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Whats with the "Tanks are getting shafted" fad lately?
standupguy86
Member Posts: 207 Arc User
Ive played this game off and on since it was released. And originally when I rolled my TAC Officer I went with Cruisers. I made it all the way up to Tier 4 and realized that my playstyle required me to change to another class of ship, so I moved over to Escorts.
Granted, I made the move mostly because of the lack of manueverability with Cruisers. But the handoff was obvious. With speed came less survivability. While I could move and turn faster, I was nothing more then a paperplate in a firestorm. Cruisers, on the other hand, didnt need to turn fast as all they had to do was buff themselves and an Escort might as well have been throwing rocks at a brick wall.
After playing both Cruisers and Escorts, I came to the conclusion that Escorts were the least favorite of Devs. Their layouts and survivability were laughable. While Cruisers and Sci Ships were diverse in their choices of builds. Escorts needed to conform the most to survive long enough in a fight with Cruisers and Sci Ships. Escorts have always come up short unless staying close to a friendly Cruiser. And heaven forbid youre in a PUG PvP match. The chances of being thrown a bone in PvP was slim to none.
But what I cant understand is why all of a sudden is there an outcry that Cruisers are getting the short end of the stick?
The Galaxy R gets 10k Hull more then the Tactical Escort Retrofit. It also has atleast 1k more in standard shields straight out the box. With buffs and the ability to bring up to 8 beam weapons to bear at one time. You dont need to turn on a dime to see that a Gal R is gonna punish an Escort.
So is this just people looking to get a serious tactical advantage or is it you dont know how to create a build worth using?
Granted, I made the move mostly because of the lack of manueverability with Cruisers. But the handoff was obvious. With speed came less survivability. While I could move and turn faster, I was nothing more then a paperplate in a firestorm. Cruisers, on the other hand, didnt need to turn fast as all they had to do was buff themselves and an Escort might as well have been throwing rocks at a brick wall.
After playing both Cruisers and Escorts, I came to the conclusion that Escorts were the least favorite of Devs. Their layouts and survivability were laughable. While Cruisers and Sci Ships were diverse in their choices of builds. Escorts needed to conform the most to survive long enough in a fight with Cruisers and Sci Ships. Escorts have always come up short unless staying close to a friendly Cruiser. And heaven forbid youre in a PUG PvP match. The chances of being thrown a bone in PvP was slim to none.
But what I cant understand is why all of a sudden is there an outcry that Cruisers are getting the short end of the stick?
The Galaxy R gets 10k Hull more then the Tactical Escort Retrofit. It also has atleast 1k more in standard shields straight out the box. With buffs and the ability to bring up to 8 beam weapons to bear at one time. You dont need to turn on a dime to see that a Gal R is gonna punish an Escort.
So is this just people looking to get a serious tactical advantage or is it you dont know how to create a build worth using?
Post edited by standupguy86 on
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The first issue is the setup of the group missions. Take CSE for example. I was in a PUG with 4 escorts and my Excelsior the other day, on CSE...we made the optional, with several minutes to spare. A few runs later, with my Excelsior and 4 other cruiser captains, we missed the optional by 4 seconds, even though we all knew what we were doing. DPS is king in PVE (leveling up any characer through PVE makes this clear), and tank is only strictly necessary in a select few situations.
Then you have the NPC nerfs. Every time we get a challenging opponent in PVE, the people who haven't been paying attention to what they're doing come to the forums and cry about it, instead of learning how to play the game. Remember that Gorn battleship in the Researcher Rescue mission? I never had a problem killing it, even at Lieutenant 8, in my Miranda...neither did several other people who came here to say, "IT'S A BOSS! IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE EASY!" Unfortunately, there were more whiners than voices of reason, so it got nerfed. That's just one example; when you don't have any enemies that put out a bunch of damage, a cruiser is just an over-tanked science ship with no abilities.
The third part of this problem is that most of the cruiser captains I see are NOT putting points into Starship Threat Management, and don't carry any abilities that are good for collecting aggro from multiple opponents simultaneously (Fire at Will, Torpedo Spread, etc.); it's kind of hard to tank when you can't gather and keep the aggro on yourself.
