I for 1 would rather not do as much damage as Escorts do now but escorts now are too tanky for their damage, for the cruisers survivability the pay a lot of damage and a lot of speed.
I sit my engineer's cruiser at 5km and it puts out about 500 damage per hit using 6 beams with EPtW in play. My tactical's escort at the same distance and same quality weapons puts out more damage with no buffs.
So yeah... no escort should out-DPS a cruiser at 5Km while both are unbuffed nevermind when the cruiser has EPtW in play and the escort is unbuffed, that is silly so yeah cruisers should get a slight buff and the Borg set should take a nerf considering it can give escorts the power to tank a cruiser while it sits and pummels it to death.
I for 1 would rather not do as much damage as Escorts do now but escorts now are too tanky for their damage, for the cruisers survivability the pay a lot of damage and a lot of speed.
I sit my engineer's cruiser at 5km and it puts out about 500 damage per hit using 6 beams with EPtW in play. My tactical's escort at the same distance and same quality weapons puts out more damage with no buffs.
So yeah... no escort should out-DPS a cruiser at 5Km while both are unbuffed nevermind when the cruiser has EPtW in play and the escort is unbuffed, that is silly so yeah cruisers should get a slight buff and the Borg set should take a nerf considering it can give escorts the power to tank a cruiser while it sits and pummels it to death.
the borg set goes off at random and it is a 1 in every 100 shot chance of it going off that alone is why it is not nerfed and i have got my cruiser up to 600 and 700 damage un modified. also i have seen instances where DPS is not really enough and a escort does not have the powers to help out in a STF cruisers are the backbone of any engagement they draw the attention away from the escorts and sci ships and make sure they can't do a thing to move. managed to do this pretty well with my assault cruiser set up and it tanks second to none even under heavy fire
Meh, its a silly solution at best and solves nothing.
Well a buff of the cruiser is better than nerfing the escorts. With just an ensign engie boff slot they can still use EptS1 . Better than nothing. And they still have the science slots to use other shield heals.
That way Cruisers would be useful as tanks and healers in STF's. Escorts would need do watch their base so that they don't overpower the tanks ability to generate aggro.
Something that is a standart procedure in other MMO's .
(So optional would be something you really have to work for xD)
I wonder if it is even possible to get an balance with the different characters and ship classes.
All becuase a subsection of the fanbase believes at thier core the Cruiser should be the prefered vessel to play and all others secondary. All becuase of hubris.
A Escort with the look of an cruiser would be nice. Because I really like cruisers :-P An Assault Cruiser should have the stats, boffs etc of the Advanced Escorts. Would even be in line with the lore xD Not every escort needs to be small ;-)
basically the more you are shot at the better the chance for one or both to go off i have had the procs not go off in a situation where i would have loved them too it is random so it either saves your butt from blowing up or you get your butt blown up either way the set is good as is and should not be messed with since cruisers can capitalize on the regens as well not just escorts.
Any escort looking for the full potential of damage is not flying with the Borg set.....
That would be the Omega or the Jem'Hadar they would be using.
Just take a look at the sets and you will understand why...
And for the last time.
Cruisers deal damage over time + substantial better healing/ defense in comparison to escorts.
Escorts deal spike damage + reduced healing in comparison to cruisers.
Unless they turn this game on its head, that will NEVER change. EVER. So move on already.
If Cryptic allowed Cruisers which make the best healers in the game deal damage output comparable to escorts it will see the end of both the SCI and TAC ships in this game. Everyone will just fly the cruiser.
Repeatedly I see cruiser enthusiasts suggest things in the game that are so counter productive its scary.
Just so they can kill stuff, they are willing to TRIBBLE over their own offensive teammates.
Just like crying "nerf the Borg set" in this thread, though most cruiser players are the ones using that for structural integrity and tractor bonus.... I know both my cruisers swop to that when there is a heavy hitter on the opposing side. (Have you ever considered /tell your team that there is a focused target? Most escorts buckle under concentrated fire - that is the cruiser's best defense.)
TIP from 2 years of PvP: Being hampered by the escorts?
1.) Make sure that you have Chr.mines equipped. It doesn't deal damage. It slows them down, and takes away from their freedom of maneuverability.
2.) Use eject warp plasma only as an defensive when you are struggling to shake a escort + evasive manu.
3.) Switch to high shield strength the moment you come under attack. Forget high weapon damage for the moment. Cycle your defenses, and when the escort shows signs of weakening, switch to high weapons power. You have the upper hand here. You can out-tank any escort.
4.) Replace any powers that have shared CD. In battle they are useless to you.
