Toughest Sentinel?

[RicoZaid]

How would you build the toughest Sentinel? What power sets and epic would you start with and what IOs and Incarnate Alpha would you take?

Edited August 6, 2019 by RicoZaid

[oldskool]

What do you mean by "toughest" Sentinel? 

I don't want to be flippant here, but this could either be a productive thread or a "who is the prettiest pig with lipstick" contest. 

[Destlin]

I'M THE PRETTIEST PIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daHob]

53 minutes ago, Destlin said:

I'M THE PRETTIEST PIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You have to give it to him. He is the prettiest pig.

[Rathulfr]

How would you build the toughest Scrapper?  That's basically the same thing, given that Sentinel secondaries are essentially almost the same as Scrapper secondaries*. 

(*: yes, we all know they're not exactly the same, but same enough to answer this question, i think)

 

(edit) My vote goes to either Willpower or Invulnerability, but that's only because they seem pretty tough to me.  Heck, even my Regen is fairly "tough", after a fashion.  I don't really pseudotank with my Regen like I do with my WP or SR Sents, though.  I haven't yet played Bio or Rad, but what I've read about them indicates that they're probably even tougher.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Rathulfr

[Sovera]

Anything that reaches 45% defense and has a built in heal. Of course the 'toughest at WHAT' applies.  Pylons? That implies long term sustain and enough res to mitigate the hits. +4x8 in a team?  Not need for much with a team sharing agro. +4x8 solo? Burst damage taking down the mobs mitigates the need to be all tricked out in defense.

 

All around toughest thing impossible to kill? No such thing, the devs placed tricks around the game to prevent that. Either auto hit abilities or sapping or carnies or whatever.

[Sunsette]

An Energy Aura Sentinel built entirely defensively can go well over softcap on every type defense and have mid-30s resistance to all types, next patch will come with +10% to +15% HP, and can T9 for another 40 to 60% HP and SR levels of DDR. Pair with a Dark primary for more self healing and insurance -to-hit.

 

An SR sentinel can do basically the same thing with slightly more susceptibility to sudden one shots (better click heal, not as good resistance and no health boost) but less offensive cost. 

 

Invuln can't afford to waste anything on psi but is the toughest for average non psi content with investment, although it has a hard time (not impossible) making perma hasten under any circumstance.

 

In all cases, your incarnate choices would be:

- Alpha: Agility Radial

- Judgment: any

- Interface: Diamagnetic

- Lore: Follow standard Lore advice

- Destiny: Barrier

- Hybrid: I'd recommend you go for damage over survivability here, the cost is too high

 

You may want to combine Fire Blast with any of these, as your highly defensive IO choices will reduce damage significantly, so best to start with the most straight forward high damage. But Dark Blast is the best choice for just surviving. Between that and Diamagnetic, you'll almost never get debuffed below softcap effectively.

 

My votes are for EA and Invuln as they can best handle many of the arcane abilities that are very popular in Dark Astoria.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Sunsette

[Heraclea]

I would not try to build a Sentinel like a tanker or even a heavy scrapper or brute.  Doing so seems to be missing the point.  You're still a ranged or AoE DPS and debuffing character.  Building up defenses at the expense of your core functions isn't part of the plan. 

 

I consider my water/WP sentinel adequately tough; tough enough to work the Roman wall at any rate.  But to make her so, I took an idea from a spines/WP scrapper I had back in i23 and frankenslotted everything that would take it with Pacing of the Turtle Recharge Slow procs, starting with Whirlpool.  Everything that takes a tick of damage from it is subject to potential recharge penalties.  These come fairly reliably, especially since I am boosting the movement slow of my powers by using another one or two from the set in some attacks.  Anyone wanting to come at me will take some time.  I'll see them coming, and cast Ninja Caltrops at my feet, persuading them to move away, and subjecting them to still more ticks from a -recharge proc. 

 

This works quite well, well enough that I was never tempted to take Tough or Weave on the character like I would with a heavy scrapper or tanker.  I run Leadership toggles instead, which help me find teams. 

[Sunsette]

I do agree that it's probably not playing to a Sentinel's strengths to go for heavy tank mode, but I can also understand why someone would want to build for maximal defense. The flying fortress is a comic archetype as valid as any other.

I will note that Leadership and Fighting are both considered to be a Sentinel standard in the burgeoning build community here, Hasten a little bit less so, with only the last pool considered to be flexible (and usually ends up in Concealment, Flight, or Leaping, all of which offer a +def power).

[drbuzzard]

Given that it is easy to softcap, and has very good defense debuff resistance, I tend to think that SR can make the most durable sentinels. It's what I find in my stable of sentinels. I have WP, SR, FA, and Ninja all at 50. I have not decked out FA and Ninja fully, but I'm also not really sure I want to go to the trouble given where I see them to be currently. I am working up an Energy aura build, and I think it will be pretty tough, but harder to softcap than positional. I have worked up a build with electric armor which caps resistance most of the way around (except psi, neg, and toxic) but have yet to start the alt. 

