Sovera

You have infinite merits in the test server, so head to the merit vendor (there's one in the City Hall of Atlas) and buy as many enhancers as you require to superior all your needs.

Anything that reaches 45% defense and has a built in heal. Of course the 'toughest at WHAT' applies. Pylons? That implies long term sustain and enough res to mitigate the hits. +4x8 in a team? Not need for much with a team sharing agro. +4x8 solo? Burst damage taking down the mobs mitigates the need to be all tricked out in defense. All around toughest thing impossible to kill? No such thing, the devs placed tricks around the game to prevent that. Either auto hit abilities or sapping or carnies or whatever.

As I play I'm thinking that AoE caps don't matter as much as it may seem. We almost always initiate with a T9 after all. Two or more will be going off in a team. Minions are almost always wiped out in the initial T9 burst, and the remainder lieuts and bosses don't make more than ten targets. In practical terms the AoE cap is not, I feel, as limiting as it looks on paper. Radius is more important and we have heaps of that. That said any AoE that only hits six targets is just bad bad bad and ought to be fixed. At *least* ten targets, please. My new elec/bio is doing a tremendous job at clearing out packs due to being able to have an AoE rotation it can sit down in the middle of a spawn and exert. As a bonus it also saps coincidentally, not something aimed for, but a happy side-effect. I just did a Manticore TF and reliably keeping the bosses from pulling their T9s was satisfying, furthermore as not built or even aiming for it, simply doing a DPS rotation.

Probably my last post on this build since I've done as much with it as I cared. I was hoping for a bit of conversation and less of a monologue, but I'm guessing I'm too long winded and my basic ramblings don't have the hard math to back them to make for a conversation. It's my belief the last build I posted works very well, and if anything it is the build I would advise for a newbie sentinel. The constant CC starting in the very low levels with AoE KD and AoE Sleep (later replaced by Fire Cages) + refilling Opportunity with a single cone + the vampiric effect of AoE Defensive Opportunity makes leveling and teaming a breeze and a pleasure. No endurance problems, lots of HP returns, lots of CC to give time for regen to work. As I mentioned in the title Sonic/Bio is a hidden gem hardly ever mentioned but it deserves more credit. The only thing it lags behind is solo farming. The cones do not lend themselves well to it and I find all the re-positioning to cost so many seconds that my nuke has recharged before I've finished a +2 spawn. I would have liked to do a pylon test just for numbers, but I'm still lacking a few purples and T4s, and I've moved on to another build since I don't really grind the end-game much (hello altitis). I may return just for that since transferring IOs is allowed (though only 7 tabs is too few to hold a full build's IOs, argh) but for now I'm leveling an AoE beast build I'll post about later.

With the exception of Dark Armor it's baked into the the CC protection.

One of the new servers made it so controllers had their pets at level 1. When I saw that I was blown away. SO level IOs and pets both at starting at level 1 would make the low levels so much smoother. We just slog through the first 22 levels without any slots because why bother when they give almost nothing. Imagine not waiting until level 22 to actually slot stuff. Even a no inf lowbie can slowly buy stuff to at least improve their accuracy. No need to tell someone to 'bear with it' and 'just grit your teeth' to reach level 32/38. The low levels are not hard, just not much fun. I feel the fun factor would grow geometrically when the slow controllers are actually helping with the damage or soloing from the straight go.

I don't know what you mean. I rarely if ever get CCed in normal play, excepting ITF's final boss or the DiB final boss double Shivans who seem to cut through CC protection. That said you can consult Pines/Mids and check the differences between scrappers and sentinels.

