Looking for suggestions for Energy

[Neuro-son]

So i finally have come to the point where iv played a ton of toons that are the flavor of the month in the community. I like them all but not love them fully. The one power i have always wanted to make because it imo looks the best of all sets, and seems the most "super hero like" power is Energy blast. I know it might not be the best but i ready to settle down. Anyone have any good tips and tricks to make it work and some secondaries that pair nicely for it? Thanks!

[Underfyre]

Generally "make it work" with Energy is getting its knockback under control, which means losing 1 slot to KB>KD enhancements. If you're a pro with hover blasting and making it a knockdown on your own, have at. Obviously you won't be doing that with your AOE spells, so they're automatically a bust unless you're cool with pissing off your tank and most of everyone else. They might not say anything, but believe me, they don't like it.

 

Here's my breakdown of secondaries.

 

Ease of use:

1. SR

2. Invuln

3. Ninja

4. Energy

 

SR is as easy as they come to work with, especially with Master Brawler. Invuln is the next easiest, and it's very set and forget. Ninja has a handful of superfluous powers if you want to squeeze in more pools/epics. Energy is fairly simple to cap out and has a pretty nice End reduction in it's heal. The downside is you have to use your heal when you don't need to.

 

Extra damage:

1. Bio

2. Fire

3. Radiation

 

Bio is the undisputed king of damage dealing. You can cap out your defenses with some work and still theoretically push out more damage than other secondaries. Fire is in the same boat with chasing defenses, and would have more resists to boot. Just deals less damage. Radiation has mountains of resists and regeneration, and has second build up ability for more damage. And a nice AOE/ally heal. My qualm is that it's very click heavy.

 

I don't use them:

WP

Ice

Regen

 

I have never once used these.

 

Resist based, but probably work just fine:

Dark

Electric

 

I've used dark, and it's similar to Electric. Very resist based. With a concentrated effort you could resist cap it, but you would lose a bit of damage on an already damage handicapped set.

Edited November 15, 2020 by underfyre

[oldskool]

Energy Blast has some challenges on meeting the high damage thresholds of the current power creep meta.  Sentinels have this problem in particular, but EB can come across as particularly bad.  So here are some ideas on how to reduce some of that annoyance: 

1) Frankenslotting attacks, i.e. mixing shallow set bonuses or just one off procs, can yield some creative results.  Since EB has all KB attacks you can socket the Explosive Strikes chance for Smashing damage everywhere if you wanted.  You can slot Force Feedback chance for Recharge pretty much anywhere.  You can use Sudden Acceleration KB to KD to reduce some nuisance associated with knock attacks too.  

2) Frankenslotting drastically lowers your overall set bonus options.  This can be a big hinderance for building a lot of recharge or defense.  So go with secondary power sets that are more self-contained.  The 4 "ease of use" sets mentioned above can all do this.  Super Reflexes and Energy Aura are, in my opinion, the best at this.  Both of these sets can soft-cap defenses, provide some kind of health benefit (e.g., absorb or higher regen), and also give you bonus recharge.  These sets aren't super tanky from the perspective of resistance benefit, but I find they don't need to be.  There will be some content that can auto hit you and that is obnoxious.  However, for 90% of everything else these work very well.  Invulnerability will generally have lower defense and resistance with fewer set bonuses, and no recharge perk.  Still, Invul is remarkably sturdy and you can still hard-cap your Smash/Lethal resistance at 75%.  That is on top of having a passive absorb unique to Sentinels and Dull Pain.  Nin can be a fickle set.  It has a lot of good perks to it but building it in a frankenslot mindset can get tough.  Still, it rewards some creative builds and has a lot of opportunity for diversity of IO sets.  
3) When you get into the Incarnate range start looking for additional damage sources vs additional defensive sources.  You shouldn't need Agility on a Sentinel.  Agility has some uses and it is a good Alpha, but it is just better on other ATs.  Same goes for others like Spiritual.  Look for the ones with damage benefits like Intuition Radial (not really recommend for EB) or either version of Musculature.  Cardiac can be beneficial with Dark Armor in particular, but that is at the cost of damage.  
4) Consider an Epic pool to add in a melee attack or two.  Sentinels can gain access to single target melee and area melee later on.  The melee attacks are pretty strong but some do have really long downtimes.  You could also consider abusing an epic hold with damage procs.  I'd be cautious of putting all your eggs in that basket, but it is no secret that an epic ST attack plus proc loaded hold is a ton of damage.  It is so much damage it can be near equal, or better, than your entire primary.  I wouldn't be shocked to see that go away eventually, but for now enjoy. 

