Shade Sentinel Is (Almost) Completely Useless

[Luxangel7]

I've thanked the devs many times before for making this great game and expressed my faith in them for the future of it. And I hope this doesn't come across as arrogant or harsh, but here goes:

 

After building and levelling Wyrm to 30, I was excited to get shade and try it out.

 

Shade is useless because:

 

-His main purpose (cloaking) takes up 25 energy / Wyrms main purpose (shooting) does not

 

-Even though I have "ghost" (cloak mod) levelled all the way up, Shade will only cloak when I am extremely close to the enemy and only when I have them in my direct line of sight...(lol wut???)

 

-There is no way to know when Shade's cloak will run out, or even if he has enough energy to engage cloak

 

-Cloak immediately deactivates as soon as you are not extremely close to an enemy or have broken line of sight, which is indredibly "useful" as this means that as soon as another enemy is close to you again it's too soon and shade won't recloak you again.

 

The only good thing Shade is for? In the rare occasion that I get overwhelmed by too many enemies I can just stand still in the middle of them until shade decides to cloak me, and if I have enough shields and hp left to withstand the enemy attacks before they lose interest and stop, then I can recharge my shields.

 

My verdict: Shade is basically the "fail" sentinel.

 

How to fix it? There could be a lot of ways to solve the above mentioned problems:

 

-Make cloaking cost less energy, if any at all. If wyrm can shoot without using energy, Shade should cloak without using energy, I mean the fact that it even has a "laser pistol" to me is purely cosmetic as let's be real, who the hell uses shade to fight??? And there are other sentinel mods that use energy, we don't need the main function to do so as well.

 

-Implement a "sentinel" HUD right below our player stats as was suggested in another thread. This will let us see not only the shields and hp of our sentinel, but also when it doesn't have energy to do anything.

 

- Cloak should function completely differently. Either make it a button that we press to activate it without interruptions until we shoot or the timer runs out, or make it so that it activates if there are enemies within an "X" amount of meters from us, as it is now, but make "x" more than 2 ******** meters >:{ and it stays on, with NO interruptions until we shoot or the timer runs out.

 

I realize the devs have said they will be focusing on stealth a lot more in the future, but you don't need to wait until whenever that is to fix a sentinel you already released. Especially when some hotfixes will do the trick.

 

Thank you again dear devs for all your hard work, and I hope you consider implementing some sort of change, even if not the ones I outlined, to fix Shade.

 

 

 

TLDR: Shade sucks. Cloaking sucks. Read above for why and how to fix it. 

[Prepoznator]

Huh?Saved my skin so many times i stoped counting....Good leveled sentinel means kinda god mode if u utilise it properly,dont let them shoot your shade down than it is usless yes. xD

[ReiganCross]

Shade have only one purpose, really... Revenge o.o... Wyrm strikes everyone in sight so you won't be seeing a Sneak Attack anytime soon, maybe when you're so fast at getting the attack that you manage to out-speed his reload time, but other then that, he'll just shoot anything and everything. As for Revenge, it won't strike unless his master takes an attack, which means he will hold his fire until you want him to. Revenge is WAY better then Warrior and i really don't know why would you want to stick with Warrior, especially because Cloak is somehow useful as oposed to Crowd Control, which is mostly useless. (Also, Pistols > Rifle, always.)

[nullCassielle]

There is no timer on cloak. Proof: stand in the middle of a horde of moas while cloaked. Go make a sandwich, some coffee, maybe watch a video on youtube. Come back, still cloaked -- the moas know exactly where you are and won't move if you don't.

 

This is something I tested extensively when I first got the sentinel, and in every patch since. It works.

 

Also, fully upgraded Ghost gives me a cloak range of about 10 yards.

 

Also-also, I have seen the shade run out of energy and use the cloak with "0 Energy" popping up beside it. I assume there's not actually any energy cost, just a cooldown.

[Urash]

Actually, the Wyrm is useless in my opinion. Try going into an infested level of level 50's and tell me just how useless that Ghost precept is. If I ever need to recharge my shield or I'm near death, I just close to melee range with any faction and my worries are over. Plus, having a sentinel that shoots up everything draws attention to itself and it gets shot up real quick. I removed Revenge from my Shade completely and I never plan to use it.

[Bulgarian]

I use Wyrm (warrior) for infest defenee missions and Shade (ghost) for allmost everything (i said allmost,not all the time)

[Luxangel7]

Im not talking about the revenge mod, that is actually necessary for anything resembling stealth play, what I'm talking about is the fact that cloak only activates when you have direct line of sight to an enemy (ie: not hiding around the corner or something) and it immediately deactivates when you lose that line of sight or the enemy is more than 3 frigin meters away from you.

 

Cloak should activate without line of sight and should have a MUCH greater range for being activated. As it's absolutely useless to me if I can cloak but only if I'm really REALLY close to the enemy and have direct line of sight on them.

[ReiganCross]

There is no timer on cloak. Proof: stand in the middle of a horde of moas while cloaked. Go make a sandwich, some coffee, maybe watch a video on youtube. Come back, still cloaked -- the moas know exactly where you are and won't move if you don't.

