Any thoughts on a possible support build for a Sentinel for season 2?
Last time I checked, their core design philosophy is that you should never need a group to play the game.
Iām not sure where support would fit into that.
If anything, Paladin sorta partially fits in there already with aura, sigils, etc. Maybe the 1.2 Sentinel rework will cook it up some more.
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That doesnāt mean that you canāt have a group. PoE doesnāt ever need a group, but there are lots of support builds. D2 doesnāt ever need a group, but auradins are a thing. D3 never needed a group, but zDPS builds abounded.
Paladin makes a great support class. I run a paladin to heal my friends while they level, this allows them to do all the killing and lead the group. Healing hands + Smite Paladin features targetted AOE heals, lots of damage, and can be a caster or melee. You could technically do this as a void knight as well, if youāre into darker motifs, or if you want to become a voidmage that still supports his party.
Spriggan totem also makes an amazing support class. You can run it as druid or shaman but I always do druid because of survivability. Spriggan totem druid features large screen wide AOE heals, AOE damage, great sustain thru AOE regens, and the totems help to control corridors and smaller spaces. Itās very fun to play. If you like minions this is a great option.
I love playing support in LE because it allows you to group up with lower level friends without them having to follow you around in your wake of destruction. Most players find it very boring to be in a group if they arenāt leading the pack, so i let them lead and I heal them.
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The thing with D3 zDPS builds is that they arenāt near as proficient at clearing certain progress ranks (GRs, corruption, whatever you call it) when not in a full group.
The reason I italicād āneedā is that if you can only do Aberroth with a certain build if youāre in a party, thatās not a healthy build for the game, because if your friend disconnects, you canāt survive.
Thatās why I said the Paladin (and as Makszi mentioned, the Spriggan to some extent) is kinda in that position, because a lot of the healing & buffs they have is movable to other players or minions, but without being a clear support role and needing that external target to work. E.g. if Divine Bolt would only heal others, thatās the support-only kind of talent that I think would not fit the āsolo must be possibleā mentality.
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Yeah, I understand what youāre saying. But that doesnāt mean support builds donāt need to exist. Makziās example is a good one. Likewise, you could want to play with your friend/spouse/family member and simply wish to make a build that only serves to boost their damage and has little of its own.
Even in PoE, Iāve often made an auradin just to have fun with a friend that plays less often. When he wasnāt around I played my regular build, when he was around to play I mostly just supported him.
Itās a good archetype to have in a game since it allows you to play with more casual people without them feeling like theyāre not doing anything themselves in the game.
Itās definitely a fine balance to achieve, and if I had any friends, Iāld want to play support with them too! 
I guess maybe we need to distinguish between āpureā support and āhybridā support, where the āpuresā are like WoW healers; laughably bad at doing stuff on their own.
If weāre talking hybrid support: Yes please! Stuff like being able to cast sigils on other players instead of yourself is great flexability for lower level party members. Casting it on both at once or only on other players is, imho, a no-no.
Which brings me back to the āI donāt know where it would fit into the gameā part: I wouldnāt even be able to begin to describe the line between solo-capable and āpureā support.
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Since I am the OP for this topic, I wanted to add that my wife is very excited to try out the new Rogue Heartseeker builder. So, that is a lock for her. I need to find some build for S2 that will help her stay alive and do more damage.
Iād say Paladin is probably your best bet. Probably a smite build of some sort?
How about summoning builds to distract enemies? Beastmaster may provide some nice options
Oh my bad 
sentinel thread
Holy Aura is a skill that provides bonuses to you and your allies passively. Just place it on your skillbar and it works. Resistances, Damage, Attack and Cast Speed, even a chance to gain Haste are all included. Using the skill doubles the bonuses for a short duration. Holy Aura is exclusive to Paladins.
Sigils of Hope (renamed to Symbols of Hope in 1.2) is a buff spell that hovers your character and provides Health Regeneration and flat Fire Damage bonuses to you and your allies. Depending on how it is specialized, it can also provide % Increased Damage, additional Fire Damage, Ignite Chance, % Increased Healing and Enduance Threshold. The additional Fire Damage can be converted to Void, but then it no longer provides Health Regeneration.
Healing Hands is a spell instantly heals the target as well as a buff that provides additional healing over time. The skill is very flexible, it can be specialized to deal Fire damage alongside the healing, it can be a channeled spell (meaning you donāt need to stack Cast Speed) and it can also be changed into a Melee attack, in that case it scales with Attack Speed.
Divine Bolts isnāt actually a skill, rather itās just one node inside of Healing Hands and three nodes inside the Paladin tree, which causes you to create a bolt of holy energy that deals fire damage. One of the nodes allows this skill to heal allies.
Smite is an attack spell that hits a single target, and heals you or any allies close to the target. It can be specialized into healing in a larger area, providing bonus Health and Mana Regen, but the other bonuses like Fire damage and Attack speed are limited only to Sentinel. Alternatively this skill can also be modified to deal Lightning damage and hit multiple targets, or to create Fissures that deal Damage over Time. It can also be converted to Void, but in that case it no longer heals.
