project Collaborative Project: A Guide to Sentinel Sets

[drbuzzard]

Beam Rifle/ Electric Armor

 

Next up on the sentinel parade is my Beam Rifle/Electric Armor sentinel. This is a solid combo which gets the best resistance numbers of any sentinel I’ve put together. He has 75% (cap) to energy/lethal/smashing/fire/cold, and 40s for psionic and negative energy. It is best to not think about toxic damage when looking at electric armor. As I have mentioned before, the resistance sets are also regen sets, and this is definitely pretty strong in this. Without any clicks, the build regenerates 37 HP/sec which ain’t bad when it resists most things at 75%. Clicking energize will get it to 49/sec after a strong heal. Energize can be kept up all the time (22 second recharge for 30 seconds of regen boost) if needed. I have perma hasten of course. Electric armor has a couple of downsides I should mention though. The knockback and immobilize procection are in grounded which requires you to stick to the ground. This rather makes hover blasting not a great option. I suppose you could skip grounded, and add combat jumping for immobilize, and a knockback proc, but I’m not sure that saves you much, and you would lose a fair chunk of negative energy resistance. Owing to grounded, this is one of my very few sentinels which doesn’t fly. 

 

Beam rifle may well be my favorite sentinel set. I like the nice, simple understated animations (you aim a rifle and shoot it), and the disintegration mechanic is both entertaining (watching ‘Disintegration Spread’ floating over the heads of targets is just cool) and adds useful utility without demanding a whole lot of attention or care. It has a lot of AOEs (2 ranged bursts, 2 cones), yet still does very solid single target damage. I liked it so much, I rode it to 50 again on my BR/Dark sentinel. Like water blast, all the attacks can be done at range, so safe distance can be maintained. Also, I have beam rifle on a blaster, and only after making that alt did I realize that sents actually get the better version of the set. You trade a snipe for refractor beam, which is a great AOE. I’ll take the AOE any day. 

 

Single Shot - basic bread and butter tier 1 attack. Good DPAS, and will debuff regeneration when disintegration is up. I have this six slotted with superior sentinel’s ward. Arguably this wastes the proc because the recharge is so low and it might be better off in a long recharge attack. 

 

Charged Shot- this is another bread and butter attack, but with much lower DPAS than single shot. Thus when I did a recent respec to clean up the build, this one went away. 

 

Cutting Beam: this is a nice wide cone that lightly cheats on the sentinel cone rules and hits six targets max. Damage is solid, and animation isn’t too long. As I’m always a proponent of AOEs, I took it of course. It has a 5 ragnaroks plus a lady grey damage proc in it. 

 

Disintegrate - while this power by itself really doesn’t look all to special, it makes every other power in the set better. It should be your lead in attack just to get more out of your other attacks (unless of course you just drop overcharge to start because NUKE!). DPAS is nothing to write home about, but you should use it often to be sure disintegration is up on as many targets as possible. I have 5 slotted devastation in it for fire/cold resistance mostly. 

 

Aim: Of course you take this and Gaussian proc it. I have the proc plus 1 recharge reduction IO  in it. 

 

Lancer Shot- this is your sledgehammer. It has good DPAS and also hits like a ton of bricks (especially if disintegrate is up). Take it, use it, love it. I have it slotted with 5 of superior winter’s bite (for fire/cold resistance) and a gladiator’s Javelin proc (see- I can proc too). 

 

Refractor Beam- now this is the money power from the sentinel version of Beam Rifle. It is exclusive to sentinels, and I just love this power for coolness factor. It’s a chaining burst AOE hitting 10 targets. Now in actual effect, the chain is really no different than a normal burst, but damn I like how it looks. I have it 5 slotted with superior winter’s blast plus a lady grey proc. 

 

Piercing beam- this is the other cone AOE which adds in some resistance debuff and hits quite hard. However the animation is quite long, the arc is microscopic (5 degrees- seriously) and can hit 3 at most (and that’s a trick to pull off). Basically it functions as a single target blast which debuffs resistance. With the animation being so long, and the AOE aspect being basically not there, I dropped it in my last respec. It hurts your attack chain DPAS. 

 

Overcharge: As always there’s plenty to love about this fast recharge tier 9 nuke. If applied after disintegrate, it hits harder than the rest of the nukes (via DoT) and can be applied from a nice safe distance. I have superior opportunity six slotted in it. 

 

Electric Armor - this is the sentinel resistance king (really only weak to toxic and a bit weak to negative energy or psionic). You could patch the psionic hole more than I bothered to do, but it’s just not that common a damage type. I worked to get negative energy patched, but that’s not easy. One often overlooked aspect of electric armor is that it makes you nearly impervious to endurance drain. You can stand and laugh at sappers while the rest of your team runs in terror. Revel in that. 

 

Charged Armor- gives resistance to lethal, smashing and energy. Of course you take this. I have it five slotted with titanium coating. Yes, I could have done the glamorous Aegis or Unbreakable Guard but the combination of some negative energy with decent lethal/smashing meant the uncommon set was just better. Also at 5 slots you get a regeneration bonus which plays to the strength of the set. 

 

Charged Shield: This is a very fine power. It gives you a solid bit of regeneration and pumps up your maximum endurance (by 10 which then improves every bit of endurance recovery). Only the regeneration aspect can be enhanced. I have 4 slots of numina in there (to get to the global healing boost- though I didn’t know the boost was only heals not regen, so it’s not as compelling). 

 

Conductive Shield: This is your other main armor power covering resistance to cold, fire, energy, and negative energy. Again I have it five slotted with titanium coating for the same reasons. 

 

Energize- this is simply a great power. It’s a heal. It’s more regeneration. But wait...there’s more! It also acts as conserve power on top of all that- cutting all endurance costs while it is up. You will take this power. You will love this power. It will save your hiney. I have it six slotted with preventative medicine for the resistance bonuses and the global recharge boost. 

 

Static Shield- here’s your status protection power, though it lacks the knockback and immobilize protections most of this sort of shields do. You do get psionic resistance in exchange which isn’t bad. Again with the 5 slots of titanium coating. 

 

Grounded: Knockback and immobilization protection are important so you take it. It’s also an auto power, so there’s no cost. It even throws in a bit of energy (pointless) and negative energy (helpful) resistance. The limitation that the protections only work on the ground is fairly annoying. I have a single resistance IO in it. 

 

Lightning reflexes: Nice little auto power which boosts your movement, resists slows, and boosts global recharge by 20%. I’m reasonably sure god has a supply of kittens to kill for when people skip powers this good. I have it slotted with a run IO. 

 

Power Sink: This is your endurance recovery tool. It allows you to drain a lot of energy out of enemies while replenishing your blue bar. That’s pretty handy if you start blowing through too much endurance. It’s not particularly useful if you think you’re going to keep a target drained and useless though (perhaps with electric blast, it might synergize, but honestly if you want to be a sapper, sentinels are not the way to go) you are sadly mistaken. It has more endurance cost than I like, so you can’t get too low before you pop it or you might drop your toggles. I’m actually considering getting rid of it on a respec as between conductive shield and energize, I shouldn’t have endurance issues. Currently it has six slotted efficiency adaptor for the recharge bonus (and some regeneration). 

 

Power Surge- as with all of the tier 9 ‘oh shit’ powers on too long timers, it is to be skipped. It’s only really good for negative energy or toxic damage, and you can deal with those fairly rare damage types with incarnate powers or inspirations without blowing a power and slots to make it useful. Skip it. 

 

Pool powers- I did leaping pool for movement. While fly is my favorite, superjump gives you good 3D mobility and speed. Superjump has 2 Winter’s Gift IOs in it for fire/cold resistance (the movement and the 20% slow resistance) Of course you also grab combat jumping for a place to stick a LotG global and the Shield Wall +5% resistance all. I also have a stealth from unbounded leap in there so I can actually be effectively invisible when running stealth. 

 

You of course want fighting pool for toughness as capping lethal and smashing resistance is crucial. They are the most common damage type after all. I have 4 Aegis in there as I wanted the l/s resistance and I included the psionic resistance boost. I also have weave, but only to slot a LotG global. I don’t run it because it’s a big endurance hog, and would be basically all alone providing a fairly laughable amount of defense in the build which is all about resistance. (I have boxing also, but really, it’s just a barrier to entry). 