5.) Consider equipping one of your TAC's Boff's with Beam Target Weapons Subsystem. (I only use TT/ FAW II or TT/ BTWS)
6.) BO is a very difficult skill to master. If you are firing off all your weapons using one keybind, you make well be wasting all your weapons power on an array which is pointless. You have to time it right so that the Dual Beam Bank fires the BO to get the desired effect. And if you are running in defensive BO is wasted, and you would get better results from shutting down your opponents weapons with BTWS.
I fly two cruisers and support my team, and I only ever die when I am focused on or when I try and play a one-man game.
I examined my build for its potential to support my team. Now days my team thanks me, and they always have my back when there is an escort determined to kill me. He rarely succeeds - as my team are provided the opportunity to go about their task at hand, knowing well that their window-of-opportunity to take risks is substantially greater with a dedicated healer.
Any escort looking for the full potential of damage is not flying with the Borg set.....
That would be the Omega or the Jem'Hadar they would be using.
Just take a look at the sets and you will understand why...
And for the last time.
Cruisers deal damage over time + substantial better healing/ defense in comparison to escorts.
Escorts deal spike damage + reduced healing in comparison to cruisers.
Unless they turn this game on its head, that will NEVER change. EVER. So move on already.
If Cryptic allowed Cruisers which make the best healers in the game deal damage output comparable to escorts it will see the end of both the SCI and TAC ships in this game. Everyone will just fly the cruiser.
Well a buff of the cruiser is better than nerfing the escorts.
I agree, though many ideas have already been given to help the Cruiser that do not directly buff them. Why have these ideas been overlooked or ignored?
I wonder if it is even possible to get an balance with the different characters and ship classes.
Not completely, no. With partial roles and partial nods to the holy trinity and the ability to play any vessel, no vessel is going to be purley balanced to be able to work well with all character classes.
A Escort with the look of an cruiser would be nice. Because I really like cruisers :-P An Assault Cruiser should have the stats, boffs etc of the Advanced Escorts. Would even be in line with the lore xD Not every escort needs to be small
With just the BOffs of an escort and all the stats of a Crusier, you get an unfair arraingment of having all the firepower of the escort with all the tank of a cruiser.
Without that high turn the vessel is not going to use CRF3/CSV3 very well as a tier 4 tac ability. Give it too high a turn and it replaces the need for an escort.
Keep its hull or shields too high and it can't be killed.
The other ideas though, they may have worked.
1) +1-2 points turnrate buff across the board for Cruisers and Battle Cruisers.
2) new weapon, Heavy beam bank. Now the Cruiser has a DHC level weapon with a better firing arc.
3) new BOff abilities; A beam version of CRF (abr. FFE), implemented at Ensign to LTC Tiers.
Now a Cruiser can Broadside CRF with beam arrays, or use a more direct frontal assault with Dual beams or Heavy beams.
Builds like this would be possible:
Assualt Cruiser Refit
Ensign: TT1
LTC: HY1 FFE2 FFE3 (instead of BO2/BO3 or BFAW2/BFAW3)
LT: EPTA1 EPTS2
Com: EPTS1 ET2 ES2 A2Sif3
LT: HE1 TSS2
A vessel that can heal and lay down beam fire for a grand bonus of +50% Beam damage using the new BOff ability at FFE3. Imagine it under a player who knows how to overclock beam damage. The Cruiser becomes a heavy hitter without bumping anybody from that role, but only if the player is wise enough to use it correctly.
This is what I can see the Crusier becoming, if played smartly and one accepts that the Cruiser is not the DD-spike vessel.
You mean like a subsection of the fanbase believes at THEIR core the Escort should be the preferred vessel to play and all others secondary and the same with a subsection of the fanbase and the Science ships?
Exactly.
Every vessel class, Cruiser, Escort, Science, all have thier subset of fans, but none of those vessel classes are the one prefered vessel of STO.
So why should the Cruiser get another change becuase the fans of the cruiser dislikes the way it has been designed?
A LTC tac BOff Assualt Cruiser refit exists to give the Cruiser fan a DPS platform, so why is it not a good one for the community?
Many ideas have been given that solve the issue and do not directly buff Cruisers (except one: turnrate buff) or the Engineer class, but would allow them to use the new and old BOff abilities and new and old weapons to better create thier DPS cruiser.
All without taking away from the tactical Class or the escort as the DD class/vessel combo.
All without having to directly buff the Cruiser to make it seem more of a bad TRIBBLE damage dealer.
People should re-read everything drkfrontiers just posted a billion times and have it glued to their ceiling like a pop star poster spread before getting the privileges to complain about cruiser power. I'm dead serious.
With just the BOffs of an escort and all the stats of a Crusier, you get an unfair arraingment of having all the firepower of the escort with all the tank of a cruiser.
Without that high turn the vessel is not going to use CRF3/CSV3 very well as a tier 4 tac ability. Give it too high a turn and it replaces the need for an escort.
Keep its hull or shields too high and it can't be killed.
