oldskool

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!

You know you mentioned the Psi Melee before when you responded to me, and Psi's mechanics as being something unique just didn't click with me. I haven't really given Psi much a look other than just browsing the animations to see if it interested me. Your perspective makes a lot more sense now with some context. Side note, how do you like Psi?

You'd think that was the case, but it is a bit silly (and I don't take your statement as you being serious either). Anyway... I feel QS has value, but you obviously seem to understand Focused Burst is a DPA difference not in your favor. If that is your preference, then go for it. If you enhance up with your attack chain you're going to be stomping goons left and right. No, it probably won't win you the fastest time on a Plyon test with FB in the rotation, but that doesn't mean it will be "bad". I mean, Moonbeam going to hit like a truck, so do it?

If you're basing this on Pine's, then please note it is inaccurate for Sentinels. Not just damage, but entire powers* within sets as well as some secondary effects of other powersets are misleading/entirely wrong**. *Refractor Beam in Sentinel Beam Rifle still flags it as a Snipe, that it takes Snipe sets, it's damage is as high as it is (in Pine's), etc... In reality, Refractor Beam is a chaining AoE and has lower damage than a snipe (but benefits massively from Disintegrate). **Dark Blast in Dark Blast shows the duration is 15 seconds. For what, I have no idea. The to hit debuff lasts 6 seconds in reality. The duration on Abyssal Gaze is "5 seconds". On what? I have no idea either. The hold lasts just over 3 seconds. The to hit debuff lasts 10 seconds which is the same as everything else in the set that is not the Tier 1 or Tier 9. Blackstar does in fact last 20 seconds and does in fact impose -35% to hit. My test DB/Regen refreshes Blackstar every 26 seconds.

Maybe your expectations at level 25 are still a little high? I don't me to sound snarky, but endurance requires management for awhile. Accuracy is also going to be the bane of your existence as every whiff sucks off endurance but prolongs combat. What are you doing for attacks? Can you pace yourself a little to conserve some energy? I often hold back while leveling up unless I have inspirations or buffs to fall back on. I see no reason to dump all your end on trivial fights either. Once your character is fleshed out with IO's, by all means go ham all the things, but until then maybe slow down?

This checks a lot of anime boxes... Ninjutsu arts? Check Impractically large weapon? Check Cat girl costume....? Cheeeeck? All kidding aside, that build idea looks awesome and fun!

I can see where you would assume that is what I was thinking. I'm not basing a judgment based on Assault itself. In other words, I'm saying moving a power from 82 damage per activation to 90 damage per activation is the threshold of where "acceptance" is. Or we add 3 more damage to a 30 damage T1 power and so on. I realize the damage adds up once all attacks considered are enhanced, but that value isn't going to be an earth shattering metric. If 10% is all it would take to make more people think the damage was acceptable, then the hyperbolic arguments about current performance seem even more absurd. (Not accusing anyone specifically, but the overall gauge of community feedback around the "Sentinels SUCK" --- but if they did 10% more damage it'd be good. Give me a break.)

10% base damage isn't a lot. I spun up a character, gave them Assault (10.5%), and took a look at the numbers. If that is all it would take to make them more "acceptable", then their actual damage isn't that bad. Especially not when you consider just how easy it is to make an attack chain. I'd love a damage boost, but damage isn't my concern with the AT. I do think the defense value needs to be moved from 0.7 to 0.75. Their damage being what it is doesn't justify the lower across the board defense when that same modifier also applies to things like Mezz resistance. Minor annoyance, but I'd like to see it reviewed if it hasn't been. The big issue though, is Opportunity. Not just what it provides, but how it is triggered. I've played 4 Sentinels so far. They are very fun. However, I find some Sentinels do want to keep their Tier 1 and Tier 2 in their rotation from start to finish. Dual Pistols is one of those sets. Pistols and Dual Wield DPA are good enough when using Incendiary Ammo that their attack rotation doesn't vary from other AT's. Suppressive Fire gains no damage from the ammo toggles. It loses ground the more you build up your character. This means my attack chain includes both triggers (heh) to Opportunity. If I want to use Offensive but I've just clicked Pistols when the circle comes up, then I have to decide to skip Dual Wield for a moment. I either eat the gap, or I use Suppressive Fire. With high levels of recharge, Pistols recharges so fast that gap isn't as obnoxious as it sounds, but it is cumbersome prior to that. I'd much rather have two buttons not tied to my attacks to activate the inherent or something else. And the attack routine issue comes up in Dark Blast and Assault Rifle too. Both of those sets have 2 good DPA Tier 1 and 2 attacks that cycle with 2 other attacks. It takes more recharge than is practical for most players to get to a point where you can completely drop that. My Beam Rifle Sentinel is very different though. Once you more of the set you can largely ignore Single Shot and Charged Shot in favor of everything else. I keep them to activate which ever Opportunity I want. However, I'd love the option to completely drop one in favor of something else. I can already do that, but that means I have to ignore the situational value I find in DefensiveO over the more common value I find in OffensiveO.

