Sovera

The counter point is that the IO system is geared towards making characters hardier but not stronger. So we can make a Blaster Sturdier, but only minimally make a Sentinel stronger

Focus from Claws.

To be honest anything works. One of my fastest characters was a Claws/Fire Armor Brute for obvious reasons. Claws/Bio Scrapper punches above its weight thanks to Shockwave spam constantly knocking enemies down. Brute and Tankers have slower recharge in Shockwave which does not make it as seamless as a Scrapper who will go into blending mode with Follow-up, Shockwave, Spin, repeat. Fire Armor/Claws Tanker is still one of the best offense oriented Tankers thanks to the perma 70% damage boost powering Burn and the constant Force Feedback spam accelerating it. Bio is focused towards ST damage, but Claws does AoE good especially on a Scrapper and once you can start spamming it at level 26 your durability goes up. You will need to slot a knockback to KD IO to not scatter the mobs though.

You're welcome, and I would not take Ball Lightning at all to be fair, I just wanted to leave your powers (mostly) untouched. You don't need Electrical Fences since you're a Brute and have an agro aura so mobs never run away from you which is what EF is meant to prevent. That said an extra AoE would not be amiss since Energy Melee is weak in that department. Instead I would go for either Soul Mastery and get Gloom, which is a strong single target move (but would need to find the slots for it) with Dark Obliteration (Ball Lightning, except it's dark themed). Or Energy Mastery for Focused Accuracy (not hugely needed but it does protect against accuracy debuffs, and best part, does not need slots) with Energy Torrent for a bit of an extra AoE (though it's a cone so it needs to be aimed, but we can slot a Force Feedback proc to enhance recharge times). Or you ignore the epic pools and just take Power Crash. It's a cone as well, but it's available at level 22 instead of 41, and it will prop your AoE up that is a bit weak with just Whirling Hands. As Troo pointed you can try the auras in the tailors, but that said if you like Mystic Flight there is no reason not to. Theme and enjoyment trumps 2% extra defense.

I have this old thing, I think everything is in place. You get 40% to S/L defenses (45% with Barrier) and 90% to most resistances with a second ATO stack and Barrier's 5%. This is not a leveling build though but sneeze if you'd like me to cook something. Tanker (Fire EM).mbd

In practice you will not notice a difference between 40 and 60%. If you are capable of it then defenses in the 33% range are the sweet spot since you can then use one small purple to reach 45%, but this is not a luxury that a Radiation Armor Sentinel has. If you're hovering out of melee range it already is a big boost in survival since mobs' ranged hits are weaker than their melee hit. For a first character I would have picked Elec/Bio or even Elec/Stone, but everything will work out in the end. Just don't push for more than +1x4 in the difficulty and lower it if it's too hard. As a Sentinel you should be starting the fight with Charge-up (with the Gaussian proc for another 80% damage) and your nuke which already cleans some of the enemies. That's why I worked your offense power up instead of boosting your defences. Defences you can just eat a small purple or two if you see your HP is dipping too low, but if few enemies survive your first volley of AoEs then there are fewer enemies hitting you in the first place. So what you want is a strong fast nuke that you always start the fight with. If you sneak on mobs, Charge-up, Ball Lightning, Thunderous Blast, Ground Zero, Ball Lightning, Short Circuit you'll have half the group dead in the first 10 seconds of combat. And yes, no one does generic IOs because there is no point unless it's a self-imposed constraint. If you took a look at the newbie guide you see how you make 1-2 million worth in merits in the first hour of making a character and that's just selling the merits earned. 1-2 million is what generic IOs cost to deck out a build at level 22. And that was in the first hour of having made the character. Now this might feel like I'm pulling your leg when I say it is a cheap build and then you have minimum 2 million per slot and sometimes as much as 7 million, but use the first build and then slowly transition to this second one one slot at a time. As I mentioned in the guide it's not wasted since you can then transfer that stuff to a new alts. Or even just sell it back. It's still a leveling build with some tweaks for a level 50 respec waiting, but that's a third build still. Cheap IO Sentinel v2 (Electrical Blast - Radiation Armor).mbd

Dark Armor does not have enough going for it these days, it needs a tune up. Try instead Radiation Armor for being pretty survivable or Fire Armor for extra damage. Stone is pretty decent these days but it lacks endurance recovery even with what is baked into the set. One of my best allrounders was a Claws/Fire Armor. Energy Melee/Fire Armor also had the best of both worlds with strong single target damage and Burn helping with EM's mediocre AoE. With enough money poured in anything will work though. So if you're sold into a particular theme it's fine to play it.

