Sentinel Weapons : Why is anyone hardly talking about them?

[TylerFreeman]

Rhetorical question, don't answer that. I already know.

They're weapons that were at the time around 2013, was reasonable enough when the game wasn't as swarming us with enemies as it does now. Where they were convenient back-up accessories.

But now in this age, sentinel weapons are inexcusably weak and out-dated for no justification besides making up our own assumptions on why. 

Here is the only best ones we can bring with good results on missions which consists of:

• Cryotra, a status beam weapon that can easily reach 100% status
•  Vulklok, sniper weapon that has an extremely low fire rate but high crit and status
• Sweeper Prime, Shotgun sentinel weapon which is also decent.

It's so weird that they haven't been regarded as important for a balance pass lately and I don't like that they have been ignored by the community and even Digital Extremes themselves.

Hell, the only good thing they CAN do is help us benefit from mod set bonuses like :

• Auger,
• Vigilante,
• Gladiator.

 The only thing I want to help advocate for is a buff to get these weapons see more general use rather than become mastery fodder to collect dust in our storage. Also, I'm not bringing in rivens into feedback like this because it wouldn't be fair to gauge their usefulness from RNG-stats.

Anyways, I know that DE does have more important things to do but again, if it does bring awareness to this 'small' problem then hey, it'd be worth a shot.

Edited September 20, 2019 by TylerFreeman

[Duality52]

Deconstructor Prime is another to add onto that list. The generalized Assault Mode precept made the weapon even more deadlier due to the increased range, not to mention how Condition Overload amplifies the damage even further.

On the other hand, it would be great if they removed the duplicate mods for your weapons and Sentinel weapons. That way, it saves the hassle of using two Primed mods on some of our weapons.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Duality52

[taiiat]

Sentinel Weapons have no need to 'do high DPS'. that's asking for trouble and we don't even need it.

some of the Weapons offer some weird, unique Utility, do more of that. or we have Weapons that are capable of passable Damage to get some Trash Units off of you. which is about all the Damage that we'd need from them.
but it's Utility, that they would ever really shine in. so focusing on that is more important.

[Syndrella]

I personally would like to have much more weapons for the sentinels like how the warframes have weapon / sets. Not a major problem if these weapons are utility only but deals an acceptable damage. The survivability of these companions are low and almost all sentinels have very low armor rating so they are not good at damage reduction. The problem partly could have been solved if they gives each sentinel the djinn treatement so they could respawn say like in 30 second. Also their current weapons could have see some balance pass and also each sentinel could have at least 5 new weapon each. It also gives us for mastery also it gives more variation to choose from when you build them. The priority however not this and until the devs finishing major projects I doubt they will let some individual to work on smaller projects like this. 

I am almost exclusively using shad and kubrow for reasons. I would like to use more weapons on the sentinels.

[Infirito]

I use Cryotra on Dethcube for Energy Generator pretty much all the time, also helps with some CC if you build it with blast; the rest is whatever, never bothered with trying to make them into some killing machines. Imo, most of the weapons should be reworked for utility, if people can't deal with enemies using their frames + guns, some sentinel pew-pew won't save them damage-wise anyways.

[TylerFreeman]

17 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Sentinel Weapons have no need to 'do high DPS'. that's asking for trouble and we don't even need it.

some of the Weapons offer some weird, unique Utility, do more of that. or we have Weapons that are capable of passable Damage to get some Trash Units off of you. which is about all the Damage that we'd need from them.
but it's Utility, that they would ever really shine in. so focusing on that is more important.

The only 'go-to' weapon that helps in the long run is, again, the cryotra. Out of all the weapons, they pale in comparison to this. That's as far as 'utility' as it goes, the rest is just fodder to push me to the next mastery rank. I don't see what's so unique about all the weapons because they offer nothing besides 'stats' unless they could, I don't know shrink or freeze enemies on their own accord. 

Even then, it wouldn't be wrong with giving them at least a bigger push in the damage department. I'm not asking for these sentinel weapons to suddenly be able to one shot a lvl 165 bombard and do the dishes while I'm sipping away at some tea. Just to the extent that they aren't just wasted slots.

