A few minutes ago me and some of my fleet mates run some other test with some interesting information.
All test were run on Space Arena at 2 km of distance.
My fleet mate (an Engineer Captain) was in a Odyssey Star Cruiser (the free one) with the Borg set and the MK XII MACO.
Shield energy: 80
Auxiliary energy:73
I am a Science Captain with a Nebula Class, and I use Borg set with Maco MK XII Shield.
Auxiliary energy: 125
Fully skilled Starship Flow Capacitors, Starship Graviton Generators, Starship Particle Generators, Starship Shield Emitters and Starship Shield Systems
I have 1 Very Rare Tractor Beam Duty officer and one Rare.
Blue MK XI particle generator console.
First test with him having 0 (cero) at Power Insulators and with out deflector.
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 7461
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 2050 after 10 seconds.
Second test with him having 0 (cero) at Power Insulators and with the Borg deflector (+23 Starship Power Insulators).
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 9709
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 6156 after 10 seconds.
Third test with him having 9 (nine) at Power Insulators and with the Borg deflector (+23 Starship Power Insulators).
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 10695
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 10362 after 10 seconds.
Conclusions: in this test, is clear that all this is pretty much a mess. In simple words:
CPB III with out Borg deflector and with 0 (cero) on PI removes 4008 points of shield
CPB III with Borg deflector and with 0 (cero) on PI removes 1760 points of shield
CPB III with Borg deflector and with 9 (nine) on PI removes 774 points of shield
In even more simple words:
If we consider the point 1 as the 100% of the CPBIII, with only the Borg deflector, the power only function at 43% and with PI at the max with Borg set the power only function at 19%.
In even epic simple words: Borg deflector with +23 Starship Power Insulators is more important than a skilled PI at 9.
Personal opinion: It is clear that this is a complete chaos. Shield drains are not only useless against a completely skilled captains on Power Insulators, BUT also is near useless with against a ship that use one of the most popular deflectors in game! I stand with my previous opinion, this should not go live at all!
Sorry for bad English.
Thanks to Kharn, Sevak and Murnock for the help testing.
I remember Season 1. Sci ships were very powerful, with SNB and VM completely shutting down any enemy. Sci BoPs were unstoppable (could handle a 1v3 with ease), and Sci ships were very popular (it was nice for me, as I was one of the few Sci/Scis in my fleet). Then, Feedback Pulse was OP. Science ships were also the main healers, like their ground counterparts.
Fast forward 2 years...
Sci ships have been severely weakened. Charged Particle Burst III taking down 800 shields? Seriously??? My Odyssey's MACO Mk XI shields are 10 times stronger, without the relevant skills and consoles. The only decent Commander skill is Photonic Shockwave III, which is actually still rather good. Not to mention that Power Insulators is a Tier 2 Science skill, meaning it costs little to put just 6 points into it.
However, with this patch, Sci captains will be popular for their SNB against RSP.
Speaking of RSP, why did this need to be buffed? In its current state, it does its job. It is supposed to heal shields under focused fire. However, anything more than 10 seconds is just silly
I remember Season 1. Sci ships were very powerful, with SNB and VM completely shutting down any enemy. Sci BoPs were unstoppable (could handle a 1v3 with ease), and Sci ships were very popular (it was nice for me, as I was one of the few Sci/Scis in my fleet). Then, Feedback Pulse was OP. Science ships were also the main healers, like their ground counterparts.
Fast forward 2 years...
Sci ships have been severely weakened. Charged Particle Burst III taking down 800 shields? Seriously??? My Odyssey's MACO Mk XI shields are 10 times stronger, without the relevant skills and consoles. The only decent Commander skill is Photonic Shockwave III, which is actually still rather good. Not to mention that Power Insulators is a Tier 2 Science skill, meaning it costs little to put just 6 points into it.
However, with this patch, Sci captains will be popular for their SNB against RSP.
Speaking of RSP, why did this need to be buffed? In its current state, it does its job. It is supposed to heal shields under focused fire. However, anything more than 10 seconds is just silly
I have read (but as far as I know it is unconfirmed) that SNB is periodically NOT clearing RSP on tribble.
