Sovera

Update. Reached 50, slotted what I had and working on the rest. Much better handle on endurance and etc without even incarnates in the mix. Done a few ITFs without problems even at +5. Overall it's exactly what's being sold: a Claws/SR Scrapper Dominator Blaster. It easily gets defense up like SR, and just like SR it's squishy, but unlike a Scrapper it can start the fight by killing most of the minions and having lieutenants at half HP which can then be taken down by the smoooooth ST chain and both circular AoEs, one which soft CCs with KU and both with -recharge. Overall I much prefer this to a Claws/SR since it's *very* satisfying to Follow-Up, Aim, Psychic Wail and murder most of a spawn. It's just very nice to have burst and sustain. Aid Self solves the self-heal problem though the skill has a tremendous near 5 second animation. Fortunately as a flier it is exceedingly easy to float a bit off from the mobs and heal up at our leisure before swooping down. Trying to heal at ground level while being hit would just kill the HP gained before the animation had finished. This isn't a build that handles well be thrown into a farm map to be at agro cap for minutes on end, it just isn't, don't even go there. But it is VERY good at doing NORMAL gameplay since the nuke kills most of the mobs in a spawn leaving much fewer targets hitting us. Aura of Confusion is a mule, but it's nice to have. Team is speeding, we just used Psychic Wail on one spawn and everything is mopped up, ran to the next spawn, no one is nuking for some reason? Boom, Aura of Confusion. By the time we have ran to the next spawn after that, used Wail, then reached the next again spawn after that with all the FF procs helping things and Aura of Confusion is back up. While it's still a mule it's a worthy mule. I'm at a loss on my last two powers though. I considered Leadership for the +acc. But under level 50 we seldomly run content at more than +1 tops, and usually it's +0. At level 50 everyone is well slotted up and accuracy isn't, usually, a problem. The two or three places where accuracy help would be against CoT (eff those -acc ghosts and shielding bosses), the witches/Tsoo (eff those hurricanes), and probably the Banished Pantheon. But these aren't common to face. I'm tempted to just grab both Assault toggles, but I understand their damage increase is actually pretty minimal and in a build with only Stamina for Recovery grabbing more toggles is iffy. The other choice would be to grab better powers for ST. Both Swipe and Strike are better than TK Blast and Dominate, but TK Blast and Dominate both CC which is pretty useful (DOWN, SURGEON! DOWN, SAPPER!). Mind Link is always an option, but the abysmal 4 second animation leaves me cold and, again, once at 50 deaths are so rare that we may pat ourselves on the back for helping the team, but insert arewereallythormeme.jpg.

Claws/Bio Scrapper is the best thing since sliced bread. War mace is nearly as good as Titan Weapons but much easier to maintain and level with. Very safe with all the KD/KUs. Scrapper would be my choice. You won't win prizes with a Sonic/Bio Sentinel but it is *FUN*. By level 12 you're spamming cones like a madlad and sucking HP like a vampire. It just pales at 50 once everyone has nukes and Judgements and there is not much point in spamming cones on 3-4 scattered mobs.

