbers in Pine's. The scaling is off, but the DPA rates are correct. Just to note for the OP, while the numbers per shot may look similar, the devil is in the details. Gloom animates faster and Life Drain is slower. So as a damage per activation comparison (DPA), Gloom is stronger. It's also stronger by just base numbers too. Even though the T1 Dark Blast may look weak, because it animates faster (and thus allowing you to recover for another attack faster too) it out performs Life Drain. However, that level of performance isn't a huge number on it's face. The other major factor to consider is the Offensive Opportunity (which you seem to grasp already). The utility offered by Life Drain is the value it brings more so than the damage (which is just ok). Any Secondary with a self heal already will probably depreciate the heal in Life Drain. Also worth noting, is that Sentinel's have lower defense values across the board. Life Drain doesn't heal as much as other versions of it do. Typically LD is around 10%+ (depending on AT). For Sentinel's it is less. I'd say LD still has some value for sets without a heal, like Super Reflexes (which gets an absorb as an option, not a true heal). Other sets make LD a preference pick and not a must have.

Are you using 5 other purple sets with a 10% recharge already? That would be one reason why the Superior doesn't show up and the standard does (it's 7.5%). Because I pulled up Pine's and emptied my 5pc ATO socket and my global recharge dropped by 10%. So Pine's does register the Superior Opportunity set bonus. I haven't gone on Justin yet to see if there is a bug. There could be, but see if you're overlapping set bonuses in Pine's.

I have 4, with one that is my favorite, and the others I am working on. While not all of them are maxed out on live, the beta server lets me test my hypothetical builds. I agree there is a sweet spot, but it is also dependent on the Primary/Secondary pairing. As in the the AT's performance feels as if it has a very wide swing depending on what you pick. It's kind of like Controllers in that regard, but without the extreme variance that certain Secondaries provide. For example, my Beam Rifle matures it's attack chain by 26+ where it starts to rely less and less on Single/Charged Shot in the normal rotation. Depending on Secondary, both of those attacks are still good, but your options get better and better. However, my Dark/Regen's attack chain matures 18+ in the realm of attack selection. Life Drain is cool and all, but the first 4 single target attacks all have higher DPA. With /Regen, I have little need for the patch heal. I'm not saying it is a hard pass for all players, but in terms of picking the best DPA single target skills, you are in fact done by level 18. Then you just have to wait on Blackstar if you don't mind the PBAoE but that is really just icing on the cake. Furthermore, some set pairings can pose some IO set bonus challenges down the road. My AR/Bio is one of those pairings. AR is all targeted ranged AoE and single target ranged attack. That severely limits my IO choices within the primary itself in order to bolster Bio's typed defense. You can pick up Epic/Patron pools for more Smashing/Lethal defense, but it may conflict with a person's preferences. It certainly does mine. It's not a huge deal since Bio is pretty tough on its own, but it is worth noting that some pairings do not work as well as you might think. Or at least they will require more creativity than they first appear. Anyway, overall the AT is fun which is the most important thing.

I did notice that! I don't use a travel power. I actually don't use it on many ATs anyway because of Ninja Run, but yeah Shinobi-Iri is nice all around. I've lost some of my love for Suppressive Fire. I keep it, but it has less use for me when running Ammo which I've done since I unlocked it at level 8. Since Suppressive gains no added damage it takes a back seat, and the hold just isn't long enough for me to care. There is something to be said about turning ammo off and using the default secondary effect, but I feel no need to do it. If you run normal Ammo, Suppressive's DPA is actually better on paper and makes it more worth while to use. Incendiary Ammo makes everything else higher though Dual Wield vs Suppressive is a bit more competitive vs it being a washout. That's without considering proc opportunities which Dual Wield can win on. One of my build ideas stuffed procs into DW and it had a lot of potential. This got me thinking though. Suppressive's DPA isn't "bad". Especially for normal ammo. In fact with normal ammo Suppressive's DPA is better than Piercing Rounds and Dual Wield (substantially more so for the latter). So maybe I need to see if a Pistols -> Suppressive -> Pistols -> Executioner or Pistols -> Executioner -> Pistols -> Suppressive would be better with normal ammo. For most things not a Boss, that answer is probably "yes". That chain loses out on the normal Ammo resistance debuff of Piercing and the potential debuff of Annihilation. So it is likely the faster attack chain won't be better against Boss+ since on normal ammo Piercing is a guaranteed -9.6 resistance (assuming none of that is resisted by their resist value, which it will be for AVs). However, if the powers that be did allow Suppressive to gain damage from Incendiary Ammo, it would be a buff to that power and make a a quicker animating chain likely better in all situations unless you really needed that resistance debuff (so virtually only EB/AV). I'd love for Sentinels to have a unique attack chain for DP vs what everyone has. Suppressive Fire has the potential to do that, especially with normal ammo, but those debuffs in Piercing Rounds are strong reasons to keep it as a priority power. I doubt I'll change where I'm at with my build right now, but these are definitely things to consider. I also hope it is obvious I am just thinking out loud, and that this thought process is aimed at pretty tough targets. My build has all the DP and Nin powers. In actual play, I seriously do use all of them. I open with Hail, and follow up with Bullet Rain/Empty Clips. With Incendiary running virtually 24/7 since it removes the knockdowns/backs which I personally don't care for in favor of the damage-over-time element. For clean up, I just fire off the fast attacks like Pistols, DW, and Suppressive. If an enemy has a sliver of health left, I don't shoot them with an Executioner's Shot (no matter how fitting that is) and just hit them with Pistols. The only time a "real" attack chain really matters is against targets tough enough to survive the sequence in the first place. Otherwise just cycle what isn't on cooldown and pepper everything with follow-up shots.