If you fully spec into one damage type, then when you come up against someone who's fully specced to counter it why shouldn't they be more immune to the point of cancellation?
Just means they're not not as strong in other areas as they've skilled/specced up just to counter that one thing. Just like you aren't strong in other areas as you have a narrow set of primary attack options.
In my opinion, if you spec into just one thing specifically (draining shields) and another specs to resist it why shouldn't they be able to (perhaps equally) resist your attacks?
Granted I don't PvP, but why not spec instead into particle, graviton, sensors or photonic skills/abilities? You can't tell me they all do nothing.
Just sounds like all you sci people want an "I win" skill/strat. I would've thought being versatile is one of sci's better traits.
Let me first say that I appreciate the design goal of having all the skills 'work' so to speak, and effectively resist things that it makes sense for them to resist. Lots of design space opens up once the skill system is properly integrated with everything. The magnitude of the effects however, is very much in need of tweaking. The buff to tractor beams is very good, I get tired of watching ships that aren't running any tractor-breaking abilities easily zoom away from me.
If you fully spec into one damage type, then when you come up against someone who's fully specced to counter it why shouldn't they be more immune to the point of cancellation?
That isn't true as the game currently exists, nor should it be. Take, for example, a ship whoose captain has nine points in Hull Plating, Structural Integrity and Armor Reinforcements. By your logic, my escort should barely be able to scratch them, but that isn't the case due to the severe diminishing returns on those skills. There should be the same sort of diminishing returns on these skills as well, and there currently are not.
My main pvp toon is a sci/sci, and I'm not the least bit happy about these changes. As it currently stands, with the recent skill tree changes, most science bridge officer abilities have been nerfed into uselessness in pvp. Lets run down the list of offensive science abilities shall we?
Viral matrix: Not terribly effective right now, though I've seen dev chatter that this will change at some point. There's a reason that I laugh when I see someone running this skill in pvp. It simply isn't much of an inconvenience.
Energy Siphon: Not a direct offensive power, and the drain magnitude is not enough to cripple a target, even when heavily specced into it because it is easily resisted.
Charged Particle Burst: Currently a very effective shield-stripping ability, two or three science ships working in conjunction can strip the shields from most escorts that aren't running extends / resists, etc. That sounds very powerful, and it is. Take all that with a grain of salt however; I'm talking about two ships working in conjunction to take down a single unprepared target. Consider two escorts both hitting your shields with Beam Overload 3 at the same time; you're probably going to loose that shield facing and take significant hull damage as well. CPB is the only burst anti-shield that science ships have.
Tachyon Beam: Against Power Insulators, this skill is no longer worth running for anything but the turn rate debuff with the doff, and that is rather questionable as well.
Tyken's Rift: Again, not real affect upon a pvp environment; I've got three points in power insulators, and never notice enough of a drain to be more than a minor inconvenience.
Gravity Well: Anything with an engine can ignore this ability for all intents and purposes.
Photonic Shockwave: An excellent ability for doing kinetic damage against bare hull, stuns, breaking extends, etc. No complaints here, aside from the extremely non-linear scaling between PSW 1,2 & 3.
Tractor Beam Repulsors: Cute, situationally useful, and can deal appreciable damage in certain circumstances. It is still too hard to make useful to be put in a competitive pvp build I think.
Feedback Pulse: A primarily defensive ability: a good team will simply nuke this off or swap targets, negating it.
Scramble Sensors: with the recent introduction of 30-second confuse immunity after this ability, it can't be chained, and while useful to fight FaW-spam, it isn't an offensive power really, it is a support ability.
The most effective sci/sci build for pvp right now, and I would argue the only effective offensive setup, is the combination of CPB & PSW. All the other fun science abilities have been nerfed to uselessness by the skill tree changes, leading to a shocking lack of variety in competitive science builds. This is not a good thing. If CPB has its effectiveness cut by 50% to 75% depending on the opponents' skill tree, what are pvp science captains suppose to do if they want some sort of offense? Certainly not shoot their targets, with only six weapon slots. :P
Not so much of a fan of that last one. Synchronizing powers takes skill, which shouldn't be something we try to punish.
