On May 5th, the new expansion Sentinel for Path of Exile was announced. This will again make adjustments to the gameplay and bring the eponymous Sentinels, which you can collect and use to empower enemies. This innovation has received mixed reactions. However, players are much more concerned about the lack of balance adjustments.
What’s coming with the new expansion? The new expansion revolves around the Sentinels. These small drones can be summoned by you. Once summoned, the Sentinels provide buffs – but not for you, instead for the enemies.
These buffs depend on the colors and configurations of the Sentinels. Because you can make these buffs even deadlier through a skill tree.
In addition to the drones, there are further adjustments made by the expansion:
- Your Atlas gets 20 new Keystone Notes, introduced with the last expansion, including buffs that give your enemies less health but more damage.
- The Archnemesis mechanic from the last season is simplified, but still allows you to create your own minibosses.
- There are adjustments to the UI.
- Controller support on PC will be introduced, making Path of Exile playable on Steam Deck as well.
- There are new unique skins that you can earn.
- There will again be an organized league. Whoever defeats the new Pinnacle Boss first gets to design a unique item or a divination card, which will come into play in August.
Another peculiarity of this season is that there will be no balance adjustments. The developers want to give players the opportunity to continue playing with their current builds in the new season. However, this is not well received.
When will Sentinels be released? The release is planned for May 13th on PC and May 18th on consoles.
This trailer provides you with a glimpse into the new expansion:
Sentinels buff your enemies and are somewhat complicated
How exactly does it work with the Sentinels? The Sentinels are dropped by enemies. Once you collect the drone, you can summon it through special slots in the interface. Each color has a different effect:
- Red Sentinels hover near you for a while and constantly buff the enemies around you
- Blue Sentinels move directly forward and buff all enemies currently within sight once
- Yellow Sentinels constantly buff like the red ones, but only rare mobs and boss enemies. They can become particularly strong.
The exact effects and behavior can be controlled via the so-called Sentinel Controller. This controller is structured like a branched skill tree, and over time you unlock more and more abilities:
Each Sentinel can only be used once per area. Additionally, they will eventually run out of batteries. In this regard, there is a new crafting item called Power Core.
For this item, you can scrap two Sentinels and create a new one from them. This one also inherits the perks of its parents, as this screenshot shows:
Why should one buff enemies at all? Boosting enemies with the Sentinels simultaneously increases the chance for better loot from these enemies. A higher risk therefore brings a better reward.
How is the mechanic received? Generally, the mechanic is received positively, if not overwhelmingly well. Many players are looking forward to making certain enemies even harder and combining the Sentinels with the Atlas Passives.
Others, however, find the mechanic cumbersome and confusing. They believe there could have been simpler methods to achieve the same effect.
It is also problematic that the Sentinels are overshadowed by another design decision. The lack of balance changes is not well received by many.
“Without balance changes, it will be a boring season”
What do players say about the new expansion? On reddit, many players criticize the decision not to make any balance adjustments. In the official statement from the developers, it says:
We are trying something new with character balance in this expansion. We deliberately will not make any changes to character strength. That means no nerfs, no buffs, nothing. Every single build and every single build guide created for Siege of the Atlas will function exactly the same in Sentinel.
You can now begin planning your league and can rely on knowing exactly how the character will play.
But some players return to a new expansion precisely because of these balance changes. Additionally, some classes are supposedly not particularly strong, which discourages fans of those classes:
- jzstyles writes: “The most exciting thing about each league for me is playing different builds that arise from nerfs/buffs. This is quite disappointing.”
- The user Lacain even loses all hype for the league: “No nerfs or buffs for skills is a mistake in my opinion. I didn’t realize how much this would ruin my hype for the league until they officially announced it.”
- Iwanttemplates simply writes: “RIP Trickster.”
Overall, players fear that the new expansion Sentinels will be more of a weak phase for the game, despite some good adjustments.
How do you see the season? Do you also need constant balance adjustments? Feel free to write it in the comments.
Anyone looking for a new hack and slash aside from Diablo 3 or Path of Exile will find this list helpful: Games like Diablo – Who needs Diablo 4? Here are 11 current alternatives.
