Well, first of all they'd have to re-do tactical officer abilities before they really wanted to revamp science, imo. Having such powerful damage buffs make good abilities become overpowered. But, as it stems from a single class of captain, I think it'd be a lot easier to simply tweak tactical captain abilities rather than attempt to balance every skill in the game to ensure 1/3 of your playerbase isn't innately OP in relation to everyone else.
That being said, I don't see why the devs don't just make every science ability directly tied to Aux power. Escorts and Cruisers rely mostly on weapons and shield power, with engines and aux being secondary. So, why not allow science to deal just as much damage as an escort, or soak up comparable damage to a cruiser, if they pump enough power into Aux as Escorts do with Weap? If SVs are supposed to be a jack-of-all-trades via their powers, then why not go all out and let the captain truly decide what he wants to specialize in? Cryptic has a great opportunity to make a fun and engaging ship class, and instead they attempt to beat it into submission as a heals-only class, whose most important skills are relegated to lower levels so everyone else gets just as much use out of them.
Honestly, as much as I know companies hate talking about other games, the Dervish from GW1 is a prime example of how to balance and how not to balance a jack-of-all-trades. Sure, my primary weapon (scythe) was used more effectively by other classes, but if I build my skillbar correctly, I could not only tank three people at once, but I could do so while debuffing and damaging them. Once they got scared or thought I couldn't be killed by them, they'd start to run off...only they're still debuffed and I can hit them with everything I have for criticals. And yeah, a good 1/3 of my skills were mostly worthless, as was an entire tree (though later fixed), as well as my favorite elite skills. BUT, there were always enough options to allow me to build a fun, engaging, and powerful toon that let me have fun and still be effective.
A jack-of-all-trades doesn't need to deal the most damage, but it needs to deal a good amount *while* doing other things. Because that's where the jack shines: the debuffs allow him to tank longer than he technically should, and deal more damage than he technically should. It rewards smart players by giving them a challenge, which is to build a highly effective build that can multitask with the best of them. I'm fine with lower science powers being effective for other classes to use, as playing the other two can get pretty damn boring at times. Having a science power to use every once in a while is a nice break from the monotony.
Just because other classes in GW1 used my scythe to deal damage better than me wasn't technically imbalancing, though it was incredibly depressing; however, the class itself was given tools to rise above that perceived imbalance. Right here, the devs have incorrectly nerfed our "scythe" (crude comparison, but ah well...) and think their work is done, forgetting that gimps an entire class of starships to punish a small subset that might be seen as abusing the game mechanics. So tacticals and BoPs are abusing this power? Look at them to balance, instead of a knee-jerk reaction to nerf a valuable tool in the science arsenal.
Well, first of all they'd have to re-do tactical officer abilities before they really wanted to revamp science, imo. Having such powerful damage buffs make good abilities become overpowered. But, as it stems from a single class of captain, I think it'd be a lot easier to simply tweak tactical captain abilities rather than attempt to balance every skill in the game to ensure 1/3 of your playerbase isn't innately OP in relation to everyone else.
90% of science powers are tied to aux, and even though theyre tied to aux they still suck.
this also wouldnt solve the issues of tactical captains in science ships, itd just make them that much more evil and blood thirsty.
a simple solution to fix tac captians powers- make it improve "weapons damage" and not just "damage" that way they still get the good guns but they dont make science/engineering powers stupidly powerful for damage.
this i think would balance the 3 class of captains against each other. then its just a matter of balanceing the bridge officer powers in relation to the captain skill tree.
a simple solution to fix tac captians powers- make it improve "weapons damage" and not just "damage" that way they still get the good guns but they dont make science/engineering powers stupidly powerful for damage.
I personally would rather cryptic not go down this route, as it would bring the game closer to tacs fly escorts sci fly sciships and engis fly cruisers, and so losing a lot of variety.
I'd go from the opposite angle and give sci captains a boost innately. Passive 10% longer stuns/holds? or somesuch I dunno.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Your Ramming Speed III deals 52098 (99235) Kinetic Damage(Critical) to Remus.
