Champion Guide – Sentinel

The mutant hunting robot Sentinel is one of the most versatile utility champions in the game. In addition to being the MVP of Variant 3 Polar Opposites, Sentinel is very useful in Variant 1 and 2, as both an Alliance War attacker and defender, in Alliance Quest (particularly Map 7) and for general questing. While likely not anyone’s choice for their first 5/65 champion, Sentinel is an excellent champ to rank up after your main damage dealers are in place, and is an fantastic 6* pull.

View Sentinel’s profile on Auntm.ai

Key Information:
Sentinel is a single-fight ramp up champion. Sentinel’s ramp-up mechanic is called an Analysis Charge (max 100). These are gained by getting the opponent to repeat an action, and the most effective way to get to 100 Analysis Charges is to repeatedly bait the opponent’s SP1 with an awakened Sentinel. Sentinel becomes much more effective at 100 charges and that is where the big damage comes into play. Analysis Charges reset to 0 for the start of every fight in a quest.

Each Analysis Charge reduces Sentinel’s power cost to throw a special attack, meaning it becomes easier to spam specials, and increases attack rating.

At 100 charges, Sentinel gets several major bonuses. SP1 and SP2 debuffs will trigger through an opponent’s block (for the SP2 incinerate this is huge), Sentinel becomes unstoppable for .8 seconds when charging a heavy attack, and Sentinel’s debuffs last 100% longer. This last bit is where the big damage from the SP2 incinerates comes into play.

Signature Ability:
Sentinel’s signature ability is nice to have, but is not required to effectively play the champ in general questing, as it simply reduces your analysis ramp-up time. For high-level timed gameplay, such as Alliance War and Map 7, you’ll want Sentinel awakened to reduce the risk of a time-out. After awakening the champ, additional signature levels do not provide much of a benefit.

Team Building/Key Synergies:
One of the major advantages of Sentinel is that it is not a synergy dependent champ, so it is easy to fit Sentinel on the either a 3 or 5 champion team without wasting any roster spots on “backpacks.” Sentinel’s unique synergies are all defensive in nature and therefore don’t come into play when using Sentinel as an attacker. Sentinel makes a great add-on to many popular Trinities for general questing.

Mastery Setup:
Sentinel doesn’t need a specific mastery setup to thrive. Because Sentinel is both bleed and poison immune, at first glance it is a suicide friendly champion. However, a lot of Sentinel’s utility comes from spamming specials, so you’re going to take a lot of recoil damage in the fights where Sentinel really shines. Therefore it is advisable to run Sentinel without suicides active.

Alliance War Defense:
Sentinel is an above average, but not a top tier defender. Sentinel can pick up a kill when the attacker forgets that the SP2 can inflict incinerate debuffs through block at 100 Analysis Charges, or through timeout. Recommended placements are nodes with high health pools, breakthrough, and armor up.

Special Attacks:
Sentinel’s SP1 is largely a utility attack as it inflicts heal block and then armor break, and should be used in fights where those mechanics are required to be effective, such as a constant regeneration node or against a character like Emma Frost, Killmonger, or Mysterio that you want to keep armor break up on. The heal block lasts for 6 seconds, but that doubles to 12 seconds when at 100 Analysis Charges. Because of the reduced power cost at 100 Analysis Charges, you can reliably keep the opponent permanently heal blocked if necessary.

The SP2 is Sentinel’s single greatest source of damage and is the main special you will reply on in most circumstances. With the ability to stack up to 5 incinerate debuffs (each lasting 100% longer with 100 Analysis Charges), Sentinel’s SP2 ends a lot of fights.

The SP3 is not generally used because of the effectiveness of the SP2, but it is useful in rare cases, mainly extremely long fights, because Sentinel can heal by throwing multiple special 3 attacks.

Pros:
A double immune (bleed and poison) champion.

Extremely effective against mutant champions.

Most effective in longer, untimed fights.

Useful in many different game areas (AW/AQ/Questing).

Doesn’t require being awakened or synergies to be effective.

Cons:
Ramp-up takes time, especially unawakened, so fights are not short.

Not a big hitter.

Regen mechanic is extremely difficult to trigger in most fights, so you’ll likely need to rely on health potions if you are taking damage.

XL champion that some may find slow/awkward to play.

Defenders with the ability shrug debuffs, or who are incinerate/debuff immune significantly hamper Sentinel’s ability to do damage.

No power control mechanic.

Analysis Charges ramp up at 50% normal rate versus Cosmic champions.

Not immune to own debuffs for Clapback node.

No built in true-strike to counter auto-block and evade.

Pro Tips:
Bait opponent’s SP1 to build up Analysis Charges while building up to Sentinel’s SP2.

Sentinel can gain Analysis Charges by throwing consecutive attacks into the opponent’s block.

Sentinel is immune to the Delirium node in Map 7.

A 5/65 Sentinel can solo the Omega Red mini bosses in Map 7 on all days. You need to get 100 Analysis Charges as quickly as possible by baiting Omega Red’s SP1. I find it useful to break off Sentinel’s combo at 4 hits early in the fight, until you’re at 100 Analysis Charges. This tends to help line-up the power bars better early in the fight. Once you get to 100 Analysis Charges, you’ll likely have the ability to throw a SP1 at the end of every combo as needed. Rely on Sentinel’s SP1 to heal block until you get to the point where a single SP2 is going to end the fight.

In fights where you need to keep the hit count down (fights with increased power gain, for example), rely on the shock damage from the heavy attack.

Excellent versus mutants, but watch out for Magneto as Sentinel is a metal champion.

Sentinel is an absolute beast in Variant 3 and can easily handle all the bosses. Use the heavy attack to apply shock to the final Kang boss to keep him from regenerating.

A 5/65 Sentinel can solo a 5/65 or Rank 2 6* Domino boss in alliance war. You’ll need to boost, and Sentinel may not be the best option, but it can be done.

Recommended Videos:
Seatin Variant 3 Highlights with 4/40 Sentinel
Seatin Variant 3 Highlights with 6 * Sentinel
DTMelodicMetal vs Map 7 Omega Red Mini Boss
KT1 Darkhawk vs Sentinel Comparison
Frontline MCOC – Sentinel vs Lifecycle 6.2.1

-Dano357