 

Next is concealment- stealth, invisibility, and grant invisibility all as LotG global slots. I run stealth most of the time, though drop it when endurance gets iffy. Last but certainly not least is speed for hasten, which of course is perma-ed. It has 2 50+4 recharge reduction IOs in it (though with tier 4 spiritual alpha, it’s not really necessary to do the boosts). 

 

This is a tough build which can blast with impunity at range. If you end up in the thick of things it can get a bit dicey. I might well dump power sink and replace it with the caltrop power from the ninja epic pool. That’s a handy tool to make things keep their distance which I use on my BR/Dark sentinel. 

 

[Doomrider]

On 1/15/2020 at 1:26 PM, drbuzzard said:

 

 

Water Burst: This is the first ranged burst power in the set (geyser being the second). It does decent damage, and can do knockdown or knockup. Damage is cold and smashing. It’s very similar to fireball, but with a slower animation. I have it six slotted with superior opportunity. 

 

 

It's also worth mentioning that Water Burst retains the full 16 target cap from other versions, which is a bit of a rule breaker when you compare  it to other Sentinel primaries. This in combination with it's other aoes likely puts it in spot #1 for Sentinel AoE dmg, even past Fire IMO.

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, Doomrider said:

It's also worth mentioning that Water Burst retains the full 16 target cap from other versions, which is a bit of a rule breaker when you compare  it to other Sentinel primaries. This in combination with it's other aoes likely puts it in spot #1 for Sentinel AoE dmg, even past Fire IMO.

 

Cool, I didn't even notice that.  I would put it past fire on AOEs anyway due to the much wider cone (with the higher target cap).

[drbuzzard]

Sonic/Energy Aura Sentinel   

 

This is a pretty solid combination, and combines a nice bit of extra resistance debuff in the primary with a very solid set of damage mitigation tools in the secondary. About the only downside is that sonic is a bit weak in the AOE department, where while it has 3 cones plus the PBAOE nuke, 2 of the cones do very little damage, and hence aren’t really worth slotting for damage (or taking at all, IMO). Thus it rather ends up as a single target set. With the 9% resistance debuff from each time you hit, this stacks up to be a mean hard target killer. Damage is a mix of energy (good) and smashing (meh), but mostly energy so it is good. Energy aura is primarily a typed defense set, but it also throws in fair sized chunks of resistance and a  good heal power. It also has an endurance drain to refill the endurance bar. The defense debuff is pretty solid as well, and the status protection power throws in a nice 20% global recharge reduction. All in all this is a solid set for killing and surviving hard targets. 

 

Sonic Blast

 

Shriek: Nothing shocking here, just the basic fast animation, fast recharge attack at tier 1. The in game numbers make it look better than it actually is. Because of aracanatime (an artifact of game timing), shorter animation pictures actually animate proportionately longer than longer animation powers. Hence their listed in game DPAS is overstated. The game says 51 DPAS, after accounting for arcanatime it actually amounts to 43, which is not great. If you're building for recharge, you can chain 3 single targets on a sonic and skip this one.

 

Scream: Longer animation and recharge than the tier 1, though of course higher damage. It’s a bit annoying as it is  DoT, but not too slow. You'll want this power. Listed DPAS in game is 55, and after aracanatime is 51, so this is clearly better than shriek.

 

Howl: Since the upgrade to sonic, howl now sits as the weak sister AOE. It does about 80 damage at lvl 50 (before enhancement). The other cones do appreciably more. If you don't like knockback and are slot tight so fitting a knockback to knockdown in shockwave, then you can go with howl instead. Otherwise, I'd do shockwave.

 

Shout: The sonic blast upgrade saved this power from being crap to being a very sonic DPAS attack. At 61 DPAS, this isn't bad, though not top tier sentinel.

 

Aim: Of course you need this to seat a gaussian proc and prep for your nuke. 2 slots, 1 recharge, 1 proc. 

 

Shockwave: This power now does solid damage, so if either you don't mind knockback or have the luxury of a slot of knockback to knockdown, grab it.

 

Siren’s Song: It's amazing how much upgrade that sonic got in the recent buffs. This power went from mandatory skip, to mandatory take. This is your best AOE short of the nuke, and you'd be making a major mistake skipping it.

 

Screech: Now here’s your ribeye blast. It’s a hard hitter with a short animation. The DPAS for this attack is damned good (there’s few powers in all sentinel secondaries which beat it, I can think of one offhand- blaze in fire blast). It also tosses in a mag 3 stun. That’s a damned good deal.  This is six slotted with apocalypse. DPAS is 88, which is quite high among sentinel blasts.

 

Dreadful Wail: A great PBAOE nuke which lays down a mag 3 stun on top of resistance debuff. Couple this with screech and you can operate in a good bit of safety. Build to bring this up as often as possible as it is your best AOE in the primary (rest are 6 target). I have it six slotted with superior opportunity strikes. 

 

Energy Aura: This is a strong set with lots of layered mitigation, even against some special attacks like endurance drain. Rather like Super Reflexes, my only complaint about the set is how you have to take almost everything. The only dud power is the tier 9. 

 

Kinetic Shield: lethal/smashing and a touch of energy defense. Take it. Use it. 2 lvl 5 def IOs and a LotG global recharge. 

 

Kinetic Dampening: This is a passive resistance power. It helps against energy, neg energy, toxic, lethal and smashing. That’s pretty damned good for a passive. It also resists movement debuffs. I have 2 50+3 resistance IOs in it. 

 

Power shield: Another defense shield with resistance to fire/cold/energy/negative energy. It's clearly worth taking. Same slotting as kinetic shield, 2 lvl 50 def IOs and a LotG global recharge. 

 

Energize: This is another great heal which does a solid amount of healing, 30 seconds of pretty high regen, and conserve power for those 30 seconds. Once you have perma hasten, you can keep this up all the time if you like. 

 

Entropy shield: good status protection power which throws in a 20% recharge boost. That’s pretty damned nice considering other sets usually make you take a separate power to get that boost. Just an end red IO in here. 

 

Power Armor: Another auto resistance power, but this time to all but psionic. The number isn’t huge, but they do add up. It’s worth taking and slotting. I have 2 lvl 50 resistance IOs and steadfast protection +3% def. 

 

Repelling Force: a defensive toggle to all but toxic (so you get a tiny bit of psi defense). It’s definitely worth taking to make softcapping easier. The normal 2 lvl 50 def IOs plus LotG global works well here. 

 

Power Drain. This is your blue bar tool. Endurance cost is higher than I’d like for someone you’ll need at low endurance, but it will fill a bar with only 2 targets when slotted up. I have six of performance shifter in here. I must say, when I consider fiddling with the build, this looks like the odd man out.

 

Pools: As usual, I fly. Fly, hover, and afterburner all have 1 fly IO, and hover nestles a LotG global as well. Fighting pool is also in the mix. Tough is 3 slotted with Aegis (for fire defense) plus the gladiator’s armor +3% def. Weave has 4 LotG (including the global). Speed of course is taken for hasten which has 2 lvl 50 IOs in it. 

 

Epic: I’ll give you three guesses… OK, too easy- psionic mastery as almost always. Mind probe with 4 slots of kinetic combat (for l/s def). This is the only mandatory one since you want that l/s def boost. I've done dominate and psychic shockwave, but I may switch them out. I'm still playing with the build since the sonic upgrades.

 

I used agility core alpha slot to get both more defense and recharge. More endurance modification doesn't really hurt either.

 

This is likely my most durable sentinel overall, though depending on opposition, some builds might be tougher at times. Possibly a case could be made for super reflexes being tougher because of defense debuff resistance, but it all depends on circumstances (also against psionic, EA is kinda weak).

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by drbuzzard

[BrandX]

What Assault Hybrid should Sentinel's be going after?  Core or Radial?

[oldskool]

11 hours ago, BrandX said:

What Assault Hybrid should Sentinel's be going after?  Core or Radial?

