The Sentient

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**The Sentient** is the Original Champion  of the Awoken .

Her Starter Card is Restore.

## Lore

*This Hollow was able to sever her connection to the Wildwood, slowly awakening to the prison her soul was trapped in, but still agreeing to champion our Covenant. Now she has repurposed her armor as makeshift shields to keep the rest of the vines at bay, becoming more aggressive with each attempt at recapture.*

### Battle Quotes

* *I've only stayed behind to protect the Covenant.*
* *No longer trapped...*
* *I don't mind this steel deathtrap.*
* *Once this is all over, I'm leaving for good.*
* *I can feel EVERYTHING!*
* *The Priory has done well in creating this armor.*
* *Without the Wildwood there can be no peace.*
* *You will not trap me again!*
* *The Wildwood lives!*
* *Can the Forest trap a traitor?*
* *Move quickly so I can be finished with this!*
* *I can... feel?*
* *Awoken at last.*
* *This will hurt.*
* *I was used by the Wildwood, now you are too.*
* *Fight on!*
* *Let us be done with this!*
* *Feel our wrath!*

## Upgrades

**Rejuvenate:** Deal 20 damage to the front enemy unit.

**Rejuvenate:** Deal 40 damage to the front enemy unit.

 Cultivating

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 1**.

Draw +1 each turn.

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 2**.

Draw +1 each turn.

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 3**.

 Bristling

**Spikes 10.**

**Spikes 20.**

**Spikes 40.**

## Strategy

### Explosive

As with all of **The Sentient'**s upgrade lines, the **Explosive** line serves as a tank. This line in particular specializes in heavily denting bulky frontline enemies by turning each healing spell into a potent attack.

It requires you to aggressively draft healing cards and invest in card draw to use it to the fullest - note that if you only heal **The Sentient** once per turn, the **Explosive** line only ends up dealing a bit more than the **Spikes** line would to just the front enemy. This makes Edge Prior an especially good partner for this line. The starting Restore cards are also quite decent with this line, often letting you use the ability twice - once on heal, and once on the Regen heal after combat.

Note that this line is mostly helpless on its own against bosses (after you've had the chance to dent them with healing spells the turn before) unless you stack Regen on **The Sentient**, in which case its **Rejuvenate** ability will trigger once per combat round as long as the Regen lasts.

As with all of **The Sentient'**s upgrade lines, she appreciates a high- unit behind her to deal damage while she takes hits. This upgrade line in particular also appreciates another unit to provide a way to deal with backline enemies as it can be hard for her to hit them. While **The Sentient'**s high makes her an ideal tank, this line does not need to be in front to use her ability reliably, which can allow you to put a unit with **Spikes** in front of her if the combat calls for it.

The Sentient's upgrade lines are quite mixable, and either the **Cultivating** or the **Bristling** line can be effectively mixed with this line. **Bristling** gives you a way to clear back line enemies, and **Cultivating** gives you card draw that helps you trigger your **Rejuvenate** triggers more often and strengthen the units behind **The Sentient**. It costs a bit of  and some damage per **Rejuvenate** trigger, but it will depend on what your deck needs. Often, this line doesn't mind a bit less  considering it's often getting overhealed anyway, though think twice of this if Seraph the Patient is your boss.

### Cultivating

**The Sentient'**s **Cultivating** line boosts your deck's card draw, which improves your deck's power in general. It also makes up for its passivity by strengthening attackers behind them, eventually allowing them to defeat the boss while it tries to get past **The Sentient'**s high .

**The Sentient** doesn't need to be the focal point of its deck - since its passive ability gives the equivalent of a Herzal's Compound, your deck will be able to enhance units and damage enemies more effectively, leading to a wide variety of ways to win.

While **The Sentient** doesn't need to be featured in your deck, it certainly contributes a lot as well, with the highest  of the three lines, and a **Revenge** ability that strengthens units behind her - both putting them out of **Spikes** or **Sweep** range and scaling their damage. Animus of Will is an especially good partner with her Multistrike and frailty, as the strength scaling it receives is amplified, and it appreciates the health boost putting it out of **Sweep** range (though **Spikes** can still give it a problem due to its Multistrike). A partner with **Sweep** can be a good choice too, as you will often want to put **The Sentient** on the bottom floor to maximize **Revenge** triggers, and preventing back line enemies from getting to higher floors is useful.

**The Sentient'**s **Cultivating** line's main weakness is that it can have a slow start in killing enemies - you don't get the extra card draw on turn 1, and you may not draw the unit you intend to benefit from the **Cultivate** ability on turn 1 - often resulting in early Pyre damage. This is especially true on earlier Rings where you may not have the right cards or  to take full advantage of the extra card draw. Later, with good cards to draw and / to take full advantage of them, this weakness often disappears.

Since the card draw benefit does not scale with level as of the 2.0 patch, taking **Spikes** line upgrade(s) can be worthwhile to help take out backline enemies if you need that more than the additional Cultivate, seeing as **The Sentient** is meant to take hits anyway. If your deck has the ability to spam cheap healing spells (perhaps thanks to the card draw **The Sentient** is giving), you could take an **Explosive** upgrade or two. You are giving up a fairly considerable amount of  for either of these, but you can compensate for this with healing spells.

### Bristling

**The Sentient'**s **Bristling** line provides an easy solution to back line enemies, usually ensuring that they will not make it past the first floor of your train, while also being a dependable tank and often a major contributor against the boss as well.

Having **The Sentient'**s **Bristling** line means you do not need to draft cards that deal with backline enemies - just let them die on **The Sentient'**s Spikes on the first floor. If you lean into this strategy, having some healing spells to top off **The Sentient** is a good idea, as it will take a beating.

While this line needs no support taking down back line enemies, there are ways to make it more effective against bosses and even denting heavy enemies - each Shard Channeler increases **Bristling III'**s damage per turn by 40, and duplicating them and adding a Petrified Crucible can make this damage quite high.

Other than Shard Channeler, **The Sentient** appreciates partners that can take advantage of her bulk to hide behind her and deal heavy damage to bulky enemies, which she otherwise doesn't do that much to.

Without The Last Divinity (DLC)'s Pact Shards, **Bristling II** and **III** are quite optional upgrades if you do not need **The Sentient** to do much against the boss, as Spikes 10 is enough to kill all back line enemies, unless Armor Emblem is in play. It's therefore a valid strategy to take a **Cultivating** upgrade for the extra card draw, or even a couple of **Explosive** upgrades if your deck is built for that.

* If you are playing with The Last Divinity (DLC) and taking Pact Shards, **Bristling II** and even **III** are much less optional, since shard-enhanced backline enemies often have more than 10, and shard-enhanced Purifiers and Shadewings even have more than 20, though a **Cultivating** upgrade can still be worth it if you have another way to deal with these threats.

Beware Seraph the Chaste on this upgrade line - he will clear your Spikes over the course of the battle, making **The Sentient** unable to do any real damage to Seraph at the end of the fight, and if you took just **Bristling I**, you will find yourself unable to kill back line enemies later in the fight.

## History

*See: Version History*

The Cultivate Effect was first introduced in the Controller and Keyboard Update. Before this, the Sentient Cultivate path drew cards on revenge and scaled it's Health each Upgrade.

**Revenge:** Draw 1.

**Revenge:** Draw 1.

 Cultivating (1.4.0)

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 1**.

Draw +1 each turn.

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 2**.

Draw +2 each turn.

**Revenge:** **Cultivate 3**.

Draw +3 each turn.

 1.4.0
 2.0.0