Help me make a sentinel GWF.

zachwho

FIRST I want to say, this is for fun, on an alt. I love "tanking" specs. I have a PVP GF and A PVE OP. I'm happy with where both are. I need an alt now.

I want to make a tank sentinel GWF.
Paragon: SM because I like crescendo.

At wills: SS, and wicked strike (not the best, I like the animation).
Encounters: Daring shout, come and get it, restoring strike.
Daily: slam, crescendo
Class features: bravery, weapon master.

Almost all of these abilities are buffed by the sentinel tree. That's why I picked them basically.

For enchants I'm going to use terror in weapon, negation in armor.
I'll stack armor pen to 60% then either power or recovery.
But the defensive slots are giving me trouble. I'm not sure if I should stack defence for the flat DR or stack deflection. That's what I'm having the most trouble with atm. What should I put here?

For the weapon set I'll use SS on the main hand, and put bravery on the OH for extra deflection. I'll also use the seldarine set, with the DC/GF/OP sigle.

So if you were to make a sentinel GWF, even though you are completely aware that it's not optimal, and it's just for fun, but you want it as best you can make it, how would you go about it?

kieranmtorn

Max out AP gain & Steely Defense, activate daily to trigger Steely Defense, trigger DC artifact, hope allies kill mobs....
You have 6 seconds on Steely Defense at rank 4, then assuming your AP gain is good enough, you will be able to proc it again in time to survive (assuming the rest of the party brought enough DPS).

This is the brute force solution to survival (or your panic button).

malabogpigfeeder

Nonono, many things here need to be changed.

"At wills: SS, and wicked strike (not the best, I like the animation)."

Youre main papper will be dps, sentinel is just a branch of a natural dps, you cant run away from it, so if you were to use wicked strike just go IV, no profit taking SM and not using the best at will, wms. Not to mention WS sticks you to the ground, making you not able to run for a bit, i dont say never use it, you can use when you have no tank f.e. and you feel squishy.

"Encounters: Daring shout, come and get it, restoring strike. "
Daring shout, yes, come and get it, no, restoring strike, depends.

Daring shout will be crucial to mark targets even IV bash at will is weak on this point in multi target, and cant provide DR like daring shout, maybe you could dish it with a good party in a IV build in a single target, but just there, come and get it is short duration buff, really short and it really just pulls the mobs to you, use hiden daggers instead. Restoring strike seems good, is one of the best single target in a sentinel, but multi target i recomend you to use battle fury, unless ofc your healer is a rockie and has no idea how to play. If you're intention was to put some points in intimidation be carefull, mobs in t2 now hit hard and get the aggro on purpose can get you in trouble unless you get decent enchants.

"For enchants I'm going to use terror in weapon, negation in armor."

No, and yes.
I dont really recomend terror, sure roots are pretty and everything but the dps diference is really high, at transcendent you will be abble with unstopable keep full debuff up, 9% more damage for the party instead 4% from terror, if you really want to go tanky, dish the dps and get a holly avenger is a big punch down in dps but the DR is huge. negation, yes, bloodtheft seems tempting but it would require a massive resistance from you.

"I'll stack armor pen to 60% then either power or recovery."
No reason to stack recovery, the only point would be pull restoring strike faster and daring shout and is a loss not put that on critic since healing from restoring strike comes from damage and the diference between critic and no critc can save you, dont go above 3000 in recovery.

"But the defensive slots are giving me trouble. I'm not sure if I should stack defence for the flat DR or stack deflection. That's what I'm having the most trouble with atm. What should I put here? "
Depends on SH boons, if you have LS or HP boon, go for cruels if you dont go for draconics, this will make sure you have both hability to dungeouns and solo.

On offence i recomend savages untill you reach the 60%, then brutals, the savages have arm pen, with disciple of war you will get arm pen, critic and power.

I would still go for elol set, the damage is massive and love of seldarine is not that good, even if you give away on artifacts for example. My recomendation if you go SM, burning weapons, to pull steel defence the most possible when you need, drowned for a IV because steel defence is SM, so i would put a devoted sigil(SM)/wheel(IV), the horn, TR sigil and ogmha token or symbol of watter.

Why do i insist much with deflection? because is a massive cut on dps income if you can afford to take the intermediary damage and GWF sentinel with the specs i stated above can easly stack 40% (go for dexterity as main and const, with bravery and weapon master) but i wouldnt go for bravery on a SM, but for Steel defence, the 10% DR is nice and if you are in a party that doesnt need you defending slot destroyer on. Why i dont focus on HP like most GWF do? Because self healing on sentinel, is not as good on a Destroyer, not by close, the damage of destroyer it's abusive, making ls + endless consumption king of healing, so what's good on HP if you cant get yourself full again? You might have a rookie healer and you're in trouble.

Also dont forget, go human dont dragonborn, not half-orc.

http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/gwf?b=2iev:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1cilx0i:1000000:1uou000:15u0yh1&h=0&p=smr

This was my sentinel build before i gave up to destroyer, to steal aggro from your allies you need to do 110% of the aggro, 1 point of healing, 1 point of aggro, 1 point of damage 1 point of aggro, i only had 2 points on intimidation because more would many times cause trouble stealing aggro from unexperienced GF's and OP's, 2 do as well, but i think it's a good frontier between steal from your teamates and from your tank.