90% of science powers are tied to aux, and even though theyre tied to aux they still suck.
this also wouldnt solve the issues of tactical captains in science ships, itd just make them that much more evil and blood thirsty.
a simple solution to fix tac captians powers- make it improve "weapons damage" and not just "damage" that way they still get the good guns but they dont make science/engineering powers stupidly powerful for damage.
this i think would balance the 3 class of captains against each other. then its just a matter of balanceing the bridge officer powers in relation to the captain skill tree.
Well, of course they suck right now, lol. :P
I meant in regards to photonic shockwave, and have the abilities scale more with higher Aux power invested. Just a thought, though by no means a blanket fix.
I do like the fix to make alpha into weapons damage...there's no reason a tactical officer should be able to hop into any craft and make it perform better than any other captain. However, captkirrahe, I don't think a 10% boost to CC mods would be all that much help. Maybe a 20s boost to Aux power?
Of course, they could just change it so go down fighting and alpha don't stack, or that go down fighting just adds a flat bonus to weapons and engine power. I fear that if they buff the current captain abilities, you're still going to end up with tac's being better in every ship, as dps is still the king of this game.
90% of science powers are tied to aux, and even though theyre tied to aux they still suck.
this also wouldnt solve the issues of tactical captains in science ships, itd just make them that much more evil and blood thirsty.
I've always thought that tactical captains in science ships was a made up problem. Even during the height of science abilities power, you just give up too much by losing your sub-nuke and scan, and all of those tactical buffs are better used for buffing spike damage (of which the SV basically has none) as opposed to science skills anyway. I know some people might disagree, but back when sci was OP and SP was extremely sci heavy the general thought among Pandas was that a tac/sci was just wasting the potential for another sub nuke.
I've always thought that tactical captains in science ships was a made up problem. Even during the height of science abilities power, you just give up too much by losing your sub-nuke and scan, and all of those tactical buffs are better used for buffing spike damage (of which the SV basically has none) as opposed to science skills anyway. I know some people might disagree, but back when sci was OP and SP was extremely sci heavy the general thought among Pandas was that a tac/sci was just wasting the potential for another sub nuke.
Thing is, even with the way PSW was and the way TBR IS, it was only -viable- it was hardly optimal, because ultimately sci powers, are Trash compared to Eng powers or tac powers.
I've always thought that tactical captains in science ships was a made up problem. Even during the height of science abilities power, you just give up too much by losing your sub-nuke and scan, and all of those tactical buffs are better used for buffing spike damage (of which the SV basically has none) as opposed to science skills anyway. I know some people might disagree, but back when sci was OP and SP was extremely sci heavy the general thought among Pandas was that a tac/sci was just wasting the potential for another sub nuke.
but what good is SNB if you don't have a punch to back it up with? I find SNB to be more effective in escorts...
As for tacs in sciships, they can be deadly. Burn an aux battery; fire TBR for 3k a kick after someone with APO active! If you also have been targeting them for a while, you'll be stacking sensor analysis on them, so they'll be nice and soft. Add a tac buffed GW to the equation for extra damage. And all the while, fire at them with full weapons power from 5 weapons, that count as 7.5 once sensoranalysis has built up. Also, use a torp.
but what good is SNB if you don't have a punch to back it up with? I find SNB to be more effective in escorts...
well you are hopefully not alone out there. coordinate your sub nuc with a tac alpha, maybe throw some other sci stuff at them, like sensor scan and vm... boom
well you are hopefully not alone out there. coordinate your sub nuc with a tac alpha, maybe throw some other sci stuff at them, like sensor scan and vm... boom
I stopped doing that the 10th time i tried, and the tacscort switched targets and launched his alpha on the photonic fleet that just spawned...
ok i admit, to pug might be a hardcounter to my tactic
Rules of the PUG:
1. Do not expect your wingman to follow your lead
2. Never follow your wingmans lead. He may be drunk, or just out capturing screenshots.
3. If you want something done, do it yourself.
4. If you want someone killed, kill them on your own!
5. If you get scrambled, hurry and take out your teammates! They're a liability!
6. Never lend a heal! You'll never get it back!
7. Never extend shields! He'll fly away!
8. Never use GW! They guy with TBR will counter it!
9. Remember! It's not about kills! It's all about getting your dilithium daily out of the way!
I would say the problem generally is not with tactical captain or science captain, but that science ships are simply weak.
