User blog:Anon421/Sentinel's Set and Typhoon of Spirits Review: Avenge Yourself

Shadow Fight 2 has been rewritten completely in the new Unity engine. This new update brings along many contents. Among them are the new raid boss Drakaina, Karcer's fix (you may fought him as a naked Shadow instead of a fast, hungry ghoul), new sound effect of sword swish, save game feature, lags and constant crash and many more. In this blog, I will specifically talk about the new Sentinel's Set and its Mythical enchantment, Typhoon of Spirits. I decided to make this blog to enlighten everyone regarding the new set and its enchantment, because it's very hard to find anything out there that show you how this set looks like or how the enchantment truly works, in english. It's not surprising, there's a good reason for that, which you'll find out below. Follow me while I give a detailed explanation on both the set and the enchantment, along with an in-depth review, tips & tricks on how to use them effectively, and my opinion on them, whether it's worth the long wait or not, and how it fares compared to Monk's Set and Tempest Rage.

How to Obtain the Set
Now you'll know why almost no one have this Set. You can obtain it only by purchasing a chest in raid shop. In each purchase, you'll receive one random item from the Sentinel's Set and some Charges of Darkness. If you want to collect the full set, you need to buy the chest 5 times. And here's the catch: the chest is priced 1,199 gems.

Yes, you read it right. No typo. One item of the Set costs a whooping 1,2k gems. And thus, the full set is priced at 5,995 gems. Now you're wondering, what's so great about this set that they put an insane (or should I say Impossible) price tag? It's much, much more expensive than the Pneumo Fists + Torturer's Rage bundle. Not even the price of the popular but useless Composite Sword can compare with it.

Set of Sentinel
These 5 items belong to the Sentinel's Set. Every item does not have any enchantment aside from that Typhoon of Spirits. They're basically enchantment-less items unless you equip the full set.


 * Sentinel's Hand, a Spear. It works like your standard spear with its quick triple-hit Super Slash, and also the longest spear in the game. This spear has the appearance of a guandao, it even looks like the Emerald Claw from SF3 (although it's actually the other way around; believe it or not, Sentinel's Hand came first before Emerald Claw.)
 * Sentinel's Armor. It looks like a Mantle of Night and Fusion Core combined.
 * Sentinel's Conical Helm. The image is cool, while the model is... generic-looking.
 * Sentinel's Blades, a shuriken.
 * Sentinel's Spirit. It works like the Toxic Cloud, but it emits yellow dragon instead of a green fart. Has a slow recovery, so you'll easily attacked after using this magic.







Typhoon of Spirits
Shield of the Righteous under a new name. Everything else are still the same. You should be familiar with the concept of Mythical enchantment in SF2 already. Similar to Tempest Rage, you have to collect and equip the whole set of Sentinel to use Typhoon of Spirits in fights. Furthermore, you can finally enchant other equipment piece with this enchantment. Keep in mind that you're not limited to Sentinel's Set if you want to use Typhoon of Spirits, you can use anything as long as it's enchanted with the enchantment. And Typhoon of Spirits will not replace any existing Simple or Medium enchantment, and vice versa.

And now, the mechanic. Since the in-game description can't get more vague, I'll explain. Typhoon of Spirits is basically a Damage Return, except better. While Damage Return only reflects 85% of the enemies' damage by luck, Typhoon of Spirits reflects 400% of enemies damage. To activate it, you have to accumulate aura by deliver attacks just like you do Tempest Rage. When in full aura stacks, Typhoon of Spirits will do its charm when you get hit by any kind of attack, be it weapon hit, unarmed damage, ranged, magic, or boss ability.

Of course, a mere description can't tell you perfectly how it really looks like. So, let's test both Sentinel's Set and Typhoon of Spirits in a real fight!

Sentinel's Set Review
Overview I have to admit that the Sentinel's Set does have a somewhat prestige look on it. It gives your character the appearance of a Chinese warrior of old Dynasty times. The whole theme involving dragon and this Sentinel person being a keeper of souls just increase the aesthetic of this set.

Sentinel's Hand Test Being a Spear weapon, Sentinel's Hand comes with an advantage of being very fast and covers a long range. It's even longer than any other Spears in the game. This weapon shows its potential from a medium to long distance. If utilized correctly, you can interrupts almost every attacks from your enemy. Just like any other Spears however, Sentinel's Spear is not suited for close-range combat. You have to rely on kicks if your enemies are too close. The Slash/Double Slash and Super Slash of Sentinel's Hand are very effective in medium distance, especially the latter. While the other moves are great at either medium or long distance.

Sentinel's Spirit Test Sentinel's Spirit shares the same casting animation as Toxic Cloud's to call forth the dragon spirit. You can hear the badass roar of the dragon as it is being summoned. Unlike Toxic Cloud, you can't move at all for 2 seconds after summoning the dragon. So, be careful when using this magic. This, however, compliments well with the mechanic of Typhoon of Spirits, which requires you you get hit. You dodge it like how you dodge Toxic Cloud. It's possible to interrupt the casting as well, although not as easy as Toxic Cloud; once your weapon is on your back, there's no stopping the dragon spirit from rising. Keep in mind that Sentinel's Spirit will always send your enemy to the left side of the battlefield, no matter where you are. Enemy will be pushed towards you when you're on the left, while they'll be pushed away from you when you're on the right.

