oldskool

No Pine's right now, but I'll give you some ideas. Suppressive Fire is a potential skip power once you have the others. Suppressive Fire gains 0 damage from Incendiary Ammo. Instead *any* ammo toggle converts the Stun to Hold which has a short duration. With just the default base ammo, Suppressive Fire has better DPA than several attacks in the set. However, when you turn on that Incendiary Ammo, Pistols, Dual Wield, and Piercing Rounds surpass it. Executioner's Shot is always stronger. If you drop Suppressive, that frees up a lot of slots. You can raise Piercing Rounds to 5 or 6. After thinking about it, I wouldn't recommend dropping Suppressive Fire for *end game* builds. For leveling, Pistols and Dual Wield are fine enough and eventually Executioner's Shot matures your single target. All of the attacks in Dual Pistols have value. Even the cones. Dual Pistols has a lot of proc opportunities which can make Empty Clips decent. Bullet Rain has better damage when it can hit all targets and it has some different functionality. So yeah, after tinkering with my own character I have very different perspectives than I did when I wrote a lot of this. On Willpower with IO's, I tend to find Health, Fast Healing, Quick Recovery, and Stamina can get by with just 2 total slots. For the passive health ones, I like procs there (Numina's +Regen/+Recovery, Miracle +Recovery, and so on). For Endurance, a full Endurance mod + Performance Shifter proc should be good enough. Get your Accolades too, there is +max endurance ones which will pad it all out. Side note, Defensive Opportunity helps support Willpower's innate endurance recovery perks. With some of these free slots, put 4 into either Brawl or Boxing. Socket those with Kinetic Combats. That will give your Smashing/Lethal defense a boost. I know a data chunk would be better help, and sorry I don't have that, but the above should help you get started on tweaking the base you have. P.S., Another thing... Consider how much recharge you'd like and what level of importance it has to you. Consider how much defense is important to you, and how much global damage. Etc. My Beam/Willpower hits about 32% to all typed defense (Smash, Lethal, Energy, Negative, etc.). Pushing that any further compromises my personal build goals and preferences. Another word of note about picking sets and placements. Executioner's Shot is the highest DPA attack you get. Once you can afford it, I'd recommend Apocalypse there with 5 pieces (all but the Accuracy/Recharge) + a proc of some variety (like a Sentinel ATO one, there are two). Executioner's Shot works with a lot of procs, but it is also a good spot for the Opportunity Strikes ATO to improve the up time on Opportunity which in turn gives you another source of -20% resistance. Achilles' Heel can go in here too. Suppressive Fire can take both the Apocalypse and Unbreakable Constraint purple damage procs which really ups the damage. Slap a Toxic damage proc in there if you like, or just go with two damage ones. Depends on what IO set bonuses you need. Pistols benefits from Achilles' Heel +Chance for -Resistance. I think Dual Wield has a number of options for procs. I believe my DP/NIN has both with 4 pc Devastation for the global damage with the last two slots as procs. DW also can benefit from procs like Forcefeedback Chance for Recharge. FF Recharge can also fit in to Bullet Rain and/or Empty Clips. Empty Clips can take Achilles' Heel or Annihilation (Piercing Rounds can take the latter too). I think I put a 5pc Sentinel ATO into Piercing Rounds + a PvP proc since most of the ranged AoE sets kinda suck. Put Procs on PR with at least an Annihilation Chance for -Resistance. A Positron's isn't bad. This can only hit 3 targets so widening the cone virtually guarantees it every time. Despite the lame animation it hits pretty hard and can debuff the targets it hits. Hail of Bullets also has good set options.

Dark Blast, Gloom, Abyssal Gaze, and Antumbral Beam all by level 18 for a good attack chain. Life Drain as an optional support tool if you like. Umbral Torrent and Dark Obliteration with nice DPA for AoE attacks. Blackstar for a massive -to hit debuff and solid damage at the cost of being a PBAoE. It's a really solid all around set. /Nin for Sentinels is a lot of fun. Shinobi-Iri is probably my favorite power out of the set. You get a run and jump boost, stealth, slight defense to all positionals, and 20% bonus damage when attacking from stealth. My ground movement (Pistols/Nin) is nearly as fast as Super Jump's default forward momentum.

