This is a summary of the last thread with updates from the recent trait changes:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=227659
A few simple tweaks -
Gorn
- Forced to take 3 traits, They are never gonna be good in space (remove Resilient and 'Basic' Reptillian Strength as Core)
Orion Male
- Whats the point of Orion male? Who wants +10% melee compared to 15% or 18%
(Give em mental discipline Core instead to help survive the females)
Andorian
- remove Acute Senses and give Cold Dwelling as Core
Lethean
- Raptures CD is very long
Liberated Borg
- Neural Blasts no longer fun add some Psychic/Radiation damage maybe.
For those who would not like these changes because of Canon, well... Logically speaking some Gorn might be born a little weaker, but be useable by more than 1 career.
But Thank You Cryptic for making Bite useful again, just make sure that Gorn doesn't get into a ship.
Comments
As a side note Stalfos, I still think one of the Nausicaans traits should include some kind of crazy form of toughness at least on par with what Klingons get. They play a game involving throwing knives at each others chest. Pound for pound they seem to be as tough as any Klingon, though they appear in the series to be far more disorganized.
And for gorns, merge reptilian strenght, cold blooded and resilient into reptilian aptitudes (like caitans feline aptitudes).
PS : sorry for bad english.
Merging Gorn traits into 1 is a good idea maybe i wouldn't merge too much into 1, because that would make it have too many bonuses. Just Reptiliian and Cold Blooded since it only helps in rare situations (Exothermic/Plasma Grenades).
Reptillian Biped:
+25% Fire Resistance
+10% Plasma DoT Resistance
Resilient can always be a choice, and I would never pick it - doesn't scale well and the Klingon version is far superior
Good English, only mispelt strength
I think a good fix for this would be to change Plasma DoT to fire damage, and then the fire resistance is enough.
Then if Cold Blooded got like 20% root resistance or something similar.
Spirit Walk is another trait with a ridiulously long CD, along with Lethean's Rapture.
Also Dumb Luck - You sacrifice so much for 1% extra Crtiical Chance over Lucky:
-3% expose chance
-30% resistance to Confuse, Placate etc.
-Other trait choices for picking Pakled
And that's just for captain, who wouldn't prefer superior lucky on a Bridge Officer?
That was only for Tactical captains though and when they revamp the ground skills that might change. When they revamp ground skills thats when they'd have a chance to change this.
As far as cooldowns go, they reduced the Gorn Bite to 15 seconds recently, but left Lethean's Rapture with 3 minutes and Rigelian's Spirit Walk at 3 minutes 30, which is even more useless.
But a retrait option and some adaptions of the ground racial skills due fast pace combat is needed.
Yeah the faster pace of combat brought in Season 4 does merit many changes to traits, It's nice they improved Bite, but at the same time there was the nerf to Borg Neural Blast.
Traits like Resilient are now even more useless IMO, since dimishing returns at endgame give very little. Maybe if Resilient gave 10% resistance to energy weapons and no physical resist, and Sturdy gave 15% Phyical/Kinetic/Knockback. Along with this if they included a skill that boosts these a little with the ground skill revamp.
On the other hand many people that have gone for the space skill bonus traits like Efficient and Astrophysicist may no longer be happy with their choice, since the skills may no longer be appropriate to their favourite ship class.
Accurate and Elusive kinda already have skills that add to accuracy and defense, so maybe just give owners of these traits a little more for speccing into the skills as well.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3911764#post3911764
I think it's the KDF in particular that are in need of improvements, there are about half the species to choose from and very few I would actually use. Gorn as I mentioned shouldn't be forced into being ground specialised characters, since with the upcoming ground skill revamp they are trying to stop people for putting all their skills into just space or ground.
Even so, I feel if they add more depth to the trait system itself it would solve your Gorn problem, specifically because people could start spending those 'trait points' in other ways outside their initial few points that are FORCED into ground on the Gorn. No one has really liked being pigeonholed the way the Gorn have, but it is the way it is unfortunately, and if you want Bite, that fills out the list.
Orion Male could be improved with a Smuggler Trait, giving 20% discount to EC/ GPL shops like the Ferengi.
They gotta be stubborn to survive the Orion females I guess.
Why change the Andorian traits? Cold Dwelling is already available for an Andorian character so making it a starting trait makes no sense; as a starting trait then Acute Senses is by far the more useful skill as the passive buff to stealth sight and exploit damage are always there , whereas Cold Dwelling is more useful for PvP characters where the resistance to holds and roots is going to actually be used. For PvE you're so infrequently rooted or exposed to Cold damage that it would be wasted.
The Neural Blast is also still useful, although it no longer stuns as often as it used to it can really mess with someone who has no stun resistance traits (or NPCs), the longish cooldown makes little difference to it either as a shorter cooldown would leave the NPC/ other player with a constant resist to the next attack.
I don't find +10% exploit damage hugely useful since Season 4, since by the time you've got an enemy exposed any fairly weak expose attack would finish them off anyway.
Also I find the Borg Root alot and Run Speed Resistance from Cold Dwelling useful in even more situtations, but a major problem with Acute Senses as a core trait, you can easily end up with a trait selection no different from Alien.