That will vary depending on how the build is constructed, what power set you're talking about, and what kind of content we're talking about (solo vs team). 

 

The linked post has a spreadsheet calculator where you can plug in the metrics to see which works best for your set up.

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/7404-what-the-hell-is-doublehit-a-hybrid-assault-guide/?tab=comments#comment-67414

 

[5haggy]

I'm interested in a Beam Rifle / Regeneration setup for my Sentinel, but I don't see a Secondary Powerset: Regeneration write-up here, is this a poor secondary for a Sentinel?

[oldskool]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:26 AM, 5haggy said:

I'm interested in a Beam Rifle / Regeneration setup for my Sentinel, but I don't see a Secondary Powerset: Regeneration write-up here, is this a poor secondary for a Sentinel?

There are still several power sets missing write-ups because no one ever devoted the time to do it.  When I originally started contributing it was with sets that I actively played either on the live HC servers or in an isolated environment. 

So any sets missing have nothing to do with how good a set it is.  If you search the general subforum with key word "regeneration" you'll find a lot of chatter about it.  To more directly answer this though, regeneration is actually a very good secondary on Sentinels.  Hell, Sentinels arguably have the best version of regeneration that exists in the game right now.  There are still limitations on what regeneration can handle, but that can be true for anything. 

 

Beam Rifle is also a very good primary and it gains an additional AoE attack that no other AT gets.  So you're picking two power sets where the Sentinel gains something over its cousins.

Edited February 14, 2020 by oldskool

[5haggy]

11 hours ago, oldskool said:

There still several power sets missing write-ups because no one ever devoted the time to do it.  When I originally started contributing it was with sets that I actively played either on the live HC servers or in an isolated environment. 

So any sets missing have nothing to do with how good a set it is.  If you search the general subforum with key word "regeneration" you'll find a lot of chatter about it.  To more directly answer this though, regeneration is actually a very good secondary on Sentinels.  Hell, Sentinels arguably have the best version of regeneration that exists in the game right now.  There are still limitations on what regeneration can handle, but that can be true for anything. 

 

Beam Rifle is also a very good primary and it gains an additional AoE attack that no other AT gets.  So you're picking two power sets where the Sentinel gains something over its cousins.

Thank you sir, this is good to know. I'm enjoying this Sent setup very much.

[5haggy]

So BR/Regen was interesting (past tense intended), but I just put together a BR/Invuln Sentinel and I absolutely love it. Used Sunsette’s guides and tweaked those a little. Very tanky, just what I wanted. Thank you for all the info in this thread. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by 5haggy

[Underfyre]

Primary Powerset: Fire Blast
High* Single-Target Damage, High* Area of Effect (AoE) Damage (1 Cone, 1 Targeted, 1 Location, 1 PBAoE), Low* Control (Blazing Blast has an irremovable knockback, that counts), Zero * Debuff Potential (unless you count DOT ticks)

 

Fire Blast is the no frills attached attack set. The only set capable of pulling higher single target damage is Sonic Blast because of its -res debuffing ability. Despite that fact I have a heavier leaning towards Fire Blast because of its rapid fire attack chain. Your three primary attacks all boast a 1 second activation time and your gap has a 1.67s activation. It feels like you’re dishing out constant punishment because you are. The drawback is that this set loses potency if you’re running an active secondary. Mashing heals and and endurance recoveries and absorb shields and status protection abilities will slow down your output.
  
Beginner's Overview
 
I’m going to come clean and say that at this point I just power-level my characters with a second account. I can’t really speak to the leveling experience of Fire Blast. What I can say is that your primary 3 attacks; Flares, Fire Ball and Blaze, come online in rapid succession. Flares is your first pick, its DPA is just leaps and bounds beyond Fire Blast. Fire Blast is the one power you will never miss. Will you miss your Defensive Opportunity? Probably not. End game it’s so negligible it may as well not really be there at all. I don’t know who needs to hear it, but you always get the 20% resistance debuff, Offensive and Defensive Opportunity either add a minor energy damage proc or the minor heal. Fire Blast is all about damage anyway. With only the 1 option you now just have to worry about activating the effect on a viable target rather than fret over one minor effect or the other. Overall the set is easy to play. You don’t have to worry about positioning for knockbacks (much), there are no holds or debuffs to spread, just pain.

 
Slotting
 
Basic Slotting
 
The bread and butter attacks in the set all have a 1x multiplier.  What that means is that whatever the base hit chance is for the level of any given mob is will be your base hit chance against it. +3 mobs start at 48%, and +4 mobs start at 39%. Even level mobs have a 75% hit chance. How much accuracy you need will depend on what level of mobs you’re working against. If you’re doing +4 radio missions in PI, you’re going to need at least a Kismet and 2 SO level (33%) accuracy enhancements to raise your hit chance into the 80% range. Without Kismet you’re going to need 3 SOs. It may sound like slotting for damage over accuracy is the way to go, but if you’re not hitting anything you’re not doing damage. Go for a slotting of 2 Acc, 2 Dmg, 1 Rch and 1 End on your 3 primary attacks. Blazing Blast has a 1.2x multiplier, so you can get away with 1 Acc and putting the second one into Dmg for a total of 3, but putting 2 Acc will yield more damage. This is taking into account that Sentinels add a 3.75% defense debuff to their primary target.

 

On the AoE side of things, Fire Breath, which you may or may not decide to take is running a 1.2x multiplier, Rain of Fire is 2x, and Inferno is running 1.4x. Rain of Fire needs no accuracy enhancements. Fire Breath will want 2 Acc and inferno will want 1. This is because AoE abilities do not trigger the defense debuff on all targets hit by AoEs. Regardless, I really can’t emphasize enough how much more important it is to actually hit your target versus hitting your target hard when you do manage to hit it. Also, a single slot dedicated to a Kismet is better than losing 6 to Accuracy enhancements.
 
Advanced Slotting
 
Being that Fire Blast is a no frills set, there isn’t a ton of proc options available to the set. Additionally, with the super fast activation times and relatively low recharge on most of your abilities you won’t be seeing the highest percent in proc chances either. The limited proc options give you a better vehicle to 5-6 slot IO sets at least. When slotting the epic sets, choose either the DMG/RCH or ACC/RCH. If you’re exempting down frequently against +4s, grab the ACC/RCH, otherwise you will have enough global accuracy to get the DMG/RCH without issue.

•    Flares - Fastest recharging ability and a 1 second activation. Do not slot anything with a potent proc in this ability, your 3.5 PPM proc will have a 23.2% base chance to activate. Decimation will have a 6.63% chance. Not worth it. This is where I will usually mule the Winter IO set, depending on the secondary I’m running. Sets like SR and Ninjitsu with their positional defenses may not be as keen on getting 2.5% to ranged and AoE out of that set for 6 slots. Resistance and Typed defense sets will love the 5% to E/N/F/C. For positional defense sets, Sentinel’s Ward is the better option because the proc is 5 PPM (22.36% after slotting) and gives 5% to melee defense. You will literally be using this ability every other cast, you’ll see some procs.
•    Fire Blast - I can’t fathom why anyone would take this. Treat it like Flares if you took it I guess. Or skip it and take a pool power instead.
•    Fire Ball - Despite being an aoe ability, it actually stands up as a single target ability better than Blazing Blast. The fact that it hits 9 additional targets is just pure gravy. This is your second bread (biscuit?) and gravy attack. Like the rest of the set, it isn’t swimming in proc options, just the standard Targeted AoE procs. It’s probably the better place to put Annihilation’s -Res proc if you have a spare slot for it. Either Ragnarok, an ATO, or a Winter IO are your primary options. Or Positron’s. Slotting Rag here will be a DPS loss versus slotting one of the ATOs here. Or a Winter IO. Just don’t put Rag here. Even 5 slotting Positron here is higher DPS than Rag. Forget that I mentioned Ragnarok. That knockdown proc is no boon. So even if you’re chasing recharge, go with Positron over Ragnarok. If you’re chasing defense, go with an ATO or a WIO.
•    Blaze - Your hardest hitting single target attack. Given its importance I would probably just stick with 5 slotting Apocalypse and tacking Gladiator’s Javelin Toxic proc on the end. Unless you’re hard up for another 5% Psionic defense. Feel free to add enhancement boosters to this power first. You could also sub in Decimation - Build Up here, it has a 2% lower proc rate here than in Blazing Blast, but you will also use this ability twice as much.

