Originally Posted by
Fix it again Tony
I suggest play xeno also not just marine, your opinion will change very fast.
From the normal USMC load out regular sentry is still the best. You can deploy anywhere to give solo defense against runners on the flanks or to the front cades to assist with pushy xenos. I don't care about armor, that sentry will deter xenos to hang out at the front slashing cades and marines.
The flamer is good in theory and in a vacuum. But in real game it's nearly useless. Yes it can one-shot a runner...if it could hit it. It never can. Runners easily outrun them no problem. Never seen a runner die to a flamer, while running in front of a regular sentry will deal 5-20% damage, meaning he has to retreat and heal back to full HP, or he will be one-shot by the PB and can't escape with a crit.
If you place the flamer on flanks, you can position your spitter to keep spitting on in. By the time they realize, you can delete it. Placing it on the front cades will 100% guarantee disaster. As soon as it fires, xenos will push/tailwhip you into the fire. They can put it out, but you will sure as hell die or crit. They WILL dodge the initial fire bullet what makes the damage, the fire on the floor is too weak for a xeno to take seriously.
But lets say you are just hanging out around the flamer, I will make sure to pounce with my runner in a way that it will shoot at me and burn the marine instead. If you would have just use a regular sentry, that could provide supportifire. But the flamer just f*cks over marines big time. Also you want to run out with a shotty to finish the critted xeno? Well bad luck the flamer sentry just made a burning mess and now you can't run out.
The Tesla is absolute king. What people forget is the sentry has maybe a 120 degree fire angle. Really easy to get behind it. As a borrower I regularry tunnel under undefended part of LZ behind the sentry to destroy it. It it would be a tesla, it would block my ability to tunnel out and I won't suicide for a tesla. Also tesla can hit multiple targets at a 360 degree angle. Place it anywhere and if you have marines there, xenos WILL f*ck off. If slows, blinds, blocks abilities, xenos will just freak out and escape. Not to mention if a xeno is injured, you can bet your *ss there will be an unga with double shotty waiting to run after that slowed, blinded xeno that can't use his ability to hurt you and they WILL PB you. That's why it's scary.
And yes it does deal no damage. But at that point when this happens, I guarantee you the flamer would be already FF-ing marines and xenos would just run behind it or destroy it. But with a tesla, they just want to escape.
As for flag and bell, I haven't find any good use. They do buff, but the others are just better.