Why is sentry a cosmic champ

Just curious about the reasoning behind it but for a science champion the primary way to swap his phases is with 20 buffs. Besides his absurd ramp, this already puts him lower than half the science champs whose main targets are mystic matchups. I know you can switch them to passives but they still need to apply to you before swapping them, making him suffer against the following matchups:

Rintrah - Neutralize
Purgatory - Neutralize
Wiccan - Neutralize
Mojo - Atrophy
Shathra - Atrophy
Destroyer - Protection & Damage back
Spiderman Supreme - Constant miss
Wong (with blue spell) - Constant unstoppable
Just MD in general if anything starts falling off

I feel like he could've been done differently but tbh i dont think it wouldve affected his popularity lol

Comments

shield311

he was a science experiment

Squidopus

Mystic dispersion and unstoppable aren’t a concern because Sentry has wither and halt debuffs. Neutralize is, but that’s not even unique to him anyways, buff immunes and other sciences with buffs like Negative and Overseer are also susceptible. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Sentry taking a more unique approach to science traits, especially when his job is supposed to be general long-form damage anyways (whether he meets that seems to be a point of contention, but that’s a separate issue).

Zuro

OP is talking gameplay-wise

captain_rogers

He can't take wiccan in easy path and that's the only fight I believe he's gonna be useful (or maybe dragon man).

Squidopus

That’s true, although I simply dodged that issue by using him on the right path where his toolkit was actually relevant lol.

captain_rogers

Which fights have you used (or tested) him? I see him working well for spidy supreme but he's not the mvp for other ones it seems.

Squidopus

I did a full run. I have a post talking about my experience, but TLDR he was there to cover a few specific problem matchups. Used him for Jubilee (controls power gain), Diablo (controls regen), Sandman (blocks unstoppable), and Spidey as you suggested. Some of those fights were my more revive-intensive ones, but I’m willing to attribute that just as much to user error and inexperience as to Sentry’s failings. That, and basically all of those fights had some form of energy resist which hurt his damage. Sentry’s utility did its job though and I don’t think I would’ve gotten through it quite as easily without him. Notably, I had zero issues maintaining his warps. I hit max on Jubilee and I never dropped below 8 even despite multiple deaths.

Normax_X

Yeah I guess he does have wither but just in general for nodes and matchups it feels weird. And negative and overseer dont absolutely rely on the buffs to get the damage, sentry's just stuck without buffs it's goofy. Idk I feel like he could've been more exciting for a champ with this amount of rebalance requests people had over the years

Squidopus

Don’t get me wrong, I get your point, but at the same time I feel like this was a doomed conclusion when he was always gonna be a long-form ramp up champion (it’s what his pre-buff kit was clearly designed around). This community just really hates that design, I’m sure you saw people doomposting about Sentry before we even got our hands on him off that fact alone. People complain about Northstar and Enchantress too, and you’ll find that many of the buff suggestions are less about improving their viability in long-form content and instead some ham-fisted attempt at reducing their ramp speed, so often with justifications like “it’ll make them viable in bgs/other game modes”. Although it would be nice if he was as exciting as the community wanted, what the community wanted was probably another bgs science nuke and with most buffs Kabam would rather expand on the champ’s existing framework and preserve the basic ideas than scrap everything.

captain_rogers

I think you're missing the point here. No one, literally no one, wants enchantress, northstar Or sentry to be viable for questing and bgs. We are not dummoners, we understand they are made for everest content. All players want is them to be actually viable for everest content.

There's a reason no one used northstar for mutant challenge, instead used champs like sinister and even wags who aren't made for long form content, Similarly no one used Enchantress for cull's worthy challenge (I believe she has that tag or God tag right?) And even used champs like titania who again, not made for long form content.

Now people will use someone like spiderham over sentry although piggy wasn't made for long form content. I believe the problem comes when a champ performs mid in an area where he's supposed to perform good, so mid even the champs outside the scope of said content outperforns them. That's the case with sentry, midstar and midchantress.

So, making sentinel get passives in first place instead of buffs, or atleast giving him immunity to neutralize and buff duration reduction, would have made him more viable in everest content. And reducing his ramp won't make him viable for short fights/bgs either unless they say something like he'll start with 5 warps in bg matches which will be too OP.

Riryoku

I’d just like him not to lose charges when he’s defeated, or at least not drop below 6. Ramp-up is already slow, but losing charges because of a mistake is frustrating. I ranked him to R2 for fun and for the #10Years challenge, but he just didn’t work. By the time I managed to get one charge in the Titania fight, the necro charges were already at 60%. It’s a shame because I was hoping to use him in fights where Wither could help, like Aarkus, Airwalker, and Dragon Man. I also thought he might be useful against Omega Sentinel since he has incinerate immunity. For now, I don’t feel like it was a complete waste—I’ll probably use him in AW next season and try him out in Incursions to see how he performs.

Squidopus

I mean I’m speaking from my experience on the forums, I absolutely see tons of comments that people wanted Enchantress and Northstar’s ramp reduced so they can see general use. It was like half the buff suggestions I’ve seen for them. I have no issue with wanting any long-form champ buffed to be better in that niche, I just think you’re overestimating how many people see things the same way.

I even think you’re falling into this trap a bit. if you want Sentry to be a better in Everest content, there’s barely any reason to ask Kabam to protect him from atrophy and neutralize. The only champs in Necro with those abilities (that I’m aware of) are the aforementioned Wiccan, Tigra, and Purgatory. Tigra doesn’t count because her neutralize is only on hit, so it’s 2 whole fights that are problem. I’d like if he were immune to those things, but I wouldn’t ask for that because it’d make him better in Everest content, it barely would. I’d ask Kabam to boost his damage further since it seemed too low to reliably solo.

Toproller89

He should be buff immune and all his buffs should be passives that can’t be messed with

EdisonLaw

Or whatever buff he would gain, he gains a passive version instead

Ashacekar

Oh so i m supposed to use him on techs then, got it.

captain_rogers

All this sentry bashing made him furious and look how he took revenge lol

altavista

Yeah, for scrubs like me this is why everest champions with basic combo ramp, like Aegon (and G2099), is preferable to an everest champ that requires ramp every match (eg Northstar, Enchantress), lose hard earned charges within a match (like Stryfe), or like in this discussion can lose their ramp (eg Sentry).

Even if in actuality ramping Stryfe/Sentry is quicker than ramping Aegon, it doesn’t “feel” that way when mistake prone players are having to revive spam.

Pikolu

One of the content creators (don't know if they posted a video on it yet) used sentry to solo both Wiccan and dragon man. While you could use wong for both, he is a nice option especially with how difficult Wiccan can be when using wong.