Sentinel Survivability is vastly underwhelming

[Xekrin]

Spoiler

Sentinel               Health        Shields        Armor

Carrier               200                100             50

Carrier Prime   400                 100            150

Dethcube          200                100             50

Diriga                 350                50              50

Djinn                  200               100             50 

Helios                200              100             50

Shade                350              50               50

Prisma Shade   350             100              75

Wyrm                  200            100              50

Wyrm Prime      100            300             150 

Above is a breakdown of every sentinel we have.  It it pretty obvious which one is the best for survival.  Vacuum isn't the only reason to use carrier.  I've actually tried, even before the vacuum update, to use other sentinels in sorties.  It never worked out very well.  Sentinels simply do not survive very long in high levels.

This is an issue that has long been discussed and more or less ignored.  I am hoping with this change it will be addressed and have more of a focus in the future.

I can't really think of much else to say except that we have such a large variety in stats on frames but just looking at the spoiler above its obvious there is very little difference between each.  Of the ones that are clearly superior Carrier Prime outshines them all.

Now clearly a Prime varient should be better than any vanilla ones but simple fact is even Carrier Prime is easily defeated in certain high level situations (namely eximus sorties).

Sentinels (and sure animal companions too) need to survive better.  Personally I think doubling each and every stat would be an awesome start to this.  Being completely invulnerable (and unable to attack) while the frame is downed would be good too.

As a side note, and to be blunt as hek, the Regen mod fraking sucks.  We need a way to 'revive' our sentinels after they are destroyed beyond the regen mod, which barely helps in the majority of situations where sentinels are busted up.

That's pretty much it I think.

I just had to edit and add that the Shade sentinel having the second highest health is pretty amusing as it is intended for stealth, which is all about avoidance of damage versus mitigation.  

Edited October 6, 2016 by Xekrin
shade blurb

[Stonehenge]

That's a fact, they really get easily destroyed once we reach level 50-60. I allways wondered what could be done to improve their survivability.

Animal compagnons on the other hand, are bullet-sponges with a few mods. They dont lack survivability (until level 90-near endgame more or less), they lack some tactic flexibility and better pathfinding.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Stonehenge

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

DE wants ressource sinks.

How much alloy plates, circuits, control modules, and salvage do you have in your inventory?

"Brilliant" idea: make a sentinel repair kit and be over with it.

[SergeiTheBeast]

This falls in line with what myself and many others were saying earlier in the Vaccum thread. Why is Carrier the tankiest if Djinn is supposed to be the one who "draws fire" from you to it. If that's Djinn's precept, then why does it suck at it? Carriers vaccum wasn't the only reason people used it. DE for some reason I CANNOT fathom REFUSES to listen to the player base so often it stuns me. I don't get why we're ignored on such things or labeled as "Good for finding issues but bad for resolving them" I can't recall who said that but frankly, that was quite the rude and empty minded thing for a member of the DE staff to say. I know you guys work hard and a LOT. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that, but when your player base offers VALID resolutions to problems you created but you blow us off...I'm dumbfounded guys.

Also looking at this spread reminded me how wyrm prime has less health than it's base variant.

 

Edited October 6, 2016 by SergeiTheBeast

[Evultis]

I would suggest tripling or quadrupling the base armor of all sentinels across the board, at least as a start.

[DeMeritus]

5 minutes ago, SergeiTheBeast said:

Why is Carrier the tankiest if Djinn is supposed to be the one who "draws fire" from you to it. If that's Djinn's precept, then why does it suck at it?

Just one of countless examples of mechanics or items that have been long forgotten and abandoned by the devs.