•    Aim - Just the Gaussian Build Up proc is sufficient in this power. Depending on how much Global recharge you have, adding a level 50 recharge IO will provide a nominal damage increase.
•    Fire Breath - Ah, the “should I take it or skip it” power. It has a longish activation of 2.67s, it only hits 6 targets, and it’s a cone. I chose to skip it. Also, it fights with Fire Ball for the Targeted AoE sets. Yeah sure, Positron’s isn’t awful, but I’d like it more if it gave E//N resists instead of F/C. For typed defense the Winter IO set is kinda wonky with a 7.5% F/C defense 6 slot, for positional the 5 slot is a nice and rounded 5%. So skip it or don’t. You won’t be hurting either way.
•    Blazing Blast - If you’re one of those people that swears by going into Psionic Mastery and taking Dominate, this is your power to do that with. If, however, you don’t have the spare power slots to do that, this is your filler in your Blaze – Flares – Fire Ball – Flares chain. Fitting one of these in place of Flares will yield a DPS increase, but it simply can’t replace the damage of Blaze or Fire Ball. If you want you can slot Apocalypse here, but it’s technically a lower DPS option compared to slotting that in Blaze. You’re better served slotting one of the ATOs here. Since you’re limited to Ranged and ATO sets your pickin’s are kinda slim.
•    Rain of Fire - The other other ability vying for a Targeted AoE set. Given its high target cap of 30, Ragnarok is okay to have here, but I’m fairly sure it only procs the one time over the duration. The rest of the time the mobs are fleeing to get out of the rain. Be sure to pair this up with an AoE root from one of the pools if you can spare it.
•    Inferno - Your PBAE. It’s not in any direct competition for sets unless you grab one of the PBAEs out of one of the epic pools (or Ground Zero from Radiation Armor). This is also your only chance to slot Fury of the Gladiator’s -Res proc, and it’s at a maxed out 90% chance. Once again, if you’re thirsty for more Psi/Toxic resistance for some reason, go for it. I’m not your boss. If you want to slot the WIO in for 5% melee defense, that is also an option. Grabbing the 6 slot for 5% F/C is a questionable choice if you wanted the positional defense. By this point you should have 30% global accuracy, so throwing in a single accuracy or Hami-O will be sufficient to max the accuracy for this power. So forgoing the other 15% accuracy and 10% recharge for the epic set and stacking all available procs into this power instead is another option. And it’s definitely cheaper.

Skippable Powers
•    Fire Blast – It’s just so bad.
•    Fire Breath – Being a cone with a low target cap is doing it no favors. Being in competition for one of the 2 ATOs, the 1 Epic set and the 1 WIO is helping its cause even less.
•    Blazing Blast – Controversial choice. The only viable option to replace this is a proc’d out Dominate. So if you’re a Dominate fan, here’s your time to shine. In fact Dominate is so good that choosing it and forgoing Assault out of Leadership is the better option.

Rotations
 
There are a few rotation options, depending on the amount of recharge you’re running.

 

DPA Priority

Blaze, Blazing Blast, Fire Ball. Just prioritize your abilities in that order. Lowest recharge requirements. Just toss Flares around liberally between every attack and you should always be doing something.

 

Fire Ball -> Flares -> Blaze -> Flares -> Blazing Blast -> Flares ->

A viable rotation for anyone that can get Fire Ball’s cooldown to 6.6s. Not an especially stringent requirement, but also not an exceptionally high DPS rotation. 

 

Fire Ball -> Flares -> Blaze -> Blazing Blast -> Flares ->

Reduce Fire Ball to 5.41s and you’ve reached the pinnacle of what you can call a “rotation.” The only step you can go further is to reduce the cooldown of Blaze down below 2.38 seconds, which is somewhere around 314% recharge (total of enhanced + global) and not theoretically possible without Ageless Incarnate.

 

In the end you can just go with priority rotation and you’ll be fine. The idea of a “rotation” is kind of loose here.

 
Ancillary/Patron Pools:
 
As I stated, if you want to lose Blazing Blast and sub in Dominate it will generally be a DPS increase, even if the cost is losing that succulent 10.5% damage increase in Assault. Depending on the power slot demands of your secondary you may be able to have both anyway. This is also the place to put your Decimation - Build Up proc if you went this route.

 

If you want to stretch your claws into even more AoE prowess, you have a few dominant options leaving room for whatever fits the vision of your character. The highest DPA options are Dark, Ice and Ninja Tools, of which Dark has the largest radius at 15 meters, Ice sharply drops down to 10 and Ninja is 8. As they go down in radius, they go up in damage though, so that’s nice. Obviously simply dumping some damage set into these extremely long recharging abilities is woefully inadequate. These have room for plenty of procs, so slot them out to be the proc monsters they were meant to be.

 

Other than that, grab whatever fits your vision.
 
Complementary Choices
 
Well this is a tough one. With 2-3 potentially skippable powers, you can get away with grabbing a power hungry secondary like Radiation and still have room for a vast swath of pool and epic powers. But bear in mind that if you do this, you will be limiting yourself on where you can place your ATOs and snag their utility (range boost particularly) and defense bonuses.

 

Really you can just take whatever you want, but as Fire Blast is a no frills damage dealing set, I’d look towards one of the secondaries that will enhance this further such as Bio, Radiation, or Ninjitsu. Or Fire if you want the bare minimum in increase for no real gain.
 
Incarnate Abilities
 
Your Alpha will slightly depend on your secondary, but let’s face it, you came to Fire Blast to do damage. Grab your Musculature Core and never look back.
 
Hybrid Assault is your go to. Whether you go for Core or Radial depends on what kind of damage boosts you plan to be around. For solo play, Core will provide a better damage boost than Radial, but in group play where you may have the most minor of chances of reaching the damage cap, Radial will have its chance to shine.

Your secondary will dictate your Destiny slot. If you have an endurance/toggle heavy secondary you can grab Ageless and shore up your recovery while also giving yourself a nice global recharge bonus. If you find your secondary isn’t pulling its weight, you can take Barrier. Otherwise take whatever you want. But yeah, Ageless.

Grab an interface that does a damage proc. Grab the Radial. It will always deal more damage. The -regen proc from Diamagnetic technically counts towards your dps output, but it adds a 0.06% regen debuff that is so inconsequential it’s insulting. So feel free to skip that slap in the face. Otherwise Degenerative or Reactive are your theoretical maximums.
 

Other than that, your Lore choices are just whatever you’re feeling or themeing towards. Or just do what everyone else does and get Banished Pantheon Radial or Longbow.
 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Underfyre

[oldskool]

Just one slight nitpick, @underfyre.  Defensive Opportunity does in fact return endurance per target hit over the duration of 15 seconds.  That's per target hit and it currently includes AoE.  That would mean a power like Fire Ball becomes endurance positive against multiple targets.  

 

Now, is that a great reason to take Fire Blast in this write-up? Probably not, but it is worth noting that the real value in Defensive Opportunity is linked to endurance return not its heal.  

 

Also worth nothing, PPM is clamped to a 5% floor and 90% ceiling.  If you're weaving Flares between every attack you're getting a 6%~ chance to trigger Decimation every 1.188 seconds (Fire Ball and Blaze animations) or 1.848 (Blazing Blast).  That becomes significant over a longer period of time BUT I do like that proc in powers that can trigger it with more reliability if I can manage it.  Dominate is one such candidate.  

[Underfyre]

Primary Powerset: Radiation Blast
Med-High * Single-Target Damage, High * Area of Effect (AoE) Damage (1 Cone, 1 Targeted, 2 PBAoE), Low * Control (1 knockback), High * Debuff Potential
 

Radiation Blast is fun set stacked high with defense debuffs. Literally every attack lowers your target's defense. That's its gimmick. The bonus on this is the fact that you can fit Achilles' Heel into every attack and also lower your target's resistance a bit. Not encouraged because it doesn't stack, but you can if you want. In one post I described the set as lumbering because its abilities are all relatively slow to activate and hit hard, but the key abilities also have a fairly short recharge time. So unlike fire, an active secondary isn't a damage killer.
  
