[SPOILERS] Do people find fighting Sentients fun?

[Flavor-Savior]

Hey folks, I apologize if I'm completely off-base here; I promise it's not my intention to make passive-aggressive jabs at DE or their enemy design here, I'm just genuinely curious if I'm missing something. I've arrived to Veil Proxima quite recently and have been running Sentient Anomalies there whenever one crops up and I can log in. I think the art direction is absolutely stunning, the H.R. Geiger-esque architecture feels alien, desolate and vaguely threatening, the ambient soundtrack builds an atmosphere of unease and the wide-open expanses are a joy to traverse and feel specifically designed to compliment our post-Parkour 2.0 movement options. The enemies populating these tilesets however just seem irritating with little in the way of redeeming qualities.

It's nice that I can dismember enemies to temporarily disarm them, but when they regenerate after a second or two, this seems somewhat pointless. The assorted hovering Sentient variants move erratically and have very specific hurtboxes making it quite easy to miss shots, leading to frustration if using something like a sniper to get the most out of every shot before the Sentient inevitably builds resistance to the damage type. I understand that perhaps from a thematic perspective this would make sense, the Sentients build their soldiers to have reduced surface area to make them harder to shoot, but I find that this comes at the expense of enjoyment. The adaptive resistance makes Sentients feel spongier than they really are, especially when compared to the level 80+ Grineer Kosma troopers that are also found in Veil Proxima.

I've sunk the requisite five forma into my Paracesis to allow it to strip resistances so I can do so without switching into operator mode, which always kinda broke up the flow of combat in my opinion. Even so, the Sentients frequently hover just out of reach, and most variants seem to be immune to CC or the 'lifted' status from heavy slams. It feels less like I'm fighting a cybernetic menace and more like I'm trying to swat a few obnoxiously resilient flies with a newspaper.

Maybe I'm making things harder for myself, given that I prefer to play solo and am an unabashed Hydroid main. I can't defend the notion that you have to select Excalibur Umbra equipped with a five-forma Paracesis to enjoy the Sentient Anomaly tileset and eventually the New War. Please let me know if I'm crazy or have been approaching this completely incorrectly.

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by FlavorSavior

[taiiat]

the only things i especially dislike about Sentients is their Grenade-ish attack since it's like a Bombard Missile without any warning, and the Disco laser attack since it deals the Damage of a Grenade/Missile but spins around in circles constantly and so can hit you multiple times easily.

outside of that i mostly enjoy dunking on Sentients and caring not much about their Adaptation by virtue of "resist this!".
note that i am more than happy with shooting Sentients with my Guns and not bothering with Melee since i have the Gear to do so.

 

granted sure, i sometimes really hate how many holes there are in Sentients so hitting them with Shots or trying to Waypoint them can be annoying.

 

i am not enthused about the prospect of the game trying to dictate what Weapons i'm allowed to use, though. 400+ Weapons but i'm not allowed to use any of them? i won't be happy if New War tries to force non-diversity on me. hilarious ofcourse as Digital Extremes complains about lack of diversity and then goes and ensures there is as little diversity as possible all by themselves anyways.

Edited December 28, 2019 by taiiat

[PeachyPeaches]

No, you're not crazy. I find sentients more tedious to deal with if I want to bring anything other than Umbra Excalibur or Paracesis. Yes you can use your operator's amp to reset resistance, but even then that's annoying to do having to go in and out every time.

With the Paracesis, the sentients pretty much die at the same speed as every other enemy faction, but they hover out of range sometimes even with maxed reach. I'm forced to use Arcane Lock-Down(to stun) & Zenurik's Void Singularity just to drag the sentient into range.

The Sentient lasers & the walls with lots of balls on them are also an annoyance(for speed running rare chests). It does piss damage, but it staggers you every hit. I can't begin to count how many times I bullet jumped across an open area just to get hit by a laser, fall into abyss, and get sent back to where ever I started the jump from.

So no I'm not having fun fighting the sentient, but they do look really cool and the atmosphere of the place is eerie, which is a nice change of mood. I like dark, spoopy-themed place like Dead Space. I do hope DE makes more like it.

Edited December 28, 2019 by PeachyPeaches

[Megalomaniakaal]

better start investing in your spoiler mode then, unbind the way-bounds and start using your spoiler mode to clear immunities.

[Flavor-Savior]

33 minutes ago, taiiat said:

outside of that i mostly enjoy dunking on Sentients and caring not much about their Adaptation by virtue of "resist this!".
note that i am more than happy with shooting Sentients with my Guns and not bothering with Melee since i have the Gear to do so.

What kind of guns do you use to deal with Sentients? I've been defaulting to an umbral corrosive crit build for the Rubico Prime, since Sentients are composed of ferrite armor. It does respectable per-shot damage but it still doesn't kill them efficiently enough that I don't have to reset them with the Paracesis or an amp after a few shots. I agree with your stance on reducing player options, because loadout diversity allows for greater player expression. I really hope that New War doesn't mandate compulsory high-damage low-status umbral builds for warframes and weapons.

[taiiat]

24 minutes ago, FlavorSavior said:

What kind of guns do you use to deal with Sentients?