Javelin starts as a throwing attack that fires a single Javelin, but can be specialized into leaving a trail of fire behind the projectile that also heals you and allies that step into it. Alternatively it can also be specialized into throwing a Banner that provides Damage, Healing and Endurance Threshold in its area of effect.
Judgement is a slow-ish melee attack, leaving behind a ground effect that heals you and allied players. Specializing the skill can also add instant healing on the melee hit, add an explosion when the ground effect ends that both deals damage and heals, or you can replace the ground effect by changing it into an aura that moves with your character. Judgement is exclusive to Paladins.
Lunge is a traversal skill that can normally only be used to charge into enemies, but it can be specialized into charging to allies, healing them and giving them Haste.
Anomaly is a peculiar spell that āsends enemies forward in timeā which doesnāt support by default, but it can be specialized into Time Bubble, which grants Attack and Cast Speed, Health Leech and Crit Chance bonuses to you and allies that stand in the bubble. Note that the bubble area is rather small, but you can also make it move with your character, and have the effects persist for 2 seconds after leaving the bubble. Anomaly is exclusive to Void Knights.
Void Cleave is an attack skill that requires using 2-handed Swords or Axes. It doesnāt provide any bonuses to allies, but it can apply ailments to enemies, notably it can apply Critical Vulnerability, which drastically increases your and your allies chances to crit the enemy. It can be converted to Fire.
Ring of Shields is a minion skill, it summons living Shields that rotate around you, absorbing hits. It can be specialized to provide Healing, increase Armor and Block Effectiveness to you and nearby allies. Ring of Shields is exclusive to Forge Guards.
Manifest Armor is a minion skill, it summons a living suit of armor that acts as your companion. It gains benefits based on the gear you are wearing, and can be specialized into physical melee or fire caster archetype. For group play, it can be specialized to Taunt enemies, making them focus their attacks on the armor instead of the players, but Iām unsure of its area of effect.
Ask yourself - how do you want to play?
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Do you want to rush ahead, holding the monsters at bay while your partner fills them with arrows? A melee build will suit your needs. Pick one from Vengeance, Shield Bash, Rive or Multistrike and specialize Healing Hands into Clericās Hammer.
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Do you want to stick close to your partner at all times, destroying the monsters from afar? Smite, Javelin, Healing Hands or Divine Bolts will do the trick.
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Or do you want to do a bit of everything? Then how about Warpath or Multistrike specialized into proccing Smite.
I would recommend against reading a guide though, because trying out the different setups is half the fun. You can change your skills and passives for a small gold cost at any time.
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Thanks so much, Psojed. Lots of great info.
You can also play Spriggan Totems. They do decently well and the totems heal allies.
Primalist in general also has several ways to boost your party, like warcry or frenzy totems (this last one for beastmaster only).
Mostly, I would advise you to just pick what you think is fun. Primalist and Sentinel can certainly do party support while being a functional build as well, but most classes have some support options available.
The Javelin skill for the Sentinel looks very promising as a solid support skill. If it is attached with a banner, then the banner can trigger Smite, which can heal my ally. But, the question is: Would this be considered a direct cast of Smite? I see that Healing Hands can proc off of Smite, too.
It is not. Direct casts only happen when you press the hotkey of your skillbar. What Javelin does is a procced cast and those donāt count for anything that says direct cast.
So Javelin is direct cast, smite is procced.
But, at least I could totally spec out Smite for healing right? I would not need to cast it directly. I have it on my bar, and then I could manually cast Healing Hands.
If what you want is healing, Smite proccing HH will be much more effective than Javelin.
But if you just want to proc smite from Javelin and manually cast HH, that will work as well. The nodes for healing allies in Smite will still work whether it was procced or directly cast. It just wonāt proc anything else that requires a direct cast. But it will still proc fissures, for example.
EDIT: I should point out that Sentinel is getting a rework for Season 2, so what weāre discussing now might not exist anymore in a couple of weeks. We know that Volatile Reversal was heavily reworked, Sigils of Hope changed name to Symbols of Hope and got changes as well (including the ability to run as an aura) and itās possible all other skills were changed significantly as well.
Yes, you could spec out Smite for Healing and have Javelin Banner autocast it. Just remember that Javelin with Banner spec has at least 6 seconds cooldown and the placement is static, so you might not always be able to put it in the right place 
DJās idea of Smite proccing HH can be done together with the Javelin Banner, Iād say it is very common. Player stacks a lot of % Cast Speed and uses Smite as their main attack. The usual gameplay is as follows:
- player throws Javelin into monster pack / at strategic area to proc Smites and healing
- player starts attacking directly - casting Smite until the enemy is dead
- since weāre casting Smite directly, this also procs Healing Hands
Oh and I think you donāt have to worry about the Sentinel rework.
Weāve already seen the Javelin tree on dev stream, and the Javelin Banner section didnāt change. Smite healing and Healing Hands healing is base skill functionality, and no rework of those two skills was announced, so they also wonāt change.
Ohh that sounds very interesting. Do you have by any chance a build example for a spriggan totem support?
Yes, hereās how Iāve played it
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/ow6xDlMB
It works really well if you add in some of the bee themed uniques too - they add some DPS