The other ideas though, they may have worked.
1) +1-2 points turnrate buff across the board for Cruisers and Battle Cruisers.
2) new weapon, Heavy beam bank. Now the Cruiser has a DHC level weapon with a better firing arc.
3) new BOff abilities; A beam version of CRF (abr. FFE), implemented at Ensign to LTC Tiers.
Now a Cruiser can Broadside CRF with beam arrays, or use a more direct frontal assault with Dual beams or Heavy beams.
Builds like this would be possible:
Assualt Cruiser Refit
Ensign: TT1
LTC: HY1 FFE2 FFE3 (instead of BO2/BO3 or BFAW2/BFAW3)
LT: EPTA1 EPTS2
Com: EPTS1 ET2 ES2 A2Sif3
LT: HE1 TSS2
A vessel that can heal and lay down beam fire for a grand bonus of +50% Beam damage using the new BOff ability at FFE3. Imagine it under a player who knows how to overclock beam damage. The Cruiser becomes a heavy hitter without bumping anybody from that role, but only if the player is wise enough to use it correctly.
This is what I can see the Crusier becoming, if played smartly and one accepts that the Cruiser is not the DD-spike vessel.
This is the second time i am happy to completely agree with you.
I like your new FFE (?) BOFF ability, one question though, why not make it a Engineering BOFF power?
Since Cruisers have a high emphasis on Engineering BOFF slots, i think it would be suitable to make this a enginering power. On the other hand most cruisers tac slots are too low anyway, and it would be good for Engineering Captains so their skills would benefit this power instead of Tac skills.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i am unable to find the right words in my native language already.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
People should re-read everything drkfrontiers just posted a billion times and have it glued to their ceiling like a pop star poster spread before getting the privileges to complain about cruiser power. I'm dead serious.
Why do you want to buff the damage of cruisers ? There is absolutely no reason for that. Tell me which competently piloted cruiser will die to an escort ?
The other way around I'm toast in my escort/bop as soon as I suffer a mobility kill.
But lets go to PvE, since that is the more important part of STO.
CSE: you can't tank the cubes with an escort.
Solution A: shooting the probes from below, sitting at least 8 km away from the cube and cutting your DPS by 50%.
Solution B: Have a cruiser tank for you and shoot from an optimal range of 2 km doing full damage. Plus the cruiser adds some more damage while tanking.
ISE: Not worth talking about, you could do this in a pimped shuttle.
So, in case you give cruisers more damage, there is no reason to fly escorts anymore in pve. That is imo already the case for KDF. The marginal damage advantage of a craptor over a Tor'kaht or Kar'fi isn't worth the loss in tank and utility. And most of the time I do more damage with said ships then any escorts because I don't have to retreat or wait for respawn.
The only cruisers that spring to my mind that are really gimped are the Galaxy and the Negh'var. The eng ensign is pretty much useless for reasons that have been discussed umpteen times.
DHC damage is ok. I don't want to lower this. Cruiser exclusive heavy beam array for long range heavy broadsides will be great, but I could live without it.
Now, repairing cannon power consumption and making it so that it works like beam one and like it was. 3 (or 4?) seasons ago - that will be great. Such fix won't affect (too much) spike damage of escorts, but their sustained damage will suffer. Currently there is not much difference between DHC and beams in sustained damage as long as escort is able to point it's guns on target. I would even argue that cannons are better and both sustained and spike as long as they are kept both on target for same time.
Better would be an redesign of certain skills and mechanics like TT an EptS.
Because I'm either a really worthless Cruiser pilot or my Escort is really sturdy :cool:
So you had a look around the forums, found some threads that you liked and decided to repeat some of the names of powers you read there? Did you not see all the cruiser pilots that bothered to learn their ships say they were quite powerful?
I for one am fed up of this. It's time to end the DPS race for a start, give all ships the ability to deal damage in their own way and for no 1 ship to be so powerful as to make the others look completely incompetent,
While I cannot speak for Sci Vessels, Cruisers can do competitive damage while retaining superior durability. If you can't do it while others can where do you think the fault lies?
DHC damage is ok. I don't want to lower this. Cruiser exclusive heavy beam array for long range heavy broadsides will be great, but I could live without it.
I would like the HBA, make it a cruiser only weapon, low rate of fire, limit 1 or 2 per end with a 200 deg FA with some high damage to supplement the rest of the beams in the broadside.
Now, repairing cannon power consumption and making it so that it works like beam one and like it was. 3 (or 4?) seasons ago - that will be great. Such fix won't affect (too much) spike damage of escorts, but their sustained damage will suffer. Currently there is not much difference between DHC and beams in sustained damage as long as escort is able to point it's guns on target. I would even argue that cannons are better and both sustained and spike as long as they are kept both on target for same time.
