Sunsette

No, as that's global recharge. Global recharge has no negative effect on PPM IOs, unlike enhancement recharge. The Alpha is unfortunately a form of enhancement recharge. I think this was a very bad developer decision as it ultimately benefits defense based sets even more than they are already favored for every non-tanking purpose and makes Musculature very hard to argue with as an alpha choice for damage dealers.

Please comment with any criticisms of this preliminary example. Energy Blast being adapted to this format later.

Primary Powerset: Beam Rifle High Single-Target Damage, High AoE Damage (1 Cone/2-3 Spheres), Medium Control Low chance of single-target knockdown, Occasional single-target and AoE stuns, Medium regeneration debuffs, Medium defense debuffs, Medium-Low Resistance debuffs (depending on slotting). Beam Rifle is one of the strongest Sentinel sets, as might be apparent by the above summary. Combining a good damage type with a plethora of side-effects, you can sweep over the entire battlefield dealing excellent damage in most scenarios, improving your allies' ability to deal damage, and reducing the damage output of enemies. While there are no situations where Beam Rifle uniquely excels compared to other top Sentinel primary sets, there are no situations where Beam Rifle is not a top contender, either. Its greatest strength and drawback is that it's a complete nine-power set, and you cannot skip any powers you won't miss -- though it's possible to keep the loss focused on exemplar levels. If you're coming to Beam Rifle from another Archetype, be warned that the Opportunity mechanic makes getting rid of your T2 more difficult than on other ATs, and that the snipe has been replaced with one of the best AoEs in the game. Overall, this is generally considered to be an improvement to the set at endgame, but in my opinion it takes a little longer for the set to reach good 'flow' when compared to the Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor versions of this set. Beginner's Overview As a Sentinel, Beam Rifle rewards very aggressive run-and-gun play from the lowest levels. You can count on your first two attacks to knock opponents down about once every 4 or 5 attacks. Your first AoE is the hardest to work with: Cutting Beam is a cone. Don't be afraid at low levels to run to reposition just to get more enemies in the sweep. CoH calculates cone targets based on who was in it when you first began activating the attack, so it's okay if enemies immediately ruin the cone after you reposition yourself. At low levels, you will not have an attack available at all times, so it is more important to make sure that your attacks aren't wasted than to make sure you are using every button the second it lights up. It's important to remember that Sentinel Aim, unlike Blaster Aim, increases Sentinel attack ranges by 33%, which is an extra 12 feet on Cutting Beam, Refractor Beam, and Overcharge. Don't be afraid to use it in conjunction with Cutting Beam when you're low level, though you'll eventually have better uses for it. Make sure to use Brawl at times to finish off foes, especially in conjunction with offensive or defensive opportunity; at low levels you hit relatively light without disintegrate up on the target. Every attack in the set gets an additional effect when used on a target that is currently suffering from Disintegrate, which lasts about 10 seconds. The only exception is Disintegrate itself. These effects are listed below for a level 50 sentinel with no enhancements, accolades, incarnate, or temporary powers active. (Level 50 just for the ease of comparison with character design tools). With the exception of Single Shot, these effects are improved as normal by your enhancements and other sources of bonuses, Power Disintegrate Rider Effect Single Shot -75% Regeneration, chance to spread Disintegrate "nearby"1 Charged Shot 13 energy damage, chance to spread Disintegrate "nearby"1 Cutting Beam 16 energy damage Disintegrate N/A Lancer Shot 22.4 energy damage, chance to spread Disintegrate "nearby"1 2 Refractor Beam 15.7 energy damage Piercing Beam 37.83 energy damage Overcharge 100% chance of Mag 3 stun, 6.4s (normally 60% chance of Mag 3 stun, 3.2s) 1 Approximately 15 feet, I think. 2 Whenever next patch finally hits, Lancer Shot will have a 100% chance to spread Disintegrate. Disintegrate has a long-ish recharge for a DoT, so likewise, pick your primary disintegration targets well. After you've gotten both Disintegrate and Cutting Beam, my usual policy on a group is to open with Cutting Beam, follow with Disintegrate on the toughest enemy there, nail them with Single Shot and Charged Shot and hope Disintegrate spreads, then cycle Cutting Beam and Single Shot and Charged Shot to empty the group. Piercing Beam is where the set begins to really feel like you've got a beam rifle and not a beam pistol, in my opinion, due to how hard it and Lancer Shot hit on targets that have disintegration active. Generally your opening salvos at mid-high levels will be Aim+Overcharge if it's up; Disintegrate followed by Piercing Beam and Lancer Shot (in that order) if it's not. The latter set will change at very high levels, but these are great alpha salvos as you're leveling. By the 30s, you generally have enough attacks that repositioning