What u ppl think abaut a heavy torpedo class? only for cruciers not escort or scie
not for made the same dps than a dhc on a escort, only for give a more dmg to all cruciers the free one and the one from (C) store.
dont forget only a few cruceirs have a Ltcdr tac, so i was thinking the heavy torpedo can have maybe a 20% more dmg and a 10% more time to reload procs same as standart torpedo.
To your comment earlier about the D'Kora and where does it fit.... I won one this summer
And I just bought one the other day. I already had experience with the Mirror KDF Vor'cha so I knew what a battlecruiser should be capable of. D'kora is comparable to the mirror Vor'cha: D'kora flat out does more damage thanks to its bonuses to weapon skills, but the mirror Vor'cha is noticeably more zippy and has better survivability thanks to the LTC engineer, additional science and the bonus aux power from KHG set. On the sliding scale of Escort<->Cruiser, the two ships are next to eachother but I'd put D'kora one step closer to the Escort side of things given its improved firepower and slightly lower survivability (the difference between "dies rarely" and "fast-zombie cruiser from hell")
So. Yes. Everybody who is tired of Fed space whales and being forced into the healer role, and doesn't feel like making a KDF character, should check out the D'kora to get a ship that can do serious damage as well as take a serious hit and still throw a few heals at your team. Worth pointing out that D'kora is equal or better compared to the Regent in almost every area (though doesn't come with the 180 quantum tube if that is your thing).
If all cruisers could do what D'kora and Vor'cha can do, then "cruisers are pathetic" type threads would not be warranted.
I honestly don't think Cruisers are all that bad, it's just that since FTP launched it seems like there's a focus on DPS above all else, and the general survivability of every PC ship has increased. There was more of a balance before the changes to Tac team, when you had to be careful with an escort because most stuff could melt you.
I'd really like to see Cryptic spend some SERIOUS time trying to rebalance things before season 8. Even something simple like normalizing all weapon damage towards beam arrays and adding additional diminishing returns on Tac consoles, but adding additional options (Seriously, why do we only had straight +DMG tac consoles)
I doubt it would be that hard, but they have to actually set aside some time to do extended testing, like they did with the DOFF system, rather then the regular pre-season Tribble release.
Tactical Team in its current incarnation (I wasn't around before F2P) is a little too strong and cost-effective; it quadruples your effective shield hitpoints as just an Ensign level skill. Couple that with the many, many ways to harden your shields (don't think dirty thoughts) and it's basically why burst damage > anything else right now.
While I don't think you should be constantly dying with three full shield facings, TT's distribution efficiency is a little insane and makes blasting through ~35k+ of shield points extremely hard for anything less than a glass cannon 'scort.
I'd really like to see Cryptic spend some SERIOUS time trying to rebalance things
This is what I have been asking for since Season 6 (Ok each time it was in a different form but the gaol has always been the same). This and Science needs returning to it's former usefulness
I've been working to keep my cruiser in the game. I've had my engineer toon since the beginning and all he's ever known has been cruisers. Right now, I've got him in the Cardi Galor cruiser, and have set up his skill points to be a mix of tank/dps. I'm still working on the DPS part of it, but it tanks rather well.
That said, I've found a minor niche for my cruiser in using TS and Faw to attract attention. I have my threat magnet skill on the high end, so usually, once I have an enemies attention, rarely do they shift targets. The Galor shield tanks very well, and so I'm able to survive the onslaught and allow the escorts to swiftly dispatch the enemies, adding my own DPS here and there.
Now, in the STF's, am I necessarily needed in this role? The answer I've found is no. Nobody goes into an STF asking for a DPS/Tank cruiser Eng captain to go with them. However, I have fun with it, we get the objectives done well within the mission time frame, and no escorts blow up. That's a win in my book.
I agree with many on here that the Devs need to tweak the STFs so that a tank/dps or tank/healer becomes necessary to completing the objective. The cruisers are good at what they do, and a good cruiser can hold its own for a long time. There just need to be missions that require that kind of ship to be involved.
