Sunsette

I do agree that it's probably not playing to a Sentinel's strengths to go for heavy tank mode, but I can also understand why someone would want to build for maximal defense. The flying fortress is a comic archetype as valid as any other. I will note that Leadership and Fighting are both considered to be a Sentinel standard in the burgeoning build community here, Hasten a little bit less so, with only the last pool considered to be flexible (and usually ends up in Concealment, Flight, or Leaping, all of which offer a +def power).

hasn't been a patch since the bug was reported, so I doubt it

Okay, done a more thorough read, @Hopeling-- it looks fantastic and I think I'll borrow a few things you did, like mentioning exactly what the various incarnate choices do rather than their names.

I'm a teacher, and it's summer and I wasn't assigned any classes to teach for the summer. Although I have a great deal of paperwork to do, I do log in at work at times.

I totally get how it is when a phrase throws you off. Can't say I've never done it, haha. NP. And I will be more careful of wording in the future.

An Energy Aura Sentinel built entirely defensively can go well over softcap on every type defense and have mid-30s resistance to all types, next patch will come with +10% to +15% HP, and can T9 for another 40 to 60% HP and SR levels of DDR. Pair with a Dark primary for more self healing and insurance -to-hit. An SR sentinel can do basically the same thing with slightly more susceptibility to sudden one shots (better click heal, not as good resistance and no health boost) but less offensive cost. Invuln can't afford to waste anything on psi but is the toughest for average non psi content with investment, although it has a hard time (not impossible) making perma hasten under any circumstance. In all cases, your incarnate choices would be: - Alpha: Agility Radial - Judgment: any - Interface: Diamagnetic - Lore: Follow standard Lore advice - Destiny: Barrier - Hybrid: I'd recommend you go for damage over survivability here, the cost is too high You may want to combine Fire Blast with any of these, as your highly defensive IO choices will reduce damage significantly, so best to start with the most straight forward high damage. But Dark Blast is the best choice for just surviving. Between that and Diamagnetic, you'll almost never get debuffed below softcap effectively. My votes are for EA and Invuln as they can best handle many of the arcane abilities that are very popular in Dark Astoria.

@oldskool I wasn't making a stealth complaint about Sentinels or anything. Contrary to some of my earlier opinions, I'm actually fairly happy with the state of the AT now that I've had a bit more breadth and I see many of the issues were powerset specific rather than AT specific. There is room to improve, but i don't think the AT is reduced to "passing the butter" and while I won't mention the AT I have in mind to avoid derails, I think the Sentinel has helped to give a specific different AT an identity crisis, because we're that good. I make these statements not to be negative, but from the perspective that the best advantage of a solo-specialized archetype -- perhaps the wording "well-rounded" would be better -- in team content is to fill in glaring holes in the team, whatever those holes are, not to focus on reaching theoretical maximum under ideal conditions. And my memory is fuzzy but I seem to recall the scrapper and basically all the villain archetypes were made, yes, to fill a role on a team but also to solo well. So yeah, you were taking me the wrong way, and while I think the point about wording is a good one and I thank you for it I am also genuinely a little bit annoyed at the sudden suggestion I'm saying Sentinels are useless or don't have a place when I'm in-the-same-posts talking about what I think our place is good at! 😕 @Hopeling on mobile so I will look in more detail when I can do so against Mids but it's looking really good, thanks!