Alright, I don't see where I can improve this further, but I welcome advice. There were plenty of small changes incorporated in this. Super Speed got ditched for Stealth. I took the trouble of messing with Pines' options to suppress Stealth so we see the actual defense while in combat and the magic number has been (mostly) achieved at 32.2% for all except S/L which is slightly higher than the goal. The stealth IO is now slapped on to Sprint for the combined effect of perfect Stealth, which was something I really really really wanted. Athletic Regulation got worked in (HELLO DDR! And some minor hover speed too, I guess). I removed Force Feedback because of two reasons. One of them is that perma Hasten has been achieved and in any case the recharge proc is tied to my solo mode. Solo mode I will be using the cones, but not in teams, so the proc's usefulness will be situational. The second reason is that the only thing that still benefits from *more* recharge is my nuke, and in practical terms less than 25 seconds is not needed. I'm not going to use my T9 twice in a pack (well, normally I wouldn't unless it got down to 15 seconds like Archery's) and between cleaning up the harder mobs, picking up stragglers and moving to the next pack 25 seconds is about right solo. In teams others will be chomping at the bit to use their T9/Judgement so a few extra seconds will not matter IMO. Both cones were played around with. They now have each a proc to help kill big packs faster. Howl got Ragnorok for the simplest of reasons that the KD proc would have been wasted in Shockwave who already performs KD 100%. In either case it is sort of wasted since Shockwave and Howl are almost almost gapless and by the animation time of getting back up on their feet mobs are ready to be slammed back down. So perhaps eek out a few % more by replacing the KD proc by the damage. I don't feel it matters much either way. Despite wanting to give at least one damage proc per attack I ended up giving Sentinel's Ward to Shriek. This is because Shriek is my least used attack with Scream, Screech, Scream, Shriek as my planned attack chain though I probably will have enough for Screech, Scream, Shriek (start with the hardest hitter, if it's still alive use the second hardest, if it's still alive use the third. No point in starting with Shriek and then animate/use endurance in two extra attacks). But also because I wanted to fit Sentinel's Ward *somewhere*. Due to the animation time and base recharge I don't think Shriek gets much usage out of procs anyway. Scream ended with Opportunity Strikes but I am not sure to whom this would have gone better. Screech or Scream. With its longest base recharge and animation Screech is going to carry the procs. But which? Do I want Screech with a better chance to do damage procs, or do I want Screech with a better chance to fill up my Opportunity bar in ST which is when Sonic's Opportunity bar fill up lags behind? On another hand the Opportunity Strikes proc chance is notoriously low so am I wasting Screech's slightly better proc carrying with it instead of further improving it being Sonic's ST mini nuke? My gut says improve Screech mini nuke duties but I don't have the math to back it considering improved uptime of Offensive Opportunity and the damage boost plus -res that comes attached to it. I threw more endurance recovery at the built with a Performance Shifter proc at Inexhaustible and a Panaceia in Health (the slot could have gone to Inexhaustible and made no difference, IMO) and some minor changes in slotting choices in attacks, I'm not sure if it has reached a neutral or even positive status, but as no longer requiring Barrier then Ageless is there as an option. Gaussian's BU in Amplify for a boost and a -res in Dreadful Wail are the last changes. Now, for a pack the -res is going to be of small use since it will hit 1-2 mobs in the whole thing, but my reasoning is that in a pack it will not matter much since it is literally trash we bulldoze over. But when fighting a hard mob Dreadful Wail will be used in conjunction with Amplify and the recharge times make it almost certainly work, so the -res will be present while we are still boosted by Amplify and returning to our ST chain. Perhaps a damage proc will be more useful for the same scenario? The (last?) revised build: Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build!

Dayum, it just goes to show we keep on learning. Time to rejig my current build and add these babies in. I have but one like to give you, @nihilli, but in my heart you got a dozen.

Oh, really? I've sort of ignored it as an endurance recovery tool. Pines does not show the endurance recovery for it or the Performance shifter.

People actually read the build? I just jump straight to importing it to Pines.

Performance Shifter chance for end, Miracle unique, Numina unique, Luck of the Gambler 7.5%. Steadfast 3%, Gladiator Armor 3%. As a sentinel you won't need the KB protection IO, but that one's a Karma or a Steadfast.

Same as you do on Live. Find a portal (Talos, Atlas, etc, by the tram station), go to Night Ward. Right in front of you is a mansion on top of a hill. Go in. Done.