I was looking at Gulbassaur's build and mentioned I felt he had too many attacks, saw I could have three circular AoEs (eff cones!), then started tinkering with it and ended up with something. I didn't want to clutter his thread so I made this one. Alright, so I'm leveling this. Currently level 32. VERY SQUISHY. No resists, tiny HP pool and no defenses while doing melee? Nutty. Even munching on two purples wasn't enough. I had to reshuffle things and push Aid Self for later and this has helped but expect squishyness while leveling. There are just too many useful powers to take early. Spin + Psinado is a good early thing to have, we can feel Psinado's FF proc helping with lowbie recharge. This only opens at 24 though. I question the brains who thought the AT ought to have a full respec at 24 instead of branching out at 24. Having Psinado at level 12 would have been nice. Unlike Claws we can't make an AoE rotation of Follow-Up, Spin, and Psinado, but Follow-Up, Spin, Psinado, Follow-Up, Spin can be done before a gap happens. Combine with Psychic's Wail and I think our AoE needs are satisfied. I couldn't fit a single target rotation with just Follow-Up, Dominate, and Lunge. The bane of extra fast animations. So I had to take *something* and since I *had* to take a level 1 power I took TK Blast since it animates ultra fast and takes a FF proc. Since I had to take a level 1 power it's not like a wasted power, it just cost a few slots but for once I had enough slots for everything I cared for. Having an extra power in the ST attack chain helps early on. There is no particular reason to slot the superior ATO in it (we don't *need* the extra melee defense) but all the bonuses are acceptable and no other set had 4 bonus that I deemed more useful (even the extra defense isn't bad since it's something to delay DDR). The blaster part of the build is definitely the Aim + Nuke recharging every 42 seconds (less with FF procs). Endurance is a big problem so far though I don't have Stamina fully slotted (I could have looked for the AoE bonuses somewhere else, but we have no other source of Recovery than Stamina so it was two birds with one stone) I don't really trust Aid-Self to keep me up as it hasn't in the past, but the build has enough toys it might work better (all the slows and -recharge built in the ST and AoE chain, the soft CC of KD, etc). The ST chain *looks* like it should do good damage even though TK Blast hurts it. I'll have to see if TK blast can be done without. Perhaps with Ageless it can be. Lunge showing as 617 damage (!), Dominate procced out at 398, Follow-Up at 265 and then a paltry 160 for TK Blast. If there is interest I can whip up a leveling build.

*vibrating^2*

Works very well. I have a guide about it further down.

To be honest I feel like you just have waaaaay too many attacks. Either going melee or ranged would be enough but both just steals a lot of power picks and slots which is noticeable. These ATs are blessed in how they can cherry pick things. More AoE or more ST according to need.

I played a Scrapper KM almost to 50 but felt disappointed and let it be. The same reason I felt that way applies to Stalkers but is corrected a little bit, and that's that the rotation is fast if we only use the early attacks, sure, but the attacks are all low damage *because* they are early ones. Stalker helps in the ST damage (as it always does) by substituting the T1 for AS (obviously a large large upgrade). Just three ST attacks leads to some annoyance in how we can't do a gapless AS, T3, T2, AS, since AS will not have recharged by then. We must do AS, T2, T3, T2, AS, which makes AS' hidden proc go 'wasted' on a T2. If we are doing max level content only then Moonbeam/Zapp can sort of takeover (Moonbeam better, but Zapp gives access to another AoE) as AS, Moonbeam, T3, T2, but Moonbeam's large recharge makes it awkward to use for every rotation. Otherwise yes, KM is not just really pretty but fast and fluid. It only has one AoE but it's decent in how it comes early and allows to fit in a Force Feedback and the recharge is sort of perfect to try always use AS before it to fish for auto crit.

I do that all the time. I don't own a Tanker, but all my characters play like one in the sense they jump into a group first and unload AoEs and aim to kill the hardest target in there. But once the team catches up I never stay there moping up. You call it bad playing, I call it normal playing. Even on a +4x8 a full group annihilates spawns. A full team all competing to kill is an orgy of attacks trying to nail a mob before it dies and there are a lot of animations flying to hit a corpse. I'm not trying to change your mind with this but if there are two or three anemic lieutenants and a half HP boss left and there are 5-6 team members dealing with them I don't see the need to stay, nor do I believe those few scattered mobs to be an actual threat to the team. I would rather be bouncing to the next group, unload AoEs, and when the team arrives the mobs are nice and clustered around me to be ravaged by their AoEs.

Controllers want to feel useful and that means spamming their skills. The solution isn't to gripe but to gently insist on team chat to *not* spam mass immobilizes until the enemies are close. Some might not care, some will, but without communication no changes will happen for sure.

They haven't, no worries.

