Thoughts About the Laser Sentry

[Gundug]

I've been messing around a bit with the Laser Sentry, since my OCD nature toward weapon accuracy makes taking the other sentries bothersome to me, as their shots currently count toward the player's shots fired. I find that it's not a terrible sentry, with the benefit of being able to engage and damage a good variety of enemies, although it does not pick up on targets until they get closer than with other sentries. It does seem happy to engage somewhat more distant targets once it gets going though, much like the Guard Dog. My biggest problem is the sentry has far too long of a dwell time on targets that are already dead, and engages stuff it cannot damage at all, like bot drop ships, burning itself out for nothing.

I think the damage it does is reasonable, and as long as it is not overwhelmed, its heating is ok, although I would prefer it to simply go into a battery cool down period of perhaps 10 seconds when reaching its heat limit, not just blowing itself up. Aside from all that, my thought is that dropping this sentry down to the same cooldown time as the Flame Sentry, 86 seconds, from the current 128 seconds would make it more attractive to use, allowing more cases where multiples could be up simultaneously, reducing the load on each in defensive situations. If it runs itself to death, the shorter cooldown means another one can be up relatively quickly.

I would be interested to see what other players think of this sentry, whether it needs any change at all, or their own ideas of how it might be improved.

[MrMacavity]

It could use a bit more range, then it would be 100% fine. Damage and uutility seems fne once it starts shooting, but it has a pretty short range.

[Razer]

I don't like the fact that when it overheats it blows up. It'll be firing away at a tanky enemy and just blow up and not do anything at all. I really want to like it because I think it's cool af. But it's just not very good.

[Axis of Lint]

The largest issue I have with it is the viability on Automatons since if it encounters a single heavy devastator that you don't kill, it will waste it's heat capacity on firing uselessly at it's shield.

Against Terminids it's fine, although sometimes shortlived depending on charger numbers or how quickly it gets overwhelmed by packs of hunters.

Against Illuminate it's fine, unless it gets mobbed by Fleshmobs.

If I take it, I usually pair it with another sentry (Rocket quite often) and doubling up tends to function pretty well.

I think it's 'fine' but the overheat explosion is lacklustre and the targeting can be an issue sometimes.

[NuttsnBolts]

Line of sight improvements would make a huge difference. Shooting the laser into an obstacle because a target is behind that very obstacle does nothing but burn out the turret and waste your time. All sentry units have this issue but only the laser will commit hari-kari and kill any team mates around the turret. I'm someone who doesn't even mind the exploding turret mechanics but the difference is end of life vs premature detonation.

Fix that and it'll be pretty much a perfect turret.

[Plagen]

I absolutely love the laser turret. Nothing like crouching on top of it with the laser doggo and laser cannon and them melting through enemies with three laser beams, lol.

[Chad Groupon]

It's okay at cutting up light enemies, but if too many larger enemies are around it will get overwhelmed. They start to shine when stacked in range of other turrets. I ran a mission or two where we were always putting them down in pairs and they cleaned up without overloading. The overload feature means you can't drop them and forget about them with the same reliability as other turrets, you have to help them clear the area if you don't want it to explode.

[𝖄𝖔𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖎 𝕴]

it should be anti tank. i never use it.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

It's really trash, and I say this as the type of gamer that tries to make trash work as long as it's interesting trash.

There's really nothing you're getting from a laser sentry that the machinegun sentry or rocket sentry can't do just as well, or usually, better. Just use machinegun for a faster cooldown, or the rockets for more all-purpose sustain. Seriously, that thing has a ton of rockets and a ton of range it's probably not gonna run out before it dies anyway, it's great.

The laser just overheats too fast. If it was an infinite ammo sentry that'd be fine, but no it usually burns itself out very fast, and the game becomes how much you can support it so that it fires LESS at enemies in order to not melt it. If it instead just had a cooldown period where it couldn't fire like a Quasar it would be fine, but that's not how it works. It just shoots a bit, and then dies. You might as well take a machinegun sentry for a faster cooldown and less embarassing performance.

[Gundug]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

It's really trash, and I say this as the type of gamer that tries to make trash work as long as it's interesting trash.

There's really nothing you're getting from a laser sentry that the machinegun sentry or rocket sentry can't do just as well, or usually, better. Just use machinegun for a faster cooldown, or the rockets for more all-purpose sustain. Seriously, that thing has a ton of rockets and a ton of range it's probably not gonna run out before it dies anyway, it's great.

The laser just overheats too fast. If it was an infinite ammo sentry that'd be fine, but no it usually burns itself out very fast, and the game becomes how much you can support it so that it fires LESS at enemies in order to not melt it. If it instead just had a cooldown period where it couldn't fire like a Quasar it would be fine, but that's not how it works. It just shoots a bit, and then dies. You might as well take a machinegun sentry for a faster cooldown and less embarassing performance.

I agree with this, although I would not characterize the sentry as trash. It's not great, but it will kill enemies. I have seen it kill Chargers on its own. The Machine Gun Sentry deals far better with small to medium targets though, and the Rocket Sentry can kill anything below a Leviathan. When I use those, they get the job done against everything. I think the Laser Sentry is closer in usability to the Flame Sentry, with a relatively similar engagement envelope, and their destruction explosions, which is why I suggested giving the Laser the same cooldown. It doesn't feel so bad being a throwaway weapon if another one can be dropped shortly after.