Sentinel EHP Update When??

[Authoritycat]

So, I wanted to add Taxon to a build for a specific mod only it can use (Molecular Conversion). I sunk three forma into the sentinel before giving up completely.

The frame I was going to use (Hildryn) even buffs Taxon's defenses, but it just didn't make a difference; a dead sentinel is not useful... I know Taxon is one of the weakest sentinels, but its EHP isn't so much worse than a Carrier Prime that I'd be willing to drop my complaint (from experience carrier primes die at high lvl anyway). In response to my disappointment I'd like to revive the discussion about sentinel EHP, starting here.  

Link Mods: These are often the best base EHP mods for companions, but sentinels, the WEAKEST companions, can't use them!! An easy fix would be to make these universal, just like the OG sentinel mods for health, armor and shields can be used on other companions. This wouldn't solve the problem on its own but would help somewhat.

Revive: All other companions can be revived from a downed state, giving them effectively infinite EHP. Once again, sentinels are left wanting... This is a huge issue for open worlds and endurance runs as any sentinel will eventually die. The longer the mission, the more of a problem that becomes and recent mission types like Isolation Vaults have tended to be long.  

Master's Summons: This recent addition could have solved the issue by reviving companions, or at least sentinels. Instead, it's completely useless for sentinels specifically because they're already next to you at all times and don't have the EHP to avoid one-hit KOs so the heal doesn't help either. This recent addition is not useful at all for a specific (and again, objectively weakest) type of companion so I believe this should be looked at too! 

A lot of sentinel augment mods are extremely fun and build-relevant, but they can't be used outside of the Simulacrum due to the EHP required in high level gameplay. Helios and Carrier are better off with their primes, but what about the other augments that simply can't be used because their respective sentinels die halfway through a sortie mission, let alone Steel Path? This strikes me as a major build diversity issue.  

What are your thoughts on this? I still get a hollow feeling when I remember this problem was never addressed. RIP Sentinels :(

[Leqesai]

I mean... This is a pretty dramatic post. Sentinels are perfectly usable. Sure they get blown up from time to time but Primed Regen is the current band-aid that makes this not much of an issue in most game types.

The only real problem I have is when using sentinels in endurance modes. A 20 minute survival usually works out fine even in steel path, but longer than 20 minutes and sentinels don't really keep up very well.

 

You can mitigate a lot of issues with sentinel durability with the Synth mod set, btw. And by not equipping an attack precept they are much less likely to get targeted by enemies. I mean... Sentinels are not really much of a damage increase, in general, and the utility of their secondary weapon is mostly related to carryover with set mods like the augur and gladiator sets. By disabling their attack precept you can retain the utility of the sentinel a lot more easily.

Having said that, I do agree that it would be very nice to have a reliable form of revive for sentinels.

[nslay]

Give your Taxon a Cryotra or Helstrum and mod for 100% status with Radiation damage. That should help prolong its life because enemies will be distracted!

Using Sentinels on a CC frame also helps. For example, I can do an hour+ of Steel Path Survival with Khora and Helios. The Helios seldom ever dies because the Khora protects herself (and the sentinel) with Ensnare and Strangledome.

Rapid Resilience can be useful if your sentinels are dying from Electricity procs on your Warframe (or just use a Warframe with status immunity abilities). Orb Vallis a particularly bad place for sentinels because of the electricity procs.

Oh yeah... don't give Sentinels any extra shields. They benefit from shield gating! You can give them +shield recharge rate mods/effects (Accelerated Deflection) to help regain full shield gating immunity faster... but not necessary.

Otherwise I agree with many of your other sentiments.

EDIT: And if you really want an immortal Sentinel, look at Djinn. Well worth the augment (Reawaken), reactor and forma if you really really like sentinels.

[Authoritycat]

@LeqesaiYou can mitigate some of the issues, sure, but I'm directly(and fairly) comparing Sentinels to Kavats, Kubrows, Moas and the infested variants.

Primed regen revives the sentinel three times, but all the others can be revived indefinitely. Putting a weapon on a sentinel is a bad idea too because they'll just die faster, meanwhile most of the other pets can do pretty good damage while also staying around for the duration of any mission. I may have been a little dramatic but I'll stand strong that Sentinels aren't at the level of other pets in the game. They're just not worth using over the alternatives, even in my case of using one for a specific mod on a very specialized build. None of that matters if the sentinel dies.  

[Authoritycat]

@nslay You kind of proved my point by bringing up Khorra. That build sounds nice but the fact that you need to CC enemies for the sentinel to stay alive defeats the purpose of the sentinel since the build diversity is limited. I guess that could be intended but I doubt it. 

You mentioned status immunity. Do sentinels receive immunity from the warframe, or do you mean through a buff like Nezha's halo? For my build as an example, Hildryn is, by all meanings of the word, invincible. I'd sacrifice a whole ability slot if it meant making my sentinel invincible too lol. Just going to stick with a moa for now. Fits the theme and can equip most of the important mods a sentinel could, just not the Taxon's augment. 

