As a Newcomer to Sentinels...

[HowlingBlade]

So, I recently began my Sentinel journey after suffering the usual abysmal case of alt-itis and not really being 100% happy with anything I have landed on. While I enjoyed other classes, I hadn't found a happy character wherein I said "Ah-hah! This makes me Happy!"

 

Then I made F1R3B4T. A fire/fire Sentinel who now is level 27 and, appropriately, feels like he has absolutely no chill.

 

I am thinking, looking forward, of picking up the Fire Mastery set once I get there. As someone who is new to the game (I played for about a year at launch and now on and off for a few months on Homecoming), what kind of merry mayhem awaits me as I level this pyromaniac-turned-hero of a character? What suggestions do people have for someone who is fairly "green"?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Black_Assassin]

Just for reference, this is how my fire/fire sent it slotted. It works relatively well so far. 

Sentinel (Fire Blast - Fiery Aura) 2.mbd

[mistagoat]

It was pretty recently that I was asking a very similar question. The wise Sent-heads here gave me some great advice and tips on complementary sets and what Mastery sets to take a look at. There is some good Mastery info on the first couple pages on this thread as well as lots of builds to take a look at. Black_Assassin was kind enough to offer up several builds and I ultimately used a slightly modified version of one of their builds to to level up my Elec/Elec Sent.

 

For Fire Mastery, I'd grab the immob (runners are a pain), either Cremate or Char (proc'd out) and Fire Sword Circle. On my last Sent I was tight on power picks so I only got Cages and FSC, no regrets!

 

Sent Mastery melee attacks are quite strong and also are often a good place for a reliable Force Feedback proc (no FF opportunity in fire though, unfortunately)

[HowlingBlade]

@mistagoat My sentinel is now 36/37 and I did grab the fire rings to help set up for the inferno bomb, but I'm not going to lie and say that the temptation to run an elec/I dunno what armor I want yet isn't there. I ran last night with someone playing a character named "Ionic Flux" and they were a ball of destruction.

 

@Black_Assassin I'll have to take a look at that build later.

Edited Monday at 06:56 PM by HowlingBlade

[MTeague]

I'm very happy with my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel. 

 

He's not a tank. He won't ever BE a tank. But he's not meant to be a tank. He's meant to be a durable villain who can throw fire, and burn squads of mobs to the ground. 

 

When designing a build you will have to decide just how all-in you want to go on +Defense or not.

• If you choose to focus hard on stacking Defense via IO set bonuses, you must keep in mind that your Sentinel will not have even a single drop of Defense Debuff Resist. So in ann given encounter, mobs that debuff defense, once they get that first hit, they can pin your defense to the floor.
• If you choose NOT to focus on stacking Defense, I get that too, but keep in mind as a Sentinel, your Resistances cap out at 75%. Not 95%. And there's only going to be just so much Absorb or Regen you can realistically stack to back up those resistances.

For me? I chose to stack AOE and Range defense. Melee defense I'd take where it could be gotten, but I didn't stress over softcapping. I've been happy with the result. In most encounters, even soloing large groups, I can usually kill enough of the baddies by the time they floor my defense. My resistances and healing easily carry me through cleanup, and I'll end the fight at Max Health. 

 

MALTA aren't even a problem for him, because Consume will give you strong End Drain resistance, and if your recharge is good enough to stack it, you can basically laugh in a Sapper's face, for every encounter in the entire mission. You got no Knockback protection, but that hole is easily plugged by an IO. You got no constant-on Immob resist, but Burn comes back pretty quick once you're kitted out. There's also the Combat Jumping option.  

 

I find it a fun option, that fills the character concept I'd been wanting to make perfectly. The occasional crowing from minmaxers rolls off me like water from a duck's back.

[kelika2]

none of my sentinels use any epic pool or patron pool

40+ is a time for slots and set bonuses and mules.  between getting highest ranged defense i can get with every one and their fairly uselessness of the pools.  i mean really, melee attacks, aoe immobilizes and so on?

 

Same thing with melee, need to build tough with very little wriggle room.  even my melees use energy/body masteries for zero slot wonder powers.  which sentinels lack

[biostem]

On 4/24/2025 at 4:24 PM, HowlingBlade said:

What suggestions do people have for someone who is fairly "green"?

I love my Sentinels and have gotten several combinations into the Incarnate system.  I've found that the sets that were more substantially changed for Sentinels perform the best, (/SR, /Nin, Invuln, Stone).  That being said, play whatever sets bring you the most joy!  I would say, since you are playing with fire armor, to be very aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and possibly try to squeeze in some defense into your build;  Not only as mules for the LotG global recharge IOs, but also to layer your existing resist and heals!  Cheers!

[Black_Assassin]

40 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

none of my sentinels use any epic pool or patron pool

40+ is a time for slots and set bonuses and mules.  between getting highest ranged defense i can get with every one and their fairly uselessness of the pools.  i mean really, melee attacks, aoe immobilizes and so on?

