Sovera

Your opinions are always interesting, Dian, but they remain opinions. You're entitled to them, but at some point you ought to decide if the world is against you and everyone is wrong, or if you are the one that is wrong.

I preface this by saying I did not reinvent the powder and with how there are only so many 'winning' ways of Tetris-ing the IO bonuses others surely came up with the same answer. But, for new players or what have you here is a /bio build that can be paired with pretty much anything. Why Bio Armor? Bio Armor is one of the best armors currently in the game if for no other reason that the Offensive Adaptation grants a 25% damage boost. But then it also has an absorb shield (that also does a small heal), three endurance recovery tools in Inexhaustible, Drain DNA (which also does a small heal) and Parasitic Leech (which triples as a small heal, an absorb shield, and an endurance recovery tool). For other ATs there is argument to be made that Bio Armor is, maybe, a bit squishy, but this is not a problem for Sentinels who will usually be outside of melee range either because being a ranged AT or because they will be safely hovering on top of the mobs close enough to use all their PbAoEs if such is the case, but outside of their melee range. Why not Bio Armor? Aesthetics and theme are important too. Having fun is not quantifiable. Not everyone will be into Bio Armor's looks even with minimal FX and sadly Ablative Armor and Parasitic Leech still make an ugly carapace that mars the otherwise less glaring Minimal FX options. Slotting. The Sentinels's ATOs compete with the Brute ATOs for which are the worst in the game. As is the case with most ATOs the bonuses are great, but the special (a chance for Opportunity and an absorb shield) are inconsequential. As such they can be slotted into AoEs which are by dint of their nature not specially good for damage procs. This frees the single target attacks to have at least or two damage procs to help things along. After playing Sentinels somewhat extensively I went from the true and tried 45% defense to a more humble 33%. The hovering out of melee range, the nuke that helps decimate half a spawn, and how a single small purple inspiration (12% defense) pushes the number back to 45% in case of getting too much agro has served me well. Trapdoor tests were done where I could not safely hover out of the way and the 33% defense was enough without even using a small inspiration. Three example builds: Example 1: We don't have a convenient AoE to place our ATOs. If the build happen to use a T1 for a smooth rotation then the T1 is good place for it since T1s usually are bad for damage procs (usually only 15% to 20% chance to go off). In this case changing from full ATO slotting to 5 Decimation and one damage proc increases the damage in.... seven points. Not 70, just 7. Dark/Bio is an example of this since Umbral Torrent is both aggravating and useful and in order to remove the aggravating part then a knockback to knockdown IO is needed. At that point since we broke the 6 slot bonus we might as well slot a Force Feedback proc which leaves four slots. The quick witted reader might look at the nuke and ponder why not slot the ATO there. Which is a valid point, but a sizeable loss of damage. Nukes have such a long cooldown that any and all procs going in there will have a maxed out chance to go off. Slotting Blackstar with a full ATO would have it do 560 damage. Slotting it with damage procs makes that go to 777. So switching from procs to ATO is a 28% damage loss. The still astute reader will notice how the nuke has no accuracy slotted. That is because the nuke is never ever going to be used without Aim being used first which takes care of that. Sent (Dark Bio).mbd Example 2: Beam/Bio. We have two AoEs we can slot our ATOs into. Great, problem solved! Since Heavy Shot takes a Force Feedback proc it would go without a damage proc with the usual slotting and so it took the Apocalypse set in order to have one. With 44% chance for the damage to go off it's decent. Sent (Beam Bio).mbd Example 3: The nuke is a rain power. Rain powers take very badly to procs so there is hardly a point in slotting procs in there. Because of this the nuke can take the ATO. Sent (Ice Bio).mbd

Same as before I reckon (but did not actually test for myself): when it procs it gives 3-5 points for the opportunity bar.

Cloudburst is good damage though. You say 'instead of Cloudburst' as if we were rich in ST attacks, but without Cloudburst we would be using the T1.

You're preaching to the choir, Windy, I'm not the one in need of convincing (Windball/Dust Devil, lezzzz gooo!). But I'm saying the devs always look at a set in it's globality and not in a per power basis.