to try and get more than one target in either Cutting Beam's cone or Piercing Beam's line is usually not worth it, but always keep your eyes open on enemy formations. I don't move much during fights, but I do swap targets to make the most of my AoEs. Slotting Due to the high amounts of -defense built into the set, and a slightly higher than average accuracy, I would generally not slot more than one accuracy enhancement into any Beam Rifle power at any time. Your standard attack slotting for BR should look something like: 1 Acc, 2 Dam, 1 End Redux, 1 Rech, 1 Dam in roughly that order. Prestige Enhancements are useful here, being worth about the same as a single SO split between damage and recharge, which is the same as two DOs or four TOs. It's a good idea to slot Kismet: +Accuracy at the first available moment, around level 7, but it requires a power that takes defense enhancements and it's worth about 4.5 million influence to buy. From level 18 to the late 40s, Force Feedback: Chance for Recharge may be of value to you in Single Shot and Charged Shot, but don't hold your breath too much -- not a high chance to activate in those attacks, and they cost about 1 to 2 million influence each. Charged Shot is a better choice than Single Shot. As with all Sentinel powersets, you benefit heavily from getting the two-set and three-set range bonuses on Archetype Origin Enhancements at the first opportunity, but these cost roughly 8 million apiece, and will be out of reach for many new characters. Likewise, you should put Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control: Chance for Build-Up in Aim, and no more than about 70% enhancement recharge in Aim to maximize Build-Up chances. Skippable Powers Beam Rifle has no powers that are advisable to skip while leveling, which can make it uncomfortable to wait for your travel powers. (Praise Cole for Ninja Run, right?) However, as you approach endgame with your build, with enough global recharge in your build, it is reasonable to respecialize out of one or two attacks. Single Shot or Charged Shot. Many sentinels make the choice to only keep one of their two Active Opportunity triggering powers, and BR users are not unusual in this regard. Due to Offensive Opportunity offering only a modest boost (about 8 to 10% extra damage) to its primary target when the attack is fully enhanced, while Defensive Opportunity offers endurance and healing with a chance to occur on every target in an AoE damage power, much of the choice comes down to whether you think it is more important to be good at fighting single tough targets or to be good at fighting groups. This is amplified by the fact that Single Shot carries a significant -75% regeneration penalty that matters most on archvillains and giant monsters, while Charged Shot hits harder and more efficiently on regular enemies. I personally find that both attacks are situationally very useful, and you will regret not having both if you exemplar down to a very low level or get hit by a substantial amount of recharge slow. Therefore, I take both, but use them both primarily as set mules. Cutting Beam. Though by no means bad, cones can be very frustrating to work with if you are not teaming with a brute, tanker, controller, or dominator who is good at keeping foes in a tight formation. Again, this is an attack that you will miss when exemplaring, so think carefully about skipping it. With Cutting Beam, Beam Rifle is the strongest AoE damage Sentinel; without it, it's still a pretty strong AoE choice. Cutting Beam is the most commonly skipped power in level 50 Beam Rifle Sentinel builds, in my experience, and I skip it myself (though it makes Positron Task Force very painful). Advanced Slotting My general advice with Sentinel powers and advanced IO slotting is to put a 6-slotted Very Rare damage set into your best single target damage attack (here: Apocalypse into Lancer Shot) and a 5-slotted Very Rare damage set into your T9 attack (here: Ragnarok into Overcharge, skipping the Damage enhancement -- it's way overkill for a L50 five-slot). For the sixth slot into Overcharge, put Achilles' Heel: Chance for -Res. This is highly recommended: Overcharge has a very good chance to activate it, and it means all attacks following Overcharge will do an additional 20% of their base damage. Disintegrate and either Single Shot or Charged Shot should get the two Superior Archetype Enhancement sets, and I haven't seen a very big performance difference in which you put where. If you have both Single Shot and Charged Shot, I'd recommend six-slotting Sudden Acceleration in the other attack, as it's a good general purpose mule, or Superior Winter's Bite if needed for more defense. Cutting Beam, Refractor Beam, and Piercing Beam should all be five-slotted with Positron's Blast, skipping Damage/Recharge; enhancement recharge cuts the chance for IO procs to occur on an attack, and IO procs are very important to maximizing Beam Rifle. (However, if your global recharge is very low, it may be better to skip Damage/Range instead). Piercing Beam should always put Annihilation: Chance for -Res in the sixth slot, as it grants about a 40% chance for another -12.5% Resistance. The sixth slots for the other two AoEs are more variable. I recommend Touch of Lady Grey: Chance for Negative Energy