All that being said, I have fun with my cruiser, and I hope that their qualities become realized in the game.
Simple list of issues that hurt the majority (but not all) cruisers.
DHC + Turret > Beam Array
Tac Consoles > All
Resist + Sustain + Avoidance > Hit Points
High Tier Tac Boff Abilities > High Tier Eng Boff Abilities
Extra DPS > Extra Tanky
With that said I do fly a Vor'Cha, Galor, and a Neg'Var. Well the Galor got swapped out for a patrol escort and the Neggie for a raptor but I do still fly a fleet Vor'Cha....
Thier friendship fell apart and grew distant, thanks to the incident, and Excelsior has never forgiven Galaxy.......
Oh yeah, the incident. Wasn't that when Galaxy told Nebula that Excelsior's refit made her look "chunky and a little trashy too"?
Of course Nebula blabbed, she's always looking for attention and she sometimes has a big mouth. Poor girl, she has all of the good features of her sister Galaxy but they look out of place on her. I think it's becasue she has no neckline and her nacels droop below her saucer, it's not all that attractive.
Oh yeah, the incident. Wasn't that when Galaxy told Nebula that Excelsior's refit made her look "chunky and a little trashy too"?
Of course Nebula blabbed, she's always looking for attention and she sometimes has a big mouth. Poor girl, she has all of the good features of her sister Galaxy but they look out of place on her. I think it's becasue she has no neckline and her nacels droop below her saucer, it's not all that attractive.
And the way she leaks little spurts of plasma as she walks.........................
Oh yeah, the incident. Wasn't that when Galaxy told Nebula that Excelsior's refit made her look "chunky and a little trashy too"?
Of course Nebula blabbed, she's always looking for attention and she sometimes has a big mouth. Poor girl, she has all of the good features of her sister Galaxy but they look out of place on her. I think it's becasue she has no neckline and her nacels droop below her saucer, it's not all that attractive.
I did some tests last night because I was incredibly annoyed at the fact that engi consoles don't work as well as any others when it comes to their job (stopping damage). I also confirmed a suspicion that putting all neutronium is exactly the same as putting varied consoles. So whoever started that rumor that putting varied consoles for the resistances is better than putting straight out of one console or straight out neutronium needs to uninstall.
Anyways, back on response topic. I put on 4 mk XI blue neutroniums (cheap, easy to get, and still decent), which gives an effective bonus of +70 to all resistances. After checking the numbers on my resistances (not nearly as high as I thought it would be, which explains why I had to modify my playstyle a little XD), I then put on 2 mk XII white diburniums (+70) and checked, confirmed my resistances were the same as the 4 mk XI blue neutroniums, and then added 1 mk III diburnium white console. That equated to a total of +80 resistance, which is what you get from 4 mk XII purple neutroniums. And guess what I found? Only a miniscule 2.4% increase in defense. I then ran the test with +75 resistance (the equivalent of 4 mk XII blue neutroniums), and was just as disappointed to find that I only got a 1.6% bonus in defense over the 4 mk XI blues.
So I now can safely say. Any mk XII purple engi consoles aren't worth their cost. ESPECIALLY neutroniums. Why pay 120 mil ecs for a 2.4% increase in defense over just paying 1.1 mil ecs?
I also did some tests with tactical consoles and science consoles. And guess what? The ones that aren't directly skill related (aka a lot of sci consoles) are all linear progressions in effectiveness. You don't lose out ANY of the listed values, whereas the engi consoles are all logarithmic in progression, which means... Good at lower values, but the curve levels out quicky as you get to higher values and you quickly lose out on actual bonus to resistance.
For the record, this was done in system space outside of DS9, about 25k away from the docking ring. It should also be noted that my energy damage reduction skill is maxed out, should that affect results.
A post I put up in another thread, but I think this is relevant for the simple reason that Cruisers are heavy in engi consoles.
So this diminishing returns in their primary consoles in comparison to the seeming lack thereof of the same weakness in other console types is another thing I should be noted about Cruisers.