It also leads to very frustrating gameplay for the victim, though, especially when it is some combination of heavy controls. I think synchronizing _diverse_ powers should be were teamwork excels at, and just everyone stacking the same lame debuffs should not be rewarded. This also has the advantage that in a tema setup, some "weaker" powers become more interesting, since they don't have to compete with he best power in isolation, but only with the best power after it has been applied already.
I am not talking about a generic "science resist", of course, but a power or effect-specific one. E.g.
Confuse Resists
Stun Resists
Shield Drain Resists
Energy Drain Resists
Repel Resists
Immobilize Resists
Yes, part of this is about protecting the innocent PUG from the evil Premades, but I really believe gameplay suffers when it is all about stacking similar powers. Even it requires skill to pull off. Running from being shield drained and then stopped dead in your tracks while your allies are repelled away so you're alone with low shields is a little more fun experience then being constantly gravity welled and or constantly scrambled.
I am curious how the fact that RSP does not work any more against kinetic damage works out?
I think almost nobody even noticed that it worked against kinetic damage.
It is basically impossible to avoid hitting an RSPing target at least a little bit with energy damage because of firing cycles, faw, pets, etc and the shield heal from that was usually enough to make a follow-up attack with only kinetic damage impossible since kinetic damage is essentially useless against even weak shields.
It's not useless, it just must deal with 75% resist. That is, 25% of the kinetic damage go through. Now, with RSP no longer working against kinetic damage, having at least some torpedos is even more important. Or so I would expect.
Now, with RSP no longer working against kinetic damage, having at least some torpedos is even more important. Or so I would expect.
No. Because when your opponent pops RSP he gets a nearly instantaneous full shield heal, and torps are terrible vs. even a small amount of shields. In a 5v5 arena match it's almost impossible that the target isn't being hit by energy weapons. Even if you switch away from the target the instant they pop RSP you still need to finish the firing cycle and bolts that are in mid air still need to land. A tiny fraction of a second is all it takes for a focused enemy to regen full shields after he pops RSP.
It's not useless, it just must deal with 75% resist. That is, 25% of the kinetic damage go through. Now, with RSP no longer working against kinetic damage, having at least some torpedos is even more important. Or so I would expect.
That's not how it woks, as I understand it.
Most shields have a 10% bleedthrough, so the BEST a torp could hope to do is 10% of it's damage to the hull. So a 4,500 dmg torp can't possibly do more than 450 dmg to a hull, and that's before resists. I least, that's how I understand it.
But even if it was 25%, that's still not very much. 1,125 dmg to a 40,000 hull cruiser takes the hull down to only 97%. And again that would be before resists. Like the others are saying, torps against even a tiny bit of shields are useless.
Before
1. sees escort buff up
2. escort lights up
3. rsp
4. (escort sez" ill be back in 6 seconds ****)
Now
1. sees escort buff up
2. escort lights up
3. rsp
4. (escort sez " *** no subnuc" cant hang around for 19 secs" bails the faw ball.
if you use rsp as a alpha strike blocker, you are doing it wrong, and almost guaranteeing you will be dead soon after rsp ends unless you can kill or drive away the escort first. rsp should ONLY be used after you have next to no shield hitpoints in any facing and no other available shield heals coming off cooldown.
Most shields have a 10% bleedthrough, so the BEST a torp could hope to do is 10% of it's damage to the hull. So a 4,500 dmg torp can't possibly do more than 450 dmg to a hull, and that's before resists. I least, that's how I understand it.