I've killed them with pretty much anything from MA, to Fire, to Ice, to Stone. Some will have a harder time if they face particular AVs with strong resistance to their damage types. Try Fire Melee, its recent tune up made it top tier and the damage type is not commonly resisted.

I'm not actually sure what does the Fortunate passive even do. I'm not sure why we don't have numbers posted with patch notes and instead have to log in, check for ourselves, then come back and post them So what Fate Sealed does is add 33% strength to CC (and since we don't usually slot for CC it's a free 33% untouched by ED) and 15%-34% resistance to CC (scales from level 1 to 50). Looking at the damage Scramble Thoughts can be worked into the ST rotation now between damage boost and animation trimming, which is nice. I hit a pylon in the RWZ for numbers and got this: Scramble Thoughts: 46 over 4 seconds. Subdue: 45. Dominate: 36. TK Blast: 21. TK Blast is the least damaging but that FF proc in there can help speed the build, otherwise Subdue is 'only' an immobilize where Scramble is a stun, Dominate is a Hold and TK Blast is a KB, with KD tax, but, FF. We are no longer forced to take Combat Training Defensive since either Pain Tolerance or Fate Sealed replace it.

Generic IOs are something you start replacing as soon as level 20-ish so don't plan too long on sticking with generics. Most of the cheap stuff will cost less than 2 million and you can earn money selling merits. If you're new my signature has tips about this. That said you're making a few small mistakes. Charge up does not need To-Hit buffs, only recharges (and a Gaussian proc the moment you can afford it). Combat Jumping gives too little defense to be worth slotting defense, and it makes more sense to use Hover and blast from the air. There is no point in slotting Tesla Cage with Hold IOs, and you're taking it waaaaay too late. Thunderous Blast is your nuke and you want that back as soon as possible. It's cooldown coincides with Charge-up which provides a large boost to accuracy (plus the Gaussian I mentioned) so you can skip all accuracy on it. Hasten wants both slots +5 to skip one slot, or three while leveling, and again it is too late in the game since you want it to help your nuke return faster. All your defense and resist toggles want one more slot, and maybe one for endurance discount. Though most of your attacks CAN take an endurance modifying IO it is just to drain enemies which is a mechanic with little use. You will do more damage to enemies the lower their endurance, true, but it's not worth slotting for. Particle Shielding gives regen, shields, and has a large 50% recovery buff. The regen is only up for 30 seconds but the endurance is up for 60 seconds, so you want to beef its recharge to have this triple whammy up as often as possible (in fact, click it the moment it's off cooldown instead of saving it). Ground Zero is not very useful without being 90% damage procs so no rush in grabbing it. If you do grab it then immediately start slotting it with damage procs, but it casts so slowly that while leveling and IO-less I would just focus on slotting my other powers, but this is something for you to decide. Because its recharge coincides with Charge-up as well you don't need to slot accuracy since they will be all used at the same time. Meltdown is a panic button with bad uptime and long cast time. I don't touch it despite the damage boost it brings because the damage boost hits the ED cap which we are at anyway. You have too many attacks. These are needed as you level but level 22 you should be down to a rotation of Lightning Bolt, Charged Bolts, Zapping Bolt, Charged Bolts once you have minimal IOs slotted instead of generics. I left all the attacks in since you won't have the recharge for a gapless rotation with just three. You don't need Boxing/Weave soon in the build since their effects are minimal. They are taken to boost already present defenses to reach a certain cap but with a generic IOs build you'll be nowhere close to those caps. So you use inspirations when needed and keep flying above the heads of the enemies and save Tough/Weave for later. Even Ground Zero and Short Circuit can be use flying just out of melee range while over the mob's heads and it will still hit them. Hover is, in my opinion, more important than Fly since you're 90% of the time fighting and 10% of the time travelling to another mission. But because you're taking so many attacks there is no way to have both early. I suggest picking Hover early and then use a cheap 5k jetpack from the P2W vendor to travel between missions. These are all small mistakes easy to make and not a big deal, you would have reached 50 with your build regardless. I'm going to do a few tweaks as if a leveling build, AKA 3 slotting hasten, only one slot for accuracy (because we usually only fight +1 enemies while leveling), and etc. If you want I can post a cheap build with IO sets. Cheap IO Sentinel v2 (Electrical Blast - Radiation Armor).mbd

Cobalt Arachne best Arachne.