And even though this is a killed statement, this is perhaps one of the reasons that cruisers are a little underpowered. I mean, their primary method of absorbing damage, other than that huge amount of hull they have, is their engi consoles.
And if those consoles are suffering from diminishing returns, when other consoles aren't, it stands to reason that maybe they aren't quite equal to the other classes which main consoles that do NOT suffer from those same weaknesses.
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.
A post I put up in another thread, but I think this is relevant for the simple reason that Cruisers are heavy in engi consoles.
So this diminishing returns in their primary consoles in comparison to the seeming lack thereof of the same weakness in other console types is another thing I should be noted about Cruisers.
And even though this is a killed statement, this is perhaps one of the reasons that cruisers are a little underpowered. I mean, their primary method of absorbing damage, other than that huge amount of hull they have, is their engi consoles.
And if those consoles are suffering from diminishing returns, when other consoles aren't, it stands to reason that maybe they aren't quite equal to the other classes which main consoles that do NOT suffer from those same weaknesses.
It all depends on how you 'look' at the numbers but they do have to have diminishing returns because they add a % instead of a flat number. Ok that might go over some heads and I probably said it wrong so I'm just going to pull imaginary numbers outta my bum to show example.
Attacker does 1,000 damage, each tac console adds 100 damage.
Defender has 10,000 hull, each armor console adds 20 resist.
So with 0 consoles on both sides it takes 10 shots to kill the defender.
*note I do not know if this is the true resist formula*
So lets give them each 2 consoles.
Attacker does 1,200 damage
Defender has 10,000 hull with 40 resist or 28%
Attacker only deals 860 damage per hit takes 12 hits to kill target
Now lets go nuts, 6! consoles muhahaha
Attacker does 1,600 damage
Defender has 10,000 hull with 120 resist or 54%
Attacker only deals 736 damage per hit takes 14 hits to kill target
Now how a normal game design would handle that would be to add things that reduce a target's resistance by a percent, so the more resistance they have the more they loose and it is a real question of if you should focus on the penetration or flat bonus damage. Or they would have limited methods to increase your resistance in the game heavily and allowed you to gain bonus hit points/hull instead.
But no, we get diminishing returns and a system that gets really skewed when the numbers start getting too big.
Armor is a little counter intuitive. The armor consoles stack survivability, not damage reduction which is not the same thing. Let me try to explain...
If we consider that the attacker is trying to cause 1000 points of damage on the target, then at 10% resistance he would need to start with 1111 damage because 1111*90% is 1000. 11.1% more firepower is needed to have the same impact against a 10% resistant target. In other words you have 10% damage reduction but can absorb 11.1% more total firepower.
The percentage of damage reduced shows diminishing returns, but the actual survivability of your ship, the amount of firepower you can absorb, goes up much faster than the percentage reduction. This is because from an attacker's perspective he also needs to make up that chunk which simply vanishes.
* At 20% resistance, you would need to start with 1250 damage to cause 1000 which is a 25% increase in total damage absorbed.
* At 30% resistance, you would need to start with 1500 damage to cause 1000 which is a 50% increase in total damage absorbed.
* An easy one to conceptualize: at 50% resistance, you need 2000 damage to cause 1000, which means you can absorb 200% damage. If you take half damage, you can take twice as MUCH damage!
(the game's maximum resistance of 75% is effectively 400% survivability)
In game terms:
* With no armor, my kinetic resist is 9.2% = 110% survivability
* Adding one layer of neutronium ("17.5") increases my kinetic resist to 21.5% = 127% survivability (i.e. +16%)
* A second layer of neutronium ("15") increases my kinetic resist to 29.5% = 142% survivability (i.e. +15%)
* Adding a layer of monotanium ("35") increase my kinetic resist to 42.4% = 174% survivability (i.e. +32%)
You can see that the survivabilityincreases pretty closely follow the resist rating of the armor even though the damage reduction does not. It would probably be dead on if I didn't have that small bonus from skills.
1st and easist, add a cruiser and maybe science ship phaser that does either allot more damage or fires more often at a shorter range, maybe 1/2 the normal range, but is still affected by FAW, and Beam overload. either way, one or two of these would help out with damage, but only at knife fighting ranges, so the playing field would be roughly even.