Here we are again. I was going to continue this on Sunsette's Project thread following up with @oldskool but felt it would just derail the purpose of the original thread. With trying to maximize procs being the new rage I have tried to cobble something as well. If anyone has tried the Elder Scrolls Online combat (ugh) they will be familiar with the concept of 'throw AoE DoTs on the floor then keep on doing your ST rotation'. This follows the same idea which is why I did not go for Dark. Throw Ice Storm + Blizzard on ANYTHING THAT MOVES! Packs of mobs, even hard targets. Then pick a hardier target and go to town with the ST rotation. Bonus points by applying Fire Cages first, which has a 5 second recharge, then apply both rains, which coincidentally require 5 seconds to cast, so once cast we can reapply Fire Cages and neatly keep everything bunched up for the rains, even bosses. Frost Breath is kept for solo play/exemplar where we have a better handle on the flow of battle but also as a mule (if we need to mule might as well go for a useful power). For endgame teams Frost Breath is not expected to find use. At first I tried for the very proc heavy approach of three procs per attack frankenslotting the remaining slots. But this cost too much recharge and left a big-ish gap in the rotation requiring a fourth attack. We do have a fourth attack in Chill Ray/Fire Cages though. I decided to go for a weaker approach with just two procs per attack. @Redlynne posted math on why a Decimation BU proc on a T1 can be made to work and the math seemed solid so I incorporated the idea. With Bitter Ice Blast I'm torn between five slotting a Decimation for the recharge, but then only have one damage proc in the attack (I don't particularly favor the BU approach anyway preferring damage procs), five slotting Apocalypse with the proc and then adding another one, or finally use three ACC/DMG HOs and then three damage procs. The problem lays in the gaps that it causes. Ice Bolt + Bitter Ice Blast + Ice Bolt only achieves 3.7-ish seconds with Bitter Freeze Ray recharging in 4.4 seconds if slotted for recharge. This makes a compelling argument for Ice Blast since a longer animation time would 'stretch' the recharge requirements. Unfortunately Sentinels require our T1 for Offensive Opportunity. That said Defensive Opportunity still applies the -20% res (arguably the most important part of the whole Opportunity shtick) and getting endurance could be considered an indirect benefit that changes Incarnate and slotting approaches. In any case it is not a *big* gap and for normal play this could be a moment to insert Fire Cages. If we are taking down a spawn it does a bit of AoE damage while stopping runners (everyone knows about those, there will always be some who will see things are going badly and run to the other side of the map and then come back later to shoot us in the back). But it also applies to hard targets such as an AVs as well since my god do they love to run nowadays! That said using Fire Cages can be otherwise said to be a DPS loss (though we can rejig the slots and incorporate a -res proc in it though I did include those in the rains) in a more min maxed setting but if using it in the ST chain then it might further 'stretch' the recharge requirements allowing for the whole three procs per attack. Three proc slots would be a lot of recharge bonus lost though, and that would *increase* the recharge requirements. Bitter Freeze Ray's slotting alternates with Bitter Ice Blast. If one is using Apocalypse then the other will be using the HO/Decimation slotting. I am really not in love with the uber slow 2.6 animation. That's on a go-to-the-kitchen-and-make-a-sandwich level. Perhaps Chill Ray could be considered since it animates nearly a second sooner, but it would be difficult to make a compelling argument when Chill Ray does nearly half the damage of Bitter Freeze Ray. An alternative that would lose Fire Cages and cram a useless pre-power into the build would be the mighty Dominate. Very low base damage though, and the useless pre-power makes it a hard sell. What makes Dominate so strong for other ATs is obtained in Bitter Freeze Ray with the exception of Dominate's much much faster animation times at the cost of doing three times less base damage than Bitter Freeze Ray. Other alternatives: with all the proc slotting we can/are be short on accuracy, so ditching Combat Jumping and Athletic Regulation to grab Maneuvers and Tactics. Our poor endurance though... I ramble, it's late, so here's the build: Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build!

I've been browsing your Dark proc oriented builds, @oldskool, and you seem to be on to something. Someone over the Defender part of the forums is also leaning on Dark as the best proc carrier. I've seen some good arguments towards Ice though, and at this point I am not sure which will fit better with that goal in mind. That said Ice sins for the rains not carrying procs very well but in practical terms the rains work rather well in a Elder Scrolls sort of thing, which is basically throw both AoE DoTs on the ground and then start picking the hardier enemies while they tick. Even if someone T9 and killed most minions both slows in both rains would keep the hardier mobs slowed and keep on damaging them (the flee effect should not be ignored either. Slooooowly fleeing mobs are mobs not attacking back). Someone over the Corruptor side of the forums showed an Ice build also very proc heavy that seemed interesting, but I have not placed both side by side to dissect which appears better (especially since both would need to be tweaked for a Sentinel). Speaking of dissecting someone over the Scrapper side of the forums showed a Blaster doing some amazing under two minutes times. Well worth looking into though considering we too have Dominate.

