**UPDATES TO ENLISTMENT GIFTING EVENT:**
To prevent exploitation, we will prevent new Accounts from being able to Gift enlistment crystals. We will also be taking action on those who are using 3rd Party Sellers, Bots and other farms to gift themselves mass amounts of Enlistment Crystals. Lastly, we will be adding an expiration timer to Enlistment Crystals. All unopened Enlistment Crystals will expire on Oct 18 @ 17:00 UTC. For more information, please see this post: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/346104/updates-to-enlistment-gifting-event
To prevent exploitation, we will prevent new Accounts from being able to Gift enlistment crystals. We will also be taking action on those who are using 3rd Party Sellers, Bots and other farms to gift themselves mass amounts of Enlistment Crystals. Lastly, we will be adding an expiration timer to Enlistment Crystals. All unopened Enlistment Crystals will expire on Oct 18 @ 17:00 UTC. For more information, please see this post: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/346104/updates-to-enlistment-gifting-event
**KNOWN ISSUE**
We have adjusted the node placement of the new AW maps to better allow path traversal. As a result, defender placements have been reset. Please, take a moment to re-place your defender setup. We will be pushing out a message in-game shortly.
We have adjusted the node placement of the new AW maps to better allow path traversal. As a result, defender placements have been reset. Please, take a moment to re-place your defender setup. We will be pushing out a message in-game shortly.
Champion Spotlight - Sentry [Updated: Added 5-Star Stats]
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Comments
There might be one person in the game who could do that with his r5 5*. Not going to happen otherwise.
I believe it is mathematically possible with a 4/55. There are 4/55 videos out there with 400+ hits that barely land any buffed special attacks. Someone that lands the special attacks when the buff triggers could reduce that combo to somewhere around 300 in theory.
What really puts this I'm perspective is if you are thinking r5 for 300 hits you are in a class occupied by Colossus and Groots for a purely offensive champ. I know he's capable of decent damage at times but it's nothing amazing. When the stars align perfectly you get Storm type damage but until then it's baby Groot.
I honestly don't think kabam meant for such a bad champ but this is what they gave us.
DNA3000 I've thought a lot about this champ and I'm sure you have too but I can't think of a single time he would be useful outside of synergies or prestige.
Yes. Admittedly, that list is not exhaustive in a way but let's be honest here. As far as I can think or as far as there most likely is, Sentry has none. Yes some champs like the one you listed, lack the noted abilities on that list but they at least have something unique somewhere in the game.
I didn't fail to take notice of this. For instance, I suggested earlier on that they could maybe give Sentry a unique immunity in relation with his sig ability "Molecular Reformation" - Armor Break Immunity. I compared this to AA's immunity to Passive Ability Accuracy Reduction debuffs such as Concussion. I don't think people will complain as much if he had something like that.
Yes. Admittedly, that list is not exhaustive in a way but let's be honest here. As far as I can think or as far as there most likely is, Sentry has none. Yes some champs like the one you listed, lack the noted abilities on that list but they at least have something unique somewhere in the game.
I didn't fail to take notice of this. For instance, I suggested earlier on that they could maybe give Sentry a unique immunity in relation with his sig ability "Molecular Reformation" - Armor Break Immunity. I compared this to AA's immunity to Passive Ability Accuracy Reduction debuffs such as Concussion. I don't think people will complain as much if he had something like that.
Me to lol
@GroundedWisdom what you are doing is playing the devil's advocate. I do the same thing very often. I even did the same with sentry at the start. I still hold that at sig 200 he won't be the worst champion in the game. I have faith I will find at least some use for him (without suicide masteries).
But there is a big flaw in saying that not all champs should be OP. Obviously, we know this. Someone has to be the best. It is also a good idea to have more than 1 tier of champion to create diversity, especially in a game based on RNG, it gives people a reason to gamble a bit. The whole game is based on gambling.
Now why would kabam's goal be to create a gambling system where some of their prizes are completely useless? It makes no sense. The prizes are the champions, each one should be desired or no gambling happens. Some are desired more than others, blade is the grand prize.
