Wow, this damage is incredible. I tried a similiar build with by B'rel but I'm still a bit inexperienced when it comes to torpboats. Always fail at getting the right moment to unleash its firepower and sometimes I lay all those mines in the wrong place and the target is away before they are armed and ready
I better return to my pure energy build. I know, I waste the true potential of the B'rel this way but I bought it for the looks and not for its enhanced cloak anyway.
Wow, this damage is incredible. I tried a similiar build with by B'rel but I'm still a bit inexperienced when it comes to torpboats. Always fail at getting the right moment to unleash its firepower and sometimes I lay all those mines in the wrong place and the target is away before they are armed and ready
I better return to my pure energy build. I know, I waste the true potential of the B'rel this way but I bought it for the looks and not for its enhanced cloak anyway.
Try firing all of your heavy torpedoes, hit evasive maneuvers, and drop them after you fly past them.
It should arm right on top of them.
Granted, I don't use mines, so I don't know for sure. But, that seems to work.
Try firing all of your heavy torpedoes, hit evasive maneuvers, and drop them after you fly past them.
It should arm right on top of them.
Granted, I don't use mines, so I don't know for sure. But, that seems to work.
No need to waste evasive man. .. just approach target on its flight path (aka from the front) and drop the mines 2km from them. By the time the mines arm and deploy the target ship will be inside their tracking range.
If you approaching from the rear then drop them after you pass over them.
If its a non-scripted path object you drop them as best as you can guess where they'll fly to next. The mines have a 1km tracking range.
My fleet mate keeps raving on how great an all-Transphasic torpedo boat works. He was flying his Tactical Escort Retrofit and is not specc'ed for torpedoes in skill points. Just used TS3 and 2 with all Transphasic damage consoles.
He said, with 3 projectile weapons officer doffs, that the shared cooldown doesn't really slow down the damage potential of his ship.
I know it was mentioned previously that some people used this build but were not impressed with the damage. But, I believe this was before the bleedthrough buff.
Anyone else have any experience recently with this build?
Tell him to load photons and use two purple torpedo doffs.
His DPS even on single fire will skyrocket.
Transphasics are absolutely terrible weapons. They get the lowest damage boost when using torpedo skills and have the absolute lowest damage of any torp. The bleedthrough amount is useless. Transphasic also have much higher delay in firing than a photon torpedo.
When you math it out, the photon torpedo out-damages IN BLEED-THROUGH damage, the Transphasics when you fire them at a target over 20 seconds time.
But it does not ever reach those 20 seconds. The photon's much higher damage, even after the shield reduction, will kill the ship's shields..and then one single photon hit to the hull will leave any transphasic damage dealt in the dust. shields or no shields.
with season 7s new updates to sets and weapons and fleet weapons is there any way to add them to this torpedo boat ?
also with the hull being so weak is it worth putting skill points into the hull and Armor Reinforcements as i know a lot of science ship people don't ?
where do you slot your rom and omega torpedoes fore and aft or one at each end ?
with season 7s new updates to sets and weapons and fleet weapons is there any way to add them to this torpedo boat ?
also with the hull being so weak is it worth putting skill points into the hull and Armor Reinforcements as i know a lot of science ship people don't ?
where do you slot your rom and omega torpedoes fore and aft or one at each end ?
Huh...your build is very similar to my old build...right down to the one point into Warp Core Efficiency. Actually, I'd say it is exactly the same as my old build.
Yes, it's worth putting points into hull and armor. The times that you're fired on while decloaked help keep you alive. I've taken on a two volleys from an all cannon Defiant and made it out alive with over 50% hull. This was before I respeced.
I'd suggest changing some of your skill point distributions. Namely, reduce Armor Reinforcement to 4 and put 6 points into Threat Control. Also, I moved the one point in Warp Core Efficiency to Subsystem Repair. Why Threat Control? Well, it also gives you a boost to your resistance for both kinetic and energy. It's less, but once you start getting to a certain point in Armor Reinforcement, it is cheaper to put points in Threat Control and you get a better increase in kinetic/energy resistance. To get a better idea, check out this: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
I use Advanced Fleet Quantum torpedoes for now. Otherwise, I use Bio-Neural Warhead, Breen Cluster torpedo, and Hargh'Peng in the fore. On the aft, I use Omega and a Chroniton torpedo with [crth][crtd]x2.
It's really up to you on where you want to put your torpedoes, but just remember that you decloak when you fire. The rapid fire rate of the Omega and Hyper torpedoes will not allow you to recloak.
Huh...your build is very similar to my old build...right down to the one point into Warp Core Efficiency. Actually, I'd say it is exactly the same as my old build.
Yes, it's worth putting points into hull and armor. The times that you're fired on while decloaked help keep you alive. I've taken on a two volleys from an all cannon Defiant and made it out alive with over 50% hull. This was before I respeced.
I'd suggest changing some of your skill point distributions. Namely, reduce Armor Reinforcement to 4 and put 6 points into Threat Control. Also, I moved the one point in Warp Core Efficiency to Subsystem Repair. Why Threat Control? Well, it also gives you a boost to your resistance for both kinetic and energy. It's less, but once you start getting to a certain point in Armor Reinforcement, it is cheaper to put points in Threat Control and you get a better increase in kinetic/energy resistance. To get a better idea, check out this: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
I use Advanced Fleet Quantum torpedoes for now. Otherwise, I use Bio-Neural Warhead, Breen Cluster torpedo, and Hargh'Peng in the fore. On the aft, I use Omega and a Chroniton torpedo with [crth][crtd]x2.
It's really up to you on where you want to put your torpedoes, but just remember that you decloak when you fire. The rapid fire rate of the Omega and Hyper torpedoes will not allow you to recloak.
forgive me shookyang it is your build. all thanks goes to you. ( old post has been edited )
please can you tell me were would you place the Hyper-plasma torpedo fore or aft and what space set Romulan Prototype/Reman Prototype or Honor Guard would you use with the new weapons ?
forgive me shookyang it is your build. all thanks goes to you. ( old post has been edited )
please can you tell me were would you place the Hyper-plasma torpedo fore or aft and what space set Romulan Prototype/Reman Prototype or Honor Guard would you use with the new weapons ?
No problem. I initially thought that it was just a coincidence.
Before I answer your question, I should first explain why I use my torpedoes in the arrangement that they are in. Of all of my fore torpedoes, only the Quantums will befit from torpedo abilities. This is by design.
If I were to go with Hyper-plasma and change how I attack with my B'rel, I would probably keep the Quantum, Bio-Neural, Omega, and Hargh'Peng in the fore. With the Hyper-plasma and Breen Cluster in the aft. That, or put the Hargh'Peng or Bio-Neural in the aft and put the Hyper-plasma in the fore.
Fellow warriors, I have a question about the B'rel for you.
I have been more of a battlecruiser man myslef, but I'm changing my game a bit lately trying out smaller more nimble ships.
So, I'm getting the B'rel, what better there is to get a different angle of STO than on this classic that has a specific style of play
I was wondering, since I have max level tacs. and eng. captains, which class would be better off with the B'rel and is the engineer viable to use it or loses a lot on the damage that the tac. skills would bring to the table?
Fellow warriors, I have a question about the B'rel for you.
I have been more of a battlecruiser man myslef, but I'm changing my game a bit lately trying out smaller more nimble ships.
So, I'm getting the B'rel, what better there is to get a different angle of STO than on this classic that has a specific style of play
I was wondering, since I have max level tacs. and eng. captains, which class would be better off with the B'rel and is the engineer viable to use it or loses a lot on the damage that the tac. skills would bring to the table?
Both could use it. But, I'd say stick with tactical. You really need the boost in damage to punch through the shields.