[taiiat]

31 minutes ago, TylerFreeman said:

Just to the extent that they aren't just wasted slots.

but how do you make a shoulder mounted turret be relevant/decent enough without it also generally nullifying the existence of a fair number of Enemies?
and furthermore, do you think you'd be allowed to have that anyways? i'm not confident in that so i look for Utility then.

[TylerFreeman]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

but how do you make a shoulder mounted turret be relevant/decent enough without it also generally nullifying the existence of a fair number of Enemies?
and furthermore, do you think you'd be allowed to have that anyways? i'm not confident in that so i look for Utility then.

Then we'll be stuck having all these weapons become wasted effort if we keep shying away from this.

I still want these weapons to be decent. DE has the capability to do so. It's all the matter of how 'unique' they could try but there is nothing more simple than a balance pass. Being able to tweak their stats and adjust them upon feedback should help at least.

 

[CatboyPrincess]

I support your effort.

I have faith that DE will be able to balance the weapons without making them overpowered.

More unique Sentinels and Robotic Weapons would be grand. There remains niches that they could fit, ex. launcher robotic weapon, minion-creator/master/support Sentinel.

An Djinn-like generic revival mod would also be very cool, ex. "Amalgam Regen." Maybe it could require the player to fulfill a certain condition before reviving their Sentinel, ex. retrieving N units of "Sentinel Scrap" or something.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Gwyndolin-chan

[(NSW)ToadBlue]

It would be nice if they could be bumped to be on the same level as, say, the Lato. I think Sentinels are for assisting in killing rather than getting kills themselves most of the time, but they should be good at assisting.

[bubbabenali]

Deth Mashine Rifle with very high fire rate is spreading procs every second. Can't wait for the Primed one. 

Prisma Burst Laser is a proc Mashine too. With a Riven it als deals considerable damage. 

Deconstructor Prime can be a kill stealing ass (not in shorties tho) 

[ES-Flinter]

vor 46 Minuten schrieb bubbabenali:

Prisma Burst Laser is a proc Mashine too. With a Riven it als deals considerable damage. 

Don't forget the 0.0 second reload time. The enemies will never stand up, once they got a blast proc.

[TylerFreeman]

1 hour ago, bubbabenali said:

Deth Mashine Rifle with very high fire rate is spreading procs every second. Can't wait for the Primed one. 

Prisma Burst Laser is a proc Mashine too. With a Riven it als deals considerable damage. 

Deconstructor Prime can be a kill stealing ass (not in shorties tho) 

The normal Deth machine rifle's status chance is literally 1%. That's not something I'd call reliable. Granted, I do like the fact that we'll be getting the prime version but that'll be another time for later.

I want to re-iterate that I don't want to consider rivens into the mix because thats a whole other mess.

Like I said, Cryotra is the best method of being a support weapon and it's the only one we have.

[jnuh]

4 hours ago, TylerFreeman said:

The normal Deth machine rifle's status chance is literally 1%. That's not something I'd call reliable. Granted, I do like the fact that we'll be getting the prime version but that'll be another time for later.

I want to re-iterate that I don't want to consider rivens into the mix because thats a whole other mess.

Like I said, Cryotra is the best method of being a support weapon and it's the only one we have.

Artax ... guaranteed cold proc, regardless of what elements are on it.

[DoomFruit]

We don't talk about them because we don't want them getting the nerfbat.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

Almost the entire arsenal of Robotic weapons is worthless when compared to what Kubrows & Kavats can do. While companions themselves might deserve a QoL update that brings modding up to par, there's no doubt that the slash damage they can deal is far better than almost every weapon Robots have. I say we buff these weapons.

[ES-Flinter]

vor 22 Minuten schrieb (PS4)IndianChiefJeff:

I say we buff these weapons.

But how? More damage? More status? Hidden mechanic?

In my eyes the prisma burst laser just need a higher firerate (1.61/ s -> 3.00/ s) and higher status chance (10% -> 20%). I would have nothing against, if the damage will be nerfed. I want a companion not a killer robot.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

2 hours ago, ES-Flinter said:

But how? More damage? More status? Hidden mechanic?