Yeah definitely!

I don't have Overwhelming Force in anything. That's another 3% (with only 3 pieces) and my build isn't capped to it. However, I'd lose 6.25% trading out Positron's Blast in my AoEs since my single targets (Pistols, Dual Wield, Suppressive Fire) already have 4pc Devastations. The 3% damage in my case adds about 4 points of damage but throws the recharge off of other powers from what I planned. So it isn't worth it for me. You may be able to push more but you'll certainly compromise defense and recharge to do it. Plus, the damage increments aren't that big an improvement. Feel free to PM about this particular pairing so we don't continue to hijack the OP's topic.

That looks like someone else's build with some minor changes to put Hecatomb in Boxing. For being defense heavy, it looks fine. A couple things though... With the recharge in that build, you have 0 need to ever weave Dual Wield into the attack chain. Like never. So that Decimation will see very little use. The damage it shows up on paper won't be realistic since the core attack chain (Pistols, Executioner, Piercing of some combination of your choosing) should be gapless. You have far more recharge than I think is necessary OR is realistic. At first glance, Hail of Bullets recharges in 18 seconds. Except that Ageless will drop off pretty quick over the duration so that number isn't real. With just Agility it recharges in 22 seconds. Which is awesome, but with Musculature you're not losing a lot of recharge. You'd also do more damage with it. I didn't bother with the Accuracy/Recharge from Armaggedon in mine. It's the only one I skipped to push more damage per use since the default to hit in HoB is ridiculously high as it is. You have 3 floating slots. Max out Pistols, Executioner's and Piercing. Put a -resistance proc in each. That's two Achille's Heel for the single targets and Annihilation for Piercing. The two Heels won't stack, but that's not the point. You improve up time on the debuff which is where the real damage is going to come from. As I said in the DP/Nin thread, I'm not fond of pushing the range on mine. So I don't split the ATO's. Hell, I don't even bother with Sentinel's Ward, only Opportunity. What I do with my DP/Nin is not "the right way". There is something to be said about breaking up the ATOs and making the max range further, but it just isn't my cup of tea. I can get the drop, Hail of Bullets, my defense jumps from 42% (not considering Barrier) to 52% for 5 seconds. Since Nin Shinobi-Iri and a Stealth IO let you play like a Stalker, dropping your PBAoE T9 is pretty damn safe. Plus I have Blind Powder as a back up, Kuji-In Retsu (the T9), and Barrier. So I stopped worrying about the 45% soft-cap without my other toys and focused more on global damage. My build has 26% because I have 3 Devastations sets, a few other side powers with 2.5% damage (Shield Wall 5pc, Efficiency Adaptor 5pc, etc.) and a few purples with 4% global damage (like Coercive Persuasion in Blinding Powder).

