The Hammerdin build for the Sentinel in Last Epoch is one of the best ones to use for players who are looking for both speed and power. It uses Hammer Throw and a combination of mobility skills, resulting in quick map clear times while still being strong enough to absolutely shred bosses.
This guide is a Hammerdin league starter for the Sentinel's Paladin subclass that also makes use of the Smite skill, allowing for an easier transition into a variety of endgame builds later on. It has very few required items, making it a great option for new Last Epoch players.
Last Epoch: How to Find & Fight Harbingers
Harbingers are special bosses added to Last Epoch as part of the "Harbingers of Ruin" Cycle, appearing after beating some timeline bosses.
Last Epoch Hammerdin Leveling Build
As mentioned, this build uses Hammer Throw and Smite as its main sources of damage. The former is a great offensive skill in the beginning of the game, but later on, it will mostly serve as a means of triggering the latter. With Hammer Throw automatically casting Smite, we bypass the latter's casting speed limitations, allowing us to fill the screen with hammers and holy lightning as quickly as possible.
Build Requirements
The only true requirement to make this build work is some way to auto-cast Smite with Hammer Throw. We can do this by using any of these three items:
- Storm Champion Weapon: Weapons dropped by Storm Champion enemies come with the Storm Champion's prefix, which gives a chance for Throwing Attacks to cast Smite up to 10 times per second.
- Sentinel Idol: Idols may drop with an affix that grants users a chance to cast Smite with Throwing Attacks.
Pre-Paladin Skill Setup
|
Hammerdin Build (Level 1-20) |
|
|---|---|
|
Skills |
Hammer Throw Rive/Vengeance Lunge Javelin Holy Aura |
|
Passives |
Fearless (5) Armour Clad (5) Valiant Charge (5) Time and Faith (5) |
Specialize Hammer Throw as soon as you can, then start pathing upward to get the Iron Spiral and Catapult passives. The former makes your hammers spiral outward, while the latter lets you throw more hammers at once. Both are crucial to your single-target and AOE damage output.
Rive and Judgment are here mostly to help you regain mana with the Time and Faith Sentinel passive. Rive is especially strong DPS-wise, but if you want to improve your survivability, use Judgment instead.
Javelin and Lunge are our mobility skills. Specialize Javelin second, and path toward the Battle Standard and Surprise Initiative passives. This will let you throw your Javelin to an area and dash toward it. Make sure to grab Banner of Restoration for extra healing and Divine Intervention to make Javelin continuously cast Smite where it lands.
Once you finally unlock the Paladin subclass, unlock Holy Aura for a significant damage boost. When Specialized, it'll grant even more damage buffs. Activate it whenever you need to fight elites or bosses. Specialize this skill at level 35.
Weapons and Gear Stats
If you can, try to get a Storm Champion weapon from a Storm Champion enemy while playing the campaign. Otherwise, try to find a Nemesis with good item drops, or get a two-handed melee weapon with the following stats:
- Physical Damage
- Chance to Ignite
- Chance to Bleed
You can stack these three stats on your other equipment pieces as well. Consider using a loot filter so you don't miss out on any important items. Throwing Attack Damage is also a nice stat to have this early on.
Last Epoch: How to Dismantle and Salvage Items
Last Epoch's inventory can clog up quite frequently, so you should definitely take some time and dismantle any unwanted items.
Level 20 and Beyond
|
Hammerdin Build (Level 20+) |
|
|---|---|
|
Skills |
Hammer Throw Symbols of Hope Healing Hands Javelin Holy Aura Smite (not on bar) |
|
Sentinel Passives |
Fearless (8) Juggernaut (2) Armour Clad (5) Valiant Charge (5) |
|
Paladin Passives |
Conviction (5) Phoenix Strike (5) Rahyeh's Strength (5) Force of Devotion (6) Faith Armour (4) Holy Precision (10) Prayer Aegis (5) Covenant of Light (5) Covenant of Dominion (7) |
The passive skill point allocation for this guide are based on a level 64 character with 77 skill points.
Replace Rive/Judgment with Symbols of Hope for the bonus damage and health regeneration. Respec the Sentinel tree as well and reallocate the five points from Time and Faith to other more important passives.
Healing Hands replaces Lunge as our second mobility skill. Take the Rahyeh's Chariot passive to turn Healing Hands into a targeted dash ability. Use this together with Javelin, and you'll cruise through maps very quickly.
Once you reach level 50, Specialize Smite and start pathing toward the Order of Lagon passive. This converts Smite into a Lightning Spell, while its surrounding passives make the skill hit more targets with Lightning Bolts every time it hits something. This greatly increases both your single-target and AOE clearing speed.
Later on, take the Sacrifice and Atonement passives for Smite. The former will significantly increase Smite's DPS at the cost of making it eat your health with every cast. Don't invest too many points in it without taking Atonement, as the health cost will be too much to sustain without it.
You can remove one of your mobility skills and replace it with Smite, if you want to cast the latter on-demand.
Last Epoch: Best Weapons For Paladins
Last Epoch's Paladin Mastery offers powerful buffs and healing along with a healthy dose of fire damage, so here's how to find a good Paladin Weapon.
Skill Specializations and Passives
If you're having trouble following the passive and Specialization point allocations above, here are images for you to use as references.
Equipment and Stats
Once you start doing Monoliths, Smite will have already outpaced Hammer Throw's damage output significantly. As such, we'll be pivoting our gear stat priority to finding and using Lightning, Elemental, and Spell Damage over Physical and Throwing Damage.
Wands and Staves are great for scaling Spell Damage, and if you can get one that also has Elemental Damage, Lightning Damage, and Chance to Ignite/Shock, you'll be able to melt everything that's at your level. Don't forget to get some crit stats as you try to build your character too.
From here, you can either choose to continue ramping up this build by getting better gear with desired stats, or you can transition to a full Smite build or any of its possible derivatives.
As usual, try to cap your elemental resistances as soon as possible, and try to squeeze in as much health and armor as you can.
Last Epoch
- Released
- February 21, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Rating Pending
- Developer(s)
- Eleventh Hour Games
- Publisher(s)
- Eleventh Hour Games
- Engine
- Unity
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Platform(s)
- PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
- How Long To Beat
- 18 Hours
