Contralto
Gallente
   |
Posted - 2006.07.15 17:47:00 -
[1]
When I first tried Sentries, I had the same experience, very disapointing. I put them away and dismissed them as useless.
After a month or two ansd a lot more experience using drones I tried again.
I used the Thermal Garde's the first time and you will see they have a very short optimal range and falloff, this renders them quite useless for most combat involving moving ships.
Picture if you will a pack of incoming aggroed frigates they start their run at say 100km, your using a targeting booster,
The Gardes will commence fire on the targets at your max drone control range, mine is 94km with 2 augmentors .
However they will not score a single hit until around 45 to 50 km so by 40km you may be lucky to have downed one frigate. by 20 maybe 3, then the frigates begin there orbit, so forget your Gardes they cant track a BS at 20km let alone a frig at 5.
This explains both our poor first impressions of sentries.
On my second more informed try, I read the stats and noticed the warden kinetic Sentry has double the range of the Garde. So I progressivly increased the attack range to my max at 94km and found a totally different story.
Now the wardens start feebly hitting at 94km.
Once the Frigates aggro and commence their run to you they start popping after 3 4 second salvos then 2 then 1 then instapop. you can clear 10 serp Guardian Vets before they close to 50km more if you have max drone skills.
I start with the Frigs and then move onto the cruisers and so on.
It works beautifully, lets say 4 or 5 frigs down by the time the cruisers get to 80km, 5 or 6 cruisers by the time the BS get to optimum at 50km, so just as the heaviest hitters get to optimal you get max firepower on them.
It revolutionized my whole drone game plan. I now warp into encounter missions at 100km as standard, target, release Wardens and start popping. only a few get through depending on the spawn size and normal drones then mop them up easily,
Often I never get down to armor on my Domi.
When the rats inevitably target the Sentries I just scoop the damaged drone in to rep its sheilds while the rest continue firing. another reason i take almost no damage. A juggernaut torpedo hitting a warden hardly dents its sheilds, but makes a nice big explosion effect.
As with the Garde's, as soon as the rats commence orbit, damage is reduced to zero.but at least you have 70 or 80 km to play with instead of the Garde's 20km.
I use the Kinetic wardens on all factions they seem to disregard the targets resists, but do best against those dumb Serps!
Of course you can web the rats one by one as they orbit you but why? the standard drones excel at close range so why not use them.
The other sentries, Em and explosive have ranges between the Garde and the Warden, making them progressivly more effective,
but the warden is the "king"
I use the Minmater explosive "Bouncers" on Angels and they do a great job. but reduce the effective range from 90km to around 70. still ok to pop all the webbers and a few cruisers.
Try sentries again, I promise you will love them! A Domi sniper! cool.
|