New concept build - Water Blast/Ice Armor

[WillParkinson]

A friend and I are making a duo. I'm taking Water/Ice, and was wondering if anyone had seen a build for it? 

 

Thank you. 🙂

[seaborndan]

I'd enjoy seeing a build, also.

[Talance]

I was thinking about this and said, "ooh, a thread, maybe there's some ideas in here!" - but just requests. 🙂 So I got  to it and made one that I think is reasonable.

 

A few notes:

 

1.) This is a no-purple build for initial tryout (well, except for the Coralax, I couldn't resist). Despite that, it's got S/L def right under cap, 85% recharge and good endurance - overall I'm pretty happy with it. I have no doubt you'd easily be able to cap S/L and do a lot for the resists with superior/purples.

2.) I like having real travel powers, so Fly is in there - it sort of fits the concept I have for the character, though you could easily make it Super Jump. You could take it out and add Assault or push for perma-Hasten if that's your thing.

3.) After reading some of the earlier comments, the main reason I went Leviathan was to swap Steam Spray for Arctic Breath. Not the same damage-wise, but the knockdown/-spd/-rch/-def with the Achilles Heel can really set up for AoE goodness. I've love to hear feedback on that in particular.

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7
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Level 50 Technology Sentinel
Primary Power Set: Water Blast
Secondary Power Set: Ice Armor
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Hydro Blast

• (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage
• (3) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge
• (3) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (5) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (5) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 1: Frozen Armor

• (A) Reactive Defenses - Defense
• (7) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance
• (7) Reactive Defenses - Endurance/RechargeTime
• (9) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime
• (9) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage
• (11) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 2: Water Burst

• (A) Opportunity Strikes - Accuracy/Damage
• (11) Opportunity Strikes - Damage/RechargeTime
• (13) Opportunity Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
• (13) Opportunity Strikes - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (15) Opportunity Strikes - RechargeTime/Chance for Opportunity
• (15) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 4: Fly

• (A) Flight Speed IO

Level 6: Aqua Bolt

• (A) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage
• (17) Decimation - Damage/Endurance
• (19) Decimation - Damage/Recharge
• (19) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (21) Decimation - Chance of Build Up

Level 8: Wet Ice

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 10: Frigid Shield

• (A) Preventive Medicine - Heal
• (21) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance
• (23) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb

Level 12: Hoarfrost

• (A) Panacea - Heal/Endurance
• (23) Panacea - Hea/Recharge
• (25) Panacea - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
• (25) Panacea - Heal
• (27) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance

Level 14: Combat Jumping

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 16: Moisture Absorption

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
• (27) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy
• (29) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
• (29) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 18: Water Jet

• (A) Sentinel's Ward - Accuracy/Damage
• (31) Sentinel's Ward - Damage/RechargeTime
• (31) Sentinel's Ward - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
• (31) Sentinel's Ward - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (33) Sentinel's Ward - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
• (33) Sentinel's Ward - RechargeTime/Chance for +Absorb

Level 20: Maneuvers

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance
• (33) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge
• (34) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
• (34) Luck of the Gambler - Defense
• (34) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 22: Boxing

• (A) Empty

Level 24: Tough

• (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance
• (36) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance
• (36) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime
• (36) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP
• (37) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%

Level 26: Tactics

• (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff
• (37) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
• (37) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
• (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
• (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance
• (39) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up

Level 28: Permafrost

• (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)

Level 30: Weave

• (A) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance
• (40) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Red Fortune - Defense
• (42) Red Fortune - Endurance
• (42) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 32: Geyser

• (A) Stupefy - Accuracy/Recharge
• (42) Stupefy - Endurance/Stun
• (43) Stupefy - Accuracy/Endurance
• (43) Stupefy - Stun/Range
• (43) Stupefy - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge
• (45) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 35: Frost Protection

• (A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery

Level 38: Knockout Blow

• (A) Kinetic Combat - Accuracy/Damage
• (45) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
• (45) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
• (46) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 41: Arctic Breath

• (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage
• (46) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance
• (46) Positron's Blast - Damage/Recharge
• (48) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range
• (48) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (50) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff

Level 44: Tidal Forces

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 47: Icy Bastion

• (A) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge
• (48) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge
• (50) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• (50) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance

Level 49: Summon Coralax

• (A) Soulbound Allegiance - Chance for Build Up

Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty

Level 1: Opportunity 

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

 

Let me know what you think!

