Buff The Sentinel Laser Rifle And Burst Pistol?

[Felandi]

Now, these two weapons are incredibly under-used, for good reason to boot, as they have a base damage that cannot compete with the Deth Rifle, Sweeper and Djinn's toxic darts. This part many of us know, we have seen the stats, leveled the weapons and then moved on to something else when we desire carnage.

At this point, the only reason to use the Burst Pistol or Laser Rifle on your sentinel, is if you do not want your sentinel to steal kills and affinity.

 

(I admit I do this, stick full fire rate mods on the laser rifle, then non-modded fire and cold damage for the rare knockdown effect blast damage gives.)

 

Let's not kid ourselves, we already know the damage (or the status chance) has to be buffed for these two weapons to be valid choices for the damage-dealer. (Or the crowd control aficionado.) However, while we are on the subject, why not alter something basic between the two weapons?

 

First: We have the Burst Pistol, the name makes sense, it fires mid-speed projectiles in bursts. Applying speed mods to this weapon increases the amount of time each burst takes to finish, but the downtime between each burst remains the same. Why not have reload speed mods decrease the interval?

It could be a very interesting weapon as pistols have access to Lethal Torrent. Which in combination with Barrel Diffusion and the theoretical reload speed would make this weapon a burst-fire mini-gun of sorts.

 

Secondly: The Laser rifle for some reason also has these intervals where it stops shooting, then resumes after a set amount of times. Despite not being described as a burst fire weapon. The bursts are longer, but it still acts like the burst pistol within this regard.

The change I would propose is to make it more of a continuous fire weapon, as the travel time of the projectiles still results in plenty of misses above close range. Just let those enemies feel properly suppressed. The burst just makes it feel like a copy of the burst pistol.

 

While we are at it, how about making energy colour altering the projectiles of these two weapons?

 

EDIT: Testing has shown that the  Burst pistol appears to only fire a single bullet for some reason. Needs looking at.

EDIT: The codex states that the laser rifle is 'Automatic' while the pistol 'Burst-Fire'. This makes the burst nature of the rifle look unintentional.

 

If these are ideas you enjoy, or absolutely hate. Then discuss it. Clicking +1 is fine and dandy, but it is discussion that makes ideas visible to the community and devs. Tell us about experiences with these sentinel weapons.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Felandi

[Rajko]

Makes sense to me.  I'd always thought that both would eventually be re-worked.

 

Although as I read your post, it occurs to me that neither makes any sense for the sentinel they come with.

 

Why does the stealth sentinel have a pistol at all?  Shouldn't it pack a silent weapon of some kind?

 

Why did the original offensive sentinel have a poor energy rifle at all?  If it fired light AOE micro-rockets in little bursts with a high knockdown chance, that would make more sense.

[A1CZERO]

I agree since now that we can change the weapon on the sentinel there's no reason why some weapons should suck.

[Xana_Skullsunder]

Definitely give these weapons.... something! Wyrm is supposed to be an offensive sentinel with good crowd control, and the laser rifle doesn't really reflect this. The Carrier's shotgun is way better for crowd control, even after the damage nerf.

[SoanoS]

I also agree the Burst Laser Pistol and Laser Rifle sentinel weapons could use a performance review. Currently I only use the Burst Laser Pistol for low-level missions where I don't want my sentinels to kill everything before I have a chance to scan/shoot/melee them.

 

Burst Laser Pistol could use a critical and status chance increase, as it was originally meant to be used with the "defensive" stealth Sentinel. The DPS of this weapon should not be its main focus, but causing status effects and criticals/staggers to help player survival.

 

Laser Rifle would benefit from a larger magazine capacity, increased Puncture damage and a slight critical and status chance too, as Wyrm was, as I understood it, an offensive sentinel with some defensive capabilities (Crowd Dispersion). Sadly it is far be outperformed by the Djinn and the Carrier in this role due to their high-powered weapons.

 

Note here that I am not asking the critical and status chances to be increased to ridiculous amounts, but I'd like them to be upped some that we see them score them occasionally. Something like 10-15% would be just fine by me.

 

And I definitely agree we should be able to change the sentinel weapon energy colour, this would make them feel more like personal tools.

[Brimir]

I recently suggested adding 10-15% Status Chance on them. What they lack in damage they make up in support by proccing Elements on your enemies.

