Overview
This guide focuses on a Teleport Beacon-centric playstyle for Sentry X-58, covering his abilities and upgrades, mechanical intricacies regarding movement and abilities, as well as recommended beacon locations and tips for dealing with specific Awesomenauts.The guide was last updated to reflect game version 4.1.
Role and abilities
Sentry X-58 is a tank with abilities that allow him to retaliate at his opponents’ actions. He can be played defensively, making use of upgrades to his auto-attack to clear droids effectively and lay Photon Mine traps, or offensively, specializing on using his abilities to initiate fights and finish off enemies. This guide focuses on the latter, aggressive playstyle.
Having the third-highest maximum health in the game at 1600 base HP, he can survive rather large amounts of burst damage, especially while using the shield of his Black Hole Sun ability (often referred to as BHS). Any damage taken by Sentry while the shield is active will increase the end damage of his powerful black hole attack, which serves as one of the most influential area-of-effect initiations in the game, pulling enemies in a large radius towards its center for 1.5 seconds and dealing burst damage linear to the amount of absorbed damage during shield mode.
Teleport Beacon (commonly shortened to Beacon), his second ability, works by first placing down an indestructible beacon, to which Sentry can teleport at any time, provided he has not taken any damage for 2 seconds prior to teleporting. Any enemy unit at the beacon will take damage upon Sentry’s arrival. It is a highly versatile ability, allowing Sentry to control any accessible area of the map, safely initiate on enemies, secure kills on retreating enemies, apply the silence debuff to enemies, escape dangerous situations, permanently reveal hide areas and make unexpected movements.
Finally, his auto-attack, the Photon Mine Launcher, fires floating mines at close range that explode on contact with enemies or after a short timeout. The mines by themselves are fairly weak against single targets, but can be stacked in one place to result in higher damage.
Movement
Being a tank, Sentry has a rather low horizontal base movement speed and poor acceleration, but makes up for this with good vertical mobility provided by his jump mechanics, which resemble those of Clunk, Derpl and Jimmy.
For as long as the jump button is held, Sentry’s vertical velocity is set to a moderate fixed amount, while constantly draining “fuel”, a value not directly visible to the player. Fuel is required for mid-air upwards propulsion, and is instantly refilled upon touching the ground.
In order to ascend to maximum potential height, the jump button must be tapped repeatedly for a split second, rather than held down. This gives him additional height from the vertical momentum gained during the button press, while draining less fuel. A total of approximately 10 air jumps can be performed this way before Sentry falls to the ground. The jump button can be held for 0.6 seconds before running out of fuel.
When escaping from an enemy while his abilities are on cooldown, vertical escape routes should be preferred, taking advantage of his effective jump height being greater than that of most ‘Nauts, especially in conjunction with bounce pads. Horizontal escape paths are generally less favorable, as most characters can catch up to Sentry horizontally. Sentry’s escape options are greatly improved when certain upgrades are bought and his abilities are not on cooldown; these will be discussed in later sections of this guide.
Even when staying in a lane, using his jump to “hover” in place can be useful to compensate for his rather large hitbox with some vertical unpredictability, making him slightly more difficult to target and allowing him to potentially dodge some attacks.
Photon Mine Launcher
Sentry’s auto-attack. Fires Photon Mines that fly in a straight line for a short distance before stopping in mid air, hovering for 2 seconds before exploding and dealing 80 damage in a small radius around them. Photon Mines also explode upon touching any enemy unit while in flight or hovering.
Attack speed: ~1.5 attacks per second
Damage: 80
Flight time: 0.35 s
Hover time: 2 s
Deonation range: 1.6 (square)
Explosion size: 3.4 (circle)
Damage vs. droids: 100%
Damage vs. structures: 75%
Photon Mine Launcher – Upgrades
Increases damage of Photon Mines by 12.5% (+10) per stage.
Damage (base to fully upgraded): 80 → 90 → 100
DPS (single-target, base to fully upgraded): ~121.2 → ~136.4 → ~151.5
Solar cost per DPS: ~10.6
Increases the damage output of Sentry’s auto-attack. When dividing the upgrade’s solar cost by the damage per second increase, this upgrade is less economical than his attack-speed upgrade, but offers a greater DPS increase than the attack speed upgrade when both stages are bought.
Good in most situations, particularly in the late game.
Adds a lifesteal effect to Photon Mines, healing Sentry for 18% of the damage dealt.
Lifesteal percentage: 18%
Basic Lifesteal amount (single-target, without DPS upgrades): 14.4
Basic health per second (single-target, without DPS upgrades): ~21.8
Provides a great improvement to Sentry’s sustain, particularly during combat and when clearing droids. Assuming every Photon Mine hits one target, provides slightly more health per second than Med-i’-Can. Since the healing applies once per target, droid waves (typically 2 droids walking next to each other) will provide twice as much health per hit as a single target.
Good when building into Black Hole Sun or when getting poked often.
Weak when using Photon Mines defensively.
Increases attack speed of Photon Mine Launcher by 20%.
Attacks per second (base to upgraded): ~1.5 → ~1.8
DPS (single-target, base to upgraded): ~121.2 → ~145.4
Solar cost per DPS: ~8.8
Increases the damage output of Sentry’s auto-attack. When dividing the upgrade’s solar cost by the damage per second increase, this upgrade is more economical than his damage upgrade, but offers a lesser DPS increase than the damage upgrade when both of its stages are bought.
