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Fire/Fire, the missing link for a damage build?

Sovera

By Sovera
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Sovera

Sovera

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I have run Sentinels exhaustively at the start of HC, then got completely bored by the mediocre damage and dumped the AT. I recently spent many months playing Tankers, specifically the Fire Armor variant.

 

Having reached a point where I needed a change I started looking at Sentinels again (nothing like time to gloss over old faults) and started theorycrafting something together with that Tanker experience... and I think it worked out well.


 

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So with all of that said I think this is the first time I felt a Sentinel was doing good damage. Dropping into melee will not be a problem since anything that can grab agro will steal it from us and regardless the end build will have 45% S/L defense (with Barrier's 5%) and averaging 60-65% resistance to most. Combined with the ability to just float a bit out of melee range and Healing Flames recharging in 13 seconds I've taken the ITF's last boss' auto-hit without much concern. No one needs to live in melee and be subjected to all the hard hits and debuffs that live there.

 

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Leveling build:

 

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Edited by Sovera
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- Simple guide for newcomers. - Money making included among other things.

- Tanker Fire Armor: the Turtle, the Allrounder, the Dragon, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.

- Tanker Stone Armor: beginner friendly (near) immortal Tanker for leveling/end-game and Stone Armor framework.

- Brute Rad/Stone and compilation of Brute Stone Armor builds.

Sovera

Sovera

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  On 4/17/2021 at 5:51 PM, CaptTastic said:

But then the age-old question: If you’re happy to spend most of your time in melee in search of damage, why not just role a fire scrapper or brute? 

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Yeah, you missed what I wrote... We need to go into melee to drop Inferno and/or Burn, then we can hit the space bar for two seconds to be flying out of the way.

 

Why not? Indeed, why not. Choices. Because a Scrapper/Brute is melee and a Sentinel is ranged. Because we get a nuke to open every fight with. Because we don't need to twiddle our thumbs with a frown as Maiden stays in her blue circles.

 

Take your pick, and stick to Scrapper/Brute if it is what you like to play.

  • Like 1

- Simple guide for newcomers. - Money making included among other things.

- Tanker Fire Armor: the Turtle, the Allrounder, the Dragon, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.

- Tanker Stone Armor: beginner friendly (near) immortal Tanker for leveling/end-game and Stone Armor framework.

- Brute Rad/Stone and compilation of Brute Stone Armor builds.

CaptTastic

CaptTastic

Posted
Posted
  On 4/17/2021 at 7:04 PM, Sovera said:

 

Yeah, you missed what I wrote... We need to go into melee to drop Inferno and/or Burn, then we can hit the space bar for two seconds to be flying out of the way.

 

Why not? Indeed, why not. Choices. Because a Scrapper/Brute is melee and a Sentinel is ranged. Because we get a nuke to open every fight with. Because we don't need to twiddle our thumbs with a frown as Maiden stays in her blue circles.

 

Take your pick, and stick to Scrapper/Brute if it is what you like to play.

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Well no, I think you’ve missed my point too. First of all, I love Sentinels and have very little love for Melee-based ATs. 
 

I have a fire/fire/fire sentinel myself, and I built it like you have. Get in the melee, inferno, burn, fire sword circle, fireball. It’s a fun AoE toon. But it’s not really doing much a fire scrapper or brute isn’t doing there and doing better. 
 

I’d never discourage anyone from Sents. Love them more than any other AT, so go for it. For me though, while fiery aura helps damage, it doesn’t make a Sent into a damage build, because it’s not a damage AT. 

 

That’s all I meant. Didn’t mean to offend and apologies if I did. 

Sovera

Sovera

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  On 4/17/2021 at 7:47 PM, CaptTastic said:

Well no, I think you’ve missed my point too. First of all, I love Sentinels and have very little love for Melee-based ATs. 
 

I have a fire/fire/fire sentinel myself, and I built it like you have. Get in the melee, inferno, burn, fire sword circle, fireball. It’s a fun AoE toon. But it’s not really doing much a fire scrapper or brute isn’t doing there and doing better. 
 