Edited February 8, 2020 by Talance
Clarified a few things

[oldskool]

There are some good ideas in that build, but a number if things you may wish to consider changing.  

1) Geyser - swap to Positron's Blast.  The stun set does next to nothing for you here.  It's already mag 3 at full Tidal Forces and lasts for 10 seconds baseline.  Mid's isn't showing that the duration can be modified.  Maybe it can be, but making this last 70% long isn't worth skipping out on 90% boosted damage.  Geyser is a very powerful T9.

 

2) Tidal Forces is a better place for Guassian's than Tactics.  You'll be short on to hit in this build so Tactics still has value, OR that Kismet +6% to hit would take you from 78% accuracy on +4 enemies to 90%.  1 slot in a power like Combat Jumping is all you need vs keeping Tactics.  Also, take Tidal Forces earlier.  It is Aim plus it fuels your Water Burst which gets bonus damage under TF stacks.  

 

3) Dehydrate can be a very strong choice. 

 

4) Whirlpool is a good choice.  Especially if you plan to use the Opportunity Strikes set in this build.  The cast time and cooldown mean Whirlpool will trigger the proc even on one target more than 20% of the time.  Water Burst can't boast that.  You can configure Whirlpool's recharge to be around 15 seconds which is exactly the same as the Opportunity mechanic.  The proc won't fill the bar but it will grant +37.5% per activation.  Additionally, Whirlpool can take Achilles Heel and Annihilation resistance debuff procs.  Whirlpool is an excellent power though it does have some drawback as a ground patch effect that enemies will try to flee from.  In practice it is still worth it.  

 

5) There is little reason to use 5 pieces of Reactive Defenses vs 5 Red Fortune in Frozen Armor.  Yea, the unique is nice, but the set isn't that amazing sub 6.  At 6 pieces you'd actually get more recharge than that LoTG is providing.  So either use 1 pieces, 3 pieces, 4 pieces or 6.  5 + LotG is kinda pointless. 

 

6) Knockout Blow and Arctic Breath aren't doing your damage any favors here.  KB is great when slotted well.  Its kinda poop when muling a set though.  Plus it takes 18 seconds to recharge, and its effectiveness isn't maximized for its placement.  See #3 and 4 for replacements.  Overtime those can they work out better due to availability and utility.  

 

7) Sentinel's Ward works better in Water Burst or Geyser. 

 

8 If you didn't want set bonuses most of your powers can take on procs and Water Blast is awesome for that.  

 

Again, some good ideas here, but the above is a lot of food for thought. 

[Talance]

Definitely appreciate the feedback!

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

1) Geyser - swap to Positron's Blast.  The stun set does next to nothing for you here.  It's already mag 3 at full Tidal Forces and lasts for 10 seconds baseline.  Mid's isn't showing that the duration can be modified.  Maybe it can be, but making this last 70% long isn't worth skipping out on 90% boosted damage.  Geyser is a very powerful T9.

I put this in mainly for the recharge, but I can get the same out of Positron's. That's a point well-taken and I certainly don't want to depower Geyser.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

2) Tidal Forces is a better place for Guassian's than Tactics.  You'll be short on to hit in this build so Tactics still has value, OR that Kismet +6% to hit would take you from 78% accuracy on +4 enemies to 90%.  1 slot in a power like Combat Jumping is all you need vs keeping Tactics.  Also, take Tidal Forces earlier.  It is Aim plus it fuels your Water Burst which gets bonus damage under TF stacks.  

