Sentinel Weapons : Why is anyone hardly talking about them?

[ES-Flinter]

vor 16 Minuten schrieb XenMaster:

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

I wanna see your OP Stug beat a lv. 100 corrupted eximus bombard.😏😏😏

Imo the survival ability of the sentinels are okay. Sure, they are nothing compared to the survival ability to a kubrow/ kavat, but still enough to survive standard mission and 20min arbitration. 

[XenMaster]

2 hours ago, ES-Flinter said:

I wanna see your OP Stug beat a lv. 100 corrupted eximus bombard.😏😏😏

Imo the survival ability of the sentinels are okay. Sure, they are nothing compared to the survival ability to a kubrow/ kavat, but still enough to survive standard mission and 20min arbitration. 

Well with 100% corrosive projection squad, yeah. Maybe cuz armor points too high while health is lower.

 

Would like it if they buff all sentinels into Braton stats. Not strong but decent.

 

Even if we have op sentinel that oneshot, if we stay afk for more than 3 seconds the sentinels go afk as well. Preventing afk farming.

[DoomFruit]

4 hours ago, ES-Flinter said:

I wanna see your OP Stug beat a lv. 100 corrupted eximus bombard.

16 seconds, aiming mostly for body shots. Loadout is hornet strike, barrel diffusion, lethal torrent, primed heated charge and all 4 elementals (for radiation + viral).

[Miyabi-sama]

There is not much to discuss on the topic. The reason is everything works as intended in this case.

Those sentinel weapons are the same as the weapons you wield on your own. You can use them or not. You can build them according to their stats or just make a stat stick of it.

With introduction of sentinel rivens things got even more funny. People are either use sentinel weapons for their strong sides or don't use them at all. Everyone has their own reasons to use something or not.

I am not using sentinel guns at all since they steal a portion of affinity and tend to underperform with my playstyle.

And their weapons were never ever meant to be powerful. If the sweeper kills one charger behind while you patiently aiming that Lenz on the crowd ahead. Don't expect sentinels be wrecking balls.

But yeah, why not ask DE make them stronger. To kill those 165 bombards in simulacrum faster.

[Tiltskillet]

It would be nice if they were better balanced, so that there were good reasons to use all of them instead of just three or four.  I'm pretty much against a general increase in their power as a class though, given that these are really just, in effect, afk weapons.  And there are a couple of cases where nerfing/fixing might be warranted.  Deconstructor, for instance, is so  comically good at killing things I think something must be wrong with it.  And set mods on companion weapons  contributing their bonuses to the frame seems either unintentional or poorly thought out  to me.

On 2019-09-20 at 2:00 AM, TylerFreeman said:

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

Whose effort are you talking about?   If you mean DE's, then maybe, yeah.  But I'd argue they really shouldn't put a lot into Sentinel Weapons, given that they can't have a big impact on gameplay, and that there are a bazillion things that do or should have that impact, and need so much work. 

If you mean player effort, well, there's not a lot to it.  I'd guess most players who have focused a lot of energy on optimizing sentinel weapons knew exactly what they were getting into:  a tiny bit more efficiency.   If you're just talking about the effort involved in just acquiring and leveling these things...sorry, not seeing it.

[Miyabi-sama]

There will always be tiers of guns. And most people will always resort to the strongest option. Even if you make all guns/blades etc relatively viable, there will be always something outstanding. Just like now, but with slightly less margin.

So why bother?

I like Braton P. It is underwhelming but I like it a lot. Thus when I need something great I'll hang on with Tiberon P. or Rubico P. But everything else is just so plain simple I can mow down with Braton for hours.

 

On the contrary most of released guns are so similar in their mechanic. I am selling after trying and maxing. Why bother? I have my Braton for love and Rubico when stuff gets serious.

[TylerFreeman]

7 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

It would be nice if they were better balanced, so that there were good reasons to use all of them instead of just three or four.  I'm pretty much against a general increase in their power as a class though, given that these are really just, in effect, afk weapons.  And there are a couple of cases where nerfing/fixing might be warranted.  Deconstructor, for instance, is so  comically good at killing things I think something must be wrong with it.  And set mods on companion weapons  contributing their bonuses to the frame seems either unintentional or poorly thought out  to me.