Typhoon of Spirits Review
Animation The animation of the enchantment is lit. You'll be surrounded by some kind of tube-shaped tornado with yellow color, as if it was protecting you. The sound effect is neat as well. When the damage return is triggered, the tornado will explodes.

Mechanic Any unblocked attacks to the enemy will increase your aura. Keep delivering enough attacks until you have full 3 aura stacks. When in full stacks, let yourself get hit by your enemy to activate the damage return. It's recommended to try getting hit by either Head hit, magic or boss ability for maximum effect. Only weapon attacks and unarmed hits (elbow strikes, kicks, and throws) that could increase the stacks. And try to not get hit before you have a full stack, as it will only reduce your gathered aura stack.

Tips & Tricks
I saw some people who owned this set already. And I also witnessed how they play with this set and the enchantment. All they did is spam the Super Slash wherever they were on the battlefield. And they treated this enchantment as another Tempest Rage.

I'll give you some pointers below in order to not repeat the same mistakes.

General Advices
 * Your character has feets, use them. As I said before, Spears suck at close range. Instead of spamming Super Slash, utilize kicks instead for close range combat. Some kicks can even help you perform chain combo. For example, Sweep, Roundhouse Kick, and Jump Kick will leave your enemy at a perfect distance for the Double Slash and Super Slash. While Horse Kick does a very good job at pushing your enemy away. And don't forget that you can always throw as well.
 * Be careful when casting Sentinel's Spirit. If you're reckless, you'll get wrecked by enemy's counterattacks. You can try casting this magic when you have a full aura stacks, so even if you ended up getting attacked, you doesn't lose your health for nothing.
 * Typhoon of Spirits is really useful at Insane and Impossible fights. All you need to do is gather aura stacks, which is not that hard. And then keep jumping around or just stand there to let your enemy attacks you. If said attack takes away at least 1/3 of your health, the enemy will die instantly. Avoid one-hit kill attacks however, as if you lose all health, the enemy will win instead.
 * Don't use this set and enchantment in raids. Aside from the Spear dealing fairly low damage for raids standard, you can't deal that much damage with Typhoon of Spirits even if you get hit by their strongest attacks. And you don't have that much of a time in raids as well, so you can only return damage twice at most. Let's make some calculation: some of the raid-bosses strongest attack are their magic, dealing 45 damage. If the enchantment returns the damage, they will takes 180 damage, which is not impressive at all. The strongest move of all raid-bosses currently is Hoaxen's Strong Slash, buffed with Overheat and Helm Breaker. Theoretically, that attack can deal about 120 damage to you. But sadly, you don't even have that much health in raids to withstand such powerful blow.

Enchantments Enchanting are random and you might ends up getting something you should avoid instead. Despite that harsh reality, I'll still lists all the good enchantments to pair with Sentinel's Set. Generally, these enchantments works well with Typhoon of Spirits. Out of all the enchantments, I found the health replenishers to be the best choice, like Lifesteal, Rejuvenation and Regeneration. They can help you restores your lost health, essentially allowing you to do this all day long.

There are other enchantments that doesn't compliment the Typhoon of Spirits mechanic at all, but still being a good enchantment to have, like Frenzy, Time Bomb, Bleeding and Damage Return.

And finally, there are enchantments that doesn't match with the mechanic or even preventing it to work properly. They are enchantments that reduce your enemy's damage or increase your defense, like Damage Absorption, Weakness, Enfeeble and Shielding. Avoid Bloodrage as well, because you need all the health you could have.

Conclusion
As you can see from my review, Sentinel's Set and Typhoon of Spirits are wonderful. They're aesthetically prettier than Monk's Set and Tempest Rage, and they're also your tickets to win any Impossible fights.

Despite all the great things that come with the new set and mythical enchantment, there's one major flaw this set has: the price. Basically, you have to spend around $130 to collect the Sentinel's Set. And that one flaw is bad enough to downplay all the good things this set could offer. Let's be honest, are you willing to spend that much to get this set? Why Nekki do this is beyond me, but I really hope it's just temporary and they will add any other way to obtain the Set or at least reduce the price, I'd love to see other people experience this Sentinel's Set. Feel free to post your opinion or ask your question in the comment section.

Pros
 * Spear with an even longer reach. Very fast while at that.
 * Typhoon of Spirits allows you to win many Insane and Impossible fights without even trying.
 * Broken in story mode. Due to how it works, you can even one-shot enemies like Eclipse May and Titan.

Cons
 * Magic is risky to use. If used without proper planning, it'll put you in dangerous situation instead of being helpful.
 * Despite being great in story mode, it is mediocre in raids. You'll have better luck with Tempest Rage.
 * Obtainable only through spending 5,995 gems.