Also, if you're careful, the chances of you getting decloaked are pretty slim. As such, I can survive on just Aux2SIF1, HE2, and Engineering Team 1.
Namely, reduce Armor Reinforcement to 4 and put 6 points into Threat Control. Also, I moved the one point in Warp Core Efficiency to Subsystem Repair. Why Threat Control? Well, it also gives you a boost to your resistance for both kinetic and energy. It's less, but once you start getting to a certain point in Armor Reinforcement, it is cheaper to put points in Threat Control and you get a better increase in kinetic/energy resistance....
That's not very wise imo. Threat control does give you resists..yes.. a minimum amount (even devs stated this was so) but it also makes you the primary target of any npc around.
Problem with that? NPCs insta-target and insta-fire weapons..meaning torpedoes... at you. They fire the torpedo when they detect a shield is down and decloaking = shields down.
Threat control is the absolute worst thing you can put in a bird of prey. Any bird of prey.
Also, you do need good warp core skills... it boosts your engine and aux power levels and you do need those a lot. If you're worried about kinetic resist then equip polarize hull and aux to dampeners. You also have brace for impact... they will last long enough for you to recloak.
It's really up to you on where you want to put your torpedoes, but just remember that you decloak when you fire. The rapid fire rate of the Omega and Hyper torpedoes will not allow you to recloak.
only if you have them on autofire. due to the cloak animation delay you will not re-cloak in a brel until 5 seconds have passed (1s decloak delay, 3 seconds timer to re-cloak, 1s delay as ship re-cloaks). Romulan boff reduces this a lot. Since you have 1s global timer on torps you need at least 4 seconds to dump all your torps out.
Fellow warriors, I have a question about the B'rel for you.
I have been more of a battlecruiser man myslef, but I'm changing my game a bit lately trying out smaller more nimble ships.
So, I'm getting the B'rel, what better there is to get a different angle of STO than on this classic that has a specific style of play
I was wondering, since I have max level tacs. and eng. captains, which class would be better off with the B'rel and is the engineer viable to use it or loses a lot on the damage that the tac. skills would bring to the table?
Tac and Sci are viable. engineer is terrible in a b'rel. no abilities of it benefit the ship's offensive torpedo abilities... and you aint tanking in a bird of prey.
sci is only useful for support services in brel or bleedthrough specs (dual stacked sensor scan and beta3).
That's not very wise imo. Threat control does give you resists..yes.. a minimum amount (even devs stated this was so) but it also makes you the primary target of any npc around.
Problem with that? NPCs insta-target and insta-fire weapons..meaning torpedoes... at you. They fire the torpedo when they detect a shield is down and decloaking = shields down.
Threat control is the absolute worst thing you can put in a bird of prey. Any bird of prey.
I didn't have any points in Threat Control until recently, and I was getting aggro all the time anyways. If I'm going to get it, I may as well get some better resists out of it.
Also, you do need good warp core skills... it boosts your engine and aux power levels and you do need those a lot. If you're worried about kinetic resist then equip polarize hull and aux to dampeners. You also have brace for impact... they will last long enough for you to recloak.
Warp Core Potential, yes, I agree. Warp Core Efficiency, I disagree. I do not need power into my shields or my weapons. Boosting power to subsystems with Efficiency. You can't go below 25, so there's no benefit with getting Efficiency. Which was why I suggested that they put that one skill point into something else.
only if you have them on autofire. due to the cloak animation delay you will not re-cloak in a brel until 5 seconds have passed (1s decloak delay, 3 seconds timer to re-cloak, 1s delay as ship re-cloaks). Romulan boff reduces this a lot. Since you have 1s global timer on torps you need at least 4 seconds to dump all your torps out.
Right now, those Romulan BOFFs are bugged. We don't know how well those BOFFs will work until they fix the perma-cloak bug.
I must admit I kinda' saw that coming, but still I wanted to cross-check with someone that actually has the ship.
Well that's settled then, the eng. will keep to his Bortasqu'.
I didn't have any points in Threat Control until recently, and I was getting aggro all the time anyways. If I'm going to get it, I may as well get some better resists out of it.
What i'm trying to say here is that threat control gets you aggro from all npcs not just the one you happened to pop damage to and didnt kill in the first attack.
The AI functions in 'groups'. Each group of ships shares 'hate' and each individual ship has its own 'hate'.
With no threat control, if you hit NPC # 1 of 5 then you get a lot of hate from NPC #1 and some hate from #2->5.
With threat control #2->5 will get a lot of hate on you.
In a group, your team-mates will almost always grab hate from #2->5 just by shooting at one of them a few times...this is why when in a bird of prey when you cloak after an attack only the one you hit keeps a 'lock' on you for much longer than the others.
..but with threat control...the entire group will keep hate on you. They may switch their hate to another when you cloak but the instant you uncloak to attack they target and pop a torpedo your way.
If memory serves me right I think the resists you gained from 9 in threat control were equivalent to 5% across the board. Its not much. My VoQuv tank has threat control 9 and frankly im going to respec out of it if there are no game mechanic changes in may update... i was once able to tank the ISE gate, tac cube and 6 spheres with a fully dedicated shield tank monster setup (no damage, 2 shield drones wings healing me,etc) and my team loved me for it...but as of a few patches ago the borg are firing super-torpedoes and super-plasma heavy cannons shots (torps for 300k+ dmg and hvy plasma cannon hits for 10k to shields... its idiotic) that makes aggro-holding-heal-tanking absolutely impossible.
Warp Core Potential, yes, I agree. Warp Core Efficiency, I disagree. I do not need power into my shields or my weapons. Boosting power to subsystems with Efficiency. You can't go below 25, so there's no benefit with getting Efficiency. Which was why I suggested that they put that one skill point into something else.
Ah I see what you mean. However the potential and efficiency stack on each other if you set power levels just at 70. While wep power is not needed it does enable you to put full power to engines and the remaining power to aux (base aux power would be 50 if engine is 100 and wep/shld is 25) and watch the aux power bar beef up to the low 70's from the boosts...which is really all you need for a full heal with hazard1.
You could also argue the points saved in efficiency could be put in the aux box itself and get more oomph ..but those boxes cost a lot more points.
Right now, those Romulan BOFFs are bugged. We don't know how well those BOFFs will work until they fix the perma-cloak bug.
probably wont fix them since it would also nerf the benefit it gives the federation defiant class.. and since we know that is what the devs use as a standard for all cloak related changes (fed bias.. yay) then it wont happen.
What i'm trying to say here is that threat control gets you aggro from all npcs not just the one you happened to pop damage to and didnt kill in the first attack.
The AI functions in 'groups'. Each group of ships shares 'hate' and each individual ship has its own 'hate'.
With no threat control, if you hit NPC # 1 of 5 then you get a lot of hate from NPC #1 and some hate from #2->5.
With threat control #2->5 will get a lot of hate on you.
In a group, your team-mates will almost always grab hate from #2->5 just by shooting at one of them a few times...this is why when in a bird of prey when you cloak after an attack only the one you hit keeps a 'lock' on you for much longer than the others.
..but with threat control...the entire group will keep hate on you. They may switch their hate to another when you cloak but the instant you uncloak to attack they target and pop a torpedo your way.
If memory serves me right I think the resists you gained from 9 in threat control were equivalent to 5% across the board. Its not much. My VoQuv tank has threat control 9 and frankly im going to respec out of it if there are no game mechanic changes in may update... i was once able to tank the ISE gate, tac cube and 6 spheres with a fully dedicated shield tank monster setup (no damage, 2 shield drones wings healing me,etc) and my team loved me for it...but as of a few patches ago the borg are firing super-torpedoes and super-plasma heavy cannons shots (torps for 300k+ dmg and hvy plasma cannon hits for 10k to shields... its idiotic) that makes aggro-holding-heal-tanking absolutely impossible.