My pre-edit reply went into opportunity costs vs spending and planning as purpose built vs common occurrence. I've been doing risk management for years and weighing cost benefit analyst is so second nature I apply it to games too. When I play around with builds, I look for what I feel is "just enough" for whatever content I want to push with a build. I love to plan long-term, but I also don't sweat things like "optimization" much. A lot of returning players and new ones look over various threads like ones on this forum. I find it important to stress that the constant optimization they see isn't required, it's fun for some to come up with, but it isn't necessary. This is also a team game. Groups can, and often do, close gaps in whatever build weakness an individual has. You can't guarantee a "perfect" team, but most teams where the players are awake while doing content is still going to work out. I used to post on the old forums, but that was pre-issue 6 stuff. I was pretty chatty about Dark/Dark Scrappers back then since they were rare and often denigrated for their existence. Even after I stopped actively posting I kept on it and read your posts quite a bit. They were always insightful. I'm just bouncing the same ideas at this point which is kinda off topic now, but we're in agreement here.

Honestly people can take either Initial Strike or Heavy Blow and be fine. I think StrikerFox has a build that uses Initial Strike over Heavy Blow in the Pylon thread, but I don't want to speak for him. Me personally, I took everything except for Placate on Street Justice. Heavy Blow is useful while leveling up and can be a useful mule later. It just depends on what your preferences are. I haven't tried /Rad on Stalkers but at a glance it doesn't look too different from my Brute (which I skipped nothing on). I feel dirty even considering suggesting someone skip Ground Zero.

My original goal was addressing normal content. Additionally, the person I was responding to was asking if it was worth it to shoot for 60% in order to avoid cascading defense failure. Anyway... The points you bring up about having some buffer are obviously good ones. However, I want to point out something about Sentinels that further supports an idea of maybe going for a buffer. Sentinels have lower values to their defenses, their resistances, and their protections. All of it. That means Sentinel DDR is less than that of Scrapper SR DDR. After thinking about it, I decided to check and sure enough the DDR is less on Sentinel toggles and passives. This means Sentinels are going to be more open to defense debuffs than their melee counterparts if they are in the unfortunate position of being pounded on by multiple defense debuffing enemies. Sentinels have an advantage of range to leverage their offense making stuff like Hover valuable if you are concerned about it. That might help against the Cimos in ITF but any other gun enemies will still be annoying. So after thinking about, Sentinels should build for as much defense as they are comfortable with and certainly plan for buffering their values a little to make up for the shortcomings of the AT. That is, if a given player finds value in that pursuit over other potential effects or build goals. Anyway, nice to see you chime in, Arcana! Can I call you Arcana? :)