Damage in Refractor Beam and Cutting Beam, as they are primarily tools for mopping up weak enemies that survived your Overcharge attack, but you can also put Achilles' Heel: Chance for -Res (3.5 PPM, -20% Res) or Annihilation: Chance for -Res (3 PPM, -12.5% Res) as you feel is best. Conventional wisdom is that proc debuffs do not stack from different attacks by the same person if they use the same IO, so there's good reasons to use Annihilation alongside Achilles' Heel. Basic Rotation Lancer Shot and Piercing Beam on targets that have been affected by Disintegrate are vastly higher DPA than any other attacks in the entire set, but all three have fairly long recharges for single-target attacks. Furthermore, Piercing Beam introduces a hefty (and stacking!) -res penalty. Disintegrate's damage-over-time (but not its -regen) stacks and it is roughly on par with the third-best attack's DPA (Charged Shot on a disintegrating target). At most you only ever want to use Single Shot about once every 10 seconds. For simplicity's sake, that means the entire rotation is really about using Piercing Beam, Disintegrate, and Lancer Shot as much as possible in that order (timed to take advantage of recharges and animation times); Charged Shot as a filler; and Single Shot every five abilities, if it's an Elite Boss, Archvillain, or Giant Monster. It is possible at perma-hasten levels to remove Charged Shot from rotation entirely. Make sure to use Aim+Overcharge at every opportunity, and that your Aim is slotted correctly -- Chance for Build-Up, at least 53% enhancement recharge and no more than 70% enhancement recharge. Complementary Choices Due to the amount of tools Beam Rifle contains within itself, there are no secondary sets that stand out to me as especially synergistic with Beam Rifle. All should function well with this primary. It is worth noting that secondaries which are defense-oriented or contain recharge (or both) will make it easier to reach a high DPS single-target rotation and get the most out of your T9, as with all Sentinels. The best Epic Pool choice for Beam Rifle is likely Electric; it contains an immobilize if that's important to you, Havoc Punch can offer a modest (~12%) single-target DPS increase on its own, and Lightning Field is a 10 DPS (~4%) damage increase, Jolt is decent damage and stacks with Beam's own stuns, and Rehabilitating Circuit is the best epic heal (not that that's saying much). That said, I find it hard to fit any epic powers into many Beam Rifle builds. Hasten is very important to Beam Rifle as it results in a significant DPS increase if the rotation can be minimized. Leadership and Fighting are strong choices for every Sentinel. Any travel power works fine, since Beam doesn't care very much about positioning on Sentinels. Incarnate Abilities Alpha: I don't recommend any Alpha slot ability that reduces recharge, as the alpha is considered to be enhancement recharge and significantly reduces the chance that all of your very important procs activate. This makes your best choices Musculature Core (Damage, Immobilize Duration, Defense Debuff) or Intuition Radial (Range, Damage, Hold Duration, Slow Duration, Defense Debuff, To-Hit Debuff). Intuition Radial is a better choice if you want to use Cutting Beam regularly as range makes cones far more bearable, but you should otherwise prefer Musculature Core. If you're having significant endurance issues, please consider other options than using your alpha slot; Cardiac Core (Endurance Reduction, Range, Damage Resistance) can't help you while you're exemped down, and it's a significant loss of potential damage as compared to the other two options. Judgement: Pyronic Core is the highest damage option and fastest casting option; Ionic Core is the best at damaging over a very wide area. Both are excellent choices for Beam Rifle, but there are only good choices here. Interface: Your best choices should be Reactive Radial or Degenerative (either) for damage. Reactive Radial is better than Reactive Core, as fire DoTs will cancel if any of them miss, so a high reapply chance is good, Diamagnetic Core is a great choice for survival, but the Regeneration penalty is mediocre. Lore: There are no bad choices in Core Lore slots, while Radial slots are mostly bad. Longbow Core is notable for an extremely high amount of -regen, which is great for soloing; Robotic Drone Core has half as much -regen, but are a good alternative for visual variety. Banished Pantheon Radial is notable for having an untouchable support pet that can deal damage, and is a great choice for soloing. 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. Hybrid: Assault is by far the strongest choice. For a Sentinel, I would recommend Assault Core over Assault Radial, unless you know you will frequently be in situations where you will be at the cap for +damage, such as in Incarnate Trials or the Hamidon Raid. Assault Core runs slightly behind Radial in single-target damage for a Sentinel, but proc chances for Radial drop heavily with the size of an AoE, causing it to exacerbate the Sentinel's biggest weakness. While Radial bypasses the cap, Core gives the Sentinel more damage in situations where the Sentinel's individual damage contributions are most important. You could experiment with Control Radial and not hate it.