But even if it was 25%, that's still not very much. 1,125 dmg to a 40,000 hull cruiser takes the hull down to only 97%. And again that would be before resists. Like the others are saying, torps against even a tiny bit of shields are useless.
and this is why torpedoes are nearly useless in game. their firing rate, fireing arc and their volume of fire unbufed is so low its not even on the radar compared to energy weapons that can hit multiple times a second.
cutting the fireing rate in half is a good start, bumping the fireing arc to 180 on this tracking weapon only makes perfect sense, and allowing multiple equipped torpedo's to launch at the same time would be good too. energy weapons fire practically at once contently, and most ships have multiple launchers. all that and an unbuffed launch, at least at level cap, launching 3-5 torpedoes, each doing full damage, would make them as useful as an energy weapon in any situation. this would also not change in the slightest how an escort would use torpedoes, it would just make them a more viable option for cruisers, ships that should be launching a ton of torpedoes.
HY should just be a buff to each torpedo you fire's damage, spread should explode around the target and create a short stun, and more kinetic damage shield bleed from the explosion outside the shield. when a tropedo hits a shield, the explosion is absorbed as instantly as its created, leaving little actual kinetic damage compared to it exploding near the shield. less total hit point loss, but higher bleed %.
I think the issue a lot of players have with a lot of these seemingly gratuitous changes is that there's often no explanation of the "why". For instance, was TSS: Shields being abused in some fashion to necessitate this change? I don't understand.
It seems that there's an increasing trend of nerfing and changing as band-aid workarounds rather than putting the nose to the grindstone and debugging.
It now correctly works on Ground and not Space.
Corrected Stealth Values to be more realistic: 10%, 20% and 30% for each rank of the Trait.
Players have Rank 2.
You guys know.. one of the reasons why ground is so broken and imbalanced currently is that cloak is already stacking to PERFECT cloak (>600 = perfect).. so now that you fixed something to make it stack even higher, mind me asking when will we see the fixes for the stuff ground really needs?
The things you guys need to address are:
- reviewing cloak stacking and perception as counter (perception abilities are currently way to weak)
- kit-switching needs to despawn pets
- fix for the invisible tac cloak-nade bug
- cooldown circumvention bugs need to be fixed.
You guys know.. one of the reasons why ground is so broken and imbalanced currently is that cloak is already stacking to PERFECT cloak (>600 = perfect).. so now that you fixed something to make it stack even higher, mind me asking when will we see the fixes for the stuff ground really needs?
The things you guys need to address are:
- reviewing cloak stacking and perception as counter (perception abilities are currently way to weak)
- kit-switching needs to despawn pets
- fix for the invisible tac cloak-nade bug
- cooldown circumvention bugs need to be fixed.
That is not the Cryptic way. LOL
The Cryptic motto should be: "Ignore the things that are broken, and "fix" the things that are not broken until they are."
You guys know.. one of the reasons why ground is so broken and imbalanced currently is that cloak is already stacking to PERFECT cloak (>600 = perfect).. so now that you fixed something to make it stack even higher, mind me asking when will we see the fixes for the stuff ground really needs?
Silly mikiy...
The developers don't actually PLAY this game of theirs. They make changes to code, then "test" those changes in a controlled instance against a crappy AI NPC. So they don't really know how their game works. I would suggest that the developers start engaging the PvP forums in constructive dialogue about powers and balance. Maybe they'll learn something.
Let me first say that I appreciate the design goal of having all the skills 'work' so to speak, and effectively resist things that it makes sense for them to resist. Lots of design space opens up once the skill system is properly integrated with everything. The magnitude of the effects however, is very much in need of tweaking.
...
By your logic, my escort should barely be able to scratch them, but that isn't the case due to the severe diminishing returns on those skills. There should be the same sort of diminishing returns on these skills as well, and there currently are not.
...
Lets run down the list of offensive science abilities
...
Thanks for that reply, very informative and well written.
I am now enlightened to the issues
No. Because when your opponent pops RSP he gets a nearly instantaneous full shield heal, [...].
Only if someone fires energy weapons at him. Yes, of course, it is likely to happen, but with this change, you at least have a chance to still bring their shields down even when RSP is up. Sure, 75% resistance is tough, but it is not invincibility any more.
Only if someone fires energy weapons at him. Yes, of course, it is likely to happen, but with this change, you at least have a chance to still bring their shields down even when RSP is up. Sure, 75% resistance is tough, but it is not invincibility any more.
