Mass Effect 2 Class Build - Sentinel (on Insanity difficulty)

Mass Effect 2 Class Build - Sentinel (on Insanity difficulty)
(Click here for all Mass Effect 2 Builds)

Powers:
Shield Build
  • Throw 2, Warp 4
  • Tech Armor 4 (Power Armor), Overload 3, Cryo Blast 1
  • Defender 4 (Raider)
  • Advanced Training: Energy Drain 4
  • Weapon Training: Shotgun
Anti-Barrier: Warp
Anti-Shield: Energy Drain, Overload
Anti-Armor: Warp
Anti-Regeneration: Warp
Anti-Melee: Throw, Cryo Blast

Assault Build
  • Throw 1
  • Tech Armor 4 (Power Armor), Overload 4, Cryo Blast 4
  • Defender 4 (Raider)
  • Advanced Training: Reave 4
  • Weapon Training: Shotgun
Anti-Barrier: Reave
Anti-Shield: Overload
Anti-Armor: Reave
Anti-Regeneration: Reave
Anti-Melee: Cryo Blast, Throw

Our Sentinel builds revolve around maximizing damage with Power Armor and Raider evolutions (of Tech Armor and Defender skills, respectively). The main problem with the Sentinel on Insanity difficulty is in keeping your shields up. Enemies are very accurate and shields go down very quickly. All shield skills have a fairly long cooldown (12 seconds base). Without the advantage of Tech Armor, the Sentinel is nothing special. If you cannot keep up your Tech Armor, play an Adept or Engineer instead.

Tech Armor
Power Armor is favoured here unless you insist on a close-range melee build, which is generally suicidal on Insanity difficulty, unless you can control how much exposure to gunfire you have, and have a retreat route if you cannot clear all enemies in melee quickly. Also, the Power Armor option synergizes with the Raider evolution of Defender, which also has a damage bonus.

Overload
Overload has some overlap with Energy Drain, but we nevertheless opt for rank 3 to have weapon overheating. In any case, it is good against synthetics as well.
Cryo Blast
The duration is fairly short, so quickly following up with a weapon is generally better. A sniper rifle helps us get shattering shots at any range. While frozen, targets take a lot more damage even if they do not shatter.
It appears to have the same auto-targeting as biotics so you can aim it over or around barriers.
Defender
The Raider evolution is favoured here to maximize damage, with synergy with the Power Armor damage bonus. You can go for slightly faster cooldowns with the Guardian evolution, but the difference is generally less than one second.
Shield Build: Energy Drain
This Sentinel build seeks to maximize shields by boosting it with Energy Drain when possible. Unlike using Barrier or Geth Shield Boost, this Build will not have superior shields without targets to drain. If you want an additional weapon damage bonus, then take the Geth Shield Boost.

Assault Build: Reave
This build focusses on damage and uses Advanced Training to bypass developing Throw and save a few Squad Points. Five maximized skills and token Throw for close range once you have taken down their protections. Because Throw has such a short cooldown, you can continually keep the enemy down and use gunfire or melee in between until they are killed.
Reave is also interesting for the healing ability. It lets you play more aggressively against organic opponents because you can heal and keep going when your shield is down. However, the point of a Sentinel is to keep your shield up for the damage bonus, so this is more of an emergency feature for a Sentinel.


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