 

This is something I tested extensively when I first got the sentinel, and in every patch since. It works.

 

Also, fully upgraded Ghost gives me a cloak range of about 10 yards.

 

Also-also, I have seen the shade run out of energy and use the cloak with "0 Energy" popping up beside it. I assume there's not actually any energy cost, just a cooldown.

 

Yeah, the "I know you're here, but i'm not suposed to" is extremely poor in my opinion... It just takes you out of the game when the enemies don't know how to act like enemies, kind of like a nazi crying for mother russia or an alien using urban slang... It just feels out of place and takes me out of the game a lot.

[Engelheim]

It would be nice to have flow and streamline mods for shade.

[RawGritz]

Yeah Shade has irrefutably proved himself indispensable unless it's a defense mission.

[MetalGerbil]

this makes no sense.

 

shade is so much better than wyrm. cloak is crazy OP if anything. i can stand in the middle of a packed room forever if i wanted. you can use enemies to trigger it (turrets are a great way to turn it on and stay cloaked as long as you like).

 

when cloaked you cant take damage, even from disruptor ancients and their annoying grabby hands.

 

i dont see a reason why i would use wyrm at all. its great for rollers and stunning/slowing attackers but who cares when you can get a cloak right as they are about to jump you and take no damage. then turn around and unload in their face when it pleases you.

 

are you playing warframe?

[Adagio]

Im not talking about the revenge mod, that is actually necessary for anything resembling stealth play, what I'm talking about is the fact that cloak only activates when you have direct line of sight to an enemy (ie: not hiding around the corner or something) and it immediately deactivates when you lose that line of sight or the enemy is more than 3 frigin meters away from you.

 

Cloak should activate without line of sight and should have a MUCH greater range for being activated. As it's absolutely useless to me if I can cloak but only if I'm really REALLY close to the enemy and have direct line of sight on them.

 

is your Ghost mod maxed yet ?

i think nullqasael said everything i want to say already about that :X

i don't really mind about the line of sight only, as when they are out of my line sight, i'm mostly out of their line sight too.

[2ply]

Yeah Shade has irrefutably proved himself indispensable unless it's a defense mission.

 Even in a defense mission...with a group SHADE will be very useful..how many times have you needed to REZ up a fallen ally? Shade will cloak you soon after you stop attacking..allowing you to rez a friend without enemies trying to kill you too.

[Braken]

Where are some of you getting that the Sentinals use power? They have what appears to be a cooldown between power uses, and nothing else, since they just keep using them.

 

If you're talking about the affinity numbers that pop up when they use powers; if sentinals didn't get affinity for using thier powers, they'd take FOREVER to level up.

[Cakes]

tl;dr Shade is basically the OP sentinel.

[Luxangel7]

I would appreciate if people read the post instead of just the title. While some obviously did, many obviously didn't.

 

I'm not talking about Shade not being powerful enough, what my post was saying is that it's function to cloak is completely broken.

 

Telling me that it is overpowered because you don't take any damage and can do whatever you want does not equal "good sentinel"

 

I outlined why cloak is not good, and functions horribly. 

 

Line of sight is a problem, if an enemy is alerted to my presence because I had to walk up to his face to activate cloak, guess what? Stealth is pointless because all enemies are alerted now. 

 

Cloak deactivating as soon as an enemy isn't 2 feet away from me is another problem, what good is being able to cloak if as soon as I'm barely away from the enemy it deactivates???

 

From what I've read in the responses people are happy with Shade because it allows them to break the enemy AI (which is already...soooo smart...) and basically not take any damage no matter what's going on. 

 

Well I'm sorry, but that's not what a stealth sentinel is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about STEALTH, not breaking the game and not taking any damage no matter how many enemies caught on to you and are now surrounding you.

 

 

If anything, a REAL stealth mechanic would make it so that you couldn't recloak until enemies who had spotted you were eliminated or some sort of colldown expired.

[HandsomeMask]

Plus yo u can use your abilites while cloaked.

[contractkiller4]

Telling me that it is overpowered because you don't take any damage and can do whatever you want does not equal "good sentinel"

I don't know, being able to not take any damage for literally as long as you like and do whatever you want about every 10 seconds sounds pretty good to me...

[Nedwin]

So... wyrm will stun the HORDE of infested and then thet will eat you omnomom... but shade will hide you AND you still  can use abilities without stopping stealth.

[_Chaser]

enemies should not spot shade at all from distance and basicly ignore it unless they spot the owner. right now crouching with shade is useless since enemies spot shade as if you are standing. thats the only issue with shade

[MetalGerbil]

I would appreciate if people read the post instead of just the title. While some obviously did, many obviously didn't.

 

I'm not talking about Shade not being powerful enough, what my post was saying is that it's function to cloak is completely broken.

 

Telling me that it is overpowered because you don't take any damage and can do whatever you want does not equal "good sentinel"

 

I outlined why cloak is not good, and functions horribly. 

 

Line of sight is a problem, if an enemy is alerted to my presence because I had to walk up to his face to activate cloak, guess what? Stealth is pointless because all enemies are alerted now. 