As for increasing threat generation on all targets, regardless if you're firing on them, I have yet to see any information on this. Going by the wiki (http://www.stowiki.org/Skill:_Starship_Threat_Control), it simply increases the threat generation value per weapon hit on a single target, not targets you aren't firing on. If you're using a Torpedo Spread ability, well then I could see why you grabbed aggro on multiple targets.
Ah I see what you mean. However the potential and efficiency stack on each other if you set power levels just at 70. While wep power is not needed it does enable you to put full power to engines and the remaining power to aux (base aux power would be 50 if engine is 100 and wep/shld is 25) and watch the aux power bar beef up to the low 70's from the boosts...which is really all you need for a full heal with hazard1.
You could also argue the points saved in efficiency could be put in the aux box itself and get more oomph ..but those boxes cost a lot more points.
But the amount you get the closer you get to 75 is pretty low. You'd have to put more points into Efficiency to get 1 or 2 more power, and you still will not be able to break the 74 power level threshold. Also, I prefer to keep my engine power level lower, as I try and stay out of their 5km range, to avoid getting hit with reveal abilities. I put more power into Aux to improve my hull heal abilities, improve my offensive science abilities (I run a Lt. Commander Science slot), and increase my cloak/stealth strength.
probably wont fix them since it would also nerf the benefit it gives the federation defiant class.. and since we know that is what the devs use as a standard for all cloak related changes (fed bias.. yay) then it wont happen.
As for increasing threat generation on all targets, regardless if you're firing on them, I have yet to see any information on this. Going by the wiki (http://www.stowiki.org/Skill:_Starship_Threat_Control), it simply increases the threat generation value per weapon hit on a single target, not targets you aren't firing on. If you're using a Torpedo Spread ability, well then I could see why you grabbed aggro on
Aggro is generated as an accumulating number, on the primary target first, then the other members of the spawn. Once aggro is gained it increases as a generated number that increases as damage is done. That is why threat mechanics work to reduce the aggro number or score towards 0 or upwards to infinity depending on role. STO, other than placates, doesn't seem to have a threat lowering role mechanic, only a threat increase mechanic. Once that spawn knows you are a threat they stay that way until someone else gets that aggro, steals it by out scoring you on threat, or you leave the spawn alone and it resets.
This is why high DPS and spike damage can cause escorts to steal aggro from a designated tank. IMO, its this poor mechanic that is the cause of much of the escort cruiser angst. But that is another subject.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Aggro is generated as an accumulating number, on the primary target first, then the other members of the spawn. Once aggro is gained it increases as a generated number that increases as damage is done. That is why threat mechanics work to reduce the aggro number or score towards 0 or upwards to infinity depending on role. STO, other than placates, doesn't seem to have a threat lowering role mechanic, only a threat increase mechanic. Once that spawn knows you are a threat they stay that way until someone else gets that aggro, steals it by out scoring you on threat, or you leave the spawn alone and it resets.
This is why high DPS and spike damage can cause escorts to steal aggro from a designated tank. IMO, its this poor mechanic that is the cause of much of the escort cruiser angst. But that is another subject.
Actually the reason why the tank loses the aggro to the escort is because the hate is not instant but 'delivered' through weapons fire.
Escort doing 50k damage = 10 points of hate (just to use a fictional number to illustrate)
Tank doing 20k damage = 2 points of damage
Tank with threat 9 doing 20k damage = 50 points of hate.
My VoQuv is a great working example of both threat control 9 and non-threat control 9. I recently respeced out of threat control 9 and shoved the points into pure damage output.
Threat control 9 voquv was full beam arrays with dual feedback pulse and dual shield repair drones (along with every other shield& hull heal/resist ability there is). It had atk ptrn delta with the doff for aggro (came later on but the build works without him).
Non- threat control 9 voquv is pure torpedo plasma bomber. hyper plasma, omega, rom. exp. beam array and dual elite scorps. grav well 3. It does insane damage.
The differences hate-wise:
Theat control voquv could hit the ISE spheres+tac cube with FAW, slam RSVP+tac team and feedback pulse. All targets just focused their attacks on me. Escorts could literally park themselves in space and go bananas .. I still held hate. The trick was to keep AOE fire and feedback pulse so I kept hitting them. Threat control 9 exponentially increased the hate generation those weapons did.
Now, even when my FAW and feedback was on cooldown, they all kept hate on me.. even though the damage the beam arrays and feedback did was minimal compared to the massive blobs of damage being tossed at them by the multiple escorts doing cannon volley spread with all buffs to damage.
Since the hate is individual per npc and also shared with the NPC's grouping the entire set of spheres kept coming at me nonstop. Since I did not have elite fleet shields back then I had to use the KHG shield..which had the unfortunate effect of 1s placate so every now and then a sphere would stop shooting, break off and afterburn 10km away.. then come back and start hitting a team-mate.. until A single one of my beams hit it and he was back to hating me.
Atk delta with the doff however, generates INSTANT hate on everything around you. It doesnt even have to have shot you or you shot it. It seems to be just a 10km aoe hate ability. I added it to keep those spheres from breaking off from me.
This build ceased to function with the insane increase in superspike damage torpedoes and heavy plasma cannon..not even a ship completely maxed out to tank like mine could survive a 300k torpedo hit. It literally vaporized a 100% shield 100% hull 80% resist ship in that one hit.
So I speced out of threat control and turned the voquv into a very high damage ship.
By plasma bombing the voquv generates tremendous hate on a single target but not on the entire group. Even when firing torpedo spreads nonstop plus grav well hitting all of them, I do not hold aggro on all of them..only a few. This tells me the threat control literally boosts the hate shared within the group exponentially.
Finally, look at your chart. It says 8.6% extra armor resist. That is mighty insignificant bonus compared to what you get for armor boxes in engineering. Granted if you maxed those out then yeah, an extra 8% helps..but you are also receiving so, so much more damage due to aggro it really is not worth the points spent on it.
Theat control voquv could hit the ISE spheres+tac cube with FAW, slam RSVP+tac team and feedback pulse. All targets just focused their attacks on me. Escorts could literally park themselves in space and go bananas .. I still held hate. The trick was to keep AOE fire and feedback pulse so I kept hitting them. Threat control 9 exponentially increased the hate generation those weapons did.
Now, even when my FAW and feedback was on cooldown, they all kept hate on me.. even though the damage the beam arrays and feedback did was minimal compared to the massive blobs of damage being tossed at them by the multiple escorts doing cannon volley spread with all buffs to damage.
Since the hate is individual per npc and also shared with the NPC's grouping the entire set of spheres kept coming at me nonstop. Since I did not have elite fleet shields back then I had to use the KHG shield..which had the unfortunate effect of 1s placate so every now and then a sphere would stop shooting, break off and afterburn 10km away.. then come back and start hitting a team-mate.. until A single one of my beams hit it and he was back to hating me.
You using FAW and torpedo spread abilities is why then entire group came after you. Since you generated the most threat against a group that other folks were not targetting, the NPCs will continue to attack you. If someone were to attack a different target in the group that you aggro'ed, it would break off and attack someone else. I have seen this happen many times.
In fact, even before I respeced my characters to put some points in Threat Control, I would pull aggro from one target and not others from that group. Other times, I've kited the NPCs while others got free hits on the ship for a good amount of time. I don't use scatter/spread abilities that often and do more single target damage. Perhaps that is the difference (which is also why I question the statement that Threat generation affects the entire group).
