Saikochoro

I made a beam/EA sentinel that I quite like. However, I also recently got my fire/bio sentinel kitted out and incarnated and I like it even better. The beam/EA has quite a bit better survivability, but the fire/bio does a lot more damage. Both are fun though!

I know I said placate was obsolete, but I was mainly only thinking in terms of stalkers. I do have a pure night widow built out in mids that I intend on making soon. Since VEATs don’t have a hide proc ATO that does placates job, I do intend on taking placate on my night widow. That way I can get some nice controlled crits on slash 😁.

Some may disagree, but placate is largely obsolete with the later game changes to assassins strike and the stalker ATOs.

That’s a shame. I actually really wanted the wolverine claws on the widow. Still at least the other costume options are available to me now.

World changed. Mind blown. VEATs here I come!

Quick update on one of my next three: I went ahead a power leveled my fire bio sentinel and got it t3 musculature and decked out with IOs. I can say that the damage is very much improved compared to my other two sentinels. So I’m very pleased with that. I did a dr. Q task force with it and it ate everything up. I then also did a synapse task force and I noticed that it is a monster when exemplared down. I understand that a lot of that is due to have full IO sets and a lot of bonuses being available due to attuned IOs. However, I feel like I would definitely like the sentinel better when exemplaring than blasters. I tanked the synapse TF (nothing special I know), but also did a boat load of damage. Next step is to try a +4 ITF and see how it fairs with high level enemies. However, thus far I am very pleased and can say that I have more faith in the AT now.

The biggest thing keeping me from sticking with my VEATs is the lack of costume options. Unless there is something I’m missing I have to look like arachnos. I get that that it sort of the point, but I’d like it better if I could make them look how I wanted. That said, I have both a pure night widow and a fortunata in my mids builds waiting for me to make the dive.

You best bets are probably savage/shield or electric shield. Dual blades / energy aura is also very good for both AoE and single target. I think the top out of those three is probably savage / shield. Insane AoE and insane single target.

Ugh. I need to do accolades on a lot of mine. I think I only have like 5 toons with all 4 passives.

I’m going to throw my vote in for energy aura as the secondary. It is a fantastic secondary with defense, resistance, endurance management, healing, and recharge all covered to varying degrees. With proper build planning with set bonuses and pool powers it is one of, if not, the best secondary for scrappers. For a fast paced primary I’d suggest either dual blades or savage melee. I personally have a dual blades/EA scrapper that shreds everything in sight. I also have a savage/EA brute that is pretty awesome. One of my next scrappers will be savage /EA.

You may be fighting enemies with to-hit debuffs. Circle of thorns is a classic example. Even with sufficient accuracy slotting getting debuffed will make you whiff a lot. Changing primaries won’t really help this. This will be fixed more with your secondary and pool powers. High defense secondaries help mitigate this problem as the attack and thus debuff won’t get through. Also will be fixed with set bonuses as many provide +Acc. Secondaries such as bio armor provide a to-hit buff. You could pick up tactics in the leadership pool while leveling to also help. Secondaries/pool powers that allow defense slotting will also allow you to a lot the kismet +Acc IO, which despite the name increases your to-hit chance. If you give some more information on what secondary and pool powers you are choosing we can probably help you in slotting choices. If you are just running SOs or common IOs we could probably help with power picks to help you out. Also just be wary of enemy factions that use a lot of dark attacks because they debuff your to-hit.

Pretty sure you are thinking sudden acceleration knockback to knockdown. It works well. Just uses up a slot that could be used for a different proc. However, you get mitigation from constant knockdowns so I suppose it’s fair.

I’ve only played StJ on stalkers and scrappers. It is bonkers on stalkers and easily one of the best primaries for them. Hits super hard. My scrapper is only level 40, but StJ seems pretty good so far on it. I wonder if it just doesn’t pair with brutes well. I know some primaries favor various archetypes over others. Perhaps this is one of them.

You know I didn’t even think about the PPM changes. I was going to use psi master as well and that could potentially have a large impact. I guess we will have to see. I made a plant/savage dom 2-3 months ago and it is a monster. Loads of fun. That minus resist potential with your plan is no joke though. Sounds like it will tear things apart.