Older champions have not been able to keep up with the state of the game specifically because newer champions and content are creating circumstances that they weren't designed to cope with. However, all new champions (2017) that have come out, literally all of them* have been extremely useful in some scenarios. Not all of them have been OP or in the top tier but all have had a niche.
*With the exception of carnage. But you can't use carnage as an example! Kabam admitted that carnage was over powered and he was over nerfed to error on the side of caution. So the one exception to the rule has a perfectly reasonable explanation.
To go on and say that it was kabam's intent to create a champion in the bottom tier with no utility is just incorrect. They mean for people to use all champions. Why would you go to the trouble of designing a champion that you intend to be a flop? Obviously something happened. Either he is not performing like they expected, they nerfed him pre launch, or his stats were released lower than they intended.
It seems obvious that they overlooked the interaction with suicide masteries. He is the first and only champion in the game to have their own ability's negated by a mastery. All masteries are supposed to ADD something to the champions. Some work better than others with the masteries but Sentry is the only champion that actually loses an ability.
@Twunt thanks the kind words.
Completely useless is not a reasonable statement. If he was completely useless, he would inflict no Damage, and just stand there while he was KO'd.
This is exactly what I am referring to lol. You are just arguing to be the devil's advocate. You find a few words in each person's post to disagree with so you can keep the argument going. How is it that only you, out of the over 900 comments in this post seem to see that to release an underpowered champion was in fact the plan all along lol. Sentry's attack is above 0. I will grant you that. But look at their release history. Sentry is an outlier.
What most people including myself are trying to get at is if Sentry did not have the novelty of being new, then he would get less playing time on average than most of the other champions currently in the game. He is "relatively useless" if you want to argue semantics.
Come on man...
That's not true. If you want to play that game, then technically speaking if Sentry dealt 0.000001 dps he would still be useless, and thus that statement is factually incorrect. Also, if he dealt zero damage but was permanently invulnerable he'd be an excellent defender.
Obviously if he was literally the only champion you possessed, you'd be forced to use him. But the question is, would you use him if you had any other alternatives? In almost all non-trivial cases, at the moment I would say no. And any champion that you wouldn't use because you're almost guaranteed to have something better is an essentially useless champion. His most interesting situational ability is for his special attacks to be unblockable. But they will only be unblockable for about 30% of the time per phase, and since you're only in the appropriate phases about 50% of the time that means you're only unblockable for 15% of the time, and on top of that you have to have your power bar synced to the right special attack at the moment the buff randomly appears. You'd be lucky to get unblockable specials 7% of the time.
The problem with Sentry is that *if* you use him, then sometimes randomly interesting things might happen. But I currently wouldn't use him unless I had to, because those randomly interesting things are insufficient upside relative to practically all other champions.
I have yet to form a complete opinion on him. I will agree that his Damage is low because it's dependent on the RNG, and the rate is fairly low. I think the concept is interesting, and with the Hulk Synergy he could have a slightly larger Damage output, possibly with another Crit Syn. Contemplating the use on the Abilities Trigger Node. I think what you were talking about previously is more apt for him. He's just fun to use because of the carry-over feature, and the shifting Abilities. I get what people are referring to. I'm just not on board with saying any Champ is useless.
It is too wordy to keep saying "insufficiently useful under most reasonable roster situations for virtually all gameplay situations compared to all other available champions and outside the margin reasonably established historically for champions that have either been acknowledged as sufficiently underperforming to demand a buff or implicitly acknowledged as such by virtue of having been explicitly buffed after release." I would have to start copying and pasting.
@Idelest You have called out @GroundedWisdom for exactly what I understand his game to be. He chooses one or two words and latches onto it just to argue those two words. Nothing more. I don’t think a lot of people pick up on that.
Now this is funny. “I have yet to form a complete opinion on him.” Are you kidding me? So by your own admission, you are ignorant of this champion that you have come on here to post 20 times about in disagreement. Does Kabam give out forum titles based on post count that I don’t know about?
In high level Solo Questing, he's not your ideal champ.. Heck he won't even make your top options. Majority of the time, people are generally looking to plow thru quest quickly.. He drags fights.