I debated this when building. I'd understood that Gaussian's proc works better in Tactics as an always-on, but I can certainly swap them and just give Tactics an end discount. I'll also try to work it earlier in the build.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

3) Dehydrate can be a very strong choice. 

I felt like it was between Dehydrate and Moisture Absorption, and since the build already has Hoarfrost as a self-heal and Moisture Absorption can not only help with endurance but can also mule a LotG, I decided to go with that. I like Dehydrate on a corrupter or blaster but it felt a bit unneeded in this build.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

4) Whirlpool is a good choice.  Especially if you plan to use the Opportunity Strikes set in this build.  The cast time and cooldown mean Whirlpool will trigger the proc even on one target more than 20% of the time.  Water Burst can't boast that.  You can configure Whirlpool's recharge to be around 15 seconds which is exactly the same as the Opportunity mechanic.  The proc won't fill the bar but it will grant +37.5% per activation.  Additionally, Whirlpool can take Achilles Heel and Annihilation resistance debuff procs.  Whirlpool is an excellent power though it does have some drawback as a ground patch effect that enemies will try to flee from.  In practice it is still worth it.  

I mainly took it out because of the fleeing thing. I didn't realize it had so much effect on the Opportunity bar. I'll work it in.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

5) There is little reason to use 5 pieces of Reactive Defenses vs 5 Red Fortune in Frozen Armor.  Yea, the unique is nice, but the set isn't that amazing sub 6.  At 6 pieces you'd actually get more recharge than that LoTG is providing.  So either use 1 pieces, 3 pieces, 4 pieces or 6.  5 + LotG is kinda pointless. 

Fair enough. More recharge is better and you're right, I'm not hitting it while muling a LotG in there. I'll find another spot for the unique if I can.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

6) Knockout Blow and Arctic Breath aren't doing your damage any favors here.  KB is great when slotted well.  Its kinda poop when muling a set though.  Plus it takes 18 seconds to recharge, and its effectiveness isn't maximized for its placement.  See #3 and 4 for replacements.  Overtime those can they work out better due to availability and utility.  

I mainly muled it for the extra s/l def that Kinetic Combat can bring and wasn't really thinking of it being part of the main rotation. Maybe it would be better to just get out of the ancillary pool altogether here, pick up Whirlpool and Steam Spray?

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

7) Sentinel's Ward works better in Water Burst or Geyser. 

I originally had it in Water Burst but swapped them back around. I stayed away from putting it in Geyser due to long recharge time, didn't figure it'd make the PPM. Considering #8, though, I'll work it into Geyser.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

8 If you didn't want set bonuses most of your powers can take on procs and Water Blast is awesome for that.  

I like the thought. Getting Water Burst as a hard-hitter with a bunch of procs would help damage-wise. I'm only seeing three that fit in, though: Positron's, Impeded Swiftness, and Explosive Strike. I'll put them in.

 

5 minutes ago, oldskool said:

Again, some good ideas here, but the above is a lot of food for thought. 

I definitely appreciate it! I'd rather work with as good of a build as I can get.

[oldskool]

Ok, so I took the original build and decided to craft two.  First one should be a bit more affordable.  It still has some semi-expensive choices like LotG, but I do love that set.  [Note: After dropping these I didn't really pay a lot of mind to any set overlap.  There may be some and that was just me not checking my work.  I usually do... 😞].  

 

If I were to go for a cheaper build I don't know if I would worry too much about 45% defense anywhere.  Ice Armor is a very difficult set to build in and Water Blast is incredibly power and slot hungry.  The two of these together make some tough choices.  Still, the cheaper build turns out to do a bit better on single-target due to damage procs.  The AoE is still decent and chance for recharge procs should help things out too.  