I have to agree with your closing statement and they are better than beams for sustained and spike, I can tell you now that they do about 2x the damage per hit of beams and fire two volleys for every 1 a beam fires, so yes DHCs do need to be toned down a little and/or Beams need to be brought up a tad to balance the two weapons
Cruisers can do competitive damage while retaining superior durability. If you can't do it while others can where do you think the fault lies?
Oh don't give me this again, As it is I run a build cycling EPtS and EPtW with at least 95% uptime on both (game engine lag) but even with this I am limited to just over 500 DPH at 5km so I end up with just over 3k DPV and yet my escort UNBUFFED I might add will out do this at the same distance.
I really don't get this thread... we have people that are completely incapable of making a competitive cruiser dictating the new weapons cruisers need? Do you think any dev really takes this seriously?
We have people flying dreads in our fleet laying down impressive dps, from a ship most people think is only flown by newbs.
I recently levelled up an engineer, subpar in a standard escort, does well in a cruiser though, it took some tweaks to get it right. I even loaded up the eng in a eng heavy Chimera (one tact spot only) and it is pulling almost 5k damage. If anything the experience as made me realize that tacts aren't as op as I thought
well it is still a fact that some few people can do competitive dmg with certain cruisers.
it all depends on the player + the build. If either one is flawed...well work on it. If you copied a build that is proven to be competitive, guess what part of the equation needs to be improved.
If you copied a build that is proven to be competitive, guess what part of the equation needs to be improved.
Well this I did with my cruiser and I can tank but my damage is still pathetic lower buffed at 5km than my unbuffed escort at the same distance, please explain how that works.
Firstly, are they by any chance tacticals? Even I can tell that the ship is build for a tactical.
Well this I did with my cruiser and I can tank but my damage is still pathetic lower buffed at 5km than my unbuffed escort at the same distance, please explain how that works.
on hit numbers give the facts, they are the real picture, the on hit numbers are what MATTER
The pre-fire numbers are just theoretical but if you really want pre-fire numbers then you'll find the DHC is higher then the Beam array and you will find the cooldown to be 1/2 that of the Beam array so overall you WILL do more damage using a DHC than you will using a Beam array, in fact if you run 3 DHCs you will be on a par with 8 beams, anything more is surplus on any cruiser... I fail to see how THAT is balanced, then you add buffs and that gap continues too grow and I again fail to see the balance. Now I ACCEPT that cruisers will NOT keep up with escorts but that does not mean they should be made to look incompetent, I want the games combat system returned to what it was in February when I joined and you couldn't just go through the story using unbuffed DC/DHC fire.
all in all endgame PvE needs a change, the DPS race needs to end, DPS needs to be just another way of killing a target just as a broadside should be a successful way of killing something and science tricks should be a successful way of killing something but in different ways. Sadly the current system makes DPS the only way to kill something, you're complaining that if cruisers got a buff to competence in the current system there would be no reason to fly an escort well frankly with the borg set there in no reason to fly a cruiser in the current system.
That assumes constant, sustained fire, right? Firing arcs dictate that you'll often be able to keep dual beam banks trained on your target longer than cannons. And then there's the chance of high burst damage overwhelming a target's healing ability and killing them before they can recover, while the higher DPS weapon didn't quite push it past that threshold fast enough. Arguably narrow circumstances, but they all merit consideration. Higher DPS on "paper" doesn't necessarily mean you always make things explode faster.
That assumes constant, sustained fire, right? Firing arcs dictate that you'll often be able to keep dual beam banks trained on your target longer than cannons. And then there's the chance of high burst damage overwhelming a target's healing ability and killing them before they can recover, while the higher DPS weapon didn't quite push it past that threshold fast enough. Arguably narrow circumstances, but they all merit consideration. Higher DPS on "paper" doesn't necessarily mean you always make things explode faster.
And the poor player broadsides that anyone who knows rotate shield freqs and TT will laugh at no matter how strong it is? Seriously I use RSF and TT together and my shields regen faster than ANY cruisers broadside is damaging them and in the event another cruiser should add to this I add TSS which counters that as well... that alone shows how pathetic broadsides are
This is starting to make me sick. Allow me to reiterate the roles of the ships:
ESCORT: Primary DD/Killer/DPS with enough sustain to survive their passes, but under focused fire, die. Primary weapon of choice: DHC/DBB
CRUISER: Tank/Healer/Support Damage. Survive all but the heaviest of assaults and can still deal OK damage. Takes a while to kill if cruiser built right.
Primary weapon of choice: Beam Arrays
SCIENCE VESSEL: Mind fk. Plain and simple. Either A) Drain builds that leave your ship pretty much a drifting hulk that can then be torped to death, or CC heavy that leaves your ship vulnerable to being destroyed by someone else (usually yes, the ESCORT). Also make pretty good shield tanks.