 

Cloak deactivating as soon as an enemy isn't 2 feet away from me is another problem, what good is being able to cloak if as soon as I'm barely away from the enemy it deactivates???

 

From what I've read in the responses people are happy with Shade because it allows them to break the enemy AI (which is already...soooo smart...) and basically not take any damage no matter what's going on. 

 

Well I'm sorry, but that's not what a stealth sentinel is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about STEALTH, not breaking the game and not taking any damage no matter how many enemies caught on to you and are now surrounding you.

 

 

If anything, a REAL stealth mechanic would make it so that you couldn't recloak until enemies who had spotted you were eliminated or some sort of colldown expired.

 

it seems that is you that doesnt get it.

 

all that stuff is the only thing that keeps it from being outright overpowered. none of those limitations are all that terrible and you arent even SUPPOSE to depend on it like a reliable stealth mechanic, and you practically can under current conditions.

 

shade sentinel is not suppose to be your reliable stealth, its a DEFENSIVE mechanic to safeguard you when something gets to close. all the limitations are there to make that the case.

 

all the things you complain about are not only intentional but the only reason they would even put stealth on a sentinel to begin with. if it wasnt for those things we wouldnt even HAVE stealth on shade.

 

your complaining because your vision of what stealth should be is not represented in the shade.

 

we are telling you it was never meant to be that and as a mechanic that is suppose to be only for defense more than anything its practically broken in an OVERPOWERED way.

 

you can sprint right into a pack of mobs then suddenly vanish, then go about killing them in whatever way you deem fit. either with skill use or a charge attack or what have you. at times even doing things like stealth attacks over and over again to kill the same mob. you dont even uncloak depending on what skill you are using or how you go about it.

 

this is TOO MUCH for a skill that by just about everybody's understanding is suppose to be DEFENSIVE in nature.

 

even things like invisibility for loki have durations and limitations. 

 

its a small wonder they have left it alone this long.

 

all your complaints about the skill relate to it not making you a perma stealth character, or have it be something you can call on demand. 

 

it is not those things, its not suppose to be those things and it would be broken beyond reason if they where.

 

adios.

[Liminal]

In my experience, Shade is amazing versus infestation. Against Grineer and Corpus it's okay at most, but I think that's an issue with the AI where enemies decide killing the sentinel is of the utmost importance, even if the guy under the sentinel is murdering everything... oh, and the fact that sentinels are not very good at taking cover.

 

My only issue with Shade is that many attacks keep track of you even when you've gone invisible and move around. It feels like a bug or an oversight though. (shield lancers, runners, ancient whips, shockwave moas, leapers and sometimes rollers)

[Luxangel7]

it seems that is you that doesnt get it.

 

all that stuff is the only thing that keeps it from being outright overpowered. none of those limitations are all that terrible and you arent even SUPPOSE to depend on it like a reliable stealth mechanic, and you practically can under current conditions.

 

shade sentinel is not suppose to be your reliable stealth, its a DEFENSIVE mechanic to safeguard you when something gets to close. all the limitations are there to make that the case.

 

all the things you complain about are not only intentional but the only reason they would even put stealth on a sentinel to begin with. if it wasnt for those things we wouldnt even HAVE stealth on shade.

 

your complaining because your vision of what stealth should be is not represented in the shade.

 

we are telling you it was never meant to be that and as a mechanic that is suppose to be only for defense more than anything its practically broken in an OVERPOWERED way.

 

you can sprint right into a pack of mobs then suddenly vanish, then go about killing them in whatever way you deem fit. either with skill use or a charge attack or what have you. at times even doing things like stealth attacks over and over again to kill the same mob. you dont even uncloak depending on what skill you are using or how you go about it.

 

this is TOO MUCH for a skill that by just about everybody's understanding is suppose to be DEFENSIVE in nature.

 

even things like invisibility for loki have durations and limitations. 

 

its a small wonder they have left it alone this long.

 

all your complaints about the skill relate to it not making you a perma stealth character, or have it be something you can call on demand. 

 

it is not those things, its not suppose to be those things and it would be broken beyond reason if they where.

 

adios.

 

You espouse knowing what I believe or think when you obviously need to read or reread what I wrote. I AGREE with you that it is overpowered the way it is now, (something that you would know if you read my op) and I'm not complaining that it doesn't conform to my "view" of stealth.

 

This is how shade works:

 

Enemies see you (because shade wont stop that from happening)

 

Enemies come to attack you

 

As soon as you're in range for attack *poof* you disappear

 

You slaughter everything, idle in the middle of mobs, or just blow through the whole level because enemy AI cant do any damage to you unless you decide to attack. 

 

 

I'm sorry, but I don't know WHAT you think you're talking about, stealth, aggressive, passive, doesn't matter. It's not about stealth, because the sentinel isn't doing jack **** about stealth. As it is now, it's basically a "god mode" item that just lets you ignore any enemy you want, while NEVER implementing anything resembling stealth. ie: enemy hordes chasing you through the whole level but never damaging you.

 

To make a comparison, what you're saying is basically that if I boot up metal gear solid, and all the enemies get "!" on them and chase me around, but they cant shoot me, then I'm stealth? ....ooook.

 

Buenas tarde.