Best counter to feedback pulse?

mattjohnsonva

SInce the graphic for FBP was changed I have great difficulty seeing when it's active especially with the enormous amount of visual effects most pvp matches now have. Being colour blind probably doesn't help me in this regard. I know when it's active because I see my hull dropping fast but I'd like to be able to spot it more confidently and then apply a counter. So my question is, what is the best counter to FBP that you know of?

borticuscryptic

Since my name has been invoked multiple times, I figured I'd drop by and say "Hi!"

Hi!

First, to clarify a few things:

* The graphics for FBP were specifically changed in order to allow the reflected damage to be dealt instantly. When it used the old "blue marshmallows" FX, the projectiles took long enough to travel that a player receiving reflections could actually pop a resist/immunity in time to completely prevent the reflected damage. We determined this was a bit too hard of a negation to the power's intended tactical use.

* The damage dealt by Feedback Pulse is of a type called simply "Feedback Pulse Damage." This is a neutral energy type that players cannot build up any special resistances to, but this damage is included in "All Energy" resist sets. If you have any gear or abilities which say they increase All Energy Resistance, this includes Feedback Pulse Damage.

* Addendum to the previous note: "Exotic Damage" is a categorization of abilities, not an actual damage type. Abilities which "Exotic Damage" can actually deal Kinetic, Radiation, Plasma or a few other damage types.

As for counters to FBP, here are my recommendations:

Hard Counters (completely negate the ability):

- Subnucleonic Beam (Sci Captains only) and Subnucleonic Carrier Wave (Intel Boffs) will strip the Feedback Pulse buff from affected targets.
- Anything which disables the Foes' Auxiliary Subsystem will shut off Feedback Pulse. Viral Matrix, Boarding Party, phaser procs, and numerous Doffs have this effect, just to name a few.

Soft Counters (reduce the effectiveness of the ability):

- Abilities which Drain Auxiliary Subsystem Power will reduce the damage dealt by Feedback Pulse. Energy Siphon, Tyken's Rift, Viral Impulse Burst, etc.
- "Weakening" effects such as those inflicted via "Debilitating Weakness" (Command Capt Spec, Tier 3), Aceton Beam (Eng Boff), or Suppression Barrage (Command Boff)
- Abilities that increase your own "All Energy Resistances" or "All Resistances" will reduce the damage dealt by FBP. Polarize Hull, Attack Pattern Alpha, many pieces of equipment, and much more.
- Stop attacking with weapons, or weaken your own attacks. These will result in fewer reflections.
- Use Kinetic weaponry and/or Boff Abilities. Neither of these can be reflected via FBP.

bumperthumper

Well, if you're talking about going into a match where you know they're running it, you could use Target Subsystem Aux before they activate it. That won't work so well if they have it already active, though, since you'll still be shooting yourself.

If you're completely defensive, as in they have it activated, I guess just stop shooting, then use RocknRoll. You could also try using your own feedback pulse to bounce it back. That might work. I never tried it before, but it works in theory.

bridgern

The only thing you can do is to be very observant once you notice it, stop firing and activate abilities that provide hull and shield resistance and or fly out of range.

Updated:

I forgot that it is Exotic Damage

bridgern

You are right on that forget the resistance abilities, I forgot it is exotic damage.

bergins

Bort may have said every ability has a counter, but a counter isn't necessarily an ability. In the case of FBP, stopping firing is a viable counter.

alexraptorr

In all fairness though FBP itself IS a counter to high amounts of energy damage.
Of course, then there are pure torpedo boats, 100% immune to FBP(since torpedoes deal kinetic damage).

krilldarn

a sci cap can always sub nuke... or if you have the boff slot sub nuc wave...

odinforever20000

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

krilldarn wrote: »

a sci cap can always sub nuke... or if you have the boff slot sub nuc wave...

This is interesting and for that I guess we'd need an Intel ship which is fine but reduces possible counters to a much smaller selection of ships. I doubt Bort meant that the counter is to buy a specific type of ship.

Stopping firing is of course what we try to do, but if you're pumping out a buffed attack measuring 100K dps for that short duration and their FBP is at 2.2 you're gonna pop before you get a chance to stop firing. Also a full team can rotate FBP so that FAW is effectively useless at all times. What I'm looking for is a DOFF or a console that mitigates the effects of FBP, especially in the light of the new trait that will buff it's damage even further. Hoping Bort will pop in here and suggest something that we don't know about or that is to be added.