This sort of talk would probably be best over either the Suggestion forums or the Gold Standard discord and then beep Booper instead of railing lost in the Corruptor forums But you guys do need to not see things in a vacuum. Chain Lightning may suck (well, there is no 'may' involved) but the set has Storm Cell and Cat 5 helping with the AoE damage. Tests like Trapdoor or whatever comparing performance have more weight instead of directly comparing powers. My own change for Chain Lightning: Windball (like fireball, geddit?), same coding as fireball, but animation is a mini Hurricane (smaller radius, fast swirling FX expanding from point of impact and then shrinking back to nothingness). Damage a bit lower than fireball since its secondary effect would be an implosion effect stolen from Axe Cyclone helping mobs stay inside the two ground effects we put down.

The power needs Ion's coding. No one pops Ion and goes 'shit, it missed that first target'.

After finally reaching level 50 and playing the game while slowly picking up the accolades I feel a bit conflicted on Parasitic Leech. As it is the endurance is slightly too much on the red, but I have not picked the accolades yet which will add another 0.28, nor Musculature's 33% that will add another 0.32. At reaching level 50 I ended up taking Parasitic Leech instead of the caltrops. ...and I find even as a one slot wonder I am using it to replace Ablative when I need heal/shielding, and using it instead of Rebuild DNA when I need endurance. In either case I get the other side of the coin be it heals as well when wanting endurance or recovery as well when wanting heals. I played around with taking the slots from Rebuild DNA and give them to Parasitic as well and the numbers were pretty decent with getting as much as something like 1.5 extra recovery with a single enemy, or as much as capping out recovery if hitting five enemies. The only reason I did not go for it was two fold: - Rebuild DNA does not need targets. Parasitic Leech does. Anyone who remembers the old Consume from Fire Armor will remember the absolute *pain* that was needing endurance, only one enemy in range... and Consume missed. Try again in one minute. This is something relying on Parasitic Leech is bound to make happen. - The power of Parasitic leech lays on being a five target AoE. Even as a one slot wonder there is a hefty 464% regen and 215% recovery if hitting 5 targets which is a compelling reason to leave it as a secondary heal or recovery tool one slotted wonder. But because of carrying a second recovery tool I'm now pondering whether the 45% Musculature is not more logical. What restrains me would be relying on Parasitic and have to go through the 2.1 animation. Going from 2.97 to 3.57 will be already very good, but also going from Rebuild DNA giving 48 endurance (ignoring the proc in it for now) to 54 will also help to tilt the balance. At that point Parasitic's value will go down. But caltrops if of dubious use for a Storm Blast-erino. I was playing DA with a small group of friends and when we split I kept soloing spawns. Not at great speed, because Sentinel, but, +4 (no level shift yet), and it's a 33% defense build and no inspirations were being used. I was even pulling two groups sometimes. Storm may not be the wet dream of a power focused player but it handles fine and the -tohits and panic run-ing it inspires plus all the KD does wonders for ourselves and the team. Right now I'm leaning towards keeping Musculature 33% as this should/will minimize extra clicks to keep endurance up, take Parasitic, remove the proc from DNA, giving the slot to Parasitic, then +5 two Heal/Rech IOs and keep it as a second (third really since both Ablative and Rebuild DNA heal) back-up. Maybe not truly needed, but nothing else seems really useful to pick either. Numbers on the test server show that hitting a pylon with no Musculature slotted does 215 damage. With musculature 45% it does 246, and with Musculature 33% it does 238. Some quick maffs says the 45% damage boost increases damage by 14.4% and the Musculature 33% damage boost is a 10.7% increase. Damage loss is a staggering 3.7% and the reason why I seldom take the 45% version. I think 3.7% is not worth when it will add 2.1 second animation clicks to the gameplay. Best instead save those for back-up heals and thus keep Musculature 33%. Welcome to my TED talk and here is the latest iteration. Once I settle for one I will go through the thread and deleting the other versions: Sentinel (Storm Blast - Bio Armor).mbd

Added more info including the accolades and more details on easy money making, then it was getting to be so spammy that I spoiled everything.