Honestly if it were any other sentinel I (probably) wouldn't have complained as harshly. Taxon is particularly squishy even compared to other sentinels so I really should've seen the result coming lol. 

[(PSN)crashteddy03]

@Authoritycat I'm with you on this one. My max rank, decently modded Oxylus died the other day due to an elec proc from a Lvl 7 Terra Trencher. Four ticks, dead. Revived through Prime Regen, hit again, dead. From a low level enemy!

As the Sentinels don't produce much of a threat level, unless they have a decent weapon equipped, it seems to me that it is AoE damage and/or procs that do the majority of the damage. I'd like to have some way to at least add some status resistance to sentinels - currently AFAIK this isn't possible.

[(PSN)crashteddy03]

1 hour ago, nslay said:

Rapid Resilience can be useful if your sentinels are dying from Electricity procs on your Warframe (or just use a Warframe with status immunity abilities). Orb Vallis a particularly bad place for sentinels because of the electricity procs.

I think I'm going to have to test this out. I wasn't aware that this worked on the Sentinel as well.

[nslay]

1 minute ago, (PSN)crashteddy03 said:

I think I'm going to have to test this out. I wasn't aware that this worked on the Sentinel as well.

It doesn't work on sentinels. It works on your Warframe that kills your sentinel via the Electricity proc itself (which damages all allies around you).

[nslay]

6 minutes ago, Authoritycat said:

You mentioned status immunity. Do sentinels receive immunity from the warframe, or do you mean through a buff like Nezha's halo? For my build as an example, Hildryn is, by all meanings of the word, invincible. I'd sacrifice a whole ability slot if it meant making my sentinel invincible too lol. Just going to stick with a moa for now. Fits the theme and can equip most of the important mods a sentinel could, just not the Taxon's augment. 

If your Warframe has an Electricity proc, you damage all allies nearby you (including your sentinel). This detail has nothing to do with the sentinel itself.

[(PSN)crashteddy03]

2 minutes ago, nslay said:

It doesn't work on sentinels. It works on your Warframe that kills your sentinel via the Electricity proc itself (which damages all allies around you).

Ahh, that makes sense now!

[nslay]

1 minute ago, (PSN)crashteddy03 said:

Ahh, that makes sense now!

Rapid Resilience will bring the effect of the Electricity proc down to just below the sentinel's shield gate (~1 second). So I have seen happen is, one electricity proc will hit the Sentinel's shield gate instantly, then Rapid Resilience will remove the Electricity status just before the shield gate effect ends. This is key!

Try it out on Orb Vallis with and without Rapid Resilience/Status immunity... this is the most awful place for sentinels. When you get an Electricity Proc, have a look at your sentinel's HP bar. You can see just how nasty Electricity can be!

[nslay]

16 minutes ago, Authoritycat said:

@nslay You kind of proved my point by bringing up Khorra. That build sounds nice but the fact that you need to CC enemies for the sentinel to stay alive defeats the purpose of the sentinel since the build diversity is limited. I guess that could be intended but I doubt it. 

If you go in and expect to tank everything, a Sentinel just isn't for you given how delicate they are. But if you use CC frames like Revenant or Khora or CC effects (Radiation like on Cryotra), you will greatly enhance the longevity of your sentinel. I also had Djinn survive an entire Tridolon run on Trinity... so I guess her 4 gives the sentinel -75% damage and healing too.

 

[Tyreaus]

While I wouldn't be against things like universal Link mods, I still feel the most basic fix is to swap the utilities of (Primed) Regen and Reawaken so that all sentinels can revive on a (relatively short with Primed) timer and Djinn has the added bonus of being able to instant-revive several times. We know the "revive on a timer" thing works since Djinn exists and the game hasn't spontaneously imploded from Reawaken's potential synergies like with Sacrifice.

[bubbabenali]

Sentinels had a tough time since forever.

But with the release of the Moas they are flat out the second rate option all the way. 

Oxylus has a niche for farming and Helius for scanning, but that's it. 

Compared to Moas they have way worse survivability, way worse cc abilities, need to waste a mod slot for attacking and don't share their percepts with each other. 

[_Anise_]

On 2021-03-16 at 6:50 PM, Authoritycat said:

(Hildryn) even buffs Taxon'

when I mentioned taxon before I was recommended to just use the shield charge kubrow instead, I think its better but using another companion for utility, taxon for me is shelved for now, queued /completed a new one ready to claim in the off chance I ever need it again but I doubt it.

[Steel_Rook]

On 2021-03-17 at 1:55 PM, bubbabenali said:

But with the release of the Moas they are flat out the second rate option all the way. 

This right here hits the nail on the head. Moas can use pretty much all the actually meaningful Sentinel mods whithout actually BEING Sentinels. Outside of a few corner cases like the Helios, there's pretty much no reason to bother with a Sentinel over a Moa. I personally expected Moas to be DE's attempt at fixing Sentinels - a proof of concept if you will. But then nothing happened. We still have practically zero reason to bring Sentinels with us.