Primary weapon of choice: Not Entirely Sure
And these guys are right. You CAN build a cruiser with high damage output. I would know, I made one lol. Granted I ain't as tanky as I could be, but my DD ability is great, or at least better than it was before. The best and easiest way to get max damage potential from your cruiser is to divert all power to weapons and keep an EPtW cycling. Also throw in APB or APD and you're gold. TT helps to (that extra 18 damage actually is noticeable).
Cruisers do constant sustained damage. I have actually drawn aggro off of escorts in stfs simply because my sustained damage, even though it takes longer, can actually catch up to their spike damage. And once I draw aggro, I tend to never lose it.
Cuz here's the catch with escorts/tac captains. A large amount of their damage comes from APB and FOMM. And guess what, APB can also be used by EVERYONE ELSE, along with FOMM. If there is a tac captain hitting the same target I am, and they use FOMM, and combine that with both of our APBs (or just mine if the tac decides to be selfish and hit APO3), my sustained damage output can often exceed their spike damage. They get 10 seconds of 5-8k damage per hit from their DHCs, but guess what, I get 30 seconds of 1500-2k per hit from EACH beam array. That's 6 to their 4. So I am doing between 36k-48k with each salvo of 4 shots (sometimes even more if I blow a BFAW + nadion inversion + EPS, I think my max spike was 2500 sustained per hit, which brought my salvo damage up to 60k easily), for 20-30 seconds (that comes down to 4-6 salvos), whereas they are doing 2 salvos of about 80k damage, followed by 2 standard 5-10k salvos. Do the numbers there and it comes down to my ship doing anywhere from 150k to 240k total damage in that burst period, and the escort doing 170-180k with spikes of up to 270k (crit dependent) damage. Now with damage that high, please don't tell me cruisers are TRIBBLE DD... (yes, I had to learn this the hard way)
Something I have come to realized is that engis don't need the APXs that escorts do. Our weapon of choice is actually one of the most balanced weapons as ranges go. We only lose out at most 35% of our total damage, even at max range, whereas cannons can lose up to 60% of their damage at max range. Cannons also start to lose out on their max damage from closer than beam arrays. We do STABLE damage, not spikes. Engis are masters of power management. Run damage control DOffs, and you can keep your power levels at crazily high levels almost constantly. For example, on my Tac Oddy, I can keep my weapons at a stable 150 power and my shields at around 100 power just with EPtS1 and EPtW2 constantly cycling. Since I have two Purple DC DOffs, that's two 35% procs, which usually means that I tend to get the reduced CDs almost every time. Add in my Purple Technician DOff, and even if I don't get the proc, it still reduces CD by 10%, meaning I don't have to wait as long. And with 150 weapons power (sometimes more, sometimes less), my power doesn't drop below 100 until partway through my 6th arrays firing cycle. And if I get really lucky, my power doesn't go below 100, and my beam arrays are doing over 2x damage for their entire firing cycle. That's 700-1200 per shot. CONSTANTLY. My damage per salvo ends up being anywhere from 14k-16k. Consistently. At max range, it drops off to around 10k, but still, that's pretty nasty. It all comes down to power management. And liberal usage of APB.
Even without APB, my shots always do at least 700 per hit. Often more, depending on what I am shooting at. So the thing is, cruisers have a lot of bite, but it depends on which particular cruiser (Oddy Tac cruiser is probably if not the best for damage dealing, at least a close second behind the galor, and by far the best damage dealer with saucer sep active), and how good you are at power management. Cuz tbh, beam arrays hit really hard above 100 power, pretty dang hard at 100 power, and still relatively hard between 80-90. It's once they drop below 75 power that you start to really lose damage, but a good engi will be able to keep his/her weapons power at or above 90 with the proper power management.
*throws up in a corner*
Just gotta learn to play cruisers better and learn which cruisers work well, and which abilities to use.
Because even with all this damage output, I still have 8 heals available to me from the rest of my engi+sci. And only 2 of them are on a shared cd, and that's my TSS1 and TSS2. Which doesn't matter cuz you can chain the two of them together. And those 8 heals can keep myself/allies alive.
So basically I am a cruiser doing it all. Decent damage output (not escort level, but still decent), and a healer that can burst heal 20k followed by 10k HoT without putting power to aux, and with power to aux, I can burst heal 28k followed by almost 15k HoT. All this because I bothered to listen to what the pro (or equivalent thereof) PvP and PvE guys were saying. That and some experimentation on my part.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Comments
I sit my engineer's cruiser at 5km and it puts out about 500 damage per hit using 6 beams with EPtW in play. My tactical's escort at the same distance and same quality weapons puts out more damage with no buffs.
