Sentry Turret

This article is about the turret power used by players in Mass Effect 3. For the gun emplacement deployed by Cerberus, see Turret (Mass Effect 3). For other types and uses, see Turret (disambiguation).

Sentry Turret is a tech power in Mass Effect 3's single-player and multiplayer modes.

Power Ranks

Rank 1: Sentry Turret

Deploy this heavy-weapon turret for cover fire.

• Recharge Speed: 5 sec
• Turret Damage: 25 (75 multiplayer)
• Turret Shields: 500 (1000 multiplayer)

Rank 2: Recharge Speed

Increase recharge speed by 25%.

• Recharge Speed: 4 sec
• Turret Damage: 25 (75 multiplayer)
• Turret Shields: 500 (1000 multiplayer)

Rank 3: Shields & Damage

Increase turret's shields by 30%.
Increase turret's damage by 30%.

• Recharge Speed: 4 sec
• Turret Damage: 32.50 (97.50 multiplayer)
• Turret Shields: 650 (1300 multiplayer)

Rank 4: Shields & Damage/Shock

Shields & Damage Increase turret's shields by 40%. Increase turret's damage by 40%. Recharge Speed: 4 sec Turret Damage: 42.50 (127.50 multiplayer) Turret Shields: 850 (1700 multiplayer)

Shock Upgrade turret with shock attack to stun enemies.

Rank 5: Cryo Ammo/Armor-Piercing Ammo

Cryo Ammo Upgrade turret with cryo ammo, giving it a chance to freeze enemies for 3 seconds.

Armor-Piercing Ammo Upgrade turret with armor-piercing ammo, giving it a 100% damage bonus against armor.

Rank 6: Rockets/Flamethrower

Rockets Upgrade turret with long-range rockets that deal 150 (390 multiplayer) points of damage across a 1.50 (2.50 multiplayer) meter radius.

Flamethrower Upgrade turret with a close-range flamethrower that deals 84.50 points of damage per second.

Player Notes

Mechanics

• Sentry Turret is deployed like a grenade, unlike the Combat Drone which simply appears on top of whatever enemy you are targeting.
  • Sentry Turret, once deployed, will not move.
  • The Sentry will fail to deploy on many types of surfaces or if too close to terrain.
  • Simply the act of throwing out the turret to deploy it can induce nearby infantry enemies to perform a dodge maneuver.
  • Starting to throw out a new Sentry Turret immediately destroys a currently active turret.
• The following enemies totally ignore the Sentry Turret: Husks, Abominations, Brutes, Scions, Praetorians, Seeker Swarms, Ravagers, Atlases, Dragoons, Adjutants, Disruption Drones, and the final boss of the Mass Effect 3: Citadel missions.
  • Banshees largely ignore it, but their ranged projectiles can acquire it as a target once fired, and a Sentry attacking a Banshee at close range can trigger it to use its scream attack.
  • Swarmers will be drawn to a turret but they can't attack it, making it a useful "bug zapper" especially with the Shock or Flamethrower evolutions.
  • Harvesters take some time to get distracted by a turret, and once they do target it, it won't last long.
• Three-round Burst: The Sentry Turret's normal attack fires in a burst of three shots with a burst every 2.5 seconds.
  • The up-front damage of the burst attack cannot be increased by most external sources of bonus weapon or power damage, such as from other passive power bonuses, weapon mods, armor pieces, or Intel Terminal research. Only evolving the Sentry Turret power itself can increase its damage. The notable exception is the rank 6 evolution of Tech Mastery in single-player.
  • However rare, the Sentry Turret's normal attack can actually headshot enemies. It can also miss targets completely.
  • The normal attack has a strong likelihood of staggering most unprotected infantry enemies. It can also induce them to perform an evasion move.
  • The Cryo Ammo/Armor-Piercing Ammo evolutions at rank 5 only influence the normal 3 round burst attack and have no impact on any of the alternate weapons such as shock/flamethrower/rockets.
  • The Armor-Piercing Ammo evolution has a likely bug causing it to deal the bonus damage not only to armored targets (yellow bar) but to unprotected health (red bar) too. This occurs in single-player and for all multiplayer classes as well.
  • The rank 4/6 shock/flamethrower/rocket evolutions do not replace the Sentry Turret's three round burst attack, nor will they remove other similar evolutions. These evolutions simply give the turret additional functions it can cycle between.
  • The Sentry Turret will randomly select between all available weapons for a given target in range. This has the consequences that taking both the shock and flamethrower evolutions can actually reduce the turret's close-quarters damage potential, as the turret will then be randomly choosing between the highly-damaging flamethrower or the less-damaging shock attack.
• The rank 4 Shock evolution is almost identical to the Combat Drone's, dealing 100 base damage, for a net total of 130 with the mandatory rank 3 evolution. It also has the same radius (2.5m single-player, 5m multiplayer) and force (450N single player or 1000N multiplayer, which is capable of staggering moderate enemies in single-player and all but the hardiest of enemies in multiplayer). In single-player, The Sentry Turret has an identical attack cooldown (5 seconds), though in multiplayer it is faster (2 seconds versus 3 seconds for the Combat Drone's).
• Sentry Turret can create Power Combos. Rank 5 Cryo Ammo can freeze unprotected enemies, priming them for Cryo Explosions, while rank 6 Flamethrower can prime health or armor (red/yellow bar) for Fire Explosions, but not shielded (blue/purple bar) targets.
  • Though they are not primed for Fire Explosions, shielded infantry targets such as Marauders can still be panicked by the flamethrower, causing them to flail around.
  • Each "tick" or instance of flamethrower damage has a chance to prime viable targets for Fire Explosions, and the ticks of damage are so rapid that detonating a target currently being hit by the flame stream will usually cause a combo explosion, though not always.
  • The priming effect of flamethrower has a very short duration that can linger and be detonated even after the Sentry Turret stops firing; however, it isn't apparent to the eye as the flamethrower leaves a burning visual effect on most enemies.
  • Even though multiple enemies can be hit by the flamethrower, a maximum of one can be primed for a Fire Explosion at a time.
• The Cryo Ammo evolution does not cause chilling effects on protected foes, and it neither slows protected enemies or reduces the damage mitigation of enemy armor, as is the case with most other cryo effects in the game. All it provides is a chance to freeze unprotected (red bar) infantry targets with the normal turret attack.
  • In keeping with the above, the Cryo Ammo evolution does work to increase the damage of Incinerate evolved with its rank 6 Freeze Combo evolution, but only against red bar infantry targets that have been frozen or are in the process of freezing. It otherwise does not work with Freeze Combo.
• Despite Sentry Turret being a tech power, Sabotage's rank 6 Tech Vulnerability only affects the damage from the rank 4 Shock evolution.
• The rank 4 Shields & Damage evolution also influences the damage done by the weapons given at the rank 6 evolutions: the Flamethrower damage per second increases to 93.50 (110.50 multiplayer) and the Rocket damage increases to 195 (510 multiplayer).
• The Sentry Turret blocks allied gunfire and powers, including the owner's.
• Certain enemy projectiles have a hard time directly hitting Sentry Turrets, though indirect splash damage from hitting nearby targets or terrain will still hurt them. These include the warp-like projectiles launched by Banshees, and the cannon fire of Ravagers.
• Despite hovering in the air, Sentry Turret does take damage from the acid puddles left behind by dead Ravagers.
• The Sentry Turret will still target cloaked Cerberus Phantoms and Geth Hunters. The flamethrower evolution is more suited to taking them out, since the Sentry Turret will target anything that enters its radius and the damage over time makes them easier to target.
• The Rockets evolution can trigger Banshees, Phantoms, and Praetorians to use their power-blocking abilities. Both the rockets and the flamethrower can induce enemy infantry to perform dodge maneuvers. Rockets can be dodged, but the flamethrower cannot be evaded. The turret does not actually require line of sight to enemies to induce their evasion moves—merely being active and firing is a sufficient trigger, even if there is intervening terrain.