The 2nd possibility would be some sort of passive to buff cruisers. Maybe give them a slightly reduced refire rate on either Phaser arrays or torpedoes (probably not both).
Either could make cruisers more competitive, although I think both might be overkill.
"..and like children playing after sunset, we were surrounded by darkness." -Ruri Hoshino
Overall I like cruisers, I just don't like using one in an elite STF where bringing in a cruiser is a hinderance to a good team.
My Tac Captain flys an all cannon excelsior in normal PUG STF's and it's a capable set up and useful. I can take out BOP/Probe spam in one pass, loiter in front of gates without fear, and when things get rough I can dump plamsa on spheres / Neg'vars and lay a beating on them with APA. At the same time I can heal up the Kang or people who are having troubles (for whatever reason). Overall I'm useful.
But I'm not as useful as my Engineer character in my Patrol Escort, who doesn't even use most of his higher engineering skills except for rotate shield frequencies. I can do everything my Tac/Cruiser can (except hull heal team mates) but faster.
So even an unbuffed escort is better than a DPS cruiser buffed by a Tac Captain in STF's.
I don't feel that cruisers in PVE need a huge overhaul (maybe a few tweaks here and there bitemePWE has some good ideas on that) but the STF's certainly do. Right now there's no reason to be a tank or a healer in STF's or pretty much any of the PVE. Even the new fleet stuff can be done easily in an escort. Laying a TT and TSS on a freighter gives you enough time to blast the attackers out of the sky ad you can zip around faster than anything else. Seige ships require escort DPS to kill fast enough.
Yes well speaking from just trading my old junky Odyessy to an escort is the right choice for the game as it stands. The cruisers lack all around when it comes to STF's. Since death really isn't an issue (cause the cruiser can last a wee bit longer, but the speed of the return of the escort back into combat more than compensates the loss in time from a death). The cruiser lumbers into combat and puts up its dukes, but its like Kangaroo only allowed to use its arms to fight, small and not much punch behind them.
I started to notice it when back in season 6 i'd regularly get 1st - 3rd in an STF, but something happened in S7. The rules of the match or something has changed, now i'm lucky to pull out 3rd place. But purchased a fleet escort today and did 9 STF's and placed 1st 5 times, 2nd 4 times and 1 time third. The difference to me is quite obvious, The cruiser is now a joke a big iconic joke that kind of offends a Star Trek fan. I could care less about PvP (since Ultima Online ruined MMO pvp for me) but from what i hear that if you aren't in an escort in pvp you're more than likely just gonna die A LOT.
Kind of silly for PW to just pardon the expression take a big dump on the cruiser like they have, cause I for one would love to fly around in my Odyessy cruiser but cause i actually want to have a chance to place in STF's there is no chance for me to do this. Sorry PW until you make Cruiser's viable again I will not buy them, nor waste my time with events to get a special Cruiser...just isn't worth the effort for a ship that is only 1/4th as good as an Escort.
There are a few things they could do with relative ease for cruisers based more around the weaponry aspect to make it easier for cruisers to be more noticed in STFs etc, even my fleet excelsior barely sits above a well built Wells class for damage output.
1: Give beam arrays a 10% dmg buff, it's not much in the grand scheme of things and escorts will still easily outperform it in their current state.
2: It is logical to assume that people would have made beam arrays quite efficient, let's face it, for most ships in the trek universe they are the weapon of choice, so bring the drain down to 7/8 making it easier to hold up a broadside. Again, escorts wouldn't feel this much as the current system makes 3 DHCs = 6 Beams.
3: Change beam buffs around a little
- Make Beam Overload affect all beams for 50% extra damage on all beams for X seconds with 50% extra power drain per beam for the same duration, this would make a broadside dangerous for a few seconds and makes weapon batteries and EPS power transfer all the more useful on broadside cruisers, it would also be more sustainable tan the current version while likely putting out more damage than the current version if managed properly.