Good in most situations, particularly in the early/mid game.
Increases the lifetime of Photon Mines by 1 second per stage.
Lifetime (base to fully upgraded): 2 → 3 → 4
Maximum live mines (at base attack speed): 3 → 5 → 6
Allows Sentry to scatter and stack more Photon Mines on the battlefield at once. This is particularly useful when playing defensively or controlling chokepoints by firing several mines in the same spot, in the hopes that an enemy steps into the trap and takes the collected burst damage of all mines at once. It also allows Sentry to create a cluster of Photon Mines while pushing turrets, which will detonate as soon as a droid or enemy comes into contact with it, dealing all its damage to both the turret and the enemy that set off the mines.
Good when using Photon Mines passively or when pushing turrets.
Weak when primarily firing Photon Mines directly against players.
Increases the explosion radius of Photon Mines by 60% (+2.04).
Explosion radius (base to upgraded): 3.4 → 5.44
In addition to increasing the chance of a direct mine detonation on a target affecting other nearby enemies, this upgrade gives missed mines that time out a greater chance of hitting enemies with their larger explosion size, forcing enemies to play more passively around Sentry.
Good in most situations, especially against enemies that stick together.
After timing out, Photon Mines will home in on the closest enemy, dealing 50% of their original damage.
Homing mine damage: 40
Homing mine flight time: 0.35 s
Doubles the effective range of Sentry’s auto-attack, as expiring Photon Mines will fly the same distance as their initial flight upon firing, targetting the closest enemy, or flying in the same direction they were fired in if no enemy is nearby.
While this upgrade allows Sentry to control a larger area around him (particularly in combination with the explosion size upgrade), the damage reduction lowers the effectivity of timeout mines, forcing Sentry to hit his targets directly if full damage is desired.
The 50% damage multiplier overrides the normal turret damage reduction of 75%, meaning that the damage homing mines deal against turrets is the same as the damage they deal against enemy units, rather than both multipliers taking effect.
Good for poking enemies from a safe distance.
Weak when stacking mines in front of turrets.
Black Hole Sun
Black Hole Sun (BHS) is an ability with two modes. Its default mode results in activating the Shield when the ability is triggered.
Generates a shield that reduces all damage Sentry takes by 20%. 65% of incoming damage is added to a charge meter displayed below Sentry’s health bar. After 2 seconds, the shield ends and the Black Hole ability is available immediately. The shield also breaks after taking 600 damage, though this does not allow the black hole to be fired sooner than normal.
Fires a projectile that turns into a black hole after travelling a short distance, or upon a second press of the ability button. The black hole pulls all enemies within its range towards its center with a force linear to the distance from its center, having the weakest gravitational pull at its edge. After 1.5 seconds, the black hole explodes, dealing varying amounts of damage depending on the charge gained from shielding to all enemies inside its range.
Cooldown: 10 s
Uncharged Black Hole damage: 150
Fully charged Black Hole damage: 540
Damage vs. droids: 100%
Damage vs. structures: 0%
Black Hole projectile auto-detonation delay: 0.61 s
When Black Hole Sun’s charge is held for longer than 10 seconds without being fired off into a black hole, the meter begins decaying at a rate of 50 damage per second, until the minimum base damage of 150 has been reached.
Certain environmental sources of damage are less effectively shielded by Black Hole Sun: Turrets, the Solar Boss’ bodily fluids and AI Station 205’s fire will deal 50% of their damage directly to Sentry’s health points, bypassing the shield, whereas the remaining 50% contribute to Sentry’s BHS damage meter and are are reduced by the shield.
Given a sufficiently high movement speed or a dashing/teleportation ability, enemies can escape from the black hole, avoiding the end damage and any attempts by Sentry’s teammates at following up on the black hole with their own abilities. Additionally, abilities with invincibility can be used for dodging the end damage.
Black Hole Sun – Upgrades
Increases damage reduction of Black Hole Sun’s shield by 10% (additively) per stage.
Damage reduction (base to fully upgraded): 20% → 30% → 40%
Conversion rate from incoming damage to to BHS charge is unaffected.
Counters large amounts of damage being dealt in a short time, enabling Sentry to retaliate on burst abilities with a fully charged BHS without sacrificing too much health, as well as potentially surviving an ambush by the enemy team long enough to fire off his BHS or even escape. Good upgrade to purchase in the late-game in most matches, or mid-game against burst-heavy team compositions.
Good when up against ‘Nauts with high damage attacks (Clunk, Derpl).
Weak against damage dealers and chasers (Gnaw, Voltar, Genji, Leon).
Increases the maximum damage of Black Hole Sun by ~19.8% (+107.25) and shield health by 27.5% (+165) per stage.
Maximum damage (base to fully upgraded): 540 → 647.25 → 754.5
Absorption limit (base to fully upgraded): 390 → 497.25 → 604.5
Shield health (base to fully upgraded): 600 → 765 → 930
Greatly increases BHS’ maximum damage potential, but since experienced players will typically not use their burst attacks on a Sentry that is shielding or ready to shield, it is generally difficult to fill up even a base black hole to the maximum against most ‘Nauts, it should only be bought very late in the game.
Good when up against ‘Nauts that on lingering high-damage abilities (Yuri, Yoolip).