I agree with your stance on reducing player options, because loadout diversity allows for greater player expression. I really hope that New War doesn't mandate compulsory high-damage low-status umbral builds for warframes and weapons.

i'm a fan of Lanka (and have been since U8), so i generally elect towards that.
but since Sentients aren't immune to any Abilities, you can being Damage Buffs for yourself to increase the effectivenss of your Guns, if the Gun on its own isn't doing it.

in Railjack Zone 3 the Sentients are fairly high Level as well, and as such you might find some appeal in having 2-3 Corrosive Projections to keep their Armor more in check.

 

for New War i'm mostly concerned about if the Quest is gonna try to force me to use Paracesis for the entire thing - i don't want to use it, i hate it. i don't need it either, don't force me to use it i can take care of myself.

[Butterfly85]

They're ok, so long as you're geared correctly. Its nice actually having to think about how to take them down instead of the usual one shot with gas or slash or whatever.

If there's going to be a lot of stagger traps I might well have to run mods that negate this. I mean we have all these tools to negate hazards but never use them ....

[OriVerda]

I don't enjoy it myself, even with Umbra and a Paracesis it's like chopping down a tree. 

In the Erra cinematic we cut them down with ease, there's a huge contrast between that and what we have. It always made me wonder how the heck we beat them in the past, probably with some sort of unique Orokin mods or super-Catalysts. But I digress.

As much as I dislike they're tankiness, they're more or less necessary as a proper endgame and high-level enemy in my opinion so I can appreciate that at least.

[zuraja]

Not particularly.  They aren't even difficult to fight in any meaningful way, just annoying.

[bad4youLT]

I treat sentients like any other faction , if somethings to annoying or difficult just cheese it.

[Corvid]

Only in very small numbers.

[Loza03]

At lower/mid range levels. Once levels get too high, they start erring on the side of bullet sponge, making them a real pain to deal with. At lower levels though, they're reasonably tanky and can still pack a punch.

Of course, with the Sentient ship, they're all at higher levels which bodes for the New War... hopefully DE is going to be doing some game-wide balance changes using the new damage types and new levels of tankiness as a springboard before things really get crazy...

[Askorti]

If would find them more fun to fight if they weren't constantly floating about, out of reach of my dedicated sentient-slaying melee weapon...

[Gabbynaru]

Nah. They're insanely boring and nonthreatening bullet sponges. I could do without fighting them.

[JackHargreav]

They are fine. 

I actually like the fact that we have specific weapons to deal with them.

[angias]

Sentient is my favorite enemy faction.

They are tough but low in number, you have to play smart with them.

Depending of level and unit. I kill them in 1 shot or in 15 second, when I am alone.

Edited December 28, 2019 by angias

[SordidDreams]

2 hours ago, Corvid said:

Only in very small numbers.

Yeah. That "kill 20 sentients" objective is about as many as I can handle. I definitely wouldn't want to do a standard exterminate that asks for like 200+ of the damn things.

[ixidron92]

hace 5 horas, OriVerda dijo:

I don't enjoy it myself, even with Umbra and a Paracesis it's like chopping down a tree. 

In the Erra cinematic we cut them down with ease, there's a huge contrast between that and what we have. It always made me wonder how the heck we beat them in the past, probably with some sort of unique Orokin mods or super-Catalysts. But I digress.

As much as I dislike they're tankiness, they're more or less necessary as a proper endgame and high-level enemy in my opinion so I can appreciate that at least.

You know it's been like over a thousand years, right? And those are sentient machines that constantly evolve and adapt while we're using outdated technology.

I just find it funny that Balas gave us a sentient slayer... melee weapon. Like... dude, those things fly.

[-Temp0-]

Considering the warframes i bring to fight them, i wouldnt care if they're sentients, regular 20 lv grineer or something else because they all die within seconds.

Цитата

I don't enjoy it myself, even with Umbra and a Paracesis it's like chopping down a tree.

Use valkyr or mesa instead, easiest fight in your life. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by -Temp0-

[angias]

à l’instant, ixidron92 a dit :

You know it's been like over a thousand years, right? And those are sentient machines that constantly evolve and adapt while we're using outdated technology.

I just find it funny that Balas gave us a sentient slayer... melee weapon. Like... dude, those things fly.

I find this silly that most try to melee them.

Just shoot the damn thing and do bonus damage when they are in melee range.

I am doing pretty great with a zarr but you can probably find something more suited for it.

[Corvid]

1 hour ago, SordidDreams said:

Yeah. That "kill 20 sentients" objective is about as many as I can handle. I definitely wouldn't want to do a standard exterminate that asks for like 200+ of the damn things.

Well for me it's more about how many I'm taking on at once, rather than the total over the course of the mission. And it varies based on which enemy it is specifically (For instance, I can deal with a few Mimics at a time, but I don't enjoy fighting anything else if there's a Battalyst in the room).

[DatDarkOne]

Just now, Corvid said:

Well for me it's more about how many I'm taking on at once, rather than the total over the course of the mission. And it varies based on which enemy it is specifically (For instance, I can deal with a few Mimics at a time, but I don't enjoy fighting anything else if there's a Battalyst in the room).

This is why I say Ivara is the premier sentient hunter/killer.  Sleep Arrow and Artemis Bow stops all that bullshyte real quick.