Remember resource extractors?  DE sure doesn't.  :P

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

12 minutes ago, SergeiTheBeast said:

This falls in line with what myself and many others were saying earlier in the Vaccum thread. Why is Carrier the tankiest if Djinn is supposed to be the one who "draws fire" from you to it. If that's Djinn's precept, then why does it suck at it? Carriers vaccum wasn't the only reason people used it. DE for some reason I CANNOT fathom REFUSES to listen to the player base so often it stuns me. I don't get why we're ignored on such things or labeled as "Good for finding issues but bad for resolving them" I can't recall who said that but frankly, that was quite the rude and empty minded thing for a member of the DE staff to say. I know you guys work hard and a LOT. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that, but when your player base offers VALID resolutions to problems you created but you blow us off...I'm dumbfounded guys.

Also looking at this spread reminded me how wyrm prime has less health than it's base variant.

 

What devstream was that? Oooohhhh, i want to see it. Lets blow that all out of proportion

[Stonehenge]

20 minutes ago, Cephalon_Esrius said:

I would suggest tripling or quadrupling the base armor of all sentinels across the board, at least as a start.

Aaaand that's why game design is a full -time job, and not a matter of applying the first idea you have.

[k05h]

4 hours ago, Xekrin said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sentinel               Health        Shields        Armor

Carrier               200                100             50

Carrier Prime   400                 100            150

Dethcube          200                100             50

Diriga                 350                50              50

Djinn                  200               100             50 

Helios                200              100             50

Shade                350              50               50

Prisma Shade   350             100              75

Wyrm                  200            100              50

Wyrm Prime      100            300             150 

Above is a breakdown of every sentinel we have.  It it pretty obvious which one is the best for survival.  Vacuum isn't the only reason to use carrier.  I've actually tried, even before the vacuum update, to use other sentinels in sorties.  It never worked out very well.  Sentinels simply do not survive very long in high levels.

Yup, carrier prime has the best survivability of all sentinels. With max rank calculated redirection and enhanced vitality carrier served me well up to sortie level 3. It very rarely dies ... and if it does then because I went down multiple times before. 

The other thing DE seems to not understand is utility. Sentinels that kill are just not helpful. At low levels they steal affinity with their kills and at high level they just do not do any useful damage. I mean at high level you either use CC or a decent weapon to clear the room. I have been running around with a pure utitlity sentinel build (no killng enemies) for quite some time and utility is just more helpful. That leaves you with shade, helios and carrier (prime). 

Edited October 6, 2016 by k05h

[Chipputer]

3 hours ago, SergeiTheBeast said:

Why is Carrier the tankiest if Djinn is supposed to be the one who "draws fire" from you to it. If that's Djinn's precept, then why does it suck at it?

Because that's not how it works anymore. They changed it months ago. People were too busy using Vacuum to notice-- heck, Tactical Potato even mentioned that Djinn got changed and his viewers didn't even seem to pick up on it. He was even showing it off in his videos for like a week!

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Carrier Prime having such crazy survivability has been a problem since it was introduced. There was no reason to give it as high of stats as it has, particularly when they shafted Wyrm Prime in the way they did.

Easiest way to solve the problem is just letting us revive sentinels with a gear item, which should also reset their Regen precept. Boom. Problem solved.

Also, for the record, stray explosions kill Carrier just as quickly as everything else, when it gets down to the point that it matters. I can't count the number of times my Carrier would end up dead, when I was running my Health Conversion/Despoil build and I didn't even realize it had already died once. It's the most durable, but that isn't saying much.

[SergeiTheBeast]

1 hour ago, Chipputer said:

Because that's not how it works anymore. They changed it months ago. People were too busy using Vacuum to notice-- heck, Tactical Potato even mentioned that Djinn got changed and his viewers didn't even seem to pick up on it. He was even showing it off in his videos for like a week!

----------

Carrier Prime having such crazy survivability has been a problem since it was introduced. There was no reason to give it as high of stats as it has, particularly when they shafted Wyrm Prime in the way they did.

Easiest way to solve the problem is just letting us revive sentinels with a gear item, which should also reset their Regen precept. Boom. Problem solved.

Also, for the record, stray explosions kill Carrier just as quickly as everything else, when it gets down to the point that it matters. I can't count the number of times my Carrier would end up dead, when I was running my Health Conversion/Despoil build and I didn't even realize it had already died once. It's the most durable, but that isn't saying much.