Lowered the defenses to 33%-ish. Slotted in some procs, but I'm not sure if it is well done since I'm eschewing the part of PPM where we slot minimal or no recharge into attacks in order to maximize procs happening. But this will do as a first sketch to further refine along the way. Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build!

Another update. I haven't gone up very far. T2 Musculature and Degenerative after some false starts regarding incarnates. But as I play the end-game-ish I realize the part of Sonic that made me love the build and have fun is not useful in the end-game. What made Sonic a riot was being beastly survivable (I'm leveling an ice sentinel, and dying so much pre-22 thanks to the agro of the rains and ice breath. My sonic laughed at this including the final pack of simulacrum bosses in Posi 1), and the ability to cycle AoEs. Of course they do anemic damage compared to the big hitters, but that makes sense. In my finished build Frost breath does 182 damage (aim up, no BU, no procs, not including Offensive Adaptation) while Sonic's Howl does 105. That's a 73% damage increase. But now Frost Breath needs 5 seconds to recharge where we are doing ST damage and Sonic has Shockwave doing 81 damage (and more importantly, working at proccing Force Feedback). While this evens out (two cones doing the damage of a single Frost Breath) what is the difference? The difference is that both Shockwave and Howl do the Opportunity fill out *per* enemy hit. That means one cone on a full pack and it's up, we are 90% of the time under Defensive Opportunity, and each cone is healing a nice chunk. Frost Breath does not have this where every mob hit counts. In fact, neither does Fire, nor AR's Buckshot (but Flamethrower does). I do not have a Water sentinel high enough to test Steam Spray but BR's Cutting Beam does have the Opportunity-per-mob. Coupled with the Force Feedback and the build is pretty tough to kill in big groups. In fact, tougher the fewer team mates there are, and noticeably tough the more in trouble the team is. The problem lays in that cones are super finicky to use. Did the target either move slightly to the side or got knocked? Suddenly we miss most of the targets unlike a Fireball effect. Someone T9 or Judgemented and only three or four mobs are left. Other than the fact they will be most likely scattered and running around is there a point in using low damage cones instead of STing one of those harder targets and kill it dead? The AoE in Sonic is sustain AoE. Think of like WoW where sustain AoE is important when a trash pack may take a minute to kill. But in CoH between 30 second T9s and Judgements and 8 man teams cycling these then burst AoE is the absolute ruler. So, that said, it's not that bad. It's just a matter of changing perspectives. The cones are good for soloing, they are good for examplaring, and they are good if we split up from the main group or the team, for some unfathomable reason, is going down. Because, after all, WE TOO have a 30 second T9 and Judgement, we can participate, we are not tied to the cones as our sole means of AoE contribution even if it would be nice to have a Fireball type of power to weave in that is less finicky regarding aiming. Revising the numbers in the OP my elec Stalker's Lightning Rod shows as doing 697 damage in Pines, but I had the BU proc on Aim which Pines takes in consideration. With the same BU proc on Aim on the Sonic which I had not placed in the original numbers, plus Bio's Offensive Adaptation, our T9 goes up to... 694 damage. The next thing I'll be working at will be lowering the defense numbers to 32% in order to free up slotting in the attacks in order to fit in procs. Check the Defender forums where there are some very good threads regarding damage procs and PPM. This will require to munch on a purple when in trouble instead of relying on Barrier. On the other hand it does free Barrier to pick up something else if wanting.

I have to say, Nihili, you really make me want to continue playing my sonic character and test myself. Though not in this particular thing since getting players or dual boxing just to try it would be more than I'd like to get myself into.

I revised the numbers posted since the initial impromptu post-something-while-having-breakfast wasn't well fleshed out. The numbers in ST are closer but depending on how procs work in AoEs Bio boosts those by a good margin. As for what you said, hmmm, I personally don't agree. Healing and resistances crumple like paper under a beating. Healing and resistances work to mitigate the hits that do come in. I speak under the throw-myself-at-a-high-level-pack approach and not a follow-the-tank. That said a 32% approach is much less demanding and if taking too much damage a single purple candy will greatly mitigate damage while said healing and resists keep us up.