In my opinion, Dark powers work well with everything. I do not feel there is any special synergy specific to any single set. The reason I put it like that is because the -to hit in Dark's attacks have value for any and every character build that starts piling on defensive sources up to the soft cap. Then, beyond the soft cap, you're knocking down the to hit values for those enemies with bonuses. -To hit and +defense are two sides of the same coin and work together towards the same goal... you getting beat on less. As for Energy Aura, it is a defense set. It has a lot of tools and for the most part EA will likely provide a smoother experience over Regeneration. That's a really simplistic view and comparison though. Regeneration, by default without IO's, relies on what is considered the worst form of support which is healing. Regeneration is about repairing damage done to you. Energy Aura can make things not hit you in the first place, but if they do you can also repair it. ANY set with more mitigation layers will perform better than Regeneration when pushing tougher content. Sentinel Regen has newer tools like the absorb in Instant Regeneration, but the core concept is still the same. You get hit, you heal up. With investment in IO's and supplemental power choices you can give Regeneration a breather from incoming damage to let it's passive + active heals go farther. I do not think Regeneration is a bad set, I know a lot do, but it is a set that requires some thought in actual use. As for Dark/Regen Sentinels taking on AV's. With Incarnates anything is possible, but without that I have no idea. AV's have a lot of health regeneration, and I haven't tried to find out of a tricked out Dark/Regen can leverage enough damage to not tickle one. Survival wise, you should be able to survive with investment. Scrappers with /Regen certainly took on AVs, but their damage is higher.

I've done those things but that's not what I was talking about. The original name which I used on the live servers is taken by someone else on the Homecoming servers, all of them. I tried. So I had to change the name to something similar but the change also lends itself to some concept changes. At least, it opens the door to it.

For damage: Fire is generally pretty strong. It's probably up there for Sentinels too. Beam Rifle certainly feels strong for Sentinels, and it is also a good set for Blasters. I wonder if anyone has tried Sonic. It looks like it has potential. As a person that plays Sonic/Sonic supports, it is really nice to see a chance to ignore Shout and use Screech instead. May still need Shout as filler, but I wouldn't be surprised if allowing some gap works out better to allow Shriek, Scream, and Screech only. I haven't tested it though. Ice and Electric for Sentinels may be good here too. Not certain though. For utility: Dark is always strong. I'm planning a Dark/Regen and it feels pretty exciting. Life Drain totally optional. Water also looks good for the utility but I haven't had first hand experience with it. I personally only used the weapon sets so far (Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Dual Pistols) other than Archery. I already have an archer on a different AT. I'm pretty happy with how the powers work out so far. I don't get dismayed by the two lethal sets. I've played AR before.

For whatever reason people often forget that -to hit can be a valuable survival tool and Dark is often underrated due to it. -To Hit won't prevent any initial damage, but it does help when you get rolling. That said, Blackstar's -to hit is massive.

I'd only bother with the Achille's proc for MB. I wouldn't bother using Lady Gray there. My Staff/Nin build is on my home PC which is currently in need of a new graphics card (black screen 'O death). I don't remember what I did exactly for MB but I know I put that 1 proc there. If I only had 4 slots to devote to a damage set, it would be Mako's Bite for global damage. If one of those can be chance for lethal proc then good too, but I can live without really. ;) My personal preference for single target is the perfect body loop if at all possible. However, Sky Splitter has value to me too. It is great burst damage and looks amazing. Since I have options to skip in /Nin, I have more toys from Staff. Big difference there for our builds.

This is an impossible question. It is like asking which Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich is the best. Sure, Dark/Dark can vary across AT, but at the end it is still Dark/Dark. The sets are all really solid, but I will caveat I have not tried /Dark on Sentinel. So there is that. Defender vs Corrupter, I tend to lean towards Corrupter these days. The to hit debuff is stronger on Defender but several others are either the same between the two or not that big a deal. So when combining both Dark sets which will floor to hit anyway, why not have a bit more damage consistently across teams and solo? As stated by others, Dark/Dark Controllers are amazing and probably my #1 for solo & team under one hood. It's strong. Though I already have a Dark/Dark Dominator which fits what I wanted out of character more. It is also really strong. Dark/Dark Scrapper which I played and loved is good. Brute and Tanker are stupid strong when done right. I never touch Blasters. I hated the AT when I first started and never gave it another try. Can't comment on Dark/Dark, but if I played a Blaster it would probably be that. ;)