So yeah... no escort should out-DPS a cruiser at 5Km while both are unbuffed nevermind when the cruiser has EPtW in play and the escort is unbuffed, that is silly so yeah cruisers should get a slight buff and the Borg set should take a nerf considering it can give escorts the power to tank a cruiser while it sits and pummels it to death.
the borg set goes off at random and it is a 1 in every 100 shot chance of it going off that alone is why it is not nerfed and i have got my cruiser up to 600 and 700 damage un modified. also i have seen instances where DPS is not really enough and a escort does not have the powers to help out in a STF cruisers are the backbone of any engagement they draw the attention away from the escorts and sci ships and make sure they can't do a thing to move. managed to do this pretty well with my assault cruiser set up and it tanks second to none even under heavy fire
Well a buff of the cruiser is better than nerfing the escorts. With just an ensign engie boff slot they can still use EptS1 . Better than nothing. And they still have the science slots to use other shield heals.
That way Cruisers would be useful as tanks and healers in STF's. Escorts would need do watch their base so that they don't overpower the tanks ability to generate aggro.
Something that is a standart procedure in other MMO's .
(So optional would be something you really have to work for xD)
I wonder if it is even possible to get an balance with the different characters and ship classes.
A Escort with the look of an cruiser would be nice. Because I really like cruisers :-P An Assault Cruiser should have the stats, boffs etc of the Advanced Escorts. Would even be in line with the lore xD Not every escort needs to be small ;-)
Really? It feels like 1 in 10
basically the more you are shot at the better the chance for one or both to go off i have had the procs not go off in a situation where i would have loved them too it is random so it either saves your butt from blowing up or you get your butt blown up either way the set is good as is and should not be messed with since cruisers can capitalize on the regens as well not just escorts.
That would be the Omega or the Jem'Hadar they would be using.
Just take a look at the sets and you will understand why...
And for the last time.
Cruisers deal damage over time + substantial better healing/ defense in comparison to escorts.
Escorts deal spike damage + reduced healing in comparison to cruisers.
Unless they turn this game on its head, that will NEVER change. EVER. So move on already.
If Cryptic allowed Cruisers which make the best healers in the game deal damage output comparable to escorts it will see the end of both the SCI and TAC ships in this game. Everyone will just fly the cruiser.
You know what the insane thing is.
Repeatedly I see cruiser enthusiasts suggest things in the game that are so counter productive its scary.
Just so they can kill stuff, they are willing to TRIBBLE over their own offensive teammates.
Just like crying "nerf the Borg set" in this thread, though most cruiser players are the ones using that for structural integrity and tractor bonus.... I know both my cruisers swop to that when there is a heavy hitter on the opposing side. (Have you ever considered /tell your team that there is a focused target? Most escorts buckle under concentrated fire - that is the cruiser's best defense.)
TIP from 2 years of PvP: Being hampered by the escorts?
1.) Make sure that you have Chr.mines equipped. It doesn't deal damage. It slows them down, and takes away from their freedom of maneuverability.
2.) Use eject warp plasma only as an defensive when you are struggling to shake a escort + evasive manu.
3.) Switch to high shield strength the moment you come under attack. Forget high weapon damage for the moment. Cycle your defenses, and when the escort shows signs of weakening, switch to high weapons power. You have the upper hand here. You can out-tank any escort.
4.) Replace any powers that have shared CD. In battle they are useless to you.
5.) Consider equipping one of your TAC's Boff's with Beam Target Weapons Subsystem. (I only use TT/ FAW II or TT/ BTWS)
6.) BO is a very difficult skill to master. If you are firing off all your weapons using one keybind, you make well be wasting all your weapons power on an array which is pointless. You have to time it right so that the Dual Beam Bank fires the BO to get the desired effect. And if you are running in defensive BO is wasted, and you would get better results from shutting down your opponents weapons with BTWS.
I fly two cruisers and support my team, and I only ever die when I am focused on or when I try and play a one-man game.
I examined my build for its potential to support my team. Now days my team thanks me, and they always have my back when there is an escort determined to kill me. He rarely succeeds - as my team are provided the opportunity to go about their task at hand, knowing well that their window-of-opportunity to take risks is substantially greater with a dedicated healer.
:cool: Now we can close the thread :-)
R.I.P
R.I.P
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[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
I like your new FFE (?) BOFF ability, one question though, why not make it a Engineering BOFF power?
Since Cruisers have a high emphasis on Engineering BOFF slots, i think it would be suitable to make this a enginering power. On the other hand most cruisers tac slots are too low anyway, and it would be good for Engineering Captains so their skills would benefit this power instead of Tac skills.
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i am unable to find the right words in my native language already.
I am humbled. Thank you.
The other way around I'm toast in my escort/bop as soon as I suffer a mobility kill.
But lets go to PvE, since that is the more important part of STO.
CSE: you can't tank the cubes with an escort.