- Beam Fire At Will... Make it work with accuracy mods again otherwise I'd say it's fine.
4: Give some cruisers a movement buff, realistically a cruiser should get moving and stop in exactly the same time as an escort using the same equipment as cruiser engines and other related systems will be more powerful to compensate for size.
90% of Cruisers are fine (5% are lame and 5% are over powered)
You are kidding... right?
Please... tell me you're kidding...
There are escorts out there tanking Elite Tactical Cubes and you're telling me that cruisers are fine?
Let's see...
Escorts get all the survivability the game needs (Dual EPtS/Single EPtS with 3 purple DCE doffs ans Aux2SIF) and more damage then the game needs...
Escort weapons do over 2x the base damage of cruiser weapons, with the same power requirements and their buffs don't use additional power...
Escorts also move faster then cruisers giving them a better defence rating...
Add a tactical captain to this and you'd say this is ok wouldn't you?
So Cruisers...
Cruisers get all the tanking the game needs at a higher level...
Cruisers do less than half of escort damage and their buffs use extra power (unless you run a cannon build which requires a high turn rate)
Cruisers don't move half as fast as escorts thus relying more on their tanking...
Add an engineering captain to this and again it's fine?
Cruisers do not need to be more powerful than escorts but over time actually are
Damage over time is worthless in a game where 1 class can wipe out almost anything within 30 seconds and if an escort can't wipe out anything (short of endgame bosses) single-handedly within 30 seconds they are doing something wrong.
I'm fine with my cruiser doing sustained damage over time but that needs a boost in the face of the above
if anything the Escorts need tweaking
so that they can survive only if they act as escorts
I agree that i'd be great if escorts really could do strafing attacks but I find that most NPCs need me to slow down my strafing run and sometimes come to a standstill next to them if I want them to be destroyed. For a strafing style of playstyle to really work escorts would need to do considerably more damage and have much better turning abilities, basically a redesign off the ship class. I don't think we'll be seeing such from Cryptic.
Exactly, which can be achieved easily by making heals percentage based, based upon maximum stat
I'm always amazed at how short sighted people can be. Making Escorts glass cannons would not only invalidate the whole concept of the non trinity Cryptic has made, it'd also necessitate making Cruisers toothless tanks.. neither would make sense at all!
I'm always amazed at how short sighted people can be. Making Escorts glass cannons would not only invalidate the whole concept of the non trinity Cryptic has made, it'd also necessitate making Cruisers toothless tanks.. neither would make sense at all!
At what point did I say that escorts should be "Glass cannons" in that post? (You quote me saying that and I will hold my hands up)
What I did say is that they should pay up for that damage, heals being percentage based would do this.
And even if they were it wouldn't make cruisers "toothless tanks" at all, it would simply serve to make their sustained damage and capacity to hang in a fight all the more needed.
Cryptic have made heals X amount boosted to some formula by aux power, fair enough, then they had to find a figure that gives cruisers enough heal without giving escorts too much which can't be done. So make them percentage based this would produce the following: Aux2SIF
!00% Hull = X
Calculate Y% of X
Heal Y% + aux power formula
One heal that gives a fair heal to the same effect on all ships (Except maybe science due to inherently high aux power), this however in no way makes Escorts Glass cannons, it just forces them to play more like escorts in order to move and increasing the need for cruisers for larger fights
At what point did I say that escorts should be "Glass cannons" in that post? (You quote me saying that and I will hold my hands up)
What I did say is that they should pay up for that damage, heals being percentage based would do this.
And even if they were it wouldn't make cruisers "toothless tanks" at all, it would simply serve to make their sustained damage and capacity to hang in a fight all the more needed.
Cryptic have made heals X amount boosted to some formula by aux power, fair enough, then they had to find a figure that gives cruisers enough heal without giving escorts too much which can't be done. So make them percentage based this would produce the following: Aux2SIF
!00% Hull = X
Calculate Y% of X
Heal Y% + aux power formula
One heal that gives a fair heal to the same effect on all ships (Except maybe science due to inherently high aux power), this however in no way makes Escorts Glass cannons, it just forces them to play more like escorts in order to move and increasing the need for cruisers for larger fights
/Facepalm.
