Looking for advice on a Sentinel secondary to pair with Sonic

[Story Archer]

Greetings all - newly returned player here looking to build my first Sentinel. My playstyle (for ranged characters at least) is one that lends itself to standing back rather than getting into the thick of things and I prefer less actively managed defenses so that I can focus on my offensive set-up. Figure this character will be 50/50 solo play and random pick-up groups.

 

I've been parsing through the various primaries and I've decided that I want to lean into a cone-centric Sonic build, stacking Sleep and KB effects to keep the baddies out in front of me, so now I'm trying to find a secondary set that will compliment it mechanically, compliment my playstyle and hopefully allow me to find some sort of theme-based synergy I can use on the character concept (in that order of priority). [EDIT: Am I reading this right, that Sentinel Sonic Blast only Debuffs Res by about 9.5% while Blasters debuff it at 13%?]

 

First thoughts:

 

Bio-Armor seems... complicated.

 

Dark Armor looks interesting, but flavor-wise it doesn't seem like a good match, and it does seem to encourage close-range interactions.

 

Electric Armor seems like a very strong candidate due to its 'fire and forget' nature. Feels like a lot of toggles running at once, but Power Sink should help. How useful is Power Surge?

 

Energy Aura - is it me or does this seem VERY similar to Electric Armor?

 

Fiery Aura - I like the self-heal, self-end and self-rez options a lot and the damage bonus is the icing on the cake. An early leader despite its occasional need to interact with nearby foes.

 

Ice Armor is another very strong candidate for me, though I generally hate the animations. Is there no downside to Icy Bastion other than a long recharge time?

 

Invulnerability - for some bizarre and utterly indefensible reason, I've never cared for Invulnerability defensive sets. The need to be up close to take advantage of Invincible seems like a disqualifier.

 

Ninjitsu - I can never seem to remember what each power does due to the names. Seems like a cop-out, I know, but it throws me off.

 

Radiation Armor - I don't have any thoughts about it one way or another (no experience at all), but it doesn't seem too popular on the boards.

 

Regeneration - Filled with auto and toggle powers that don't require me to close with baddies, on the surface this seems ideal to what I'm looking for... but I get the impression it'll let me down in tougher boss fights. Really on the fence about this one, so any anecdotal experiences would be much appreciated.

 

Stone Armor - Despite its popularity on melee sets, I've never been much of a Stoner, probably due to the animations more than anything. Should I reconsider that bias for Sentinel-style play?

 

Super Reflexes - A favorite of mine on melee toons, and the addition of Enduring seems like it really helps shore up the entire set. I like that none of the powers are dependent on me closing with my enemies, but I'm not sure I get the Master Brawler/Practiced Brawler dichotomy thing. What are the arguments against this set - is there an AoE hole with no Lucky?

 

Willpower - Another favorite in melee sets and another very strong candidate for me. Does Up to the Challenge remove the enemy proximity requirement of Rise to the Challenge? I do worry a little bit about the set collapsing under the weight of debuffs, though.

 

I'm really looking forward to reading any and all thoughts on this. Sentinel is a totally new concept for me and I'm trying to get my mind around the best way to approach it, not defaulting to a Blaster mindset though I suspect that I will play them similarly, at least at first. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read through this and, of course, for any responses.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Story Archer

[PyroBeetle]

I have played a Sonic/Bio Sentinel through Incarnate levels, and it works quite well. The concept was originally a Sonic/Stone, but I did not enjoy stone enough as a secondary.

 

As always, the problem ends up being the target caps on the Sentinel primaries, and ultimately I ended up doing the Sonic on a Blaster, enjoying the same cone grinder mayhem with better caps, and a longer recharge on the T9 that I felt compelled to work into my chainsaw cones. Sonic/Temporal just ended up working better, and is also a functional at range Blaster secondary, though I might want to redo as Devices

[nihilii]

Bio = Regen + Willpower + extra damage

On Elec, Power Surge is kinda poo because Elec Armor gets close to the resistance cap (75%) as is. Crash is massive and arguably not worth it. Other than that, Elec Armor is a nice powerset with great +regen as a Sentinel.