The new alts don’t have to be based on the update. The update just got me interesting in thinking of more alts again. I was just interested in what people plan on making next. Edited the topic to be more clear on that. I always enjoy testing new things hence why page 6 got my alt habit kicking again. That said, most of my altitis comes from teaming and seeing a combination I hadn’t given much though before in action and thinking “that’s cool....welp it’s back to Atlas Park 😁”

Fair enough. I had actually lasted over a month without making a new alt until they did the Page 6 preview. That got the juices rolling. Then I started playing with Mids. And know I’m back to into altoholism.

I had my altitis under control for about a month until the Page 6 preview got me thinking of alts again. I’m curious to know what people’s next projects are going to be (don’t have to be related to the new update, but can be!). My next three are going to be as follows: Water/Sonic blaster: I haven’t tried water blast on any archetype yet. I was especially intrigued by the testing @Galaxy Brain did on the blaster primaries showing that water was one of the strongest performers. So, I decided that water would be the primary. I decided sonic for a few reasons: it will be new, sounds pretty cool from the preview, and has a sonar theme that is interesting. Fire / Bio Sentinel: In the many discussions of blaster vs sentinel I have always sided with blaster. Not that I don’t like sentinels or think they can’t be viable on any team. It’s just that I’ve always been disappointed with their damage comparative to blasters. While I understand the blaster will always do more damage, I’ve been wanting to give sentinels more of a fair shake. I’ve fully built out two so far: DP/Sr and BR/EA. The dual pistols one is procd out and has a fast chain, but I just can’t get into it the same as my DP/MC blaster so it is shelved. The BR/EA seems to do better damage and is very survivable. However, I wanted a DAMAGE sentinel. So I’m picking fire as I assume it is will have the overall highest damage similar to blasters. I chose to go bio armor because I’m going to approach the build from a different angle. Instead of leaning into the sentinels strength of survivability I’m going to push damage. This means I’m not going to chase soft cap defense. I’ll have enough that along with barrier or a small purple I’ll be fine. Instead I’m going to push recharge and procs. I want to see if it can put a couple of my blasters out of business. Shield / Energy Tanker: I kind of cheated with this one as I’ve already started it. As soon as I heard the devs plan to “improve” energy melee I knew I was going to want an EM tanker. I hope the improvements will come with page 6, and even though I don’t know what they will be, I’ve always wanted to get back into energy melee. I chose to go shield for the added +dam and for shield charge to supplement the aoe. I want this tanker to compete with my double rage stacked + melt down rad/ss tanker for insane burst damage. What are your next three alts going to be and why?

The only thing I potentially use a lot of converters on are converting defense IOs to LOTG. However, I don’t chase the +rech one within the set. I’ve found that it is usually worth it to get to LOTG. For resists, I will often convert within category to get to unbreakable guard or Aegis, which usually only takes 1-2 times. Anything else I’ll just sell if I can get 2m.

Note: I’m not able to view your build at the moment so you may already be taking the below into consideration. While I do tend to go for a couple defense softcaps it’s is not an absolute must have. Especially once you get into incarnates and get barrier. Not to mention all of the buffs that you get from the team. Most people run with maneuvers so with that alone a lot of your defense shortcomings will be solved. That said, if you have a large budget and build with mids you can achieve softcap pretty handily for S/L if you pick up scorpion shield, weave, and depending on the build maneuvers. If I can fit it into my build, I like to skip the leadership pool entirely (and thus maneuvers) and pick up the sorcery pool instead for rune of protection. Rune give a decent bonus to resists and provides mez protection and has a 50% uptime with a good build. To maximize damage, your first priority should be to push recharge. I shoot to have perma hasten. Having good recharge will help to maximize your damage by having a tighter chain of your highest DPA attacks. Then if you can fit them in put in a proc or two on your attacks. To summarize: if you are shooting for damage and will be teaming for the most part: - you can shoot for 32.5% defense on S/L and/ranged defense, whichever is easiest for you. I find s/l to be easiest because of scorpion shield. This will cover a lot of the attacks coming your way. You can also shoot for 40% and then have the barrier incarnate cover the last 5%. The +def global IOs work wonders as well (gladiator armor and steadfast protection). - if you can, pick up rune of protection. It is an amazing power. - Try to reach perma hasten. This usually will require several purple sets so can get really expensive. If you have the budget, use the superior ATO sets and a couple other purple sets like Apocalypse. Usually if I get to about 155-160% global recharge (including hasten) and two slot hasten with lvl 50 recharge IOs (one should be boosted) you will only be a few seconds shy of perma hasten. - Try to fit in 1 or 2 damage procs into your attacks. For example, I usually put 5 a lot apocalypse, including the proc, into blazing bolt. Then I also put in the toxic damage proc from gladiators javelin. Unfortunately, the ranged powers with no secondary effects (I.e fire) have limited proc choices. You are basically limited to apocalypse (only 1 allowed) and gladiators javelin. If you are open to other powerset combos: ice / tactical arrow is an amazing hover blaster. Just for consideration.