6 weapon slots, Lowest tactical consoles. So outside of tactical noone will ever make it hurt. The current setup of sci ship was made for another STO.
Also adding more tactical consoles to some ships just increases the gap between low dmg ships and others.
2 tac consols on 6 weapon ship vs 5 tac consoles on 7-8 weapon ships
And in the future they might be 6 tactical console ships...so the gap will be even increased.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
I would say the problem generally is not with tactical captain or science captain, but that science ships are simply weak.
6 weapon slots, Lowest tactical consoles. So outside of tactical noone will ever make it hurt. The current setup of sci ship was made for another STO.
Also adding more tactical consoles to some ships just increases the gap between low dmg ships and others.
2 tac consols on 6 weapon ship vs 5 tac consoles on 7-8 weapon ships
And in the future they might be 6 tactical console ships...so the gap will be even increased.
But they have 4 science consoles, and those consoles *were* used non only to buff shields capacity or regeneration, as is today sadly, but to buff science powers and deliver serious AOE exotic damage with:
- GW3 (broken since new skill tree)
- CPB3 (broken since new skill tree)
- PSW3 (broken since yesterday, thanks borticus)
But they have 4 science consoles, and those consoles *were* used non only to buff shields capacity or regeneration, as is today sadly, but to buff science powers and deliver serious AOE exotic damage with:
- GW3 (broken since new skill tree)
- CPB3 (broken since new skill tree)
- PSW3 (broken since yesterday, thanks borticus)
That is what must be fixed
Doesn't change anything. PSW was great only for tacs. There is funamental flaw in science ship performance. You can see in PVE as well, and that's SOMETHING, when even PVE players admit you do not need sci ships in STF and they are more of liablity.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Is Grav Well really not affected by Graviton Generators? (The pull, I mean, not the DoT). I saw someone earlier in the thread claim this but I don't know if it's true or not.
I think i saw post once, and they said they cannot increase the pull because of how the ability works...there would be some wierd effects, like bungee effect and such.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
I think i saw post once, and they said they cannot increase the pull because of how the ability works...there would be some wierd effects, like bungee effect and such.
There were wierd effects when the ability worked well (with two gw, there were enemies bouncing like tennis balls between a well and the other).
We lived with that 2 years, and nobody asked for a fix.
Instead, we got a *new* gravity well, looking perfect but useless.
Doesn't change anything. PSW was great only for tacs. There is funamental flaw in science ship performance. You can see in PVE as well, and that's SOMETHING, when even PVE players admit you do not need sci ships in STF and they are more of liablity.
I thought we were talking about ships, not captains.
However, i can confirm that psw3 worked well also for sci captains in sci ships, IF you invested some credits in particle generators consoles and with some timing in launching sensor scan or some attack pattern.
Mine did 20.750 damage, 40.000 with a sensor scan 3.
2 tac consols on 6 weapon ship vs 5 tac consoles on 7-8 weapon ships
ofc, the sensor analysis is "supposed" to stack up to make the damage output equal to 8 weapons. But, this only affects hull, not shields And it takes so long to stack up, that changing target ruins your debuff for half a minute.
Well, I came here because my nebula build is now generally useless - I'll be leaving it as it is for now as I have other ships to fly and remain hopeful for a buff. Calling the ship USS optimism seems almost prescient. My views are mostly PvE focused, though my ships seem quite effective in PVP too I haven't done a proper comparison. Most abilities seem less effective than they should be, sometimes by a bit and some times a lot.