Atk delta with the doff however, generates INSTANT hate on everything around you. It doesnt even have to have shot you or you shot it. It seems to be just a 10km aoe hate ability. I added it to keep those spheres from breaking off from me.
This is the best trolling DOFF ever. I don't want to waste EC on the DOFF, but using it on your team mates out of spite sounds like a lot of fun.
So I speced out of threat control and turned the voquv into a very high damage ship.
By plasma bombing the voquv generates tremendous hate on a single target but not on the entire group. Even when firing torpedo spreads nonstop plus grav well hitting all of them, I do not hold aggro on all of them..only a few. This tells me the threat control literally boosts the hate shared within the group exponentially.
Are your team mates hitting the other NPCs with spread abilities? That would seem like the likely reason why the other NPCs change their targets. In Hive, I've had a Tactical Cube I wasn't firing at come after me. Since no one else was hitting it, it continued to attack me (it initially started attacking me because I was the closest target or they killed my team mates before it got to me). Once someone else started attacking it, it immediately changed it's target.
Finally, look at your chart. It says 8.6% extra armor resist. That is mighty insignificant bonus compared to what you get for armor boxes in engineering. Granted if you maxed those out then yeah, an extra 8% helps..but you are also receiving so, so much more damage due to aggro it really is not worth the points spent on it.
Are you referring to the link I posted (which isn't my chart, by the way)? On my B'rel, which I recently respeced, I have, I believe, 6 points in Threat Control and Hull Plating, and 4 points in Armor Reinforcements. My total resistance is about 27%+ against energy and about 25%+ against kinetic with one Neutronium Alloy mk XI blue console. Before that, it was, I believe, around 23%+ for each. With a second Neutronium Alloy, the amount is more than when I was maxed out in Hull Plating and Armor Reinforcement. The difference wasn't as great between one and two Neutronium Alloys, but the end result was still more.
FYI, for those who don't know, Neutronium Alloys have diminishing returns the more you stack. Also, the greater your passive resistance, the less effective the Neutronium Alloys become. I tested this while I was in the process of respeccing.
The text states, "Aggro is understood to be the condition of a particular mob attacking a particular character, while threat is the numeric value that each attacker has towards each character on its threat list. The basic behavior of aggro is controlled by the rules outlined below. Some mobs will have secondary attacks which have different targeting procedures; even for a normal creature, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player highest on its threat list. Managing aggro is one of the most important aspects of grouping because it determines how much damage the group receives and where the damage ends up."
These are the general principles I have always viewed as occurring in both STO and CO. Shoot on member of a spawn, in moments the whole spawn activates. They will initially attack the first shooter. We will observe, however, that if others members of the shooters team then fire on different members of the same spawn, those NPCs are draw to their primary attacker. If that one member attacking one of those NPCs then uses an AoE and accidentally hits a member of a different spawn we see that one NPC from the first spawn and the whole second spawn go after them. I would say this is conclusive and holds true to the general view of aggro and threat.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
While the initial aggro may be true, there is no evidence that having Threat Control or high threat generation would mean that the entire group would only go after the player that is targeting one NPC in the group, and not go after other team mates that are hitting the other NPCs that are targeting them or hitting them with AOE abilities.
You using FAW and torpedo spread abilities is why then entire group came after you. Since you generated the most threat against a group that other folks were not targetting, the NPCs will continue to attack you. If someone were to attack a different target in the group that you aggro'ed, it would break off and attack someone else. I have seen this happen many times.
No, you don't get it. It was my beam array (blue mk 11 since I just use min wep power anyway) in FAW once and no torp spread (full beam voquv..torp voquv is the no-threat control version) vs. my entire team's damage output including several escorts spewing cannon volley fire nonstop.
I kept the hate on all of them. If no threat control that would not happen. Thing is, if threat control only added threat per weapon strike then each individual npc the faw hit once or twice (very,very low damage) would have inflicted a relatively decent amount of threat. However, when an escort spews cannon at said individual npc and shreds it to pieces the hate is definitely greater than my beam array plus feedback pulse combined. Heck one single damage hit from the cannon outdamages all my weapons plus feedback.
This and other instances where I observe the npc behavior is why I say threat control does seem to put heavy hate bonus on the entire group. If my FAW hits multiples in the group their hate gets shared and stacked on each other.. a LOT LOT more than if i had no threat control and just FAW'd them. Its enough hate to keep them all firing at me and not my super-damage escorts firing aoe cannon at them.
Think of it this way:
No threat control, 1 beam hit on single target= 10 hate to individual npc, 2 hate shared to its group.
threat control 9, 1 beam hit on single target = 40 hate to individual npc, 40 hate shared to its group.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and stacks equally to the entire group when there is threat control.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and a fraction of that stacked hate is shared between the group.
Result? the entire group hates the threat control player a lot more than one single, very high damage escort hitting it and its friends in AOE.
But.. if you hit only a single target of the group with threat control 9 the hate you generate and that it shares with the group would not overcome the hate from the high damage aoe escort. Only when the threat control ship fires aoe is when it does.
In fact, even before I respeced my characters to put some points in Threat Control, I would pull aggro from one target and not others from that group. Other times, I've kited the NPCs while others got free hits on the ship for a good amount of time. I don't use scatter/spread abilities that often and do more single target damage. Perhaps that is the difference (which is also why I question the statement that Threat generation affects the entire group).
Thats because you're hitting just one. the shared aggro may not have been enough to pull the other npcs off the heavier damage they are receiving. But if you hit all of them with low damage and threat control you become their primary source of hate. This doesnt happen if you just had no threat control... your single target-pulling hate proves it.
This is the best trolling DOFF ever. I don't want to waste EC on the DOFF, but using it on your team mates out of spite sounds like a lot of fun.
Yep always a hoot to keep it on the guy that messed up everything. in the end his hull is a nice long list of injuries XD
Are your team mates hitting the other NPCs with spread abilities? That would seem like the likely reason why the other NPCs change their targets. In Hive, I've had a Tactical Cube I wasn't firing at come after me. Since no one else was hitting it, it continued to attack me (it initially started attacking me because I was the closest target or they killed my team mates before it got to me). Once someone else started attacking it, it immediately changed it's target.
Of course they are. when was the last time you saw escorts in stf not using aoe?
Are you referring to the link I posted (which isn't my chart, by the way)? On my B'rel, which I recently respeced, I have, I believe, 6 points in Threat Control and Hull Plating, and 4 points in Armor Reinforcements. My total resistance is about 27%+ against energy and about 25%+ against kinetic with one Neutronium Alloy mk XI blue console. Before that, it was, I believe, around 23%+ for each. With a second Neutronium Alloy, the amount is more than when I was maxed out in Hull Plating and Armor Reinforcement. The difference wasn't as great between one and two Neutronium Alloys, but the end result was still more.
FYI, for those who don't know, Neutronium Alloys have diminishing returns the more you stack. Also, the greater your passive resistance, the less effective the Neutronium Alloys become. I tested this while I was in the process of respeccing.
A minimal increase in resists (im not saying it doesnt!) for the expenditure of points and added pain coming into your bird of prey.
While the initial aggro may be true, there is no evidence that having Threat Control or high threat generation would mean that the entire group would only go after the player that is targeting one NPC in the group, and not go after other team mates that are hitting the other NPCs that are targeting them or hitting them with AOE abilities.
My tank version voquv is proof enough. Like I said, I would get their hate completely to the point where my team just sat in space firing like crazy. The only times they got hit was when the tac cube did an AOE. Spheres all focused on me exclusively the entire team. Now, as evidence? min power beam arrays on faw1 and feedback pulse combined do less than 3k dmg per target per firing cycle. An escort does ten times that much per cycle in aoe. The voquv with threat control held all hate. In contrast, my torp spread/plasma bomber voquv that does insanely higher aoe damage than the tank voquv, hits all targets for over 10k dmg per volley.... loses aggro constantly to these same escorts firing aoe cannon. All because it does not have threat control.