Wow, I have to admit when I am wrong about something and that you were right about it being changed. This is it, you're right they did change it. After a bit of reading it was changed a lot. But what I find odd is that this change was still swept under the rug, I don't recall ever and I mean EVER hearing,reading or seeing ANYTHING about this change from any major Warframe youtuber, anything in clan, update notes, nothing. Could I have missed it? Yeah, but Damn did I miss it if that happened.  That doesn't change my point that Carrier Prime is STILL the tankiest of all Sentinels. And as a side note WHY, is Wyrm prime left with LESS health than base Wyrm? Why? In what world does that make sense where a Prime version of ANYTHING in warframe is not a direct upgrade but in wyrm's case only a sidegrade.

In the long run, sentinel survivability is still an absolute joke, that being said, I picked my Carrier prime over a Kubrow or any other Sentinel EVERY time over any other companion. The QOL upgrade it gave me over forcing me to play the square dance dosey do to pick up ammo and items was worth the minuscule damage a Kubrow could have given me (You'll notice I didn't mention Kavats as I don't have one so I won't talk out of my tail about them) Carrier's stats still far exceed every other sentinels even if you ignore vaccum. Now that Universal vaccum is a thing (AND  DO NOT TWIST MY WORDS, THIS IS A GOOD THING WE HAVE UNIVERSAL VACCUM! Carrier Prime is STILL superior to other sentinels because they lack the basic stats to stand next to him. Does that mean Carrier should be dragged down with a nerf? Oh god no, I want to see all sentinels with at LEAST comparable stats to him. I'm not touching vaccum range in this thread as I've spoken my piece on it in many threads already, but his new precept combined with the fact that 80+ percent of the player base used him and thus have him forma'd to high heaven means his useage will not go down for a long time after this change. A small example for me is for the longest time I used the Soma once Soma Prime was released, I dropped it like the hot rock it was. My profile STILL list's the Soma as my most used weapon. *shrug* It's been a year if not more.

[Xekrin]

Another suggestion I'd like to throw onto the board is a way to heal sentinels.  Yes, I know health plates already do that but to be honest it feels kind of wasteful when I don't need healing but my sentinel does.  Is that odd?

Personally I think the regen mod should also have some umm.. what's it called?  Oh right regen on it.  Regenerate health over time.  Its a somewhat sentient machine in the future and it cannot self repair?  

Another one, medi-ray, it heals me but for some reason it cannot heal itself the same way.  So I equip medi-ray to keep myself healed yet still must drop a health plate to heal my sentinel.  Feels weird man.

 

[Xekrin]

It was rather disappointing how much they discussed sentinels on the last devstream but no one mentioned how easily and quickly every sentinel gets destroyed.  Usually resulting either in the "let me die" plea or just leaving people without that essential companion for the duration of most high level (sortie) missions.

Especially considering how much of an uproar people made about vacuum range, yet you have 0 range when the sentinel dies.

[Kurokoz]

On 10/5/2016 at 8:32 PM, DeMeritus said:

Just one of countless examples of mechanics or items that have been long forgotten and abandoned by the devs.

Remember resource extractors?  DE sure doesn't.  :P

They don't need to remember them.. They work fine and I still use them every day. I'm always low on polymer bundles, plastids and neural sensors.. So I got distilling on jupiter, and a titan on Uranus and Mercury. I am not disappointed by them.

[dstrawberrygirl]

Equipping a weapon on a sentinel draws away XP from the weapons you are likely levelling back up. On lower-level missions, it'll steal your kills when you attempt to get your affinity bonus. On higher levels, unless it's a carrier, it'll probably die.

Carrier with no weapon is what I almost always use, mainly because Animal Instinct and medi ray. Second favorite is Helios when I know I need some more scans. The rest are a bit meh - I rarely bother with Shade because your cloak drops the second you do anything. Wyrm prime sometimes because he's shiny. I tried Djinn lately for testing (but was kinda disappointing) and because the new skin is pretty. Haven't touched Dethcube or Diriga since I got them to 30.