Whose effort are you talking about?   If you mean DE's, then maybe, yeah.  But I'd argue they really shouldn't put a lot into Sentinel Weapons, given that they can't have a big impact on gameplay, and that there are a bazillion things that do or should have that impact, and need so much work. 

If you mean player effort, well, there's not a lot to it.  I'd guess most players who have focused a lot of energy on optimizing sentinel weapons knew exactly what they were getting into:  a tiny bit more efficiency.   If you're just talking about the effort involved in just acquiring and leveling these things...sorry, not seeing it.

You say afk weapons when, Excalibur Umbra, if equipped with a good weapon, can effectively BE an afk bot. 

The impact I'm talking about is that they shouldn't be stuck in this expectation that no matter what new sentinel weapon is introduced, expect low dmg. (Unless it's a status stick then we'll gobble that up.)

Look at the vulcax, it's locked until you hit rank 5 in fortuna AND requires a rank of MR14. I'd at least think I'd be getting something good out of this but no, this is what we have.

You'd think the description 'Charges up a powerful blast of ultra-heated plasma' would indicate it hits hard. Slow but can kill a single enemy unit regardless if it was a trash unit or not. Sadly, the poorly executed stats prove otherwise. That requires effort to get the rank, gather the resources, and build it, not just leveling it up and shelving it back into storage. And this shouldn't be the intended design we've all come to accept.

12 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

There is not much to discuss on the topic. The reason is everything works as intended in this case.

Those sentinel weapons are the same as the weapons you wield on your own. You can use them or not. You can build them according to their stats or just make a stat stick of it.

With introduction of sentinel rivens things got even more funny. People are either use sentinel weapons for their strong sides or don't use them at all. Everyone has their own reasons to use something or not.

I am not using sentinel guns at all since they steal a portion of affinity and tend to underperform with my playstyle.

And their weapons were never ever meant to be powerful. If the sweeper kills one charger behind while you patiently aiming that Lenz on the crowd ahead. Don't expect sentinels be wrecking balls.

But yeah, why not ask DE make them stronger. To kill those 165 bombards in simulacrum faster.

And I'm here to say that it's not working as it should be. Or at least want to see some changes that aren't ludicrous.

They weren't meant to be powerful BECAUSE they were introduced years ago when we didn't have all this power to gain. As time goes on, they've been hugely lacking as of late and it feels like they should be updated.

Lastly, I just said I didn't want them to be 'capable of killing 165 bombards' because apparently that's ALSO the expected benchmark for all weapons to perform into this 'endgame' we've made up.

No. I am implying that sentinel weapons can be adjusted accordingly and a balance pass isn't extreme of a request to consider.

[Miyabi-sama]

7 минут назад, TylerFreeman сказал:

And I'm here to say that it's not working as it should be.

 

8 минут назад, TylerFreeman сказал:

They weren't meant to be powerful BECAUSE they were introduced years ago when we didn't have all this power to gain.

How to get rid of powercreep 101: bring more powercreep.

Srsly dude, you really state you know how it SHOULD'VE been working all these 6 years? I say you wrong. And the subject in question is working as intended. It shoots. It deals procs. It kills mobs. It helps you.

What else you should wish? Ofc these guns weren't designed to be sortie mobs killers. Some of them inconsistent, yes. Maybe make all of them hitscan or continuous beams/flamethrowers. But buffing their stats on par with each other is really sensitive topic. Put some more digits somewhere and voila - we got another op vulklok. And again. People will abuse it.

I'd say nerf rubico prime instead and call it a day.

[Tiltskillet]

Just now, TylerFreeman said:

You say afk weapons when, Excalibur Umbra, if equipped with a good weapon, can effectively BE an afk bot. 

What's your point?  It exists, so even more is a good thing?