It is my sincerest hope you are being obtuse on purpose. If you make escorts heal less you are moving them towards the glass cannon side. If the intent is to make them spend less time on target that also amounts to a dps loss, which to balance things out would make it necessary for cruisers to do less damage. You can't decrease X without it affecting Y.
What you want makes it necessary to alter the entire way the space side of the game is set up to make work. But what you really want is to feel validated in your cruiser. Are you the one that's always bemoaning that their jack of all trades cruiser concept doesn't work anymore? I honestly question whether it ever did but you simply failed to notice until these latest changes to the Borg NPCs? Wait, are you the one also saying that the threat talent was useless on cruisers and a waste of points?
It is my sincerest hope you are being obtuse on purpose. If you make escorts heal less you are moving them towards the glass cannon side. If the intent is to make them spend less time on target that also amounts to a dps loss, which to balance things out would make it necessary for cruisers to do less damage. You can't decrease X without it affecting Y.
Is it not the intent that escorts should have to keep moving? We're not talking a drastic change to escort healing just that by going percentage based (using the example shown) would make all heals equally effective as oppose to equal on all ships which would in turn increase the need for science and for cruisers without a major loss to escort healing... I see a win win situation there...
It also would not require a change to cruiser damage output at all although a reduction in NPC health would be needed in order to keep things dying in good time as cruisers would be propping up the damage while the escorts come round for their next pass
What you want makes it necessary to alter the entire way the space side of the game is set up to make work.
No, it would just require a few build and tac tic changes, something I'm beginning to think you fear... the idea of not being able to turret/scort doesn't sit well with you does it?
But what you really want is to feel validated in your cruiser.
Indeed but unlike most people wanting similar things I'm not suggesting (nor condoning) drastic changes that would lead to "Cruisers online"
Are you the one that's always bemoaning that their jack of all trades cruiser concept doesn't work anymore? I honestly question whether it ever did but you simply failed to notice until these latest changes to the Borg NPCs?
Yes I am, Yes it did work and I could post it for you to try out
Wait, are you the one also saying that the threat talent was useless on cruisers and a waste of points?
And finally, no that was not me, I run 3 points in it on my cruiser at the moment
well when more than 80% of our alliance runs escorts the other 15% run sci, and the only cruisers that make it to the scene are people lvling up or people trying out the new cruiser for looks. You know something is wrong with them or the other ships one of the 2. I can just speak from playing the Odyessy Tact in end game...its decent at best, not great not TRIBBLE poor just decent, and honestly a breakthrough ship like that should be one of the better, for god sakes you need to actually still pay 25 dollars (or grind for a long time) for the damned thing should be worth the money you spend. Fix cruisers PW FFS fix them.
Is it not the intent that escorts should have to keep moving? We're not talking a drastic change to escort healing just that by going percentage based (using the example shown) would make all heals equally effective as oppose to equal on all ships which would in turn increase the need for science and for cruisers without a major loss to escort healing... I see a win win situation there...
I believe we call that a "healing nerf" so, which would lead to a dps loss as well as requiring stricter comps on teams. I prefer to fly whatever I feel like instead of it being mandated. I'm not back in WoW for a reason.
No, it would just require a few build and tac tic changes, something I'm beginning to think you fear... the idea of not being able to turret/scort doesn't sit well with you does it?
I think you have it backwards there, its often cruiser pilots that don't want to improve their builds or their playstyle that refuse to change. You see, I was one of those people that had a terrible build and played BADLY. Fortunately I was able to see the problem and change it myself without having to have it hammered into me like others. But I did change and so can you and every other player if they would only stop a moment to understand the basic mechanics of the game. You don't need to become an expert in the math behind things to get a rough idea of why things work as they do. Then you realize why some of the things you're holding on to so hard are actually wrong and will always be so.
Indeed but unlike most people wanting similar things I'm not suggesting (nor condoning) drastic changes that would lead to "Cruisers online"
You are. Nerfing healing on escorts would mean at best they have less uptime on targets, which is a net buff for cruisers if all you care about is comparing the two.