When 3 cruisers, a Varanus, and an escort are all shooting at Donatra, and the escort and Varanus keep pulling aggro, something is wrong, and it isn't the ship's fault. A lot of people also have no idea how to fly a cruiser aggressively, either...they run max shield power (which they don't need 99% of the time), and face the target all the time, instead of launching torpedo volleys, then rotating to broadside it while the torpedo volleys recharge. Many of them also sit there like a turret, thinking they're invulnerable or something, while they suffer the defense penalty for remaining stationary. Whenever I see someone staring down a Borg Cube like this, I always run over there, because I know they're screwed if I don't keep them alive...which is something cruisers should be doing for themselves 99% of the time.
In summation, I don't think the ship is the problem; it's many of the vocal people who fly them, as well as Cryptic repeatedly nerfing the DPS of the NPC's, to make the game easier for the people who whine about it, as well as their general level design that favours the ability to kill everything quickly.
You answered why you are having a survival problem with your escort.
That's my take on the "tanks getting shafted" thing, anyway.
Instead, they have to worry about dealing out burst damage with solid damage over time and only need modest amounts of heals.
Keep in mind I have little pvp experience but I do have tons of pve experience.
Things like Sci Team and Eng Team are not needed in PvE so Tac team becomes the obvious choice.
Even holds are rarely an issue in STFs from spheres/raptors cubes you just stay above or below and it doesn't matter if they tractor you. This makes APO/polarize hull unnecessary for the most part.
There are very few disables out their either, or power drains etc. NPCs don't really burst so much as try to wear you down so you don't need 'o TRIBBLE' buttons to avoid death. Nor do you have to worry about the enemy modifying the engagement by chasing you or fleeing to heal up or an extra one sneaking up on you.
So instead you can load up on Epower to shield, hazard emitter, TSS, and maybe another heal beside your tac team and not worry about being a paperplate in a firestorm. Because even a paperplate can survive if its built with quality.
you can beat elite STFs in a group of tier 4 sci ships so long as no one in your group is pants on head TRIBBLE
they are "boring DPS grindfests" BECAUSE they are easy... if they were harder, more enemies that had more HP and did more damage for example then players would need to play roles ... but when the enemies are so easy a pure DPS player can also tank it there is no real need or point to playing the other roles
I figured that out a long time ago actually. But that try to stay on topic.
This sig dedicated to the many random objects the Mythbusters crew has blow to smitherines
The differences between the class types would be fine, IF the game actually needed tanking. But it doesn't.
Tac in a Cruiser = Engineer in an Escort.
DPSwise that's pretty close. Many tests, Respecs, Fleet Talk, Testing, PVPing, etc.
So a Tac captain Shines in an Escort, And can even do good damage in a cruiser.
So a Tac is great at 2 classes of ships. An Escort or a cruiser.
An Engineer is not. At least not for the current state of the game.
An Engineer can tank in a cruiser. If only that was actually needed. So an Engineer only does great in a Escort. thats' sad. But, thats the state of the game as it is. Tanks simply Aren't needed. Hell Id love to buy the fleet star cruiser and be a tank with my Engineer. But Wont contribute much to any team I join for 90% of group content. It is an MMO after all I want to play with others. And I can contribute more in an escort. To me that's broken.
A tac rules in an escort.
A Sci still kicks TRIBBLE in a Sci ship or Carrier(Which is like a Sci ship)
Yet an engineer feels uneeded in the Cruiser.
So you end up with People drooling over the Idea of Cruisers with more tac options. But at that point, Should just get in an escort if your gonna fly some Hybrid. The Oddy seperated makes a good Hybrid, The new Sovie Refit makes a good Hybrid, But then again your Just trying to Mimic an escort, and since you can tank 90% of the content in an escort.....Just get in an escort. lol
Really actually wish there were things in the skill tree specific to the style ship your Using.
I believe Threat Control should only be an option if your in a Cruiser for one.
Since too many people spec into threat even in a Escort. For the bonus Dmg Res.
I'm still tempted to get the Fleet Star Cruiser for my Engie in hopes they add reasons for a tank to exist. But everythings such a DPS timed race. Blah.
On a certain level, I think they should have just made all the game's ship escorts, effectively.
But reversed front and forward damage versus control on sci ships and escorts (ie. sci ships have more rear weapons slots)... and made cruisers do escort DPS while broadsiding. And given none of the ships any particular survivability differences... although form of survivability would tend to vary between shields, hull, and evasion.
Same DPS. But Sci damages out the tail end, escorts forward fire, and cruisers broadside. Carriers would be proximity AoE. Same survivability but escorts have dodge, Sci have shields, and Cruisers have hull. Carriers are combo shields/hull, having almost as much shields and sci and hull as cruiser but less evasion than sci or cruisers get.