Secondary Powerset: Energy Aura Medium Healing, High Defense, Medium Resistance, Medium Clickyness 20% Global Recharge Reduction, 60% Global Endurance Reduction, Endurance Drain, Medium Defense Debuff Resistance, Medium HP Increase, Low Psionic Defense, No Protection vs. Confusion, Fear, or Terrorize Compared to Energy Aura sets on other archetypes, Sentinel Energy Aura has been rendered 'boring but effective'. Dampening Field, Entropic Aura, and Energy Protection have been replaced by less conditional powers, and it loses the built-in stealth effect for an auto power that saves a little bit of Endurance cost. Only one power now -- Power Drain -- benefits from the Sentinel standing in a crowd. Energy Aura is one of two secondary powersets that are arguably the gold standard of Sentinel defensives, the other being Super Reflexes. In a virtual dead heat for second-highest defense values, possessing a solid increase in health, and having two skippable abilities that are also decent choices in their own right, Energy Aura is a consistent performer that has no real weaknesses aside from the need to use Defensive Opportunity, Energize, or Power Drain roughly every 30 seconds to keep endurance costs under control; it hemorrhages endurance otherwise. Just make sure you use the Energy Glow customization option and the most subtle colors you can find, or you'll only see a giant lightblob instead of your actual character. Beginner's Overview When leveling up, damage resistance is not very helpful (unless you're going to slot the defense IOs, mentioned below), so those powers can be skipped for later in order to prioritize other importance choices. This is because resistance is only useful when you have a lot of it, while defense has value early on. The exception to this is the power Entropy Shield, which gives you protection from and resistance to status effects. If you are leveling up in teams or in most of Paragon City, this isn't a big deal until high levels -- however, any delay in taking Entropy Shield in the Rogue Isles or Praetoria will be quickly regretted. While Energize is a pretty good heal, its true value is in its Endurance Cost reduction, which is better than even a level 50 Endurance IO that has been boosted as much as possible. As soon as you notice that you are consistently having any endurance problems at all, take Energize and start popping it on cooldown. Because it's Endurance Reduction rather than Recovery, waiting for when your blue bar is low will not help you; because Energize also comes with a large Regeneration buff, you won't be completely punished for using it before you take damage. While Defensive Opportunity can likewise control your endurance issues, Energize frees your options up to go the offensive with Offensive Opportunity at the low levels where it provides a significant benefit, as well as giving you more health in an emergency Slotting Because it covers rarer damage types, Power Shield is a better choice to put Kismet: +Accuracy (approximately 4.5 million influence) if you want one to save accuracy slots on your primary powerset. Steadfast Protection (Minimum Level: 7, 4 million influence) and Gladiator's Armor (Minimum Level: 27, 9 million influence) both contain IOs that increase all defense scores by 3%, which is a huge benefit at all levels, and doesn't require the power to even be toggled on if your endurance is in bad shape for some reason. I wouldn't spend money on slotting anything else into defense until level 30+ IOs or SOs. Lower values provide marginal benefit. Skippable Powers While you can delay taking Kinetic Dampening and Power Armor as mentioned above, you'll eventually want to take both powers or you should have gone into Super Reflexes or Ninjitsu instead. The two optional powers are Power Drain and Overload. Power Drain. The value of Power Drain increases, appropriately enough, if your primary powerset contains important PBAOEs. If you're close to the action anyway, Power Drain offers a second way of managing your Endurance, allowing you to focus Energize on healing and use Offensive Opportunities rather than do Endurance management. The only other reason to use Power Drain is if your primary or an epic pool that you are invested in also deals endurance damage or drain. Power Drain steals a large amount of Endurance and also halves Endurance recovery -- when part of a rotation of three or four other similar powers, it is easy to exhaust enemies before they are actually defeated. Overload. Energy Aura is blessed with one of the strongest of the old-style crashing T9 powers, but crashing T9s are still generally not preferred -- no matter how strong the effect, suddenly becoming a big, floating target who has to reactivate anywhere from 4 to 10 toggles is always going to be a risky proposition. While Overload doesn't do anything to directly counter the psi-hole that Energy Aura suffers from, it actually doesn't