There is no doff to mitigate FBP.There are Polarize Hull Doffs to activate a lesser version on POL hull (Which I thing needs to be fixed)and a doff to decrease resistances to FBP. It did also just receive Trait: Improved Feedback Pulse boosting the damage 50%. So effectively a FBP1 1x (100%) reflect now is a 1.5x (150%).

FBP has no Hard Counter like TBR and Polarize Hull. I suspect this is because its not a control,debuff or disable.

You also start with 50% resist..

Effective strategies are:
Stop Shooting Energy Weapons (No Faw, BO, SS,CRF)
Target Aux (Everyone can purchase this)
Drain Build
Fire only Torpedos or Exotic Weapons (No Isokenetic Cannon)
Re-Route you subsystem power from weapons to Shields or Engines or Aux (You have 4 clickies for this on your subsystem tab)

Trigger an immunity first then fire (I hate this tactic as I feel its noobish)

*Note* you can not "Bounce" FBP back to FBP.
**If the ship is a science vessel, assume FBP is at least 1 of their abilities

alexraptorr

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

but if you're pumping out a buffed attack measuring 100K dps for that short duration and their FBP is at 2.2 you're gonna pop before you get a chance to stop firing.

And that's kind of completely the point of the power.

odinforever20000

alexraptorr wrote: »

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

but if you're pumping out a buffed attack measuring 100K dps for that short duration and their FBP is at 2.2 you're gonna pop before you get a chance to stop firing.

And that's kind of completely the point of the power.

Yup..basically you just suicided your self..even if that was 1x or possibly even 0.5x with those numbers.

maerikcharon

Stop Shooting/Subnuc, Intel Boff's Aoe Subnuc. Viral Matrix (will eventually disable aux unless they sci-team/boost morale it) Energy Siphon or Tractor+Tyken's, will drain their auxiliary power and make the reflect do much less damage.

gaevsprivsman

Sub Nucleonic Beam inmediatly disables that power, i use it all the time on my SCI Character.. other counters, dont know..

marcopolo84x

FBP & "Stop shooting" while other guy is still dishing out full damage is one of the most preposterous "counters" out there.
Luckily for the OP (and sadly for PvP in general), it is still pretty low on the list of PvP kinks that need to be ironed out.

odinforever20000

Its really only a problem if you've gone all energy weapons..Given that there are 3 Weapon types...Specializing in 1 only means you have created a problem for yourself.
FBP just captialises on that. The work arounds Ive had used on me in Ker'rat were simply using single target abilities,trick the person into using that ability when your not gonna fire and then target someone else..
Fighting sci vs sci is fun because I use ALL 3 weapons on my ship,beams,torps, exotic.
Fighting sci ship vs Eng in a cruiser sucks..as all my prtg damage is..overtime and so is all them heals..Takes forever 1v1..

Another Common tactic against BFaw cruisers is drop an aceton assimilator...Wipe out a whole team in a way fbp cant. That thing also must be targeted by torpedos or exotic damage to be destroyed..At least with FBP the wielder is still taking damage. :P

The Terran shield goes to 150% reflect and nanoprobe feedback trait is 100%

odinforever20000

marcopolo84x wrote: »

FBP & "Stop shooting" while other guy is still dishing out full damage is one of the most preposterous "counters" out there.
Luckily for the OP (and sadly for PvP in general), it is still pretty low on the list of PvP kinks that need to be ironed out.

Keep in mind we have npcs who use there own reflect abilities..Cardassian Galor..Borg Diamond and Voth..Terrans with their Vesta kenetic Shield...The best answer to not getting killed be those reflects is still don't shoot or use an alternate weapon type.

samt1996

Science is more difficult and specialized Gameplay unlike spamming BFAW so if you want to counter it you have to plan ahead atleast as well as they do. It's a chess game you must anticipate their moves, there shouldn't be a hard counter to FBP because that would make it worthless but there are plenty of options to avoid it you just don't like them.

That isn't FBP's fault.

samt1996

Vanilla being... Vanilla.

meimeitoo

bumperthumper wrote: »

You could also try using your own feedback pulse to bounce it back. That might work. I never tried it before, but it works in theory.

