Items - Sentry potion to increase sentry count (2024)

Yeah sentries need to be more viable, currently they aren't good enough even as support weapons even when you have an OOA set to buff a certain sentry.

What if the summoner potion increases both a minion slots and a sentry slot, because an extra sentry barely helps even during an invasion so it's not worth crafting a potion only for that.

The problem with sentries is the lack of both weapons and dedicated gear, not power

Most Sentries are actually stupid strong when they are built into, they dont need yet another free slot

Not to mention, adding any new buffs this late in the game is a bad idea, it powercreeps the game by making the power ceiling higher and higher

J Bame said:

Most Sentries are actually stupid strong when they are built into, they dont need yet another free slot

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See Also

tModLoader - Expanded SentriestModLoader - Expanded SentriestModLoader - Cerebral Mod

Are they, really? Outside of some cheeses/exploits, Post-ML and maybe Deerclops, I can't think of a single time where sentries make a large contribution in boss fights in good setups. And I tried several times to make them work & be strong like for example Ballista Cane + Firecracker on Plantera, only to be met with disappointment.

Shyguymask said:

Are they, really? Outside of some cheeses/exploits, Post-ML and maybe Deerclops, I can't think of a single time where sentries make a large contribution in boss fights in good setups. And I tried several times to make them work & be strong like for example Ballista Cane + Firecracker on Plantera, only to be met with disappointment.

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not a surprise that against the one thing that sentries are not built for and will never be good for, sentries are not good

This wont change if you add a potion that adds 1 or 10 sentry slots

Shyguymask said:

Are they, really? Outside of some cheeses/exploits, Post-ML and maybe Deerclops, I can't think of a single time where sentries make a large contribution in boss fights in good setups. And I tried several times to make them work & be strong like for example Ballista Cane + Firecracker on Plantera, only to be met with disappointment.

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Sentries really need a improvement.

J Bame said:

not a surprise that against the one thing that sentries are not built for and will never be good for, sentries are not good

This wont change if you add a potion that adds 1 or 10 sentry slots

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So are they good at crowd situations?

I know I didn't test enough or test properly, but I tried using them in some crowd situations for example Valhalla Knight + Ballista against pillars in gfb seed since those pillars are even more difficult but ended up switching back to spooky/tikki(I don't remember which one I used) armor because minions does a so much better job against crowds. feels like it's always better to invest on more minions instead of sentries that's why I made a suggestion a while ago to buff OOA set bonuses.

AoE two aren't too bad against walkers specially if they get stuck in a hole or something but airbone enemies and mini bosses are the harder threat in most crowd situations, walkers are already easy.

MegaByte said:

Valhalla Knight + Ballista against pillars in gfb seed since those pillars are even more difficult but ended up switching back to spooky/tikki(I don't remember which one I used) armor because minions does a so much better job against crowds.

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Were you trying to be a Pure Summoner with Valhalla Knight? An armor made primarily for Melee weapons that is bad for whips and minions? Thats what it sounds like here.

Almost every sentry in the game has higher DPS than an equivalent minion at the tier. Against crowds/events summoning all your sentries, especially with OOA gear, is equivalent to having 2-5 stronger extra minions

And besides, not a single problem with sentries will be solved with a Sentry potion. There will still be very few sentries to choose from (especially without OOA ones), their static nature will still cause problems and make them unusable for bosses, and the lack of gear still makes them forgettable

A sentry potion is just unnecessary powercreep if any of these issues are ever fixed.

J Bame said:

Were you trying to be a Pure Summoner with Valhalla Knight? An armor made primarily for Melee weapons that is bad for whips and minions? Thats what it sounds like here.

Almost every sentry in the game has higher DPS than an equivalent minion at the tier. Against crowds/events summoning all your sentries, especially with OOA gear, is equivalent to having 2-5 stronger extra minions

And besides, not a single problem with sentries will be solved with a Sentry potion. There will still be very few sentries to choose from (especially without OOA ones), their static nature will still cause problems and make them unusable for bosses, and the lack of gear still makes them forgettable

A sentry potion is just unnecessary powercreep if any of these issues are ever fixed.

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It wasn't pure summoner, I've been using flying dragon with sharpen buff for synergy with summons but Terraprisma & Stardust dragon did most of the work.

Regardless what I've been using as primary I clearly saw ballista barely did anything to help even with the speed buff it gets when I take damage, because they can't hit anything that doesn't move in a straight line, towards it or away from it, doesn't matter how much dps it has if they can't hit important targets.

I don't think this will solve the problem but if they are bad at eliminating crowds like I mentioned, any buff is a step in the right direction or at least it wouldn't do a harm if they are underpowered.

Maybe there's a better optimized way or maybe it was because pillars were underground(I have also used them in more cleared areas tho) but from my experience sentries can only hit slow walking mobs who are most of the time not much of a treat.

MegaByte said:

Terraprisma & Stardust dragon did most of the work.

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The second strongest Fragment weapon, and a Trophy weapon for skilled players designed to compete with the second strongest fragment weapon, is what you choose as a basis to call every single sentry bad?

Your testing is unreliable, you can't just jump into the hardest possible environment, compare only the best possible weapons, and immediately conclude all sentries are bad.