[Felandi]

Laser Rifle would benefit from a larger magazine capacity, increased Puncture damage and a slight critical and status chance too, as Wyrm was, as I understood it, an offensive sentinel with some defensive capabilities (Crowd Dispersion). Sadly it is far be outperformed by the Djinn and the Carrier in this role due to their high-powered weapons.

 

Technically speaking, the Laser rifle has no magazine, per say. Just like the Deth Rifle does not have to stop to reload. The pause in it's fire is in fact intended. It fires in pulses like the Burst Pistol, making the weapons more similar than might be advisable.

 

Naturally, the best example for this is the fact that sentinel weapons are not affected by either max ammo mods, nor max magazine mods.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Felandi

[TenkoTenko]

Status chance please

[SoanoS]

Technically speaking, the Laser rifle has no magazine, per say. Just like the Deth Rifle does not have to stop to reload. The pause in it's fire is in fact intended. It fires in pulses like the Burst Pistol, making the weapons more similar than might be advisable.

 

Naturally, the best example for this is the fact that sentinel weapons are not affected by either max ammo mods, nor max magazine mods.

 

Well, I only assumed the pause between the bursts might be handled trough the magazine size/reload mechanic.

If that is not the case, the burst delay could be a bit shorter. Now the burst weapons just sit there doing nothing a lot of the time. :p

 

(Edit: Typos, the laptop keyboard I use is a bit flaky)

Edited December 3, 2013 by SoanoS

[Cortanis]

Yeah, they're both long over due for a revamp or to be retired for some better method. Personally, I don't like ether of them even with these proposed alterations. They just don't bring anything to the table that the other guns don't already. If they're going to up the proc chances and such, it should be done on all of the weapons. As the stealth sentinel, Shade should have a fully silent hard hitting weapon as said. With that being said, why is Shade presumed to have a spray and pray type of pistol to begin with? Wouldn't a head hunter type pistol design like the Lex make more sense, but give it a decent rate of fire and lower the recoil on it. Also, where is the obligatory sniper weapon with a range to actually back that one up? I'd imagine something like the Vulkar would be present by now for the sentinels.

 

Now the lazer rifle is another story all together as far as I'm concerned on this one. With the DM rifle, it's just rather redundant. It needs character of its own in the very base sense. By all means it should be replaced with something that has a base element damage like the suggested explosive damage and with a high proc chance. Something like a cluser fire of an Ogris would be nice and appropriate.

 

The other thing is that both of the sentinels themselves need a much higher engagement distance and fire accuracy. Regardless of what weapon I put on Shade, it really has problems hitting the broadside of a barn let alone killing anything. Wyrm is much better, but it's effective targeting distance doesn't make it much better ether. All in all, the sentinels could use a lot more mods to tweak them with. One such mod should be a targeting mod in the first place. I don't care if it's an accuracy mod or a range mod, but something needs to be done about both of them on that part.

[Derpo]

It seems likely that the reason the pulse pistol is so ineffective was originally to balance the extremely useful stealth ability on the Shade sentinel. Once weapon-swapping between sentinels was allowed, the only real reason not to use the carrier's shotgun on every sentinel would be specialized builds for stun effects or some other niche purpose. This is because the shotgun possesses BOTH the most DPS and the most derp. By derp, I mean the ability to flatten something right now, without regard to cooldown time.

 

By rights, the highest DPS weapon should belong to the Djinn. It's by far the most difficult sentinel to acquire, simply because you must be in a mature clan to even get the blueprint. This could be achieved by increasing the rate of fire for the dart gun by 40 or 50 percent.

 

As for the Shade, the stealth ability is useful enough that the Shade's starter weapon is not an issue. However, the burst pistol is not a logical or satisfying match for the Shade. Instead, the Shade should have the Warframe equivalent of a silenced 9mm Browning Hi-Power. Incidentally, I have fired the silenced Hi-Power, and I can tell you the silencer doesn't help that much. Anyway I would think that a Latron with integral 90% Hush would be about right for the Shade.

 

As for the laser rifle, it is nowhere near as pathetic as the pulse pistol. Still, the laser rifle makes little sense as a default weapon for the Wyrm. The Wyrm is all about crowd control, and his weapon should support that role. The ideal weapon for the Wyrm is a sonic stun pistol with a built-in NON-STAGGERING stun effect. The DPS potential of this weapon should be greater than the Shade's Hushed Latron, but less than the Dethcube's minigun and certainly less than the Djinn's improved dart gun.