TL;DR: In this combo, I'd try to build to it's strengths while getting some moderate defense. It can shine on teams where they can help pad out your weakness. First off, congrats. Second, I have pondered your question for a few days actually. I'm not going to post a build here. I find that exercise a bit pointless since I don't play AR/Regen for myself. I did make an AR/Bio, and I may play /Regen again. So I have some interest in answering this question for myself too. ;) I've got 3 different Sentinels with build plans to 50. I have almost as much fun plotting out goals as I do playing the actual game. That said, my findings are that the lower defense values of Sents are noticeable when considered against other ATs with the same sets. My DP/Nin falls just shy of 45% positionals vs my Staff/Nin despite both using a similar methodology for slotting. If I had ANY interest in using the melee options from the Ancillary pools I could close this gap easier. Yet, I have 0 interest in doing that. So that's that. A similar issue on lacking melee for slots in my build came up on my Beam/Willpower. My build is at home on a computer that just went into brickland (I'm getting a new one) but I think I found some slots to get some Kinetic Combats on Boxing. It helped bring my Smash/Lethal to 30% which is acceptable to me but not as high as my Brute. What I'm saying is, the usual mantra of "get your ass to Mars get to 32.5% or 45% defense" is a bit bigger of a challenge for Sentinel /Regen than it is for its melee cousins. Unless you're ok with some melee attacks, then it is a bit easier. Me, I'd rather not have them because that is part of the draw to the Sentinel in the first place. I'm generally ok with a set mule, maybe even two, but I really can't stand pushing for more than that like some min-max ideas do. So, after all that preamble, what would I do with unlimited funds? I'd want to go for 20-25% defense with a bit more priority on ranged than the others. That should be well within the realm of possible without getting off concept. If I need inspires, that's fine. Sentinel Regen has some perks to it like the Absorb and Second Wind which should, hypothetically, help in damage mitigation in ways the melee version doesn't. Plus you have the ranged aspect. All that out the way, I'd worry more about getting perma-Hasten (or within a few seconds close to it) so around 170% global recharge with that power active. Then I'd chase global damage increases. People have criticism of Sentinel damage, and that's not necessarily unwarranted. A way around that is pushing more damage*. That means I'm far more inclined to look for Purple IO procs for some key powers, global damage percentage increases, and Musculature Core as an Incarnate goal (for starters). *And I'm well aware for the same investment to similar goals you can squeeze more damage out of another AT. That's self evident. However, Sentinels still benefit from pushing their own damage. That's my thought there.

I'd rather plan towards softcap positional with global recharge and then use Musculature to push damage. Quickness is a great perk for /SR since it can save you set bonuses on recharge in exchange for other options like global damage. For /Nin though, you can just delete Quickness from your memory. Nin has a lot of toys which are optional. They can take on some good sets though.

With the current build, why use Mercurial Blow over Precise Strike? PS should be better than MB on average. Obviously, aesthetics matter and if you like MB over PS that's totally understandable. The average damage would likely be slight or even splitting hairs level. So on that note, the offensive output should be fine. Assassin's and Sky Splitter are your big bursts and look amazing doing it. However, MB can take the Achille's Heel proc which ups it's value a good bit. Mercurial, Serpent's, Precise, and Assassin's together can out perform a chain using Sky Splitter when considering expensive build options hosting procs. Though SS looks amazing and is just one of many reasons why I made a Staff user in the first place (I'd hate to drop it). Anyway, I am by no means complaining about your build or your selections. At glance, I think it looks like it checks the boxes you want (defenses, haste, attack chain, etc.). I just wanted to throw around some other considerations if you have not already thought of them.

Thanks. I really don't think of the baby mez in Suppressive. It's a nice side effect, but the animation time is close to Dual Wield with higher damage. DW has the perk of Defensive Opportunity which I value too. I get why you take what you take, but it is nice to get some other's perspective on an attack like Suppressive Fire. Especially since the Sentinel's version has good damage.

Quick question, why no Suppressive Fire? Obviously the build is tight on powers and slots, but would Suppressive be better for single target over say Piercing Rounds? Pistols, DW, Suppressive, Execution should be good with enough recharge. Is Piercing there because the base recharge makes it more friendly to the Absorb proc in the ATO? I can totally see that with the direction you're going. Just spit balling some ideas. The concept is pretty cool!

The title of this thread inspired me to check out Pine's. The title alone. When I was building up some stalkers I didn't browse too hard. I knew exactly the sets I wanted and went to town making costumes. I have remade my BS/SD character about 3 times but nothing felt right. Part of that is I had to tweak the name and in a way the concept... bummer. Anyway, for the direction I went, stalker fits. So back to the story, I saw this thread title and looked in Pine's and I cackled maniacally. I mean seriously belly laughing it was amazing. I played with a build, and then came back to actually read the thread. Holy crap... Like you, I saw the potential in on-demand disembowel-head splitter criticals. "The thing that should not be"... indeed. My build plan is actually pretty close to what you came up with. I'm not going to toot my own horn about great minds thinking alike or all that. Maybe birds of a feather disembowel after assassin's strikes together? Anyway, thank you for making take a harder look at some of the power set proliferation. BS/SD is a gem. It's truly outrageous.

StJ/Will DB/Energy Staff/Nin Planning out and leaning towards making: Broadsword/Shield Kinetic/SR I wanna try out Psi but have no idea what to pair it with. I'm not fond of repeating sets within the same AT but I adore psionic characters. All the others so are rebuilds of live characters that were mostly Scrappers and a a Brute or two.

Is MB still worthwhile with Achille's Heel down the road? I think I remember a chain with MB (heel proc) as the opener before Precise Strike, Assassin's Staff leading to Sky Splitter. Though I am not sure if that is still as good a route to go.

