project Collaborative Project: A Guide to Sentinel Sets

[Mack008]

Just stumbled across something amusing with Dark Armor.  If you're out of combat, Oppressive Gloom is suppressed.  

 

I'm running two sources of stealth (Cloak of Darkness and the Celerity enhancement) and can stand in the middle of a group with nothing happening.  As soon as I attack, the stun effect kicks in for everyone in range.

 

I'm curious if Cloak of Fear does the same thing.  Will test it after I level up a bit.

 

--Edit--

Yep, CoF does it too.

Edited November 17, 2024 by Mack008

[desarix]

On 12/11/2022 at 5:56 PM, drbuzzard said:

Sentinel Powersets Advice part 1 : Primary

 

 

 

 

 

Fire Blast

This set is probably the damage king. It has 4 single target attacks where 3 of the 4 are very solid. A recent revision to the animation of fire blast cut the time substantially, and it is now 70 DPAS or so. This means you can chain fire blast, blaze, and blazing blast for a very mean chain. It is not possible to remove knockback from blazing blast since it is both knockback and repel, so don't waste any effort on it.  The nuke is also PBAOE (but high damage). Blazing blast is what turns me off about the set, if you either like that or can deal with it, you can't object to the set's damage. Fireball is another very high DPAS AOE attack. The other AOEs are a rain and a narrow cone, so I consider this less of a great AOE set than it is commonly billed as. Looks are great with lots of burnination to make you happy. You won't likely go wrong picking this set.

 

 

Sorry to ask this because I have not played Fire Blast before but the description for Blazing Blast does not talk about a repel effect so was it changed from the KB and repel? From Mids Reborn that is where I am getting the description.

[FupDup]

47 minutes ago, desarix said:

Sorry to ask this because I have not played Fire Blast before but the description for Blazing Blast does not talk about a repel effect so was it changed from the KB and repel? From Mids Reborn that is where I am getting the description.

It has both a KB and repel component: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.fire_blast.blazing_blast&at=sentinel

 

The good news is that the effect is so small in practice (the magnitude is high but the duration is very short) that it's very easy to control and you can basically ignore it. 

[lemming]

12 minutes ago, FupDup said:

It has both a KB and repel component: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=sentinel_ranged.fire_blast.blazing_blast&at=sentinel

 

The good news is that the effect is so small in practice (the magnitude is high but the duration is very short) that it's very easy to control and you can basically ignore it. 

Yea, it disturbed me the first time I tried it, but my fire sentinel works with it now.  It's like some of the blaster secondaries like Ki Push.   It's a useful mitigation tool and does decent damage, though you can knock stuff out of your range.

[desarix]

I see thank you so much. I can see how it could be useful.

[evetsleep]

One of my most common uses for Blazing Blast, beyond damage, is to punk Super Stunners into a corner and/or away from team mates before they croak.   Everyone hates them and there real party poopers if you are standing near them when they die the first time (unless you're electric armor of course).

 

It's actually quite useful as a positioning power.

[Underfyre]

 Secondary Powerset: Psionic Armor

• Medium Healing, Low-Medium Defense, High Resistance, Medium Clickyness, Low Defense Debuff resistace
• Stealth, Perception, Protection vs all Status effects (-taunt/placate)

 

Psionic Armor is the new armor secondary for Issue 28, Page 2. This is a resistance based set that has a spattering of defense and regeneration thrown in. The Devour Psyche ability is the crown jewel of this set with regards to damage output. It has a -regen component that opens up the debuff to all of the primaries that wouldn't have access to it naturally. Debuffing regen is powerful in that for every bit of health a mob doesn't regenerate is additional damage you don't have to do. It also debuffs recovery, so if you zero out their endurance they also aren't attacking very much. Very powerful with Electric Blast and Short Circuit. The build in my DPS Spreadsheet doesn't include it, but that is more aimed at finding single target throughput.

Beginner's Overview
 
Defensively, the set piles on resists to everything but Toxic, then has very low levels of positional defenses. There is a moderately sized absorb in the kit that also adds some regen, and finally Devour Psyche adds more regen on top. So kind of a blend of a regen set paired with a resist set.