No, you don't get it. It was my beam array (blue mk 11 since I just use min wep power anyway) in FAW once and no torp spread (full beam voquv..torp voquv is the no-threat control version) vs. my entire team's damage output including several escorts spewing cannon volley fire nonstop.
I kept the hate on all of them. If no threat control that would not happen. Thing is, if threat control only added threat per weapon strike then each individual npc the faw hit once or twice (very,very low damage) would have inflicted a relatively decent amount of threat. However, when an escort spews cannon at said individual npc and shreds it to pieces the hate is definitely greater than my beam array plus feedback pulse combined. Heck one single damage hit from the cannon outdamages all my weapons plus feedback.
This and other instances where I observe the npc behavior is why I say threat control does seem to put heavy hate bonus on the entire group. If my FAW hits multiples in the group their hate gets shared and stacked on each other.. a LOT LOT more than if i had no threat control and just FAW'd them. Its enough hate to keep them all firing at me and not my super-damage escorts firing aoe cannon at them.
Think of it this way:
No threat control, 1 beam hit on single target= 10 hate to individual npc, 2 hate shared to its group.
threat control 9, 1 beam hit on single target = 40 hate to individual npc, 40 hate shared to its group.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and stacks equally to the entire group when there is threat control.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and a fraction of that stacked hate is shared between the group.
Result? the entire group hates the threat control player a lot more than one single, very high damage escort hitting it and its friends in AOE.
But.. if you hit only a single target of the group with threat control 9 the hate you generate and that it shares with the group would not overcome the hate from the high damage aoe escort. Only when the threat control ship fires aoe is when it does.
Thats because you're hitting just one. the shared aggro may not have been enough to pull the other npcs off the heavier damage they are receiving. But if you hit all of them with low damage and threat control you become their primary source of hate. This doesnt happen if you just had no threat control... your single target-pulling hate proves it.
My tank version voquv is proof enough. Like I said, I would get their hate completely to the point where my team just sat in space firing like crazy. The only times they got hit was when the tac cube did an AOE. Spheres all focused on me exclusively the entire team. Now, as evidence? min power beam arrays on faw1 and feedback pulse combined do less than 3k dmg per target per firing cycle. An escort does ten times that much per cycle in aoe. The voquv with threat control held all hate. In contrast, my torp spread/plasma bomber voquv that does insanely higher aoe damage than the tank voquv, hits all targets for over 10k dmg per volley.... loses aggro constantly to these same escorts firing aoe cannon. All because it does not have threat control.
But Threat Control on it's own against a single target in a group will not necessarily keep you in the groups target. That is my original point several posts before.
It makes sense that if you have high Threat Control and using AOE abilities, you're going to keep aggro on yourself until someone on your team creates enough threat generation on their own to get an NPC to change its target.
Of course they are. when was the last time you saw escorts in stf not using aoe?
I think this is the source of our disagreement. I rarely use AOE attacks in my B'rel or Fleet Defiant. I prefer maximum damage on a single target to kill that target quickly. Since others are using their AOE attacks, the next target in the group will be easier for me to finish off in one volley with minimal buffs.
So, from my observations as someone who only targets single targets, Threat Control does not increase threat generation of the entire group for a sustained amount of time. Which is why I'm not concerned about a single NPC targeting me (if it's the invisible torpedo, I'm space dust either way, as I still manage to generate enough aggro without Threat Control).
A minimal increase in resists (im not saying it doesnt!) for the expenditure of points and added pain coming into your bird of prey.
I'd prefer not to use up too many console spaces for Alloys. I used to run two consoles, but the amount I was getting from the second console was about 8% (this was before I respeced...after, it was about 6%).
But, I suppose if you are using AOE attacks as your primary attack, then I could see how Threat Control would be a bad idea. Since I don't use AOE attacks, it's not as big a concern for me.
While the initial aggro may be true, there is no evidence that having Threat Control or high threat generation would mean that the entire group would only go after the player that is targeting one NPC in the group, and not go after other team mates that are hitting the other NPCs that are targeting them or hitting them with AOE abilities.
Actually, as the Wiki quotes states, once aggro is attained, the threat generation race begins. As long as the one with aggro keeps doing damage and stays ahead of their team mates threat generation score they will keep aggro. This is why threat consoles and threat works. I don't see any evidence to support your claim. I do see the opposite implied in the wiki reference and in practice. It is how tanking works.
Edit: You are correct in saying someone can steal aggro by attacking one of those aggro'd NPCs, but it is done by generating more threat than the first shooter has generated. In the mean time he who shot first and generated threat is wearing milk bone underwear and its a dog eat dog world.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
But Threat Control on it's own against a single target in a group will not necessarily keep you in the groups target. That is my original point several posts before.
It makes sense that if you have high Threat Control and using AOE abilities, you're going to keep aggro on yourself until someone on your team creates enough threat generation on their own to get an NPC to change its target.
That depends really. The question is, are you doing that high a damage that the 'shared' aggro overcomes the aoe spammers?
In my B'rel I know that I keep the hate of the entire sphere group in ISE for a good while when I open up on one lonely sphere in the group first (before anyone in the team). I know this because when I return to do a 2nd pass and I decloak, all the spheres in its group, even though they had aggro on team-mates that are shooting at them, the entire sphere group swaps its aggro to me. I usually have to stay cloaked a bit longer and let my team add up their damage so i dont get instant aggro from multiples.
Also, a tank ship with threat control does not use single target fire. I guess we were both seeing this from different perspectives.
So, from my observations as someone who only targets single targets, Threat Control does not increase threat generation of the entire group for a sustained amount of time. Which is why I'm not concerned about a single NPC targeting me (if it's the invisible torpedo, I'm space dust either way, as I still manage to generate enough aggro without Threat Control).
My experience is different. In my b'rel that has never had threat control I still keep the aggro of the npc group for a good while even if my team of other escorts shoot it.
I think it has to do with torpedo damage..or the damage for hate purposes as being read as 'gross output' not 'net applied' damage ( aka, torpedo hits npc shields for 100 (10,000) dmg.. the hate may be based off the 10k number not the 100). I know I do not experience the hate retention of my b'rel in my single target cannon hegh'ta.
But even in the cannon bop I still would not use threat control. Forbids me from flying aoe high dmg ships since id be forced to tank in them.
But, I suppose if you are using AOE attacks as your primary attack, then I could see how Threat Control would be a bad idea. Since I don't use AOE attacks, it's not as big a concern for me.
If it works for you its fine. I personally disagree with the use of threat control for birds of prey.
That depends really. The question is, are you doing that high a damage that the 'shared' aggro overcomes the aoe spammers?
In my B'rel I know that I keep the hate of the entire sphere group in ISE for a good while when I open up on one lonely sphere in the group first (before anyone in the team). I know this because when I return to do a 2nd pass and I decloak, all the spheres in its group, even though they had aggro on team-mates that are shooting at them, the entire sphere group swaps its aggro to me. I usually have to stay cloaked a bit longer and let my team add up their damage so i dont get instant aggro from multiples.
Also, a tank ship with threat control does not use single target fire. I guess we were both seeing this from different perspectives.
In Infected or Khitomer, I will often grab the aggro of the Tactical Cube and Donatra in my first volley. If I fly out of their firing range, I can usually kite them for a very long time before they decide to target someone else. If I go back and fire on them again (from a decloak), they will immediately switch back to me and I have to kite them again. So, if you're using an AOE attack and you're doing much more damage than everyone else, it's probably why the other NPCs switch back to you as soon as they can.
