Enhanced Battle Cloak should be (Battle Cloak + "red flash when firing fore torpedo while cloaked") nothing else. No heals, buff or anything that the Battle Cloak doesn't already allow. The single and only thing added to battle cloak: firing forward torpedoes.
As for the suggested countermeasure from the previous post... that's a gamebreaker. Knowing that any federation ship could dumbfire a torpedo, and hit my naked hull without effort, is enough to let the Refit B'rel rust in the drydocks.
You have to remember that a Torpedo vs. a Shielded ship = marginal damage. The Enhanced Battle Cloak, as far as game balance goes, is only a tool to punish an exposed hull. For it to be effective in combat, you need teammates that will take down those shields. Any half-decent player will systematically try to regenerate his own shields if they're exposed (which is done faster than a B'rel cloaking and then firing). Any half-decent team player will try to extend shields / science team an exposed teammate.
In a 5v5 game, Starfleet players have to look for eachother. 4 Klingons will decloak and single 1 fed ship (receiving all the heals and defensive buffs). IF the player's hull is exposed, then the cloaked b'rel will go with High Yield 3 and hope that at least half the torpedoes connect with the hull.
Meanwhile, any Starfleet player (with good sensors and auxiliary power) who noticed the red flash will go ahead with a Sensor Sweep and warn his teammates (Vivox anyone ?) to focus on his target... Bye bye B'rel.
No need for a Dumbfire torpedo that will home in any cloaked vessel... that's a gamebreaker.
If all the Brel can do is fire torpedoes while cloaked at the cost of a sci console and 4k of hull, no one will use it.
I would go a different route and keep the weaker hull + remove an engineering console (basically 18 less resistance) + possibly knock shields down to a .75 modifier from .8 . In return, give the Brel an extra ensign universal. That would be a tough decision.
Keep the enhanced cloak with firing torpedoes while cloaked, as it really doesnt do anything.
Enhanced Battle Cloak should be (Battle Cloak + "red flash when firing fore torpedo while cloaked") nothing else. No heals, buff or anything that the Battle Cloak doesn't already allow. The single and only thing added to battle cloak: firing forward torpedoes.
As for the suggested countermeasure from the previous post... that's a gamebreaker. Knowing that any federation ship could dumbfire a torpedo, and hit my naked hull without effort, is enough to let the Refit B'rel rust in the drydocks.
You have to remember that a Torpedo vs. a Shielded ship = marginal damage. The Enhanced Battle Cloak, as far as game balance goes, is only a tool to punish an exposed hull. For it to be effective in combat, you need teammates that will take down those shields. Any half-decent player will systematically try to regenerate his own shields if they're exposed (which is done faster than a B'rel cloaking and then firing). Any half-decent team player will try to extend shields / science team an exposed teammate.
In a 5v5 game, Starfleet players have to look for eachother. 4 Klingons will decloak and single 1 fed ship (receiving all the heals and defensive buffs). IF the player's hull is exposed, then the cloaked b'rel will go with High Yield 3 and hope that at least half the torpedoes connect with the hull.
Meanwhile, any Starfleet player (with good sensors and auxiliary power) who noticed the red flash will go ahead with a Sensor Sweep and warn his teammates (Vivox anyone ?) to focus on his target... Bye bye B'rel.
No need for a Dumbfire torpedo that will home in any cloaked vessel... that's a gamebreaker.