Solution A: shooting the probes from below, sitting at least 8 km away from the cube and cutting your DPS by 50%.
Solution B: Have a cruiser tank for you and shoot from an optimal range of 2 km doing full damage. Plus the cruiser adds some more damage while tanking.
ISE: Not worth talking about, you could do this in a pimped shuttle.
KASE: Escorts rarely survive Donatras torp salvos, cruisers do.
So, in case you give cruisers more damage, there is no reason to fly escorts anymore in pve. That is imo already the case for KDF. The marginal damage advantage of a craptor over a Tor'kaht or Kar'fi isn't worth the loss in tank and utility. And most of the time I do more damage with said ships then any escorts because I don't have to retreat or wait for respawn.
The only cruisers that spring to my mind that are really gimped are the Galaxy and the Negh'var. The eng ensign is pretty much useless for reasons that have been discussed umpteen times.
Now, repairing cannon power consumption and making it so that it works like beam one and like it was. 3 (or 4?) seasons ago - that will be great. Such fix won't affect (too much) spike damage of escorts, but their sustained damage will suffer. Currently there is not much difference between DHC and beams in sustained damage as long as escort is able to point it's guns on target. I would even argue that cannons are better and both sustained and spike as long as they are kept both on target for same time.
So you had a look around the forums, found some threads that you liked and decided to repeat some of the names of powers you read there? Did you not see all the cruiser pilots that bothered to learn their ships say they were quite powerful?
While I cannot speak for Sci Vessels, Cruisers can do competitive damage while retaining superior durability. If you can't do it while others can where do you think the fault lies?
I would like the HBA, make it a cruiser only weapon, low rate of fire, limit 1 or 2 per end with a 200 deg FA with some high damage to supplement the rest of the beams in the broadside.
I have to agree with your closing statement and they are better than beams for sustained and spike, I can tell you now that they do about 2x the damage per hit of beams and fire two volleys for every 1 a beam fires, so yes DHCs do need to be toned down a little and/or Beams need to be brought up a tad to balance the two weapons
Oh don't give me this again, As it is I run a build cycling EPtS and EPtW with at least 95% uptime on both (game engine lag) but even with this I am limited to just over 500 DPH at 5km so I end up with just over 3k DPV and yet my escort UNBUFFED I might add will out do this at the same distance.
So yeah, don't give me that.
We have people flying dreads in our fleet laying down impressive dps, from a ship most people think is only flown by newbs.
I recently levelled up an engineer, subpar in a standard escort, does well in a cruiser though, it took some tweaks to get it right. I even loaded up the eng in a eng heavy Chimera (one tact spot only) and it is pulling almost 5k damage. If anything the experience as made me realize that tacts aren't as op as I thought
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it all depends on the player + the build. If either one is flawed...well work on it. If you copied a build that is proven to be competitive, guess what part of the equation needs to be improved.
Firstly, are they by any chance tacticals? Even I can tell that the ship is build for a tactical.
Well this I did with my cruiser and I can tank but my damage is still pathetic lower buffed at 5km than my unbuffed escort at the same distance, please explain how that works.
not again...stop using on hit numbers...
on hit numbers give the facts, they are the real picture, the on hit numbers are what MATTER
The pre-fire numbers are just theoretical but if you really want pre-fire numbers then you'll find the DHC is higher then the Beam array and you will find the cooldown to be 1/2 that of the Beam array so overall you WILL do more damage using a DHC than you will using a Beam array, in fact if you run 3 DHCs you will be on a par with 8 beams, anything more is surplus on any cruiser... I fail to see how THAT is balanced, then you add buffs and that gap continues too grow and I again fail to see the balance. Now I ACCEPT that cruisers will NOT keep up with escorts but that does not mean they should be made to look incompetent, I want the games combat system returned to what it was in February when I joined and you couldn't just go through the story using unbuffed DC/DHC fire.
all in all endgame PvE needs a change, the DPS race needs to end, DPS needs to be just another way of killing a target just as a broadside should be a successful way of killing something and science tricks should be a successful way of killing something but in different ways. Sadly the current system makes DPS the only way to kill something, you're complaining that if cruisers got a buff to competence in the current system there would be no reason to fly an escort well frankly with the borg set there in no reason to fly a cruiser in the current system.
And the poor player broadsides that anyone who knows rotate shield freqs and TT will laugh at no matter how strong it is? Seriously I use RSF and TT together and my shields regen faster than ANY cruisers broadside is damaging them and in the event another cruiser should add to this I add TSS which counters that as well... that alone shows how pathetic broadsides are
ESCORT: Primary DD/Killer/DPS with enough sustain to survive their passes, but under focused fire, die. Primary weapon of choice: DHC/DBB
CRUISER: Tank/Healer/Support Damage. Survive all but the heaviest of assaults and can still deal OK damage. Takes a while to kill if cruiser built right.