Similarly, if I'm hitting them and Sensor Assault procs, they stop attacking me for 2 seconds and then switch back to me as soon as Sensor Assault ends. I don't even have to necessarily be attacking them during that time. So, even if you placate or cloak, the NPC will remember you and target you as soon as are visible again.
My experience is different. In my b'rel that has never had threat control I still keep the aggro of the npc group for a good while even if my team of other escorts shoot it.
I think it has to do with torpedo damage..or the damage for hate purposes as being read as 'gross output' not 'net applied' damage ( aka, torpedo hits npc shields for 100 (10,000) dmg.. the hate may be based off the 10k number not the 100). I know I do not experience the hate retention of my b'rel in my single target cannon hegh'ta.
But even in the cannon bop I still would not use threat control. Forbids me from flying aoe high dmg ships since id be forced to tank in them.
You are probably right in that Torpedoes have a higher value of threat generation than energy weapons. Especially if you hit bare hull.
If it works for you its fine. I personally disagree with the use of threat control for birds of prey.
I don't use Threat Control for aggro purposes, I use it for resistance purposes. Threat Control costs less expertise than Armor Reinforcement and, after a certain point, gives more resistance. The amount of points I save can be redistributed elsewhere if I wanted to. I'm looking at this from a PvP perspective. I want to be sure I survive against a fully buffed escort alpha strike (which I have several times).
Comments
So, 28 pages and counting, and still no sticky to be seen...
Wow, this damage is incredible. I tried a similiar build with by B'rel but I'm still a bit inexperienced when it comes to torpboats. Always fail at getting the right moment to unleash its firepower and sometimes I lay all those mines in the wrong place and the target is away before they are armed and ready
I better return to my pure energy build. I know, I waste the true potential of the B'rel this way but I bought it for the looks and not for its enhanced cloak anyway.
It should arm right on top of them.
Granted, I don't use mines, so I don't know for sure. But, that seems to work.
one of them is an enhanced plasma heavy torp. with the reman kit i think it would be really nifty to use (if you can load two of them that is).
No need to waste evasive man. .. just approach target on its flight path (aka from the front) and drop the mines 2km from them. By the time the mines arm and deploy the target ship will be inside their tracking range.
If you approaching from the rear then drop them after you pass over them.
If its a non-scripted path object you drop them as best as you can guess where they'll fly to next. The mines have a 1km tracking range.
He said, with 3 projectile weapons officer doffs, that the shared cooldown doesn't really slow down the damage potential of his ship.
I know it was mentioned previously that some people used this build but were not impressed with the damage. But, I believe this was before the bleedthrough buff.
Anyone else have any experience recently with this build?
Tell him to load photons and use two purple torpedo doffs.
His DPS even on single fire will skyrocket.
Transphasics are absolutely terrible weapons. They get the lowest damage boost when using torpedo skills and have the absolute lowest damage of any torp. The bleedthrough amount is useless. Transphasic also have much higher delay in firing than a photon torpedo.
When you math it out, the photon torpedo out-damages IN BLEED-THROUGH damage, the Transphasics when you fire them at a target over 20 seconds time.
But it does not ever reach those 20 seconds. The photon's much higher damage, even after the shield reduction, will kill the ship's shields..and then one single photon hit to the hull will leave any transphasic damage dealt in the dust. shields or no shields.
also with the hull being so weak is it worth putting skill points into the hull and Armor Reinforcements as i know a lot of science ship people don't ?
where do you slot your rom and omega torpedoes fore and aft or one at each end ?
all thanks goes to shookyangfor his build.
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=boptorpedoboat_993
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=558851&page=5
Post 41 says all the praises that also happens to go to your question.
Enjoy
Yes, it's worth putting points into hull and armor. The times that you're fired on while decloaked help keep you alive. I've taken on a two volleys from an all cannon Defiant and made it out alive with over 50% hull. This was before I respeced.
I'd suggest changing some of your skill point distributions. Namely, reduce Armor Reinforcement to 4 and put 6 points into Threat Control. Also, I moved the one point in Warp Core Efficiency to Subsystem Repair. Why Threat Control? Well, it also gives you a boost to your resistance for both kinetic and energy. It's less, but once you start getting to a certain point in Armor Reinforcement, it is cheaper to put points in Threat Control and you get a better increase in kinetic/energy resistance. To get a better idea, check out this: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
I use Advanced Fleet Quantum torpedoes for now. Otherwise, I use Bio-Neural Warhead, Breen Cluster torpedo, and Hargh'Peng in the fore. On the aft, I use Omega and a Chroniton torpedo with [crth][crtd]x2.
It's really up to you on where you want to put your torpedoes, but just remember that you decloak when you fire. The rapid fire rate of the Omega and Hyper torpedoes will not allow you to recloak.
forgive me shookyang it is your build. all thanks goes to you. ( old post has been edited )
please can you tell me were would you place the Hyper-plasma torpedo fore or aft and what space set Romulan Prototype/Reman Prototype or Honor Guard would you use with the new weapons ?
Before I answer your question, I should first explain why I use my torpedoes in the arrangement that they are in. Of all of my fore torpedoes, only the Quantums will befit from torpedo abilities. This is by design.
If I were to go with Hyper-plasma and change how I attack with my B'rel, I would probably keep the Quantum, Bio-Neural, Omega, and Hargh'Peng in the fore. With the Hyper-plasma and Breen Cluster in the aft. That, or put the Hargh'Peng or Bio-Neural in the aft and put the Hyper-plasma in the fore.
I have been more of a battlecruiser man myslef, but I'm changing my game a bit lately trying out smaller more nimble ships.
So, I'm getting the B'rel, what better there is to get a different angle of STO than on this classic that has a specific style of play
I was wondering, since I have max level tacs. and eng. captains, which class would be better off with the B'rel and is the engineer viable to use it or loses a lot on the damage that the tac. skills would bring to the table?
Also, if you're careful, the chances of you getting decloaked are pretty slim. As such, I can survive on just Aux2SIF1, HE2, and Engineering Team 1.
That's not very wise imo. Threat control does give you resists..yes.. a minimum amount (even devs stated this was so) but it also makes you the primary target of any npc around.
Problem with that? NPCs insta-target and insta-fire weapons..meaning torpedoes... at you. They fire the torpedo when they detect a shield is down and decloaking = shields down.
Threat control is the absolute worst thing you can put in a bird of prey. Any bird of prey.
Also, you do need good warp core skills... it boosts your engine and aux power levels and you do need those a lot. If you're worried about kinetic resist then equip polarize hull and aux to dampeners. You also have brace for impact... they will last long enough for you to recloak.
only if you have them on autofire. due to the cloak animation delay you will not re-cloak in a brel until 5 seconds have passed (1s decloak delay, 3 seconds timer to re-cloak, 1s delay as ship re-cloaks). Romulan boff reduces this a lot. Since you have 1s global timer on torps you need at least 4 seconds to dump all your torps out.
Tac and Sci are viable. engineer is terrible in a b'rel. no abilities of it benefit the ship's offensive torpedo abilities... and you aint tanking in a bird of prey.
sci is only useful for support services in brel or bleedthrough specs (dual stacked sensor scan and beta3).
Warp Core Potential, yes, I agree. Warp Core Efficiency, I disagree. I do not need power into my shields or my weapons. Boosting power to subsystems with Efficiency. You can't go below 25, so there's no benefit with getting Efficiency. Which was why I suggested that they put that one skill point into something else.
Right now, those Romulan BOFFs are bugged. We don't know how well those BOFFs will work until they fix the perma-cloak bug.
I must admit I kinda' saw that coming, but still I wanted to cross-check with someone that actually has the ship.
