Having been the one to rework them, while I don’t regret it and think they’re in a far better place now than with the old braindead 1 ability stunlock kit, I believe they’re underperforming as t1s. Some of these issues were apparent shortly after the rework, but went unfixed since I didn’t wanna deal with the MR hell of that time. So might aswell do it now, thankfully some changes to the game since then (tailstab, reworked neuro clouds) helped inspire the solutions below.
1. Design overview and issues
The initial design goal was to turn the lil annoying bodyblocker into an offensive support caste with strong abilities for a t1 - but unable to make good use of them by itself, thus heavily reliant on teamwork.
In practice they became
- too reliant on others
they struggle in 1v1 situations far more than any other t1 caste
- often unable to make an effective/satisfactory use of their kit
see “Hibernate” explanation
worsened by changes overtime (SGs) and current meta (marine defensive play) which lead to them being generally unpopular and only slightly more impactful for the xeno team than they used to be before the rework.
2. New abilities:
- Hibernate - causes the sent to enter a forced 5-10 second sleep (forces it into resting until it’s done) during which it’s health would be restored to full. Useable only on weeds. Light green glow outline as an indicator. 30-45s cooldown
Their entire kit is about supporting and working with other caste, which requires them walking out with bulkier t3s and leads to them eating a ton of bullets that they’re ill-suited to tank. Compounded with said teamwork often being unreliable (either because there were too many bullets and the sent had to fall back unable to follow the t3, or the players just didn’t mesh very well etc) and their slow healing it can be frustrating to play when on such a bad streak of achieving nothing and having to rest. Therefore the mentioned ability, to mitigate the downtime and better allow it to actually support the tankier frontline xenos without having to take ages to heal inbetween.
Also considering sentinels are supposed to guard the hive I think it’s cool and fitting to have an ability centered on hibernating somewhere.
- Neuro grenade - a grenade that releases a 3x3 neuro cloud after a 2-3s delay. 3-5s duration, 20-45s cd
Pretty much the old oppressor grenade. Addresses the kit being slightly lacking in comparison to other t1s, especially drone as a fellow support. Gives it something to do during sieges aswell as makes it more useful for chokes, where t1s generally tend to struggle to find a spot to do anything.
Rather uninspired though, all ears if someone has a better idea - has to be a debuff/support thing that can be used for sieges though.
3. Existing abilities:
- Paralyzing slash - merge into tailstab as caste unique effect. Possibly remove base tailstab effects if conflicting. Reduce the timer before knockdown from 4 to 3s.
Making space for an extra ability and better indication for both sides since the stab has audio. The timer is way too forgiving for marines, they should have less leeway to run before it knocks them out. Worth noting it messes their combo somewhat, making it a bit harder to apply the slash due to tailstab windup but shouldn’t be a big deal.
- Neuro spit - raise the slow duration from 2.5 to 3-4s. Make it apply marks similar to dancer which cause scatterspit to stun these affected for slightly longer - from 0.7 to 1-1.2?
Le skill ceiling and rewards for playing well. Though im not sure if this is necessary.
- Scatter spit - Raise upper accuracy variable by a tier, lower remains the same.
Self explanatory. Not really necessary but I think it misses a little too much as-is and can often lead to the sent just dying if super unlucky.
4. Base stats:
- Speed - From tier 7 to 8
Would result in the same speed a decloaked lurker has. The goal is to let and encourage them to support backliners.
- Tackle - from 4 to 3
Should help making them closer to drones in 1v1s. Most importantly addresses the paralyzing slash interaction - currently the window to tackle successfully is extremely tight, you’d have to start tackling the moment the marine falls down. This results in average player being entirely unable to chain these two abilities properly and even in the cases where he played good and should be winning a 1v1, the marine still comes out on top because the sent didn’t play perfectly - balance for 1% bad.
Unsure if this should be handled via tackle count reduc or attack speed increase though, but I think 3’s a fine number for supports.
5. Conclusion
While im worried about the speed and tackle changes making it too good in 1v1s, I think it’s worth testing, better to overbuff a bit rather than repeat current state and it’s not like they’ll match defender supremacy anyway. Everything else im pretty certain won’t cause issues, just a matter of actually testing and working out the numbers.
As for actually coding it - most of it’s already in game in some form so shouldn’t be much of an issue. Can probably work it out myself if no one else’s up for it, but would rather not as what would be 15 minutes for the average coder would probably take me a few hours of monkeying how its done elsewhere. Though hibernate’s an exception as I doubt I can figure that one out.