MegaByte said:

I don't think this will solve the problem but if they are bad at eliminating crowds like I mentioned, any buff is a step in the right direction or at least it wouldn't do a harm if they are underpowered.

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For the sake of discussion let's assume you are right about sentries being inaccurate for a minute.

Frost Hydra has 100 damage and shoots once per second, it has 100 base DPS. Ballista Staff with Valhalla Knight armor also shoots once per second with 156 base damage, this is 156 DPS. Ballista Panic doubles this. The Queen spider, a premech minion, has 76 on average looking at wiki numbers.

What is minion DPS now? A Xeno Staff minion, the strongest post golem summon, and still needing of a nerf even after getting nerfed twice in 1.4.4, has less than 100 DPS. The Terraprisma, intentionally overpowered, has 135 DPS. Sanguine Staff is the best premech summon for standard use, yet it has 30 DPS, less than half of a single queen spider.

Hell, i've already seen stupidly fast speedkills against Empress of Light that coincidentally have 6 Ballistas with Valhalla Knight Armor. With panic active this is literally a bonus 1800 DPS before damage increases, on an armor that would be stupidly good even if it didnt give a single sentry slot.

Buffing sentries without thinking is not a step in the right direction, it's the opposite. This just polarizes sentries even more. Instead of addressing their reliability issue and just how few of them there are throughout the game, you just double down on them having a ton of DPS at base and hope the players find a way to make that work out.

J Bame said:

The second strongest Fragment weapon, and a Trophy weapon for skilled players designed to compete with the second strongest fragment weapon, is what you choose as a basis to call every single sentry bad?

Your testing is unreliable, you can't just jump into the hardest possible environment, compare only the best possible weapons, and immediately conclude all sentries are bad.

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Yeah you're right about terraprisma but I don't see why wouldn't you assume I used at least stardust dragon on pillars at least for 3 of them but yeah I didn't test properly I already said that myself, that's why I never claimed "sentries are bad, 100% certain" I said it seemed like they aren't good in my experience, I just wanted to know how to make them powerful like you said.

J Bame said:

For the sake of discussion let's assume you are right about sentries being inaccurate for a minute.

Frost Hydra has 100 damage and shoots once per second, it has 100 base DPS. Ballista Staff with Valhalla Knight armor also shoots once per second with 156 base damage, this is 156 DPS. Ballista Panic doubles this. The Queen spider, a premech minion, has 76 on average looking at wiki numbers.

What is minion DPS now? A Xeno Staff minion, the strongest post golem summon, and still needing of a nerf even after getting nerfed twice in 1.4.4, has less than 100 DPS. The Terraprisma, intentionally overpowered, has 135 DPS. Sanguine Staff is the best premech summon for standard use, yet it has 30 DPS, less than half of a single queen spider.

Hell, i've already seen stupidly fast speedkills against Empress of Light that coincidentally have 6 Ballistas with Valhalla Knight Armor. With panic active this is literally a bonus 1800 DPS before damage increases, on an armor that would be stupidly good even if it didnt give a single sentry slot.

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What exactly is the point? Like I said it doesn't matter if they're OP dps wise if they don't hit the targets, only a fraction of that dps actually helps if I'm right about the inaccuracy.

Xeno minions can fly around and actually hit things so ofc it does less dps but I agree on the queen spider part because walkers still somewhat of a problem in early hardmode(mostly because of pirates) and like other sentries it's pretty good at hitting walkers and terrible at airborne targets.

J Bame said:

Buffing sentries without thinking is not a step in the right direction, it's the opposite. This just polarizes sentries even more. Instead of addressing their reliability issue and just how few of them there are throughout the game, you just double down on them having a ton of DPS at base and hope the players find a way to make that work out.

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I agree ofc it's better to have kind of a sentry rework if you're expecting that it makes sense to disagree with a plain buff, but if that's not happening it's better to at least get a buff, so at least those hits that barely lands to at least does more damage, it's at least better than what we currently have.

MegaByte said:

Yeah you're right about terraprisma but I don't see why wouldn't you assume I used at least stardust dragon on pillars at least for 3 of them but yeah I didn't test properly I already said that myself, that's why I never claimed "sentries are bad, 100% certain" I said it seemed like they aren't good in my experience, I just wanted to know how to make them powerful like you said.

What exactly is the point? Like I said it doesn't matter if they're OP dps wise if they don't hit the targets, only a fraction of that dps actually helps if I'm right about the inaccuracy.

Xeno minions can fly around and actually hit things so ofc it does less dps but I agree on the queen spider part because walkers still somewhat of a problem in early hardmode(mostly because of pirates) and like other sentries it's pretty good at hitting walkers and terrible at airborne targets.

I agree ofc it's better to have kind of a sentry rework if you're expecting that it makes sense to disagree with a plain buff, but if that's not happening it's better to at least get a buff, so at least those hits that barely lands to at least does more damage, it's at least better than what we currently have.

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I'll just keep it simple:

If you dont think sentries are good, this buff doesnt solve any of your problems.

If you know how to use sentries, you know this buff is powercreep that doesnt fix anything.

J Bame said:

I'll just keep it simple:

If you dont think sentries are good, this buff doesnt solve any of your problems.

If you know how to use sentries, you know this buff is powercreep that doesnt fix anything.

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Yeah I know it doesn't 'fix' anything, I said that in a previous reply.