Photonic shockwave definitely needs more damage now, note that it doesn't require high aux which made it quite good for beam/cannon fits and tac captains (and BoPs). add 50-100% to the current damage then making it scale up to 200% with aux would avoid the dual cannon + death blast combo but it is nice having some science abilities not need full aux
Photonic officer makes for interesting fits, but could have percentages tweaked to suggest specific fits. IE: 1 makes 60s abilities drop to 45s, 2 makes 45s drop to 30s and 3 makes 30s drop to 15s. Also tac captain focused as tactical initiative provides enough of the same thing to make a build around it. EDIT: The tooltips on photonic officer are also completely wrong - it says 24% reduction for level 1, actually does 16% or so.
Gravity well is good in PVE though some things such as cure elite raptors appear to resist it now. Even with 125 aux and gravity well 3 they just don't get caught unless you actually take out their engines with another ability, it only slows them down.
Tykens rift damage is pathetic, it's about 1/3 of an equivalent gravity well. The power drain is just noticeable slowing down ships but not exactly huge.
Shield drain can be effective in PVE if you stack it ridiculously, mostly against enemies that distribute shields. To compare better (especially Re: resists) it would be nice for it to turn up in the combat log. A way to make it seem more effective would be to add 50% to the drain in the direction it comes from and lower the drain on the opposite face - obviously that makes it quite a bit more like regular weapons though.
Have you considered doing things similar to ground phasers - ie making stuns/sensor jam whatever/some subsystem disables last twice as long vs NPCs? Could also apply to feedback pulse, really.
ofc, the sensor analysis is "supposed" to stack up to make the damage output equal to 8 weapons. But, this only affects hull, not shields And it takes so long to stack up, that changing target ruins your debuff for half a minute.
I agree, and also sensor analysis is totally broken by kdf honour guard shield proc (you lose target, you lose your debuff).
Well, I came here because my nebula build is now generally useless - I'll be leaving it as it is for now as I have other ships to fly and remain hopeful for a buff. Calling the ship USS optimism seems almost prescient. My views are mostly PvE focused, though my ships seem quite effective in PVP too I haven't done a proper comparison. Most abilities seem less effective than they should be, sometimes by a bit and some times a lot.
Borticus take note, write it down:
- A PVE guy came here
- He says that his nebula build is useless now
- He agrees with us on almost everything
Now that is also a PVE problem, can you please fix the mess you just did.
that really is the trick isn't it. convince borticus its a pve problem, so he can convince his boss its a pve problem, so they can give a damn and give him time to fix it. im convinced that the only reason siphon drones got slightly nerfed was because you could shut down cubes and gates in stfs and make them completely inert.
Borticus take note, write it down:
- A PVE guy came here
- He says that his nebula build is useless now
- He agrees with us on almost everything
Now that is also a PVE problem, can you please fix the mess you just did.
Haha, I do pvp too but my point is I know there are others in the thread who know pvp WAY better than I do. Anyway, given that nebula was using photonics shock wave 3 as a torpedo equivalent with all beams... Yeah, instead of doing essentially a short range torpspread 3.5, it's a short range torp spread 1, stun being generally less valuable in PVE.
On the pvp side my views are probably skewed by mostly having opponents with no shield drain resists and so on, so CPB actually remains effective etc. As I like ships to be effective in both, I have no idea about viral matrix or jam/scramble sensors.
Oh, one thing with power drain is it really should scale by the square root in some cases, as if you drain twice as much power it does twice as much AND takes twice as long to come back. (4x effectiveness) That depends how it works though, whether the time it's regenerating for is long compared to the time it is just a static -x power. It sounds like tykens rift is one of these things if it literally does X per second, let's you boost it more without overpowering some fits :P
"The game programming must do what the game rule documentation sais it should do"?
No, for two reasons:
1) This game had no documentation until F2P. And still has no documentation on how much a skill must affect the strength of an ability. The fact that PSW3 should receive the amount of damage that now has from particle generators is not written anywhere.
