what's wrong with Sentinel damage

[Ace-Bounty-Hunter]

46 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Helstrum actually deals a surprisingly high amount of damage, if you mod it well. I'd actually argue that Helstrum isn't that great at priming, due to the projectiles having such a slow flight speed. Enemies are usually dead long before those clusters of rockets find their targets, unless firing at things I'm not actively rushing down (such as things to the flanks or behind me).

Ultimately though, priming is one of those things that only matters if you're fresh/new to Steel Path and don't have a basic SP kit built yet. Once you start putting together your proper kit, priming very quickly becomes a waste of time.

The only reason I still use Helstrum is because I haven't felt the mood take me to go grab something else yet, and Helstrum is still useful for its passive CC application (enemies on fire flail around instead of attacking me, etc). I've actually been thinking about remodding it to cold, to give me a source of passive cold procs for slowing spazzy enemies (like Rogue Voidrig/Bonewidow).

You can build it for damage, sure. But I find it pales significantly in comparison to Verglas in that regard. Especially if you're using an energy hungry frame with Duplex Bond equipped. Having three immortal Sentinels flying around and zapping your enemies is pretty dang satisfying.

As for the priming aspect, I admittedly got lucky with a Helstrum riven that had fire rate and projectile flight speed on it. So it does a pretty decent job of stacking viral on lots of enemies and helping to generate lots of health orbs with Synth Deconstruct that synergizes perfectly with Equilibrium. 

At the end of the day though, Helstrum and Verglas are the only worthwhile options in an arsenal of mediocrity. I just hope DE decides to bring the rest of the weapons up instead of nerfing the only good ones.

[Hexerin]

2 minutes ago, Ace-Bounty-Hunter said:

At the end of the day though, Helstrum and Verglas are the only worthwhile options in an arsenal of mediocrity. I just hope DE decides to bring the rest of the weapons up instead of nerfing the only good ones.

Yea, I'll definitely agree with you there. I'm actually kinda curious to test out Vulcax with a specialized build, as the stats seem like there's some potential for a killing weapon. Overwhelming opinion by others is that it's actually terrible though, so dunno how that'll pan out if I ever get around to it.

That being said, I'd say that Deconstructor could easily be added as a third option alongside Helstrum and Verglas. It obviously has the restriction of only being available to Helios, and it can't crit, but its actual base damage is quite substantial. It held its own for quite a long time before I got my hands on Helstrum.

[Ace-Bounty-Hunter]

11 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

I'm actually kinda curious to test out Vulcax with a specialized build, as the stats seem like there's some potential for a killing weapon. Overwhelming opinion by others is that it's actually terrible though, so dunno how that'll pan out if I ever get around to it.

I wouldn't even bother building the Vulcax for damage because its performance is extremely poor. The only reason anyone uses it is because it's one of only two Sentinel weapons (the other being the Vulklok) that can go over 50% crit without a Riven. They're essentially just stat sticks for Tenacious Bond builds.