Weak in most other cases, especially when black holes can’t hit reliably (BHS escapers or lagging players).
Note that the in-game tooltip for this upgrade shows slightly misleading values for “maximum damage”, as only the absorption limit of BHS is increased by 27.5%, rather than the actual maximum damage (which would be the sum of its base damage and absorption limit). Additionally, the hidden “shield health” value is increased by 27.5%, which is the amount of damage that Sentry’s shield can take before it shuts down automatically.
Reduces the cooldown of Black Hole Sun by 1.5 seconds per stage.
Cooldown (seconds, base to fully upgraded): 10 → 8.5 → 7
Effective cooldown (seconds, base to fully upgraded): 12 → 10.5 → 9
Allows Sentry to charge and fire more black holes, giving him the opportunity to use his shield more frequently. This is especially useful in combination with Nightvision Spywatch, allowing him to use his escape option more frequently. However, black holes are often not fired right after shielding damage, but rather when an initiation opportunity presents itself, the upgrade has relatively low use in an offensive playstyle.
Even when firing black holes immediately after shielding, the cooldown reduction is made slightly less significant by the fact that BHS’ cooldown starts when the black hole is fired, which means that the 2 seconds of shielding (which cannot be skipped) are added to the base cooldown, resulting in an effective base cooldown of 12 seconds, reduced to 9 seconds with both stages of the upgrade.
Good when up against ‘Nauts that give chase for longer periods of time (Skree, Leon, Genji, Penny).
Weak when black hole charges are held for longer periods of time (passive enemy playstyle).
Causes the shield to deal 175 contact damage per second.
Contact damage ticks per second: 10
Contact damage amount per tick: 17.5
Total damage: 350
Adds a decent amount of potential damage to BHS. This extra damage can be rather difficult to apply: enemies must be in close range while using the shield to receive the full damage. In most cases, only a few ticks of damage will hit, making this upgrade primarily useful against droids and ‘Nauts with low mobility, particularly when used together with Nightvision Spywatch.
Good when up against ‘Nauts with low mobility (Clunk, Derpl).
Weak in most other cases.
Increases movement speed by 50% (+3.7) while Black Hole Sun is charging.
Movement speed (base to upgraded): 7.4 → 11.1
Quite possibly Sentry’s best upgrade: it provides a powerful speed boost for 2 seconds when using Black Hole Sun’s shield mode. This allows Sentry to rapidly approach enemies to initiate, which is particularly useful in conjunction with Teleport Beacon, giving him a greater chance at avoiding damage and successfully performing a Teleburst. Additionally, when being chased or ending up in an otherwise difficult situation, the speed boost can open up additional escape options due to the greatly increased horizontal mobility. The speed boost will last the full 2 seconds, even when the shield breaks.
Good in virtually every situation.
Increases the damage of Black Hole Sun against enemy Awesomenauts by 66 per stage.
Minimum damage vs ‘Nauts (base to fully upgraded): 150 → 216 → 282
Maximum damage vs ‘Nauts (base to fully upgraded): 540 → 606 → 672
Relative damage increase per stage (empty to full charge): 44% ~ 12.2%
Increases Sentry’s damage output considerably, especially when BHS is primarily used for firing “uncharged” black holes, rather than for absorbing damage with the shield. The damage increase is constant, regardless of the amount of damage collected using the shield.
Note that the length of Sentry’s charge bar increases when this upgrade is purchased. However, this change is purely a visual bug and does not affect BHS’ absorption limit.
Good when shield charge is rarely filled up (little to no burst or passive playstyle on the enemy team).
Weak when black holes can’t hit reliably (BHS escapers or lagging players).
Teleport Beacon
Teleport Beacon is an ability with two modes. Its default mode results in the beacon being placed down upon use of the ability.
A Teleport Beacon is placed at Sentry’s current position. The beacon itself provides minimap vision of the surrounding area, reveals hide areas it is placed in, is untargetable, indestructible and persists even when Sentry dies. Upon placement, the Teleport to Beacon ability is immediately available if Sentry has not taken damage within the last 2 seconds.
Sentry is instantly teleported to the previously placed beacon, dealing 250 damage to all enemies close to it. The beacon is destroyed in the process. This ability can only be used if Sentry has not taken damage for 2 seconds, which is indicated by the cooldown counter on the skill button. Note that this cooldown timer runs regardless of whether Sentry has placed his beacon or not.
Cooldown: 15 s
Damage: 250
Damage vs. droids: 100%
Damage vs. structures: 50%
Damage radius: 6.4 (circle)
Teleport Beacon – Upgrades
Increases damage of teleporting to the beacon by 40% (+100) per stage.
Damage (base to fully upgraded): 250 → 350 → 450
A versatile upgrade that provides a large damage boost for Teleport Beacon, for both its active uses (telebursting) and its passive uses (area control).
Good in practically any situation.
Note that this upgrade only takes effect on newly placed Teleport Beacons. An existing beacon at the time of purchasing the upgrade will retain its old damage value.
Spawns a decoy at Sentry’s current position when teleporting to the beacon, which explodes when an enemy gets close to it.