Well that's settled then, the eng. will keep to his Bortasqu'.
What i'm trying to say here is that threat control gets you aggro from all npcs not just the one you happened to pop damage to and didnt kill in the first attack.
The AI functions in 'groups'. Each group of ships shares 'hate' and each individual ship has its own 'hate'.
With no threat control, if you hit NPC # 1 of 5 then you get a lot of hate from NPC #1 and some hate from #2->5.
With threat control #2->5 will get a lot of hate on you.
In a group, your team-mates will almost always grab hate from #2->5 just by shooting at one of them a few times...this is why when in a bird of prey when you cloak after an attack only the one you hit keeps a 'lock' on you for much longer than the others.
..but with threat control...the entire group will keep hate on you. They may switch their hate to another when you cloak but the instant you uncloak to attack they target and pop a torpedo your way.
If memory serves me right I think the resists you gained from 9 in threat control were equivalent to 5% across the board. Its not much. My VoQuv tank has threat control 9 and frankly im going to respec out of it if there are no game mechanic changes in may update... i was once able to tank the ISE gate, tac cube and 6 spheres with a fully dedicated shield tank monster setup (no damage, 2 shield drones wings healing me,etc) and my team loved me for it...but as of a few patches ago the borg are firing super-torpedoes and super-plasma heavy cannons shots (torps for 300k+ dmg and hvy plasma cannon hits for 10k to shields... its idiotic) that makes aggro-holding-heal-tanking absolutely impossible.
Ah I see what you mean. However the potential and efficiency stack on each other if you set power levels just at 70. While wep power is not needed it does enable you to put full power to engines and the remaining power to aux (base aux power would be 50 if engine is 100 and wep/shld is 25) and watch the aux power bar beef up to the low 70's from the boosts...which is really all you need for a full heal with hazard1.
You could also argue the points saved in efficiency could be put in the aux box itself and get more oomph ..but those boxes cost a lot more points.
probably wont fix them since it would also nerf the benefit it gives the federation defiant class.. and since we know that is what the devs use as a standard for all cloak related changes (fed bias.. yay) then it wont happen.
As for increasing threat generation on all targets, regardless if you're firing on them, I have yet to see any information on this. Going by the wiki (http://www.stowiki.org/Skill:_Starship_Threat_Control), it simply increases the threat generation value per weapon hit on a single target, not targets you aren't firing on. If you're using a Torpedo Spread ability, well then I could see why you grabbed aggro on multiple targets.
But the amount you get the closer you get to 75 is pretty low. You'd have to put more points into Efficiency to get 1 or 2 more power, and you still will not be able to break the 74 power level threshold. Also, I prefer to keep my engine power level lower, as I try and stay out of their 5km range, to avoid getting hit with reveal abilities. I put more power into Aux to improve my hull heal abilities, improve my offensive science abilities (I run a Lt. Commander Science slot), and increase my cloak/stealth strength.
They are currently discussing how they can make the Subterfuge trait more useful to ships without Stealth. I suspect that a fix would also come to the perma-cloak around the same time.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8462811&postcount=17
Aggro is generated as an accumulating number, on the primary target first, then the other members of the spawn. Once aggro is gained it increases as a generated number that increases as damage is done. That is why threat mechanics work to reduce the aggro number or score towards 0 or upwards to infinity depending on role. STO, other than placates, doesn't seem to have a threat lowering role mechanic, only a threat increase mechanic. Once that spawn knows you are a threat they stay that way until someone else gets that aggro, steals it by out scoring you on threat, or you leave the spawn alone and it resets.
This is why high DPS and spike damage can cause escorts to steal aggro from a designated tank. IMO, its this poor mechanic that is the cause of much of the escort cruiser angst. But that is another subject.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
Actually the reason why the tank loses the aggro to the escort is because the hate is not instant but 'delivered' through weapons fire.
Escort doing 50k damage = 10 points of hate (just to use a fictional number to illustrate)
Tank doing 20k damage = 2 points of damage
Tank with threat 9 doing 20k damage = 50 points of hate.
My VoQuv is a great working example of both threat control 9 and non-threat control 9. I recently respeced out of threat control 9 and shoved the points into pure damage output.
Threat control 9 voquv was full beam arrays with dual feedback pulse and dual shield repair drones (along with every other shield& hull heal/resist ability there is). It had atk ptrn delta with the doff for aggro (came later on but the build works without him).
Non- threat control 9 voquv is pure torpedo plasma bomber. hyper plasma, omega, rom. exp. beam array and dual elite scorps. grav well 3. It does insane damage.
The differences hate-wise:
Theat control voquv could hit the ISE spheres+tac cube with FAW, slam RSVP+tac team and feedback pulse. All targets just focused their attacks on me. Escorts could literally park themselves in space and go bananas .. I still held hate. The trick was to keep AOE fire and feedback pulse so I kept hitting them. Threat control 9 exponentially increased the hate generation those weapons did.
Now, even when my FAW and feedback was on cooldown, they all kept hate on me.. even though the damage the beam arrays and feedback did was minimal compared to the massive blobs of damage being tossed at them by the multiple escorts doing cannon volley spread with all buffs to damage.
Since the hate is individual per npc and also shared with the NPC's grouping the entire set of spheres kept coming at me nonstop. Since I did not have elite fleet shields back then I had to use the KHG shield..which had the unfortunate effect of 1s placate so every now and then a sphere would stop shooting, break off and afterburn 10km away.. then come back and start hitting a team-mate.. until A single one of my beams hit it and he was back to hating me.
Atk delta with the doff however, generates INSTANT hate on everything around you. It doesnt even have to have shot you or you shot it. It seems to be just a 10km aoe hate ability. I added it to keep those spheres from breaking off from me.
This build ceased to function with the insane increase in superspike damage torpedoes and heavy plasma cannon..not even a ship completely maxed out to tank like mine could survive a 300k torpedo hit. It literally vaporized a 100% shield 100% hull 80% resist ship in that one hit.
So I speced out of threat control and turned the voquv into a very high damage ship.
By plasma bombing the voquv generates tremendous hate on a single target but not on the entire group. Even when firing torpedo spreads nonstop plus grav well hitting all of them, I do not hold aggro on all of them..only a few. This tells me the threat control literally boosts the hate shared within the group exponentially.
Finally, look at your chart. It says 8.6% extra armor resist. That is mighty insignificant bonus compared to what you get for armor boxes in engineering. Granted if you maxed those out then yeah, an extra 8% helps..but you are also receiving so, so much more damage due to aggro it really is not worth the points spent on it.
In fact, even before I respeced my characters to put some points in Threat Control, I would pull aggro from one target and not others from that group. Other times, I've kited the NPCs while others got free hits on the ship for a good amount of time. I don't use scatter/spread abilities that often and do more single target damage. Perhaps that is the difference (which is also why I question the statement that Threat generation affects the entire group).
This is the best trolling DOFF ever. I don't want to waste EC on the DOFF, but using it on your team mates out of spite sounds like a lot of fun.
Are your team mates hitting the other NPCs with spread abilities? That would seem like the likely reason why the other NPCs change their targets. In Hive, I've had a Tactical Cube I wasn't firing at come after me. Since no one else was hitting it, it continued to attack me (it initially started attacking me because I was the closest target or they killed my team mates before it got to me). Once someone else started attacking it, it immediately changed it's target.
Are you referring to the link I posted (which isn't my chart, by the way)? On my B'rel, which I recently respeced, I have, I believe, 6 points in Threat Control and Hull Plating, and 4 points in Armor Reinforcements. My total resistance is about 27%+ against energy and about 25%+ against kinetic with one Neutronium Alloy mk XI blue console. Before that, it was, I believe, around 23%+ for each. With a second Neutronium Alloy, the amount is more than when I was maxed out in Hull Plating and Armor Reinforcement. The difference wasn't as great between one and two Neutronium Alloys, but the end result was still more.