Yeah, I personally have no issue with skimishing on Sentinels so PBAoE's do not even register as an issue to me. So I can see what you're saying about Power Drain. The only Sentinel I have that doesn't have a PBAoE at all, is my Beam/Will. Link Minds has a 90 second duration and can be made perma with recharge. Yes, it has a roughly 4 second wind up time, but you'll have well over a minute of duration on it before you recast. To each their own though. I brought it up because it is yet another direct defense layer to stack with other things like Weave. With your example build, doesn't seem like it would be necessary, but the OP did ask to know about options. I've used Link Minds on other ATs and the animation is something to consider, but I had gotten used to it from playing a Widow and Mind/Psi/Psi Dom. Anyway, the feedback is still good. Hasten is also a to each their own. Depends on how much the OP values recharge. As to the Incarnates, Agility shaves off less than 2 seconds off of Full Auto on my AR/Bio Sentinel while dropping my best attack by 19 per shot, but my next hardest hitter drops by 37. Musculature, is hands down the damage increase in a contest of Alphas. Agility does get me perma-hasten and reduce times off my Secondary but doesn't appreciably alter my attack chain. So from a minor durability perspective Agility is nice, but Musculature is the winner for damage. That above comment about the 2 second reduction also applies to all my Sentinels. Hail of Bullets on my perma-Hasten DP/Nin goes from the current 25 seconds with Musculature to 23 seconds with Agility. Yet, Executioner's shot loses 38 damage. Since I have a gapless attack chain that 38 damage per rotation of Executioner's Shot (not to mention the attacks) nets me far more damage than using Hail of Bullets 2 seconds faster. It's something I've given a lot of thought to. Anyway, I appreciate the insights Sunsette and that build looks pretty awesome! P.S. So leveling up my Beam/Will power, I used Defensive Opportunity so many times I could count it on one hand and still have digits left prior to level 22. At 22 when I took Quick Recovery, I started using it even less. Beam has some long-ish animations. You just don't hammer attacks as fast once you get the real damaging powers post Disintegrate. Since there is so much animation wind-up, I'd think a 30 second long endurance reduction power like Energize would go a long way. Yeah, you can still have Charged Shot in your back pocket for when Energize is recharging, but in a final build I seriously doubt you'd keep it. Anyway, another good point but I wanted to clear up my perspective.

As for Incarnates, I'd recommend focusing on damage with them. I've got 4 Sentinels. There is only one which I flop back and forth on about Agility vs Musculature and that's my AR/Bio. Still, I lean towards Musculature most of the time. Other Incarnate slots are going to be standard damage AT fan favorites. Either the fire dot/resistance toggle or the hit point debuff/toxic. Barrier is a good general defensive option, but Ageless or Rebirth could be interesting too. Use those to whatever flavor you like. I personally prefer Barrier since Sentinels kits come with Health/Endurance management and getting perma-Hasten is possible. I don't find there to be any secret formula on Incarnates with the Sentinel. They do damage and it is best to improve it.

Here are my suggestions. First off, if you have ever played EA on a melee, forget what you know. You must... unlearn. What you have learned. Second tip, Pine's has some issues with Sentinels and with Beam in particular Refractor's information isn't correct. Other tips... The only power you may wish to skip in EA is the T9. Sentinel EA has a collection of changes making it very different from the melee versions. All of the other powers have uses which is a pretty big change from melee EA which might skip several. You get Energize at level 10 which is a heal, regen, and endurance discount. Normally, I'd suggest taking the Tier 2 from the primary (Charge Shot) for Defensive Opportunity. However, with this build you could skip it and never miss it. Actually, a lot of Sentinel builds can actually skip Defensive Opp, but that usually doesn't happen until pretty late. For this particular build, I'm willing to bet you could skip Defensive O from the start and never miss it. You'll still want Single Shot because this activates Offensive Opportunity, at least with how the inherent works currently. Eventually this will collect dust on your power bar and you will use it when it lights up for Offensive. Since you've played Beam before, Sentinel's rotation won't be that big a difference other than how Single Shot works. Offensive add damage, Defensive adds endurance recovery and health per hit, they both put the same -Resistance debuff on a target. Since Energize does everything Defensive O does and you get pretty early, this is why I think you can skip it. Refractor in Pine's still has it as a snipe. It's not. It's a chain AoE and gets a huge damage effect on Disintegrate targets. Since Lancer is getting a 100% chance to spread on Justin, Refractor becomes a hard hitting follow-up with bonus chaining damage and it will be more reliable. Not sure when that's going to be pushed to the live servers. I'd recommend considering adding Fighting, Leadership, and Speed for the common picks there. BR/EA can still have a few open picks for whatever else you want like a travel power of any of the Ancillaries. Psionic Mastery has Link Minds as the 3rd available pick. It may or may not mesh with your theme. I bring up Link Minds because EA has no Psionic Defense. LM can help get you some. Sentinels have a 0.7 defense modifier vs Scrapper/Stalker 0.75. Doesn't sound like much, but it is enough to keep you about 2.X% off from softcap defense vs a melee AT using similar slotting. That means you may not hit 45% as easily and you may need to decide if that is what you want. That's also going to be a decision that varies wildly depending on Primary/Secondary pairs. In general, I try to get my defenses some where that I feel is comfortable for me, but if I don't get to 45%+ I also don't sweat it. Lately, I've been pushing my IO plans for global damage. YMMV That's what I've got for now. Looks like a solid pairing, but I don't currently play it.

