Hey guys! HolyCoffee here, and today i will share a new way to build out your protections builds - although these findings are not particular new, i don’t believe they have been tested in the same degree as i have. I have seen Mcfluffin testing it out, on he’s stream aswell. He is a great streamer and youtuber, and have really good guide for beginners - check him out 
- Edit: I am currently uploading the short showcase video on Youtube. The link will be up in like 30 minutes.
- Link to showcase of video: (Out Dated) Last Epoch 0.7.7: Showcasing ward gain on hit on a sentinel - YouTube
So what am i talking about?
Let me ask you a simple question, what happens, when you eHP gain is greater than the damage hit you take? You will be come nearly immortal, with only a few weakness, like damage over time and pure one shots due to high damage that exceeds your ward gain on hit (that is not common due to how LE is creating the game)
For protections builds, particular Sentinel, ward is not the easiest way to gain, although there are a few ways, one of them being trough idols. The 2x1 idols that have 15% chance to generate 30 ward on hit is an excellent way, to get a lot of eHP on a pure protection build. By stacking 8 of these idols, you will give you a lot of eHP on every hit you are taking. On top of that, if you are playing a paladin with block, you can get 21 ward on each block. Due to the nature of how much eHP you are generating on each hit you are taking, you will become almost immortal.
Of cause, it require good gear, and a lot of protections to increase the eHP, but it’s still insanely good at this moment - especially for monolith farming. In monolith with this setup, i am able to pull an entire monolith without doing anything, and still not die. Although monolith have a lot of small monsters, that is “boosting” the builds setup, i still think this is way to broken atm. which is why, i wrote to the devs, to make sure that it was not seen as an “exploit”.
At the moment, i am currently at monolith 40 on a lvl 100 character, and nothing have really changed, i am still able to pull an entire monolith, without any problem. Although i have to be somewhat careful to not die to damage over time, when there only are the “big rare” monsters left, since the ward gain on hit, not do much against those. I will try to update my monolith progress here on the forum post.
- Edit: IMPORTANT: Forgot to mention, that rallying block passive in forge guard, is extremely good with the ward gain on hit setup.
Why did i try it out now?
The main reason i am testing it out at this patch, is because of the nerf that hit the 2x1 idols ward hit on gain. I thought this nerf was really weird, since almost no ward builds would ever use these, and it kinda made me more secure, that a ward gain on hit for protections build, would be really strong. As for now, i have not really been testing it out a lot. I am not sure, how good this setup will be for arena. Yesterday i did make a run to 321 wawes, but i had to leave the run, due to my character, was not build for these new idol and block changes i had to perform - so i had 0dmg, and the beetle queens was to fucking tanky haha 
- Edit: Completely forgot about ward retention:
I dindt stack any ward retention on the build. Although with the new changes to the 1x1 idols not being multiplicative, they can now be used in protections build that have 0 ward retention from the beginning, which is also super interesting
The future
As right now, the founding is still really new, and i have really not tested it out to its potential - due to my shield throw build, is really not built for not using smite idols. I also believe, that ward will become a bigger part of protections build in this patch (well at least a option). We will kinda see what happens, when more start to test out ward on protections build.
Something i am also curious about, is the heavy ward gain you can get from potions. This i think would also be super strong on melee builds like forge guard (with increase chance to find potions), that have easy acces to pickup potions. On the same time, health potions is not doing a lot for pure protections build. This is because, you have a low health pool, and therefore it’s easy to get a lot of leech and health regen, that will almost all the time, keep you at 100% health. Although, i have not tryed ward potion on a pure protection build, i would highly reccomend you trying it - could be fun to try something completely new 
That maybe is really good.
- Edit: Just tryed usuing one of the shrines with 100% crit chance, and then using the 2 uniq rings, that give ward on crit, that is actually also really strong - if you play a build that can’t swap idols, and you want to try the ward in a different way
Well it’s really difficult to see how the builds will shape in the future, i think ward will become a big part of some protection builds
- Edit 2: Just died in monolith and progession got reset. Tryed the uniq rings, and went afk, to respond in twitch chat. Forgot that i was not immortal anymore hahaha
My plan is to upload a video to showcase what i am talking about - it might take some time, due to my low internet upload speed -.-. I will also try to upload pictures here, when i found out how i am able to do it haha .
Anyway, as always, i hope you enjoyed the read - on the same note, i will aprreciate discussion, and your thoughts on it
- Edit: Misha helped me out with how to upload Pictures LoL ( i was not a good student) i think it works now
- Edit 3:
So the pictuere of the high elemental and armour protection, was to showcase the Rallying Block passive node in forge guard on this setup. That passive is giving 50 armour and elemental protection each time you block, and the duration is for the buff is 4 seconds. As you could imagine, when you are pulling this much monster, the numbers will go insane, and be particular good on this ward setup. Although this does not fix the the setup’s biggest weakness which is damage over time, since most damage over time is necrotic and poison damage. The new helm added in this patch Sunforged Greathelm, could be a nice addition to the build. Hopes that is clarifying it
Can confirm on the right build this makes most enemies completely incapable of killing the player. I ran it on a vengeance paladin and the only thing that I was worried about was DoTs. And with the new telegraphs for some of the most dangerous DoT attacks, it’s now even easier to use a tanky melee build like vengeance.
So i was just refering to the old videos i had up on my old youtube account. Although i appreciate you would watch the video. Sorry to dissapoint you! The only video i have at this time, is the showcase video - since i deleted everything else 