Beginner's Overview
 
So yeah, still not leveling characters the traditional way. End game, your attack cycle involves your level 18 attack. Obviously this is a problem for a leveling character. What are you going to do, operate on 2 single targets, a PBAE and a cone until you get your last single target ability online? Prolly not. For one it's endurance heavy, for two it's a waste of multi-target abilities. So I'd start out with all the basic single target abilities, then respec later to drop one of the first two. The one you choose to keep is up to you, but X-Ray Beam is the higher lower DPA of the two. If lazer beam eyes doesn't fit your theme, that's probably for the best. And obviously by the time you're speccing out of one of those two the attributed inherent bonus attached to them is a non-point. Another consideration is that since all of your abilities lower your targets defense, and some of your abilities are running over a 100% accuracy modifier, you won't be hurting for accuracy or To Hit.

 
Slotting
 
Basic Slotting

If you choose to go with X-Ray Beam, it has a 1.1x multiplier, whereas Neutrino Bolt has 1x. Cosmic Burst also has a 1x multiplier. Everything else is 1.1+. What this means is that you won't be hard pressed for accuracy enhancements while leveling. Just uhh, just don't open with Neutrino Bolt or Cosmic Burst. Once your defense debuffs are applied, go to town. If you have a secondary thirsty for enhancement slots, well this is your lucky day. You can 5 slot your attacks with 3 damage, 1 recharge and 1 endurance reduction. Or 6 slot and throw in a second recharge and ignore your poor secondary.
 
Advanced Slotting

In addition to the basic enhancement sets, Radiation Blast also has access to defense debuff and accurate defense debuff sets. This means you get 2 more damage procs and the -20% resistance debuff on every attack. This doesn't open any major doors in regards to turning your abilities into a bunch of proc monsters, but it can diversify your damage types if you feel so inclined. Don't get me wrong, adding in two more damage procs makes your Targeted AOE abilities have a total of 6 procs available. And 3 of your 4 AOE's are Targeted, so your AOE damage potential is fairly high.

 

•    Neutrino Bolt - The higher DPA of your two starter abilities. There are several avenues to take with slotting. You can just mule the WIO set here for your typed defense needs. You can put Ward here to sate your melee defense needs. You can do what I did and 3 slot Ward here and grab the 10% range boost twice from this set, and grab a third 10% boost out of Opportunity Strikes elsewhere. If you take the 5-slot route, tack an Achilles Heel on the end for adequate 23% proc chance/4% average up time on the damage boost. Tack a damage proc on there instead if you want. It's less DPS over the long run, but it's your call. If you take the 3-slot Ward route, you can take the 2-slot bonus From Gladiator's Javelin with Achilles on the end, or do another 3-slot bonus from one of the other damage sets. 
•    X-Ray Beam - Not your highest DPA ability, but if you want lazer beam eyes/fists, then I guess take this. You will suffer a minor decline in damage output. Use Neutrino Bolt slotting if you take this instead.
•    Irradiate - Fast casting, large radius PBAE. 5 damage proc options available with a 90% proc chance. Proc monster status active. However, the ability to spread the -20% res debuff to 10 targets will be a greater boon over all once again, but half of a pack of mobs will be minions that would probably fall over pretty quickly anyway. On top of that, sustained AOE DPS isn't really a pressing thing to consider, is it? 5-slotting the WIO set for positional defense is an option, putting the other half of the Ward 3-slot 10% range bonus here is another option. As a PBAE, it's competing with your T9 for the Armageddon set, and the T9 will benefit from its use more than this power does. So feel free to get that thought out of your head. One consideration is which -Res proc to place here if you chose to do so. You can use Achilles Heel or Fury of the Gladiator, with Fury being a unique, and this ability having a vastly faster recharge than Atomic Blast. I suppose it doesn't really matter. 20% is 20%. I guess it could be 40% in one ability. However you cut it, this is an ability that has wiggle room if you're not dying for positional defense.
•    Cosmic Burst - Part 2 in your 3 power attack chain. You can try to proc out the power with the 4 available (and rob the Apocalypse set), or you can run with sets. The fun part about end game ranged damage sets is that we're fairly limited on good ones. You have the WIO that's good for typed defenses, you have Apocalypse, and you have the 2 ATO sets. You can argue that you also have Thunderstrike, Devastation and the PvP set, but the first two don't exactly have stellar set bonuses, and the PvP set is also fairly lackluster outside of PvP. Thunderstrike is alright if you're desperate for ranged defense. The WIO is just a mule set. Its numbers are the standard of a +5 level 50 set when attuned, but its proc doesn't promote damage, and its bonuses are more for defense. Generally if you're chasing the set bonuses, you're probably going to want the 6 slot. So that is taken out of the running for hard hitters. So now it's down to the ATOs and Apocalypse. Opportunity Strikes promotes damage and has epic level bonuses. 5-slot it and you can even put a damage proc in there. Ward is more a defensive set, epic level though the bonuses may be. You can argue that accuracy and recharge are for offense, but a 6-slot recharge is a tall order and you don't really need accuracy with this kit. So choose between frankenslotting, Apocalypse, or Opportunity Strikes.
•    Electron Haze - Another 6 target cone with a fairly narrow 30° arc. Your second "skip it" option if you will. You already have 2 PBAEs and a TAOE, so adding this cone could be considered overkill. It's competing with Neutron Bomb for the Ragnarok set but the WIO is good for aoe defense, or 6-slotting for a total 7.5% F/C defense. Otherwise put Positron's in there. Or frankenslot it for for procs. In a single target rotation this is only viable if you put Annihilation in there to grab the nearly 90% change to trigger the debuff. Otherwise the activation time is too long to have it completely replace one of your primary single target abilities.
•    Proton Stream - Part 3 of your single target rotation. Same spiel as with Cosmic Burst. Choose between frankenslotting, Apocalypse, or Opportunity Strikes. Also the best place to put Decimation - Build Up if you aren't taking the Dominate path.
•    Neutron Bomb - Better than taking Electron haze, even though it has a fairly small radius of 15. Same slotting advice though; WIO, Ragnarok or Positron's. Positron's will be more damage because its proc isn't just a knockdown, but the epic will get you 10% recharge? Also the only place to put Annihilation's -res proc if you skipped Electron Haze, which will stack with Achilles and Fury of the Gladiator.
•    Atomic Blast - The big PBAE. Now, I said the Armageddon set is better served here than in Irradiate, and it is, but you don't necessarily need to slot it here. You can frankenslot this happily and everything will have a 90% proc chance. So if you want the 10% recharge, have at. Otherwise frankenslot it.

Skippable Powers
•    X-Ray Beam – Low DPS option.
•    Electron Haze – I hate cones. There are plenty of aoe powers in this set.

 

Rotations

Your single target rotation will depend on which of the two starters you picked.

 

Proton Steam -> Neutron Bolt -> Cosmic Burst -> Neutron Bolt

If you took Neutron Bolt, you can run this if you get Proton Stream down to 4.62s. 160% recharge requirement. Not extremely steep.

 

Proton Steam -> Electron Haze -> Cosmic Burst -> Neutron Bolt

If you took Electron Haze, frankenslotted it, and included Annihilation, the debuff will provide a nominal increase in damage, even in a single target scenario. The catch with this rotation is getting Electron Haze's recharge down to 5.28s, 203.4% recharge.

 

Proton Stream -> Cosmic Burst -> X-Ray Beam

This rotation is dependent upon bringing Proton Stream's cooldown below 4.09 seconds. That's 193.8% total recharge between enhancements and global. Depending on which set you have slotted, you should have 74% and 100% recharge from enhancements. Unless you frankenslotted. Then you probably have 0% and you need 193.8% purely from global. Which is a tall order since you skipped 10% from slotting the epic set in this and probably other places.