I’d never discourage anyone from Sents. Love them more than any other AT, so go for it. For me though, while fiery aura helps damage, it doesn’t make a Sent into a damage build, because it’s not a damage AT. 

 

That’s all I meant. Didn’t mean to offend and apologies if I did. 

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Not at all. Reading back I can see my answer wasn't in the best phrasing. But, yeah, I speak only for myself anyway, but after a ton of Sents way early in HC and a big emphasis on Bio as -the- damage boosting secondary and never being satisfied I find Burn bridged that gap (for myself anyway).

 

I haven't thrown it at a pylon or anything and Burn can be hit and miss while also lacking the total damage it will do on a Tanker due to agro keeping mobs in place. But I think that as long as we accept our role as a magnet to a tank's back I have satisfying HP dips all around me by pushing buttons which is something I didn't have.

 

But in truth I find the same with Tankers. Despite Bio being the OP thing I have consistently Fire Armor to behave better for damage. Burn at level 18 beats Adaptation at level 6. We press it, things die all around us. And with the Sentinel it is what happens as well.

 

 

Honestly meleers get the full package in CoH thanks to early design that stratified in place. It's why that I, an avid ranged player who never ever ever touches melee in other games, will come to CoH and only play melee. No CC, sturdy defenses allowing to shrug most damage, most of the time self heals. And some of the best damage in the game.

 

Then we have ranged who are plagued by CC, are squishy (often needing to reach 50 -and- IOed to the gills, and never examplar, and even so should never be in melee since 5% hits hurt tremendously at +5 and no resistances backing it up). In exchange they have... uh... Um... Aah... range, I guess? Wide AoEs. Burst with their nukes.

 

Sentinels straddle the line with the caveats we all know about the AT but at least for me this build ends being satisfying. Heck, I'm playing with a friend who was tanking for our teams and I was all aaaaah, so calm, so relaxed. I just press buttons. I'm out of the way, no debuffs are hitting me. Positron low level CoT with their enormous -def and -acc debuffs? Who cares, I'm not in range of Darkest Night or Earthquake and the ghosts are hitting the tank so I can Aim and AoE stuff down. Sometimes I get agro but since I'm floating out of melee ranged there is a lot less damage and a purple or two keeps me safe. No need to worry about chasing mobs and all AoEs are larrrrge.

 

 

So, that's my answer as to why not a Scrapper/Brute. It's different from what I'm used to 🙂

 

  • Like 1

- Simple guide for newcomers. - Money making included among other things.

- Tanker Fire Armor: the Turtle, the Allrounder, the Dragon, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.

- Tanker Stone Armor: beginner friendly (near) immortal Tanker for leveling/end-game and Stone Armor framework.

- Brute Rad/Stone and compilation of Brute Stone Armor builds.

Sovera

Sovera

Posted
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I  have reached level 50 and started down the incarnating road. With the experience from actually leveling and playing the build I've made tweaks to the original I had posted and changed things around though mostly minor changes.

 

Burn's heavy proc approach has been kept. Unlike what I have done with the Brunker I don't want to drop more Burns (which evens out. More Burns is about the same as dropping heavier Burns as per my testing) since it would mean more Melee time. When I drop Burn I want it fat and heavy and explosive.

 

Skimming a few slots I stopped with the idea of slotting Cauterizing Blaze. The heal is tiny and not very important when having Healing Flames on a 13 second timer. Instead I added to the endurance per second with a Miracle.

 

Speaking of recovery I've found the blue bar dwindles slowly but steadily, then the dwindling is neutered when Defensive Opportunity kicks in. It's not enough to promote growth though. Consume could really do with more slots, but it is what it is. The combo of Defensive Opportunity has been enough to arrest endurance until Consume is back up but your milleage may vary. That said I used a grand total of two Recovery Serums since having started the character since we don't take agro as much and are not subjected to sapping like meleers are.

 

 

I've also added a leveling build for newcomers to have guidelines.

- Simple guide for newcomers. - Money making included among other things.