And finally, no that was not me, I run 3 points in it on my cruiser at the moment
Oh, I got you confussed with someone else then. I try to keep track of who said what in my mind but there's so many cruiser pilots complaining. Some have valid complaints, most do not. Personally I keep the threat skill at rank 6 on my engi cruiser but I like to feel I got a more secure lock in agro.
Comments
What u ppl think abaut a heavy torpedo class? only for cruciers not escort or scie
not for made the same dps than a dhc on a escort, only for give a more dmg to all cruciers the free one and the one from (C) store.
dont forget only a few cruceirs have a Ltcdr tac, so i was thinking the heavy torpedo can have maybe a 20% more dmg and a 10% more time to reload procs same as standart torpedo.
And I just bought one the other day. I already had experience with the Mirror KDF Vor'cha so I knew what a battlecruiser should be capable of. D'kora is comparable to the mirror Vor'cha: D'kora flat out does more damage thanks to its bonuses to weapon skills, but the mirror Vor'cha is noticeably more zippy and has better survivability thanks to the LTC engineer, additional science and the bonus aux power from KHG set. On the sliding scale of Escort<->Cruiser, the two ships are next to eachother but I'd put D'kora one step closer to the Escort side of things given its improved firepower and slightly lower survivability (the difference between "dies rarely" and "fast-zombie cruiser from hell")
So. Yes. Everybody who is tired of Fed space whales and being forced into the healer role, and doesn't feel like making a KDF character, should check out the D'kora to get a ship that can do serious damage as well as take a serious hit and still throw a few heals at your team. Worth pointing out that D'kora is equal or better compared to the Regent in almost every area (though doesn't come with the 180 quantum tube if that is your thing).
If all cruisers could do what D'kora and Vor'cha can do, then "cruisers are pathetic" type threads would not be warranted.
I'd really like to see Cryptic spend some SERIOUS time trying to rebalance things before season 8. Even something simple like normalizing all weapon damage towards beam arrays and adding additional diminishing returns on Tac consoles, but adding additional options (Seriously, why do we only had straight +DMG tac consoles)
I doubt it would be that hard, but they have to actually set aside some time to do extended testing, like they did with the DOFF system, rather then the regular pre-season Tribble release.
While I don't think you should be constantly dying with three full shield facings, TT's distribution efficiency is a little insane and makes blasting through ~35k+ of shield points extremely hard for anything less than a glass cannon 'scort.
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 what I have been asking for since Season 6 (Ok each time it was in a different form but the gaol has always been the same). This and Science needs returning to it's former usefulness
That said, I've found a minor niche for my cruiser in using TS and Faw to attract attention. I have my threat magnet skill on the high end, so usually, once I have an enemies attention, rarely do they shift targets. The Galor shield tanks very well, and so I'm able to survive the onslaught and allow the escorts to swiftly dispatch the enemies, adding my own DPS here and there.
Now, in the STF's, am I necessarily needed in this role? The answer I've found is no. Nobody goes into an STF asking for a DPS/Tank cruiser Eng captain to go with them. However, I have fun with it, we get the objectives done well within the mission time frame, and no escorts blow up. That's a win in my book.
I agree with many on here that the Devs need to tweak the STFs so that a tank/dps or tank/healer becomes necessary to completing the objective. The cruisers are good at what they do, and a good cruiser can hold its own for a long time. There just need to be missions that require that kind of ship to be involved.
All that being said, I have fun with my cruiser, and I hope that their qualities become realized in the game.
DHC + Turret > Beam Array
Tac Consoles > All
Resist + Sustain + Avoidance > Hit Points
High Tier Tac Boff Abilities > High Tier Eng Boff Abilities
Extra DPS > Extra Tanky
With that said I do fly a Vor'Cha, Galor, and a Neg'Var. Well the Galor got swapped out for a patrol escort and the Neggie for a raptor but I do still fly a fleet Vor'Cha....