 

Also on the subject of incarnate, my SR has spiritual for the alpha as I consider perma-hasten a high priority on any sentinel build as getting nukes up often is very nice. 

[Heraclea]

11 hours ago, Sunsette said:

I will note that Leadership and Fighting are both considered to be a Sentinel standard in the burgeoning build community here, Hasten a little bit less so, with only the last pool considered to be flexible (and usually ends up in Concealment, Flight, or Leaping, all of which offer a +def power).

It is likely that I will take Tough and Weave on my second sentinel, who is pistols/rad and lives much closer to the action than my water/WP, who is completely ranged and has many tools to keep mobs at bay.  For her I felt no need for it, except occasionally with War Wolves. 

 

I rather dislike Fighting pool, because it forces you to waste a power on a useless melee attack.  I take it on melees but don't like it. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Heraclea

[oldskool]

@drbuzzard SR is great, but really any set that can soft-cap on a Sentinel is really tough to take down. DDR be damned!  On my Nin, enemies have to hit me first for this to be a big problem.  I can both set the terms of the engagement (I'm practically invisible) and turn enemies into allies (Blinding Powder).  If I feel there are other problematic melee, then they can dance in my Caltrops from Ninja Tools.  DDR hasn't been a huge issue, and I have been debuffed more than a few times.  I also don't sit there and slug it out.   SR is absolutely better at that. 

[drbuzzard]

It's a matter of how and what I like to play. I tend to get too much tanker mentality in my head, and cascading failure from lack of DDR is a thing when I play a character hard. I play against things which do a lot of the debuffs, and once one lands, without enough DDR, you can pretty easily get that cascade failure. This is not me blasting a few people with a team, this is me taking on x8 spawns solo. 

[Sovera]

I tried a BR/SR thinking it would be a beast in defensive terms, but found the lack of self healing too much a problem. Throwing the character at a +4x8 had it die very very fast with Aid Self unable to keep up between interrupts (a single interrupt IO wasn't of much help) and the low-ish 30% heal despite being a fire farm (no cascading failures) and being softcapped.

 

Much like Oldskool I believe Ninjutsu to be the near perfect secondary and the more I play Bio chasing the 30% extra damage mirage the more I think it so. In the end my Bio builds require me to keep purples to softcap which could be reds instead, and that by itself replaces the 30% damage boost of bio.

[Sunsette]

3 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

It's a matter of how and what I like to play. I tend to get too much tanker mentality in my head, and cascading failure from lack of DDR is a thing when I play a character hard. I play against things which do a lot of the debuffs, and once one lands, without enough DDR, you can pretty easily get that cascade failure. This is not me blasting a few people with a team, this is me taking on x8 spawns solo. 

My EAs sit around 48 to 50 softcap defense and used to sit around much higher when I used the Agility alpha; I perma Hasten without it now.

 

I literally farm +4×8 content solo, and Cimerorans are only a little bit dangerous if I run into melee range on them without activating barrier (which gets me minimum another 5%).

 

SR is great but it plateaus relatively quickly compared to EA and Invuln.

[Knottewe]

43 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I tried a BR/SR thinking it would be a beast in defensive terms, but found the lack of self healing too much a problem. Throwing the character at a +4x8 had it die very very fast with Aid Self unable to keep up between interrupts (a single interrupt IO wasn't of much help) and the low-ish 30% heal despite being a fire farm (no cascading failures) and being softcapped.

 

Much like Oldskool I believe Ninjutsu to be the near perfect secondary and the more I play Bio chasing the 30% extra damage mirage the more I think it so. In the end my Bio builds require me to keep purples to softcap which could be reds instead, and that by itself replaces the 30% damage boost of bio.

 

I've had much the same experience. I have 4 sentinels, 2 in the high 30s and 2 at 50 (both bio) and I feel you have to sacrifice too much to get to or near to soft caps with bio. Mostly its wasted slots but  its also wasting set bonuses.

 

So, my fifth sentinel is ninjutsu. I chose it because of all the secondaries I got to my defensive goals with the least amount of slots. As a bonus I got an decent heal, a great end management button, built in stealth so I don't have to take super speed (btw with ninja run active its only 2 mph slower than super speed), and blinding powder. Blinding powder is great for stealthing missions and you can slot the purple confuse set in it which has some great set bonuses. As an extra added bonus you also do 20% extra damage on your first attack out of stealth, which is great for dropping your t9 at the beginning of a fight.