 

Proton Steam -> X-Ray Beam -> Cosmic Burst -> X-Ray Beam

This is what you get to use when you're running lopsided levels of recharge. X-Ray Beam will need to be below 2.24s, which is a lofty 260% combined recharge. Proton Stream will only need 102.4%.

Ancillary/Patron Pools:
 
Look at my Fire Blast write-up. Going with Dominate is going to up your recharge requirements to bring it down to a usable recharge level. The whole point in using it is to stack every proc imaginable in it. I guess you can put a DMG/RCH piece in from a set or just a pure IO RCH to get some of that recharge, which is an option with all the -DEF this set provides, otherwise it's all global which means your other attacks are going to be toting sets instead of also being procced out. Your call.
 
Complementary Choices

What I can say is that Invulnerability isn't especially good for pairing synergisticly because its perk is a 10% To Hit buff. You don't need To Hit. But Invuln is a very set-and-forget secondary that doesn't interrupt your primary, which I appreciate.

 

Looks-wise, I like the way Dark Armor has a vaguely radiation appearance when it's recolored.

 

Given the fairly high recharge requirements to get the high DPS rotation, one of the 20% recharge sets like Radiation, Electric, Super Reflexes or Energy Aura maybe be in order. Especially if you're shooting for proc heavy builds.

 

Other than that, same as Fire Blast, grab a secondary that boosts your damage output such as Bio, Radiation, or Fiery Aura.
 
Incarnate Abilities
 
As long as you aren't hurting for recharge you can grab Musculature. If you're inexplicably running a low global recharge set, getting Spiritual could shore you up a bit, but it's the lower DPS option. On top of that, your Alpha counts as "enhancement" recharge, so it also lowers your proc chance. I guess I'm saying that sacrificing recharge to chase proc monsters will hurt you in the long run. Square your recharge needs away then chase procs.
 
Hybrid Assault is your go to. Whether you go for Core or Radial depends on what kind of damage boosts you plan to be around. For solo play, Core Radial will provide a better damage boost than Radial Core. If my DPS spreadsheet is even half right, the Radial will always be the better choice. That's assuming an average up time of maintaining 4 stacks of Core throughout its duration. This is because of the inherently low damage of the AT. Adding % damage to already low base damage numbers isn't quite as good as the damage from a 6PPM proc.

 

Your secondary will dictate your Destiny slot. If you have an endurance/toggle heavy secondary you can grab Ageless and shore up your recovery while also giving yourself a nice global recharge bonus. If you find your secondary isn’t pulling its weight, you can take Barrier. Otherwise take whatever you want. But yeah, Ageless. Realistically your build should be solid before you go trying to patch holes with your incarnates, but if there was an Incarnate to use for patching, it's your Destiny slot.

 

Grab an interface that does a damage proc. Grab the Radial. It will always deal more damage. The -regen proc from Diamagnetic technically counts towards your dps output, but many monsters have regen debuff resistance, making it not a super good option. So feel free to skip that slap in the face. Otherwise Degenerative or Reactive are your theoretical maximums.

 

Other than that, your Lore choices are just whatever you’re feeling or theme-ing towards. Or just do what everyone else does and get Banished Pantheon Radial or Longbow.

Edited February 19, 2021 by underfyre

[Underfyre]

Primary Powerset: Ice Blast
Medium-High* Single-Target Damage, Medium* Area of Effect (AoE) Damage (1 Cone, 2 Location), Medium* Control (1 Sleep, 1 Hold), Medium* Debuff Potential (All: -Spd, -Rch; 2 -To-Hit)

 

Ice Blast is Fire Blast's weaker cousin, but with the proper amount of disregard for your own safety, it can be turned into a single target power house damage dealer somewhere lower than a power house. A good portion of this kits abilities can hold 4+ damaging procs, and all you have to do it skip set bonuses that would otherwise add to your health and defense. That alone isn't really enough to convince me to skip 5-6 piece set bonuses to attempt making them proc monsters, but it definitely makes things interesting for some powers.
  
Beginner's Overview
 
So I actually made an Ice Blast Sent before I made my AE Farmer and power-leveled myself. The memory is shaky, but it's still there. Anyway, you're going to want to take every power in your way up to at least level 26. Once you're maxed out you can opt out of Ice Blast if you choose because it is the lower DPA of the two starting abilities. You can also decide to drop Frost Breath at some point because 6 target cones are trash. Obviously during the leveling process you're going to want to put a Kismet in somewhere. The only powers running over a 100% accuracy modifier are your rains and the cone.

 

Chilling Ray adds an additional 11% to your smashing damage, which applies to all powers you can take with a smashing damage component (yes even epic pools), but does not apply to procs that deal smashing damage. The only thing that modifies proc damage is -res. Anyway, the powers in your main pool with a smashing component are Ice Bolt, Ice Blast and Bitter Ice Blast. The smashing damage on the first two are less than 15% of the powers total damage, so it's not a massive help to them. Bitter Ice Blast's smashing component is just under half of its damage though, so that's nice.

 

Also, the smashing damage boost is not enough to eschew getting Dominate over some other epic power that does have smashing damage if you were curious. Ain't much that can dethrone Dominate, if anything can at all from a damage standpoint.

 

Slotting
 
Basic Slotting
 
Every single target attack is running a 1x multiplier. Make sure to grab a Kismet so your base hit chance on even level mobs is 86% instead of 75%. At +3 you start at 48%, so now you start at 54%. Opportunity adds 3.75% to that as well, but not until you hit them. Early on you obviously won't be taking on +3 mobs, but once you start hitting later levels, and side-kicking with level 50s, they will most likely be running +3, if not +4. Your benchmark in the end is +3 because you get a +1 level shift once you apply your tier 3 Alpha Incarnate. So you'll need at least 2 level 50 accuracy IOs to max out your hit chance to +3 content. Recharge-wise, your only powers with especially egregious recharge times are your rains and Bitter Freeze Ray, so you could consider putting an extra recharge in them over an extra damage. Or do what I do and don't slot a single thing until you're like level 40. Groups will hardly notice.

 

On the AoE side of things, your rain spells have a 2x multiplier, which is enough to max out their accuracy against +3 mobs with no other effort on your part. Frost breath will need at least a SO (33.3%) level enhancement to get to 95% accuracy (+ Kismet). 2 recharges and 3 damage IOs will suit these well enough.
 
Advanced Slotting
 
As I mentioned earlier, there is an additional proc option available to this set in Impeded Swiftness, and a few powers that have Cloud Senses available. However, the Impeded Swiftness proc deals smashing damage, so it's not especially good if you're looking to diversify your damage types. Otherwise, more damage is more damage.

 

