Dual Pistols / Dark Sentinel

[wolfshadow31]

Hey all. I've searched through the forums, and reddit, but don't see any DP/dark sentinel builds.  Any one have a good one?  I'm currently level 10, so looking to start buying pieces and slotting them as I level up.  The set so far is really fun.  I've never used Dual Pistols on Live, although I did have a Spines/Dark scrapper, and the secondary seems pretty familiar, so that's nice.  

 

I'm mainly figuring on charging in, doing some AoEs, and letting the oppressive gloom, cloak of fear do it's thing, kinda playstyle. 😄

[oldskool]

I have multiple threads about both sets.  You should be able to piece together some ideas for a build with that.  

Dual Pistols is a sort of "world is your oyster" set.  All of the powers have a degree of value and you really can fashion multiple attack routines based on preference.  There are a few powers that truly stand out as must haves (Executioner's Shot), but its ok to toss a coin to pick your favorites.  There aren't many sets with so many good picks within the context of its loadout.  

Dark Armor peaks in power choices by Cloak of Darkness.  You're familiar with it from a melee AT though so it really isn't too different.  Tenebrous Regeneration is a regeneration passive that is far stronger than Health.  I do not suggest skipping it but it can run on minimal slots.  

Obscure Sustenance is a replacement to Dark Regeneration.  This power is very different.  It has a base cooldown of 60 seconds and applies multiple buffs to you each with their own duration.  In essence, this grants you 3 each regeneration and recovery bonuses that have their own timers.  Within the first 10 seconds the recovery effect is at its peak and then drops down 1 grade.  For the next 10 seconds the recovery effect degrades down slightly.  For the final 10 seconds the effect is at its weakest though still welcome.  The health regeneration lasts longer but drops in tiers just like recovery.  The full health regeneration effect lasts 60 seconds.  This power is effectively perma on health regen out of the box and it stacks with Tenebrous Regeneration.  My Water/Dark has hit 1100% regeneration for 30 seconds with the way I built it and averages around 5 endurance return for 10 seconds.  That's not including how the power Dehydrate works in Water Blast. 

So just like in melee DA, you really should plan to invest in recharge for Obscure Sustenance for nothing else other than that juicy recovery buff.  If you can get the recharge into the 20 second range or less, then I'd say that's ideal.  The rest of DA is similar but the resistance values are slightly less and there aren't as many resistance bonuses to chase due to a lack of melee powers.  So just be aware that while you can hard cap Smashing/Lethal resistance you're probably likely to hit 50% without getting creative.  At least, that's been my experience.  

The Dual Pistols set Chemical Ammo offers -7% damage debuffing to enemies so that's an idea for helping out on survival.  You can stick to standard ammo too for times you like knockback/down if you need a breather.  Incendiary Ammo makes you do more damage.  Cryo has some slows and extra range.  

I'd strongly consider taking Dual Wield here for Defensive Opportunity so you can maintain your endurance inbetween Obscure Sustenance if you do take Cloak of Fear.  Oppressive Gloom's stun effect will stack magnitude with Suppressive Fire in standard ammo only.  Any other elemental ammo will remove the stun and grant you a mag 3 hold for a few seconds.  

If you haven't looked in to the sticky at the top of this subforum, I go into both of these power sets in a bit more depth.

Edited February 6, 2020 by oldskool

[drbuzzard]

I view obscure sustenance as the key power in the set. Sure, get your resistance up as far as you can (so fighting pool is a good idea), but you can pump up a huge amount of regen from this power and it will keep you alive. It does need enemy fairly nearby (30+ feet, so only fairly) to work, but the range isn't too bad, and it is a PBAOE, so you don't need to target or anything, just click. It also comes with a huge amount of accuracy, so you don't need to slot for that. I think I put a preventative medicine set in it (love that 8.75% recharge boost) and I have a general permahasten build (I made BR/Dark) so this comes up quite often, and it is worth it to use every time. 

