[ Dev Blog #11 ] The Infinite Sentinel Circles
Hey hunters!
How did you like the sentry skill Flame Pillar in the first Closed Beta Test? Its moderate performance with limited supporting talents got us thinking... Finally, we have completed an initial patch of talent balancing that includes additional active and auxiliary talents to support sentry skills.
New Sentinel-scope Talents
Under the hero trait God of Machines, panel God of Machines and Machinist now are fixed up with the Sentry tag, and here are the talent knobs that strengthen sentinel output:
• Sentinel damage increase;
• Sentinel skill area expansion;
• Skill duration extension; and
• Skill release frequency increase.
Flame Pillar
The skill Flame Pillar is quite straightforward, it releases a stationary fire beam that throws flames to nearby enemies periodically.
The new Sentinel talents cover skill damage, area of effect (AoE), and duration of the skill. To further strengthen Flame Pillar, by choosing Machinist's core talent Resonance, 50% increase or decrease on skill speed will apply to the stationary fire beam, so that the beams will throw flames during a limited period of time with higher frequency.
Did you try the spell skill Scorching Pulse? Now you are able to link it to Flame Pillar: when Scorching Pulse is cast within a nearby Flame Pillar range, this skill will trigger again after 1 second, for blasting damage.
New Sentries
In addition to Flame Pillar, the coming second Closed Beta Test will introduce active sentinel skills: Frost Bond, Thunder Array and Desperate Array; as well as two auxiliary skills: Multiplex Guardian and Modified Sentry. (All skill names here TBD.)
Frost Bond releases an icy beam bonding to your hunter, supporting your hunter with buffs and simultaneously deals damage to contacted enemies. It can be used in conjunction with Cold skills to escalate freeze status ratio on enemies and to deal amplified cold damage.
Thunder Ring releases thunder-charged magic circle granting buffs and lucky on hit for hunters inside. The buffs will allow you to deal additional lightning damage to each hit, ideal for lightning skills that strike fast in a short period of time.
Safeguard Ring is a bit different, it knocks back enemies upon release, and continues to do so while the magic circle is active. Damage on hit is also reduced for the hunter inside. For builds that focus on range skills, Safeguard Ring is definitely a handy survival go-to.
Multiplex Guardian expands sentry deployment max cap; Modified Sentry increases cast frequency as well as casted sentry amount for each release.
For a build that targets sentinel deployment quantity, Multiplex Guardian can bond multiple icy beams to your hunter via Frost Bond; for a different build that targets sentinel deployment efficiency, Modified Sentry will allow you to deploy more at once.
Thus, with this new batch of sentry skills and talents, you will be able to construct what we call the Infinite Sentinel Circles!
When the sentry skills were first completed, we debated on how it is resembling to summon skills, not to mention their talent knobs are located right next to each other. The two new hero trait panels God of Machines and Machinist are even both labelled with Summon and Mechanical Minion. But in fact, they are profoundly different in mechanism, sentry skills are stationary while summoned minions barely stay still. To better illustrate other differences, summon skills will be dissected in the next Dev Blog.
Talk to you soon!
Follow us so you don't miss anything from Torchlight: Infinite👇
Mentioned games