Decoy damage (base to fully upgraded): 0 → 125 → 250
Decoy health: 100
Explosion size: 8 (circle)
Greatly increases the damage Sentry can deal when telebursting, as the decoy will detonate immediately on nearby enemies. This upgrade effectively adds more damage to telebursts than Yellow King Pages does, while also costing less Solar, but has the drawback of being slightly harder to hit, and requiring Sentry to be close to his target to deal the additional damage.
When the decoy’s health is depleted, or when any enemy unit enters a square range of 16 x 16 units around it (indicated by the gray rectangle in the image), the decoy detonates, dealing its damage in a circle with radius of 8 (indicated by the red circle). This means that the decoy will not deal its damage to targets diagonal from it (within the areas shaded in gray), exploding harmlessly instead. This behavior causes telebursts against targets diagonal from Sentry to be less damaging if this upgrade is relied upon.
Good against ‘Nauts with a low health pool.
Weak against ‘Nauts with long-range attacks and/or damage over time (especially Gnaw, Voltar, Yuri).
Reduces Teleport Beacon’s cooldown by 5 seconds.
Cooldown (seconds, base to upgraded): 15 → 10
Grants a significant cooldown reduction to Sentry’s Teleport Beacon. In cases where the beacon does not linger on the battlefield for a significant amount of time, such as when using it to activate the attack speed or heal over time buffs if the respective upgrades are bought, or when using its damage to clear droids, the reduced cooldown can be rather beneficial.
However, when using Teleport Beacon situationally, such as when telebursting or controlling areas, the cooldown of the ability is less relevant, as most of the time is spent waiting for the right moment to pass. In this case, purchasing this item means giving up one of the potent damage upgrades, or not taking silence, which is usually not worth the reduced cooldown.
Good when combined with Teleport Beacon’s buff upgrades.
Weak when using Teleport Beacon for burst damage and silence.
This upgrade used to grant stealth to the Teleport Beacon before it was replaced with its current iteration in game version 4.1.
Heals 200 health per stage over 5 seconds after teleporting to the beacon.
Total healing (base to fully upgraded): 0 → 200 → 400
Health per tick (base to fully upgraded): 0 → 40 → 80
Healing ticks: 5
Time between each tick: 1 s
Situational upgrade that allows Sentry to stay in teamfights longer when initiating with Teleport Beacon, as well as allowing aggressively placed beacons to be used for escaping in a pinch. Complements a “brawler”-type playstyle, where Sentry needs the extra health to continue dealing damage with his Photon Mines. It is less effective when telebursts are used to finish off enemies.
The upgrade does not allow for easier recovery from mistakes, as any damage taken by Sentry will still suppress the use of Teleport Beacon (and with it, Ejection Seat’s healing effect), for 2 seconds, limiting its usefulness.
Good when building primarily into auto-attack.
Weak when focusing on telebursts.
Increases Photon Mine Launcher’s attack speed by ~49.2% for 5 seconds after teleporting to the beacon.
Shots per second (base to buffed): 1.5 → ~2.23
Firing delay (base to buffed): ~0.66 s → ~0.44 s
Gives Sentry’s AA a powerful attack speed boost upon teleporting to the beacon. This synergizes well with Sentry’s auto-attack upgrades, giving him some extra damage in teamfights, particularly against enemies trapped in the Black Hole. However, compared to the direct damage upgrades for Teleport Beacon, it is less useful for attempting to finish off enemies if they can outrun Sentry or escape his Black Hole before he is able to make use of his auto-attack.
Good when building primarily into auto-attack.
Weak when focusing on telebursts or when Black Holes can’t hit reliably (BHS escapers or lagging players).
Note that the in-game item description claims to increase the attack speed by 33%. However, the actual effect is a cooldown reduction of 33% on Photon Mines, i.e. a cooldown multiplier of 0.67, which corresponds to an attack speed multiplier of 1 / 0.67 ≈ 1.492. Subtracting this number from 1 and multiplying it with 100 yields the actual attack speed bonus as a percentage.
Inflicts 2 seconds of silence to any enemies hit by the beacon when teleporting to it.
Silence duration: 2 s
Allows Sentry to teleport to his beacon much more safely, as enemies hit by the beacon’s pulse will be unable to retaliate with abilities for 2 seconds, which is enough time for Sentry to potentially fire a black hole (which will deal its damage within 1.5 seconds if detonated immediately), and distance himself from the enemies if necessary. This upgrade gives Sentry a reliable way to hit BHS on enemies that can normally escape it using their abilities, and contributes to virtually every use case for Teleport Beacon, greatly improving telebursts and area denial beacons.
Good in nearly every situation.
Note that this upgrade only takes effect on newly placed Teleport Beacons. An existing beacon at the time of purchasing the upgrade will not inflict silence when teleported to.
Build order
Beyond a few mandatory upgrades (Night Vision Spywatch, Ringtones for the Deaf), Sentry can be effectively built for telebursting in a variety of ways. The following recommendations should not be taken as a rigid build order, but rather as a guideline of which upgrades provide the greatest benefit as a certain stage in the game. Experimentation and adaptation based on enemy team composition and desired playstyle is highly recommended!
View build on NautsBuilder[nautsbuilder.com]
This build focuses on effective telebursts and sufficient sustain to deliver damaging black holes.
Night Vision Spywatch is picked as a starting upgrade, as it allows Sentry to rapidly approach enemies for black hole or teleburst ambushes, as well as facilitating escapes. It is too versatile of an upgrade to pass up.