[Sloan441]

The CarrierP and Prisma Shade are significantly tougher than other sentinels. However, if you're targeted by heavy AoE attacks, you're probably going to lose your sentinel--unless you're Trinity or a Nyx in terminator mode.  

If you can avoid bombard rockets and don't stand in the fire, the sentinels usually last just fine. Also, if you stand around in one place too long, the enemy will start in with grenades, and those will kill sentinels PDQ.

Personally, I think they're fine as is for the most part. One place I would like to see some adjustment is armor values. These are pretty low across the board, even on CarrierP. Higher stats here would make much more use of the sentinel armor mod which presently is borderline useless.

I would like to see more prime sentinels and special variants. We've only seen two of the former and one of the latter. More is better.

[(XBOX)C0gnitive 0n3]

This is the very same reason why I will continue to use Carrier Prime over any other sentinel in the game after "The Vacuum Within" hits consoles...

 

...then again, I haven't done  end game content (HA! I said "end game content"), in a very long time.

[Xekrin]

2 hours ago, Sloan441 said:

The CarrierP and Prisma Shade are significantly tougher than other sentinels. However, if you're targeted by heavy AoE attacks, you're probably going to lose your sentinel--unless you're Trinity or a Nyx in terminator mode.  

If you can avoid bombard rockets and don't stand in the fire, the sentinels usually last just fine. Also, if you stand around in one place too long, the enemy will start in with grenades, and those will kill sentinels PDQ.

These are pretty obvious workarounds, especially since aoe damage hits YOU too, but most of the time you tend to survive.  Sentinel does not.  This is pretty unfortunate.  The regen mod immediately restores them but since most forms of damage comes not just once but often it rarely ever saves it.  My djinn just got roasted this morning by a napalm on sedna, instakilled with regen.  

Sometimes taking damage is unavoidable despite how hard you try to do so.  Having one's only option to restore a sentinel is to die and not be revived is rather quite silly regardless of mission level.  Sentinels don't have the luxury of being revived with a 20 second downtime like animal companions do.  They take damage, they are gone.  period.

Not sure how or why something like this is defendable, it would do nothing but benefit everyone who uses sentinels but regardless it is just far too easy to lose a sentinel despite one's best efforts sometimes of avoiding damage.

Besides most of the time I lose a sentinel is because I was downed and the enemy just keep on firing at my sentinel, gun or not while I can do little about it (especially in no secondary sorties).  Djinn definitely takes more aggro than any other sentinel too despite its fatal attraction supposedly preventing them from firing while under effect.

Yes bringing a sentinel is optional but when doing so one typically expects it to last the entire mission, we are supposed to be on the frontline more often than not, we have abilities that help OUR survivability but they are right above us and the things some of us do to keep ourselves alive (including, oddly enough, bring a sentinel) does not keep them alive.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivability

1.  
2.  

Wikipedia

In the military environment, survivability is defined as the ability to remain mission capable after a single engagement.

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How funny is it that this is the exact definition of what sentinels aren't half the time.  There are a whole lot of possibilities to give them more survivability, ways to fix regen to be more useful, self repair options over time, various solutions, we just have none of these in game right now.

[--RV--arm4geddon-117]

Most Sentinels survivability in high lvl missions and REGEN mod FEELS like having a Lamborghini and 1 liter only in the gas tank

 

Edited October 12, 2016 by arm4geddon-117

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

Just make sentinels immortal and remove them as targets.

-or-

Change regen's function so that if they die, rather than having a small chance to revive and stay alive, it puts them in a repair state (100% of the time) where they start a self-repair sequence. The higher the rank, the shorter the repair time.  When they are repairing, they can't do anything else, and when the repair is complete they are fully functional again. That would still punish you for letting them die, but it would also stop people from just going and letting themselves die in a corner to get their carrier back.

Edited October 12, 2016 by (PS4)DesecratedFlame