Just now, TylerFreeman said:

The impact I'm talking about is that they shouldn't be stuck in this expectation that no matter what new sentinel weapon is introduced, expect low dmg.

Why shouldn't we expect exactly that?   There's almost no gameplay to be encouraged here, no player input beyond modding the weapon and remembering to equip it.   And maybe that's what should change.  Until it does though, I think these weapons should be an afterthought.

 

Just now, TylerFreeman said:

I am implying that sentinel weapons can be adjusted accordingly and a balance pass isn't extreme of a request to consider.

It sounds like we differ on where the balancing point should be, but I do want to say I agree with this part.  I just don't want the most powerful ones to get much more powerful, and I really don't want DE spending much time on it.   ...Unless they go all out and give us options for player control.    Then I'd at least understand the need to make these worth the effort, since there'd actually be some effort involved.

[TylerFreeman]

44 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

 

How to get rid of powercreep 101: bring more powercreep.

Srsly dude, you really state you know how it SHOULD'VE been working all these 6 years? I say you wrong. And the subject in question is working as intended. It shoots. It deals procs. It kills mobs. It helps you.

What else you should wish? Ofc these guns weren't designed to be sortie mobs killers. Some of them inconsistent, yes. Maybe make all of them hitscan or continuous beams/flamethrowers. But buffing their stats on par with each other is really sensitive topic. Put some more digits somewhere and voila - we got another op vulklok. And again. People will abuse it.

I'd say nerf rubico prime instead and call it a day.

That isn't what I'm saying.

Again, I'm already stating that sentinel weapon's SHOULD have some normal damage across the board. Not just 'I want my burst laser rifle to deal 200 dmg!' but at the very least, would like to see my sentinel do some work besides dishing out procs 24/7. I want more than just 1 single status-support weapon. That's like being complacent with ember's lack of power.

The idea that people will abuse it. Yeah, that's gonna be expected in a large game like this. Much like how we abuse atterax-spin2win or Saryn, Equinox AOE to breeze through mobs like we just sneezed on all of them. Most of the time, they have a capped limit to work fine until lvl 100+ (Except atterax, assuming that they use condition overload and that's another can of worms I don't want to get into.)

Anyways, most stat adjustments aren't set in stone considering we've yet to get the holy 'melee 3.0' update so I wanna see how that plays out.

Getting back on topic.

16 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

What's your point?  It exists, so even more is a good thing?

Why shouldn't we expect exactly that?   There's almost no gameplay to be encouraged here, no player input beyond modding the weapon and remembering to equip it.   And maybe that's what should change.  Until it does though, I think these weapons should be an afterthought.

 

It sounds like we differ on where the balancing point should be, but I do want to say I agree with this part.  I just don't want the most powerful ones to get much more powerful, and I really don't want DE spending much time on it.   ...Unless they go all out and give us options for player control.    Then I'd at least understand the need to make these worth the effort, since there'd actually be some effort involved.

The point is to just buff these sentinel weapons. Or at least, figure out how to make these weapons have their own sort of identity like Deconstructor, sweeper, Artax and Cryotra. If a sentinel weapon modded for damage can't perform just as good as modding it for status then why do we even have them to begin with? (Besides it being MR fodder of course.)

 

 

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

Companions should deal % based damage.  That way they are ALWAYS helpful.  Same with abilities....

[Miyabi-sama]

4 часа назад, TylerFreeman сказал:

Not just 'I want my burst laser rifle to deal 200 dmg!

But even 100 dmg will allow Nova just stand there and push 4 every 15-20 sec.

5 часов назад, TylerFreeman сказал:

would like to see my sentinel do some work besides dishing out procs 24/7.

And watch Rahetalius vid about Vauban rework, where he says DE isn quite favours turrets of any sort. I'd say having one good sentinel weapon of many is a complete mistake.

[TylerFreeman]

2 minutes ago, Miyabi-sama said:

But even 100 dmg will allow Nova just stand there and push 4 every 15-20 sec.

And watch Rahetalius vid about Vauban rework, where he says DE isn quite favours turrets of any sort. I'd say having one good sentinel weapon of many is a complete mistake.