Finally, temper your expectations.  Sentinels can be a lot of fun and especially so with thematic characters.  However, Sentinels aren't keeping up with the power creeping being pushed out right now.  They're actually pretty good when viewed through the perspective of how the game *used to be*.  They can even be really good if you push a build abusing current proc mechanics.  This an AT that requires a lot of investment just to be somewhat behind the current curve.  Hopefully that will change, but I'm not holding my breath either. 

[drbuzzard]

Be nice if there was a way to use energy without giving up a slot for KB>KD, however it is what it is. If you're just soloing, you can do without that, but on teams scattering targets when you aren't a particularly big damage dealer will be frowned upon.

 

I will say that IMO the only bad secondary is ice. It's just the red haired stepchild of secondaries where by and large the rest are pretty damned solid.

 

Bio is damage king, but will take some work to get defenses up there, and also will be be served by using the autoclick on ablative carapace (or some other way to keep it up all the time). Way bio is, you might just as well stay in offensive mode since it's all about the damage (25% damage enhancement and some bonus toxic damage which is a variable % depending on the attack).

 

Fire has one damage boosting toggle which gives 10% enhancement and then possible fire DoT.

 

Electric, radiation, SR, and energy aura all give recharge boosts. I consider that a form of offensive boost myself, if not explicit. Ninja allows a damage boost from hide, but only then.

[DanaDark]

I've been mainning an Energy Blast - Willpower Sentinel for a while now and its just ridiculously good.

With WP, you're basically invincible and if for some reason you accidentally went AFK in a pile of mobs for an hour and come back to death... you can rez yourself.

Knockback is hardly an issue. Only powers that hit multiple mobs could use some KB to KD but even then, its not exactly obliterating a team's ability to do anything. Really, it's just the scrappers and stalkers that won't be as happy. Generally you'll figure out when/where/how to manage your own KB. You'll regularly be able to engage large groups without the team backing your up so unload KB then.

Play as a scrapper that doesn't have to run into the arms of each mob to do damage. Don't play like a weak blaster. Trying to make your sent be a blaster is only going to disappoint and waste a LOT of potential the Sentinel has. 

With my build, I can either be really good damage or a fairly decent tank depending on what I slot in my incarnates.

Anyone that argues about Sentinel DPS has little understanding of the AT. Instead, they view it as a crappier blaster and nothing more. Again, you're not a blaster. 

So yeah, grab WP for your secondary and go to town!

[Neuro-son]

Wow! Thank you all for you input! So far iv realized that I love sents more than any other AT. Makes me feel like an actualy super hero rather than a power that can do one thing great but has holes, and also when you see a good sent (just like a good dom) they are usualy REALLY good. I think i am going to make a energy/energy sent and see how it goes and use KB-->KD just because i know how annoying it can get for other teammates (and i usually only play on teams).

[Force Redux]

7 hours ago, Neuro-son said:

Wow! Thank you all for you input! So far iv realized that I love sents more than any other AT. Makes me feel like an actualy super hero rather than a power that can do one thing great but has holes, and also when you see a good sent (just like a good dom) they are usualy REALLY good. I think i am going to make a energy/energy sent and see how it goes and use KB-->KD just because i know how annoying it can get for other teammates (and i usually only play on teams).

I have had an on again off again relationship with Sentinels. At first, last year, I loved them. They were everything iconic superheros like The Human Torch, Ice Man, Iron Man, etc, should be. Tough, Ranged attacks. Then I found their damage lacking the higher level I went, until at Incarnate I was somewhat disappointed. I was expecting Ranged Scrapper and got more like Defender Damage Plus. Now, they have again become one of my top favorite ATs (along with MMs and Controllers), as I've learned more about how to slot to squeeze out a little extra damage (but I'm not into heavy proccing), and I also tempered my expectations and learned to enjoy the concept and the playstyle, which i really enjoy. Fly, blast, move on., fly blast...  At the end of the day, the game isn't that hard that a class in need of a little smidge of love is unplayable, so long as you put away the measuring stick vs. blaster and stalkers.  So I agree with you. Sentinels really give you that 'feel like an actual super hero'  experience.