Slotting
 
Basic Slotting

Aim for 1 End Reduction and 3 Resistance IOs in the powers that want them. 3 Heals, 1 End Red and 1 Recharge in Devour Psyche and Psychokinetic Barrier should do you. An End Mod in Devour Psyche might also be nice, it'll help offset the 4-5 (7-8 with pool powers) toggles you'll have running. 1 End reduction and 1 Defense IO in your two +Def powers is sufficient (just defense in the auto power obviously), put more defense if you like but you're only boosting 3.5% so it won't go far. I can't even begin to explain how to "basically" slot Aura of Madness. Too much going on and it doesn't even use endurance. Maybe just throw an accuracy (or two) in there to make sure it's hitting. At 80% base, against +1 mobs that you may encounter during leveling, it needs a boost of at least 55.5% to max hit chance.
 
Advanced Slotting

As this is a resistance/regen set at heart, getting 5 LotG is a big ask. 4 is reasonable, probably baseline, but 5 is sacrificing an ability slot just to get another defense power you probably didn't need. Both Precognition and Mask Presence hold defense sets, so those plus Hover/Combat Jumping and Weave are your 4. So at first glance we have 3 resistance toggles, a clicky absorb (with regen), a clicky debuff/buff (with more regen), a defense toggle (with stealth), an aura, and a defense auto. And a tier 9, but I generally ignore those. So once again we'll aim to use 26 slots for the secondary while shoring up our defenses as much as we can. We'll never have enough resists to just keep taking punches over and over.
 

• Psychic Wall - This is a 4-slot ability. This your standard Smashing (21%) resist starter, but instead of a matching amount of Lethal resist we have a matching amount of Psi resist. The rider on this is actually the Lethal (14%) resist. With the ambition of shoring defenses there are 3 options for sets that have defense bonuses. Reactive Armor will get you a small amount S/L/E/N defense for 4 slots. Aegis will get you a good amount of F/C defense for 3 slots. Unbreakable Guard will get you a good amount of Melee defense for 4 slots. If you go with Aegis, you can leave it at 3 slots, or tack on one of the various unique enhancements.

• Psionic Shield - Another 4-slot ability. This toggle is your "everything else" resist power. It has the E/N resists at 21%, 14% F/C and Toxic, 21% resist to end drain, and a little 5% psi resist rider. Follow Psychic Wall slotting.

• Mask Presence - So this is a skippable power. It is a stealth power, so that can be handy. It comes with 3.5% defense to only melee/ranged while in combat, no aoe defense, which is kind of questionable. It also has a "first strike" 40% damage boost out of stealth like Ninjitsu, which is kind of nice. It's a good place to tuck away LotG Global Recharge, and you do need that, but if you're ability hungry and need to burn something off, this is it. Otherwise I would just leave this at 1 slot with LotG in it. Or one of the other uniques. If, at the end of the day, you have extra slots, put them here to reduce end cost and get some set bonuses from LoTG, or put some other unique enhancements. Defense sets have a lot of them.

• Impenetrable Mind - This is your Mez resist toggle. It basically resists everything out there but Taunt and Placate with a 7% Psi resist rider to boot. The issue being that the only thing that can be enhanced in this power is that 7% Psi resist. And the endurance cost. So you can choose to 4 slot this and follow the other toggle slotting suggestions, or you can just minimally slot it with an end IO and/or some uniques. Your call. You're going to want defense bonuses from somewhere and your choices are slim.

• Devour Psyche - This is a bread & butter ability for the set that increases your regen/recovery (stacks per target hit) while debuffing the enemies regen/recovery. It is also auto-hit 10 target cone, which is out of character for Sentinels that usually only have 6 target cones with an accuracy check. When paired with an endurance sapping primary (Electric, and Storm to a lesser degree), this has the potential to neuter enemies for a while. Slotting-wise it can take Heals and End Modification. Numina's and Preemptive Optimization both have 3.75% to Ranged for 6 slots. Performance shifter has 3.13% to AoE. Otherwise the heal sets are a great place to pull in some global recharge with 7.5% from Panacea and 8.75% from Preventative Medicine, 5% from others. Of consideration, procs will only have a ~14% chance to trigger in this ability. You can put the Panacea/Performance shifter procs here, but don't bank on it coming in clutch when you need it. Preventative Medicine, however, is an auto-proc enhancement. Whether it triggers or not is dependent on you current health and isn't tied to ability use.

