Best Sentinel Shrine upgrades to get first in Doom: The Dark Ages

Of all the upgrade paths available in Doom: The Dark Ages, those you purchase from the Sentinel Shrine are amomg the most important. Each one drastically improves how a particular weapon functions, and all act as blanket buffs to its effectiveness.

You'll be spending quite a few resources even on the earliest upgrades, though; a simple tier one improvement can cost upwards of 150 Gold. Then you’ll also need to start spending Rubies and Wraithstones, which can take multiple missions to build up a good stock of.

Here I'll go over the 11 upgrades you’ll want to prioritize to make the early game of Doom: The Dark Ages more comfortable and efficient. Later purchases will ultimately come down to personal preference.

1. Combat Shotgun: Incendiary

The Combat Shotgun is the main workhorse weapon in Doom: The Dark Ages. With Incendiary active, dealing enough damage to enemies will cause them to burn and drop armor shards. Fodder demons like imps, soldiers, and zombies all drop shards when defeated. Stronger demons can continually burn while alive, providing a small but significant amount of armor.

Many encounters will also continually spawn fodder demons, meaning you can disengage from the larger threats and farm the little guys for health. At the risk of sounding repetitive, you can also farm a few dozen points of armor with the Incendiary upgrade. The same is true between encounter areas. Take time to farm up some armor against enemies that pose no threat, before you head into your next big fight. The Slayer will thank you, in his own way.

2. Shield: Retaliation

Parrying enemy attacks is at the heart of combat in Doom: The Dark Ages. My opinion on that aside, picking up the Retaliation upgrade early makes the parry effect much more, well, effective. Every parry with the upgrade equipped creates a much larger shockwave, knocking back larger demons and gibbing nearby fodder enemies.

Retaliation also causes any demons close by the parry to experience Heavy Falter, or incur a longer, more powerful stagger. That falter was a godsend when I played on the higher difficulties, as it gave me a split second to catch my breath in the chaos of the endgame.

3. Combat Shotgun: Smelt

The second and more important upgrade to the Combat Shotgun, Smelt, increases the amount of armor shards enemies drop when afflicted with burn. In practice, I found this to be most useful when fighting the toughest demons, like Hell Knights, Mancubi, and even Revenants later on. Smelt is especially useful if you can isolate a tougher demon from the rest of the herd. So long as you can avoid incoming damage, you can use the Combat Shotgun to top up on armor on even the strongest enemies.

4. Impaler: Stalwart and Salvage

The Impaler is probably the best weapon in the game for dealing with bosses, so long as they have a discernible head you can shoot. Its biggest weakness is its ammo economy. The Stalwart upgrade, first on the tree, refunds Impaler ammo every time you parry a Hell Surge attack. In situations best suited to the Impaler, that’s bound to be happening a lot, meaning you’ll have an effectively limitless ammo supply.

Salvage synergizes directly with Stalwart, as recovering ammo enhances the Impaler’s next shot. And because the impaler is most useful against enemies with lots of green Hell Surge attacks, you can almost always have an enhanced shot loaded.

5. Cycler: Shock and Amplify

If you want a weapon for almost any occasion, the Cycler fits the bill nicely. It doesn’t have the highest damage, fire rate, or range to begin with, but the Shock and Amplify upgrades help bridge the gap.

Shock’s effect is simple. It applies… shock to enemies after enough damage, and shocked enemies take more damage from all attacks. They also spread lightning to other nearby enemies when killed. Amplify, on the other hand, further increases the Cycler’s damage against Shocked enemies.

The Cycler with these upgrades alone can make quick work of most encounters up to the late game, though even there it’s still valuable as a debuff tool or as a way to quickly clear a group of fodder demons for health.

6. Super Shotgun: Speed Loader

The Super Shotgun doesn’t need upgrades to be amazing. It is, however, a bit clunky to use in its default state. Speed Loader vastly increases the weapon’s reload speed, ensuring you can quickly and efficiently obliterate anything within about ten feet of you. That increased speed can come in very handy during end-of-mission encounters, where numerous greater demons come at you all at once, and clearing them is a matter of survival.

7. Flail: Ignite

I think the Flail is probably the best melee weapon in Doom: The Dark Ages. It’s good in both single and multi-target scenarios, and with Ignite, it’s a second source of armor shards from burning enemies. You won’t have access to AoE burn until you unlock the Engulf upgrade, and you’ll still need to be careful about when you use the Flail. Its lower damage means it won’t be taking down more powerful demons, even after a full three-hit combo. However, careful use can provide a nice armor boost when you need it.

8. Shield: Steadfast

The fourth upgrade on the base shield tree adds some incredible quality of life to shield use. It shortens the time the shield spends unavailable if broken and the time it takes to recover from taking damage. There were plenty of times during my playthrough when I’d barely miss the parry timing on a Hell Surge attack and break my shield. Only needing a couple seconds before my defenses were back online was a godsend. To say it saved my life more than a few times would be an understatement.

9. Combat Shotgun: Flare-Up

You can grab the Flare-Up upgrade for the Combat Shotgun earlier than your ninth upgrade, as its effect gets exponentially more valuable the further you get in the game. Its effect is simple: fodder demons like zombies and soldiers instantly drop armor shards when killed. You don’t need to apply burn first.

Many later game encounters all but required me to have this upgrade, as even the few points of armor I could pick up mid-fight ensured I could stay alive. It’s also useful for exploration for the same reason Incendiary is: free armor top-ups from the masses of fodder demons that spawn between arenas.