need to. Psionic damage itself tends to be relatively weak, outside of the Rularuu and a handful or Archvillains. What makes groups like Arachnos, Carnival of Shadows, Seers, and Rikti so dangerous is that the psychic members of these groups often impose debuffs that make it easier for their non-psionic allies to defeat you. With its huge defense, defense debuff resistance, maximum HP, and recovery buffs, Overload is a significant benefit against all but purely psionic enemies -- and if you've built up your psionic defense and resistance through IOs, still a help against those. Advanced Slotting In addition to the choices mentioned above, as is standard you'll want Luck of the Gambler sets in up to five powers over your whole build for another 37.50% global recharge reduction. For defense powers, also consider the +resistance IOs in the Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses defense sets. I try to put +5 boosted Defense/Global Recharge, Defense, and Defense/Endurance in every toggle and auto that gives defense, though I usually end up skipping Defense/Endurance on the autos. For resistance powers, I am a big of Unbreakable Guard (both for the +max HP unique and defense bonuses from the sets) as well as Impervium Armor (for the psionic defense set bonus and psionic resistance global). Both sets also improve Endurance management, which is great for the toggle-heavy Sentinel AT. Because Energy Aura gets so much Smashing, Lethal, and Energy Defense to begin with, it's common to put build resources towards Psionic Defense. An Energy Aura Sentinel that is fully geared can easily reach 33% Psionic Defense and mid-20s Psionic Resistance, and it's possible to softcap Psionic Defense and get mid-30s Psionic Resistance with only mild offensive loss. You will probably need to slot Kinetic Combat or Winter Sets into some of your attack powers in order to make softcap on all S/L/E, or Devastation if you're trying to pursue Psi Softcap, though be careful not to sacrifice too much recharge to do so. I usually frankenslot Energize for Heal/Recharge with two slots +5 boosted, as there are no great healing set bonuses before five slots. I am fairly certain Power Drain is auto-hit; for that, get End Reduction (it's a costly 13 Endurance) and/or Recharge. You only need End Modification if you want to emphasize removing enemies' Endurance, as even two targets with no End Mod enhancement is half of your Endurance bar. If you're intent on grabbing Overload, slot it as a healing power, not a defense power. 40% HP is about 480 HP, and this is nothing to sneeze at. Slotted for HP, that's almost a thousand extra HP you can have, which is a big deal for psionic enemies and incarnate content. Complementary Choices There are no sets for which Energy Aura is a bad choice, but Power Drain synergizes well with Electric Blast and Electric and Mu Masteries. The built-in recharge speed makes Energy Aura a good candidate for going deep into the Psionic Mastery pool for Link Minds. Because it has two skippable powers, Energy Aura is good if you want to explore a primary without a lot of clear skippable choices (such as Beam Rifle, Dual Pistols, or Water Blast) or go heavy into epic pools or weaker travel pools like Teleportation. As always, Hasten is helpful since it reduces Energize and Power Drain downtime; Energize also reduces the crash at the end of Hasten. Leadership and Fighting are strong choices for every Sentinel. Leaping and Flight are both strong pools since Combat Jumping and Hover both add to all of your defenses, and can close a lot of the distance to 45, 48, and 50% -- common defense breakpoints. Incarnate Abilities Not many incarnate abilities really interact with your secondary at all. Alpha: I don't recommend any Alpha slot ability that reduces recharge, as it reduces the effectiveness of PPM procs in your primary; but I'd still take Agility Radial (Endurance Modification, Recharge Reduction, Defense Buff, Movement Speeds) over Nerve Radial (Accuracy, Hold Duration, Defense Buff, Taunt Effectiveness, Confusion Duration, Flight Speed) in most cases, unless you're frankenslotting -- recharge is never useless and the End Mod synergizes well with Power Sink. Overall, it's best not to let Energy Aura dictate your Alpha slot. Interface: Diamagnetic Core's to-hit debuffs can provide a useful safety buffer when dealing with enemies that impose defense debuffs even though it's easy for Energy Aura to soft-cap defense scores. Destiny: If you have no other way to manage your endurance problems, go for Ageless. The choice between Ageless Core and Ageless Radial is between a ridiculous amount of endurance and a bit of haste, versus a good amount of endurance and defense debuff resistance. Otherwise, Barrier Core is a strong defensive choice for every Sentinel build, and Clarion Radial will increase your range, secondary set, and some of your side effects for a time.

