Should the developers just re-make sentry?

Unknown

He's become a completely useless character unless you have the health packs to back it up. I don't see him being used anymore AT ALL.
I know I sell his covers whenever I pull them, don't even want to waste a roster slot on him ( I know this will backfire when he's an essential in PvE but usually they give you the essential character in the previous PvE so i'll probably recruit him then). Wouldn't even use him with hood anymore. Hoods yellow is better than sentry's now. It's an A class nuke. There's literally NO USE for this character unless your using him for shets and giggles.


I don't have a general idea of what his new abilities would be, but just an idea i thought to be thrown in the air. A completely revamped sentry would be pretty refreshing.

Unknown

I'm fine with this. I feel for the people that spent real money to buy covers that do something only to have the developers take that thing away without reimbursing them.

TheViceroy

Sentry always felt fundamentally broken to me.
All three of his skills are self-damaging. And two of the three damage the entire team!
He should have at least ONE skill that isn't self-damaging, even if it's a passive of some kind.

It feels like a passive-aggressive attempt from the developers to try and squeeze more Health Packs out of anyone that uses him.
This also makes him feel super cheap when fighting him.
Any self-damaging ability has it's drawback mostly negated because the defensive team doesn't have to worry about how damaged they are when the battle is over. So they can go all out cause all that matters is the win. For the active player, it's not so simple, as using these self-damaging abilities over and over means use Health Packs or stop playing.

The original version of Sentry was like Juggernaut, but worse.

I still have design issues with Juggernaut when his scaling is through the roof. He wasn't meant to be that high a level when he was originally designed.
Remember when PVE character max level was 240? Pepperige Farms remembers, but so do I.

They upped max PVE character levels to try and combat Patchneto, but mysteriously they didn't lower them when Magneto & Spider-man were nerfed. This was also back when max 3 stars were 140 too, so to bring it back to comparable max level they'd have to be something around the realm of a max 4 star, or a bit higher. Maybe 295.
Ah well, enough complaining.

GothicKratos

I've said this about a million times on this board, but Sentry in a vacuum was/is not broken. People only used him while shield hopping because of his insane speed - being able to get 2-3 matches in relatively safely was/is pretty awesome. The ability to use shield after shield with no real drawback is what made him good.

His abilities were self-damaging because that gave a real-world drawback to how well his abilities scaled, otherwise people would have climbed with Sentry too, and he would have truly been broken beyond belief. If Sentry was to be reverted back to how he used to be now that we have shield cooldowns, he would still fill the same ole niche; shield hopping. He'd be a lot less impact in the overall meta, however, because you can't just hop your heart away and get a good score.

As it stands now, though, he still kinda has a niche; 'over-scaled' PvE nodes. This was relatively popular pre-nerf, but Sentry/Hood/y can still throw down a ton of damage in seconds.

Phaserhawk

GothicKratos wrote:

I've said this about a million times on this board, but Sentry in a vacuum was/is not broken. People only used him while shield hopping because of his insane speed - being able to get 2-3 matches in relatively safely was/is pretty awesome. The ability to use shield after shield with no real drawback is what made him good.

His abilities were self-damaging because that gave a real-world drawback to how well his abilities scaled, otherwise people would have climbed with Sentry too, and he would have truly been broken beyond belief. If Sentry was to be reverted back to how he used to be now that we have shield cooldowns, he would still fill the same ole niche; shield hopping. He'd be a lot less impact in the overall meta, however, because you can't just hop your heart away and get a good score.

As it stands now, though, he still kinda has a niche; 'over-scaled' PvE nodes. This was relatively popular pre-nerf, but Sentry/Hood/y can still throw down a ton of damage in seconds.

I'll disagree with you on the not broken part. Any character, I mean any character that can single handly wipe an entire team by himself by the start of your 5th turn is broken, that being said, the whole idea behind him was solid, the entire issue came down to the multiple triggers on the strike tiles. If strike tiles never existed then World Rupture as it was would have been a strong skill but not game ending. You would have been doing about 1800 AoE for 7 which is cheap but it also came with self damage. Supernova is the perfect skill for him, if anything I think it may need a little more pop, but it was the "I'll damage everything" kind of skill. Sacrfice is extremely powerful, but carries with it a hefty price. It has always been World Rupture being the problem. Have it blow up at once and you take away a lot of the power which was cascade generation. You can't take away strike tiles and you can't reprogram the ability not trigger on strike tiles.