2) The correct sequence should: correct powers so that game mechanics are not broken and there is balance, THEN change documentation to reflect changes you've made to balance the game.
3) The community rules, not the documentation. If both PvP and PvE community agree that an ability is broken, is broken, whatever the documentation says.
that really is the trick isn't it. convince borticus its a pve problem, so he can convince his boss its a pve problem, so they can give a damn and give him time to fix it. im convinced that the only reason siphon drones got slightly nerfed was because you could shut down cubes and gates in stfs and make them completely inert.
But some abilities like charged particle burst were always TRIBBLE in PVE. Because instead of some sort of AI and self heals, the NPCs have 10x hps/shield points.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
that really is the trick isn't it. convince borticus its a pve problem, so he can convince his boss its a pve problem, so they can give a damn and give him time to fix it. im convinced that the only reason siphon drones got slightly nerfed was because you could shut down cubes and gates in stfs and make them completely inert.
Totally agree with you.
It's very sad that we must hope that a broken ability affects also PvE so that it can be fixed.
Comments
That being said, I don't see why the devs don't just make every science ability directly tied to Aux power. Escorts and Cruisers rely mostly on weapons and shield power, with engines and aux being secondary. So, why not allow science to deal just as much damage as an escort, or soak up comparable damage to a cruiser, if they pump enough power into Aux as Escorts do with Weap? If SVs are supposed to be a jack-of-all-trades via their powers, then why not go all out and let the captain truly decide what he wants to specialize in? Cryptic has a great opportunity to make a fun and engaging ship class, and instead they attempt to beat it into submission as a heals-only class, whose most important skills are relegated to lower levels so everyone else gets just as much use out of them.
Honestly, as much as I know companies hate talking about other games, the Dervish from GW1 is a prime example of how to balance and how not to balance a jack-of-all-trades. Sure, my primary weapon (scythe) was used more effectively by other classes, but if I build my skillbar correctly, I could not only tank three people at once, but I could do so while debuffing and damaging them. Once they got scared or thought I couldn't be killed by them, they'd start to run off...only they're still debuffed and I can hit them with everything I have for criticals. And yeah, a good 1/3 of my skills were mostly worthless, as was an entire tree (though later fixed), as well as my favorite elite skills. BUT, there were always enough options to allow me to build a fun, engaging, and powerful toon that let me have fun and still be effective.
A jack-of-all-trades doesn't need to deal the most damage, but it needs to deal a good amount *while* doing other things. Because that's where the jack shines: the debuffs allow him to tank longer than he technically should, and deal more damage than he technically should. It rewards smart players by giving them a challenge, which is to build a highly effective build that can multitask with the best of them. I'm fine with lower science powers being effective for other classes to use, as playing the other two can get pretty damn boring at times. Having a science power to use every once in a while is a nice break from the monotony.
Just because other classes in GW1 used my scythe to deal damage better than me wasn't technically imbalancing, though it was incredibly depressing; however, the class itself was given tools to rise above that perceived imbalance. Right here, the devs have incorrectly nerfed our "scythe" (crude comparison, but ah well...) and think their work is done, forgetting that gimps an entire class of starships to punish a small subset that might be seen as abusing the game mechanics. So tacticals and BoPs are abusing this power? Look at them to balance, instead of a knee-jerk reaction to nerf a valuable tool in the science arsenal.
Wow, sorry for the long post.
90% of science powers are tied to aux, and even though theyre tied to aux they still suck.
this also wouldnt solve the issues of tactical captains in science ships, itd just make them that much more evil and blood thirsty.
a simple solution to fix tac captians powers- make it improve "weapons damage" and not just "damage" that way they still get the good guns but they dont make science/engineering powers stupidly powerful for damage.
this i think would balance the 3 class of captains against each other. then its just a matter of balanceing the bridge officer powers in relation to the captain skill tree.
I personally would rather cryptic not go down this route, as it would bring the game closer to tacs fly escorts sci fly sciships and engis fly cruisers, and so losing a lot of variety.