As Oldskool said that mechanic is now gone. Instead you get a clickie called Vulnerability which makes mobs take more damage when hit. It's not a super important clickie though and I reserve it for archvillains. Dehiydrate does heal you which is one of the perks of Water. Heals are something that Stone Armor lacks since it relies on regeneration instead. Keep it in mind for the future if you find yourself being whittled to death but it should not be a big thing since Sentinels get little agro. This is the extreme cheapness build. Really not needed since money is pretty easy to make even just selling merits: A more normal 'cheap' build. Does not have the same defenses as the first so carry small purples to use if suddenly taking too much damage. Also, cheap being relative since Decimations are 3-4 million a piece and the ATOs are 7-9 million a piece. But you can easily buy one by one and just throw it on top of the previous extreme cheap build without worrying about using Unslotters. In the end as you keep making money you can then slowly transition to the expensive build bit by bit as well even though you will then want to use Unslotters and not slot over and destroy stuff worth 3-4 million. You can then save those no longer needed IOs for your next character or just sell them back to the AH. With this build you're already at 90% of the maximum potential and the original expensive build just adds a bit more damage and finishes rounding up defense:

Check out the Prestige Sprints, one of them does a slide FX you can then recolour at a trainer/tailor and might be more fitting than having a stone golem sprinting around like mad. This is the expensive build. You get two free powers to do what you'd like with (these usually are taken up by travel powers). Aua Bolt is the weak link and could/should be replaced by Dehydrate, but it's up to you. Just swap the slotting if you do. If you would like a cheap/leveling build during the time you're picking up money to buy all the things let me know.

Was updating the guide so if following it I suggest starting from the start again. Regarding the use of Tough and Weave it is to reach the magic numbers of 45% which Stone Armor by itself does not. I stick to around 33% instead since small purple inspirations then push things to 45% which frees slots. But even so it requires Tough and Weave , and Maneuvers yes, and the kitchen sink 😄 The build will not be leveling friendly though so if you want I can take a gander and make it more newb/cheap friendly. Do say what powers you'd like though. Teleport was mentioned?

I'm not sure how much of this is not perception though. Playing with a friend I honestly feel it kills at the same speed of my previous Elec/Bio Sentinel. But it had pretty terrible trapdoor times (safe, but slow, 6-7 minutes if I recall correctly) which seems about par de course for Sentinels. The thing with pylon tests is that they are a static target we wail on for a couple of minutes which favours Storm Blast, so it's down to Trapdoor. The slowness is prep time is felt though. To be clear other than some (in my opinion hyperbolic) wording from Crysis I stand by you both.

I thought we were talking about the meta? It's the normal way to play when in a regular team that kills so fast we barely manage to land a few hits. Any other team or content and we stick together.

No particular synergies, but nothing working at odds. What sort of travel power do you favor?

I still feel you're exaggerating what is a real issue. A melee cone with mediocre damage is helping more (survival included) than all the procs from both ground effects? Plus the modified effects from using the blasts? I would need to see some actual numbers including slotting before taking this at face value. You're right about the rest with the exception Sentinels feels like Storm was made for it instead of the reverse. It's the one AT that has no secondary buffs or debuffs to keep up and can just blast until kingdom come. But yeah, the devs were firm on their vision (I'm getting Jack Emmet flashbacks) though I am at least thankful that the firm stance on Storm Cell's recharge was changed. It just does not fit in the meta and saying it is a hipster set helps nothing since hipster sets are by their very nature niche. Are we planning for the 1% or the 99%?

Wee bit hyperbolic on the Crosspunch thing. Gimme some numbers on Trapdoor or something. As for the rest, sure, maybe. As a Sentinel I leapfrog ahead of the team and have most of the spawn dead before they arrive but that's annedoctical. Truth is that no single person is important in a full team. Back loaded or front loaded if all things die in 15 seconds what difference does it make?

I will agree on that. No reason for a 20 second recharge on a skill that fails if we miss our target. Plus all the other reasons you've mentionsed It's just plain bad. Give us a lightning ball instead. It seems like the usual reasoning this game has where PbAoEs do more damage and are better than cones, despite cones hitting less enemies and needing to be aligned, which would look like common sense to have cones recharge faster and do more damage. But no.

Updated build now that Mids has Storm Blast. Sentinel (Storm Blast - Bio Armor).mbd Made a couple small changes: - One wast was swapping the Apocalypse set over to Hailstones instead so that it too would have a damage proc. It also helps feeling better to press that button and not be lagging so far behind the others (308 damage when all other attacks do 450. With the Apocalypse it goes up to 355). - The other was taking the super expensive Superior Blistering Cold for a more humble Kinetic Combat. We do lose 15% recharge resistance and a bit of Recovery but neither are particularly needed IMO.