All of them can work. Also, try not to gauge the potential of a any AT on just dual origins. Endurance is going to be a struggle until you can socket higher quality enhancements in Stamina at 22+. This always true of very active sets. It wouldn't hurt to put an endurance reduction in your attacks either. Actively using Assassin's Staff will chew through your blue bar pretty quick. I'm fond of defense sets for PvE gameplay, but if you want to PvP at all consider a resistance set. Super Reflexes is tried and true. It is very solid. You don't need defense benefit from Guarded Spin but it will help you out in the low levels. Energy Aura is also good and it has a lot of endurance management down the road. My Staff Stalker uses Ninjutsu, but that is mostly because I wanted it. As to Bio Armor, it is also an option if you like. It requires more investment than anyone honestly gives it credit and the entire gimmick of stance dancing goes the way of the dinosaur outside of the low levels. Once you shore up the endurance issues and survival issues you'll more than likely remain in the offensive mode 24/7. Anyway, for less of a headache in both expense and general gameplay Super Reflexes or Energy Aura are something I'd recommend. As to Serpent's Reach, take it. It's better than this thread was giving it credit.

I suspected that would still be the case, but I'm really thankful of you posting some results. I rolled up a KM/SR on test too and I was messing around with. I was mostly trying to gauge if the new ATO brought any value back to CS and if I wanted to keep it around for the occasional Placate + CS lulz. Even with casual testing that was not turning out to be the case, and I'm also really glad you retested with Body Blow. It's absence was making me scratch my head since BB and SB were bread and butter for the old live attack chain. I'll still keep CS and I'll keep it muling that ATO build-up proc if it is truly global. I might try some other tests with it to confirm, but that may not happen until the weekend. Anyway, thanks again for posting the results!

I wish that is how it worked. How awesome would it be to put only 1 even level SO quality enhancement into a power and have it max out functionality? That's not how it works though. If you turn off Focused Senses and Agile, then your defense value is a big donut... 0. When you turn them on, your defense value becomes whatever you enhanced it to. Which in the above case is 22.5% (in reality the even level SO value is 21.8%). You need to add more defense by both enhancing the power further and from other sources like IO set bonuses, other pool powers, etc in order to fill out that defense to 45%.

One thing I'd like clarity on is if it's worth it to go over that 45% value to ward against -Def debuffs? So if my Def is, say, +60%, I know I'm still capped. But if I get a -15% Def debuff, am I still capped? Super Reflexes already has a high amount of resistance to defense debuffs. So going over 45% isn't worth it, in my opinion, for that particular goal with SR. If you're concerned about specific groups with LTs or Bosses with higher than average hit chances, then using inspirations covers that gap if you are opposed to certain Incarnate solutions. Also, those kinds of enemies are priority targets to die first while their friends whiff whiff whiff.

SR also has higher base values to Melee and Ranged. It's base values to AoE are substantially higher than Ninjutsu. Both sets have endurance recovery. One is a click (Nin) one is passive (Sentinel SR). Since this entire thread is about Dark, that's what I am basing my judgment on. Dark has a heal. It isn't much, but if you have to sacrifice your attack chain for a heal, doing damage with it has a lot of value. At least to me. Since Sentinel SR has Master Brawler which can help slow down incoming damage, Life Drain has some opportunities to shine here. Maybe more so than it might with Nin. I haven't test that, it could be a complete wash for all I know. Super Reflexes offers Quickness which has value for damage output. Ninjutsu offers a 20% bonus to damage when breaking your stealth (so first attack). I know the two are different sets, but they do the same thing primarily. That's positional defense. Ninjutsu straight up offers less of it in trade for other features. However, Sentinel SR offers the choice for an additional damage mitigation its melee cousins don't (Master Brawler), endurance recovery, higher base defense than Ninjutsu, and 20% global recharge. We'll agree to disagree if I find the Sentinel Super Reflexes package to be a better deal than everything Ninjutsu brings to the table. This is even more so with Dark/* since the heal in Life Drain means I only have to use a lower DPA attack vs none at all with Kuji-In Sha. I'll restate too, I play Pistols/Nin. It is a lot of fun, but it is my opinion Super Reflexes is stronger for what it offers Sentinels. P.S., I also get they can hit the softcap. See above, I play it. However, something that is true of Super Reflexes and Ninjutsu melee counter parts is true for Sentinels. Since it takes less for SR to achieve the same softcap, said SR character can use IOs for other things. This starts to compound when one version starts piling on additional damage since it no longer has to chase 20% more global recharge or 2.1% extra defense elsewhere. This means less Thunderstrikes and more opportunities for other things. Also, to get side tracked on Pistol defense synergy, Hail of Bullets has a defense buff that lasts only for 5 seconds. It's a nice way to help dodge the return fire you're going to get but that is pretty much the only defense Pistols offers anything unless we want to start talking about that weak slow in Cryo Ammo. Anyway, that's my thoughts on all that. In the end, YMMV.