Fury I think is only useful for certain character builds so the other unique Andorian trait: Cold Dwelling would be ideal as a core instead, I would pick it for any character over Acute Senses.
Acute Senses is useful for ground PvP too as it helps to spot cloaked Tactical officers, especially in Otha where they like to sneak up from behind.It won't help a lot if they're traited for stealth but it will usually give you time to get a couple of buffs up as they approach assuming the camera isn't zoomed right in on the character.
The Borg roots aren't as bad as they were and are easily manageable now. TBH, most of my Andorian's have Cold Dwelling anyway and the resistance to roots from the Borg is minimal. It helps for resisting player roots but the Borg roots are much stronger and the resistance doesn't do much other than to make the root an incredibly powerful slow instead.
The Alien selection is also not entirely accurate. Yes, you can make an Andorian with some of the more common Alien traits but if you were making an Alien then you'd be better off with Acute Senses, Lucky, Soldier and Telepathic than anything you can create with an Andorian; as with all the races the Andorian's are limited in what they can do and if you're going for maximum effectiveness then an Alien with four other traits will usually be more suitable, especially for a damage dealer as a lot of the Andorian traits are defensive.
I think there's the same problem with Orion Male, but Physical Strength is useful in even fewer circumstances. I play melee Sci often enough in STFs, but I still wouldn't pick Orion Male since the Klingon and Gorn traits have better bonuses anyway.
Also Bolians, while having a unique trait still seem worthless since that trait is very rarely useful. Even if bitten by a Gorn it doesn't protect by that much with diminishing returns and the feedback damage to the Gorn is gonna be minimal like a tooth for an arm.
I just don't see why that's a problem. I have 7 (or maybe 8, I can't remember now) Andorian's and they have different combinations of traits based on what I want them to do but ultimately the traits aren't all that important. The main reason I can think of for Andorian's (and Trill too, they're even easier to make with an Alien but the Aliens don't get the spots on the legs for Females) is to get people to actually play them. If you restricted the traits to the less desirable racial traits such as Fury then no one would play them and instead use Aliens that look like them (I have a KDF Alien that looks like an Andorian and other than the skin tone being a little off compared to what I used on my proper Andorian's you would think it was an actual Andorian).
The Acute Senses is a useful and fitting trait anyway, an Andorian's antennae are said to give them acute senses so a useful trait in game is a good compromise whereas forcing them all to take Cold Dwelling or Fury, which are situational at best and outright inferior at worst is not a great idea IMO.
Well for me the traits are the most important thing about a character. To get people like me to use a species, the traits would have to be worthwhile and not available on alien with better choices.
Yeah Fury is situational and outright inferior, I do actually have an Andorian Engineer in the hope that one day Fury will be boosted.
How about if Cold Dwelling gave either +10% exploit damage OR +10 perception and was made core instead, I think that would be a reasonable compromise and would make Andorian more appealing and canon.
The reason is quite simple. Death happens far too quickly in combat now, and the Attack and Counter system, along with Cooldowns for all powers and Devices no longer make sense in the new combat pacing. Many powers in kits themselves (particularly for Tactical Officers) or with Hypos and Shield Charges take far too long to activate and far too long to be usable again. Additionally in the case of hypos, you have to essentially jam them all the time if you're a Tac officer, because only 1/100 Scientists can actually heal you with some skill. Furthermore, those same Hypos do next to nothing in the way of helping you... ever. Not only were their healing values destroyed in Season 4, but in Season 5 the anti-debuff properties they use to have were shunted off to some new Borg Devices we can earn in the STF's. Additionally, because you need so many of these hypos, jamming them all the time, inventory is stuffed with the garbage items that barely serve any purpose. Its a pretty sad state of affairs when things like Tribbles and Hortas and a Winter Candy are more interesting than using a Hypo.
It has irritated me for a long time that the Traits of a Bridge Officer can be more interesting and better than the Captain. Captains are supposed to be legendary. Now we have Traits that the Duty Officers have which likewise seem to show up Captains. My proposal is that a deeper, richer Trait system be put in place down the road that can develop as our character develops. Ideally it would be a system of Branching Specializations and uniquenesses with General Captain Traits that would be in a pool usable by all (Ie: Traits like Leadership, Elusive, Accurate, etc just seem to beg for general use). Additionally, at the top end some strange traits might even make their way at the 'Vice admiral' level. For example, Captain Archer had the ability to Mind Meld, and Kirk had the ability to do the Nerve Pinch. While certainly uncommon, they would be ways that set apart a captain from his crew, should those traits be wanted. Additionally, it would be nice to find a way to make abilities like Vulcan Mind Melding and Lethean rapture better with training nor skills, and somehow find a way to scale them up so that they're not useless at the high levels.
Ultimately the biggest problem I have with Traits right now though, is the entire problem with Ground Combat's lack of ANY semblance of balance anymore. If they bring that back, it will be a lot easier to adjust the Traits. Until then though its all just a big waste of time.
Also being able to upgrade 1 or 2 of your traits to superior during progression would be great.