Sentinel Kit Rework

Development Ideaguys
1

Hey kids, Smog here. Anyhow I wanted to get some feedback on the proprosed sentinel kit, especially from established xeno players who have some hours on sentinel without being forced to.

Summary

→ Abstract <.

Sentinel is in a bad spot and even that is an understatement with the role currently in a limbo between being utterly worthless or a stun duration increase of 1 second away of being the best capper in the game, with the marine on the receiving side being absolutely unable to fight it in any way possible. This makes sentinel perhaps THE most difficult T1 to balance as the alternative will always be the caste being utterly useless and unfun to play, or extremely overpowered and unfun to play against.

TGCM solved this issue by having sentinel work around a stacking neurotoxin mechanic that dictates the stun duration as well as rewarding the sentinel for engaging in close range.

→ Goals ←

The idea is to add a unique gameplay loop to sentinel without infringing its core identity of being a stun based capture xenomorph that focuses on debuffing enemies from afar before going in for the final sweep.

→ Non-goals ←

Turn sentinel back into a nightmare caste where it flipflops between overpowered or worthless based on small numerical changes.

→ Content ←

Porting over the TGCM sentinel kit with some adjustments to fit the current CM playstyle.

Passive: Neurotoxin

Neurotoxins work on a stack mechanic, being applied by the two main abilities. The third ability plays off this passive. A marine can only have a maximum of 30 neurotoxin stacks. Neurotoxin stacks apply a weak damage over time effect, for the sake of ease of treatment this would be OXY.

Toxic Spit | 1 Cooldown | Costs: 50 plasma

Applies neurotoxin stacks, as well as applying the already existing slow to marines. The Toxic Spits go over xenomorphs, meaning FF does not affect this spit.

Toxic Slash | 10 Seconds Cooldown | Costs: 100 plasma

Inflicts large amounts of Neurotoxin stacks per slash. Only lasts for either 3 slashes or if the duration of 5 seconds has passed.

Draining Bite | 12 Second Cooldown | Costs: 100 plasma | Active Ability

Stab your victim, draining some Intoxicated stacks and gaining benefits from it. It removes 30% of the current stack amount on use.

Inflicts knockdown. The duration of this knockdown is proportional to the amount of stacks the victim has, minus 1 second. For example; 30 stacks equals 2 seconds, and 15 stacks equals 0.5 seconds. The minimum duration is 0.1 seconds.

Catalytic Shock Tailstab | 10 Second Cooldown | Windup Time: 1 Second

Same behavior as a regular tailstab, with no damage modifier however. Applies following effects

Stab your victim, draining some Intoxicated stacks and gaining benefits from it. It removes 50% of the current stack amount on use.

If the victim is above 20 stacks, this ability will increase armor by 10 and grants the sentinel a small movement speed buff.
Deals a proportional amount of damage. The formula for this damage is: ( Amount of stacks * 6 ) / 5. This translates to a minimum of 1.2 damage and a maximum of 36 damage.

1 Like
2

It’s been a while since I’ve played tgmc but this looks close to a port of TGMC sentinel TGMC xenos are balanced very differently.

With how CM works, there’s basically no way for a sentinel with 500 hp to close the gap on a marine with a mk2 without getting shredded to use any of their non-spit abilities. And even if you do close the gap you need still stay in melee range for multiple slashes.

I should mention that going from 0 armor → 10 armor is basically nothing, assuming non-AP m2 ammo, if you land this ability at full hp, you get the equivelant of 1 mk2 bullet (12 → 13 to crit) if you are at or under 400 hp it makes no difference to mk2 ammo.

I think we should, just for fun, revert sentinel to its pre-rework state :).

3

Do keep in mind that this is a T1, so getting a little bit of armor is a more preferable reward than something like 20 armor.

Before an TM, testing will be done either way. Speed might have to be adjusted or possible a temporary speed boost to make it more viable to charge in while the clawing effect is active.

4

this fundamentally misunderstands how sentinel is played. It’s a very solo focused view when this is a team based game and you must consider how the caste functions when working with allies. Sentinel is useless without teammates to support and without support from teammates, and that is how it should remain niche-wise probably. I think the way its kit synergizes with other xenos is limited at the moment though, and that it is poorly designed as a team support.

Its stun could be easily buffed if its tackle was nerfed. But i mean its abilities are designed in a way to be sorta, uncounterplayable. You can’t stop a sentinel from hitting you with things in many situations. Getting hit by a 5 second stun does not = fun. Nor does a 10 second slow.

I think largely the reason sentinel is unfun is because its squishy, low dps, and slow playing, even easier to kill then Runner. It feels weak even if it isn’t, because it gets killed so, so easily and it gets easily frustrating to fight stun weapons. And that’s the main thing keeping its abilities from being super duper strong. It tries to pressure but fails because it gets pressured too easily.

And taking ideas directly from tgmc isn’t a good idea too, tgmc balance is fundamentally different from CM. The main similarity between the games is in the shooting mechanics, but the balance and gameplay is completely different