[Voidflow]

Would be nice to have more status on

pew pew pew ...

[Cortanis]

 Anyway I would think that a Latron with integral 90% Hush would be about right for the Shade.

 

As for the laser rifle, it is nowhere near as pathetic as the pulse pistol. Still, the laser rifle makes little sense as a default weapon for the Wyrm. The Wyrm is all about crowd control, and his weapon should support that role. The ideal weapon for the Wyrm is a sonic stun pistol with a built-in NON-STAGGERING stun effect. The DPS potential of this weapon should be greater than the Shade's Hushed Latron, but less than the Dethcube's minigun and certainly less than the Djinn's improved dart gun.

First, the Latron has all but been done in due to the power creep in the game. Exactly that issue is why I suggested an approximate to the Lex which has almost double the attack power of the Latron and just as much accuracy. Of course the stats need to be more balanced for general use rather than for just armor penitration,  but that would actually put it more to an approximate to the Seer and that's not exactly a bad thing.

 

Next, I have to take issue with the laser rifle suggestion. As you pointed out, it would have less dps potential than the DC minigun. That's an issue right there in its own right. The sentinel weapons NEED to be balanced for desired use rather because of potential dps value. The minigun with explosive damage and high rof mods would beat it out just because of the chances of procing the explosive effect due to the rof. That's one of the reasons why I suggested outright replaceing it with something that has a default aoe damage type like useing a clustershot rocket version of the Ogris with a 100% or near that effect chance. With that, you get a whole new weapon with a totally different use in that sense rather than something you can produce on the already existing minigun.

[Felandi]

Next, I have to take issue with the laser rifle suggestion. As you pointed out, it would have less dps potential than the DC minigun. That's an issue right there in its own right. The sentinel weapons NEED to be balanced for desired use rather because of potential dps value. The minigun with explosive damage and high rof mods would beat it out just because of the chances of procing the explosive effect due to the rof. That's one of the reasons why I suggested outright replaceing it with something that has a default aoe damage type like useing a clustershot rocket version of the Ogris with a 100% or near that effect chance. With that, you get a whole new weapon with a totally different use in that sense rather than something you can produce on the already existing minigun.

 

It is a fair thought. Looking at it, the travel-time nature of the laser rifle projectiles and it's lesser accuracy compared to the Deth rifle could very possibly warrant a reason for making the laser rifle have a higher base damage per projectile than the Deth machine gun.

It fires slower, it misses more often. So making it fire without the burst habit it currently has with more damage, would be a way to make it just as useful as the Deth rifle. Especially if the status chance is slightly higher.

[Cortanis]

That is true to an extent, but I still have to stick by my statement on this one. If you're looking for a crowd control weapon, you can't beat the sheer rof of the minigun of doom and that's doubly true if you're rocking all the rof mods on it. Even with a low status chance, the amount of projectiles being fired more than makes up for it. I've used this to great effect while trying to level melee weapons as is by slapping explosive damage onto it. The effect is even more drastic if you're talking about use on infested while they're packed together like canned fish. The point is, that even if you remove the faults of the weapon to make it more like the minigun, it will still just be trying to be the minigun. Another weapon all together would be the best option so that players have another mechanic to work with rather than just two versions of the same weapon.

[Derpo]

First, the Latron has all but been done in due to the power creep in the game. Exactly that issue is why I suggested an approximate to the Lex which has almost double the attack power of the Latron and just as much accuracy. Of course the stats need to be more balanced for general use rather than for just armor penitration,  but that would actually put it more to an approximate to the Seer and that's not exactly a bad thing.

 

Next, I have to take issue with the laser rifle suggestion. As you pointed out, it would have less dps potential than the DC minigun. That's an issue right there in its own right. The sentinel weapons NEED to be balanced for desired use rather because of potential dps value. The minigun with explosive damage and high rof mods would beat it out just because of the chances of procing the explosive effect due to the rof. That's one of the reasons why I suggested outright replaceing it with something that has a default aoe damage type like useing a clustershot rocket version of the Ogris with a 100% or near that effect chance. With that, you get a whole new weapon with a totally different use in that sense rather than something you can produce on the already existing minigun.

This post is very sensible, as are all of your posts that I've seen. Nevertheless, the Latron is right for the Shade in part because the Latron has been left behind in the power creep in Warframe (beta). There is no need for sentinels to have the same DPS as players. In fact, I'd say the Dethcube minigun is a bit much, due to its efficiency at imposing elemental and stun effects. Stun lock is easy to achieve.