A proc damage IO is usually not better than enhancing damage straight -- though it can be -- but it's not capped by ED and it's possible to increase an enh-capped damage power by another 50 to 100% with the right procs.

Compromise suggestion: Opt-Out button in account settings to remove confirmation box?

Bet their Greenland isn't melting either... not asking for a Hamidon but Captain Planet giving someone a stern talking to around here might be welcome. In all seriousness, it's hard to tell if this was a botch or intentional. Praetoria DOES have the environment as a thing they are really conscious of but that's a lot of street to be empty.

Proc Sets were really badly thought out. I almost swear it was intentional. "Yeah this melee attack has a tiny knockdown, a tiny chance to mez, does a tiny amount of endurance drain, and a huge amount of damage." "GIVE IT ACCESS TO ALL THE SETS. THERE'S NO WAY THIS COULD BE ABUSED." "This single target ranged attack does damage. ... Just damage." "IT MAY NOT HAVE ANYTHING GOOD EVER."

Any PBAOE based Sentinel. You can also get good melee attacks based on build in many of the sentinel epic pools.

You need mag 55 stealth to be immune to being seen out of combat by most common enemies. Mag 100 makes you immune to sight by giant monsters, and you need a whopping 149 to be unseen by snipers at any distance (though anything less does reduce the range at which they see you by that many feet). Stealth and Super Speed grants 35. Invis grants 55. Stealth IOs grant 30. Stalker hide is 150 off the bat. If you don't make at least mag 55, try to stay about 20 feet away from enemies to avoid detection. A few enemies entirely ignore stealth. Generally newer content rewards stealth more because there are fewer defeat alls. I just finished Praetoria as a BR/ Energy Blaster with zero deaths or IOs thanks to stealth and careful sniping.

Question: Snipe powers. Do they calculate: With their actual animation time at all times? With their slow animation at all times? With their fast animation at all times? Thanks.

yeah my memory must have been straight faulty -- it's a 90s recharge like the rest.

OP updated accordingly. Thanks, oldskool.