I say what I've said many times before - make pets invulnerable. There's no gameplay inherent in keeping them alive - especially beast pets. Sure, some Warframes under some circumstances can keep some pets alive reliably, but it's luck of the draw. Just get rid of their health bar entirely. Or failing that, do this:

On 2021-03-17 at 6:19 AM, Tyreaus said:

While I wouldn't be against things like universal Link mods, I still feel the most basic fix is to swap the utilities of (Primed) Regen and Reawaken so that all sentinels can revive on a (relatively short with Primed) timer and Djinn has the added bonus of being able to instant-revive several times. We know the "revive on a timer" thing works since Djinn exists and the game hasn't spontaneously imploded from Reawaken's potential synergies like with Sacrifice.

And I'd say do that for Beast pets, as well. They die, they go away for a while, they come back. No need to go look for them, no need to revive them. If they die, they die. There's no kind of pet management during combat anyway, so it's not like there's a skill component to any of it. Plus, I'd argue that Vulpaphyla pets already prove that this is viable. Just do that, but for all of 'em.

[Authoritycat]

On 2021-03-17 at 12:19 AM, Tyreaus said:

While I wouldn't be against things like universal Link mods, I still feel the most basic fix is to swap the utilities of (Primed) Regen and Reawaken so that all sentinels can revive on a (relatively short with Primed) timer and Djinn has the added bonus of being able to instant-revive several times. We know the "revive on a timer" thing works since Djinn exists and the game hasn't spontaneously imploded from Reawaken's potential synergies like with Sacrifice.

I love this idea!

[Yamazuki]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

I say what I've said many times before - make pets invulnerable. There's no gameplay inherent in keeping them alive - especially beast pets. Sure, some Warframes under some circumstances can keep some pets alive reliably, but it's luck of the draw. Just get rid of their health bar entirely. Or failing that, do this:

Companions/sentinels having health bars likely has nothing to do with gameplay reasons and all to do with DE's "vision" and constant fixes through alternate grinds that hard limits choice, despite the constant nerfing all in the name of diversity.

People complain companions die and beast in particular are often moronic, the solution was releasing multiple grinds and slot wastes. We got a silly arcane as a way to heal Companions/Sentinels, we got a silly Aura that makes them more durable, and then Deimos got the beast companions.

Following DE's trend, I don't get why we can't just get a mod that simply reduces companion/sentinel damage to zero and makes them unable to be hit by anything.

I know some people like to say "but immortal pets are bad!1!1!1!", even though it's already possible to have them never die. Wisp's existence already makes it so even Sentinels will never die unless it's some silly long endurance run. For companions that use link mods, high defensive stat Warframes, or builds also mean they never die, especially given you can instantly heal them to full hp easily. Then there's the permanent aoe cc spam or stealth. It really makes no sense why a select few Warframes get to have nearly immune to death companions, it's not as if they gave up what ever is considered a power budget in this game for that; it is entirely a bonus feature.

[Steel_Rook]

2 hours ago, Yamazuki said:

People complain companions die and beast in particular are often moronic, the solution was releasing multiple grinds and slot wastes. We got a silly arcane as a way to heal Companions/Sentinels, we got a silly Aura that makes them more durable, and then Deimos got the beast companions.

DE's propensity for half-assing systemic fixes as mods and items is troubling indeed. Vacuum is a perfect example. Rather than re-working the system so the mod isn't needed, they instead released Fetch, thus patching their previous stopgap patch of Carrier Vacuum. The same goes for pets dying.

"Oh, Sentinels are dying too much? Have Regen. Still too much? Have more Regen. Still too much? Why not use a Moa? Still too much? Erm... Put the normally Beast-restricted Link mods on your Moa. STILL too much? Aw, geez. OK, so screw it. What if we just gave you a pet that doesn't die but instead regens infinitely on its own. How about that?"

K, DE - Vulpaphylas are indeed really cool and a damn good compromise solution to the issue of pets dying. Vulpy dies? It's OK, it'll be back - but I do lose radar and vacuum in the meantime. Seems fair, seems well-balanced, seems fun. So... Why isn't this available to ALL of the pets? Hell, why aren't Moa mods available to all the Sentinels? Why do we have to keep getting individually decent fixes released on just one item out of many? I like Vulpaphylas, don't get me wrong. But Bird is my friend :) I'd like to share this pretty good mechanic with him, because there's no sense in keeping it locked to just one pet type spanning three pretty gnarly-looking pets?

I'm seriously expecting to see Necramech Instinct one of these days. Pet mods don't work on Necramechs so I can't use Vacuum or Animal Instinct on mine. "OK, so SOME innate Vacuum on Necramecs, here's an enemy radar mod and you're SOL on the loot radar. Doesn't exist for mechs."