I'd go from the opposite angle and give sci captains a boost innately. Passive 10% longer stuns/holds? or somesuch I dunno.
Your Ramming Speed III deals 52098 (99235) Kinetic Damage(Critical) to Remus.
Well, of course they suck right now, lol. :P
I meant in regards to photonic shockwave, and have the abilities scale more with higher Aux power invested. Just a thought, though by no means a blanket fix.
I do like the fix to make alpha into weapons damage...there's no reason a tactical officer should be able to hop into any craft and make it perform better than any other captain. However, captkirrahe, I don't think a 10% boost to CC mods would be all that much help. Maybe a 20s boost to Aux power?
Of course, they could just change it so go down fighting and alpha don't stack, or that go down fighting just adds a flat bonus to weapons and engine power. I fear that if they buff the current captain abilities, you're still going to end up with tac's being better in every ship, as dps is still the king of this game.
I've always thought that tactical captains in science ships was a made up problem. Even during the height of science abilities power, you just give up too much by losing your sub-nuke and scan, and all of those tactical buffs are better used for buffing spike damage (of which the SV basically has none) as opposed to science skills anyway. I know some people might disagree, but back when sci was OP and SP was extremely sci heavy the general thought among Pandas was that a tac/sci was just wasting the potential for another sub nuke.
Thing is, even with the way PSW was and the way TBR IS, it was only -viable- it was hardly optimal, because ultimately sci powers, are Trash compared to Eng powers or tac powers.
but what good is SNB if you don't have a punch to back it up with? I find SNB to be more effective in escorts...
As for tacs in sciships, they can be deadly. Burn an aux battery; fire TBR for 3k a kick after someone with APO active! If you also have been targeting them for a while, you'll be stacking sensor analysis on them, so they'll be nice and soft. Add a tac buffed GW to the equation for extra damage. And all the while, fire at them with full weapons power from 5 weapons, that count as 7.5 once sensoranalysis has built up. Also, use a torp.
well you are hopefully not alone out there. coordinate your sub nuc with a tac alpha, maybe throw some other sci stuff at them, like sensor scan and vm... boom
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
I stopped doing that the 10th time i tried, and the tacscort switched targets and launched his alpha on the photonic fleet that just spawned...
- Dassem aka SirPugsalot -
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
Rules of the PUG:
1. Do not expect your wingman to follow your lead
2. Never follow your wingmans lead. He may be drunk, or just out capturing screenshots.
3. If you want something done, do it yourself.
4. If you want someone killed, kill them on your own!
5. If you get scrambled, hurry and take out your teammates! They're a liability!
6. Never lend a heal! You'll never get it back!
7. Never extend shields! He'll fly away!
8. Never use GW! They guy with TBR will counter it!
9. Remember! It's not about kills! It's all about getting your dilithium daily out of the way!
but but... i am the one who is drunk!
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
LOL, it's so true
6 weapon slots, Lowest tactical consoles. So outside of tactical noone will ever make it hurt. The current setup of sci ship was made for another STO.
Also adding more tactical consoles to some ships just increases the gap between low dmg ships and others.
2 tac consols on 6 weapon ship vs 5 tac consoles on 7-8 weapon ships
And in the future they might be 6 tactical console ships...so the gap will be even increased.
But they have 4 science consoles, and those consoles *were* used non only to buff shields capacity or regeneration, as is today sadly, but to buff science powers and deliver serious AOE exotic damage with:
- GW3 (broken since new skill tree)
- CPB3 (broken since new skill tree)
- PSW3 (broken since yesterday, thanks borticus)
That is what must be fixed
Doesn't change anything. PSW was great only for tacs. There is funamental flaw in science ship performance. You can see in PVE as well, and that's SOMETHING, when even PVE players admit you do not need sci ships in STF and they are more of liablity.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
There were wierd effects when the ability worked well (with two gw, there were enemies bouncing like tennis balls between a well and the other).