•    Ice Bolt - Very similar to Flares in that it casts quickly and comes back online quickly. Oldskool's thought process is that since you will be frequently casting a power like this, the 6.5% proc chance of Decimation or even Opportunity Strikes will equate to more frequent procs through attrition. I haven't heeded this advice, but it could come into play. Otherwise, this powers usefulness is largely tied to its part as a filler, so this is where things get muled. WIO or ATOs.
•    Ice Blast - Your final rotation will not miss this power. Treat it like Ice Bolt if you keep it.
•    Frost Breath - A cone that hits 6 targets. My bane. This cone does make up for it's lack of targets by taking 4 damaging procs which have the potential to double its damage. In this status it's nearly as good for damage as casting Ice Bolt (because it 2.67 cast time). So theoretically if you have more than 1 target to hit, this ability would be optimal over using Ice Bolt. Being a proc monster is the only viable use for this power beyond muling in my head. This is one of three places you can eek out any -Res from the Annihilation IO, possibly the best.
•    Chilling Ray - This is a straight ahead damage power that has the extra bonus of increasing your smashing damage by 11%. The bonus isn't much to write home about, and only Bitter Ice Blast has a large enough smashing damage component to really take advantage of the boost, but it does stack on itself. Put one of the ATOs in here, or the Apocalypse set. There aren't enough proc options for monster status.
•    Ice Storm - Much like Frost Breath before it, this power will take 4 damaging procs. Once again, they will just about double its damage output. My qualm with this power is that it takes a full 15 seconds to deliver its damage (besides the procs, which will trigger on cast). With a very long 60 second base recharge, while possible to have it up at all times, having that amount of recharge can be a pretty tall order. It will take a combined 280% recharge for that, 95.9% is easily attainable from 2 +5 recharge IOs, but that leaves 190% from global, which you will not be doing unless you specifically chase after it, and even then it may not happen.  So yeah, 15 seconds to deliver the full damage, super long recharge. This is one of the reasons that Ice Blast isn't the best set for AOE damage. The other reason is that Blizzard is nearly as bad. Slot this as a mule for the Winter set bonuses, your ATO sets, or slot it for procs. Or opt out and save the slot for a better aoe ability out of the epic pools. Second best place for Annihilation -Res.
•    Bitter Ice Blast - This ability has a -To-Hit component, which means it can take an additional proc for a total of 4 damaging procs. It's also a fairly reasonable place to put Opportunity Strikes. You can proc monster this and also tack on the Opportunity Strikes proc on the end, which would further increase Opportunity Strikes proc chance (by a percent or two) since you probably don't have any enhanced recharge on the ability. If you're choosing between putting the Apocalypse set in this or Chilling Ray, this power will yield better results with its higher base damage. If you go the proc route, make sure you don't want the 5% E/N defense from the 6-slot bonus before tacking the Opportunity Strikes proc on it and putting the other 5 peices in Chilling Ray or something.
•    Bitter Freeze Ray - This is the real proc monster of the set. When working with only ranged, targeted AoE and PBAEs, you generally run out of epic level sets that you can use efficiently. This is the power that you dump procs into because you've run out of those sets. Baseline as far down as 3PPM, procs have a 90% chance to activate. This set has five 3.5PPM procs, and two 4.5PPM procs. Now, if you slotted the Apocalypse proc into Bitter Ice Blast, that's gone. If you're going in for Domination, the Unbreakable Constraint proc is better there with it's faster cast time. That still leaves this ability with 5 procs all running at 90% chance, so it's still going to be a beast. This is the best place to put the Decimation proc from a sheer likelihood to proc stand point.
•    Blizzard - The other rain spell, another targeted AOE. Since it can additionally take to-hit and slow sets, it has a total of 5 procs. Unlike Ice Storm, this ability does its damage in 8 seconds, so that's also helpful. It also does about 30% more damage than the average tier 9 ability. If you would rather, you can put the Ragnarok set here to get some of those epic set bonuses. Using epic sets to boost big numbers is better than using epic sets to boost small numbers. The 90 second recharge makes this not a spectacular place to put Annihilation -Res, but if you're looking for a place it's good as any.

Skippable Powers

 

•    Ice Blast – You don't really need both of your starting abilities in you final build, and this one has the lower DPA. The next iteration of my spreadsheet (which is based off of Ice Blast, conveniently) shows Offensive Opportunity as a whopping 5 DPS increase. But it also shows using this instead of Ice Bolt as a 17 DPS loss. Which is a total 22 DPS loss, 10% in the case of what I have put together (the new sheet takes mob resists into account). I guess it depends on how hard-up you are for the healing and endurance recovery.
•    Frost Breath – Personal bias against 6 target cones. Being that this sets AoE prowess is centered around 2 targeted powers, there's not a real reason not to take this otherwise.
•    Ice Storm – It takes a while to do its damage, and it doesn't exactly do a ton of it. Personally I would rather get one of the PBAE abilities from an epic pool than take this, which would also open up the Fury of the Gladiator proc for a bit more damage, but I'd lose out on a fine mule power. Psychic Shockwave is also, conveniently, very receptive to procs.

Rotations

 

There are a few rotation options, depending on the amount of recharge you’re running:

 

DPA Priority

Chilling Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, Bitter Ice Blast. Chilling Ray comes first to bring the smashing damage bonus online for Bitter Ice Blast to do a touch more damage. Throw Ice Bolts in between everything to stabilize your rotation if you don't have a ton of recharge. You won't.

 

4-1-7-1+8 Rotation

Chilling Ray -> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Freeze Ray -> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Ice Blast -> Chilling Ray -> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Ice Blast -> Ice Bolt

You can get get it down to 4-1-7 only if you can get Bitter Ice Blast's cooldown below 3.04 seconds. That's 295% recharge. You probably won't be doing that without Ageless Radial and a concerted effort for recharge. If you take Dominate you can do 4-1-7 and cycle between it and Bitter Freeze Ray.

 

Ancillary/Patron Pools:

 

As I stated, if you want to lose Ice Storm and sub in an epic AoE, it will be a boon. Just about any other AoE power outclasses it unfortunately. Skipping Assault over getting Dominate or even Char is also a DPS increase, as I've stated in other write-ups. The 10.5% damage boost equates to roughly a 2% DPS boost.
 
Complementary Choices
 
Radiation Armor will give you access to an AoE power. As recharge hungry as this set has the potential to be, one of the sets with +20% recharge could also help. Even as proc heavy as this kit can be, a damage boosting secondary is still going to raise its total DPS between 7% and 22%.

 

Defensively, this set has a stacking recharge rate debuff. So if you were to drop both Ice Storm and Blizzard, after the alpha, everything is going to be attacking 40% less often. So a secondary that has a shield to absorb that alpha will manage well enough. All said, if you go the proc monster route, you're going to either want a secondary that can take a punch, or can dodge the punch all together with very little enhancement slot investment because of the lack of defensive set bonuses.
 
Incarnate Abilities
 
So, normally I would just say take Musculature Core, BUT, Intuition Radial provides a 33% damage boost, slow boost and a 20% range boost. So if you want to make stuff run out of your rains slower, this might be up your alley. If you're gunning for a proc monster build, you will find that your attacks may not be maxed out on accuracy because they aren't slotted heavily for it and you don't have a ton of set bonuses granting it either. Bitter Freeze Ray (and Dominate) in particular will feel this loss. Hitting the mobs is always more important than hitting them hard, so Nerve Core can give you the extra accuracy you need to max out hit chance and be the higher DPS choice in this case. Otherwise go with Musculature Core.

 

For the rest of the Incarnates, look at my other write-ups. This is a damage dealing AT, get incarnates that promote that.

Edited September 11, 2020 by underfyre

[Aeroprism]

Well, I wanted to ask a question for my first sentinel.  Then I read this beautiful, beautiful topic.

 

I no longer have a question.

 

Seriously, this should be done for all ATs.  What an absolutely awesome source of data.

 

You guys are seriously awesome. 

 

Gonna go roll my Beam/Electric Sentilel RIGHT NOW!

[Shock Star]

I'm not good at writing reviews. Despite the fact that my main uses both Electrical Blast(which I should be experienced with) and Electrical Aura, I don't feel like I could properly explain my stance on Electrical Blast as a primary due to my inherent biases in favor of it. Elec probably does the second least damage with Energy Blast being lower(Again, a personal bias because my energy/invuln sentinel's damage is outright pathetic with the sixth slot of every primary being forced to take Sudden Acceleration: Knockback to Knockdown). But the endurance debuff on every power in Electrical Blast more than makes up for it.

 

Short Circuit has the potential to reduce the endurance bar of bosses to nothing when paired with Power Sink. Both sets together can make Malta's bread and butter Sappers look like a complete joke if slotted right. And when both sets are paired with the Interface slotted with Preemptive, you essentially become an energy vampire who can only be stopped by three things: Defense sets with end drain resistance, some madlad who decided to slot for absurd levels of recovery, and toxic damage.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Shock Star

[Underfyre]

Electric is the magical sleeper set that people think doesn't do as much as it's capable of. Its transition to Sentinel was probably the best of the bunch and the changes made to it made it a very capable damage set. Building it as a "sapper" set is just holding it back, and sapper sets in general are the weakest of "defensive" techniques. Build for damage, show'em what you're made of.

[Shock Star]

While I understand where you're coming from, I must argue that sapping is an ability that electrical powers are extremely good at. If sapping isn't seen as a strong choice, then there's something missing from the equation. Because the perfect end drain build should be so potent that sneezing should render most enemies unable to attack. I often found myself just walking up to anything that's not an AV and watching their endurance bar drop to zero in less than three clicks(four or five at most for Elite Bosses).