 

Same thing with melee, need to build tough with very little wriggle room.  even my melees use energy/body masteries for zero slot wonder powers.  which sentinels lack

 

Not the wisest take here. The melee attacks are the strongest single target attacks available to Sents and the PBAoE's are also equal to what is usually on offer from the primary.

 

Similarly, energy and body mastery are great at what they do, but you're still sacrificing something i.e. huge single and AOE damage opportunities.

 

fire armour cannot really stack any meaningful defense without making serious sacrifices to your damage output.

 

1-4 purple insps will boost your survival exponentially more than 4 red insps will boost your damage. Therefore, imo, you're better off doing what fire does best. This is damage, healing and resist/max hp. Don't try to waste time and inf filling the defense hole when insps are plentiful and free. Also burn and fireball will be helping with knockdown to help mitigate some damage. Can also slot the ragnarok KD hi rain of fire if you wish. 

 

[biostem]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

i mean really, melee attacks, aoe immobilizes and so on?

It's a matter of build philosophy and play style;  I use the APPs/PPPs to add a bit of extra control or utility to my Sentinels;  I'm not knocking a desire to build for performance, but for me, the 40+ game is a time to really flesh out and fine tune the "character" of the particular hero or villain you're playing;  Maybe that eyebeam or sword attack really brings things together, or that PBAoE or chaining heal gives you a little more flexibility in a team environment...

[kelika2]

26 minutes ago, Black_Assassin said:

The melee attacks are the strongest single target attacks available to Sents and the PBAoE's are also equal to what is usually on offer from the primary.

and are generally not available for more than half the game.

exemplaring is always on my mind and waiting that long to get an attack thats useful is not what i build for.  OP sounds like hes just starting out and wont be on the mentality of lazy level 50 only play builds he got off the forums for a few weeks yet.

[Black_Assassin]

So because exemplaring is "on your mind" you don't take the most powerful attacks available to you? How far down the levels is your cut off point? Skipping the nuke because you can't have it on DFB?

 

It just isn't a logical argument.

[kelika2]

1 minute ago, Black_Assassin said:

So because exemplaring is "on your mind" you don't take the most powerful attacks available to you? How far down the levels is your cut off point? Skipping the nuke because you can't have it on DFB?

 

It just isn't a logical argument.

if we are just ganna goto slippery sloping because i didnt reply the way you wanted you can just use an AI chatbot to argue with. i have like 400 characters to sift through for the foreseeable future

[biostem]

3 hours ago, kelika2 said:

exemplaring is always on my mind and waiting that long to get an attack thats useful is not what i build for. 

It's not like your character suddenly becomes nonfunctional because you've exemplared below the point where you have access to those APP/PPP attacks;  You can still have a core 3-or-so-power attack chain that you can rely upon in the lower levels, while still having those APP/PPP "heavy hitters" for higher level stuff.  Just as focusing entirely on the higher levels can limit your build, so can focusing only on the lower ones...

[Maelwys]

6 hours ago, biostem said:

It's not like your character suddenly becomes nonfunctional because you've exemplared below the point where you have access to those APP/PPP attacks

Plus the fact that the biggest hitter abilities like Havoc Punch actually come online at level 35 (and so remain available at level 30). It wasn't so long ago that your Primary and Secondary powerset capstones only became available at levels 32 and 38 respectively, and there's only a comparatively small number of taskforces and Ouroboros arcs that cap out below 30.

[Black_Assassin]

9 hours ago, kelika2 said:

if we are just ganna goto slippery sloping because i didnt reply the way you wanted you can just use an AI chatbot to argue with. i have like 400 characters to sift through for the foreseeable future

 

I said what I said to highlight that your view is not logical. If you don't believe that, then that's on you.

 

As the others have said, what you said earlier regarding lazy level 50 builds and building to exemplar just don't make sense. If you want to exemp below lvl 30 all the time that's a totally fine way to play. In that case by all means, use your later picks to get attuned set bonuses etc. 

 

If you are playing any content from lvl 30-50 and you aren't taking epic/patron pools and their associated high DPA attacks then you are objectively gimping your damage potential. Again, that's fine if you wish to do that. I do not. Which is why I build the way I do, and then posted said build above. 

 

Am I being unreasonable here?

[kelika2]

1 hour ago, Black_Assassin said:

Am I being unreasonable here?

yes because anything thats important will get at least 1 to 48 lore pets dropped on it

[Black_Assassin]

So we are saying here that we don't need to maximise our damage in the build because (iTrial) leagues will be dropping lores on hard targets? I mean I guess so, but then the logic extrapolates to might as well just slot SOs because lores will help with the hard targets. Why even bother getting set bonuses? Just use barrier core to help with your survivability. 

 

But this then is new logic being applied, because its completely irrelevant outside the end game. Which you haven't mentioned before as something you are interesting in building towards.

 

So which is it?

