[Paladin Sentinel] There's A Techsplosion In My Pants!

Here's my own tweak on the Paladin sentinel, loosely based on RepublicanShredder's Mr. Freeze. It's more a matter of personal preference but I figured I'd put it out there as I change quite a few things from his build, and it sounds like a new round of BBLOB's are imminent.

Naridia -- Kalence

Spec

Skip the power passive. Why? Because most of your damage will come from tech explosions, which are NOT influenced by power bonuses. This build gives you a unique amount of durability AND damage that you can succeed at ANY difficulty. No gimmicks, just lots and lots of explosions of various kinds.

For specific choices, most should be fairly obvious. Energy drain is built to provide as much protection as possible, and radius. Be warned you will only get the shield restore and protection on valid targets (meaning synthetic units with any form of health/protection, or barriers and shields on organics; hitting a husk will NOT give you protection or shield restore). You will know you have the damage protection on you because there will be a faint hexagonal glow pattern on your character.

Incinerate is built for reliable damage. The radius evolution at rank 4 allows you to hit targets that roll when they dodge if you angle it just right (arc the incinerate upward and you are almost guaranteed to hit those annoying marauders) You should avoid using this if your target has not been primed with snap freeze.

Finally, snap freeze should be pretty obvious. Reach is amazing. So is 10% more damage for everyone. The 100% tech damage evolution in tier 6 is bugged (you get it for free on the Paladin), so go for damage and weakness until it's fixed.

As for Fitness, the durability evo at rank 4 doesn't give you very much in the way of shields, so I go melee. For the final evolution the choice is entirely up to you; my personal preference is fire to give another way to prime for fire explosions, as the cryo shield won't explode if followed by a snap freeze.

Weapons/Gear

For weapons, you have a lot of leeway here, but I will recommend keeping your encumbrance below 180%. You live off tech explosions, so you want a short cooldown so you can maximize that. That being said, I personally roll with a Lancer X, because it allows you to ignore ammo crates entirely while still being accurate, damaging, and light. You MUST get a mag upgrade with any weapon that overheats, as it makes them much more useful. If you want to go more of a melee route, a Wraith with either melee mod and the piercing mod or piercing barrel works well. I tend to prefer the lancer because it keeps this build viable on larger maps, where a Wraith restricts you to being effective only on the smaller ones. Just make sure you have something that allows you to deal with guardians, phantoms, and bosses in between tech abilities. Some other viable weapons I've used include the scorpion pistol, paladin pistol, and N7 Hurricane.

As far as gear goes: Geth Scanner. As we've learned, most of the % increase mods actually give you far less than you think (because of how they stack). Since snap freeze goes through walls and you should be using a weapon with piercing, this mod will allow you to kill with maximum efficiency AND see through all the smoke Cerberus puts down.

Equipment, you have a few choices. For ammo, DO NOT USE DISRUPTOR, INCENDIARY, OR CRYO. Apparently these count as level 1 explosions (instead of the 6 that your abilities will have) and overwrite your current tech effect. Because of the weapon load-out I usually take (lancer with standard barrel and clip capacity), AP Ammo is the only viable choice. For the armor slot, power efficiency seems to be the best bet and power amplifier won't affect tech explosions (but you can still get it for some decent incinerate damage) If you want to use a heavier weapon loadout, make sure you use efficiency. Use a weapon consumable to match your primary weapon.

Play Style

There is no fixed rule on how to play, other than this: avoid using the same power twice in a row on the same target (unless a teammate is a designated detonator for you; Novaguards are awesome at this). Your power is in your explosions. Be vigilant when using energy drain, as it will only detonate if you get the drain effect (meaning the target has shields/barriers, or is mechanical). Do not forget your shield melee primes targets for explosions; a good combo once you have things under control is melee--> snap freeze, ad infinitum, until everything is dead. You'll get lots of explosions. On large technical units like primes and atlases you can cycle through all three abilities (avoiding melee since that usually ends in tears).

Don't be afraid to face down enemies, but do so when you're sure they're only coming from one direction. Use your heavy melee shield to absorb heavy unit's attacks, such as pyros, blasts from primes/scions, or ranged attacks from atlases, banshees, or praetorians. YOU CAN STILL BE GRABBED WHEN USING YOUR SHIELD (as well as hit by dragoon's melee and brute's charge), so do not think it will save you if any of those are in your face (even if they are just kind of close, they will probably be able to shoot around it). Also remember your shield is GREAT at defending people at single or 4-point hacking objectives from ranged baddies; you should usually avoid doing the hacking yourself to protect them.

As a final thought, I found cryo explosion to be the most powerful (which is surprising, I would have expected fire), so when I play I pretty much always open up with cryo on a target, then I energy drain if it will explode (meaning synthetic, shield or barrier), otherwise incinerate. That combo will kill almost any low-end mook (including nemesis) and usually results in a cryo explosion if they are full health when you start.