[wolfshadow31]

I checked out those other posts.  I took @Cetrix build and changed it to my needs .  He had a different primary, so I had to do some juggling.  I ended up taking the same Epic pool because we both wanted psychic shockwave.  Anyways, here is a look at the build I am probably going to go with.  It's softcapped for melee defence, which was what I wanted.  Decent recharge rate.  71.4% s/l resist. Pretty decent AoE capability with psychic shockwave, hail of bullets, bullet rain, piercing rounds, empty clips.   Now, I've only played Dual Pistols up to level 13 so far, so if anyone has any advice, or slotting changes, it would be appreciated.  I haven't added any incarnates to the build.  

 

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[oldskool]

You're skipping Pistols and Executioner's Shot which are the highest DPA single-target attacks in the entire set.  You've replaced those with Dual Wield and Suppressive Fire slotted with utility sets on a damage dealing AT.  

If I were you, I would go on to Pineapple and test this first before committing to it.  Your damage enhancement in Dual Wield is 21.75%.  Your damage enhancement in Suppressive Fire is 0%.  If this was me, I'd be WOEFULLY disappointed in its damage.  I couldn't imagine playing this in exemplar content as it is entirely dependent on Mind Probe and Piercing Rounds for damage in bursts of damage only.  There is no coherent attack sequence with those two powers as they can't recharge quickly enough to chain.  So your filler options of Dual Wield and Suppressive Fire have next to no damage enhancement.  

Getting 71% resistance and 45% defense at the expense of doing any meaningful damage seems like you're just working against yourself.  Also, Mids has a bad habit of over inflating values at times and it has never had the correct scalar for Sentinels.  I can assure you as a matter of fact that Executioner's Shot will out damage Piercing Rounds in a contest of use over time.  Pistols, despite its low damage per hit, is one of the highest damage to animation ratio attacks in the set.  Pistol is literally second only to Executioner's Shot in terms of DPA.  These are easily verifiable in game vs reading the bullshit in Mids. 

Edit: Below is how I might do it.  I cobbled this together kinda quickly just to be more helpful than this post was originally.

 

Obviously, I am trading out 46% melee defense for other things.  I do not feel it is necessary to do that with Dark.  Especially not if you pairing up a Stealth IO (which I left out) with Cloak of Darkness and Hail of Bullets.  Hail of Bullets dropped from stealth will give you +10% defense for 5 seconds and has a high chance to knockdown at the end of the animation.  That chance is 100% guaranteed if you use standard ammo vs any of the elemental ones.  This is a pretty safe opener even with less defense.  You can follow-up with Obscure Sustenance to super charge your regeneration and recovery.  Speaking of, with Accolades and Cardiac Incarnate you wouldn't worry about endurance in the first place.  You could even consider swapping to Musculature for more damage.  I do not trust my version of Mid's on its resistance reporting.  It shows me all resistances are overcapped beyond 75%.  It does this on my Water Blast/Dark Armor build too, and it is wrong.

Hasten is in this build.  Even if you want to be lazy at 92% recharge your core single-target attack sequence is still sustainable.  While Hasten is running it just makes everything smoother.  It puts Obscure Sustenance in a sweet spot of sub 20 second recharge too.  Juggle Executioner's Shot - Pistols - Suppressive Fire - Mind Probe (when in close) - Pistols for days.  You won't run out of endurance so Defensive Opportunity isn't necessary.  

Link Minds has actual slotting so it's effect is now perma.  

You have Hail of Bullets (which is only "OK" as far as T9's go), Bullet Rain, Empty Clips, and Psychic Shockwave for AoE.  Empty Clips recharges quite fast and should be available most of the time.  Piercing Rounds is not a very good AoE.  Don't get me wrong, because I do like it, but its unique cone property is more frustrating than "cool".  Sentinels do not need it but it is a fine option.  Drop Suppressive Fire if you are so inclined and swap in Piercing Rounds.  If so, slot Piercing Rounds with only some of the Positron's Blast set (ignore the any of the /recharge) and use the last 2-3 slots for Impeded Swiftness damage proc and Annihilation's resistance debuff.  