Strategies

• In addition to the Sentry Turret's obvious destructive potential, it can also serve as a distraction, similar to the Decoy power—though not nearly as effective, as Decoy lasts much longer under most enemy fire.
• On higher difficulties, most enemies will destroy even the toughest Sentry Turret fairly easily, so be prepared to have to recast it often. If you want your turret to last longer, consider placing it so that you are closer to approaching foes than the turret, allowing you to draw fire away from it.
• Throw out the turret to scout around corners for you, or behind enemies like Guardians to flank them.
• Sentry Turret does significantly more damage to enemies in multiplayer. Versus the Collectors and Reapers, only Collector Troopers, Collector Captains, Marauders, and Cannibals will deliberately attack a Sentry, which means it can get a lot of damage done without being destroyed in waves featuring few of those enemies, or if you methodically eliminate them.
• On higher difficulties in single-player, Sentry Turret is most useful for drawing enemy fire away from the player and for its various "crowd control" effects: freezes, shock stuns, and the panic effect that can be induced by the Flamethrower evolution. It is also a useful "bug zapper" in fights against Ravagers to clean up Swarmers, especially since Ravagers totally ignore Turrets and Combat Drones.
• One of the interesting characteristics of the Sentry Turret (like the Geth Turret) is that it "knows" where enemies have spawned at the beginning of a wave in multiplayer (or if stragglers are left over that you can't seem to find). A few seconds after the wave spawns, the Sentry Turret will turn to the direction of the spawned enemies and begin firing. This can be very useful on large maps or maps with lots of obstructions/cover to see where enemies are going to be approaching from and to be able to take appropriate actions. Firebase Reactor is a good example.
• Because the Sentry Turret is stationary, it can be ideal for covering your flank. Upgrading it with the Flamethrower at rank 6 allows it to be an effective close quarters weapon, stunning or panicking enemies that approach you. The Rockets evolution will allow it to do more damage and stun potentially multiple targets at longer ranges.
• Sentry Turret can kill Abominations at the wrong time, such as when they are in close proximity to you or an ally. This is especially something to watch when dealing with Possessed Abominations, so keep an eye on the turret and destroy it yourself if necessary by throwing out a new turret somewhere safer. However, the staggering, stunning, and freezing effects that Sentry provides are useful for keeping the suicidal foes at bay.
• Be careful about fighting in close proximity to a turret, as it blocks your shots and powers as well as those of allies. Any enemy attacks that deal area damage such as grenades that hit you will damage the turret as well. Also, the flamethrower can greatly obscure your vision when it fires in your direction, the same way enemy Geth Pyros can.

Availability

• Single-player: Engineer
• Multiplayer: Quarian Engineer, Turian Saboteur Engineer