Are you saying that you think RSP caps out the shield resistance at 75%? Because that's not how it works. During RSP, a percentage of incoming damage is ADDED to the shields, the rest is DISCARDED. (There is still a timy bit of bleedthrough, I'm not quite sure how that part works.) To all energy types, shields are essentially impenetrable for the duration on RSP.
You seem to be thinking that 25% of your damage will still be applied toward lowering the shields during RSP. That simply is not tho way it works.
Comments
The Sol RSV is an achingly pretty ship?
OK, I'm struggling here.
All test were run on Space Arena at 2 km of distance.
My fleet mate (an Engineer Captain) was in a Odyssey Star Cruiser (the free one) with the Borg set and the MK XII MACO.
I am a Science Captain with a Nebula Class, and I use Borg set with Maco MK XII Shield.
First test with him having 0 (cero) at Power Insulators and with out deflector.
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 7461
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 2050 after 10 seconds.
Second test with him having 0 (cero) at Power Insulators and with the Borg deflector (+23 Starship Power Insulators).
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 9709
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 6156 after 10 seconds.
Third test with him having 9 (nine) at Power Insulators and with the Borg deflector (+23 Starship Power Insulators).
-Charge particle III alone gets his shields from 11469 to 10695
-With the hole combo Tractor beam I (with Doff) + Tachyon Beam II + Charge Partricle III. Their shields went from 11469 to 10362 after 10 seconds.
Conclusions: in this test, is clear that all this is pretty much a mess.
In simple words:
- CPB III with out Borg deflector and with 0 (cero) on PI removes 4008 points of shield
- CPB III with Borg deflector and with 0 (cero) on PI removes 1760 points of shield
- CPB III with Borg deflector and with 9 (nine) on PI removes 774 points of shield
In even more simple words:If we consider the point 1 as the 100% of the CPBIII, with only the Borg deflector, the power only function at 43% and with PI at the max with Borg set the power only function at 19%.
In even epic simple words: Borg deflector with +23 Starship Power Insulators is more important than a skilled PI at 9.
Personal opinion: It is clear that this is a complete chaos. Shield drains are not only useless against a completely skilled captains on Power Insulators, BUT also is near useless with against a ship that use one of the most popular deflectors in game! I stand with my previous opinion, this should not go live at all!
Sorry for bad English.
Thanks to Kharn, Sevak and Murnock for the help testing.
I remember Season 1. Sci ships were very powerful, with SNB and VM completely shutting down any enemy. Sci BoPs were unstoppable (could handle a 1v3 with ease), and Sci ships were very popular (it was nice for me, as I was one of the few Sci/Scis in my fleet). Then, Feedback Pulse was OP. Science ships were also the main healers, like their ground counterparts.
Fast forward 2 years...
Sci ships have been severely weakened. Charged Particle Burst III taking down 800 shields? Seriously??? My Odyssey's MACO Mk XI shields are 10 times stronger, without the relevant skills and consoles. The only decent Commander skill is Photonic Shockwave III, which is actually still rather good. Not to mention that Power Insulators is a Tier 2 Science skill, meaning it costs little to put just 6 points into it.
However, with this patch, Sci captains will be popular for their SNB against RSP.
Speaking of RSP, why did this need to be buffed? In its current state, it does its job. It is supposed to heal shields under focused fire. However, anything more than 10 seconds is just silly
I have read (but as far as I know it is unconfirmed) that SNB is periodically NOT clearing RSP on tribble.
Just means they're not not as strong in other areas as they've skilled/specced up just to counter that one thing. Just like you aren't strong in other areas as you have a narrow set of primary attack options.
In my opinion, if you spec into just one thing specifically (draining shields) and another specs to resist it why shouldn't they be able to (perhaps equally) resist your attacks?
Granted I don't PvP, but why not spec instead into particle, graviton, sensors or photonic skills/abilities? You can't tell me they all do nothing.
Just sounds like all you sci people want an "I win" skill/strat. I would've thought being versatile is one of sci's better traits.
