Mariia R. In Path of Exile 3.18 you will see new and very intriguing mechanics. It is something new compared to the previous challenge leagues. We will tell you every single detail of it below in our Path of Exile 3.18 Sentinel League Mechanics Guide.
Sentinel Cache
You will meet with new mechanics in the first area after the Lion Eye’s watch. The first thing that you find is a Sentinel Cache.
Of course, it is also shown on the mini-map as a little blue symbol as seen below.
Clicking on the Sentinel Cache for the first time will grant you a must-have item that activates the Sentinel Controller. It is marked as green. You will see it in your inventory and will need to right-click on it to activate it. The other item in the picture below is called Rusted Stalker Sentinel it is one of three types of Sentinels that you can find and use in the controller to fight at your side and grant you rewards.
Once you activate the Sentinel Controller in your inventory you’ll see a new button in the inventory next to the gloves section.
How to use the Sentinel Controller
Sentinel Controller is the core part of Sentinel mechanics in Path of Exile 3.18. Here you will place sentinels that you find in the areas and make the roots on the tree below to get some bonuses to its power or loot that you get after you complete a sentinel encounter. What you see below is a map of an empty Sentinel Controller. In the holes, you will place sentinels one of each type. Depending on their stats you will have more or fewer benefits.
In the picture below you can see the button that opens the Sentinel Controller window. Next to it, there is an empty slot where you need to place one of the sentinels you’ve got. We recommend you use the very first one to learn how it works.
You will be able to take it out anytime you want and store it in a new Sentinel locker that we will talk about a bit further. As for this starting sentinel, it has the following stats.
You can tell from the picture that this sentinel will last for 30 seconds after you activate it. Also, you can see the number of enemies that it can empower and empowerment shows how good will be the reward from the empowered enemies. The sentinel is unmodifiable so you cannot use any orbs on it. this one is called Rusted later you will find Bronze, they are better. You will need to identify them to see extra properties. And you can see the number of times that you can activate this sentinel. It can be used only once in an area, but 8 times in general. So you can use it in eight different areas. When you reach 0/8 it will not disappear and you can store it for later modifications.
The most interesting part is when you place it in the Sentinel Controller and start making a path to nodes that grant extra bonuses. By default, you have one point to put into the tree. It will increase the sentinel’s duration time by 10%.
You can click on the paths to activate the root. Click once more and it will be gone. Also, you can pre-manage the root. The activated paths will be blue and the pre-managed ones are thin white lines. They will apply automatically once you level up the Sentinel Controller.
How to level up the Sentinel Controller?
In the beginning, the Controller is level 4. It will level up when you kill enough monsters while the sentinel is activated.
Hover on the power units meter you see how much per cent you got towards the next level. You can notice that level of the Sentinel Controller is increased by the blue lights that will appear around your character when it levels up. You can reach a maximum level of 30.
When you have several sentinels in the Controller you will need to activate them by applying points and making a path to the hole where the sentinel is placed. If the slot with a sentinel is not activated in the controller you not be able to use this sentinel.
How to activate the sentinel?
By default, you can activate the sentinel by pressing F2 on your keyboard. You will see it on the little button on your screen below the experience bar.
You can also click on it to Deploy Stalker Sentinel. When you have other types of sentinels you will see how to activate them as well.
When you deploy a sentinel it will fly next to you. It will perform any actions automatically. To get more profit deploy it before a boss or a huge amount of monsters. You will have a limited time while the sentinel is active and it will be gone if you die but if it already empowered the monsters you are not limited by time to slay them. Even if your character dies the empowered monsters will remain empowered.
Where to find the Sentinel Locker?
You will see it next to the Stash in any town after you activate the Sentinel Controller. Or you can place it in your hideout. Go to your Hideout and click edit. After that find the Sentinel Locker in the decorations.
Place it as usual where you like and enjoy. You can place their all sentinels and power cores.
What does a sentinel do?
Once activated it will activate a beam that will empower enemies around. The affected enemies will drop more loot. The better the sentinel you use the better drop you get from the mobs.
There are three classes of sentinels that you can find when you kill monsters or in sentinel caches:
- Stalker Sentinels (have more shots that apply to enemies as you go)
- Pandemonium Sentinels (have one massive shot and different area of effect by affecting a huge amount of monsters at once)
- Apex Sentinels (an effect only for rare or unique enemies)
Every new sentinel can be placed in its personal slot. One per slot.
How to unlock more sentinel slots?
As we have mentioned above you start the league with only one sentinel slot where you can place only Stalker Sentinels. New slots for Pandemonium Sentinels and Apex Sentinels will unlock as you proceed through the game.
Each class of sentinel can be deployed only once per area. But you can deploy each of them in one area.
How to assemble new Sentinels from the Depleted Sentinels?
You will need a power core item that you can find when killing monsters.
You can see in the description how it works. Place two depleted (fully used) Sentinels and get a new one that will have a mixture of these two Sentinels properties in one.
But sometimes it can trigger new locked properties that can be unlocked on a Sentinel only by assembling. But the way Unique Sentinels can be also triggered like that.
Above you can see some specific power cores that act in a particular way described in the pictures above. They don’t guarantee anything but still have some regulation of the randomization.
About Author
So I have been leveling my sentinels and thought I had to be level 30 in order to activate first node.
Then ***BANG*** I found your write up here. Only level 25 and 47%. How silly I feel.
This is a great write up and will recommend it to others.
Thank you for the detail you have put into this as I now have allocated my points and get more stuff.
New to the game and I would like to thank the author for writing such an informative and helpful explanation of the sentinel mechanics. Amazing work, greatly appreciated.