Sovera

You don't really need to build for 45% defense on a Sentinel, especially on teams. But you can, it's just overkill. Drawing from my own experience I think a middle ground of 33% defense suits a Sentinel better, and when, if, taking damage then gobble a small purple to reach 45%. But it may be a dozen missions before feeling the need to eat a small purple. Even solo I did the Trapdoor test with 33% defense and did not even need the small inspirations since we open with a nuke and mop up with AoEs which reduces a pack's size to half. Bigger things noticed: - No need for Tactics either since most your powers are already at 120%-ish/140%-ish to hit +3 enemies even with the Kismetic unique removed and both Tactics and Mind Link turned off. Smaller details: - Replacing the two generics for two Preventive Medicine will add 2.5% S/L resistance. - Replacing two LotG in Maneuvers for two Reactive Defenses will add another 1.5% S/L. - 5 slotting Brawl with Hectacomb hurts my soul. I would place those slots in Reconstruction and place a full Panaceia there if you are hurting for recharge. Then the spare slot could go to Integration for yet another two Preventive Medicine for another 2.5% S/L. - You have the Shield Wall 5% resist unique slotted in but not the Reactive Defenses 3% resist. - The slash proc in Dreadful Wail is going to be resisted more than a Eradication energy proc. - Amplify with no slots is recharging in 35 seconds. Your nuke is recharging in 26 seconds. Try to spare a couple slots for Amplify in order for both clickies to align. - Replace the damage in Dreadful Wail for recharge/accuracy. If you do decide to try lowering your ranged defense to 33% you will have more slots to play around with, but keeping it at 45% will work just as well so it is your character and your decision.

As Pulverizer said money making is only as hard as you wish to make it. Some people will embrace farming, others will play the market, but once at 50 money rolls in. The main tip is selling your merits and all this requires is adjusting your targeted play time (try to stick to either TFs or Ouroborous missions and avoid radio missions). This is how I played and made most of my cash. Do check the guide in the signature on some tips and keep in mind you should expect some 'casual' 40-50 mill a day by doing a single Tinpex (30 minutes total) and Hami (ditto) with just selling merits. So 'expensive' builds costing 600-700 mill can be achieve in two weeks-ish but actually sooner because we are only counting on selling raw merits while you're actually still getting inf from killing mobs on top of salvage/recipes. Regarding your build nothing seems too out there in your request. I would say not to dismiss Hasten out of hand since it has no visible graphic when in use and Bio is hungry for recharge, but, your character and your theme so your decision. Even if you decide to only use SOs I would still buy generic IOs either since they don't turn red every three levels while leveling, but as Pulverizer said in that case there is no actual need for a 'build' since it's just a case of stacking heal and recharge on heals and accuracy, damage and recharge on attacks. With what Pulverizer posted you have at least an idea of which powers to take. If you need more info do post and we'll try to help.

Even though tempers (mine mostly) were a bit frayed last time I posted I would like to ask for a test on that earlier iteration of Storm Cell recharging faster. I don't recall the numbers being talked about other than there had been an attempt at making it recharge faster and duration being halved, but the consensus being 'it was not good'. I don't particularly like this 'trust me' approach. But at some point this was discussed and tested so the devs were at least open to the idea even if it got scrapped. But rather than having a nebulous 'trust me on this' I would ask for that old iteration to have a few days in Brainstorm so more players can give it a whirl. If the consensus is that no, it really is not good, then carry on, but since it seems to be what most(?) players are asking for it would be nice to give players a chance to chime in instead of having the choices already made for them based on a 'trust me'.

Cat 5 is a special power though. Even though it holds a place we would traditionally call a 'nuke' it would not be too unlikely to compare it to a Build-Up or even Aim sort of power. It is less about doing damage by itself and more about making your other powers do more damage (that seems to be the intent and a mirroring of Storm Cell but with added bonus damage from Cat 5 itself). This is very much a non traditional way of doing things and thus it cannot be a direct comparison. I'm not going to say it is a good or a bad experiment but it is an experiment on doing things differently. But because it is not a traditional nuke it requires being tested outside of the normal box we put nukes in. This requires actual gameplay tests such as Trapdoors or whathaveyous. In this more complete test encapsulating Storm it does look like it works well (someone posted a three minute Trapdoor with a Blaster). If you can muster the energy I would say try a couple Trapdoors (or whatever you might feel like) with that Radiation character and a couple with the Storm and even if it is not super scientific with so few runs but give us the metrics you got from it.

Sure, should be the end result. Mind that Radiation Melee is a bit anemic these days what with the change made to Irradiated Ground. That skill did a good portion of the lifting.