Primary weapon of choice: Beam Arrays
SCIENCE VESSEL: Mind fk. Plain and simple. Either A) Drain builds that leave your ship pretty much a drifting hulk that can then be torped to death, or
Primary weapon of choice: Not Entirely Sure
And these guys are right. You CAN build a cruiser with high damage output. I would know, I made one lol. Granted I ain't as tanky as I could be, but my DD ability is great, or at least better than it was before. The best and easiest way to get max damage potential from your cruiser is to divert all power to weapons and keep an EPtW cycling. Also throw in APB or APD and you're gold. TT helps to (that extra 18 damage actually is noticeable).
Cruisers do constant sustained damage. I have actually drawn aggro off of escorts in stfs simply because my sustained damage, even though it takes longer, can actually catch up to their spike damage. And once I draw aggro, I tend to never lose it.
Cuz here's the catch with escorts/tac captains. A large amount of their damage comes from APB and FOMM. And guess what, APB can also be used by EVERYONE ELSE, along with FOMM. If there is a tac captain hitting the same target I am, and they use FOMM, and combine that with both of our APBs (or just mine if the tac decides to be selfish and hit APO3), my sustained damage output can often exceed their spike damage. They get 10 seconds of 5-8k damage per hit from their DHCs, but guess what, I get 30 seconds of 1500-2k per hit from EACH beam array. That's 6 to their 4. So I am doing between 36k-48k with each salvo of 4 shots (sometimes even more if I blow a BFAW + nadion inversion + EPS, I think my max spike was 2500 sustained per hit, which brought my salvo damage up to 60k easily), for 20-30 seconds (that comes down to 4-6 salvos), whereas they are doing 2 salvos of about 80k damage, followed by 2 standard 5-10k salvos. Do the numbers there and it comes down to my ship doing anywhere from 150k to 240k total damage in that burst period, and the escort doing 170-180k with spikes of up to 270k (crit dependent) damage. Now with damage that high, please don't tell me cruisers are TRIBBLE DD... (yes, I had to learn this the hard way)
Something I have come to realized is that engis don't need the APXs that escorts do. Our weapon of choice is actually one of the most balanced weapons as ranges go. We only lose out at most 35% of our total damage, even at max range, whereas cannons can lose up to 60% of their damage at max range. Cannons also start to lose out on their max damage from closer than beam arrays. We do STABLE damage, not spikes. Engis are masters of power management. Run damage control DOffs, and you can keep your power levels at crazily high levels almost constantly. For example, on my Tac Oddy, I can keep my weapons at a stable 150 power and my shields at around 100 power just with EPtS1 and EPtW2 constantly cycling. Since I have two Purple DC DOffs, that's two 35% procs, which usually means that I tend to get the reduced CDs almost every time. Add in my Purple Technician DOff, and even if I don't get the proc, it still reduces CD by 10%, meaning I don't have to wait as long. And with 150 weapons power (sometimes more, sometimes less), my power doesn't drop below 100 until partway through my 6th arrays firing cycle. And if I get really lucky, my power doesn't go below 100, and my beam arrays are doing over 2x damage for their entire firing cycle. That's 700-1200 per shot. CONSTANTLY. My damage per salvo ends up being anywhere from 14k-16k. Consistently. At max range, it drops off to around 10k, but still, that's pretty nasty. It all comes down to power management. And liberal usage of APB.
Even without APB, my shots always do at least 700 per hit. Often more, depending on what I am shooting at. So the thing is, cruisers have a lot of bite, but it depends on which particular cruiser (Oddy Tac cruiser is probably if not the best for damage dealing, at least a close second behind the galor, and by far the best damage dealer with saucer sep active), and how good you are at power management. Cuz tbh, beam arrays hit really hard above 100 power, pretty dang hard at 100 power, and still relatively hard between 80-90. It's once they drop below 75 power that you start to really lose damage, but a good engi will be able to keep his/her weapons power at or above 90 with the proper power management.
*throws up in a corner*
Just gotta learn to play cruisers better and learn which cruisers work well, and which abilities to use.
Because even with all this damage output, I still have 8 heals available to me from the rest of my engi+sci. And only 2 of them are on a shared cd, and that's my TSS1 and TSS2. Which doesn't matter cuz you can chain the two of them together. And those 8 heals can keep myself/allies alive.
So basically I am a cruiser doing it all. Decent damage output (not escort level, but still decent), and a healer that can burst heal 20k followed by 10k HoT without putting power to aux, and with power to aux, I can burst heal 28k followed by almost 15k HoT. All this because I bothered to listen to what the pro (or equivalent thereof) PvP and PvE guys were saying. That and some experimentation on my part.
Could you say that all again?
R.I.P
*fish slaps on the face*
Did that clarify it for you? XP