Sentinel buffs

[GoldenDarkness55]

About the pull request

Revives #4023 - was never told what the problem with it was and the sentinel issues are undeniably still present. Would rather not leave a rework that I started unfinished.

Follows-up on my old sentinel rework to buff its ability to 1v1 and address a bunch of other issues.
The initial design goal was to turn the annoying bodyblocker into an offensive support caste with strong abilities for a t1 - but unable to make good use of them by itself, thus heavily reliant on teamwork.
I initially worried about them being too strong and overdid the necessity for perfect play in 1v1 scenarios, leading to them struggling too much to the point where capturing even a lone out of position marine is way too difficult.

Explain why it's good for the game

• Paralyzing slash buffs

Currently the window to tackle successfully off the slash stun is extremely tight, you’d have to start tackling the moment the marine falls down which in practice just almost never happens. Current proc timer also gives too much leeway in getting away before getting downed. Might still be too much

• Neuro

Less spammy, more impactful and easier to chain with other abilities.

• Scatter spit

The spread cone was too wide and more unreliable at hitting than intended. Technically a nerf since it won't hit as wide of an area anymore. Cooldown lowered to give more impact when things are going well and reward taking the risk of staying in combat.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots & Videos

Changelog

🆑
balance: Sentinel neuro spit cooldown raised 1.5 to 2s, superslow 2.5 to 4s
balance: Sentinel scatter spit scatter lowered 60 to 45, cooldown lowered 8s to 6s
balance: Sentinel paralyzing slash stuns after 3 seconds instead of 4 and lasts 2.5 seconds from 2.
/:cl:

[NexusStorm1]

Sentinel has needed some buffs for a while now, and I think the speed, paralyzing slash and scatterspit changes are much needed for the caste. Hibernate seems like a very niche ability, not too sure how useful it will be since the caste is more restrained by plasma than health. Tackle buffs seems excessive though, especially with the buffed paralyzing slash stun duration, but only playtesting will tell.

Overall, should make the caste easier to play and more fun. +1 TM this right now admins!!!

[TheManWithNoHands]

Hell yeah. A Senti buff that leaves them as mainly a support?
Count me in.

Senti is the forgotten cast for a long while now. And they need a LOT of love from the years of neglect.
+2

[cmss13-ci]

This PR has been inactive for long enough to be automatically marked as stale. This means it is at risk of being auto closed in ~ 7 days, please address any outstanding review items and ensure your PR is finished, if these are all true and you are auto-staled anyway, you need to actively ask maintainers if your PR will be merged. Once you have done any of the previous actions then you should request a maintainer remove the stale label on your PR, to reset the stale timer. If you feel no maintainer will respond in that time, you may wish to close this PR youself, while you seek maintainer comment, as you will then be able to reopen the PR yourself

[Drulikar]

• Please remove hibernate (I think this ability has merit for backliners in some form, but I don't really like that it has a simple counter-play that will only result in your death. Consider replacing the mechanic of recovery nodes healing you faster with the hibernation action instead in another PR)
• Please remove the change to tackle chance. Sentinels already have a good advantage with the paralyzing slash to get someone knocked down and can follow up with tackles to keep them down.

[GoldenDarkness55]

• Please remove hibernate (I think this ability has merit for backliners in some form, but I don't really like that it has a simple counter-play that will only result in your death. Consider replacing the mechanic of recovery nodes healing you faster with the hibernation action instead in another PR)

To clarify, it wasn't proposed with backlining in mind, but rather for t3 support - since as you said it is too easy/too punishing to counter if used in non xeno controlled areas.
Changes done.

[Drulikar]

Please drop the speed change; but otherwise good to go.