Best all round second set

[londonmasrk69]

Hi, i have done fire/invul, was wondering if there was a better secondary for all round staying alive 🙂 What seems to be the best in the experts opinion?

 

Many thanks in advance.

[SeraphimKensai]

Sentinels, Scrappers, and Stalkers (basically anything other than Tanks, Brutes, or Kheldians) imho have a better chance of staying alive by playing a softcapped defense based build over a strictly resistance based secondary because those AT's have a lower resistance cap than the 3 AT's I excluded (note: Kheldians have an 85% resistance cap as opposed to Tanks/Brutes 90%).

 

That said, a set that layers your damage mitigation usually works extremely well also, such as Willpower or Bio Armor.

 

I personally have 2 lvl 50 fully IO'd Sentinels, one being a Rad/Rad/Elec (which is really strong and fun to play, rad armor is great), and an Elec/Fire/Psi (which I made on a whim to try out electric blast with Molten, it's also fun and decently survivable given the sapping nature of it's electric attacks).

 

 

[Astredax]

The thing about the secondaries is there's a pretty large difference when you're talking about with IOs and without IOs.  

 

With IOs Bio or Energy Aura are probably the strongest defensive secondaries, without them it's probably super reflexes, invuln, or maybe willpower. 

 

If I had to say best all-around pick at all stages of the game, I'd say Energy Aura.  Its top end IO'd out performance is lower than Bio, but it's gonna be good at protecting you from 1-50 and doesn't require the super specific type of build Bio does for softcapping.  

 

 

[oldskool]

Everyone's opinion will be different.  However, I will agree that any sets that can softcap your defenses and do so on the least investment are going to be very good.  Any sets that can hard cap one or more categories of resistance are also going to be good (e.g., Invulnerability, Electric, etc.). 

I will 100000000% disagree about Willpower being all that good on Sentinels everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.  It's decent, but its not as great as it sounds in my experience.  I really like Willpower but the set was kicked down several pegs due to the lack of the scaling regeneration in Rise to the Challenge.  Up to the Challenge (the Sentinel, static regeneration, version) doesn't compete well with its melee counterpart.  You combine the lower overall regen, and the lower hit points, and Willpower just straight up doesn't compare with the melee version.  

Bio Armor is in a similar boat.  Sentinels don't nearly have the tools (IO sets) in order to softcap typed defenses on Bio Armor like a melee AT does.  Bio Armor can get pretty good with IO investments to lean on the click heals, but chasing softcap defenses is a chore.  

Hover blasting can fix a lot of the woes of Willpower/Bio Armor, but their defense/resist numbers aren't in the same league as other sets.  I have a /Will, /Bio, and /Dark as well as /Nin.  I can complete plenty of content on all of my characters, but I notice a very real difference playing Ninjutsu vs say... Willpower.  My current /Dark character is all about stacking stuns and can nullify bosses with the right powers stacking effect.  However, I don't kid myself that the character is going to survive direct focus from an AV like Marauder because she won't but my Ninjutsu has tanked him through dodging attacks.  

The layered defense secondaries aren't bad, but in terms of "best" they just aren't that. 

Edited September 22, 2019 by oldskool

[Cutter]

I've been having success with my /Regen guy. With only 2 clickies it's pretty set-and-forget. While I'm only sitting in the mid-teens to low 20's for defense, and mid-20's for resists, so far that plus native regen has been enough to take me to 44 incredibly smoothly. I think he's hospital'd once? Of course, I solo on -1/x2 because speed, but I've done enough team content at higher difficulties to get a decent sense of his survivability there.

 

Once he 50's, my next project is going to be one of the defense sets so I can get a good feel for it, because given the choice I'd rather shoot for soft defense than hard 70% resist.

[WumpusRat]

I have a beam rifle / willpower sent that I built on the test server a while back, and it's extremely durable. I was able to plow through +2/6 malta without slowing down (as long as I didn't just let the sappers keep chain-draining me), and everything else is a cakewalk. Rise to the Challenge not scaling up with enemies makes it a bit weaker against huge groups, but stronger once the group thins out. And if you're hover-blasting, it provides a lot more regen than it would if it was the melee version which requires enemies to be close to you.