Yes, because we pushed for the recharge to go down to 60 seconds. It was 90 seconds before. Thankfully Booper allowed it since it makes a large difference. Chains suck for several reasons: any miss stops the chain and there is always a 5% in there. The damage also does not feel anything special so I don't even know why it has a 20 seconds recharge as if it was the Spin of ranged attacks. Regardless slotting for pure damage or bonuses is fine too, we don't need to laser focus on procs. I'm only playing on a Sentinel so my views are skewed but it behaves well enough at level40-ish. I need a bit more play time and money for gear to see how it develops.

Until the courageous Mids devs tackle the convolutedness that is Storm and incorporate it in the program I am using Water to sub for it. Chain Lightning uses Targeted AoE so I took Water Burst. Hydro Blast takes a Force Feedback proc which is what Hailstones does as well, so perfect. Mids devs came out as the unsung heroes that they are. Next reply has the actual build. Updated program can be found over https://midsreborn.com/ Powers are taken as I did for leveling (read the Gust part) with a 5k jetpack bought from the P2W vendor until I got to Fly. I later toyed with the idea of replacing Intensify with Fly since it will not affect the build much either way. This was a slow leveling with generic IOs for part of the way so here are some observations: - The set will feel like a watered down ranged version of Radiation Melee where we focus on a boss and incidental damage takes care of the spawn. To support this I suggest using /optionset ShowVillainName 1 and /optionset ShowVillainBars 1 - It takes too long to prep up so be prepared to be flexible and drop Storm Cell on one group, then alternate with Category 5 on the next. Even in a duo playing at +1x8 it was common to have the boss at half HP by the time I was finished dropping both ground skills, popped Intensify, and finally started with blasting. In a full team it will just be frustrating trying to do the full prep each time. - I leveled with Gust until 24 and when I took Cloudburst I respecced out of Gust. I would not advise this on generic IOs as by Synapse/Yin it was only mild gap-ey with Hasten up but leaving me with 5-6 seconds of downtime when Hasten was not up. With how the set works the gaps made me double dip into lost damage with the mechanics of Storm Cell and Category Five. For those not aware of the mechanics both Storm Cell and Category Five will do random attacks if we use our Storm powers on targets in them (we don't need to be in them, just our targets). The gaps both mean I was doing less damage by waiting for the powers to recharge but also less damage from Storm Cell/Cat 5. Gust would have fixed this. - At level 30-ish I got three Decimation sets and the rotation was smooth already which leads me to think that if someone is leveling with generics then keep Gust until late (40-ish, maybe more), but if having money to purchase the IOs then at 25 it is fine to transition off Gust. This will leave hardcore exemplaring (Posi 1 and 2) without a third attack which Chain Lightning only poorly substitutes but exemplaring to Synapse already has three attacks. With how such deep exemplaring kills so many bonuses even Synapse is bound to be gap filled though but there are no simple solutions since Gust is not needed once we have our three big hitters. Maybe I can work some replacement slotting so that Gust takes over a mule but sadly ranged sets don't have S/L which is what I wasted slots on. - I leveled without Inexhaustible or Rebuild DNA up to 24-25 ish and it was a nightmare. Not even Recovery Serums could keep my blue bar up. So I heartily suggest pushing a power back (Intensify, maybe?) and level with at least Inexhaustible. By level 30-ish I had Rebuild DNA as slotted in the build and found my endurance problems to have been solved, but I do not have Tough and Weave running yet. - I also leveled without Jet Stream since I loathe cones. This made the AoE pretty poor but it was fine-ish since I was playing with a friend who would help. For pure solo the lack of Jet Stream would make for slow killing. Chain Lightning is okay but did not warrant the 20 seconds recharge since it's secondary effect of endurance drain is fluff. But it's easy to do a Lightning Strike/Cloudburst + Hailstones + Chain Lightning rotation in AoE situations. - Once I got Category Five the AoE felt fine. Ish. I could mostly mow a +0 spawn before Cat 5 ended and didn't even have Intensify slotted. With the help of the FF proc in Hailstones and Hailstones getting extra KD chance in Storm Cell I have zero complaints about recharge. Things are up when needed. - Cloudburst, Lightning Strike, Hailstones, repeat, makes for a smooth rotation without particular gaps even by level 30 and I don't even have LotGs etc slotted in. The DoT nature of both Cloudburst and Hailstones will make for overkill but it is what it is. Lightning Strike is the goat btw. I keep Hailstones last so the Force Feedback duration is not eaten by animation times. Not a worry later on with more global speed and might make Hailstone sit better after Cloudburst. Cloudburst does good damage, but between travel time and DoT it's common to be wasted damage and that's why I use it first. - Dropping two ground based powers, then using Intensify and THEN starting to do damage is a hefty ramp up, but Sentinels have the defenses for it and I did not try to be fancy: just flew on top of a group's head and then placed everything. To make things easier I used binds: /bind shift+1 powexec_location target Storm Cell and /bind shift+2 powexec_location target Category Five. Replace shift+1 for whatever keypress you'd like then target an enemy to drop the powers. If preferring another method consult https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Powexec_location_(Slash_Command) - Speaking of Intensify the damage boost numbers are very mild (25% damage boost as opposed to 50% from most Sentinel sets) but adds an extra 20% chance of making Storm Cell/Category Five do damage. This means drop Storm Cell + Category 5 and THEN use Intensify so all attacks have the extra 20% chance. - The build went for 33% defense to most since I found this enough when playing a Bio Sentinel (even slotted for endurance Rebuild DNA still heals us). This is more so with Storm that causes mobs to slowly panic-run while debuffed. If things get bad a small purple can be eaten that will put the build at 45% defense. Later on Taishibishi (Caltrops) helps if solo as a one slot wonder (auto hits, ready to be used at every spawn) by adding it if needed as it creates a zone that mobs will refuse to enter thanks to the fear effect Caltrops has. This is not strictly needed with Storm and thus it is a flex power. I would not bother using it on a team, but your mileage may vary. I found the build to be fairly nice. It has a certain Controller-ish aspect to it where dropping all our ground effects causes a lot of soft CC and keeps things fairly safe for our team. Even not fully slotted the damage was nice even if by Sentinel standard so not super super but things dying at a reasonable pace. Much better than Water for example, and animations crisp and fast unlike Radiation. The AoE was not amazing but I blame my stubbornness in not taking the cone. With that said I feel Storm can take a role of straggler mopping since Storm Cell/Cat 5 will usually still be going once the squishy minions have soaked the initial brunt. I will report once I get some pylon times.