Energy Armor is The Best. Indeed, it was always built similar to Elec Armor - however it's plain better because 1) it's defense-based, and defense rules all in CoH 2) over the years, it got several buffs to its resistances 3) the Sentinel version gets hefty +maxHP on top.

Unlike Elec, the T9 (Overload) here is useful as the utility of defense never truly falls off. Many enemies in incarnate content require 59% def rather than 45% as a baseline, then there's more tohitbuffs on top, Hard mode TFs... Getting the T9 is never a requirement, but it is certainly an option.

There's no downside to Icy Bastion... except you have to play Ice. Many find the set kinda ho-hum as a whole. You get a bit of S/L/E/N defense, great maxHP, capped slow resists, and... you're more or less on your own for everything else. That makes a big defensive hole to F/C/T/P, and hardly any resistances whatsoever (outside of Icy Bastion).
This would be fine in a world where slow resist wasn't widely available in IO sets. Then, Ice would have an unique edge. As is? It can feel a bit lacking, like you're trading something for nothing. Still, it can work fine and at least you'd be fairly unique if you lean that way.

Invincible for Invulnerability is different from Invincibility, you get the +def and +tohit bonus all the time. It's a simple defensive toggle.

Ninjitsu is an all-in package with +DEF to all, some resistances, a click heal, a click end, full click mez protection and an Elude-like T9. Click mez protection is better these days because you can activate it after you're mezzed. This set is not the best at anything but it's great at everything.

Radiation is actually fairly popular. It has good resistances, a great slow resistance base, and tremendous regen and recovery. You can also proc the tier8 AoE to turn it into a second mininuke. A well-rounded set missing only defenses.

Regeneration... To be honest, my own experience has met your concerns. One can work with it, but it seems much work than other powersets. I think this set badly needs the Moment of Glory animation sped up so it can be used more reactively, if nothing else.

Stone has some OK minimal FX now if you want to see less of the armors. Note however some of them will keep making some extremely annoying noises (to me). Would recommend you hop on Test Server to make a lvl 50 /stone instantly and grab the armors to see if that'd be a bother to you, should you go that route.

 

SR on Sentinels is simple, you pick Master Brawler. This gives you passive mez protection *and* an absorb (= heal) power on top. Combined with Enduring, the Sentinel version fixes every flaw regular SR has.
You get less AoE defense until lvl 28, but Evasion has its base values boosted to make up for the lack of Lucky.

 

You're correct on Willpower, Up to the Challenge is a passive +regen. Personally I think WP is one of the weaker sets. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that everyone else gets cooler stuff.

 

[Story Archer]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

SR on Sentinels is simple, you pick Master Brawler. This gives you passive mez protection *and* an absorb (= heal) power on top. Combined with Enduring, the Sentinel version fixes every flaw regular SR has. You get less AoE defense until lvl 28, but Evasion has its base values boosted to make up for the lack of Lucky.

Thank you for taking the time to respond at length. I think I'm going to go with Sonic/SR - it might be a bit boring compared to some of the other defensive sets, but I've played a SR Scrapper and Brute and it always seemed like the best defense was simply not getting hit.

 

I'd like to see how this version of it plays. A quick look at Mids tells me that it's pretty easy to soft cap, leaving time to attend to making the most of my attack chains. Question about Master Brawler though - what actual Mez protection does it provide? Mids doesn't tell me anything...

Edited July 31, 2023 by Story Archer

[FupDup]

23 minutes ago, Story Archer said:

Question about Master Brawler though - what actual Mez protection does it provide? Mids doesn't tell me anything...

It adds mezz protection to your earlier toggles:

 

Focused Fighting: 

Mag 10 KB

Mag 8 Immob

 

Focused Senses: 

Mag 8 Sleep, Stun, Hold

[Thraxen]

SR gets my vote. Inv is cool on a set as well. Both have some toggles and one clickie you’ll likely rarely use. 

[drbuzzard]

SR is the easiest fire and forget sentinel secondary if you wish to just blast like a caffeinated adolescent. 

 

Being that it is my preferred play style, I favor SR.