Sonic/Fire/Psi - Bring in the Artillery!

[Spaghetti Betty]

Hello! I'm the lunatic goblin that only thinks about damage when building a toon! So what in the world am I doing in the Sentinel forum?

 

Well, I am here to drop the one Sent I've ever had fun playing! I've soloed with it, teamed with it, and it's even been on some 4*s!

 

Lemme preface the build drop a bit by talking about what I like about each set. Sonic Blast is what I consider to be one of the strongest primaries a Sentinel can pick. The main reason being the massive amount -RES that is brought to the table. A lot of the powers are also relatively quick and the nuke is super spammable, even if you don't have Amplify up. That stun is nasty and can instantly swing a battle into your favor if placed right!

 

While Fiery Aura can be a bit on the squishy side, it's good enough! What I really chose it for was the extra offense it adds to the mix. Having a rez is nice, too, because sometimes winners die!

 

Psionic Mastery is a force to be reckoned with. I wouldn't be lulled too much by Link Minds. The Sentinel version is pretty weak and not what I'm here for. Instead, special attention should be paid attention to the attacks provided. They're all super strong! You'll see in the build below that I opted to skip Psychic Shockwave, which is unfortunate, but I have Burn!

 

Anyways, here's the build:

breakcore sonicfire - Sentinel (Sonic Attack).mbd

 

Now, before you start throwing tomatoes, hear me out!

 

Do I have a smooth attack chain? Nope! Am I facetanking +4x8 mobs? Uh-uh! 

 

What this build does well is fit in nearly any scenario that is presented to it. Do we need a little AoE? Here I go! Hey, we need to dump some burst damage on this AV! I got you covered! Man, we could really use just a little bit of -RES! Say no more! And it does so with impressive grace and doesn't have a funny face!

 

So I guess the next thing I can do is try to preemptively answer any questions that may pop up!

 

Why no Shout?

I mostly didn't take Shout because Mind Probe and Dominate are both quicker and deal more damage. Inherent -> Amplify -> Screech -> Mind Probe -> Dominate will slam a 54 boss in an instant, and that's good enough for me. If I didn't pick Psi as my epic, I might have taken it!

 

No Siren's Song? It's super good now!

There are a number of reasons for this. With Burn and Mind Probe being an essential part of my offense, I can't make great use of cones. I went with Howl over Siren's Song because Howl applies -RES. As a bonus, I didn't take Shockwave because I didn't wanna pay the KB2KD tax on it.

 

How good is Cauterizing Blaze?

I don't know!

 

I'm not sure if I would recommend this build to the average player, but as someone that looks at Sentinels and would rather player a Scrapper or Blaster, this one continues to shine on my roster and sometimes I even log into it without a second thought! That's a huge win!

[Sovera]

If it works it works. But I have to appreciate the Dreadful Wail + Burn combo with DW keeping mobs stunned and preventing them from fleeing.

 

I found Sonic to be a bonanza of AoEs (and one of them takes a FF proc) and I don't know if the interaction with Opportunity still exists after both their revamps but it used to be great to spam the defensive. Now I don't think that's going to be all that useful even if it still exists since we cannot reapply on the same target and there is not much point in spreading it at the pace teams kill.

 

I haven't tried Sonic since the tuning patch but I see some of it trickled to the Sentinel. The 2.5 second cones were too much for the damage that they did as I remember hitting +4 mobs for middle double digits.

 

It's no longer a character for me since cones don't do well in solo play but in teams the ability to chain -res cones plus soft CC made me feel pretty useful.

 

Looking at the build I have to agree that Psychic Shockwave would fit for a whammy that would stun even bosses when combined with Dreadful Wail. Dreadful + Burn + Psychic = hurt. But at that point we need to be comfortable with running out of melee range for the cones, then run back in for Burn + Psychic. That's a lot of work.

 

I would swap out of Howl myself and take Shockwave because of the FF proc. That will speed your nuke and Aim.

 

Edited January 20 by Sovera

[Spaghetti Betty]

7 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Looking at the build I have to agree that Psychic Shockwave would fit for a whammy that would stun even bosses when combined with Dreadful Wail.

This is about the only thing I would happily change about the build, but it's not very easy for me to find a good trade. Picking 1 power to leave out + 5 slots has been wracking my brain for awhile, but it still performs well enough that I can live without a triple nuke.