Updated Energy Blast and Beam Rifle. @Destlinthanks for the contribution, it's a bit bare but I can use this as a foundation at least. If you can fill it out more, I'd appreciate it. @Hopelingthanks, have you marked down on the sign-up sheet. Energy Aura write-up incoming.

After a lot of consideration I am beginning to think that Assault Core Hybrid is a better choice to recommend for Sentinels than Radial. My reasoning is twofold: The Sentinel is a soloing archetype, and from @Hopeling's work it looks like typical Sentinel primaries do more damage with Core at 3 stacks than Radial, and we can get to 5. When we're reliably at the damage cap, there are multiple ATs that better specialize at either single target or multi target damage than us. Under those conditions our personal contribution is less important. When we're not reliably at cap, the team is probably not well composed, and that is when it is most important for us to bring our damage. The fact that AoE powers in particular are far weaker with radial is thus cause for concern.

I would like to say, for the sake of clarity, that I did not say Corruptors and certainly not Defenders do more damage, not as a general case commentary. Corruptors do about the same damage while bringing powerful buffs. I had meant this to be implicit since I also said Defenders are stronger while also stating they deal less damage, then moved on to state the Sentinel's non-damage contribution. This is just going to be another argument thread now isn't it ugh

I don't really agree with the notion that blasters have endurance problems or that blasters need to reposition any more or less on average than Sentinels do. Sustained damage is a thing that becomes increasingly less of a thing the higher level you go, as groups are defeated with increasing quickness. AoE damage is really, really important in this game, so the lower AoE caps matter -- just as it matters that a Sent brings unresisted -res. Blasters run fewer toggles to begin with and generate more endurance to begin with. Several sentinel secondaries provide endurance protection by means of a click, which takes time, and there are blaster secondaries with endurance management too. Yes, Sentinels need less babysitting. I didn't think that needed to be said, the additional defense is the point of the AT. This thread is quickly becoming yet another balance argument thread and I'm not signing up for that, and I'm not sure it's appropriate to do so here. This will be my last response if this remains the focus.

First of all, I have had a hell of a day and I apologize. It looks like I won't get to my next write-ups until tomorrow. I am not in any sort of state of mind to crank out writing. As far as /rad armor, it's new and offense oriented, but it's not as good as bio at either of those things on Sentinels given our scale values and caps, and it's not radically different conceptually from some of the existing sets. So it doesn't have a lot of built-in fans who are inclined to post on forums. Whenever you get around to it, though, it's appreciated! Lastly, why the hell did you have to make me remember that movie exists?

One of the central mechanics for Sentinel is the archetype's inherent power, Opportunity. Opportunity has two effects: 1. All damaging primary, secondary, and pool powers the Sentinel uses inflicts a small amount -def and -resistance to targets for 15 seconds. 2. Sentinels have a third combat bar (besides Health and Endurance) that grows as the Sentinel makes attacks, and decays when the Sentinel has neither attacked nor been targeted for an attack for several seconds. This decay is very slow and can take about 2 minutes to empty from a full bar. The bar does nothing until it is very close to full. When it is very close to full, a red circle will envelop the T1 power (the first power in the powerset list) and a green circle will envelop the T2 power (the second power in the list). Using and hitting with either of these powers will completely fill the bar and trigger either Offensive Opportunity (T1) or Defensive Opportunity (T2). Both triggered versions put a targeting reticle around the struck foe for 15 seconds. This targeting reticle reduces the foe's damage resistance by -20%. Unlike many other sources of resistance reduction, this reduction cannot be resisted. This is a moderately powerful debuff, although it bears noting that debuff focused support characters can put out a lot more resistance reduction. For a high level sentinel, this is the most powerful part of Opportunity. At high levels, if one opportunity misses, it is usually not worth it to wait for it to recharge -- go for the other opportunity type instead as soon as possible, unless you really need the endurance savings from Defensive. However, low level sentinels will care more about which type they activate. 1. Offensive Opportunity (Red Circle). In addition to the above effects, while Offensive Opportunity is active, the Sentinel deals approximately 20% extra base damage to the primary target of their attacks, with all damaging primary, secondary, and pool powers. If the attack has no target (as with point-blank or 'melee' AoEs), it does not get this benefit. This base damage does not scale with bonuses to damage. Thus, this is a lot of extra damage at the lowest levels when your enhancements are weak. At high levels, when you have various incarnate proc effects and fully enhanced powers, this is about 10% extra damage before including procs, and won't affect your best AoE attack at all as an Energy Blast sentinel. 2. Defensive Opportunity (Green Circle). In addition to the reticle effect, while Defensive Opportunity is active, the Sentinel gets a fairly significant amount of endurance back on a successful hit, and a minor amount (about 2-3% of base) of health back on a successful hit. Defensive Opportunity is all but worthless at the lowest levels, but begins to shine in mid-levels. Whether it continues to be of use at the highest level depends greatly on how much resistance you have and how much endurance you burn. After 15 seconds, Opportunity will end, the bar will drain, and you'll have to start all over. You can expect roughly 50 to 60% uptime for Opportunity during a fight once you have a full attack chain. As a general rule, brutes, stalkers, and scrappers get 75% of the strength that tankers do from resistance or defense-granting powers. Sentinels get 70%. Along with Sentinel having Blaster HP and the low caps for resistance, this is enough that resistance is usually not considered an ideal thing to build for primarily on Sents, though two resistance sets (Radiation and Fire) are notable for the amount of damage they deal, being very good offensive secondaries. ... But Bio is better at that and has more defense. Blaster: Does about 25% more damage and can hit 40% more targets with AoEs. Defender: Does about 25% less damage and can hit 40% more targets with AoEs. Corruptor: Does about the same damage and can hit 40% more targets with AoEs. Sentinel is objectively weaker than all of these in most situations except for soloing while leveling up. It is not useless, however, as Sent brings a good deal of unresistable -res in its inherent and its quick recharging T9 abilities are excellent at clearing out mobs on a more regular basis than the other ATs. At 50 with good gear I have my T9 up every 25 seconds, which is basically every pull.