 

<edit> This is without any incarnate stuff at all, just to point out. Not even the +1 level shift from the alpha. I usually test characters without any incarnate stuff up against malta, since they're the toughest non-incarnate group out there (though vanguard might be a bit rougher, but you can't  do paper missions against them). I like to see how well I can handle malta first, then add some incarnate stuff and head over to DA to try some missions on +2/8 or +4/8.

Edited September 22, 2019 by WumpusRat

[Sovera]

Ninjutsu for a Sentinel.

[Six-Six]

I would have to go with willpower or super reflexes. my main is wp and is up to +2/x4 with some secondaries skipped to make space for epic pool powers. limited my def and res to only 3 each; my 2nd favourite alt is sr, just hit 35 and is on +1/x4... might try bumping him up to x5 or 6 or 8, but keeping him at +1. I would prefer a bit more res on him but master brawler seems to be making up for the slack. both wp and sr have plenty of end to spare mob cluster after mob cluster or prolonged tangles with hardier bosses. 😃

I might say regen as well, but I haven't played it enough to know better. my regen is only level 15 +0/x4. 

[londonmasrk69]

Thanks very much all some interesting opinions there.

[drbuzzard]

I have 50s with SR, WP, Elec, Energy, Ninja,  bio, and fire.

 

Speaking to which is the most durable, It would have to be between SR and Energy Aura. As others have said, softcapping really is the way to go with sentinels since a 75% resistance cap is well short of the effective 95% mitigation that softcapping offers. Since you're chasing softcapping, having a defensive set to start with is a good idea. Thus as I see it, your choices are between SR, ninja, and EA. Every one of my 'finished' builds have perma-hasten on them since getting your nuke up for every spawn plays to the strength of sentinels. so the fact that SR and EA have 20% recharge boosters gives them an edge (as well ad the fact that ninja has click status protection, which I dislike). Energy and Super reflexes each have their own advantages. For considerations of defense, super reflexes simply is better as it is positional, which is easier to softcap and holds up against psi and toxic just fine. It also includes a heaping helping of defense debuff resistance, which against certain content is very helpful (ITF for example). Energy Aura in contrast adds a pretty decent amount of resistances to the mix, so when that hit slips in (and something will) it doesn't hurt as much. Also SR offers absorb instead of a heal, while EA has a real heal.

 

Now this is not to say that resistance builds can't be durable. They can be plenty durable, but not durable enough to jump into +4x8 spawns with impunity and drop your nuke with worrying at all.

 

 

[londonmasrk69]

Ok i went with Dark / Energy, be a bit different,  anyone got a decent build with io's i can pick through? Thanks again.

[Force Redux]

My personal recommendation is SR or Ninjitsu. Both cap DeF easily, cheaply. 

 

SR for the best DDR and toggle Mez resists.

 

Ninja for innate heal and stealth.

[Teirusu]

You're definitely going to find a lot of different opinions here, which is good, that means that the various sets are.. fairly well balanced in relation to each other, which is definitely a good thing.

 

My personal vote goes to /EA but I'm probably a little bias.  The good thing about /EA and /Ninjitsu is that the last two powers in the set are pretty/fairly skippable, although Blinding Power has better utility then Power Drain.  By the time you're 50, with a good build, END is usually not an issue anymore but, a -tohit debuff is never a bad thing to use.  /SR you pretty much want to take everything besides Elude, so that's one extra power.

 

/SR does have better DDR slotted.  (/EA has about 2/3rds of /SRs DDR, which is still pretty good)  But /EA gives you get a pretty good heal, which is also an END discount power, and gives a decent amount of regen.  Which, with enough +recharge, can be perma.  /EA also gives you a 20% HP boost in Power Armor. (enhanceable up to 30%)  You can reach the HP Cap of Sentinels on /EA with accolades and set bonuses.  If it helps, I regularly just face-tank with mine.

 

Really, /EA offers most of what /SR and /Nin gives you but with some extra layers of protection, like HP and Regen.  It's 'hole' of toxic and psi damage can be plugged decently and you can either reach, or nearly reach soft cap on it fairly well.  It's power FX can also cover a fairly wide range of concept ideas too, when you think about it.

[westhebehr]

what about a cold/cold sentinel??