 

The more expensive build gets really close to 45% defense on Smash/Lethal/Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative during Moisture Absorb.  Aqua Bolt is a filler and benefits from being pretty cheap so I opted to focus fewer slots there.  Since it animates and recharges very fast it isn't super great with PPM calcs.  You'd need to hammer the hell out of that power in order to push beyond its low PPM value and Water Blast just doesn't work well that way.  Still, you can prime things with Hydro - Aqua - Dehydrate - Water Jet [slight pause] Water Jet again - repeat.  That works if Hasten is running or not.  In the cheaper version Dehydrate carries the chance for +Endurance.  I left it out in build #2 purely as example.  The build would likely benefit from it over time.  

 

In either build use Whirlpool early for its ability to both debuff resistance (it has good PPM vs 10 targets) and chance to give you a third of your meter in one shot.  Hydro Blast, Dehydrate both give around 13 meter.  So early on you're looking at 2/3 of the meter being filled up.  During Hasten here you could run Hydro Blast - Dehydrate - [slight pause] Hydro Blast - Water Jet - [slight pause - due to how Tidal Works here] Water Jet - Aqua Bolt [Offensive Opportunity auto triggers if it hits] then go about repeating except for Whirlpool. 

 

*Edit, so my Ice/Ice Sentinel hits 45% to types other than Psi during MA.  The slotting priorities and power choices were a good bit different.  Also, I didn't try to use pros with the build and went full sets everywhere.  That may actually be the better way to go when dealing with Ice Armor if you really want to push 45% defenses.  If you can be comfortable with 32.5% defenses then one small purple inspiration softcaps you.  That potentially opens up more build choice.

 

Cheaper one... 

 

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Expensive one... 

 

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Edited February 8, 2020 by oldskool

[oldskool]

On 2/8/2020 at 10:32 AM, Talance said:

I debated this when building. I'd understood that Gaussian's proc works better in Tactics as an always-on, but I can certainly swap them and just give Tactics an end discount. I'll also try to work it earlier in the build.

I overlooked this comment before, but this is really worth coming back to.  There has been another instance where someone had Gaussian's in Tactics (maybe 2, 3 builds?).  I went into this elsewhere, but not here.  There is obviously a misunderstanding on how this works.

Gaussian's doesn't work this way, and I have tested this.  Running Gaussian's in Tactics does not make the proc run all the time.  The proc has a 5 second duration and toggles do not check that frequently. Toggles pulse once every 10 seconds and then they roll the dice based on the proc per minute calculations (PPM).  Gaussian's has some wonky behavior here in a toggle.  During the pulse the proc checks against allies including the player.  The PPM factors that get included are things like Area Factor.  Tactics has a huge area factor.  A proc like this gets floored into the ground on % chance.  The math yield something like 2.5% chance to trigger BUT procs can never go below 5% or above 95%.  So every pulse of the Build-Up proc has a 5% chance to apply to the player.  That's 5% chance per ally in range.  That's your team mates and their pets.  If you're grouped with a bunch of Masterminds that is a lot of rolls of the dice to apply the buff to yourself.  For solo, you may see it trigger once every 12 minutes like I did. 

This kind of slotting of Tactics can work with some team oriented builds however if you want actual control over when it triggers put it in a power you activate. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by oldskool

[SwitchFade]

To further what has been said from a water/Sr sentinel player

 

You want geyser and tidal on a 23-27 second cool down, so they are up together. You WANT whirlpool, the damage is big. Drop whirlpool, hit tidal and smash geyser. Keep going with steam spray and water burst. This pretty much wipes anything up to +3 lt's.

 

The thing about water is, it recharges fast with hasten and globals. So fast that you're spamming attacks continuously. It really pairs well with low maintenance secondaries, allowing continuous damage output. While geyser is recharging you're constantly spamming steam spray, water burst, dehydrate and hydro blast.

 

I skipped aqua bolt because the damage bump in opportunity is meh, and AoE attacks, dehydrate and hydro are up so fast I never got to it. Heck, I rarely use hydro blast, only when I want to trigger defensive for healing.

 

Having your nuke on a 24 second recharge changes things.