What they did to World Ruputre was terrible, it just took him from great to unplayable. There were 3 fixes I would have implemted way before what they did.

1.) Less tiles but more damage on the tiles. I would have created 6-8 random tiles that did double the dmg they did before. This doesn't change the skill, it just reduces the abuse.

2.) Create a modify Version of Juggernatu's green, but when the tiles blow up they do damage. Less creative but still good.

3.) Just increase the cost of skill, not the CD timers. While this would have only delayed Sentry bombing by 1-2 turns, it's much easier to deny a 12 AP skill than a 7.

There are many other viable options I am sure, but the true death knell on this skill was the 3 CD timer over the 2 + the AP increas. Had this skill stayed at 7 it would have severely hindered the ability at 3CD but not nearly as bad as what happened. Hopefully they will retool him, keeping him close to what he is but bringing his power closer to that of 3* Thor.

rednailz

Why bring him back in? I hear he's having a great time chilling at the pub with Rags and Spidey talking about the good ol days, while thorwing peanuts and taunting beast, she-hulk, and Doc Oc

Unknown

I guess yes and no. Sentry is pretty pathetic now BUT there are still more pathetic 3*s out there. So from that point of view he could use a rework but other 3* heroes are probably MORE in need of a rework (hello beast).

The thing to bear in mind is you'll only "see" people using heroes in PvP. That means you'll only ever see 2 choices + a featured and everyone is going to use their best 2 choices. That means a hero has to be pretty damn good to get any kind of exposure in PvP.

Also, those ppl who maxed Sentry pre-nerf probably did VERY well for themselves in PvP (unless you were right at the end and you therefore have my sympathies) and they will have used him to get covers for tons of other 3*s AND Xforce, which snowballs into probably having 4Thor. Even if they only had XForce from their sentry bombing that's still the best green user out there, so no room for Sentry to get any use.

He's not actually a terrible hero. He's a health pack sink but he does a LOT of damage and is still pretty quick in doing it.

rednailz

bonfire01 wrote:

I guess yes and no. Sentry is pretty pathetic now BUT there are still more pathetic 3*s out there. So from that point of view he could use a rework but other 3* heroes are probably MORE in need of a rework (hello beast).

The thing to bear in mind is you'll only "see" people using heroes in PvP. That means you'll only ever see 2 choices + a featured and everyone is going to use their best 2 choices. That means a hero has to be pretty damn good to get any kind of exposure in PvP.

Also, those ppl who maxed Sentry pre-nerf probably did VERY well for themselves in PvP (unless you were right at the end and you therefore have my sympathies) and they will have used him to get covers for tons of other 3*s AND Xforce, which snowballs into probably having 4Thor. Even if they only had XForce from their sentry bombing that's still the best green user out there, so no room for Sentry to get any use.

He's not actually a terrible hero. He's a health pack sink but he does a LOT of damage and is still pretty quick in doing it.

You are correct. I had a good enough sentry, but didn't have the hood to compliment him...which made all the difference, at least as a deterent.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

but Sentry/Hood/y can still throw down a ton of damage in seconds.

Hardly a "ton" anymore. Given the expected survival rates of the countdowns, and the cost of WR, Sacrifice and Intimidation, you're way better off just casting something like Rage of the Panther.

simonsez

Myles Lux wrote:

A completely revamped sentry would be pretty refreshing.

I wouldn't want to see him revamped. His abilities are pretty unique and there's no reason to lose them. They just need to roll back the nerf a bit. Extending the countdowns or increasing the AP cost would've been enough on their own, but doing both killed his usefulness.

Unknown

As mentioned above you only get to pick 2 guys in PvP so just being pretty good is rarely going to cut it in terms of usage when you've guys who are considerably better than 'pretty good'. Even if there are 25 other versions of X Force named A through Z Force and are all easily available people will probably still settle on a couple of favorite letters and you'll be seeing people saying Q Force is rarely used compared to X Force who has the coolest name despite the two characters are equally powerful.

Conceptually speaking Sentry's skillset is unlikely to be the best 2 because it takes a lot of work to figure out when to best use a Supernova or even Sacrifice. Then again, all but about 2 guys are unlikely to have a skillset that'd make them the best 2.

Unknown

He is still an A player in PvE, just in a different role. He is the enforcer for Human Torch, absorb all the red and green body blows will Torch quickly wipes out the other team. Only needs a health pack every other match (at high level) - quite effective.

It just requires player to think outside the box and not be stuck in the Featured +2 mindset.