 

In the right hands, a sapper build not only drains endurance but also makes sure the target(s) only have defeat to look forward to.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Shock Star

[oldskool]

On 11/8/2020 at 1:08 PM, Shock Star said:

In the right hands, a sapper build not only drains endurance but also makes sure the target(s) only have defeat to look forward to.

Enemies only look forward to defeat as it is.  The question becomes how long does that take to achieve.  Sapping may limit the build on damaging dealing options that otherwise could have been there.  Sapping may, depending on the build/the player/a team/etc..., just prolong the inevitable.  Sapping also has limitations against more powerful enemies.  In order to close that gap there needs to be more compromises made.  

I have a Sentinel that takes advantage of a lot of Stun.  I didn't go out of my way to improve that stun because it is at its most effectiveness against minions.  Minions.  Who cares about those goobers? This is why sapping is noted as being a gimmick.  Sentinels can certainly pull it off but it isn't really the best way to build them either.  To each their own though. 

[Shock Star]

4 hours ago, oldskool said:

Enemies only look forward to defeat as it is.  The question becomes how long does that take to achieve.  Sapping may limit the build on damaging dealing options that otherwise could have been there.  Sapping may, depending on the build/the player/a team/etc..., just prolong the inevitable.  Sapping also has limitations against more powerful enemies.  In order to close that gap there needs to be more compromises made. 

Well, I see what you're saying and I agree that stronger enemies are harder to sap. It takes forever to drop an AV's end bar. For example, I use my bread and butter sapping combo and I've barely drained his end at all. There were times when it took me about half a minute to drain an EB's endurance bar. I've also considered upping some of the damage on my elec/elec Sentinel.

 

But there's one thing I probably should keep my mouth shut about. My favorite use of this build.

Edited November 21, 2020 by Shock Star
Clarification

[oldskool]

11 minutes ago, Shock Star said:

keep my mouth shut 

I hope you change your mind about that.  

Alternative playstyles are worth discussing.  However, they invite challenge by their very nature.  Maybe next you'll think about a counter argument to support your style vs just saying maybe I won't speak on this topic again.  Using loaded language like trying to up sell sapping as if no other build can do it is also going to get you challenges.  

Hell, if I shut up the first time I was challenged I wouldn't have been back here.  I also wouldn't have grown my understanding of the game.  I also wouldn't have been able to help others find a path that fits them.  

[lemming]

This will not be incredibly detailed, but I'll want to come back to the subject later. Great thread that I'll need to go back to read it again

These are the sentinals I've made, all reached 50, very few sets done, but at least full generic IOs

• Ms. Blazer: Fire/Radiation   Survivable and fun to play
• Radiation Lass: Radiation/Regen Another strong pairing
• Ms. Plastique:  Dual Pistols/Will Power   Not the most damaging, but interesting to play
• Ms. Andromeda: Elec/Energy Aura   Sorta meh, but need to play around with her more.   Disappointed that EA doesn't give invis.  (why do brutes get it, but not sents?)
• Mr. Impervious: Beam Rifle/Inv  beam rifle is fun and invuln does a good job
• 22 div 7: Water/Electric  I did not have as much fun, but could use revisiting
• Holiday in Cambodia: AR/Super Reflex   Not as thrilled with AR, but Super Reflex works well.
• Frozen Brain: Psychic/Ice  I had issues with this one.  I'll give him a respec and outfit him better
• Lucky Number: Sonic/Bio   Good sets, haven't played as much with her since 50, but fairly flexible
• Vera Gemini: Dark/Dark  A lot of potential in this one.  Currently in the needs to be slotted, but respecced
• Low Budget: Ice/Fire  Only at level 23, but other than no KB resist, is fun.  Embrace being a toggle is interesting for some added damage.  Will see how they are at level 50.

Still have a Archery and Ninjitsu, left.  Will probably do a comparison with my blaster.

Then we'll check some other combos, but after I get my last batch of chars to 50.

Edited November 22, 2020 by lemming
Added another combo

[Shock Star]

10 hours ago, oldskool said:

Hell, if I shut up the first time I was challenged I wouldn't have been back here.  I also wouldn't have grown my understanding of the game.  I also wouldn't have been able to help others find a path that fits them.  

 

Originally, I was going to leave it untold because I'm kind of embarrassed to bring this up. This part is often considered by some to be a slight taboo on my server. But here goes...

 

While sapper builds are almost useless against EBs/AVs/GMs, they can be quite fun against one other type of enemy. Other players who aren't built for end drain/debuff resistance. I enjoy the sapper build because it can be absolutely brutal against minions/lieutenants/bosses. As well as player characters in PvP who don't have an answer to it(Anything outside elec armor, bio armor, etc. Or didn't take a certain destiny power). Against most players with certain defense secondaries, end drain can severely hinder that. In some cases, the end bar drops almost immediately. In other cases, it takes a little longer. However, if the enemy -is- prepared, I'm screwed.

But Preemptive Core Flawless Interface is the meat and potatoes of these builds at Lv 50. This -is- the key component of sapper builds done right. Draining end bars to zero with this beast slotted makes things a lot more brutal to anything not resistant to it. Once that happens, toggles go down. And if cards are played right, those toggles aren't likely to come back up unless someone has an end+ power(or pops blues like M&Ms).

In short, preemptive interface does a lot of the heavy lifting in that department. Since every electrical blast power has some level of endurance debuff, that interface just makes it even better at that. Though the damage isn't the best, I've grown attached of the idea of getting in the enemy's way with the added likelyhood of being able to live to tell the tale if I make a mistake.

 

But I'm now very aware that this is simply a biased opinion. I now know there are better ways to spec this beast. I've just grown attached this play style.

 

EDIT: I've decided to post the latest version of the build here

 

EDIT 2: Still feeling a bit embarrassed.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Shock Star
Just thought I'd add this for reference.

[Mack008]

Having rediscovered CoH a couple months ago after a 10 year hiatus, this is by far the best thread I've found on the forums.  The advice and useful descriptions of the powers is very much appreciated.  This is so much more informative than reading a series of "uber-50+ builds."

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed.

[Luigrein]

Super informsl guide, I've taken a dark/regen sentinel to 50 but it was a pretty casual run and I haven't been really trying to number crunch him. Slotting suggestions will be for the most part generic SO/IO slotting.

Fast healing: Passive so kind of hard to gauge it's impact, especially if you start with it. But I mean, it's more regen. This could be a good place for some of those heal set procs, but if you have a choice between here or health put them there. It's a stronger power than health so shotting for effect means more.

Reconstruction: Taking actual damage? Heal it back up. If you aren't taking a lot of fire you won't need this. Mine spends a lot of time sitting there doing nothing. But when you want it, it's really nice to have. Slot for healing first, recharge and end reduction as desired.

Quick Recovery: It's stamina but better. Who doesn't want more endurance. Like the note on fast healing above, could be a good place for procs but put them in stamina first.

Instant Regen: Set and forget toggle power. This doesn't boost your regen like it does in the other sets, but the constantly refreshing absorb helps mitigate regens usual vulnerability to burst damage. Slot for healing.

Dismiss Pain: Another passive but having higher HP makes regen effects better so probably a good one to toss a slot in. Can also take heal procs but I'd put them in either of your other heal passives first.

Integration: Your other core toggle. Mez resist and regeneration. Take it. Slot for heals.

Resilience: Another passive this one damage and stun resist. I reccomend taking this for 2 reasons. 1, layering of mitigation is really good so putting some resistance over your regen is solid. 2, it can be a good place to throw those resistance set unique IOs. 2.5, if you ever have to revive yourself with an inspiration, you get to not be stunned.

Second Wind: It's a self rez power with the added perk that it can be used like a second reconstruction. I personally like self rez powers but it's very much a personal taste thing. Either way, probably wouldn't add slots.

Moment of Glory: Defensive build up. Need to soak an alpha for the team? Pop this and no worries. Slot for recharge.

Power pools:
Fighting is a really solid choice here, tough helps your regen count for more and if you are IOing for defense you may as well get weave too.