The defensive slotting in the build chunk is survivable.  It's pretty close to how I built my Water/Dark though that build ignores Hasten in favor of Maneuvers for more defense.  The offensive slotting is how I run my own Dual Pistols build.  So I can tell you from experience that on the offensive side that works, and the defense side does too.  I can guarantee you it is more effective on damage than what you started with by more than 50%.  

 

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Edited February 7, 2020 by oldskool

[wolfshadow31]

Ok.  So, I 99% of the time play this game solo.  But I do like playing high level, so surviving +0x8 minimum is a requirement(at 50).  Preferably higher, but at least that.  Not a farming build...I'm not planning on spending any time in AE, but I do like doing the DA arcs, Ephram Sha missions etc at 50.  That's why I slotted those powers the way I did.  I need at least some sort of defence soft capped.  So I could have went the S/L route, but that only works against that damage. Melee...works against all melee attacks.  I wasn't really planning on using Dual Wield for it's damage, just for it's defensive opportunity only.  My plan is to jump into the middle of mobs, and AoE them down.  It's the reason I didn't take Executioner's shot.  Single target dmg is great...but I just couldn't fit it in.  With psychic shockwave recharging in 6 seconds, hail of bullets in 26s, Piercing Rounds in 4.3s, Bullet Rain in 5.2s, Empty Clips in 3.7s there is always going to be some sort of AoE available.  I don't mind cones...my last 50 was a Savage Melee scrapper, so sometimes positioning for cones, is just part of the archetype. 

 

Is my build weak on single target damage...probably.  But I just don't see a build surviving on 50 content with 25% defence.  Now, I haven't played much of the /dark yet(or dual pistols for that matter!)...so there is all that regeneration in the set, that I will have to see how it works.  Maybe softcap with all that regeneration really is overkill.  But I still got 37 more levels to play.  I level to 50 doing the Story Arcs.  I do use the double xp boost from the P2W vendor, but I dont just farm up characters to 50.  I like to see how they actually play.  So this build isn't set in stone.  And I'm not building towards it NOW.  Well I would have started to, if you would have said "its great! go for it!", but you didn't. Since I haven't played Sentinel Archetype before, I will take every dual pistols power, and every power in /dark just to see how they play while leveling up.  That was my plan regardless.  Then I'll make some adjustments based on how the power sets play.  This is actually the first time I attempted to do a build without actually getting the character to 50 first, so I do agree with you, that maybe some of those sacrifices I made for the melee defence etc just wont be practical.  I just wanted a starting place to work from, and maybe save some time and start bidding on some sets now, rather than later.  But that all went out the window. lol 

 

I really appreciate your advice, and will take it to heart as I level up.  I'm only level 13 now, so the intricacies of the two sets aren't really discovered yet, but your detailed responses really are helpful.  I'll probably get this character to 50 some time in the next two weeks, and will finalize his build then.  

 

 

 

[oldskool]

Taking all the powers and seeing what you like is generally the advice I prefer to give. 😉 

The low levels might feel bumpy as you start to build things up but it should get better.  Anyway, I hope the character goes well!  I hope you enjoy it, and if you have questions feel free to ask.  I'm also just a PM away if you'd rather do that. 

[BlingBaby]

So, if I run a /dark sentinel, I should be using the heal more proactively? I'm pretty disappointed in it as a "save my butt at the last minute" heal. 

[drbuzzard]

It's actually a really bad heal. It's a great regen and recovery booster however. It's better used preemptively. 

[oldskool]

I concur with @drbuzzard.  The power is not a replica of Dark Regeneration.  It doesn't scale with targets (only ever needs 1) and its purpose is more towards buffing over direct heal. 

 

Use it early.  Use it often. 

 

Eat well.  Live long.