I dig it, Zepp. IO enchancers will help in Hasten to get down near perma. I think you might still have something like a 1 second downtime. Not a huge deal. Do you use Suppressive on non-AV targets due to the hold? Pistols has the better DPA especially if you swap the enhancements and put the Apocalypse there. There are a couple of chains you can change up too also (this is for anyone interested). You can turn off Incendiary Ammo -> Piercing Rounds (applies -9.6 resist debuff) -> turn on Incendiary Ammo -> Pistols -> Executioner's Shot -> Pistols. My lazy way is to keep Incendiary Ammo on all the time. Piercing Rounds (5pc Opportunity + Annihilation -Resist proc) -> Pistols (Achille's Heel proc) -> Executioner's Shot (5pc Apocalypse + Heel proc) -> Pistols. Of course this means not pushing out the range by frankenslotting the ATO's. That is something I'm ok with personally, but I just want to throw out the above for sake of discussion. Edit: I ended up completely dropping the Ancillary pools. As much as I wanted them, I just can't bring myself to put in the additional toys which is a little bit of a bummer. I've come to accept the lower values of /Nin as just a general weakness and stopped worrying about 45% soft capping with it. My current plan is at 42%. With Hail of Bullets as an opener from Stealth I'm at 52% for 5 seconds. I can drop Bullet Rain and Empty Clips within that time frame to cause more AoE damage. If I really feel like I need a defensive follow up, Blinding Powder is -7% to hit. Once I can add Barrier into the mix, the smallest value of that closes my defense gap. Plus with Perma-Hasten I can heal every 18 seconds. So DP/Nin can actually be a hell of a lot safer than it looks if you choose to play it more actively. Also Shinobi-Iri + Stealth makes it even more safe to engage. This is something I was also testing with Dark/Regen using the IO and Stealth to drop Blackstar as an opener. In short, It works.

Sentinel Epic/Patrons do have some very neat options. My builds are so tight on powers and slots I just can't fit them in. I *may* do that with my Dark/Regen but it is going so smooth on Justin with what I have, I have no reason to change my plan for more toys.

I have a low AR/Bio and I've come to many of the same conclusions you have. I took my build approach a little differently, but we're in the same ball park. I decided I was comfortable with 26% S/L, 32% elements, and 30% Psi. Incarnates (Agility, Barrier - even at it's lowest) raise it up higher. The lower S/L is more risky, and I'm aware of that, but I opted for more global damage and hit points. In terms of slot allocation. I think the major difference is I decided not to enhance Inexhaustible and barely enhance Genomic Evolution. Mine has a +end proc and calls it a day. Since Parasitic Leech is as ridiculous as it is, sweating over recovery isn't *that* big a deal. It's not perma, but so much of the remainder of the set is like Willpower, I just took idea from how I handle Stamina and Quick Recovery. Since that combo doesn't require a lot of enhancement with Accolades or IO's to the gills either. My Genomic Evolution only holds the two global 3%. That reduces my melee defense (3.13%) and S/L vs your (1.56%). I'm just not impressed with Genomic. I toyed with a few other slots and enhancers, but I just came to the conclusion Shield Wall and Reactive Defense globals are more resistance for the slots. Other than that, our slotting decisions are so close it's uncanny. I just ultimately went with different sets (pretty much because I have too - more on that in a sec). Like I have 4 Devastation + Achille's Heel in Burst vs 5pc Decimation in Flares. I also can't use the Avalanche set since I have no PBAoE in my Primary, so again another loss on the defense. So yeah, since my Primary choice is all single target and targeted ranged AoE my options are so limited I just said screw it. Though with what you're saying, I probably won't have an issues, and most certainly won't with Incarnates. Anyway, thanks for sharing, it's a cool build!