From a kind Redditor Risko_Vinsheen: Ancillary Power Pools Dark Mastery Netherworld Tentacles Smite Engulfing Darkness Netherworld Grasp Darkest Night Electricity Mastery Chain Fences Havoc Punch Lightning Field Paralyzing Jolt Rehabilitating Circuit (New power, a chaining heal. Basically you fire it at an ally and then it chains off of them to hit nearby allies [including yourself] for a bit of healing.) Fire Mastery Fire Cages Cremate Char Fire Sword Circle Warmth Ice Mastery Frostbite Ice Sword Block of Ice Frozen Aura Snow Storm Ninja Tool Mastery Tashibishi (A Caltrops clone, basically) Sting of the Wasp Paralizing Dart The Lotus Drops Kemuridama (PBAoE, Foe Placate -DMG -ToHit) Psionic Mastery Mass Hypnosis Mind Probe Dominate Psychic Shockwave Link Minds Patron Power Pools Leviathan Mastery School of Sharks Knockout Blow Arctic Breath Spirit Shark Jaws Summon Coralax Mace Mastery Web Envelope Pulverize Focused Accuracy Web Cocoon Summon Tarantula Soul Mastery Midnight Grasp Soul Tentacles Darkest Night Soul Storm Summon Mistress Mu Mastery Electrifying Fences Thunder Strike Electric Shackles Static Discharge Summon Adept

Where can I get detailed info on the Inherent? Someone told me it was "weird". I guess he was right. :-\ At work, so no Pine's. Pistols will trigger a self buff for some minor damage increase. Dual Wield will trigger a self buff for sustain increase (hits generate some health and endurance). They both apply a target debuff that makes enemies easier for everyone to hit and damage. It's minor but has a chance to "critical" and have a bigger effect. The weird part may come from juggling which effect you want in the moment (I don't find it weird at all, but I'm probably alone here). I feel pretty comfortable with my endurance use most of the time because I don't tunnel vision on cycling my attacks early on like I might with a finished build. My expectations of character performance are also often pretty freaking low until pre-50. So there's that too. ;) So far, I have leveraged Offensive Opportunity more. It's a minor damage boost to me and it is OK. Not amazing, but OK. Especially while leveling, I do like triggering Defensive at times. This is why it is hard to view an endgame build where I skip one. So far I have found use for both. I may completely change my mind when I have everything I want, but for now I plan to take everything from the primary and most of the secondary.

So I just discovered this in game... it's a stealth power! :-[ I suppose there's no point in taking Stealth/Invis because it says it "doesn't work" with other stealth powers? I wonder what to replace them with?? I appreciate the insight on the other powers. That's the kind of feedback I was looking for to make the build better. I suppose I can pull some slots out of paralyzing dart and move some stuff around to slot up Shinobi-Iri and Bo Ryaku. Thanks again. ;D You're welcome! I decided not to skip DW. So I have both Pistols and DW. Which is fine since I am not IO'ed to the gills. I can pick and choose which Opportunity I want. For now, this is my generic plan for all Sentinel primaries. I basically just take everything and lean on the Offensive Opp power *most* of the time. Power pool wise, I went with Fighting for Tough & Weave and Speed for Hasten only. You have no need for a travel power. Shinobi-Iri is a stealth power, defense power, and travel power all in one. It doesn't stack with movement effects outside of the passive Fitness effects, Sprint, and Ninja Run. With all those basic things going plus Shinobi-Iri you're moving pretty fast. Shinobi-Iri is part of the reason I made the character. It's just fun! Bo Ryaku is a bit late but closes the KB hole of Nin which was a huge surprise to me. For the epic pool, Of course Ninja tools is what I want. I'm slotting my Caltrops to cycle it as damage. I don't need it, but I want it. I took the hold, kept it at 1 slot. You can use it with Suppressive Fire though which is also interesting. Then Kemuridama is my last choice. It's mostly a recharge mule, but I also like that it is an AoE Placate. Plus it's smoke bomb which no ninja worth their jika-tabi leaves home without!

You want Pistols over Dual Wield. If you can fit Dual Wield in to trigger Defensive Opportunity, cool. Yet, Pistols triggers Offensive Opportunity, and you really want that. Shinobi-Iri buffs all your defenses. Fully enhanced, it isn't a lot, but you can squeeze nearly 2% more out of it. It adds up for /Nin which doesn't hit 45% as easy as /SR. Shinobi-Iri puts you into stealth and it suppresses when combat starts. I prefer Kemuridama for a toy over Blinding Powder. Kemuridama is placate which is kinda neat. Blind Powder, Misdirection and Kemuridama is overkill. Pick one. Bo Ryaku is worth enhancing a little or using for set mules. Otherwise, the presented build here isn't a bad start.