???

You're making it sound like I want a nuke strapped on a sentinel. And even then, the situation you propose IF DE somehow takes this into consideration, is extremely niche and hypothetically silly. Would the 'buffed' vulklok be able to nullify the 'Nullifiers'? Can it exceedingly perform well in arbitrations and target arbitration drones without so much as a sneeze? Of course not, there are multiple things in game that require you not to be afk if you want to reap the benefits of working through the mission.

Not to mention, Vulklok has an extremely low fire rate that you need to mod that to be somewhat decent.

  I'm literally saying that maybe some sentinel weapons should be given some decent damage.

Here, I'll list maybe just a few and maybe align this perspective of ours.

• Burst Rifle - 8 base dmg to 25 : Prime variant is boosted to 35 dmg and crit dmg multiplier 1.9x
• Burst laser -  7 base dmg to 20, status boosted to 10% : Prisma variant is boosted to 28, status boosted to 20%
• Stinger - 15 base dmg to 40 - status boosted to 15% - Fire rate increased to 4.5

You keep referring to my sentinel buff proposal as if I'm secretly wanting to have turret/sentry gameplay to do the work for me when that's not even the case. And hell, it is a mistake when 1 out of 17 sentinel weapons aren't as favorable. 

[Miyabi-sama]

6 минут назад, TylerFreeman сказал:

You keep referring to my sentinel buff proposal as if I'm secretly wanting to have turret/sentry gameplay to do the work for me when that's not even the case.

I'm sorry.

Welp, for the most people it goes like "it either blows stuff away or I get back to my kavat".

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

Vulcax certainly needs a buff. Make it into a terrible Opticor and I would be fine, but that 6.0 Reload Speed certainly destroys its usability on the field.

[000l000]

Il y a 16 heures, TylerFreeman a dit :

That isn't what I'm saying.

Again, I'm already stating that sentinel weapon's SHOULD have some normal damage across the board. Not just 'I want my burst laser rifle to deal 200 dmg!' but at the very least, would like to see my sentinel do some work besides dishing out procs 24/7. I want more than just 1 single status-support weapon. That's like being complacent with ember's lack of power.

Oh another one who thinks Ember sucks. Well i guess you're also wrong about sentinels. Fact is you used Vulcax as an example when this weapon is pretty much an exception - a downgraded Vulklok to be short - and tbh i really think something is missing in this gun and perhaps it should be fixed one day. Quite funnily you didn't choose Vulklok to show how bad sentinel guns were.

But many sentinel guns are far from being as bad, almost half of them are killing enemies up to sortie level with not much effort if properly built. Rivens are damn easy to get since you only need to get Silmaris targets so not having one is no excuse either. In fact sentinels are more effective than Kavats or Kubrows cause they're shooting from afar and not missing much their targets. Pets AI is pretty dumb, they also miss at melee range quite easily - if they aren't stuck somewhere, dying.

Vulklok, deconstructor, sweeper are all damn effective. Stinger, burst rifle, laser rifle or even death rifle prime (soon) are able to kill in no time if you build them well. At this point i don't care about them applying any status if they can kill anything alone.

Edited September 22, 2019 by 000l000

[TylerFreeman]

7 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Oh another one who thinks Ember sucks. Well i guess you're also wrong about sentinels. Fact is you used Vulcax as an example when this weapon is pretty much an exception - a downgraded Vulklok to be short - and tbh i really think something is missing in this gun and perhaps it should be fixed one day. Quite funnily you didn't choose Vulklok to show how bad sentinel guns were.

But many sentinel guns are far from being as bad, almost half of them are killing enemies up to sortie level with not much effort if properly built. Rivens are damn easy to get since you only need to get Silmaris targets so not having one is no excuse either. In fact sentinels are more effective than Kavats or Kubrows cause they're shooting from afar and not missing much their targets. Pets AI is pretty dumb, they also miss at melee range quite easily - if they aren't stuck somewhere, dying.