 

Even then, that makes no sense. Why wouldn't you maximise performance if you could? It isn't like my build I posted above is significantly more expensive or cheaper than just slotting full sets as the meta was back on live servers. (I will concede on the wording of maximise performance that you could argue that chasing defense bonuses will maximise performance in survivability, but I will reinstate my point earlier that just huffing purples and using barrier core and being maximised on damage will perform much better than being built for survival and then being limited on your damage)

 

Help me to understand the build philosophy here, because I must be missing something obvious that you're seeing (because I cannot currently understand)

[Seed22]

OP

 

Your best bet if you want a solid build is to use Icesphere's build or even better, play around yourself in mids. It's the only surefire way to learn. 

 

I personally make my own builds, they lean meta heavy so proc builds that basically shit out damage, but baven't done so on a sent as I kinda just don't feel like making another sent tbh. If you make a build though I'll be sure to look at it if you want! (When I get the chance)

 

Also, take your melee epics. Sents do better damage than before the buff but you still need your melee epics as that is still most of your damage. If you see a build without one, or chasing def on a res based set, it is a huge red flag and DO NOT USE THAT BUILD or take their advice. RUN!

 

Res armors have no DDR(defense debuff res) so first grade logic will tell you defense on those sets will get shredded by any enemy who debuffs defense. 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:36 AM by Seed22

[Psiphon]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

OP

 

Your best bet if you want a solid build is to use Icesphere's build or even better, play around yourself in mids. It's the only surefire way to learn. 

 

I personally make my own builds, they lean meta heavy so proc builds that basically shit out damage, but baven't done so on a sent as I kinda just don't feel like making another sent tbh. If you make a build though I'll be sure to look at it if you want! (When I get the chance)

 

Also, take your melee epics. Sents do better damage than before the buff but you still need your melee epics as that is still most of your damage. If you see a build without one, or chasing def on a res based set, it is a huge red flag and DO NOT USE THAT BUILD or take their advice. RUN!

 

Res armors have no DDR(defense debuff res) so first grade logic will tell you defense on those sets will get shredded by any enemy who debuffs defense. 

 

 

In theory having no DDR is a problem, in practice being airborne and being able to move around while still dealing damage means that it's a viable option. 

[Psiphon]

On 4/24/2025 at 9:24 PM, HowlingBlade said:

So, I recently began my Sentinel journey after suffering the usual abysmal case of alt-itis and not really being 100% happy with anything I have landed on. While I enjoyed other classes, I hadn't found a happy character wherein I said "Ah-hah! This makes me Happy!"

 

Then I made F1R3B4T. A fire/fire Sentinel who now is level 27 and, appropriately, feels like he has absolutely no chill.

 

I am thinking, looking forward, of picking up the Fire Mastery set once I get there. As someone who is new to the game (I played for about a year at launch and now on and off for a few months on Homecoming), what kind of merry mayhem awaits me as I level this pyromaniac-turned-hero of a character? What suggestions do people have for someone who is fairly "green"?

 

Thanks in advance!

Personally I tend to go with either Dark or Psi mastery. 

If most of my attacks are cones or ranged such as Sonic and Water I'd go Dark. It's got a nice cone immob and a targeted - to hit the toggle for dangerous targets. 

All of the powers give - to hit so increases survivability. 

I tend to take Psi for more melee based Sents. Shock wave is a nice mini nuke with a stun so mitigate damage before the main nuke. 

For a fire/fire I'd go with Psi but if you want to be themetic, fire can work too. 

 

[Black_Assassin]

I have psi on my psi/sr and dark on my dark/dark. both are solid options tbf, just they bring more utility vs elec which is just pure damage

[Psiphon]

17 hours ago, kelika2 said:

none of my sentinels use any epic pool or patron pool

40+ is a time for slots and set bonuses and mules.  between getting highest ranged defense i can get with every one and their fairly uselessness of the pools.  i mean really, melee attacks, aoe immobilizes and so on?

 

Same thing with melee, need to build tough with very little wriggle room.  even my melees use energy/body masteries for zero slot wonder powers.  which sentinels lack

Dark Mastery adds a lot of survivability with very few slots if you want to concentrate them elsewhere. 

Nether world Tentacles is a mass immob that gives - to hit, Darkest night is a targeted toggle that can be used on hard hitting mobs and Netherworld Grasp with the Lockdown proc allows you to one hit hold bosses. 

 

Apart from NG that would need an accuracy and the proc you could just have the default slot if you wanted to. 

I usually fully slot NT with Cloud Senses for the ranged defence and recharge. 

[Psiphon]

2 minutes ago, Black_Assassin said:

I have psi on my psi/sr and dark on my dark/dark. both are solid options tbf, just they bring more utility vs elec which is just pure damage

Gotta love the stacked stuns. 😊

[Black_Assassin]

Exactly why I went for it. Works really nicely!

[Maelwys]

54 minutes ago, Black_Assassin said:

I have psi on my psi/sr and dark on my dark/dark. both are solid options tbf, just they bring more utility vs elec which is just pure damage

There's a little synergy in Elec Mastery: I've got a few Sents that use the AoE Immob (Chain Fences) to keep stuff in place.
(and in at least one of those builds it's not even procbombed...)

100% agree that there are much better "utility" pools out there though if maximum damage output isn't your schtick.