Bio or Energy aura secondary with fire primary

[obx]

I have two sentinels, both fire, one with bio and one with energy aura.  They are sitting mid 20s and not sur which to take up to 50.  Bio seems to have more versatility to it, but there is just something about energy aura I like.  Anyone have experience with them at 50?

[Sovera]

You will never be defense capped with Bio. In exchange you get a 30%-ish damage boost from Offense Adaptation. In practical terms you will be chugging one small purple at regular intervals to keep your defenses up while being (solidly) shored up by Ablative Shield + Rebuild DNA. The extra damage helps you to burst mobs down so they will survive for a shorter period of time where they can hurt you.

 

With EA you will never have a native 30% damage boost from your secondary, but you will be able to build yourself to reach the 45% softcap defense to most (always having a hole in negative, psi, and toxic) which means you will not be chugging purples at regular intervals and can instead chug reds, which even a small one is 25% damage. EA's heal is also a solid endurance saver so you should not have endurance woes once you have it and triple slotted for recharge.

 

It sort of evens out so pick which situation you prefer. I dropped out of Bio a while back because the 30% will do me no good if I'm faceplanted because I ran out of purples, and not having to save purples meant I could use a macro to convert all my inspirations into reds.

[oldskool]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

With EA you will never have a native 30% damage boost from your secondary, but you will be able to build yourself to reach the 45% softcap defense to most (always having a hole in negative, psi, and toxic) which means you will not be chugging purples at regular intervals and can instead chug reds, which even a small one is 25% damage. EA's heal is also a solid endurance saver so you should not have endurance woes once you have it and triple slotted for recharge.

To be fair to EA, Negative Energy defense isn't that bad a hole to plug, Toxic is rare and often auto-hit when it is bad, and Psi is overrated.  Most Psi-only attacks are tied to crowd control and often not that threatening in damage anyway.  

Negative is most certainly a weak defense on EA but it isn't that bad to plan to hit 45%+.  Also, not many enemy factions use NE attacks anyway.  

Both sets are good at 50 but the kind of content you can push solo is going to be different.  Bio Armor for Sentinels will struggle a little against Smashing/Lethal foes only because their innate defense is low to the most common damage type in the game.  You still have decent resistance to that and a few absorb options plus regeneration to help pad things out.  In a group, you won't notice that much unless you are purposefully putting yourself into positions better suited for a tanker/brute. 

In short, both are good but they are also good at very different things. 

[Teirusu]

I'd say it might depend on your play-style.  If you're like me and like to get into melee range and just nuke indiscriminately, the an /EA with near soft-cap defenses is probably the better option for that.  Near soft-cap will cause the alpha to mostly whiff on you nearly every-time.

 

If you're more of the stay at range and blast type, then /Bio might be nicer with the damage buff it provides in Offensive mode.