Second iteration of the final build. Seeing how I find myself not using Cutting Beam there was no point in having it overslotted. Changed things around and placed the Opportunity proc in Disintegrate to get more of a bar refill during ST rotations which is when it comes in slower. I could definitely remove Cutting Beam since I don't use it, but if exemping under level 28 I lose Overload and that's when having a second AoE is welcome. As it turns out Cross Punch mules Avalanche which was something I had not explored previously. This opens the epic pool and since I needed a melee attack to mule why not go for the big guns? Having KO Blow and not put a FF proc in would have been practically a sin since despite playing the character 100% ranged sometimes something flies into range, and then a Popeye punch to the crotch is just too nice to pass up.

We're at 12%, near the top.

We have a patch, maybe it is out today!

x10 😄

Also, this was the most fun I had with a Sentinel. Just look at those gifs. CC *and* near immortal!

Done and done.

After a tepid attempt at Dual Pistols I turned to a Beam seeking more damage. In the low levels we can feel it. The Disintegrate effect has noticeable chunks of HP removed which is noticeable coming from a Dual Pistols. This wanes later on, but I think (without having pylon tested for metrics) that the single target is actually decent. For a Sentinel. I expected more from the Disintegrate spreading having visions of loadsa splash damage, but not really. The splash damage is not all that being just a carrier for the effect which is ACTUALLY meant to trigger MORE damage when skills are used on something that has Disintegrate. In practice this doesn't work out too well since everything dies too fast. I took being level 40+ running a +3 ITF to finally feel I could use this mechanic. So, in practice. Using AoE or ST skills on a target that has Disintegrate makes it take extra damage. While leveling and everything dying fast this can be mostly ignored as nothing +0 lasts long. Open with Cutting Beam, use Refractor Beam, pick a target, use Disintegrate, Charged Shot, then Lancer Shot. This will spread Disintegrate and the next uses of Cutting Beam and Refractor Beam will thus do more damage to those affected. Piercing Beam might be better if it hits more than once mob, but screw dat 2.64 animation. Still, both Piercing and Lancer are interchangeable so pick what you'd like. After 32 things finally pick up. The AoE rotation becomes Disintegrate, Aim, Overcharge, Refractor Beam, Charged shot, cycling Disintegrate (to start the spread), followed by Charged Shot (to activate Defensive Opportunity which in AoE situations ought be up 90% of the time, but also also to fish for Force Feedback procs) and Refractor Beam (doing a bit extra damage to those who have Disintegrate). These three can be used near gapless even before the build is finished. In ST situations replace Refractor for Lancer Shot. I've stopped using Cutting Beam at this point though I suppose an argument could be made for using it. But long animation cones that do double digit damage are just 🙂 . I suggest trying it and see how it works out. In my experience the Aim + Overcharge alpha kills most minions leaving only lieutenants and bosses and those are being tackled by the rest of the team, so using the cone for 4-5 mobs doesn't feel interesting and I prefer to help killing the hard targets with Refractor Beam tossed in as a nod to AoE. A more advanced rotation (if things live that long) would be Disintegrate, Charged Shot, Refractor Beam, Lancer Shot, Charged shot, Refractor Bem. Basically using Disintegrate only every two rotations. The good interactions with the build: Defensive Opportunity *really* likes Cutting Beam, Disintegrate (I think) , Refractor Beam, and Overload. A single use of any of these on a group and the opportunity bar fills to the max. This also means a use of these ALSO triggers Defensive Opportunity flooding us with small heals and endurance. As a purely ranged character on top of this it means not only decent self healing that tops us but also that my experience is leveling at 90%-100% endurance the whole time which is why there is no attempt at adding more Recovery to the build. The expensive end game build. Cremate and Fire Sword Circle are meant to be fillers and not really be used. Some might say not using Fire Sword Circle would be a waste and I possibly agree with them (mobs do try to come to us, this character is an agro magnet). Use if you'd like. Mids also says there are two free slots but it's just Mids not able to handle Fire Sword where it is. Leveling build/I don't have money for the super expensive stuff build. No effort has been made to fix the defense. This is merely an interim build:

Well, in my case, Scrappers are the only thing worth playing. Anything else is faffing around. Even at low levels my Claws scrapper will plunge into a group, Spin, get a crit and wipe several minions. On the other hand any Sentinel will go three AoE rotations (use all AoEs, wait for recharge, do it again) before killing even level minions. That's... just... bad. But when I get bored of meleeing I do come back to Sentinels because they just start early. They are tough, and at 32 they start wiping groups partly on their own. If you never played one this level 32 thing is what they live off on with 25 second nukes once all is slotted up. But outside of it the damage is just nothing special. But approach a spawn, pop Aim, drop the nuke, quickly throw the rest of the AoEs while Aim is still up and most things are pretty hurt with all minions dead. The sad thing is afterwards with everything still alive and the nuke recharging 😄 Anyway, I'm being too pessimistic. It's good fun to be tough and zoom around shooting things and not have to chase them. It's also nice to not have to worry about CC or being squishy. I would recommend a Beam/ sentinel, I guess. The ST damage seems nicer to me (I haven't tested yet to see if it actually is better from others I have played) while the AoE seems about the same as the others (two digit AoEs, wooo! The AT really is balanced around that fast recharging nuke). If you want I have a Beam/Bio and I was thinking of throwing a quick write-up for it.

I've looked at this combo and even cooked up a build, but the damage numbers were so abysmally low, even on a Sentinel's standards, that I didn't touch it after theorycrafting a build. The one thing that would liven up the build would be removing the 15 second CD on repeating Water Jet, but with the 15 seconds, eh. It does seem to have nice AoE though. But after playing water a couple of times the combo system is too unwieldy. There is a disconnect in the devs who cooked Water/ and Beam/ with the actual gameplay. Things happen too fast to be building combo points and the 5% chance is an artifact of ye old D&D times that messes with combo building too. That said go for it, maybe you will enjoy it. Your build had a lot of empty slots so it is hard to gauge things. I will say that you probably do not need at all all those slots in Stamina and Health. Defensive Opportunity is all your need. I'm leveling a Beam/Bio atm and unlike my scrappers who are touch and go with endurance all the way to 40+ this gal is either at 90% endurance or 100% for the whole duration (though mind the Beam/ interacts very nicely with Defensive Opportunity which may not be the case of Water). By the same token I find I hardly ever use Rebuild DNA so I have it at minimal slotting which is more than enough. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've had to use it on a 100% ranged character who has Ablative as a first line of defense. Were Water with any sort of melee range skills like a PbAoE nuke and you might need that extra heal more, but this is not the case. Important: pre-emptive munching on purples is better for your health than munching on greens. Use your favorite base macro and replenish your purple insps between missions. I'm going to throw you the build I had worked out, just shift things according to your desires (like taking out Flight/Afterburner for Athletic/etc). Cremate and Fire Sword Circle are mules and not particularly meant to be used, so again, shift around at will.

It's not the tanker thread. The overwhelming response has been 'yes please, can we have it yesterday?'.

Yes, I've abandoned my DP/Bio as well. I thought it would get better but it hasn't. I can't help but feel that feel Sentinels are a baby class. Fun to play with a bit but clunky and weak so at some point we move back to a real AT. My Beam/Bio is feeling good, but looking under the hood and it's also weak. AoEs doing double digits means painfully whittling down enemies. While my Claws Scrapper has Spin doing 200 damage, and if it crits then double that. It's common for me to plunge into a spawn and do Follow-Up and Spin and most minions are dead, and no need to wait 25 seconds to do it again.

*vibrates harder still*

Throw it into your SG bank so another character can use it if they ever need it?

Ugh, I had the build all planned and with that I'll have to re-tweak it 😄 Thanks for the tip though.

The 'instead of a knockdown it does extra fire damage' wording doesn't actually interfere then?