• Psychokinetic Barrier - This is an absorb that gives a 50% regen boost and resistance to regen/recovery/recharge/endurance debuffs. This ability only takes Heal enhancements. Slot Similar to Devour Psyche with the global recharge set bonuses, or snag that 3.75% Ranged defense from Numina's. If you're choosing between where to put Panacea and Preventative Medicine, just read the Devour Psyche description. Procs will have around a 50% chance to trigger here.

• Precognition - An auto power with 3.5% defense to ranged/melee/aoe, and another 7% defense to Psi. If you were wondering where your Defense Debuff Resistance was, this is where and it's a paltry 6.4%. Better than sets that have no resistance at all to be sure, but, oof. Anyway, as an auto power, you can also just 1 slot this with LotG.

• Aura of Madness - This has a 20% chance to apply one of several mez debuffs to a target with every 4 second tick, and the mez debuff applied has an additional stat debuff rider. On top of that, it applies a minor damage debuff. Primary among the stat debuffs are the regen and resistance debuffs, but they only last for 4 seconds with a 20% chance to trigger on any given tick, so they average out to be negligible at best. The next hitch with this ability is that it drains your health instead of your endurance. But that is also a negligible amount. So; Options. This ability can be laden with procs, and they will have a ~30% chance to proc since this is a toggle. They will proc regardless of which mez goes off. So to a degree you could almost argue this is still a damage aura? At base 80% accuracy you will need to shore it up, probably with a straight 53% accuracy IO. The other option is to skip it. It's a wonky aura that randomly throws mez debuffs out that you have to be in melee range to benefit from. If your play-style is just nuking from ranged, don't worry about this.

          NOTE: This ability no longer has a damage aura attached, that was a bug. With the damage aura it was a required ability. Now it is not.

• Memento Mori - This your temporary god mode. If you want to call it that. It requires an enemy to be in range to use, and can be used as a revive which also requires an enemy to be in range. It is probably the weakest T9 in the game. Most of the T9s are skippable for Sentinels, but this one is almost a required skip. If you elect to take it, just slot this with recharge IOs.

 
In total we've theoretically used 23 of your 26 remaining slots on the high end here. You will have a few spares.

Skippable Powers

 

•    Mask Presence - Only gives melee/range defense once attacked. Which I guess is fine if you need the defense in those two positions.
•    Aura of Madness - If you don't plan to be in melee range you won't benefit from having this running.
•    Memento Mori - Weak T9.

Complementary Choices

Considering the ability to hinder end recovery in this set, having the ability to also clear out that endurance bar, then floor recovery completely, would be clutch. Only Electrical Blast has that capability with Short Circuit. Storm Blast also has a minor ability to drain endurance in its Storm Cell lightning, Cat 5 lightning, Lightning Strike and Chain Lightning. On the Epic Pool front, both Electricity Mastery and Mu Mastery are loaded with abilities that drop endurance.

 

Visually not a lot is going on with the set, so nothing is holding you back from pairing it with anything on that front.

 

Thematically you can also basically justify any pairing with a good story. Otherwise I'd say Psy Blast for obvious reasons. Archery, AR, BR or DP because they're just weapons augmenting your Psi Armor abilities. Energy as a physical project of your Psychic abilities. Dark Blast as an darker opposite of Psy Blast, AoM even has skull graphics in it.
 
Incarnate Abilities

Ageless Core, Musculature Core, Assault Radial. Always and forever❤️

[KaizenSoze]

Nice write up on Psi Armor. I will quibble about one thing. 

 

Clarion Radial should be mention as it boost both the end drain, not recovery, and the absorb.

[Underfyre]

I kinda cut those mentions short because this thread has been made defunct, and I intend to start a new one and just explain the Incarnates and Pool Powers in their own posts. You'll note i just cut the Pool power mention out entirely here.