Here's a tinkered build. Pushed your resistances up without extras like Rune of Protection, improved damage a bit, shored your negative defense. You forgot your Brute's ATOs which made your slotting harder so you should be able to get some slotting ideas from this to incorporate into your build. mids_build.mbd

You're not going to have high resistances with Energy Armor since it's a defense set. But everything looks somewhat in order. What are your actual goals and what are you fighting that is making you feel squishy?

Radiation Armor should have zero endurance problems so to reiterate what others have already said: Hit your absorb shield on cooldown since it has 50% recovery (unenhanced Stamina has 25% to put it in perspective) Theft of Essence proc in Radiation Therapy will fill your blue bar with just a few mobs around.

Tried a new Storm/Stone Sentinel on the +1 and ran out of endurance, but two minutes in and it had shaved half the HP of the dummy, sniff.

Well, you're arguing to keep it as is for the nichest of nichies niches, so the 0.5% of the content. It's a solid argument if dev time is devoted towards the 0.5% and the players are told 'yeah, well, you know, it sucks for everything, but, if you decide being one of the dozen people who do X content then definitely take Y. It will still be useless for 99.5% of the content but you will shine in the 0.5%'. Perhaps a middle ground can be reached which is what people are asking, and this is the time to get it because once the set is shipped it will not be touched any time soon. And go easy on the sneering for the easiest content in CoH BS, you're acting like an hipster turning their nose up at people who don't drink soy milk hand pressed by virgins from Guatemala.

Well, that and having no heal, no endurance clickies, and being a mixed bag of melee and range. The lack of endurance tools in particular has always ended pushing me away. At least they have a CC toggle.

I wonder if this is going to make better Sentinels than Sentinels

I was testing a character on the dummies and they work, but I can see it being a nuisance if more than one person wants to test, and the whole thing of how long does it take for a dummy to respawn. Would it be feasible to have an instance we could go with pylons so we could just go in and out? Or, hold on, what about a dummy with the same HP that we can place in our base?

I have brought this up in the past almost verbatim. I actually had another long post already typed in the epic AT feedback thread and then looked at it and deleted instead of posting because it was just reiterating what I had already said in the past. It is a design philosophy of the current devs and not something that can be tuned up or down. But at the risk of repeating myself, so much time and effort and coding that ends being effectively wasted because in the end no one touches those sets since they are balanced to the point of becoming milquetoast. I feel that there is a divide because tune ups like Fire Melee were a resounding success but then when we pointed out how Storm Blast was mediocre and some QoL was needed we were told that 'not all sets are meant to be top tier'. My brother in christ, you're making this from scratch, it CAN be top tier so that people will decide based on aesthetics and theme instead of 'this hits harder'.

Nothing beats using the market, but farming the AE is a solid option. Simply playing the game is one as well since we are showered in money at 50.

No need for AHK, you can use the in-game bind system. Something like /bind 1 "powexecslot 1$$follow" will do the trick. Now when you press 1 it will use your power in the first slot and run to (and stay glued to) your target. As for the camera there are a lot of camera options in the options so see if one fits your needs. Check my newbie guide for more 'hidden' things in the options.

A Sentinel would be really easy to start with if you pick Hover with Fly from the Flight pool. You stay at range in the air and hitting mobs and though they have ranged attacks to retaliate they are weaker than their melee attacks. Plus you can either whittle or kill a few before they even get close. Storm Blast/Bio Armor would be my advice since Storm is flashy and cool, and also comes with built in soft CC and debuffs. If you prefer melee then a Fire Armor/Ice Melee is also a good choice with Ice Melee getting Ice Patch at level 20 which will do a lot to keep you safe on top a Tanker's resistances. Unlike other games Tankers here don't need to memorize attack patterns, be forced to lead the group, have to sweat their defensives to survive and etc. They are just expected to jump into the fray before the others and that's it.

To be fair it IS a nice butt.

After all the hype about the sybil clothes I'm surprised at the lack of reaction about them.