Feedback on my sentinel build

Hi, I’m a new player to Last Epoch and loving it. I tried 2 builds (rogue, mage) from Maxroll which play awesomely and I was inspired to make my own sentinel build. However I am struggling at corruption 130s in monoliths and I am not sure why.

I am hoping to get some feedback on my build and how I could improve it further. I was hoping mainly for feedback on passive and skill talents as I am still working on gear. But any feedback would be great.

Build: Paladin, level 92 (Release / 1.0.3) - Last Epoch Build Planner

Only lvl 92 currently

The idea was to make a sentinel with the RP of a paladin with a sword + shield with the gameplay of charging into a group, smashing them with judgement (high health bonus dmg), further damage with rive, keeping up consecrated ground and repeat till the rive execute kicks in. All this while maintaining sigils.

I always intended to stack strength for Bastion of Honour shield, and crit multi for the rive 3rd strike. For defense leaning into block healing.

But I am struggling in monoliths 130s, I seem to fall behind in killing mobs and then eventually get overwhelmed and die.

Most likely because your expecting to tank enemies. Even with a fully geared defensive build [max resist, endurance, armor, hp, and block/dodge] your going to be murdered moment you get stunned or crit on.

Remember enemies can get +100% dmg +200% crit chance even at like corruption 200. On top of their already busted stats, even ward builds with 20K ward get zerged from 100-0 in some cases like 1s in a swarm. Best bet is to play from afar.

Treat each enemy more like in a soulslike then a arpg. Why best builds out there are those bugged that can scale ward, or just delete all that moves before it can connect.

Its a shame as it makes a lot of builds almost none viable

You made it to level 92, so the build works mostly. Once you start increasing corruption, the added health and damage to enemies can scale quickly. The good thing is that I can recommend some changes that might help.

First is that I would move some of the points in the Sentinel passive tree around. The +1 physical damage node (Overwhelm) can be nice to have, but it’s hardly essential. Much more important in a shield build would be a point in Stalwart (+3% block) and some investment in Aegis of Renewal (25% chance of 10 HP on block, up to 50). Consider putting a point in the Forge Guard tree - Steel Aegis (+2% block). You don’t need to put more than 30 points in Sentinel overall unless there’s a good reason. Mastery points are usually better.

You have a lot of investment into spell damage with shield. That is currently only affecting Judgement. Rive and Shield Rush get no benefit from those nodes. Also, there is a lot of investment into physical damage and fire damage at the same time. It would be better to focus on one type if possible. I would recommend fire damage, as Paladin supports it better. Rive is primarily physical, but with your weapon, you’re already doing half fire damage with Rive. You could change the nodes on Holy Aura to support fire damage, and your overall numbers should stay the same for Rive or even increase slightly. Fire damage will also up the damage dramatically on Judgement, which seems like a major source of your damage.

I would also decide whether you want to focus critical hits for only the third Rive strike or increase your critical chance overall. I tend to focus on critical hits for every attack where possible, but that’s just my playstyle. If you’re interested in going that route, consider running the Lightless Arbor dungeon (tier 2 or 3 is perfectly fine) to farm the Peak of the Mountain helmet.

If you’re going for big Judgement hits over Consecrated Ground effects, consider reallocating the points into more damage for Judgement. If you can ignite the target before using Judgement, that can increase your crit chance and damage.

I can’t speak on Shield Rush, though a lot of players use it. I’m more of a Void Cleave (converted to fire) type myself when playing Paladin.

Finally, I have an unorthodox suggestion for Sigils of Hope. I think that the skill costs way too much mana, especially if you’re not using Volatile Reversal to get it back. At the same time, you have a lot of spell damage with shield allocated, which does work with Judgement. You could consider Smite instead of Sigils. The left side of Smite has nodes that grant extra melee fire damage and attack/cast speed for 4 seconds after casting. Smite doesn’t have all of the benefits of Sigils of course, but it only costs 3 mana per cast.

You don’t need more than 100% crit avoidance, and you should definitely get more HP. Otherwise, you’ve got most of the bases covered. Good luck out there, traveler.

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Woah! thanks for the great feedback! I will play around with your suggestions and give them a go. I also look forward to try and play with smite as you suggested. Exciting!

Agree!
Nowadays, I found most of the build that work at high corruption is using ward as survivability.
I hope EHG will make a change in the furture, to make more various build that can go to high corruption not only rely on Ward / bugged damage

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