This is just my hindsight.
Science would get:
[Acc] x3
[ReducedCritH]x3 (against enemies)
Cruiser would get:
[CritH]x3
[ReducedCritD]x3 (against enemies
Escort would get:
[CritD]x3
[Dodge]x3 (against enemies)
I would also look at making evasion a proper resource like Shields and Hull. So you'd have your green hull bar, a white shield bar, and a red evasion bar.
The evasion bar is depleted VERY quickly but recharges almost instantly. So there's a limit on how many incoming attacks per second it can deflect but against, say, a single torpedo or low speed beam with no accuracy boost, you'd almost always dodge it.
Sci gets a beam bonus, cruiser gets a torpedo bonus, escort gets a cannon bonus. In terms of weapon TYPES in my imaginary re-engineered game, each ship's weapon type is best suited to ships of its own class. Which coupled with the paper rock scissors bonuses would lead to a high amount of "pairing off" based on weapon types.
Sci are adept at surviving against cruisers and damaging escorts; the great weakness of science ship is science ships. Cruisers are adept at surviving against escorts and damaging cruisers; the great weakness of cruisers is cruisers. Escorts are adept at surviving against Cruisers and damaging Science ships; the great weakness of escorts is escorts.
In general class v. class (ie. Escort v. Escort, Cruiser v. Cruiser) would be where things get long and brutal whereas other pairings would be more jerky and dice prone. If you want to test skill, you fight your own class. If you want unpredictability, you fight other classes.
This would create an interesting PvP balance as it would force skilled players to balance between the three classes or lose to less skilled players who would have a better chance at winning via luck in other ship classes.
Cruiser A gets released - is tough as boots. Escort pilots complain.
Escort A is released - rips boots to pieces.
Cruiser B is released - Escort A Struggles to destroy it.
Escort B is released - rips Cruiser A and B to shreds.
Escort C is released - rips Cruiser A and B to shreads
Cruiser C is released - Escorts bounce off it.
Just dpeends on what came out most recently basically, that said I do feel there's a certain element in this game who blame poor build strategy on poor ship design...
100% alive crew: 100% base damage
50% alive crew: 75% base damage
0% alive crew: 50% base damage
That way escorts would be very interested in not getting hit to often while cruisers could take several hits without loosing to much of dps. It would be crucial to have at least one tank with you while doing Elite STFs.
The special goodie for science ships could be that their dps is independend of their alive crew.
Your idea is to punish players into piloting cruisers, that's such a bad idea its already a game design philosophy abandoned by WoW. People equate piloting cruisers with being punished.... they feel they should be ultra death machines to make up for their incredibly slow and ponderous maneuvering. Not all cruiser pilots feel that way but I would say most do, if only on a subconscious level.
What happened was that Cryptic made cruisers TOO slow, TOO defensive. While escorts are better balanced with the PvE content. The problem is a design issue with how cruisers are balanced, they are made to withstand WAY more damage than they're likely to encounter. In essence they are overspending "build points" on defenses they don't really need. If a cruiser could be more offensive and maneuverable at the cost of defenses I don't think we'd be having this discussion at all. I understand KDF battlecruisers are just such ships, sacrificing defenses for extra damage and agility. TBH I'm no expert on KDF ships, but threads bemoaning the state of Bcruisers are not too common for them.
A full group of Escorts will easily blaze through an instance. A full group of Cruisers and/or Science Vessels will have issues, and may very well fail the instance since they're not killing things fast enough.
The pendulum has swung too far in favor of Damage Over Everything.
if anything its escorts that need a rethink
Ideally they need more armour and more weapon hard points
so they can compete with the Cruisers a little better
Absolutely not. I want to punish groups doing an Elite STF without at least one tanking cruiser. And I think there are enough cruiser captains out there to make this possible. Escorts would still be by far the highest damage dealers - as long as they do not get the aggro from an enemy ship.
The problem with the idea is that crew dies / gets disabled if you sneeze too hard, in any ship really. The ability to hold threat is partially based on damage, and if you start taking damage away from a ship already doing far less damage than the escorts...poof, you lost threat.
In which case damage to crew could be adjusted and threat generation from the special skill increased.
