I typically play CT, and have tried all variants of the offensive sentries, and on their own they seem pointless.
If you don’t add them to a sentry network AND put the key into your headset, you won’t even know they go off or die.
The long range sniper seems to have the most utility in alerting an enemy presence, but the damage it outputs is abysmal. The long range fire blast can do more damage, but the marines rightfully hate how easily it can set themselves ablaze.
What do you guys think
maybe
In my experience as a frontline/backline combat technician, sentries are best used as an offensive tool, or to discourage flanking
The baseline flamethrower (blue-flame) sentry works best for an offensive playstyle, as you can place it down and it can cover your barricades, it can obliterate the health of an unprepared xenomorph (Anything that isn’t a Queen/Ravager/King/T3!) , especially if it is alone.
The only place where issues start to pop up is whenever it is being used near friendlies who are pushing out infront of it; Due to its short range, and relatively long tile burn-time, it can make harm-intent pushing deadly.
I love you, baseline flame sentry
As for the rest of the sentries? Meh. They’re situational at best. Most sentries have trouble tracking and sticking to the same target, making it hard for them to kill anything.
I guess airbourne sentries (From the Normandy) are alright, if a bit situational!
It’s a defensive tool, locking down one spot alongside cades and cadehuggers. Barely a speedbump if left by itself without minmaxing plasteel walls + grills.
Stock flamer is generally the best so long as they aren’t 3+ ravs deep on T3s.
You can’t just rush up and slap it down frontline with zero cades offensively, it will get shredded by FF. Leapfrogging chokepoint to chokepoint, cades to cades works well.
Omni is good for protecting medics from UAV/funny huggers.
omni turret is good for medic safety / setting up comms/power/front base.
mini sentry is funny if you can hide it in something
regular flamer sentry is really really good for preventing xenos from doing anything, but be ready for xenos to laser target it
plasma sniper sentry is a griefing tool unless you know what your doing
flag is kinda shit
the bell is amazing. bring back The Bell ™
Omnis are great for support positions like mortar, base flamer is honestly the best offensive tool followed shortly by OC tesla. The rest are either middling or negligible from a xeno perspective. Minis are okay if you like being mobile, but that goes against the CT ethos somewhat.
Seconding that last remark- if you gave the sentries to a rifleman with cons/eng skill they would probably love the mini the most. It covers you while wall-clearing pretty well, shotgun as well, but that depends on the choke.
When the enemies can heal and move fast as fuck for free when not being actively exploded, they mostly help slow cade breaches. I keep bringing Warbanner for GP so they can always para or fire off it but its nothing crazy on its own. Overcharged Tesla was my fav forever, but dmr chunks a lil and does act as a decent tell if somethings out of your line of vision.
Bro if you do actually end up with a good sentry its either getting killed by a burrower or mobbed once they brute force or go around it. There are always 3+ ravs
pick base flamer sentry and win
every other sentry is mediocre or terrible, the base flamer sentry can literally kill xenos on its own due to it being a pocket pyro specialist + hedgehogs cant use it to farm shards and grief marines, whereas every other sentry has pathetic DPS and thus is largely useless for combat and survivability.
DMR is more annoying to xenos than deadly.
Flag is amazing for CAS to use to paradrop marines without flares, or provide fire support
It is impossible for Xenos to safely push any position covered by a sentry gun, and they are very high value targets for that reason. They provide major firepower for cadelines, and can also be used aggressively to cover pushes against resin lines if placed just behind the frontline. When I play Xeno, even a default or Omni sentry is sometimes enough to keep me away because I don’t want to deal with the constant high IFF damage.
Default flame sentry will completely fuck over any xeno besides Rav and queen since blue fire is so deadly. DMR sentry is high damage, long range, and annoying as fuck. Default and Omni are both good as well, just lower damage.
If you want a sweaty frontline CT build, take a default flame sentry and an m56d. Place the sentry to cover you, then set up the MG. Any xeno that pushes will be set on blue fire, and get lit up by your IFF MG. This exerts immense offensive pressure.
I had a round where I found four dead engies and was able to salvage all their sentries. With 5 sentries I was able to lock down comms by my lonesome and get 7 kills.
bell backpack
DMR, Shotgun, and Omni are my go to. They do work on xenomorph in my experience. DMR can casually kill most crit Xenos one or two tiles further than you can see. D
Shotgun will evaporate any shield a xeno has and despite the slow fire rate does decent damage.
Omni is good for securing medical triage
I basically only use extended range flag cause I can place it down on a choke and then forget about it and grab it 20 minutes later and it still helps.
Yes, you should always take one instead of leaving it in Prep.
Probably not. People will give you anecdotes but what sentries ultimately do is stop any non-determined attacker from taking that position. Any Xeno really wanting to kill your sentry, or whoever it’s protecting, will break in if you don’t intervene.
The Flag is kind of an exception, because you can leave it and forget about it on the front. It always provides CAS Signal and a passive (Very Useful IMHO) buff to everyone in the area.
sentries are ok though if you aren’t fobbing then BRUTE is probably a better pick anyway
Blue flame, omni, and overclocked tesla are decent, everything else is trash.
flamer sentry (blue) is OP against lurkers and runners if you know the spots in LV but i do thhink its situational.
Sometimes theres points where it kinda fucks up the marine force.
Overcharged Tesla is funny to Frontline with because you just set it up a little to the side of a choke and quite a few times xenos skirmishing for easy hits will get zapped and melted as they’re stunned on the ground.