Part of this is a general shift in how companies have approached MMO character creation. In the first modern generation MMOs like AC and EQ, it was anything goes. Second generation, like WoW and CoX, came under heavy threat of litigation from trademark holders and consequently had pretty heavy naming policies at first. Eventually, around 9 or 10 years ago I'd guess, there was a hard drop off in litigation threats on this point and naming policies became more relaxed again. I'm not sure if the drop was due to weakness of case, PR reasons, or some mixture.

Gonna have to double check this myself, but my Aim usually recharges slightly first even though my overcharge has a lot more recharge. Recall it matching the predictions in pine's. Now am wondering if I'm crazy.

The T2 effect is generally better if health or endurance are at all issues for you, given it can (but doesn't always) apply on all targets in an AoE. The T1 is unquestionably but marginally superior for hard single targets. I like to grab both, but if you can only get one, it's usually the T1 for L1 to L30, T2 for L30 to L50, and the T1 for endgame imo. T1 is strongest when your enhancements are weak, T2 is strongest when you have enough attacks it actually recharges reasonably fast but you're having end problems. BR is nice because at 50, you don't need either T1 or T2 for your main attack chain, they're just an opportunity trigger.

The other day one of my team members apparently died to a sniper so it's at least still possible.

I apologize for any suggestion that homage characters are worse than original ones -- it is not what I intended, but given my personal biases, i think it is what i ended up saying, at least a little bit. You all are quite right to say there's nothing wrong with it -- it's all about what is most fun for everyone. Further, while I did mean to point out that there are some legitimate causes for concern here on HC, I think @justicebeliever and others are quite right to say that it's probably not something we can realistically do anything about. I like thinking about these things, but I think the best individual policy here is as always with HC: appreciate what we have here and never take it for granted.

You get only 1 MPH off max with a 50+5 in Fly and Swift and 2x50+5 in Afterburner.

I mostly played scrappers and brutes on live so I straight up haven't noticed a difference.

Yes, it is a very good global effect. Replaces the need for Tactics in many builds.

I always shove ATO sets in my 2nd and 3rd strongest single-target attacks, Apocalypse in my strongest ST attack, Ragnarok in my strongest TAoE, Posi's in my remaining TAoEs, Armageddon in my strongest PBAoE, and Scirocco or Obliteration in my remaining PBAoEs. This is because the Ranged ST sets are overall really bad both for bonuses and offensive throughput. Overcharge filling your bar could be from the general BR oddities on AoEs since I have that happen sometimes with a completely different setup.

Clarion boosts are only really really significant if you launch your powers within ... what. 5? 10? seconds after using it, on a 2 minute cooldown, while the rest of the time it's kind of OK. Outside of Blasters doing bomb clean-up in the Underground Incarnate Trial, there aren't a lot of situations where you really need that and you shouldn't have built for it. The strongest abusers of Clarion on a consistent basis have long duration buffs they can fire right after Clarion's been activated, like support sets with Time. Barrier, on the other hand, gives a bottom-line 5% Def/Res at all times, which is a big deal for a lot of characters in the low 40s on a key defense, and Ageless of either flavor is fantastic for dealing with sets that have end problems you can't resolve any other way, or that dealing with would require a sacrifice you don't want to make.

you see, it's actually a warehouse of fun. fun and bowling pins. fun and bowling pins and two arcades and a bar. ... Look, he gives the meteorologist badge, not the building inspector badge.

I've had a pretty rough weekend with no CoH actual gaming time, so I'm going to actually game today (Monday). Either Tuesday or Wednesday I'll put up sample submissions for Energy Blast and Beam Rifle, Energy Blast obv. being heavily adapted from my own guide.

Right you are, Pax. Of course, the analogy has some applicability problems because trademarked characters being produced by end-users in a third-party program is a heavily grey area -- the question is whether the analogy is closer to Bob and his book or a drawing program. This isn't (afaik, it's been a few years since law school now and I didn't specialize in IP stuff at all) a settled question at all as you can make some strong arguments either way, so there's a lot of judgment involved as to whether any one person thinks it's worth the risk. There's always the question of if something is worth it on the merits as well as the question of facing a well-funded and litigious opponent regardless of the merits. I prefer making OCs myself so it's not a judgment for me to make.