Are Sentinels outclassed by Explorers or is it just me?

Tech armor is good, but blinky-teleporty dashes are better!


I wonder if the +5 weapon damage (at profile level 1) is a flat bonus as it appears or a starting point adjusted by a weapon's firing rate. If it's a flat bonus, it would make SMGs rapid-fire murder throwers.

I prefer Sentinel for my build, 'cause combo damage and tech recharge rates. The Tech armor also adds some to your DR I think, I notice I take less damage in the Sentinel profile than others. Skip to the last 3 minutes of this vid for some gameplay on Hardcore, or you can watch the whole thing where I lay out my build. Only level 25 at the start, so there are alot of passive abilities I can still grab to make it even better than the gameplay shows.

Yeah, explorer and Vangaurd are the best. Usually use explorer for most everything. But if I decide to go melee heavy I choose vanguard for the boost to melee attacks.

I just wish the game would tell us just how much damage was being absorbed by the Tech Armor.

Engineer, sentinel, and infiltrator were made with really crappy bonuses.

Engineer only adds construct health and damage. There's not a single profile that increases tech power damage. The drone recharge rate on tech powers for engineer is pretty much the same as infiltrator and explorer (40%).

Problem is, constructs are useless. They do no damage whatsoever even with maxed out construct damage (which is a separate stat for some stupidm reason instead of being baked into tech power damage).

Constructs are only good for priming with electric beam or cryo shots. The assault turret fails to activate half the time when thrown on any ground that isn't flat.


Combo detonations also do so little damage. A cryo/fire blast doesn't even wipe out more than half the health of a normal unshielded grunt mob on NORMAL difficulty. Tech explosion doesn't do much better.


Tech powers other than invasion and tactical cloak are pretty shitty. Overload maxed out does less damage to shields than a biotic pull talented for damage to shields (base damage for pull talent is 600, without counting the bonus to shield damage from containment passive line).

Accuracy and weapon stability are useless as a sniper. Infiltrator is mainly useful for the headshot damage and stealth dodge. 30% headshot damage, meanwhile, explorer rank 6 gives you 15% weapon damage to ALL shots.

Since currently the Piranha with Turbocharge makes every other gun look like a joke, snipers are really underpowered in SP in terms of DPS. A piranha will wipe out an ancient fiend far quicker than any sniper, and with seeking plasma you sacrifice a sliver of damage in order for the shotgun to land all its shots even at greater distances, which just makes the gun OP.

Soldier profile is also useless because clip size is irrelevant with bioconverter augment and turbocharge, and explorer gives nearly the same weapon damage boost while lowering your tactical cloak recharge by 40% and increasing biotic powers by 40%.


They should just scrap construct damage stat for engineer and merge it with tech power damage, and give Engineer 40% tech power damage and duration increase.



They also need to buff combo detonation damage. It's pathetic and it makes combo detonation profiles obsolete next to profiles that focus on weapon damage bonuses.

Powers, especially damaging tech powers, are super gimped in this game.

Now that you say it, I probably agree. The only reason I use Sentinel is because disappear-appear animation of biotic blink (and stealth dash) tends to give me an FPS drop, and I already get enough of those in combat. Sentinel Profile bonuses are pretty underwhelming.

You can feel the difference.

If that makes sense.

Are you trying to play CQC without hugging cover and without Biotic Charge? (And not a Vanguard obviously)

If your answer is yes to the above, then Sentinels are much better than Explorers. Blink is a nice to have gimmick but Tech Armor is vital to survive when mindlessly and brutally attacking the enemy position.

p/s: If you are using Biotic Charge, then it doesnt matter if you are explorer or sentinel because Biotic Charge >>>> everything

I tried Explorer but it simply wont allow me to play like this without dying much more.

You don't need to be that tanky when you can just use turbocharge with energy drain and invasion and mow everything down with the piranha before it kills you.

Or I can just create a cheap arse Piranha with tracking bullets and shoot behind the comfort of a cover like a Quarian with a tummy ache - kills everything too. 

On Insanity I have found %combo damage>>>>>>>>>>>%power damage. An Adept with Biotic Echoes or Sentinel with %Combo Damage passive paired with the Adrenaline Module(kills reset CDs) and %combo damage augments is imo the best way to emulate Mass Effect 3's fast casting playstyle. The Explorer profile usually left mobs around 15-25% after a 1->2 spell combo leaving you kind of hanging sometimes with your cooldowns. The profiles I liked for the Sentinel were (incinerate/energy drain/throw) and (singularity/energy drain/throw). Explorer can use the Adrenaline module too with, Exploding Singularity and Lance specced at damage, Singularity->Lance->Explode Singularity usually resulted in a kill if you stacked %biotic damage power, but then if you ever want to use a Tech skill it's kind of bad while %combo is universal.


Although for what it's worth I believe the Explorer profile is better overall because of its versatility but a pure caster is better off with the Sentinel or Adept profiles. My first insanity character was basically a shotgun infiltrator running a Cloak/Energy Drain/Lance Explorer profile for 80% of the game using the Reegar+ammo powers and the tech passive that makes ammo powers prime very quickly and detonating with Energy Drain and Lance.