Med-i’-can allows Sentry to regain health lost from charging black holes, particularly from turrets, as their damage partially bypasses the shield’s damage reduction and absorption. This upgrade can usually be skipped if a competent Voltar is present on the team.
Ringtones for the Deaf encourages teleporting on the beacon when enemies are on top of it, as they can’t retaliate with their abilities, often allowing Sentry to follow up with a black hole. Yellow King Pages further makes the beacon even more of a threat, forcing enemies to avoid it.
As this build focuses on burst damage from Teleport Beacon, Black Hole Sun is primarily used for Night Vision Spywatch’s speed boost, as well as the shield’s damage reduction and the black hole’s gravitational pull and damage, all of which are already very good on base.
Photon Mines play a secondary role in this build, and are mostly used for regaining health lost from charging BHS with the help of Tactical Vest’s lifesteal and adding small amounts of damage to black holes.
Beacon positioning
The optimal locations for Sentry’s beacon are highly dependent on the map. Some maps favor certain types of strategic beacon placement. This section lists the most common locations for each map at different stages of the match.
The purple rectangles mark parts of the floor that are thin enough to teleburst through: enemies standing on top of the floor above those sections will be hit by telebursts executed from beneath the floor, giving Sentry the chance to make kills on enemies that have already retreated past their turret.
Beacon positioning – Ribbit IV
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Upper hide area
Reveals the hide area covering the most contested section of Ribbit IV’s early game, and is conveniently placed at the target location of a jump pad, allowing Sentry to damage enemies taking the bottom jump pad (with sufficiently precise timing).
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Lower hide area
Reveals the hide area near the central jump pads, which can be helpful if the top area is already taken care of by teammates and the lower lane needs to be prioritized.
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Top front turret
Allows Sentry to exert additional pressure against defenders of the top turret while pushing, preventing them from getting tooclose to the turret, as they would risk .
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Above bottom front turret
Allows Sentry to push the bottom front turret safely while preventing enemies from dropping down on him, as he can safely retaliate with the beacon (assuming the silence upgrade is purchased). Additionally, it provides an escape option when pushing the bottom back turret.
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Top back turret
As this turret is located at the landing zone of the team’s jump pad, the Teleport Beacon can be used to damage and silence enemies who rush in to defend.
Beacon positioning – Sorona
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Hide area
Reveals the hide area while taking control of the most contested zone of Sorona’s early game. Allows Sentry to damage unaware enemies who approach the hide area.
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Worm button
Gives Sentry control of the worm button, at the cost of giving up control over the central hide area. Typically not recommended as a permanent location, but it can be useful to temporarily place the beacon on the button to safely collect the large health pack beneath it and using it to teleport to enemies who attempt to press the button to kill Sentry.
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Lower bounce pad landing area
Controls the landing zone of the lower bounce pads, which are frequently taken for lane switching in the early game. Placing the beacon here can lead to initiations on unsuspecting enemies who take the bounce pad in an attempt to defend the top turret or escape.
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Near bottom turret
Allows Sentry to push the bottom turret safely while preventing enemies from dropping down on him, as he can safely retaliate with the beacon (assuming the silence upgrade is purchased).
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Upper bounce pad landing area
Similar to location 3, placing the beacon here will allow Sentry to catch retreating enemies who seek the health creeps. Typically placed on the enemy side, as this is the direction low-health enemies usually retreat towards.
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Top turret
Exerts additional pressure on defenders of the top turret, forcing them to stay out of the beacon’s range.
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Back turret
Similar to location 6, exerts additional pressure on defenders of the back turret, forcing them to stay out of the beacon’s range.
Beacon positioning – AI Station 205
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Bottom front turret
Allows Sentry to push the bottom turret while forcing his opponents to stay at a safe distance from his beacon.
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Top front turret
Similar to location 1, exerts additional pressure on defenders of the top turret.
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Vertical bounce pad landing area
This area is often crossed by players in need of health, as the large health kit is immediately beneath it, and the most reliable source of healing (health creeps) is located in the top center of the map. Placing a beacon in this area on the enemy’s side after the front turrets are down allows Sentry to damage and silence enemy players who seek health or chase his teammates, possibly following up with a black hole.
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Near bottom back turret
Allows Sentry to push the bottom back turret safely. When seeing an enemy approach from either side, Sentry can teleport to the beacon and get out before the enemy comes close enough to damage him (assuming droids are present to shield him from turret damage).
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Diagonal bounce pad landing area
Teamfights in the open area in front of the back turrets of AI Station 205 often involve the diagonal jump pads. Placing a beacon at their landing area, just above the hummingbird cage, gives Sentry the opportunity to cut off players who try to retreat.
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Top back turret
Allows Sentry to push the top turret and force defenders to stay back. Additionally, due to the turret’s location in the team jump pad’s landing area, Sentry can surprise enemies who rush to the turret to defend with a silencing and damaging pulse from his beacon, potentially following up with a black hole.
Beacon positioning – Aiguillon
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Top hide area
Grants vision of the top area, preventing ambushes from the enemy team and allowing Sentry to unexpectedly show up from above, ambushing enemy players himself.
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Bottom hide area
Similar to location 1, but in a slightly more favorable position for Sentry, as enemies enter the beacon’s damage range simply by walking over the glass platforms.
