8 réponses à ce sujet

[RedCaesar97]

I find building an Assault Sentinel is pretty easy: (1) Spend points in your passive class (Defender) and evolve it to Guardian for the extra 30% cooldown. (2) Focus on getting your 3 tech upgrades (Citadel store, Kasumi loyalty, Archangel recruitment) for the extra 20% tech cooldown (50% total), while spending points in Tech Armor. (3) Evolve Tech Armor to Assault Armor. (4) Take shotgun training. (5) Spend additional points wherever you like.

I'm looking to build a Sentinel that focuses on stripping defenses (shields, armor, and barriers). I have a few choices:

Build 1 - Warp and Overload:
Area Throw - 4
Heavy Warp - 4
Assault Armor - 4
Area Overload - 4
Cryo Blast - 0
Guardian/Raider - 4
Stasis - 1

Build 2 - Overload and Reave
Area Throw - 4
Warp -1 (for the occasional warp bomb)
Assault Armor - 4
Area Overload - 4
Cryo Blast - 0
Guardian/Raider - 4
Area Reave - 4

Build 3 - Warp and Energy Drain
Area Throw - 4
Heavy Warp - 4
Assault Armor - 4
Overload - 1
Cryo Blast - 0
Guardian/Raider - 4
Area Energy Drain - 4

A few notes:
Note 1: I am not against Cryo Blast, but Throw is on a shorter cooldown, and using Mordin's Cryo Blast is better. I strip defenses and he freezes them. And with Jack, Samara/Morinth, and Jacob, I could strip defenses > pull > Throw/Warp bomb.

Note 2: Power Armor provides a 15% power damage increase, but I find from personal experience Assault Armor is better when casting powers: With Power Armor, you can cast 1 or 2 powers before the armor blows off and you are left with health. You can then cast one more power before you need to put Tech Armor back on. With Assault Armor, you cast 1 or 2 powers before it blows off, but you are left with extra shields. You can then cast another power before you lose your shields, and then cast another power before you need to put Tech Armor back on. 

QUESTION 1: Which Build do you people think is better for stripping defenses?

QUESTION 2: For a defense-stripping Sentinel, is Guardian better for the extra cooldown, or is Raider better for the extra power damage? I know that the extra power damage is better against opponents with multiple defense layers, but since you need to cast multiple powers anyway, Guardian seems like a better choice. And for standard troops, would Guardian + tech/biotic damage upgrades + Armor be enough?

[Mars Nova]

On my first sentinel I went with Reave and Overload, plus Guardian. I think Raier could be a viable option though, since it also reduces your cooldown. Not as much as Guardian albeit, but 20% is still good.

[sigma_draconis]

Question1: Having tried both a Reave/Overload (both area evolution) and a Warp/Overload build, I would recommend the Reave combo only if you need good crowd control. Reave is good as an AOE spell but slow to act, so Warp is much better at stripping down single enemy defences. Also Warp explosions can also act as your crowd control (though this requires a good biotic teamate like Samara).

Question 2: Raider sounds good with the extra damage, but you already receive so many damage upgrades (both Biotic and Tech) as well as bonus from Power Armor and the Blood Dragon Armor. Guardian becomes much more useful (especially to your survivability) with the lower cooldown (allowing you to cast Tech Armor more often) and better health bonus. The bonus to Paragon/Renegade also helps if you want to keep all squad loyalties.

[Locutus_of_BORG]

Build 1 + Shotgun of choice, imo.

Assault Armor Sentinel is about Quantity As Quality, imo. Spam Warp, Overload and Throw, with Stasis as backup/boss hoser, while pounding enemies with your preferred shotgun.

[RedCaesar97]

Locutus_of_BORG wrote...

Build 1 + Shotgun of choice, imo.

Assault Armor Sentinel is about Quantity As Quality, imo. Spam Warp, Overload and Throw, with Stasis as backup/boss hoser, while pounding enemies with your preferred shotgun.

I have not decided on the bonus weapon, yet. I'm likely going to start a new game with an existing ME2 Sentinel that has Assault Rifle training. If I take shotguns, I may end up playing like an Assault Sentinel: Active Assault Armor ---> rush in with shotgun and start shooting --> keep shooting until Assault Armor breaks --> repeat previous steps. I have another Assault Sentinel planned (I deleted my first one because I want to run the character through ME1 again first).