Vulklok, deconstructor, sweeper are all damn effective. Stinger, burst rifle, laser rifle or even death rifle prime (soon) are able to kill in no time if you build them well. At this point i don't care about them applying any status if they can kill anything alone.

Vulklok can also use a buff but in the sense that it could be a small boost in damage, like 100. It's crit, status is actually fine but the fire rate is still abhorrent considering it's below 1 and that alone could be changed. The thing is though, I've been checking it's acquisition since you have to get Diriga and it seems you can buy this at just MR0. So at the very least, vulcax should be a massive upgrade compared to a market sentinel's weapon.

I only brought ember as an example, don't @ me lol

Again, I said I'm not going to bring rivens into this discussion because it wouldn't be fair in regards to actually making sentinel weapons good. I don't like using pets due to the cumbersome fact that they can be incapacitated and are two to three tilesets away, so yeah, Pet AI lowers their usefulness by a ton. But thing is, they're able to have good damage and the fact they now have elemental mods is pretty cool, it just doesn't help that I build them for endurance and etc. 

But anyways, those three weapons are only effective to an extent. Sweeper is good, that's something I can't deny. Although, it could probably use a fire rate and a tiny adjustment to it's damage.  deconstructor is helios only, so I'm not sure how that could be buffed.  Vulklok is an underperforming sniper rifle with a fire rate of 0.15. 

The rest of the sentinel weapons can't give good results with such low dmg to start with unless they were given some decent stats to help improve them.

Edited September 23, 2019 by TylerFreeman

[000l000]

Il y a 5 heures, TylerFreeman a dit :

Again, I said I'm not going to bring rivens into this discussion because it wouldn't be fair in regards to actually making sentinel weapons good.

But they are, and since they're easy to get now i don't see why one shouldn't be using them. One riven every 3 day with enough MR is perfectly fair - even one per week tbh.

Truth is that you don't seem to own enough fully built sentinel guns to judge them. I do and i can tell you that you're wrong, sentinels can kill quite efficiently on their own. But as you pointed out, some of them seem quite inadequate (Vulcax for example - but i may add Mulcron or even Tazicron) and if something should be reworked i think they should buff the two or three underwhelming guns first.

I don't think that sentinels were or even are meant to oneshot level 200 bombards anyway and i'm fine with that. As long as they kill up to sortie level enemies, i don't see anything wrong with them.

[TylerFreeman]

1 minute ago, 000l000 said:

But they are, and since they're easy to get now i don't see why one shouldn't be using them. One riven every 3 day with enough MR is perfectly fair - even one per week tbh.

Truth is that you don't seem to own enough fully built sentinel guns to judge them. I do and i can tell you that you're wrong, sentinels can kill quite efficiently on their own. But as you pointed out, some of them seem quite inadequate (Vulcax for example - but i may add Mulcron or even Tazicron) and if something should be reworked i think they should buff the two or three underwhelming guns first.

I don't think that sentinels were or even are meant to oneshot level 200 bombards anyway and i'm fine with that. As long as they kill up to sortie level enemies, i don't see anything wrong with them.

That shouldn't be the case nor do I find it acceptable to gauge their usefulness through a riven. No matter IF the acquisition for one is easier. We are discussing normal sentinel weapon stats that should be given a balance pass. That's final.

No. I do own them all but if you're implying that I'd go through the trouble to forma them all to justify the 'fully-built' weapons then sorry but I'm not gonna subject myself to that extent. Most of their stats aren't worth the investment and since Wyrm prime was the first, burst laser rifle was also primed. The only saving grace is it's 15% critical chance but that also underperforms since the multiplier is 1.5x and base 12 damage, I don't think you'd get that much killing power out of it.

Even then, the fortuna sentinel weapons (Besides Cryotra) direly need to be buffed to make up for the effort to acquire them. They shouldn't be this ridiculously bad to begin with and renders their usage outside of leveling them pointless.