Very good work Sunsette. Everyone will have a hard time following on that 😄 On a different topic I'm just going to think out loud here. I'm starting to believe that Bio's 30% extra damage is actually a bit of a noob trap. We either work the defenses up to a good level (32% or 40%. Actually 45% to all is near impossible) and then we cannot make use of procs and recharge is not as good as it could, or we play almost like old school blasters with defenses hovering at around 25% ish, which, in my experience, is like playing naked. There is a lot of talk in the Defender forums and the Scrapper Pylon Thread regarding procs and how they boost the damage by a *lot*, but that demands we can reach our personal defensive goals via minimal involvement from our primary. After these weeks of messing with Bio on a sentinel when I went back to Ninjutsu (DDR, heal, endurance clicky, stealth, movement speed, all in a neat low FX package) I was *shocked* (hyperbole, hehe) at how I had softcapped defenses and still had 12-15 slots to use! *Without* having touched the primary (in this case Dark though Ice is a good proc contender too albeit not for the rains who don't take well to procs, apparently). Though Pines is not the best to calculate procs due to the PPM formula not being 100% accurate in it, numbers show, for example. T2 attack: - Gloom 344 damage, 78% accuracy, 95% damage, 47 endurance. Cloud Senses and Javelin proc. - Scream 224 damage, 96% accuracy, 96% damage, 49% discount, 72% recharge. With bio's 30% that adds 67 damage making it 291 damage. Not including sonic's -res since we can make a sonic/ninja. T3: - Antenumbral Beam: 548 damage. 59% accuracy, 89% damage, 33% discount. 89% recharge (this is probably not well slotted since the PPM will go down if recharge is slotted in an attack. But I wanted to slot in a purple for the 10%. This might still require fine tuning). Cloud Senses and Javelin proc. - Screech: 388 damage, 96% accuracy, 101% damage, 49% discount, 100% recharge. With Bio's 30% that makes 116 = 504 damage. Dark is probably not the best choice for a proc optimized build though. Where Bio pushes ahead is how it increases the damage of AoEs where the procs will not hit *everyone* but rather just one mob in the middle of the other ten (someone correct me if wrong) though T9's vary. Dark 's Blackstar, for example, without procs is 562 damage while Sonic's Dreadful Wail is 534 with Bio turning it into 694. My Sonic sentinel has Hasten at 131 recharge with two +5 recharges whereas the Dark has the same slotting but Hasten at 123. No incarnates used. This is all dependent on how fixated we are on defenses. Ignore melee, ignore AoE, focus solely on ranged, and we can slot all those procs in and still bask in Bio's 30% (though I am almost sure the 30% does not actually increase the proc's damage since those also ignore Fulcrum Shift. Again, someone correct me if wrong) but if we are aiming at Blaster's level of defenses then why not just roll one. Edit: had to revise the numbers since Dark had a Gaussian BU in Aim and Sonic did not. I placed a Gaussian BU in Aim for Sonic as well and the numbers assume Aim is up and BU procced.

Can you show us your build, @Nihil? Something sturdy enough to take a Pylon without insps and do those numbers purely at range is something I'd like to dissect to see what makes it tick.

I saw this *after* having done the legwork, yes, and back on Live I had a file with what I am talking about for this purpose. Yeah, he did part of the job, but laziness I'm just going to call out, such as guides on a class where the writers use acronyms and good luck for new players to untangle it, because taking the 0.5 extra seconds to write the full words would have been too much work. So, anyway, here is what I used, feel free to paste it on the main body. The links show where the badges actually are and it's more useful than just the coordinates: Atlas Park /thumbtack 511, 5, -1151 Atlas Park /thumbtack 134, 314, -340 Perez Park /thumbtack -1174, -29, 2252 Steel Canyon /thumbtack -2428, 48, -3408 Boomtown /thumbtack -448, 42, 2170 Kings Row /thumbtack -400, 4, 1760 Kings Row /thumbtack -940.5, -41.7, 2977.4 Kings Row /thumbtack -170, -42, -1467 Kings Row /thumbtack -2175.9, 97.0, 1142.5 Skyway City /thumbtack -1085, -16, -7612 Talos Island /thumbtack 1777, 22, 7843 Founders' Falls /thumbtack 1725, -8, 2400 Brickstown /thumbtack -229, 8, -370 Brickstown /thumbtack -3463, 4, 2062 Independence Port /thumbtack -1615, 80, -1872 Independence Port /thumbtack -1035, 36, -2441 Independence Port /thumbtack 910, 100, -4175 Terra Volta /thumbtack 351, 196, -3605 Echo: Dark Astoria /thumbtack 3420, 46, 3038 Echo: Galaxy City /thumbtack -752, 5, -1550 Echo: Galaxy City /thumbtack -1184, 63, -936 Because of the changes to the teleports it's no longer viable to jump leap from zone to zone with them. The route is now a bit more optimized for using travel powers with two cut off points where teleports to a different zone altogether is needed. One is from Boomtown to KR and the other from Founders to Bricks, leaving the last one as requiring an Ouroboros portal for the Echo zones (they are behind the building). Edit: Use /macro Portals "enterbasefrompasscode ZONE-8888" to move around more easily. Heldenjaegger is the contact in Steel Canyon that has the 'TF' which can be set as as -1x8. We are not examplared if we do it at 50 and thus do not lose powers or IO bonus. Set yourself as no bosses and Fake Nemesis will spawn as lieutenants who can be two-shot. Don't fight the whole map or the mobs will get Vengeance stacked. I just flew around killing all Nemesis and then logged out and back in. Got around 25 of them each time.

