Sentinel Artefact Weapon

Adem

I'm mainly interested in the speed upgrade to help deliver venoms with doublestrike or lacerate. Which tier do I need to get ahead of herb balance more easily than simply forged ones?

[Deleted User]

Forged can get ahead of it just fine, if you pick your venoms and animals correctly.

The difference between forged and lv3 isn't nearly as big as other weapons. Trident should, realistically, be one of the last artifacts you get. If you're wanting speed, then you'd be better off going for a diadem + artifact handaxe for better lining up of enrage/throw/summon, than upgrading trident for a very minor increase on doublestrike/lacerate/gouge.

[Deleted User]

Adem said:

Additional question: What if I wanted an artefact to help bashing? I already have a level 1 crit pendent. 

Still not trident. Handaxes become pretty good for bashing with though, if you get artifact ones. DPS is about even, with handaxe's caveat of being considerably faster.

Shield of Absorption, followed by health artifacts for Sentinel. Bracelets > sip ring > con belt > regen ring. Its damage is perfectly fine without weapons.

Adem

Additional question: What if I wanted an artefact to help bashing? I already have a level 1 crit pendent. 

Rangor

I generally recommend lvl 2 spear, lvl 2 axe and diadem, then soa,  and health/tanking arties. Our low arties sents tend to favor the lvl 2 spear for momentum towards petrify. 

[Deleted User]

If he not high level, he gon' get squished vs a lot of things before he can petrify after the changes it got.

SoA first artifact no matter what class you are, if you can use it.

Rangor

Disagree, offense before defense. Sent can ignore str and max con anyways. Tanking comes from lvling up.

Zheo

Can't kill anything when you're dead. All classes are already tuned to be able to kill if you execute correctly.

Kiet

yeah and sentinel is already pretty tanky between shield + armour + barkskin + optional con spec if they want (though I'm not sure I'd spec con ideally, does the prone damage thing do flat damage now?)

that's a pretty questionable statement too. I wouldn't even bother playing a good few classes with no offensive artefacts, you end up having a much more fragile and more easily disrupted offence and being able to just get to your end state faster is a better defence than anything else you can do as a momentum class.

[Deleted User]

Sentinel isn't one of those classes. Skull bash strength scaling got toned back a lot. It scales considerably better off of broken head and sensitivity.

Petrify is fast enough that you don't need an artifact spear/axe and Skull bash uses axe more than it uses spear. Go fight classes that do heavy damage and then come back and see if you still think sent is tanky enough lol. I had a bit over 5k and I still got spanked by 2 hander, through all the hinder sentinel has.

Rangor

Skullbash is flat damage, boosted by sensitivity and head damage.

Petrify is not fast enough against competent people and classes with good passive/active curing. Can still get them if they let you, but with lvl  0spear their prios have to be wrong, your passives have to get lucky and you gotta take your time to get them behind.

[Deleted User]

Rangor said:

against competent people and classes with good passive/active curing

This is no different with an artifact spear. This statement is true no matter what artifacts you have as Sentinel...

It's like saying locking with a Sylvan and no diadem isn't possible if they "are competent and have good curing" ... Like... If that's your argument, then it's not possible to kill with any class.

In a 'perfect' world, where nobody does any screw ups at all, it's impossible for a fight to be anything but a stalemate.*

* Unless it's vs dual blunt infernal, in which case glhf lol.

Rangor

Plenty of classes that can lock or kill with affs against good curing.

[Deleted User]

Rangor said:

Plenty of classes that can lock or kill with affs against good curing.

Sentinel is one.

Rom

Yeah strength isn’t just bad it’s basically useless for Sentinel now, skullbash does the same % against a level 5 guy as it does against a dragon. I know where Rangor is coming from, and I agree about Petrify being avoided easily of course, but I feel like it’s avoidable to the point where you can either petrify them without an artie trident or you can’t even with a level 3. They either know how to avoid it or they don’t. It’s not a bad purchase and it helps with bashing too, but I never bought one myself and did fine. Handaxe bashing IS good but it demolishes your endurance. I personally went with level 3 handaxe because it preps absurdly fast if you throw it without ent summons, and it opens up some dismember strategies. 

There’s really no going wrong, but SoA and Diadem are the best to start with for sure. With nimble+knife thrower+trans skills, Diadem perfectly aligns unartied handaxe balance with ent summon EQ, which is part of why I feel level 1 and 2 axe are mostly useless, it’s level 3 or spend elsewhere imo. SoA is self explanatory.

[Deleted User]

Rom said:

I personally went with level 3 handaxe because it preps absurdly fast if you throw it without ent summons, and it opens up some dismember strategies.

I mean if you have a diadem it preps absurdly fast even WITH summons. Bypassing rebounding is a huge plus. And, to be fair... Handaxe prep is fast regardless of arti There's a reason it got nerfed for magi/golem (aside from its ridiculous hindering) Definitely wanted an arti one though for even faster prep. Also makes locking pretty easy.