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Vertical bounce pad landing area
This is the main chokepoint of Aiguillon, and one of the best Teleport Beacon locations in the game. To access the invisibility orb, most ‘Nauts have to cross this area on either side (unless they enter from the bottom lane). The bounce pads are also often used to switch lanes. If an eye is kept on the minimap, Sentry can teleport onto enemies who traverse the area.
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Bottom front turret hide area
Allows Sentry to push the bottom front turret safely by granting vision of the hide area above him, which is commonly used to catch unaware players who attack the turret. As a counter-attack, Sentry can teleport to the beacon when seeing an enemy drop down, damaging and silencing them (if the appropriate upgrade is purchased), setting up a potential black hole.
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Top front turret
Allows Sentry to push the top front turret while forcing his opponents to stay at a safe distance from his beacon.
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Team wall hide area
Placing a beacon against the team force field reveals the hide area behind it, granting vision of enemies who are trying to sneak up on Sentry while he is in the enemy health creep area, potentially even allowing him to retaliate on attempted surprise attacks. Additionally, placing the beacon in this location cuts off one of the enemy team’s escape paths.
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Top back turret
Allows Sentry to push the top back turret while exerting additional pressure on any defenders. As the turret is located at the team bounce pad’s landing area, a beacon placed here can be used to catch unaware players.
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Bottom back turret
Similar to location 5, allows Sentry to push the bottom back turret while forcing his opponents to stay at a safe distance from his beacon.
Beacon positioning – Starstorm
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Central warp exit
Allows Sentry to finish enemies who drop down into the central bottom area, particularly when they’re occupied fighting Sentry’s teammates.
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Hide area
Controls an important section of Starstorm’s early game: enemies that walk over the glass platform on top of the hide area are within its damage range. Having vision of the hide area can help prevent ambushes from the enemy team. Additionally, as the hide area must be traversed in order to reach the two health creeps in the bottom area, this gives Sentry indirect control over that area as well, while allowing him to catch enemy players who try to drop down in an attempt to escape.
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Above bottom front turret
Placing the beacon here gives Sentry the ability to push the turret without having worry about enemies dropping down on him, as enemies who drop straight down will have to cross the beacon, as well as being slowed by the glass platform, giving Sentry a short time window for retaliation.
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Top front turret
Exerts pressure on enemies defending the top turret, particularly as Sentry can jump behind the turret and threaten defenders with his auto-attack or BHS, while maintaining the beacon’s position in front of the turret, possibly getting a kill or forcing them to abandon it entirely.
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Side warp exit
Similar to location 1, trapping the warp exit with a beacon allows Sentry to punish players who take the side warp. This can be used to make pushing the back top turret safer, as Sentry can damage enemies who try to drop down on him using the warp.
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Near bottom back turret
Similar to location 3, placing the beacon here gives Sentry the ability to push the turret without having worry about enemies attacking him from behind, assuming droids are present to shield him from turret damage.
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Top back turret
Placing the beacon here while pushing the top back turret puts additional pressure on defenders of the top turret, as they have to stay out of the beacon’s range. However, placing the beacon here will often lead to enemies using the side warp and trying to drop down on Sentry instead, so care has to be taken if one wishes to avoid being ambushed this way.
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Vertical bounce pad landing area
The location where the trajectories of the vertical bounce pads and the team bounce pad cross provides the ideal area to place a beacon when the base is accessible. As players taking the bounce pads will usually end up in this area, placing the beacon here gives Sentry control over an important late-game chokepoint, allowing him to damage enemies moving out to defend the top turret using their team bounce pad, as well as catching enemies chasing Sentry’s teammates along the vertical bounce pads.
Telebursting
The term Teleburst refers to the placement of Sentry’s Teleport Beacon, immediately followed by teleporting to it, causing any enemy close to Sentry to receive an instant burst of damage. A teleburst, like a normal teleport, requires Sentry not to have taken any damage in the past 2 seconds in order to be successful. If this condition is not fulfilled, the teleburst is denied and the teleport beacon is harmlessly placed near the enemy.
When successful, a teleburst can deal large amounts of damage to all enemies in the target area, as both the beacon’s own damage and the decoy spawned by the upgrade Circuits of Time have can potentially hit the target at the same time. Additionally, 2 seconds of silence can be applied, which is enough to follow up with a black hole that cannot be escaped from using dash abilities.
Avoiding all incoming damage is the biggest challenge when trying to teleburst, as even a single hit will deny the teleburst and possibly leave Sentry in a vulnerable position, being one ability short. Therefore, it is important to be aware of your targets’ cooldowns and attacks: telebursting near Gnaw’s Weedlings, Voltar’s Drones or a turret will generally not be successful.
For the greatest chance at success, telebursts are best performed by dropping down on enemies from above, or at the landing location of jump pads. Also, the beacon’s (and decoy’s) explosion can reach through thin walls, allowing Sentry to teleburst enemies who have retreated behind their turrets in certain maps.
Because the Teleport Beacon is placed at the position of Sentry’s weapon arm, aiming in the direction of your enemies while telebursting will allow you to hit them from slightly further away. However, this does not apply to the decoy, which will always spawn at Sentry’s current position. This means that despite their identical explosion radii, it is possible to hit the Teleport Beacon’s own burst while missing with the decoy, and vice versa.
