In Last Epoch, there are five Base Classes to choose from when you set up a playthrough. Among them is the Sentinel, a tanky melee Class that can be further customized through Skill selection and Nodes. If you’re wondering about the best Sentinel Skills, we’ve got all you’ll need to know.
Best Sentinel Skills in Last Epoch, Explained
The Sentinel in Last Epoch is a melee-oriented Base Class that finds success in tanking hits and delivering strikes, creating quite a brawler playstyle. However, as the Sentinel approaches one of the three available Mastery Classes — Paladin, Void Knight, or Forge Guard — they gain new abilities to further enhance their build, as well as the option to customize base Skills through Skill Tree Nodes and create synergy with other abilities for combat.
Shield Throw
| Class | Skill Type | Unlocked | Damage Type | Mana Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forge Guard | Throwing Attack | Forge Guard Level 5 Skill | Physical | 20 | Throws a shield at a target enemy. The shield ricochets to up to 2 additional targets before returning to you. The cooldown starts when the shield returns to you. |
Shield Throw has a lot of potential in a Sentinel Build due to being able to not only hit multiple enemies and deal bonus effects through Nodes but also synergize with the Manifest Armor Skill. This can be achieved through the Shield Throw Node, Manifest Inspiration, which will cause the Manifested Armor to perform a sweeping attack when it is hit by the Shield Throw.
Shield Throw also pairs quite nicely with Holy Aura, through the Flame Burst Node. This is because the Flame Burst Node causes your melee hits to apply 10 stacks of Fiery Inquisition, and when an enemy reaches 60 stacks, they will be hit with a Flame Burst, which will deal damage to them and surrounding enemies. When Holy Aura is active, twice as many stacks are applied. This means that because Shield Throw can ricochet to hit multiple enemies, you can spam these stacks to proc Flame Burst much quicker, eventually dealing solid AoE damage.
Manifest Armor
| Class | Skill Type | Unlocked | Damage Type | Mana Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forge Guard | Minion | Forge Guard Level 15 Skill | Physical | 60 | Manifests an animated set of heavy armor, which attacks slowly. Stats granted by your body armor, helmet, gloves and boots also apply to your Manifest Armor. |
Manifest Armor has heaps of potential for operating as the core focus of your Sentinel Build, as many Skills synergize with this ability very nicely. As mentioned above, Shield Throw and Manifest Armor can work hand-in-hand to proc various buffs and Node effects. Warpath works well in addition to Manifest Armor, due to the Forgemaster Stance Node, which will summon a Forged Weapon every 5 seconds as if you had hit an enemy with Forge Strike. This means you don’t need to put yourself in much danger, other than spinning to proc this ability.
Lastly, Manifest Armor itself can be heavily buffed through Nodes such as Bladed Armor, which gives a chance of reducing enemy Armor when Manifested Armor attacks, Titan Sword, which grants Manifested Armor a sword that scales with attacks, Whirlwind, which grants Manifested Armor a travelling AoE multi-attack, and Dash Boots, which provides a damage-dealing charge ability with knockback.
Holy Aura
| Class | Skill Type | Unlocked | Damage Type | Mana Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paladin | Buff | Paladin Mastery Skill | – | 30 | You and nearby allies passively gain 30% increased damage and +15% additional elemental resistance. Activating Holy Aura doubles the stat bonuses for 4 seconds. |
While there may not be as much direct synergy with other abilities as some Skills, Holy Aura offers so many stat buffs that it’s hard to look past. Not only will you gain free passives of 30% damage and 15% elemental resistance, but activating this ability will double these bonuses, providing you with a huge defensive layer to the already quite tank-capable Sentinel.
However, there are some ways in which Holy Aura can be utilized and synergized with certain builds through Nodes — such as Flame Burst working well with Shield Throw and even Manifest Armor. If you choose to opt for this kind of build, then there are Nodes that you can utilize to improve the potency of this playstyle. This includes Inner Flame, which applies extra Fiery Inquisition stacks and deals extra damage if you are the one to trigger Flame Burst, or Strength From Afar, which improves damage from Throwing Attacks and increases the opportunity to stun on hit.
Alternatively, you can focus on Nodes that provide extra utility to the perks Holy Aura offers, to make it a buff ability. Notable options include Demoralizing Aura, which may give you the chance to Slow enemies, Fanaticism, which will boost your attack and casting speed, Vital Boon, which will increase health regeneration, or True Strike, which will improve your critical hit ratio.
Smite
| Class | Skill Type | Unlocked | Damage Type | Mana Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sentinel | Spell | Sentinel Level 20 Skill | Fire | 3 | Smites a target enemy with a bolt of holy fire that descends from the sky, healing allies around the target for 60 health. If you are in the area you are also healed. Cannot be used without a target. |
Smite is extremely versatile, due to being able to deal with strong damage as well as operate as a recovery mechanic, especially as it can be manually cast, or triggered through various combos. In particular, Smite has the potential to operate brilliantly as a single-damage tool that also provides survivability in crowded combat thanks to the AoE-based radius.
Nodes such as Deep Impact and Sacrifice can significantly up the damage potential of Smite, which makes it much more reliable in dishing out big bursts of damage. Alternatively, in some circumstances, you can even trade in the healing properties of Smite for other effects, such as when taking on a Void Knight build. Temporal Corruption revokes the healing from Smite and instead opts to deal additional damage, as well as converting all damage into Void. Renouncement lets you scale Smite with Vitality, dealing extra Spell Void damage, and creating some nice synergy for the rest of the Void Knight kit.
Judgement
| Class | Skill Type | Unlocked | Damage Type | Mana Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paladin | Spell | Paladin Level 30 Skill | Fire | 15 | A powerful melee attack that leaves an area of Consecrated Ground for 4 seconds. Allies on the Consecrated Ground are healed for 50 health each second. Enemies on Consecrate Ground take fire damage over time that scales with spell damage. Consecrate Ground gains 1 spell damage per 5% increased healing effectiveness. |
Judgement is an absolute beast of ability, as it can be used for aggressive damage output as well as providing healing uptime and survivability for teammates, all whilst dealing damage over time to enemies within the same AoE. Judgement can be molded in several different ways, from creating a tanky support role to becoming the main way of dealing aggressive damage to multiple enemies.
With Nodes such as Sacred Sword, Purifying Flame, Scourgebane, and Divine Destruction, you can seriously boost the DPS for this ability, making it a vicious asset to your kit. Pious Offering will make it consume much more mana, but deal even more damage per mana consumed, and Urgent Inquisition maximized this in favor of offensive power. You can pair this with Deliverance to improve Mana regained, or Void Knight’s Volatile Reversal to refill your Mana pool and provide more sustain.
That’s everything you need to know about the best Sentinel skills in Last Epoch. For more helpful gameplay guides, check out the rest of our content at Twinfnite. We have a variety of Last Epoch topics that can help you prepare for your adventure in Eterra, such as the best Acolyte Skills.