How many times of a broken record am I gonna say that I don't want them to be lvl 165-200 bombard wipers? If they can kill sortie or arbitration enemies, that's fine by me as well but if things are gonna stay like this, then we're just gonna be limited to sweeper, deconstructor and so on.

[Tiltskillet]

Sentinel Weapons : Why is anyone hardly talking about them?

 

Because they're duller than dishwater.  

[000l000]

Le 23/09/2019 à 07:46, TylerFreeman a dit :

That shouldn't be the case nor do I find it acceptable to gauge their usefulness through a riven. No matter IF the acquisition for one is easier. We are discussing normal sentinel weapon stats that should be given a balance pass. That's final.

No. I do own them all but if you're implying that I'd go through the trouble to forma them all to justify the 'fully-built' weapons then sorry but I'm not gonna subject myself to that extent.

You are discussing about normal weapon stats, not us - and tbh you're not the one who's choosing what subject has to be discussed or not unless you're into soliloquy.

You don't want to consider rivens, even if they are damn easy to get - truth is that rivens are mods, and so they are to be considered as such.

You don't want to discuss about how they're performing even if you never tested them fully built so i'm wondering what credibility you may have while discussing the whole subject.

You don't want to forma anything at all to make them perform better so i'm wondering how you're managing your whole gear at this point.

No offense but what are you even doing here ? I don't see even a reason to discuss further with you, it won't ever be productive cause you don't have a clue about what we're talking about.

Edited September 25, 2019 by 000l000

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

Deconstructor prime is the best one 

It can reach a range of over 30 meters and kill all trash fast

[TylerFreeman]

2 hours ago, 000l000 said:

You are discussing about normal weapon stats, not us - and tbh you're not the one who's choosing what subject has to be discussed or not unless you're into soliloquy.

You don't want to consider rivens, even if they are damn easy to get - truth is that rivens are mods, and so they are to be considered as such.

You don't want to discuss about how they're performing even if you never tested them fully built so i'm wondering what credibility you may have while discussing the whole subject.

You don't want to forma anything at all to make them perform better so i'm wondering how you're managing your whole gear at this point.

No offense but what are you even doing here ? I don't see even a reason to discuss further with you, it won't ever be productive cause you don't have a clue about what we're talking about.

...Who's soliloquy? wait nevermind I googled it. don't mind this.

Anyways, I literally stated in the starting topic that I'm not factoring them in, yet you still want to bring that up to me. It's rng-stats and for the last time, is not going to be used to dictate how useful a sentinel weapon is.

The reason why I bring up their performance is that most of their laughably meager stats prevents them from being more reliable and trying to forma some of them isn't gonna bring any good results regardless of how I build it. It's either I bring the stat-stick, the sweeper, or nothing at all.

None taken of course but I'm just here proposing something that could be looked down as a silly request but for the hell of it, I'm gonna make it. What I want to see is giving us variety, more of, let's say making sentinel weapons more unique, that's my whole entire reason. I'm sorry if you think I wasted your time but if we can't meet eye to eye then I guess that's how it is.

Edited September 25, 2019 by TylerFreeman

[(XBOX)Rez090]

On 2019-09-20 at 5:57 PM, akots said:

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.

Um, enemies always target sentinels in-game because of the amount of "threat" they generate, even more with weapons attached. It's always how my poor Carrier or Helios always get shot down before I do.

[akots]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Rez090 said:

Um, enemies always target sentinels in-game because of the amount of "threat" they generate, even more with weapons attached. It's always how my poor Carrier or Helios always get shot down before I do.

You have to invest some resources into the sentinels to make sure they can survive the AoE damage, regenerate their health or revive themselves if needed. For Carrier/Helios at least 3-4 forma plus reactor are essential plus a lot of endo and credits to max the mods. Given some love and care, they survive just fine through Profit Taker fight and can make it through the Eidolons as well. Does it pay off? It sure does, they can heal the frame, restore the shields, scan enemies for damage boost (Helios), pop containers all over the place (Carrier), provide occasional status immunity (Wyrm), deal serious damage, efficiently apply status with their weapons for amazing crowd control and damage boost, etc.