 

BTW, I play with a buddy who is Energy/Energy and he's really good with his KB. There's a real difference between folks who know how to use it and have practiced, and those who don't. Just like with Hurricane/Storm users, you can easily tell the skilled from the unskilled. 🙂

[DanaDark]

There's not many powers to consider KB for. 3 max. Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, and Nova... you can also be selective with their usage. Do not ignore the advantages of KB over KD either... a skilled person can really herd enemies and also cause them to be delayed in their damage application... a bad person can just annoy everyone but its not that bad really on most maps.

Unsure on the comparison to Defender DPS... Defender has a 0.65 mod while Sent has a 0.95 mod... (blaster is 1.125 mod). 

A sentinel is the 3rd tankiest in the game, beaten only by Tank and Brute. Not using that is a MAJOR waste of your abilities. My sentinel goes into a group of enemies and unleashes and survives. Then the tank comes and gathers them up and blasters and DPS finish them off... while they do that, I'm already off onto the next group. (A tank-brute combo can do similar).

You're closer to a scrapper than a blaster, but definitely not a scrapper. And again... chasing the DPS dragon means this is the wrong AT. Everyone and their hard ons for MAX DEEPS... heh.

[oldskool]

4 hours ago, DanaDark said:

Unsure on the comparison to Defender DPS... Defender has a 0.65 mod while Sent has a 0.95 mod... (blaster is 1.125 mod). 

There is more to damage-per-second than just AT scale.  

You scoff at "max deeps" like people are a bunch of fools.  Get off that high horse, please.  Many of us here aren't the idiots you seem to think we are.  
 

P.S. I do generally agree that there is a hyper-focus on damage that can go into the realm of silliness.  However, that doesn't mean that the Sentinel cannot be optimized to do more damage within the confines of its own design.  Doing that isn't something that is worthy of snickering at people for.  Especially when it isn't impossible to both improve damage AND retain durability on the same character.  

Edited November 20, 2020 by oldskool

[Saikochoro]

Since a couple people mentioned bio armor I wanted to put in a plug about it. I agree that it is the best offensive secondary available to sentinels. However, you can easily lose out of its offensive prowess by chasing softcap defenses to multiple types. For example, chasing softcap to s/l defense is going to neuter your recharge and proc options.  So I disagree that you can have all the softcaps and still be the top in damage.

 

That said, if you build to bio armors strength, then it will be plenty survivable and it will be top damage. Most important types to softcap are energy/negative because you don’t have any resists for those. It’s honestly better to shoot for the resist cap or near it for s/l as bio leans toward resistance for those types. F/c will have a mix of defense from bio and resistance if you are pushing recharge with purple IO sets. 
 

My fire/bio sentinel is by far the best damaging sentinel I have. I am not disappointed damage wise even compared to some blasters I have. While it may not be my most survivable sentinel, it isn’t really lacking in survivability either.  I have close to resist cap s/l, softcapped e/n defense, and a good mix of resist/defense for fire cold. My ablative carapace is up pretty much every fight, and rebuild dna is up fast as well. I also have perma hasten and damage procs. 
 

I just think it’s important to know that for bio you should to lean into its layered mitigation to be able to take advantage of its biggest strength, which is offensive power. If you neuter your recharge and procs chasing defenses to all types, then the offensive advantage starts disappearing compared to something like EA or SR, which can easily softcap and then chase recharge (on top of the recharge already granted by the set) and procs. 

Edited November 20, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Gobbledigook]

7 hours ago, DanaDark said:

There's not many powers to consider KB for. 3 max. Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, and Nova... you can also be selective with their usage. Do not ignore the advantages of KB over KD either... a skilled person can really herd enemies and also cause them to be delayed in their damage application... a bad person can just annoy everyone but its not that bad really on most maps.

Unsure on the comparison to Defender DPS... Defender has a 0.65 mod while Sent has a 0.95 mod... (blaster is 1.125 mod). 

A sentinel is the 3rd tankiest in the game, beaten only by Tank and Brute. Not using that is a MAJOR waste of your abilities. My sentinel goes into a group of enemies and unleashes and survives. Then the tank comes and gathers them up and blasters and DPS finish them off... while they do that, I'm already off onto the next group. (A tank-brute combo can do similar).

You're closer to a scrapper than a blaster, but definitely not a scrapper. And again... chasing the DPS dragon means this is the wrong AT. Everyone and their hard ons for MAX DEEPS... heh.

You are only tankier as a sentinel because you are blasting at range or using hover. You are not really any Tankier than a Scrapper, it is just that a Scrapper is in the thick of it doing very high damage. A sentinel is probably just hiding at the back or the Tank is covering you.

 

Kill fast and less threat....less threat is more survival.