It's not complex, thats why the dev's make the big money because part of their job when developing these new abilities we get from time to time is balancing them out (Is why when I made my post I put a lot of time and thinking into the suggestion, which you may or may not have when posting your response). All this torpedo lecture is null and void I know this already. The point I am trying to make is a lot of these boffs like healing and such do not benefit the b'rel, as well your tactical and non healing science abilities should be able to still be used in the suggestion I gave for damage and survival purposes. As for the complexity, I am puzzled if you considered the options of dev's to give the seeking torpedo a long cool down, targetable, slow torpedo like in the movie (also having to follow same path where it picks it up), also it may not put you in red alert depending on if this idea is ever tried which you could possibly just out run it, as well as other things I may not have thought of. So really its not a game breaker it can be balanced and is a solid idea, I'm just not seeing any posts where people are knocking this idea down that have actually thought about how it can be balanced or any valid ideas that fit within time constraints on our pve content on currently using this ship. IMO though if there is to be any challenge to ideas we have for our KDF line of ships by people who do not play the KDF I would ask that if your multi vector didn't have multi vectors, or if your R-Defiant couldn't cloak, or your Dreadnought couldn't fire its lance or cloak would you have an issue with that and want to make it fit what its suppossed to do? Now that would be a gamebreaker
Is this still being looked into. I specced into the B'Rel on one of my toons and its still terrible.
-Tactical Fleet decloaks you randomly (not all the time), just like how it decloaks the raptor and defiant
-Harpengs, as if they arent bad enough, decloak you
-Teammate's heals still decloak you
-Giving tactical team to a teammate while cloaked, which works fine on the heghta, randomly decloaks you (not all the time).
Honestly, the cloak is so messed up it will do something at one time, and then the next time it wont. This ship needs something useful but also to be balanced with the heghta. imo this ship should retain the lower defense characteristics but have better offensive characteristics (increased natural speed, retain the inertia and turn, extra ensign possibly). Though with the MVAE the Heghta is already outclassed with its extreme squishiness, so im not sure what to do.
If this is supposed to be similar to Chang's BoP, it failed miserably, IMHO - the cloak is TRIBBLE. I only use it when I know I have a mission where I don't have to use my ship except to GET THERE (i.e. wandering the bowels of Drozana Station...why the hell did I go there again, anyway...oh yeah, I needed an armor upgrade).
can you confirm that the cloak will be 10 seconds whats the point in having an advanced battle cloak if its the same timer as a regular cloak.
also when i fire a torpedo from my cloak ship i need to re-cloak quicker any player worth there salt can give out 20-30% of damage so you getting around 1k hit points with a torpedo and suffering massive damage in return
Is this still being looked into. I specced into the B'Rel on one of my toons and its still terrible.
-Tactical Fleet decloaks you randomly (not all the time), just like how it decloaks the raptor and defiant
-Harpengs, as if they arent bad enough, decloak you
-Teammate's heals still decloak you
-Giving tactical team to a teammate while cloaked, which works fine on the heghta, randomly decloaks you (not all the time).
Hey do not forget Fire on My Mark that decloaks you too. Honestly there is no nice way to phrase what I have to say in regards to the state of STO. IMO this game needs some focus and direction that its not getting, I have worked in customer service in the past and I know these response times are unacceptable. As a customer I cannot see myself playing this game much longer unless it goes free to play based on what I am paying for I do not see myself getting what I am paying for. Examples are as such, player harrassment with blind invites is out of control with no intervention to STOP this. Another is month after month getting statements it will get better but season 4 has become a disaster and overly frustrating to even play things that were semi fun before season 4. Punish me for speaking my mind but it will be another drop in the bucket for me to be an ex-customer.
The B'rel Retrofit ships can no longer capture points while cloaked. from tribble patch notes .
Hope they took time to fix the cloak before eaven making it worse....
Its kind of sad how long this went unfixed, but is sort of null and void since none of us who have a character in that ship never take it into PvP, unless we just go in wanting to get blown up. I'll say this for Cryptic they are true to canon... they will not let a b'rel retrofit survive just like in the movie. I think tho that the EBC was changed from Enhanced Battle Cloak to Enhanced Battle Cosmetics, it was activated and created our new homeworld. We just need carrier's now that launch vor'cha's and negh'vars now ROFL
Comments
This is too complex.
Enhanced Battle Cloak should be (Battle Cloak + "red flash when firing fore torpedo while cloaked") nothing else. No heals, buff or anything that the Battle Cloak doesn't already allow. The single and only thing added to battle cloak: firing forward torpedoes.
As for the suggested countermeasure from the previous post... that's a gamebreaker. Knowing that any federation ship could dumbfire a torpedo, and hit my naked hull without effort, is enough to let the Refit B'rel rust in the drydocks.