Then you still run into more problems. What about solo play? You flat out penalize anyone not in a cruiser. How exactly does crew death work? Does x damage cause y deaths? What's to stop an escort captain from taking that skill too? You'd also penalize dps for being caught in splash damage from explosions, torp spead, etc. You'd cripple escorts and render them no threat in pvp after you hit them a few times and kill some crew. Die in an STF? Now you can wait for the respawn timer AND for crew to regenerate before you can get back into the fight, in a carrier you might as well take your ball and go home, since you're now worthless for a few minutes. I'm sure there's more if I really thought about it.
The question is - what's the role of a cruiser? It's supposed to take a lot of incoming damage and save escorts' a***. Right now there's no sense in that because escort craft can tank nearly as good as cruisers but have a lot more of a damage dealing potential.
In my opinion Tactical Team is to blame and specifically what it does to shields. If an escort is equipped with TT (show me which one isn't) then cruiser is not needed any more. Just get rid of automatic shield distribution. No one will like it but in the end everybody will loose equally - be it an escort, a cruiser or a science ship. That way cruisers will get an occupation and mixed teams will be sought after.
Cruisers are slow and (mostly) clumsy. That's why they have better shields and hull. Escorts are fast and nimble so they can change the shield facing an enemy quickly. Tactical Team only makes people lazy and throws game out of balance.
A good fix would be Fix Tac Team, PLUS double the amount of Hull HP on Cruisers. The Hull size difference between an Escort and a Cruiser is a joke as it stands right now. This in turn would also make them Engineering Console slots mean more for Armor on a Cruiser, IMO.
The Hull does not need increasing. Cruisers can go about their business in PvP without worrying about Escorts if they actually cared to take a hard look at what their build is doing.
I can agree that Tac Team might need a fix but Ive flown against plenty of Cruisers that were completely impenetrable to my attacks no matter how long I beat on its shields and hull.
What's preventing tanking cruisers from getting into STFs? I pretty much only pug and a cruiser with the threat talent that is also a competent enough damage dealer is incredibly rare. A good tanking cruiser is a delicate balancing act between doing damage (gasp! not using full power to shields all the time!!) and defense... its much harder to play than the average zombie cruiser that thinks its super awesome in STFs.
I still say cruisers aren't as bad off as they say, its just most cruiser pilots need to learn to play and make good builds for their ships and captains.
Step 1: Cruisers are the strongest Ships in the game (not damage, overall performance).
Step 2: As a result, more players flock to Cruisers. I'm sure everyone noticed Cruisers vastly outnumber all other Ships.
Step 3: Some of the bandwagonners are either terrible players, munchkins or both.
Step 4: Those players vocally profess how Cruisers are worthless.
Step 5: Newer players assume the vocal players from above are right because they're numerous.
Step 6: "Cruisers are getting shafted" is a widely-adopted belief and the belief is self-perpetuating.
Happens in most online games, tbh.
Tackling another myth; the "tanking isn't needed in STFs" myth: it is, especially when the team has lower damage.
An Escort can sometimes tank a Tac Cube from 100% to 0%. Sometimes. One needs a few lucky procs (Borg set, Shield Distribution DOFFs...) to pull it off and/or allies that can contribute to killing the Tac Cube fast.
In practice, the 'scort with the highest DPS usually explodes because none of the Cruisers present are even trying to tank.
My complaints about the Gal-R weren't that it couldn't tank at all, rather that it pales compared to other cruisers for a dozen reasons.
I doubt anyone is really complaining that cruisers can't tank (God help the soul who meets a properly-flown Eng cruiser). Rather I personally feel that Fed cruisers don't gain enough of a unique tanking benefit to justify their horrendous turn rates and lackluster threat.
EDIT:
We have a WinRar.
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
This is actually a fun idea but unfortunately "crew" is really messed up at the minute... lose it once and without a Nurse it's extremely hard to get it back, you'd just see teams in the queues carrying a dedicated torp spam/theta vent to make the opponents' scorts' lives hell.
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
Take cure for example, when killing the nanite probes how often are we being shot at by the cube? Or do most of us just sit barely out of its range. In Infected how many of us actually fight the sphere spawns and how many of us just use the 10% rule? KASE is just a DPS fest but even there how often do you blow one side completely before swapping to the other?
Then there are the cubes, normal and tac, that you can just stay out of their torpedo arc, and the gates that don't fire back if you know where to be...
If the STFs had to be done properly then I don't think this would be as much of an issue. Those gates can hit pretty frelling hard as can the cubes if you don't hide from the torpedoes. Those are the times when I'm happy that I left the escort at home and brought the cruiser.
Granted, then the silly time limit on the optional would become a big issue but I don't even want to talk about those...