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The Sentient is the Original Champion Crown1 of the Awoken Clan 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[]

Upgrade I Upgrade II Upgrade III
Explosive +15Health

Rejuvenate: Deal 20 damage to the front enemy unit.

+40Health

Rejuvenate: Deal 40 damage to the front enemy unit.

+90Health

Rejuvenate: Deal 60 damage to the front enemy unit.

Cultivating +30Health

Revenge: Cultivate 1.


Draw +1 each turn.

+70Health

Revenge: Cultivate 2.


Draw +1 each turn.

+150Health

Revenge: Cultivate 3.


Draw +1 each turn.

Bristling +20Health

Spikes 10.

+50Health

Spikes 20.

+110Health

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-Attack 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 highHealth 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 Health and some damage per Rejuvenate trigger, but it will depend on what your deck needs. Often, this line doesn't mind a bit less Health 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 Health.

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 Health 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 Ember to take full advantage of the extra card draw. Later, with good cards to draw and Ember/Capacity 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 Health 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 10Health, and shard-enhanced Purifiers and Shadewings even have more than 20Health, 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.

Upgrade I Upgrade II Upgrade III
Cultivating (1.0.0) +30Health

Revenge: Draw 1.

+90Health

Revenge: Draw 1.

+190Health

Revenge: Draw 1.

Cultivating (1.4.0) +30Health

Revenge: Cultivate 1.


Draw +1 each turn.

+70Health

Revenge: Cultivate 2.


Draw +2 each turn.

+150Health

Revenge: Cultivate 3.


Draw +3 each turn.


Version Changes
1.0.0 Added The Sentient.
1.4.0 Cultivating Sentient's card draw moved from a Revenge trigger to a "cards drawn" modifier that scales with champion level. Cultivating Sentient gained Cultivate as a Revenge trigger that increases the stats of the lowest-health friendly unit and scales with champion level. Cultivating Sentient health scaling at levels 2 and 3 reduced (100 -> 80 at level 2 and 200 -> 160 at level 3) now that levels 2 and 3 have ability increases, not just health increases.
2.0.0 Cultivating Sentient’s card draw bonus no longer grows bigger at levels II and II. We’re pleased so many players are enjoying the recent changes to Cultivating Sentient, but she’s grown just a little too reliable at winning. This small tweak back down in power should trim her hedges just a little and bring her in line with other Monster Train champions.


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