We lived with that 2 years, and nobody asked for a fix.
Instead, we got a *new* gravity well, looking perfect but useless.
I thought we were talking about ships, not captains.
However, i can confirm that psw3 worked well also for sci captains in sci ships, IF you invested some credits in particle generators consoles and with some timing in launching sensor scan or some attack pattern.
Mine did 20.750 damage, 40.000 with a sensor scan 3.
ofc, the sensor analysis is "supposed" to stack up to make the damage output equal to 8 weapons. But, this only affects hull, not shields
Photonic shockwave definitely needs more damage now, note that it doesn't require high aux which made it quite good for beam/cannon fits and tac captains (and BoPs). add 50-100% to the current damage then making it scale up to 200% with aux would avoid the dual cannon + death blast combo but it is nice having some science abilities not need full aux
Photonic officer makes for interesting fits, but could have percentages tweaked to suggest specific fits. IE: 1 makes 60s abilities drop to 45s, 2 makes 45s drop to 30s and 3 makes 30s drop to 15s. Also tac captain focused as tactical initiative provides enough of the same thing to make a build around it. EDIT: The tooltips on photonic officer are also completely wrong - it says 24% reduction for level 1, actually does 16% or so.
Gravity well is good in PVE though some things such as cure elite raptors appear to resist it now. Even with 125 aux and gravity well 3 they just don't get caught unless you actually take out their engines with another ability, it only slows them down.
Tykens rift damage is pathetic, it's about 1/3 of an equivalent gravity well. The power drain is just noticeable slowing down ships but not exactly huge.
Shield drain can be effective in PVE if you stack it ridiculously, mostly against enemies that distribute shields. To compare better (especially Re: resists) it would be nice for it to turn up in the combat log. A way to make it seem more effective would be to add 50% to the drain in the direction it comes from and lower the drain on the opposite face - obviously that makes it quite a bit more like regular weapons though.
Have you considered doing things similar to ground phasers - ie making stuns/sensor jam whatever/some subsystem disables last twice as long vs NPCs? Could also apply to feedback pulse, really.
I agree, and also sensor analysis is totally broken by kdf honour guard shield proc (you lose target, you lose your debuff).
Borticus take note, write it down:
- A PVE guy came here
- He says that his nebula build is useless now
- He agrees with us on almost everything
Now that is also a PVE problem, can you please fix the mess you just did.
Haha, I do pvp too but my point is I know there are others in the thread who know pvp WAY better than I do. Anyway, given that nebula was using photonics shock wave 3 as a torpedo equivalent with all beams... Yeah, instead of doing essentially a short range torpspread 3.5, it's a short range torp spread 1, stun being generally less valuable in PVE.
On the pvp side my views are probably skewed by mostly having opponents with no shield drain resists and so on, so CPB actually remains effective etc. As I like ships to be effective in both, I have no idea about viral matrix or jam/scramble sensors.
Oh, one thing with power drain is it really should scale by the square root in some cases, as if you drain twice as much power it does twice as much AND takes twice as long to come back. (4x effectiveness) That depends how it works though, whether the time it's regenerating for is long compared to the time it is just a static -x power. It sounds like tykens rift is one of these things if it literally does X per second, let's you boost it more without overpowering some fits :P
No, for two reasons:
1) This game had no documentation until F2P. And still has no documentation on how much a skill must affect the strength of an ability. The fact that PSW3 should receive the amount of damage that now has from particle generators is not written anywhere.
2) The correct sequence should: correct powers so that game mechanics are not broken and there is balance, THEN change documentation to reflect changes you've made to balance the game.
3) The community rules, not the documentation. If both PvP and PvE community agree that an ability is broken, is broken, whatever the documentation says.
But some abilities like charged particle burst were always TRIBBLE in PVE. Because instead of some sort of AI and self heals, the NPCs have 10x hps/shield points.
Totally agree with you.
It's very sad that we must hope that a broken ability affects also PvE so that it can be fixed.