Personally speaking, am glad we never got to the higher tiers of incarnate. Feels less like superheroes and more like elder gods. Making enemies fight on your behalf and then self-destruct is some Darkseid stuff, and while that helps make him a great villain it'd be kinda weird if Superman or WW busted it out on him. I understand the game design decisions that went into that, but I already feel eh about Lore slot (thank god for robotic drones) and if my main wasn't literally angelic themed I might have a problem with judgement; I remember none of them fit my live scrappers or brutes, though Vorpal and Mighty now would.

I wouldn't hold my breath. While Sentinel epic pools could be improved IMO most ancillary pools follow roughly the same pattern as each other on an archetype (and patron pools have a variation thereof to fit their pet powers in). So the Sentinel pattern is: T1: AoE Immob/Melee Attack T2: Ranged ability/AoE ability T3: Team support ability Blaster APPs follow a very different pattern, though they're also allowed more variance than the Sent pattern.

Remember that if you do any significant grouping at all, it's very possible you're regularly at damage cap without this, at which point the benefits of Core can become more questionable. This is one of the reasons Radial was regularly recommended up 'til now.

@FedifensorWhile I agree that range needs to be addressed, I will have trouble wholeheartedly recommending breaking up the Sentinel sets at 50 to get additional range as that comes at the cost of a lot of recharge and defense bonuses, and Posi's Blast comes with range for your AoEs, which need them most. I think it's quite reasonable advice for low and mid levels, though. Given @Hopeling's stellar work on Radial here, I'll be updating my Energy Blast and Beam Rifle guides tomorrow, and I think incarnate sections should broadly touch on this as well. Tomorrow I will try to get up submissions for some of the secondary sets.

First of all: Really nice job, thanks. Question: Does doublehit benefit from global damage buffs such as from IOs, insps, or other players?

Thank you! Hope the HC Devs agree.

yes, but it's Dark Astoria plot more than Cimerora plot, although it does put a coda on Cimerora.

By necessity, you're going to notice the Sent's lower mez protection a lot on our resistance sets.

Daedalus has a plotline at level 40, but after that it's pretty much just the ITF. Honestly, Cimerora seems a little... bare? to me for the amount of work put into it with its different aesthetic exteriors.

The lack of efficient use of tri- and quad-piece enhancements in the knockback sets definitely caught my eye when I was designing my own proposal. The amount which these sets are uniquely shortchanged is baffling to me. For a six piece enhancement bonus, I'd nudge it up to 8.75% Rech speed on the last, since you're committing to having Knockback if you go all-in. Like heal, there's rarely a strong reason to go all six points with KB, and the 8.75% speed is rarely used, so it'd be desirable for a number of reasons.

I think this would have to be presented as alt-T9 choices ala SR's brawler tier due to severe cottage rule but I'm otherwise all for it.