That said Tar Trap + Storm Cell are a good pairing.

Not really much of a point in sapping stuff though. Most things are dead before the sapping is complete and without some hefty -recovery all the NPCs need is 1 endurance to fire whatever attack. I would stick to whatever brings extra endurance to make up for the hefty endurance costs, and if possible some extra recharge might not hurt though it's not 100% needed. Just Hailstone with 50% KD proc chance in Storm Cell should be enough to make recharge sweet enough. Definitely endurance or recovery which does bring us back to having /elec as a good choice, and thematic to boot.

On one hand I am someone who got to a point where I had most TFs memorized and would jump ahead and go to an objective instead of killing everything along the way (Synapse in particular with pre-emptive 'anyone got a teleport when this mission ends?'). On the other there are certain TFs where this is not really welcome such as of Posi 1 and 2, or Yin. Partly because they are fast already, partly because they are at a level where low level characters crave sweet sweet XP. Synapse is a different beast because it is so long, but I've trimmed it to just under an hour with these antics.

I find you a bit thin skinned, Snarky. Just an observation instead of an attack, though it is your (repeated) posts about this sort of thing that prompted this opinion. That said some of your peeves are perfectly justified. I too would not touch a +4 TF while leveling. But I find the weaker/dumber/more puzzled the team the more fun it is for me. I just like the extra ordeal of pushing through especially since my characters tend to be able to solo most things so the wipes don't tend to affect me. That said I've tried to duo Market Crash about three times with a friend and we always stall on the last boss what with the friend unable to survive the adds and me having to run from the debuff making the boss regenerate its HP. Plenty easy on a full team but hard on a duo that is not specialized.