 

Additionally, while you are correct in all your thinking and conclusions, I'm not sure you've considered the annoyance of near-continuous AOE attacks by your sentinel. You surely can beat my stun gun idea without resorting to AOE explosions =)

 

Anyway, thanks for an insightful and enjoyable post.

[Cortanis]

Your welcome and your ideas aren't bad ether. I'm just keeping in mind the effective fire rate on the Lex and power creep in the game. Even Latron is due for an update at this point and my thinking is that useing it as a base would just put it back at square one on the issue. I do have to admit that the constant proc aoe is much, but it's the best I've been able to come up with while not turning the thing into a constant kill stealer. Maybe a flash bang weapon of some sort would be better or maybe a costic/sticky hinderence effect would be more appropriate.

[Felandi]

I saw a mention about possibly balancing the sentinel laser weapons with base elemental damage, it is an interesting thought. What if for instance the burst pistol was balanced by radiation damage as a base element. Like the Detron of legend. Then you give the pistol (for the sake of sensible argument, as status chance has yet to be balanced across the board) The standard proc chance of 10%.

 

Even in this situation, I would argue for reload speed mods decreasing the time between bursts.

[Cortanis]

That's not a bad situation at all. They need to deal with the horrible status chances on all weapons first before that would be viable, but it could work well. We would only have to hope that they then wouldn't give everything in the game some stupid huge radiation resistance out of spite. The only ones that I see being able to really have a resistance to that would be the Corpus crewmen due to possible radiation dampening from those outfits.

[Felandi]

That's not a bad situation at all. They need to deal with the horrible status chances on all weapons first before that would be viable, but it could work well. We would only have to hope that they then wouldn't give everything in the game some stupid huge radiation resistance out of spite. The only ones that I see being able to really have a resistance to that would be the Corpus crewmen due to possible radiation dampening from those outfits.

 

Quite, but you have to admit that a rapid fire laser rifle dealing out confusion-causing bullets across the ranks of the enemies is a tempting though. At least Radiation has the benefit that while only robotics are weak against it, nothing has massive resistance against radiation.

[Cortanis]

Yeah, if only weapons had a far more real proc chance than they currently do. That would really be the way to go. I rather wish we could sacrifice a chosen weapon to make it a sentinel weapon. THAT would be awesome. Imagine being able to do that with a Hek or something with a good spread pattern.

[Felandi]

Yeah, if only weapons had a far more real proc chance than they currently do. That would really be the way to go. I rather wish we could sacrifice a chosen weapon to make it a sentinel weapon. THAT would be awesome. Imagine being able to do that with a Hek or something with a good spread pattern.

 

Certainly, but there is no reason to focus on the status chance percentages. As these current numbers are clearly placeholders. It is being worked on. Evident by how useless the current status chance mods are. So on this point, just hold out and see what the update this Wednesday and the next week's brings. Since the developers play the game too, they know the system needs polishing. So far, I like it. However.

 

The question still remains: Are there more ways the Burst pistol and Laser rifle for sentinels could be improved to make them exactly as useful as the other three sentinel weapons. All of those are good enough that I feel I could choose either one for damage purposes.

[Cortanis]

Well, I'd say they could use a serious crit chance to them at the very least. Pretty much every weapon in the game gets a serious upgrade with any kind of ability to pull off rolling crits. The Soma is a perfect example of that one. If it wasn't for the crit ability of the gun, it would be just another subpar semi accurate spray and pray weapon. Those crit chances on it turn it into a demon with the right build.

[Paradoxbomb]

Honestly, I'd like to see Wyrm's Laser Rifle replaced entirely, it just seems obsolete with the Deth Machine gun and Stinger around for single-target offense. I say give him some kind of EMP grenade launcher, with very low damage but a very high proc chance and innate electrical damage, meaning it's meant for creating and dealing elemental procs to multiple enemies at once rather than direct damage. It would also set his weapon apart from the rest and give it actual CC capabilities (since that's supposed to be his thing).

 

Shade's burst laser rifle is okay I guess, after all he's not really supposed to specialize in offense anyway, but they could at least buff the proc chance and boost the projectile speed to be on par with the Dera (those projectiles are just so darn slow).

Edited December 5, 2013 by Paradoxbomb

[Cortanis]

That's exactly what I've been saying, but my vote has been on explosive damage for the knockdown effect.