/oh boy, puts on flak jacket
Because the nacelle pylons on the Intrepid do that awesomely canonical animation when you go to warp! :cool:
/sarcasm
Well, spring is here, so I guess it's almost time for another STO hiatus... gg Craptic!
That isn't true as the game currently exists, nor should it be. Take, for example, a ship whoose captain has nine points in Hull Plating, Structural Integrity and Armor Reinforcements. By your logic, my escort should barely be able to scratch them, but that isn't the case due to the severe diminishing returns on those skills. There should be the same sort of diminishing returns on these skills as well, and there currently are not.
My main pvp toon is a sci/sci, and I'm not the least bit happy about these changes. As it currently stands, with the recent skill tree changes, most science bridge officer abilities have been nerfed into uselessness in pvp. Lets run down the list of offensive science abilities shall we?
Viral matrix: Not terribly effective right now, though I've seen dev chatter that this will change at some point. There's a reason that I laugh when I see someone running this skill in pvp. It simply isn't much of an inconvenience.
Energy Siphon: Not a direct offensive power, and the drain magnitude is not enough to cripple a target, even when heavily specced into it because it is easily resisted.
Charged Particle Burst: Currently a very effective shield-stripping ability, two or three science ships working in conjunction can strip the shields from most escorts that aren't running extends / resists, etc. That sounds very powerful, and it is. Take all that with a grain of salt however; I'm talking about two ships working in conjunction to take down a single unprepared target. Consider two escorts both hitting your shields with Beam Overload 3 at the same time; you're probably going to loose that shield facing and take significant hull damage as well. CPB is the only burst anti-shield that science ships have.
Tachyon Beam: Against Power Insulators, this skill is no longer worth running for anything but the turn rate debuff with the doff, and that is rather questionable as well.
Tyken's Rift: Again, not real affect upon a pvp environment; I've got three points in power insulators, and never notice enough of a drain to be more than a minor inconvenience.
Gravity Well: Anything with an engine can ignore this ability for all intents and purposes.
Photonic Shockwave: An excellent ability for doing kinetic damage against bare hull, stuns, breaking extends, etc. No complaints here, aside from the extremely non-linear scaling between PSW 1,2 & 3.
Tractor Beam Repulsors: Cute, situationally useful, and can deal appreciable damage in certain circumstances. It is still too hard to make useful to be put in a competitive pvp build I think.
Feedback Pulse: A primarily defensive ability: a good team will simply nuke this off or swap targets, negating it.
Scramble Sensors: with the recent introduction of 30-second confuse immunity after this ability, it can't be chained, and while useful to fight FaW-spam, it isn't an offensive power really, it is a support ability.
The most effective sci/sci build for pvp right now, and I would argue the only effective offensive setup, is the combination of CPB & PSW. All the other fun science abilities have been nerfed to uselessness by the skill tree changes, leading to a shocking lack of variety in competitive science builds. This is not a good thing. If CPB has its effectiveness cut by 50% to 75% depending on the opponents' skill tree, what are pvp science captains suppose to do if they want some sort of offense? Certainly not shoot their targets, with only six weapon slots. :P
I am curious how the fact that RSP does not work any more against kinetic damage works out?
It also leads to very frustrating gameplay for the victim, though, especially when it is some combination of heavy controls. I think synchronizing _diverse_ powers should be were teamwork excels at, and just everyone stacking the same lame debuffs should not be rewarded. This also has the advantage that in a tema setup, some "weaker" powers become more interesting, since they don't have to compete with he best power in isolation, but only with the best power after it has been applied already.
I am not talking about a generic "science resist", of course, but a power or effect-specific one. E.g.
Yes, part of this is about protecting the innocent PUG from the evil Premades, but I really believe gameplay suffers when it is all about stacking similar powers. Even it requires skill to pull off. Running from being shield drained and then stopped dead in your tracks while your allies are repelled away so you're alone with low shields is a little more fun experience then being constantly gravity welled and or constantly scrambled.
It is basically impossible to avoid hitting an RSPing target at least a little bit with energy damage because of firing cycles, faw, pets, etc and the shield heal from that was usually enough to make a follow-up attack with only kinetic damage impossible since kinetic damage is essentially useless against even weak shields.