So we're saying that 28-30 seconds recharge for a linchpin power is too long even for normal casual teams, and the offer we get is bumping it to 40 seconds? As I would say to anyone else who would suggest it, not sure if trolling. No, of course not. And I will be completely honest here that this offer smells of that 'see how bad we can make it? Doesn't this make the previous offer more appealing?' which worked 100%. Yes, keep it as it is if the other option is making it even worse. We are in a focused thread, a majority (we may need a poll to clear doubts on if it is indeed a majority) points out en masse a flaw of the set but we get a no, this is not the feedback we want. Honestly I'll drop out of this and may whatever come out be palatable unlike the effort at balancing the new pool powers so much they turned into unpicked powers.

We keep on comparing oranges to apples. A camp wants to have more recharge so it can be applied sooner. The other camp says placing it down faster does not matter because the power is perma. Basically one camp is talking about regular gameplay (short combat) and the other is talking about fighting AVs (long combat). We spend 95% of the time doing regular gameplay and 5% of the time fighting AVs.

I would, but I keep hearing about 'trust me bro' instead of actual arguments. My argument is that a typical fight does not last longer than 30 seconds. If it means the recharge is down to 1 minute then with just generic IOs and Hasten it ought to be up every 20 seconds or so. Alright, counter argument, your turn.

Shortening is not a problem and I've seen the argument made against it. But, a 30 second duration should be fine, no? What fights other than an AV last that long? We usually blaze through a spawn at +4 on a full team in about 15-20 seconds. While leveling we usually are at +0 or +1 and the speed is the same. Not aimed at Tyger in particular with my following words, but the argument about how the power is 'perma' with a couple SOs is also puzzling. What does it matter if it is 'perma'? Why is this even brought to the conversation? After being cast the power will not run after the player at a good enough speed to be reliable, and on top of that will trail -behind- the player instead of being cast 40-60y -ahead-. 'But Carrion Creepers has the same cooldown!' So what? What does that comparison serve? Is Carrion Creeper a linchpin? No, it adds some CC and adds damage. It is a good power, but it is not a linchpin. I would put Seeds of Confusion in the linchpin podium, and, 'lo', it has a native recharge of 60 seconds so it is up for every spawn pretty darn early without need to be chockful of IOs. I'm puzzled at the struggle in this change when all it took was a few dissenting voices for Beanbag to be rolled back and in the meanwhile some top quality of life is under a perma repel effect. I can see that someone soloing on their ranged character might not be super bothered with the 28-30-second-all-IOed-out recharge since fights take longer as a solo ranged character what with chasing mobs and scattering. Even then a 30 second duration should not be horrible since they have unloaded tStorm Cell, their nuke, pew pewed, and there might be a few living mobs at the end but those can be moped up even without Storm Cell's benefit.

I'm not sure why a focused feedback thread that has heavily insisted on how Storm Cell needs to recharge faster had an answer that was no. But I'll wait for the next patch and see the changes before adding more to this.

Not sure if serious. Blaster nukes do more damage but recharge slower as well. When I usually say that Sentinels might actually do about the same damage as Blasters if we had an actual damage meter like Recount/Details/Skada it is because a Blaster will use their nuke every two groups where the Sentinel might squeeze it once a group. My 'feel' (not backed by math but simply by having played the game for a couple years now) is that if we had such a damage meter we might well see Sentinels catch up by dint of using more often instead of when using it being super strong. The example you quoted turns that upside down. Not only does the Blaster do more damage but also recharges faster. If anything the recharge should be swapped around with Blasters using a powerful Full Auto once a group (90 seconds Full Auto) but Sentinels able to use a weaker Full Auto twice a group (one minute Full Auto). Or follow the usual formula where the Blaster uses it every two groups and the Sentinel once a group. I don't even play AR but this is just glaringly obvious.

Yes, though I am not super in favor of a toggle that forces ranged into somewhat melee ranged it would still be better. But we already have Faraday Cage which seems to be begging to have the mechanic duplicated of resummoning the ground effect.