You have to remember that a Torpedo vs. a Shielded ship = marginal damage. The Enhanced Battle Cloak, as far as game balance goes, is only a tool to punish an exposed hull. For it to be effective in combat, you need teammates that will take down those shields. Any half-decent player will systematically try to regenerate his own shields if they're exposed (which is done faster than a B'rel cloaking and then firing). Any half-decent team player will try to extend shields / science team an exposed teammate.
In a 5v5 game, Starfleet players have to look for eachother. 4 Klingons will decloak and single 1 fed ship (receiving all the heals and defensive buffs). IF the player's hull is exposed, then the cloaked b'rel will go with High Yield 3 and hope that at least half the torpedoes connect with the hull.
Meanwhile, any Starfleet player (with good sensors and auxiliary power) who noticed the red flash will go ahead with a Sensor Sweep and warn his teammates (Vivox anyone ?) to focus on his target... Bye bye B'rel.
No need for a Dumbfire torpedo that will home in any cloaked vessel... that's a gamebreaker.
I would go a different route and keep the weaker hull + remove an engineering console (basically 18 less resistance) + possibly knock shields down to a .75 modifier from .8 . In return, give the Brel an extra ensign universal. That would be a tough decision.
Keep the enhanced cloak with firing torpedoes while cloaked, as it really doesnt do anything.
It's not complex, thats why the dev's make the big money because part of their job when developing these new abilities we get from time to time is balancing them out (Is why when I made my post I put a lot of time and thinking into the suggestion, which you may or may not have when posting your response). All this torpedo lecture is null and void I know this already. The point I am trying to make is a lot of these boffs like healing and such do not benefit the b'rel, as well your tactical and non healing science abilities should be able to still be used in the suggestion I gave for damage and survival purposes. As for the complexity, I am puzzled if you considered the options of dev's to give the seeking torpedo a long cool down, targetable, slow torpedo like in the movie (also having to follow same path where it picks it up), also it may not put you in red alert depending on if this idea is ever tried which you could possibly just out run it, as well as other things I may not have thought of. So really its not a game breaker it can be balanced and is a solid idea, I'm just not seeing any posts where people are knocking this idea down that have actually thought about how it can be balanced or any valid ideas that fit within time constraints on our pve content on currently using this ship. IMO though if there is to be any challenge to ideas we have for our KDF line of ships by people who do not play the KDF I would ask that if your multi vector didn't have multi vectors, or if your R-Defiant couldn't cloak, or your Dreadnought couldn't fire its lance or cloak would you have an issue with that and want to make it fit what its suppossed to do? Now that would be a gamebreaker
-Tactical Fleet decloaks you randomly (not all the time), just like how it decloaks the raptor and defiant
-Harpengs, as if they arent bad enough, decloak you
-Teammate's heals still decloak you
-Giving tactical team to a teammate while cloaked, which works fine on the heghta, randomly decloaks you (not all the time).
Honestly, the cloak is so messed up it will do something at one time, and then the next time it wont. This ship needs something useful but also to be balanced with the heghta. imo this ship should retain the lower defense characteristics but have better offensive characteristics (increased natural speed, retain the inertia and turn, extra ensign possibly). Though with the MVAE the Heghta is already outclassed with its extreme squishiness, so im not sure what to do.
also when i fire a torpedo from my cloak ship i need to re-cloak quicker any player worth there salt can give out 20-30% of damage so you getting around 1k hit points with a torpedo and suffering massive damage in return
Hope they took time to fix the cloak before eaven making it worse....
Its kind of sad how long this went unfixed, but is sort of null and void since none of us who have a character in that ship never take it into PvP, unless we just go in wanting to get blown up. I'll say this for Cryptic they are true to canon... they will not let a b'rel retrofit survive just like in the movie. I think tho that the EBC was changed from Enhanced Battle Cloak to Enhanced Battle Cosmetics, it was activated and created our new homeworld. We just need carrier's now that launch vor'cha's and negh'vars now