Feedback Pulse 'fires a pulse of energy back at the attacking ship every time you are hit by energy weapons.' So, theoretically you could counter the returned energy pulse with your own Feedback Pulse (theorectically doesn't mean Cryptic actually implemented this reciprocity, or an infinite level of regressions thereof, like a Feedback Pulse to Feedback the Pulse of the Feedback Pulse, etc).

samt1996

Would be entertaining if it did that though... imagine a whole team spamming BFAW and FBP at the same time! LOL

marcopolo84x

> @odinforever20000 said:
>
> Keep in mind we have npcs who use there own reflect abilities..Borg Diamond and Voth..Terrans with their Vesta kenetic Shield...The best answer to not getting killed be those reflects is still don't shoot or use an alternate weapon type.

Yes, you are completely right, but, those are NPCs and most of us have a tiny part in our heads that are resigned and completely in peace with the fact that NPCs indeed do cheat :)

Joking aside, and a comment on using alternative setups,
even if you tackle the problem with using pure/hybrid torp/kinetic setups,
you are still working AROUND the problem, which is commendable and kudos to you guys,
but that still doesn't truly balance the FPB counter problem

semalda226

The fact that FBP is always the lead frontrunner of " This is why I hate PvP " and " Science needs a Nerf " only tells me that people just can't think past SMASH THE SPACEBAR. It really depresses me. My advice is watch the Boff buffs on your target FBP has a icon for when it's active and in pvp turning off auto fire can be a godsend simplest most effective solution is Don't shoot the FBP I think the ship also gets a shiny line animation on the hull but it's really hard to see when the shields get pummeled and there is a lot of space magic going on.

alexraptorr

A smart player might even try to "feint" a science ship... like maybe open up with 1 beam array or cannon to probe the target instead of the full onslaught?

semalda226

I just hold my FBP till I see BFAW pop lol or the onslaught of Tac Buffs

questerius

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

SInce the graphic for FBP was changed I have great difficulty seeing when it's active especially with the enormous amount of visual effects most pvp matches now have. Being colour blind probably doesn't help me in this regard. I know when it's active because I see my hull dropping fast but I'd like to be able to spot it more confidently and then apply a counter. So my question is, what is the best counter to FBP that you know of?

SNB and torpedoes

odinforever20000

questerius wrote: »

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

SInce the graphic for FBP was changed I have great difficulty seeing when it's active especially with the enormous amount of visual effects most pvp matches now have. Being colour blind probably doesn't help me in this regard. I know when it's active because I see my hull dropping fast but I'd like to be able to spot it more confidently and then apply a counter. So my question is, what is the best counter to FBP that you know of?

SNB and torpedoes

That is literally the best F** U Ive ever gotten for using feedback pulse.

dareau

marcopolo84x wrote: »

FBP & "Stop shooting" while other guy is still dishing out full damage is one of the most preposterous "counters" out there.
Luckily for the OP (and sadly for PvP in general), it is still pretty low on the list of PvP kinks that need to be ironed out.

Uh, no.

"Odd" logic chain:

1. Remember, FBP's damage is 100% influenced by how many times it gets to reflect. Stop shooting = 0 reflections = 0 damage. At this point, FBP has become what, a 15-second "not being shot at window", which is the effect of, say, an ensign-level MES?
2. FBP III requires a Cmdr Sci slot. 95% of the ships so equipped are 3/3 loadout science vessels / carriers. Thusly, compared to an escort or cruiser, the Sci ship lacks in weapons-oriented damage potential.
3. The typical FBP ship's gonna also run FBP II to do damage / get kills out of 1x LtCmdr Sci slot...

So, can you still say, with a straight face, that being down 1-2 weapons, the Cmdr BOff seat's damage, and more than likely a LtCmdr seat the opponent is still doing "full damage"?

And if so, what ship are you flying that's so squishy that 15 seconds of 3/3 & Ensign & Lt powers is going to kill you? Honestly, I'd be strongly questioning your PvP if this is the case...

And remember, back to point 1. If the PvP community learned to stop shooting at FBP, the Science community would have to adapt because they'd like never win if they're consistently "down" a Cmdr power slot that's at best providing an ensign level MES-like benefit...
It'd be back to packing GW III or Tykens', and these have "hard" counters like AP-O, Polarize hull, evasives, etc. etc.

kitsunesnout

Might be slightly off subject but too funny not to mention, and why FBP cannot deflect other feedback pulses, but the Vesta console for reflecting kinetic damage can actually reflect a kinetic reflection from another Vesta in a never ending back and forth feedback loop, and the damage gets high and higher each time it's thrown back, and me and my friend who often dueled in Vesta's killed each other together by doing that, it was hilarious, because the damage became exponential until it was impossible for both of us to tank : P!