Teleporting to base
In addition to its offensive capabilities, the Teleport Beacon also has an important function in allowing Sentry to teleport to the base (“recall”) with much less downtime than any other ‘Naut. If the beacon is placed before recalling, Sentry can immediately teleport back to the frontlines without having to walk the whole distance, saving about 10 seconds per teleport. This allows him to heal up to full health without having to grab health packs or creeps, as well as letting him purchase upgrades much more frequently than other ‘Nauts.
A much less well-known tactic is the use of recalling to clear mines and grid traps that enemies may have placed on the Teleport Beacon in an attempt to kill Sentry when he teleports to it. During the recall animation, the player is given damage and debuff immunity for a few seconds, while their abilities and movement are locked. Shortly after being teleported to the shop, control is given back to the player and the invincibility is taken away. However, these two events do not occur simultaneously: there is a time span of a few tenths of a second in which the player has already regained control of their ‘Naut, but is still in the invincibility state from recalling.
Activating a previously placed Teleport Beacon during this time allows Sentry to bring this invincibility to the frontlines, which removes any traps placed on top of the Teleport Beacon without them inflicting any damage or debuffs upon Sentry.
‘Nauts and abilities particularly affected by this are Yuri’s Mines, Derpl’s Grid Traps and Raelynn’s Timerift (its timeslow effect lengthens the invincibility).
Momentum conservation
When Sentry teleports to his beacon, any velocity he had prior to the teleport is kept. When teleporting immediately after touching a bounce pad, this behavior causes Sentry to fly out of his Teleport Beacon at a high velocity, usually landing over a screen length away from his beacon’s location (depending on the knockback strength of the jump pad). With proper beacon positioning, and using front-facing bounce pads, this allows Sentry to surprise enemies at the target location with an unexpected black hole. However, this can be rather risky, as no minimap vision of the target area is available, unless a teammate is nearby.
In addition to using momentum conservation to initiate, it also allows for the relatively safe reclamation of stray Teleport Beacons on Sorona and AI Station 205. With the help of the backwards-facing diagonal jump pads present on those maps, Sentry can fly away from the turret after teleporting to the beacon and get back to safety, with his beacon once again available. This technique is useful if a Teleport Beacon was placed offensively during a previous push (typically near an enemy turret), but the tides have turned in the meantime, requiring the defensive use of the beacon.
Teleportation invulnerability
Upon using his “Teleport to Beacon” ability, there is a delay of approximately 0.1 seconds before the actual teleportation occurs. During this time, Sentry is granted complete damage and debuff immunity, allowing him to tank incoming bursts of damage with proper timing. This is particularly useful against Chucho’s Sticky Bomb, Ted’s Airstrike and an enemy Sentry’s Black Hole Sun.
Note that this invulnerability only protects Sentry immediately before his teleportation to the beacon. Mines and Grid Traps placed on the Teleport Beacon will still deal their damage or snare debuff to Sentry when teleporting ot the beacon (unless the trick from the section “Teleporting to base” is used).
Matchups
Sentry has to adjust his playstyle and build according to the abilities of the enemies he faces in a match. This section categorizes Awesomenauts based on the way they affect Sentry’s abilities.
Many Awesomenauts in the game have abilities that allow them to escape Black Hole Sun directly. The movement speed boost or teleportation granted by those abilities allows them to counteract the Black Hole’s gravity and avoid its end damage.
It is possible to force these Awesomenauts to stay in the Black Hole by silencing them using Teleport Beacon’s “Ringtones for the Deaf” upgrade.
When facing any of these Awesomenauts, building into Teleport Beacon’s silence and damage is recommended. BHS should only be fired at these enemies if they have been silenced by the beacon or if their abilities are on cooldown.
Awesomenauts with a sufficiently high movement speed and the Baby Kuri Mammoth (BKM) upgrade can escape most Black Holes by simply walking out of them. Applying silence using Teleport Beacon typically does not prevent them from escaping BHS.
Note that Ayla has to be in Rage mode already to be able to escape from the center of a black hole, but since she cannot be forced out of Rage using silence, Black Holes and telebursts cannot be relied upon to get away from an Ayla with movement speed upgrades and BKM.
When facing these Awesomenauts, building into Teleport Beacon is still recommended, as it can provide a reliable source of burst damage. Black Holes will usually miss against these Awesomenauts.
Some Awesomenauts have abilities that protect them and their teammates from Black Hole Sun’s damage. Genji’s Blessing can significantly reduce the damage Black Hole Sun deals to him and his teammates, while Ix’s Displace (protecting Ix himself and one teammate) and Deadlift’s Protective Pose (protecting his whole team) nullify Black Hole Sun’s effect entirely.
Once again, initiating with a silence-enabled Teleport Beacon is recommended against these Awesomenauts, allowing Sentry to deal damage with his Black Hole more reliably.
Awesomenauts with fast, low-damage, long-ranged attacks or easy to apply damage over time can prevent Sentry from landing telebursts against them.
When multiple of these characters are present, the Circuits of Time upgrade (Teleport Beacon decoy) should be skipped. Teleport Beacons should be placed strategically in common escape routes, choke points or hide areas, rather than saving the ability for telebursts.
If the characters in question are susceptible to Black Hole Sun, a build focused on utility, sustain and BHS damage is preferable over rushing beacon upgrades, focusing on landing charged Black Holes and allowing teammates to follow up.