So, update. Reached 50! My first one since returning to CoH! Altitis, cured! I tried going to a fire farm around 45-ish and could do it at -1x8 despite abysmal slotting and basic IOs everywhere. When I reached 50 I made some inf, bought more stuff. Tried again and can now do it a 0x8 despite still being at about 32%. This was when I noticed the damage was really poor. Meh. Even at +0 and it was taking long to kill mobs. But wait, I suddenly looked at my inspiration tray and saw that they were sitting pretty and mostly unused. Greens? Defensive opportunity + Ablative Shield + Rebuild DNA was all I needed. Purples? Defensive Opportunity + Fire Cages made them not needed (mobs attack less at range and I outheal it). Blues? Defensive Opportunity. So I took them all out, googled for an inspiration combining macro that combines them when I use my movements keys, and now I'm popping all my reds before launching myself at a pack. Much, much better and it's also how farming is done. I'm still too squishy to move higher up (solved if I'd just pop a purple, but not interested in doing that) but it's working admirably. No endurance problems while AoEing (despite those still being in basic IOs only). Definite endurance problems while in ST mode but I have eight toggles: Environmental Adaption, Hardened Carapace, Super Speed (with the stealth IO to stealth missions and get in position for Dreadful Wail), Tough (only 11% res to S/L, but why not?), Weave, Hover and Maneuvers. Honorable mention to Offensive Adaption but it apparently costs no endurance. While hitting hard targets like a GM or AV for *minutes* I will turn those all off with the exception of the Bio toggles. The usual MO is pre-emptive Ablative, pop all my reds + Amplify, then Hover stealth courtesy of SS to the middle of the pack and explode with Dreadful Wail. Previously targeted boss is hit with Screech, which stacking with Dreadful Wail takes it out of the equation. Pop Fire Cages, float a bit back, do Shockwave. Opportunity bar is now full. Scream on the boss to activate Defensive Opportunity. Boss is still CCed. Fire Cages should be back now. Fire Cages now has everything locked, boss waking up from Stun included. Then I just go to town cycling Shockwave and Howl with Fire Cages refreshing every second cycle. Even if some of the mobs break free because of misses I just reapply Fire Cages and visually it's quite pretty because it ends up being a conga line which works great with the cones. I've tried hoverblasting, but it was not working well with the cones since it missed too many enemies. Speaking of cones, the range extension in both Sentinel's ATOs *really* show themselves and they now have a loooong reach.

I posted on how Defensive opportunity makes my latest build and nothing has changed in that. In fact, I will be updating the post with that I have found by playing it, but summarizing it in that particular build Defensive Opportunity is letting me farm +0x8 despite having only 30%-ish defenses while I slowly slot up and work out Incarnates. This is not a one size fits all though, but with Sonic's quick cycling AoEs I'm never in lack of endurance and my HP is always full. That said the profit of doing it with ST attacks is much smaller and with more normalized slower recharging AoEs the benefit will not be as great.

The range part has been mentioned before. But it goes with the other bugs the AT has, like one of the big attacks in Fire being doing less damage than it should. Toss it into the bug forum for sure.