FYI, for those who don't know, Neutronium Alloys have diminishing returns the more you stack. Also, the greater your passive resistance, the less effective the Neutronium Alloys become. I tested this while I was in the process of respeccing.
http://www.stowiki.org/Aggro
The text states, "Aggro is understood to be the condition of a particular mob attacking a particular character, while threat is the numeric value that each attacker has towards each character on its threat list. The basic behavior of aggro is controlled by the rules outlined below. Some mobs will have secondary attacks which have different targeting procedures; even for a normal creature, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player highest on its threat list. Managing aggro is one of the most important aspects of grouping because it determines how much damage the group receives and where the damage ends up."
These are the general principles I have always viewed as occurring in both STO and CO. Shoot on member of a spawn, in moments the whole spawn activates. They will initially attack the first shooter. We will observe, however, that if others members of the shooters team then fire on different members of the same spawn, those NPCs are draw to their primary attacker. If that one member attacking one of those NPCs then uses an AoE and accidentally hits a member of a different spawn we see that one NPC from the first spawn and the whole second spawn go after them. I would say this is conclusive and holds true to the general view of aggro and threat.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
No, you don't get it. It was my beam array (blue mk 11 since I just use min wep power anyway) in FAW once and no torp spread (full beam voquv..torp voquv is the no-threat control version) vs. my entire team's damage output including several escorts spewing cannon volley fire nonstop.
I kept the hate on all of them. If no threat control that would not happen. Thing is, if threat control only added threat per weapon strike then each individual npc the faw hit once or twice (very,very low damage) would have inflicted a relatively decent amount of threat. However, when an escort spews cannon at said individual npc and shreds it to pieces the hate is definitely greater than my beam array plus feedback pulse combined. Heck one single damage hit from the cannon outdamages all my weapons plus feedback.
This and other instances where I observe the npc behavior is why I say threat control does seem to put heavy hate bonus on the entire group. If my FAW hits multiples in the group their hate gets shared and stacked on each other.. a LOT LOT more than if i had no threat control and just FAW'd them. Its enough hate to keep them all firing at me and not my super-damage escorts firing aoe cannon at them.
Think of it this way:
No threat control, 1 beam hit on single target= 10 hate to individual npc, 2 hate shared to its group.
threat control 9, 1 beam hit on single target = 40 hate to individual npc, 40 hate shared to its group.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and stacks equally to the entire group when there is threat control.
with FAW the multiple beam strikes stack on the individual and a fraction of that stacked hate is shared between the group.
Result? the entire group hates the threat control player a lot more than one single, very high damage escort hitting it and its friends in AOE.
But.. if you hit only a single target of the group with threat control 9 the hate you generate and that it shares with the group would not overcome the hate from the high damage aoe escort. Only when the threat control ship fires aoe is when it does.
Thats because you're hitting just one. the shared aggro may not have been enough to pull the other npcs off the heavier damage they are receiving. But if you hit all of them with low damage and threat control you become their primary source of hate. This doesnt happen if you just had no threat control... your single target-pulling hate proves it.
Yep always a hoot to keep it on the guy that messed up everything. in the end his hull is a nice long list of injuries XD
Of course they are. when was the last time you saw escorts in stf not using aoe?
A minimal increase in resists (im not saying it doesnt!) for the expenditure of points and added pain coming into your bird of prey.
My tank version voquv is proof enough. Like I said, I would get their hate completely to the point where my team just sat in space firing like crazy. The only times they got hit was when the tac cube did an AOE. Spheres all focused on me exclusively the entire team. Now, as evidence? min power beam arrays on faw1 and feedback pulse combined do less than 3k dmg per target per firing cycle. An escort does ten times that much per cycle in aoe. The voquv with threat control held all hate. In contrast, my torp spread/plasma bomber voquv that does insanely higher aoe damage than the tank voquv, hits all targets for over 10k dmg per volley.... loses aggro constantly to these same escorts firing aoe cannon. All because it does not have threat control.
It makes sense that if you have high Threat Control and using AOE abilities, you're going to keep aggro on yourself until someone on your team creates enough threat generation on their own to get an NPC to change its target.
I think this is the source of our disagreement. I rarely use AOE attacks in my B'rel or Fleet Defiant. I prefer maximum damage on a single target to kill that target quickly. Since others are using their AOE attacks, the next target in the group will be easier for me to finish off in one volley with minimal buffs.
So, from my observations as someone who only targets single targets, Threat Control does not increase threat generation of the entire group for a sustained amount of time. Which is why I'm not concerned about a single NPC targeting me (if it's the invisible torpedo, I'm space dust either way, as I still manage to generate enough aggro without Threat Control).
I'd prefer not to use up too many console spaces for Alloys. I used to run two consoles, but the amount I was getting from the second console was about 8% (this was before I respeced...after, it was about 6%).
But, I suppose if you are using AOE attacks as your primary attack, then I could see how Threat Control would be a bad idea. Since I don't use AOE attacks, it's not as big a concern for me.
Actually, as the Wiki quotes states, once aggro is attained, the threat generation race begins. As long as the one with aggro keeps doing damage and stays ahead of their team mates threat generation score they will keep aggro. This is why threat consoles and threat works. I don't see any evidence to support your claim. I do see the opposite implied in the wiki reference and in practice. It is how tanking works.
Edit: You are correct in saying someone can steal aggro by attacking one of those aggro'd NPCs, but it is done by generating more threat than the first shooter has generated. In the mean time he who shot first and generated threat is wearing milk bone underwear and its a dog eat dog world.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
That depends really. The question is, are you doing that high a damage that the 'shared' aggro overcomes the aoe spammers?
In my B'rel I know that I keep the hate of the entire sphere group in ISE for a good while when I open up on one lonely sphere in the group first (before anyone in the team). I know this because when I return to do a 2nd pass and I decloak, all the spheres in its group, even though they had aggro on team-mates that are shooting at them, the entire sphere group swaps its aggro to me. I usually have to stay cloaked a bit longer and let my team add up their damage so i dont get instant aggro from multiples.
Also, a tank ship with threat control does not use single target fire. I guess we were both seeing this from different perspectives.
My experience is different. In my b'rel that has never had threat control I still keep the aggro of the npc group for a good while even if my team of other escorts shoot it.
I think it has to do with torpedo damage..or the damage for hate purposes as being read as 'gross output' not 'net applied' damage ( aka, torpedo hits npc shields for 100 (10,000) dmg.. the hate may be based off the 10k number not the 100). I know I do not experience the hate retention of my b'rel in my single target cannon hegh'ta.
But even in the cannon bop I still would not use threat control. Forbids me from flying aoe high dmg ships since id be forced to tank in them.
If it works for you its fine. I personally disagree with the use of threat control for birds of prey.
Similarly, if I'm hitting them and Sensor Assault procs, they stop attacking me for 2 seconds and then switch back to me as soon as Sensor Assault ends. I don't even have to necessarily be attacking them during that time. So, even if you placate or cloak, the NPC will remember you and target you as soon as are visible again.
You are probably right in that Torpedoes have a higher value of threat generation than energy weapons. Especially if you hit bare hull.
I don't use Threat Control for aggro purposes, I use it for resistance purposes. Threat Control costs less expertise than Armor Reinforcement and, after a certain point, gives more resistance. The amount of points I save can be redistributed elsewhere if I wanted to. I'm looking at this from a PvP perspective. I want to be sure I survive against a fully buffed escort alpha strike (which I have several times).