The only unique that is kind of required to make this build strong is the Plague Bearer’s Staff.
For idols I’ve taken 2x 4 slot void spell mana efficiency idols and 4x 2 slot life leech + protection idols.
In terms of stats I went with:
Glancing Blow (set) to reach 100%
Dodge Chance (set & some flat) to reach >50%
A lot of vitality for protections. You also want some elemental protection but those (+Void protection) get multiplied by Lunge & Ring of Shields, so get more Necrotic/Poison protection to even it out.
Movementspeed on boots is important
High armor items are useful due to %-increases from skills
Critical strike avoidance is a luxury, I currently try to build for it and it’s possible to do so, but also costly. For Arena 294 I had no crit avoidance.
Your best defense is the mobility that is provided by volatile reversal. Try to get a sense for where you were 4s ago so you always have a panic button.
You also get a lot of fast ticking life leech from Anomaly’s Void Bubble and all of the poison stacks. Avoiding or surviving the big hits is key.
Looks strong too, but also requires the -40% duration node and a lot of points. With 2 mana efficiency idols and 4/5 in the tree I barely avoid running out of mana.
Anomaly also provides 30% CDRS which helps. I don’t like having to stand still to cast Devouring Orb with the current cooldown already
Just curious, as it seems to have turned into a full kite build with no melee or throw skill lol, Did u try using rives 15% global leech or vengence for DR?
I started with Rive instead of Anomaly, but as a source of global leech I prefer Anomaly. Even though it doesn’t provide 15%, it features the increased leech rate which felt like it makes up for it. Instead of having to attack 3 times it also permanently grants CDRS.
Vengeance could be an alternative, but I haven’t tested it. While lifeleech helps vs high incoming dps it’s not as good in preventing oneshots - and that’s what killed me in the last arena runs. So vengeance DR could be good, even though I don’t really want to get into melee range so often ^^
Maybe I’ll test it tomorrow.
Hello and thanks for posting this, really helped me out getting started as new player.
However, I am wondering why you skilled Time Legion in the Void Knight mastery, it states echoing strikes for attacks, yet this build only has lunge as attack.
A good question. I assume this is wrongly worded in the description of the Passive ability. Echoing Strike states “spells and attacks” and the other 2 Echo-Passives only mention attacks. Yet below the description they all seem to provide the same bonus Echo Attack Chance: X%
I’ve never played HC but I’d say it is viable. It’s difficult to die in the monolith below level 30-40 if you’re careful with the modifiers and have optimized your items a bit.
For HC I’d not go to deep in the monolith/arena and not skip dodge in case of incoming dps-bursts.
While you could play it with a crafted staff that grants chance to poison on hit it wouldn’t be that strong by far. The staff makes all the difference and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t receive a nerf soon. Maybe some new Unique could replace it in the future but that remains to be seen
For other ways to build Sentinel classes you can have a look here: Misha's Sentinel Guide 0.7.7
I for example enjoyed shield throw builds that use smite with an idol on all 3 sentinel classes.
Congrats on your progress!
I’ve described some things in this post. I only swapped the mana efficiency idols for “+X% all damages for 4s after casting Devouring Orb”. Instead of choosing dodge you can also decide on stacking more protections.
True, but that is normally as the game is in beta stage and i believe most players are ready to accept the changes/nerfs as long as the game is still enjoyable…
Till then i plan to enjoy this build with the staff as i enjoy playing (and a bit lvling) in a relaxed way some chars, i enjoy my mage also and i but it stress me too much atm.
And yet, the staff itself doesn’t add an insane amount of chance to poison (100% - 250%), it’s higher than you can get ignites (Eye of Reen, 100%-200%, Torch of the Pontifex 130%-170%) and bleeds (Taste of Blood 50%-75% + 12%-20%, though bleeds could probably do with a significant buff), and Eye of Reen/Torch of the Pontifex add other benefits buffing the damage a fair bit.
As I have been saying for some time, the problem with poison/Plague Bearer’s staff is a problem with the exponential nature of the “increased damage taken per stack” of poison, not the staff (and I’ve got the graphs to prove it, plus a suggestion to reduce the high end damage of poison).