Just from my previous experiences with the ME2 Sentinel, I have a love/hate relationship with Tech Armor. Tech Armor (Assault Armor) is fantastic for Assault Sentinels who want to run in with a shotgun. If you want to play more of a support role like I want to (I strip the defenses, my squadmates can then freeze, pull, throw, hack/dominate), then Tech Armor can become cumbersome: you spend more time putting the armor back on instead of casting powers, which seems counter-productive. 

I am aware that activating Tech Armor can reset the cooldown of your squadmate's powers. This is good for squadmates with long cooldowns (such as Miranda's Overload or Heavy Warp, or Tali/Legion's drones), but since the Sentinel can strip defenses, I find the best supporting squadmates are Jack (pull), Samara/Morinth (pull), and Mordin (Cryo Blast), with passive abilities and upgrades that can reduce their recharge time to about 6s or less anyway. I would only take Jacob (who also has pull), Zaeed, and Grunt for their ammo powers if I feel an ammo power is necessary or warranted.

Still, shotguns are fun and I'll take your opinion into account.

[Alamar2078]

I personally prefer Assault Armor myself but have you considered Power Armor as it gives bonus damage to things like Warp, Overload, Reave, etc.

How about:
-- Throw 2 [Plenty to kill a husk, shove someone off a bridge, or down a Krogan if need be]
-- Warp 4 [Unstable or Heavy are both nice]
-- Power Armor 4 [+15% damage to powers] ... hmm I still like Assault Better
-- Overload 4
-- Guardian 4 [lower cooldowns are always useful ... I forget the other evolution]
-- Reave / Energy Drain / Stasis / Warp Ammo / whatever for 3 points
-- Cryo 0

There shouldn't be a protection that you can't strip fairly well ; you should be able to hang back & cast quickly with biotic/tech cooldown && Guardian ;

[RedCaesar97]

Alamar2078 wrote...

I personally prefer Assault Armor myself but have you considered Power Armor as it gives bonus damage to things like Warp, Overload, Reave, etc.

From my experience, power armor is fine on Hardcore or lower difficulty, almost useless on Insanity. If you want extra power damage, then Raider is better than Guardian (but 10% less cooldown). I have several problems with Power armor:
1) You will not notice the extra power damage against basic troops
2) When it blows off, you are left with only health
3) You are constantly putting it back on to get the power damage boost back instead of casting powers

Assault Armor is just better for almost everything on Insanity.

[RedCaesar97]

Your build suggestion is interesting, but choosing Reave/Energy drain when you maxed Overload and Warp is very redundant. Stasis is the better choice but I'd rather leave that at 1 point. I want to focus on stripping defenses with powers as set up for a squadmate freeze/pull, which I can follow with a throw or warp bomb.

I actually had a build similar to your suggestion but I did not focus on defense-stripping enough to be useful and I did not pick the right squadmates half the time.

[Praetor Knight]

RedCaesar97 wrote...

QUESTION 1: Which Build do you people think is better for stripping defenses?

Since you are considering a Sentinel that strips defenses then I would consider this setup:

(Lvl -- Power)
  02 -- Throw
  04 -- Heavy Warp
  04 -- Power Armor
  02 -- Overload
  02 -- Cryo Blast
  04 -- Raider | Guardian       (Guardian might be better in the long run)
  04 -- Area Energy Drain

The key is to never let Power Armor drop and to use Energy Drain to sustain it when necessary.

Heavy Warp will help do some nice damage. And if you decide to use the Blood Dragon Armor then you can have 45% boost to power damage, But going for armor pieces that boost shields higher would be better.

Also you are likely going to be best served with a shotgun of your choice (or the Viper since the idea is to not go CQC as a power stripping Sentinel), the Locust and Arc Projector. Pistols would be what you like best, my personal preference is between the Predator or Phalanx.

Lastly, points are put into Overload to be able to use Cryo Blast when necessary, like against Husks.

QUESTION 2: For a defense-stripping Sentinel, is Guardian better for the extra cooldown, or is Raider better for the extra power damage? I know that the extra power damage is better against opponents with multiple defense layers, but since you need to cast multiple powers anyway, Guardian seems like a better choice. And for standard troops, would Guardian + tech/biotic damage upgrades + Armor be enough?

To answer this one would have to calculate what the actual difference is between 15%, 30% and 45% power damage, and the 10% cooldown difference.

I need to look for where I've see that calculated before.