You’ll find that you can make pretty much any combination of primary and secondary on all archetypes work for 99% of what you’d do in game. So don’t be afraid to choose whatever looks interesting to you. Personally, I’d go for energy aura for your secondary. It has great layered mitigation with the primary mitigation being easily softcapped typed defense. It has some baseline resists than can be supplemented with set bonuses and pool powers for some very respectable numbers. It has a good heal that also increases Regen and gives a great endurance discount. You also have another endurance tool that also can boost defense. All in all a great secondary with answers for just about everything. My most played sentinel is Beam Rifle/Energy Aura. Beam rifle has decent damage and is quite fun. You could always go fire also as you can never really go wrong with fire blast.

I’m guessing you meant to post this in the blaster sub forum seeing as how DP/MC is a blaster combo? That said, yes, I agree. DP/MC is one of the most enjoyable toons I have made. The ki push, storm kick, into a blast is very satisfying. I however end them with executioners shot instead of dual wield 😁.

Just add a little more to what Gulbasaur said: The attuned set IOs grow with you as you level and maintain their bonuses all the way down to their lowest effective level. So I pretty much always go attuned. Set IOs become attuned by adding a catalyst to them. The reason it is cheaper to just look up the attuned version on the auction house and buy from there is because the auction house pools IOs. For example, say you want Crushing Impact Acc/Dam. The auction house pools all Crushing Impact Acc/Dam regardless of level and attuned status into one pot. So someone can sell a level 32 non attuned CI Acc/Dam and different person can buy that same IO attuned. Thus the attuning process is effectively free when you buy through the auction house since you don’t have to buy a catalyst to attuned it manually. ATOs are Archetype Origin Enhancements. They are attuned automatically, but a catalyst can be used on them at level 50 to turn them into the Superior version. Stalkers have the best ATOs of all archetypes. They synergize well with stalker mechanics and boost their performance by a large margin comparative to other ATO sets. They can be slotted at level 10 I think. They are expensive, but are well worth it. If funds are an issue, you can always start by just buying the procs. The Stalkers Guile proc should go into assassins strike. It gives the power a chance to hide. Thus giving your highest damage power other than assassins strike to crit. The Assassins Mark proc can go anywhere as it gives all your attacks a chance to finish the cooldown on build up. These are game changers for stalkers in my opinion.

You will not be a burden using the combo on a stalker. It will still be good. Stalkers in general do better damage than scrappers because they can control their crits and because they have assassins strike. There are just certain combos that shine better on scrappers than stalkers and this is one of them, in my opinion. Scrappers have better damage modifiers and soul drain lasts longer than build up. So scrappers can maintain a huge bonus to damage basically permanently. You won’t be a burden to a team using this combo on a stalker. It will still be perfectly viable. I just personally would always go scrapper with this combo because I feel that it is better on scrappers.

I think the general rule of thumb is to use DPA. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the cooldown starts after the animation is over. When you start getting high recharge in your powers, animation time gets more important. My math might be a bit off, but with 200% haste (between slotting and global bonuses) your recharge times would be as follows: MS = 1 PB = 1.67 TB = 3 Animations would remain the same and thus their respective animation time per damage applied becomes comparably more important the higher your recharge. Recharge + Animation MS = 2, which would be 295.8 DPS (30 attacks in 1 minute). PB = 3, which would be 319.5 DPS (20 attacks in 1 minute). TB = 4.47, which would be 283.8 DPS (13.4 attacks in 1 minute). At 250% haste (slotting + global bonuses) the DPS would be: MS = 318.5 PB = 437.8 TB = 545 So the higher your recharge the less important recharge time is and the more important animation time is because the higher your recharge goes the more down time is spent on animations. Most end game builds have endurance management covered so DPE is largely ignored. Also, most end game builds push recharge thus making DPA comparatively more important. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that is why DPA is usually the way to go.

Could you possibly be referring to this thread? Namely the 4th post going over armor sets and then providing a screenshot.