In Alliance Questing, he's not the first or even the 20th choice if anything.
In Alliance War Attack, heck no. Unless you're in tier 20 or something like that.
In Alliance War Defense, sure maybe his abilities will proc a lot more on some nodes but those abilities are definitely not defensive. The AI will most definitely not think of lining up his SP2 with 30 combos.
Using him in arena is definitely not in this "usefulness".. Playing for fun.. Not very "useful".. Dueling.. Who are you kidding?
So yeah when we say useless, you have to understand. We're not saying useless like Spider Gwen's SP1. It's more like which content will he serve a purpose?
Impressive wording there. May I suggest we just summarize that by using the word "useless"? XD
@Twunt I'm new to the forums, been spending more time here because I wanted a more direct line to kabam, and reddit is sort of imploding with memes lol. It seems I still have to get to know the community personalities here. Not trying to start anything but I enjoy healthy debate where I can get it. Its so frustrating with Sentry though! There's just something infuriating about his design, almost like they are trolling us.
I on purpose went for him because I thought "there is no way that the game creators would do this" EVERYONE must be missing something.
LOL they weren't. I'm using him in quests for the novelty of the new animations but that will wear off soon. If you just look through the posts its unbelievable how many pages this one has compared to the rest. I don't see why it's being ignored unless they plan for a major buff via a synergy. Which would be a terrible idea!
I wouldn't sign on to that definition of useless. I can think of champions that fit those parameters that I personally would not call useless. Ms Marvel, Falcon, Miles Morales, OG Captain America, and Moon Knight come to mind as champions that would fit that description that I wouldn't call useless. The distinction for me is that I don't think a champion has to be "top twenty" or top anything to be useful. There's over a hundred champions in the game. If only the top twenty attackers and defenders are considered useful, there's about eighty champions that have to be useless by definition.
I don't consider "useful" to generally be a ranking thing. A champion only has to serve some purpose, that it wouldn't be trivially easy to perform with any other random champion. If it was just a question of Sentry not being one of the best at something, I could live with that at least in theory. But I don't think that's Sentry's problem. Sentry's problem is that I currently wouldn't even consider him the worst at anything: in most cases I would tend to leave him off the list of candidates entirely. He's off in no-man's land. Maybe there's a use case I haven't considered, but I've considered a lot of them since he was released.
I know but that's not quite what I was getting at. GW said that useless would be if he hits and deals no damage, that sorta thing. I'm simply trying to explain what we're referring to as useless, at least in the case of Sentry.
Besides, Miles Morales has evasion.. People gladly use him for AWD. That's something.
Miss Marvel has an immunity. That automatically counts as useful. It makes her a potential candidate for poison paths, even if she's not your first choice..
Falcon has ability accuracy reduction. If you recall that list I pointed out earlier, you can classify it as useful.
Moon Knight is sort of unpredictable with his phases.. Remember what you said about unique traits? That counts as something.
Cap is a good blocker.. And an all around good champion for those who block a lot.
It all still boils down to Sentry having nothing tbh. My point however is that in his case to be "useless" doesn't have to mean being a dud that hits 0 damage.. He's just there. There's nothing. Just extremely unreliable abilities.
Yes, we discussed that earlier. But my comment was about the description of useless you posted which I felt was incomplete precisely because of those earlier discussions. I think what you were trying to say is that was a list of examples of situations people would lean towards calling something useless, not that the list is what everyone means by useless. But as I mentioned earlier, even if you stick them all together from multiple posts, I don't think including a reference to "top" things is a good idea: we're in general agreement up to that point, but its there where I can't concur.
You just put a whole lot of words in my mouth. Never formed an opinion to disagree 20 times. I don't form opinions on Champs prematurely. You'll never see me criticize a Champ that early into their existence. I will comment on the design and take the time to get to know them properly. I also look to information on the Forum, and sometimes have to filter through the responses. A good number of people tend to be blasé about a number of Champs. That's actually the most common initial reaction. I don't judge that quickly.
So you’re better than everyone. That’s what I just read. The only person you’re better than here is Sentry. And he is useless.