No. Because when your opponent pops RSP he gets a nearly instantaneous full shield heal, and torps are terrible vs. even a small amount of shields. In a 5v5 arena match it's almost impossible that the target isn't being hit by energy weapons. Even if you switch away from the target the instant they pop RSP you still need to finish the firing cycle and bolts that are in mid air still need to land. A tiny fraction of a second is all it takes for a focused enemy to regen full shields after he pops RSP.
Before
1. sees escort buff up
2. escort lights up
3. rsp
4. (escort sez" ill be back in 6 seconds ****)
Now
1. sees escort buff up
2. escort lights up
3. rsp
4. (escort sez " *** no subnuc" cant hang around for 19 secs" bails the faw ball.
Most shields have a 10% bleedthrough, so the BEST a torp could hope to do is 10% of it's damage to the hull. So a 4,500 dmg torp can't possibly do more than 450 dmg to a hull, and that's before resists. I least, that's how I understand it.
But even if it was 25%, that's still not very much. 1,125 dmg to a 40,000 hull cruiser takes the hull down to only 97%. And again that would be before resists. Like the others are saying, torps against even a tiny bit of shields are useless.
if you use rsp as a alpha strike blocker, you are doing it wrong, and almost guaranteeing you will be dead soon after rsp ends unless you can kill or drive away the escort first. rsp should ONLY be used after you have next to no shield hitpoints in any facing and no other available shield heals coming off cooldown.
and this is why torpedoes are nearly useless in game. their firing rate, fireing arc and their volume of fire unbufed is so low its not even on the radar compared to energy weapons that can hit multiple times a second.
cutting the fireing rate in half is a good start, bumping the fireing arc to 180 on this tracking weapon only makes perfect sense, and allowing multiple equipped torpedo's to launch at the same time would be good too. energy weapons fire practically at once contently, and most ships have multiple launchers. all that and an unbuffed launch, at least at level cap, launching 3-5 torpedoes, each doing full damage, would make them as useful as an energy weapon in any situation. this would also not change in the slightest how an escort would use torpedoes, it would just make them a more viable option for cruisers, ships that should be launching a ton of torpedoes.
HY should just be a buff to each torpedo you fire's damage, spread should explode around the target and create a short stun, and more kinetic damage shield bleed from the explosion outside the shield. when a tropedo hits a shield, the explosion is absorbed as instantly as its created, leaving little actual kinetic damage compared to it exploding near the shield. less total hit point loss, but higher bleed %.
It seems that there's an increasing trend of nerfing and changing as band-aid workarounds rather than putting the nose to the grindstone and debugging.
You guys know.. one of the reasons why ground is so broken and imbalanced currently is that cloak is already stacking to PERFECT cloak (>600 = perfect).. so now that you fixed something to make it stack even higher, mind me asking when will we see the fixes for the stuff ground really needs?
The things you guys need to address are:
- reviewing cloak stacking and perception as counter (perception abilities are currently way to weak)
- kit-switching needs to despawn pets
- fix for the invisible tac cloak-nade bug
- cooldown circumvention bugs need to be fixed.
That is not the Cryptic way. LOL
The Cryptic motto should be: "Ignore the things that are broken, and "fix" the things that are not broken until they are."
:rolleyes:
Silly mikiy...
The developers don't actually PLAY this game of theirs. They make changes to code, then "test" those changes in a controlled instance against a crappy AI NPC. So they don't really know how their game works. I would suggest that the developers start engaging the PvP forums in constructive dialogue about powers and balance. Maybe they'll learn something.
Thanks for that reply, very informative and well written.
I am now enlightened to the issues
Only if someone fires energy weapons at him. Yes, of course, it is likely to happen, but with this change, you at least have a chance to still bring their shields down even when RSP is up. Sure, 75% resistance is tough, but it is not invincibility any more.
You seem to be thinking that 25% of your damage will still be applied toward lowering the shields during RSP. That simply is not tho way it works.