 

The only cons for ninjutsu are the clicky mez resist, end management is a click (its a really good click though), the lack of the 33%, and the lack of resists. Ultimately though I'm not a tank so I don't really care about the resists, I'm still hardier than anyone else with ranged attacks. And as far as the damage goes I really feel the slotting freedom will make up and hopefully surpass the difference but I'm a couple of purple sets away from a finished build so I'll have to report back.

 

 

[nihilii]

I'm echoing some of what Sunsette already said, but invul is up there if you want to be absurdly tough against anything that isn't Psi. Good S/L resistance, defenses are decent, reach 120+ max end with some end drain resistance, some slow resistance, some defense debuff resistance. It has a little bit of everything. If you go Vigor alpha + Rebirth destiny, you can stack very high levels of regen on your 2400 hit points, with a 1100 heal to boot. Your resistance to non-S/L stuff isn't capped either so invul stacks very well with Melee Hybrid, the regen + resistance one. "Flying fortress" is a nice way to put it.

Edited August 8, 2019 by nihilii

[Fedifensor]

Most sets will let you be pretty tough.  I run Fire/Fire, and while people think of it mainly as an offensive build, I run with 35% Ranged/Energy/Negative Defense* and capped Smashing/Lethal/Fire Resistance, plus a toggle Heal Over Time.  There are very few enemies in the game that can bypass that combination of defense, resistance, and healing. 

 

* The only reason I'm not capped on ranged defense is that I chose to spread out my Archetype IOs to get +50% range...which also helps with survivability on a Sentinel.

[BrandX]

Soft capped DP/NIN.  I find most (there is the exception) deaths of mine are from not watching my END than anything else.  

[SmalltalkJava]

A dark blast with a resistance secondary that can get highish defenses seems in theory that it would be tough.    The dark blast would defense cap out the percentage of hits you take and the resistances would soak the damage that gets through.  

 

Is theee a resistance set that matches this criteria? 

 

Hmm. Maybe SR and go with sets that give resists  

Edited August 10, 2019 by SmalltalkJava

[Sunsette]

4 hours ago, SmalltalkJava said:

A dark blast with a resistance secondary that can get highish defenses seems in theory that it would be tough.    The dark blast would defense cap out the percentage of hits you take and the resistances would soak the damage that gets through.  

 

Is theee a resistance set that matches this criteria? 

 

Hmm. Maybe SR and go with sets that give resists  

That'd be invuln. Bio or WP can also qualify but won't quite softcap on most things.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Sunsette

[oldskool]

10 hours ago, SmalltalkJava said:

A dark blast with a resistance secondary that can get highish defenses seems in theory that it would be tough.    The dark blast would defense cap out the percentage of hits you take and the resistances would soak the damage that gets through.  

 

Is theee a resistance set that matches this criteria? 

 

Hmm. Maybe SR and go with sets that give resists  

Invulnerability, Willpower, and Dark Armor can all get to around 32.5% defense vs their respective categories.  Dark Armor will want to include Psi Mastery for Link Minds to get it that high, but it is possible.  

Invul has an easier time hard capping S/L resists than WP.  Dark won't cap resists without Rune of Protection, but it can still run with nearly 50% to many types.  Psionic resist on Dark is higher than all the other sets baseline and it is laughably easy to exceed 60%.  Dark Armor for Sentinels has pretty ridiculous amounts of regeneration.  The knockback hole is still annoying. 

Dark Blast won't be the greatest solution to squeeze in a soft-cap alternative at all times due to AoE target caps, but against those targets their to hit can get wrecked. 

Edited August 10, 2019 by oldskool

[nihilii]

Is the 35 feet radius Pine shows for Obscure Sustenance accurate? Sounds fantastic if true.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

Is the 35 feet radius Pine shows for Obscure Sustenance accurate? Sounds fantastic if true.

I believe so, but it only hits one target.

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

Is the 35 feet radius Pine shows for Obscure Sustenance accurate? Sounds fantastic if true.

35ft radius 1 target max.  

 

Pine's is a little deceptive about the regen and recovery aspects, but with high recharge it is easy to have it active as needed. 

 

Obscure Sustenance does a lot of stuff.  

 

It heals about 10% health up front.  Then it triggers 3 regeneration and recovery benefits.  The first regeneration/recovery effect is the strongest and only lasts 10 seconds.  The second tier regen is identical (172%) but the second tier recovery is slightly less (38% vs 60%).  The final tier regen is 100% for the full 1 minute of the buff.  The final recovery benefit is 10% for 30 seconds.  

 

The above is essentially 3 separate buffs which all stack but have different durations.  Just tested this and even without any enhancements the endurance recovery jumps to 7 end per second for 10 seconds and then down to over 4 for 20 seconds.  

60 second default recharge which can be brought down to 15-17 seconds in many builds.  Dark Blast and Water Blast are pretty great with it. 

Edited August 10, 2019 by oldskool