To be honest Storm Cell feels more like Amplify than Amplify does. It's a power that amps the damage in an innovative manner that is not just % in raw damage. But just like Super-Strength and Rage so does Storm Cell make the rest of the set tick and without it the set is limping along. We may be too far along to just re-do the whole set now, otherwise I would suggest tweaking all powers to work better at baseline and Storm Cell to act like a damage boost. As it is Storm Cell is superficially a boost, but in practice it is like playing SS without Rage. At the risk of sounding negative I once more feel that there is a disconnect with the team of devs and the game. DoTs, damage that starts weak to grow, long recharges in crucial powers when even a moderate team will destroy a regular +4 group and move on the next. this is not how the game is at the moment outside the 1% that is hardmode TFs. This is not so much a teeth grinding fist shaking remark and more of a gentle nudge that the game is more than spreadsheets. Now other than this I don't think the idea behind Storm is bad at all. Even the weaker nature of the t9 is not that bad in my opinion because while a Blaster will nuke most of the spawn there will always be lieutenants and a boss or two that survives and needs to be killed. The longer lasting T9 and Storm Cell ensures that whatever AT is picked for Storm will be blasting all the mobs until they all go. but I will echo the others that Storm Cell needs A) to be immobile (can't trust the AI to suddenly decide it ought to go climb stairs for a mob plinking in the distance) and B) decent recharge with lower duration since that is a lot more crucial as fights in CoH do not last long but are quickly repeated.

90 seconds recharge for such a crucial power is too long. Just like lasting 60 seconds serves no purpose. Which fight lasts 60 seconds other than an AV fight? It ought to be at least like Seeds of Confusion or others at 60 seconds so we cannot spam it but it is available at every group. Then it lasts for 30 seconds which is about right for both solo and mop everything and in teams does not matter much. With this the power no longer needs to follow anyone. In any sort of regular team the linchpin of the set is either going to be available every two groups or the player will decide whether to use it when most of the second group is dead. Does this matter if most of the second group is dead? Only in terms of spreadsheets, but the set already lacks a nuke with a DoT style T9.

Unrelated, but not sure if it just me or what, but your signature is 20x the size of your posts.

Still, the point remains. Try it first and then report on your findings.

Anything will solo everything in this game since we have a difficulty slider and envenomed daggers.

I'd love to have Cremate on my Fire Melee tanker, but It's hard to say no to the new Combustion and be going around with two PbAoEs. So basically pick whether you want an extra AoE and then roll Tanker, or a better ST and then play Brute/Scrapper.

Ice Melee. Drop Ice Patches and keep mobs flopping while the team kills safely. Radiation Armor. Ground Zero heals your party. Dark Armor. Keep on fearing and stunning the mobs. Fire Armor: Ultimate defender build: kill everything as everything being dead they are incapable of harming your team.

There are two types of recipes. One of those uses Incarnate Threads and the other Incarnate Shards. Shards: Threads: In time we immediately recognize which is which by looking at the components, but the easiest way is to look at the Convert tab: Incarnate Thread related drops are just more common and what the player population relies on instead of the Incarnate Shards. A good way to do it is use the Incarnate Threads to buy the Common and Uncommon materials. And then use the Empyrian Merits earned from leveling or doing Tinpex in order to buy the Rare and Very Rare materials. Try and do a Tinpex each day (Tin Mage and Apex TFs situated in Rikti War Zone, these are common to find or form using the /lfg channel) since not only do you get one empyrian merits for each but you also get a random Incarnate material (it can be common, uncommon, or rare or very rare) on top of 40 merits for each TF. In total it should take half an hour to run both.

The easiest way is to use Mids. Right click the power and then place your cursor over the damage estimate. Like thus:

S'not what I said. What I did say was that damage auras are great mules for sets that are not otherwise interesting to place in an attack. For example the Gauntled Fist that Tankers have. Great set, chockful of useful bonuses, but in an attack it robs the set of a damage proc. So to the damage aura it goes.

Fire melee is rocking my socks atm. Axe is also fun and has good enough AoE.

Depending on when this was you caught the IG nerf train or not. Poor Radiation Melee will need a pass to be a consideration again. Now I can say that my new Fire/Fire Tanker is enjoying the Fire Melee pass having become an AoE machine, but because I leveled without transfers of IOs or inf I don't have a good metric to compare against other Tankers I've leveled in the past. Because of these ironman rules it took reaching 30-ish to have enough inf to go from 0x4 to 0x8 (surviving tight spots on insps but that's what they are there for). But this is one of the reasons I like Fire Armor. In the case of that combo you mentioned the player is stuck with IG (which used to be great even if random), Atom Smash (which is pretty decent but took reaching 38 to be obtained pre-level pass) and the Contaminated mechanic which is more flavor than power. There is just a lack of means to express the power when there are no outlets. The strength of Tankers are the AoEs, and its weakness the ST damage. If you feel that this approach worked best for you then kudos, but my own preference is leveling with 1x8 at around level 15 onwards (assuming I am transfering IOs to the alt).

Damage auras are terrible for procs thanks to the lenghty (10 seconds) check and due to being AoE the % of going off is small (30% or lower). Damage auras are great place to dump uninteresting sets that precisely have no damage procs.