I love my Pistol/Nin, but let's not over sell the pairing too much. It is very fun and it checks boxes for me conceptually. However, I'd argue that Super Reflexes or Energy Aura are stronger. Also, Sentinel (and Scrapper) Nin gives up Caltrops and Smoke Flash for quality of life improvements. You can pick those up with Ninja Mastery, but a large point of the Nin set was its toys which Sentinels give up. Furthermore, Pistols doesn't really offer much defense trade to Nin, and Nin offers very little offense trade to Pistols. Not to rain on your parade, but I'm not sure what synergy you're finding beyond conceptual flair. I certainly advocate anyone that wishes to play Pistols/Nin to do so. It is fun. Let's just try to be honest with those seeking advice and not over sell it when other secondaries are available doing the same thing with higher numbers (like Super Reflexes).

Depends on what is more important to your build and goals, no? If chasing 45% defense is what you want, then drop Hasten. Ageless Incarnate will also get you recharge, lots of it, if that is something you want later. Even Barrier can make you immortal so in the end does it really matter? I love SS/WP, but I opted to not chase 45% defense. I stopped around 32% and then built up other things. I'm not aiming to tank all the things, but being a purple inspire away from 45% is good enough for me. That freed my decisions to incorporate the powers I want and the set bonuses I wanted. YMMV

How detrimental would you say this is? Would I absolutely choke for power constantly? Also, I've played both to 15 now (not exactly endgame, I know) and I've found something weird, despite similar slotting I do both less damage AND feel squishier as a Scrapper than I do as a Stalker. Is this something that would continue on through the game or does Scrapper bloom a bit later on? A lot can be said about Stalkers and Hide and how dictating the flow combat is a form of defense. Scrappers are out in the open by default so that may be what you're experiencing. Scrapper defense certainly gets better as it goes. You're a level away from Dark Regeneration, I think it is 16th, and it is a game changer. As to the endurance perks of Scrapper vs Stalker Staff, I'd say it's all about goals. What are you hoping to do and what do you like out of one vs the other. Scrappers get the full run of the expensive toggles (Death Shroud and Cloak of Fear) where Stalkers only have Cloak of Fear. You don't need to run CoF all the time which spares you some end on the Stalker. That perk is probably a wash in the end. Once you start really digging into IO's you can alleviate the endurance pains for either one.

Dark/ANY for Sentinel. Seriously, the to hit debuff is that good if you are interested in the defense help from the primary. For PvP, Elec - maybe -. A lot of hard core PvP players will have +to hit and tons of +accuracy. Their alpha shots on you (from Aim, Build-up, etc) will more than likely hit you regardless of whatever +def you stack. You obviously won't have enough time to stack -to hit unless you're starting combat. Even then, it may not be enough against players. So the resistance could be more valuable to you. For PVE though, see my first sentence. The -to hit in Dark for Sentinels is just stupid good. Like, we really need to be careful about not calling attention to it good. Like Blackstar's duration is 20 seconds (and I can confirm this) and it can be made to recharge pretty close to that (mine has 5 seconds downtime, 5. seconds.). It is -35% to hit which stacks with Umbral Torrent and Dark Obliteration. That's -45% in an area dished out in a matter of seconds. The durations on the -5,25% to hit debuff for all the single target attacks is 10 seconds (Pines isn't accurate) with the exception being Dark Blast at 6 seconds. You can very easily keep -15% to hit debuffed on a single target with rotational bursts of 20%+. My Dark/Regen Sentinel is one of the safest characters I have EVER played in post level 32. My plan is to have Fighting and Leadership after 38. Even on Justin this logic is validated with a fully fleshed out IO test. It is bonkers safe to play in PvE. Waaaaay exceeding my original expectations.