If BHS escapers are present, Sentry’s auto-attack (along with non-teleburst beacon usage) is the most viable option, and should be invested into first.
Some Awesomenauts have relatively long-ranged auto-attacks, and/or upgrades on their abilities that grant them damage over time. If those abilities are on longer cooldowns or otherwise more difficult to apply, it can be somewhat tricky to teleburst successfully, but it is still feasible to do so when rapidly approaching enemies with their DoT-inducing abilities on cooldown, while dodging their auto-attack.
If these characters are present and difficulties arise while attempting to teleburst, consider building into Black Hole Sun or Photon Mine Launcher (depending on the effectivity of BHS on the enemy team composition) for the early game instead.
Some burst damage abilities have a relatively long windup time before the actual damage hits, providing Sentry with enough time to raise his shields and use the incoming damage to his advantage. Typically, the amount of damage dealt by these Awesomenauts is very high, potentially filling Sentry’s entire BHS charge in a single hit.
As such, the Microfilm upgrade for Black Hole Sun and Power Pills Turbo should be considered fairly early on for better survivability of such attacks. Additionally, Cyanide Cigarettes can be purchased for an even greater retaliation damage output.
A few Awesomenauts have high-damage abilities that, once used, linger on the battlefield for varying amounts of time. Sentry can use BHS on stray mines or dinos to accumulate high amounts of damage, giving him the opportunity to use this damage for his next initiation, possibly without the enemy being aware of his full BHS meter.
In order to maximize the effectivity of such a playstyle, the upgrades Cyanide Cigarettes and Starstorm Statue for greatly increased BHS damage. Additionally, Microfilm or Tactical Vest allow Sentry to be at full health again before the collected damage starts decaying, compensating for the health loss by means of improved damage reduction or sustain.
Network latency
Out of all the characters in the game, Sentry is most affected by lag, as both of his abilities work differently depending on how much latency there is between the Sentry player and the players of the enemy team.
Black Hole Sun is one of the exceptions for the “favor the shooter” rule that normally applies when network latency is involved in online matches. This makes it much less reliable in high-latency matches.
With most abilities, the client of the player casting the ability decides whether it hit. For example: if a Raelynn with 300 ms of latency fires her snipe the position her victim was at 300 milliseconds ago, the shot will hit, even if the victim is already outside of Raelynn’s snipe range, or even behind a wall or turret on their own screen.
This principle does not apply to the gravitational pull of BHS. The victim decides whether they are within the black hole or not. This means that in order to hit a player with 300 ms of latency, Sentry has to fire his black hole at the position where the player will be at in 300 ms. Otherwise, from the Sentry’s perspective, the victim will simply “walk out” of the black hole, seemingly unaffected by its gravity, whereas the victim will see the black hole missing on their screen.
The end damage of BHS is unaffected by this exception, and will be dealt when Sentry sees enemies within his black hole the moment it explodes, even if they already left the black hole on their screen.
This anomaly forces Sentry to rely on hide areas, jump pads, drop-down tactics or stealth beacons to surprise enemies and catch them in black holes.
On the contrary, the Teleport Beacon, particularly the practice of Telebursting, becomes far more reliable with high-latency opponents, as they have less time to react and attack Sentry as he is approaching them to deliver his Teleburst.
If there is a latency of 300 ms between Sentry and his enemy, any action by the enemy will take 300 ms to be registered by Sentry’s client. If he places and immediately teleports to his beacon in that time, the attack will still be successful, despite the enemy player having attacked and damaged Sentry seemingly before the Teleburst happened. This even applies to automatic attacks such as Gnaw’s Weedlings and dropped Spit, Voltar’s Suicide Drones and Yuri’s Mines: with sufficient latency, a swiftly approaching Sentry can get close enough to deal damage with his beacon before the victim’s client even receives data about Sentry’s position.
As it is entirely possible to drop down from a high place on top of an enemy within a split second, this can result in Telebursts being impossible to deny if there is sufficient latency. Immediately afterwards, a black hole can follow, which will come as unexpectedly as the initial teleburst to unsuspecting players, and will in fact be able to trap them, assuming they do not have a means of escaping the black hole.
Sentry’s playstyle changes significantly for high latencies, and it is important to be aware of your opponents’ exact latency. Make sure to mouse over the “Ping indicator” on the scoreboard to determine the precise ping between you and your opponents.
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Thank you for reading this guide, hopefully you can put your newly acquired knowledge to good use in-game. If you have any suggestions or corrections, feel free to give me your feedback in a comment.
Thanks to mimiroru92 for helping me with the demonstration GIFs. Be sure to check out her excellent Ayla guide, too!
- Updated “Teleport Beacon” section (added explosion radius).
- Updated “Teleport Beacon – Upgrades” section (4.1 balance changes).
- Added Raelynn and Dizzy to ‘Nauts with Telegraphed Burst Damage.
- Added Dizzy to BHS escapers by ability.
- Updated “Telebursting” section (minor content changes, added animated GIFs).
- Updated “Teleporting to base” section (added animated GIFs).
- Updated “Momentum conservation” section (added animated GIFs).
- Updated “Teleportation invulnerability” section (added animated GIFs).
- Added credits sub-section.
- Added Raelynn to BHS escapers by movement.