In my eyes the prisma burst laser just need a higher firerate (1.61/ s -> 3.00/ s) and higher status chance (10% -> 20%). I would have nothing against, if the damage will be nerfed. I want a companion not a killer robot.

With the abysmal survival rate of robotics in general, ANY form of buff to their offensive capabilities would be beneficial overall. Besides, it's not like these weapons are the next Tigris Prime or anything.

[peterc3]

1 hour ago, (PS4)IndianChiefJeff said:

With the abysmal survival rate of robotics in general, ANY form of buff to their offensive capabilities would be beneficial overall.

How does that follow? Your Sentinel doesn't stand a chance in X mission, but the weapon it has now deals 50/100/1000% more damage. How has that changed anything?

1 hour ago, (PS4)IndianChiefJeff said:

Besides, it's not like these weapons are the next Tigris Prime or anything.

There is no reason to even bring up any players' weapons in a discussion about Sentinel weapons, let alone stuff like the Tigris P. There is no comparison to be made.

[akots]

13 hours ago, (NSW)ToadBlue said:

It would be nice if they could be bumped to be on the same level as, say, the Lato.

IMHO, Deconstructor and Sweeper are better than Lato. Out of pure curiosity to level them up faster after getting a riven, you can try Helios in an extermination mission at approximately level 25-35. It takes about 12 minutes for the sentinel to fill the kill meter. I've been running kuva siphons exterminate and they don't have any issues disposing of the enemies on their own including armored grineer. Sweeper can 2-3 shot a disarmed kuva guardian and does it in a single shot with a riven. These two weapons do fine up until level 50, when their performance is slightly decreased overall but remains very solid up until sortie 2 levels. Sortie 1 is still very much doable. They do have targeting issues on Helios with occasional delays and some optimal distance requirements. But that does not mean they are weak. Their aggro can be fine tuned with sentinel mods which makes them better than some team mates in stealth missions.

A few other sentinel weapons are fine without a riven and even something like a Multron is actually useable with a riven. They do need considerable forma investment and duplicate mods in some cases, but so do normal weapons.

 

2 hours ago, (PS4)IndianChiefJeff said:

With the abysmal survival rate of robotics in general

IMHO, sentinel survival is fine. There are multiple way to heal them, they are serious affected only by AoE damage as the enemies generally do not target them specifically, and you have Primed Regen for extreme situations. But seriously, they are more tanky than certain frames with good loadout and upgraded mods.

[OvisCaedo]

There's more than just visible stats strange with them too. People have pointed out the Prisma Burst Laser being a seemingly pretty good status spray gun, but it also has some of the most horrendous accuracy I've seen in the game. The weapon card says 100, but in practice the sentinel will wildly spray bullets all over the place, frequently shooting right over or to the sides of a target more often than actually hitting the target itself. I've heard the laser rifle has similar issues.

the general issue is that a few of them have decent or good kill potential, but the only real "utility" any of the others can try to compete on is... being a status spray gun, and they really aren't well balanced against each other around this. And of the kill weapons, deconstructor is just hard locked to Helios for reasons.

(also: even if multron is "usable" with a riven there's not much point in trying to deny how much worse it is than just about everything else. It is gimped to all hell, and so is the Vulcax)

Edited September 20, 2019 by OvisCaedo

[CatboyPrincess]

actually i would really like it if my Sentinel had a Tigris Prime

Edited September 21, 2019 by Gwyndolin-chan

[(NSW)ToadBlue]

59 minutes ago, OvisCaedo said:

(also: even if multron is "usable" with a riven there's not much point in trying to deny how much worse it is than just about everything else. It is gimped to all hell, and so is the Vulcax)

I do wish the Vulcax was better, because it certainly looks cool, Firing a big beam of superheated plasma across the room looks impressive, but that's the only impression it leaves.

[TylerFreeman]

11 hours ago, jnuh said:

Artax ... guaranteed cold proc, regardless of what elements are on it.

Yeah, I completely forgot about Artax once I got Cryotra. It can be an alright weapon but again, it's only saving grace is the benefit of always forcing cold on enemies and that's that.

[XenMaster]

Just buff the sentinel weapons, DE. Since everything is op anyways lmao