SnowcaTT

rednailz wrote:

Why bring him back in? I hear he's having a great time chilling at the pub with Rags and Spidey talking about the good ol days, while thorwing peanuts and taunting beast, she-hulk, and Doc Oc

The game has only gone on a bit more than a year, I missed the first few months (so the first few nerfs).

Question 1: Has any nerf yet been undone or scaled back? (Spidey/Sentry went terrible after nerf and nothing has been done).
Question 2: Has any buff yet been undone or scaled back? (X-force/Loki both went great after buff, nothing has been implied that they'll change)

Unknown

I love my Sentry. Daken, Patch, Supernova, win, repeat.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

I've said this about a million times on this board, but Sentry in a vacuum was/is not broken. People only used him while shield hopping because of his insane speed - being able to get 2-3 matches in relatively safely was/is pretty awesome. The ability to use shield after shield with no real drawback is what made him good.

His abilities were self-damaging because that gave a real-world drawback to how well his abilities scaled, otherwise people would have climbed with Sentry too, and he would have truly been broken beyond belief. If Sentry was to be reverted back to how he used to be now that we have shield cooldowns, he would still fill the same ole niche; shield hopping. He'd be a lot less impact in the overall meta, however, because you can't just hop your heart away and get a good score.

As it stands now, though, he still kinda has a niche; 'over-scaled' PvE nodes. This was relatively popular pre-nerf, but Sentry/Hood/y can still throw down a ton of damage in seconds.

Once again, I agree. The trouble wasn't so much Sentry, it mostly was (and still is) the immense point losses that force you to shield hop. With the shield mechanics, Sentry's huge drawback - damaging himself and his team mates - didn't matter anymore. Sentry has been truly broken in the meantime, the problem remains the same, only that everybody uses X-Force now.

Unknown

Rico Dredd wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

I've said this about a million times on this board, but Sentry in a vacuum was/is not broken. People only used him while shield hopping because of his insane speed - being able to get 2-3 matches in relatively safely was/is pretty awesome. The ability to use shield after shield with no real drawback is what made him good.

His abilities were self-damaging because that gave a real-world drawback to how well his abilities scaled, otherwise people would have climbed with Sentry too, and he would have truly been broken beyond belief. If Sentry was to be reverted back to how he used to be now that we have shield cooldowns, he would still fill the same ole niche; shield hopping. He'd be a lot less impact in the overall meta, however, because you can't just hop your heart away and get a good score.

As it stands now, though, he still kinda has a niche; 'over-scaled' PvE nodes. This was relatively popular pre-nerf, but Sentry/Hood/y can still throw down a ton of damage in seconds.

Once again, I agree. The trouble wasn't so much Sentry, it mostly was (and still is) the immense point losses that force you to shield hop. With the shield mechanics, Sentry's huge drawback - damaging himself and his team mates - didn't matter anymore. Sentry has been truly broken in the meantime, the problem remains the same, only that everybody uses X-Force now.

I think if they had added cooldowns before the Sentry nerf, there would not have been the need for a Sentry nerf. Unless the nerf happened to push the Meta to 4 stars...

Unknown

I think they should bring back his old green skill but have it be 12ap. That slows him down without him finishing battles in 30 seconds but also doesn't allow all his tiles to be matched. Also, Damage needs to go back to near how much it did before. His red and his yellow work fine the way they are.

Unknown

Mattfal wrote:

I think they should bring back his old green skill but have it be 12ap. That slows him down without him finishing battles in 30 seconds but also doesn't allow all his tiles to be matched. Also, Damage needs to go back to near how much it did before. His red and his yellow work fine the way they are.

World Rupture needs to just be 12 green AP, destroy the tiles the CDs would've been at, doing damage to enemy/self equal to what those CDs would've done. They try too hard to give him a unique flavor with the massive number of CDs. Flavor is cool but it should not supersede practicality. At 12 AP and destroying 16 tiles on the board at max level, it'd be a strong board shaking move and doing decent (but less damage than Supernova) to the enemy team/your team, which makes sense because you get a bigger board shake that doesn't end your turn so you should expect less damage.

Trisul

papa07 wrote:

He is still an A player in PvE, just in a different role. He is the enforcer for Human Torch, absorb all the red and green body blows will Torch quickly wipes out the other team. Only needs a health pack every other match (at high level) - quite effective.

It just requires player to think outside the box and not be stuck in the Featured +2 mindset.

The weird thing about that is that you could design a character with no abilities, just a lot of HP and a certain color set and that character would probably see quite a bit of use.