- Tanker Fire Armor: the Turtle, the Allrounder, the Dragon, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.

- Tanker Stone Armor: beginner friendly (near) immortal Tanker for leveling/end-game and Stone Armor framework.

- Brute Rad/Stone and compilation of Brute Stone Armor builds.

  • 1 month later
Crysis

Crysis

Posted
Posted

Late to the thread, but wanted to say thanks for the build.  Thus far, the only Sent I’ve actually felt did “acceptable” (YMMV) levels of damage was my first sentinel, a Fire/Rad/Fire.  Inferno+GZ+FSC did a great job on the spawn, with single target attacks playing mop up.

 

I don’t think this feels/plays a whole lot differently actually.  I did a respec out of Fly+Hover as, while your method is sound enough, I simply often forget to toggle off Hover/Fly before dropping Burn.  I have always preferred CJ+SS where I can fit both in for kiting (born a blaster, always play like one).   Defense/slotting works out pretty much the same so it’s an easy trade if you prefer to not go the Hover-melee-blaster approach.

 

One small gripe....you really have to stick to your brute/tank/aggro holder with this build or you’ll waste your Burn patch.  And with the travel pools update recently, I’m noticing far more players of all AT’s carrying and triggering Fold Space constantly now.  Bit annoying if someone is doing that when a Brute/Tank is otherwise attempting to hold aggro, but its a minor gripe.

Sovera

Sovera

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 6/7/2021 at 4:22 PM, Crysis said:

Late to the thread, but wanted to say thanks for the build.  Thus far, the only Sent I’ve actually felt did “acceptable” (YMMV) levels of damage was my first sentinel, a Fire/Rad/Fire.  Inferno+GZ+FSC did a great job on the spawn, with single target attacks playing mop up.

 

I don’t think this feels/plays a whole lot differently actually.  I did a respec out of Fly+Hover as, while your method is sound enough, I simply often forget to toggle off Hover/Fly before dropping Burn.  I have always preferred CJ+SS where I can fit both in for kiting (born a blaster, always play like one).   Defense/slotting works out pretty much the same so it’s an easy trade if you prefer to not go the Hover-melee-blaster approach.

 

One small gripe....you really have to stick to your brute/tank/aggro holder with this build or you’ll waste your Burn patch.  And with the travel pools update recently, I’m noticing far more players of all AT’s carrying and triggering Fold Space constantly now.  Bit annoying if someone is doing that when a Brute/Tank is otherwise attempting to hold aggro, but its a minor gripe.

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No need to toggle off Hover before dropping Burn. Just hug the floor before activating. I have Hover on all characters and Burn goes off without a problem.

- Simple guide for newcomers. - Money making included among other things.

- Tanker Fire Armor: the Turtle, the Allrounder, the Dragon, and compilation of Fire Armor builds.

- Tanker Stone Armor: beginner friendly (near) immortal Tanker for leveling/end-game and Stone Armor framework.

- Brute Rad/Stone and compilation of Brute Stone Armor builds.

brasilgringo

brasilgringo

Posted
Posted (edited)

I tried the Fire/Rad/Fire sentinel build below on the Test Server and it was underwhelming in damage compared to a Fire/Rad blaster without gaining really that much in survivability.  I ended up buildng an EM/Rad/Fire scrapper that I like way better.

 

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Edited by brasilgringo
brasilgringo

brasilgringo

Posted
Posted (edited)
  On 6/14/2021 at 10:53 PM, SmalltalkJava said:

What fire rad blaster spec are you running?   I'm trying to break away from masterminds and am looking at sentinel or blaster.    I like the inherent defenses of a sentinel. 

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Softcap S/L with Clarion - some KD in the attacks for extra mitigation.  If you want even better mitigation go Fire/Elec - plenty of threads n builds in Blaster forum.  I mentioned Fire/Rad because it was cited and I wanted to try Rad armor on a Sent, but it's much better as an armor set on Tankers (or even scrappers) IMHO.

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Edited by brasilgringo

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