Oh yeah, the incident. Wasn't that when Galaxy told Nebula that Excelsior's refit made her look "chunky and a little trashy too"?
Of course Nebula blabbed, she's always looking for attention and she sometimes has a big mouth. Poor girl, she has all of the good features of her sister Galaxy but they look out of place on her. I think it's becasue she has no neckline and her nacels droop below her saucer, it's not all that attractive.
And the way she leaks little spurts of plasma as she walks.........................
R.I.P
Not that I mind the levity, but can we please stay on topic you guys?
A post I put up in another thread, but I think this is relevant for the simple reason that Cruisers are heavy in engi consoles.
So this diminishing returns in their primary consoles in comparison to the seeming lack thereof of the same weakness in other console types is another thing I should be noted about Cruisers.
And even though this is a killed statement, this is perhaps one of the reasons that cruisers are a little underpowered. I mean, their primary method of absorbing damage, other than that huge amount of hull they have, is their engi consoles.
And if those consoles are suffering from diminishing returns, when other consoles aren't, it stands to reason that maybe they aren't quite equal to the other classes which main consoles that do NOT suffer from those same weaknesses.
Not entirely true remember this?
For those of you who don't want to read it this thread details how Tac consoles lie (also known as diminishing returns)
Attacker does 1,000 damage, each tac console adds 100 damage.
Defender has 10,000 hull, each armor console adds 20 resist.
So with 0 consoles on both sides it takes 10 shots to kill the defender.
*note I do not know if this is the true resist formula*
So lets give them each 2 consoles.
Attacker does 1,200 damage
Defender has 10,000 hull with 40 resist or 28%
Attacker only deals 860 damage per hit takes 12 hits to kill target
Now lets go nuts, 6! consoles muhahaha
Attacker does 1,600 damage
Defender has 10,000 hull with 120 resist or 54%
Attacker only deals 736 damage per hit takes 14 hits to kill target
Now how a normal game design would handle that would be to add things that reduce a target's resistance by a percent, so the more resistance they have the more they loose and it is a real question of if you should focus on the penetration or flat bonus damage. Or they would have limited methods to increase your resistance in the game heavily and allowed you to gain bonus hit points/hull instead.
But no, we get diminishing returns and a system that gets really skewed when the numbers start getting too big.
If we consider that the attacker is trying to cause 1000 points of damage on the target, then at 10% resistance he would need to start with 1111 damage because 1111*90% is 1000. 11.1% more firepower is needed to have the same impact against a 10% resistant target. In other words you have 10% damage reduction but can absorb 11.1% more total firepower.
The percentage of damage reduced shows diminishing returns, but the actual survivability of your ship, the amount of firepower you can absorb, goes up much faster than the percentage reduction. This is because from an attacker's perspective he also needs to make up that chunk which simply vanishes.
* At 20% resistance, you would need to start with 1250 damage to cause 1000 which is a 25% increase in total damage absorbed.
* At 30% resistance, you would need to start with 1500 damage to cause 1000 which is a 50% increase in total damage absorbed.
* An easy one to conceptualize: at 50% resistance, you need 2000 damage to cause 1000, which means you can absorb 200% damage. If you take half damage, you can take twice as MUCH damage!
(the game's maximum resistance of 75% is effectively 400% survivability)
In game terms:
* With no armor, my kinetic resist is 9.2% = 110% survivability
* Adding one layer of neutronium ("17.5") increases my kinetic resist to 21.5% = 127% survivability (i.e. +16%)
* A second layer of neutronium ("15") increases my kinetic resist to 29.5% = 142% survivability (i.e. +15%)
* Adding a layer of monotanium ("35") increase my kinetic resist to 42.4% = 174% survivability (i.e. +32%)
You can see that the survivabilityincreases pretty closely follow the resist rating of the armor even though the damage reduction does not. It would probably be dead on if I didn't have that small bonus from skills.
1st and easist, add a cruiser and maybe science ship phaser that does either allot more damage or fires more often at a shorter range, maybe 1/2 the normal range, but is still affected by FAW, and Beam overload. either way, one or two of these would help out with damage, but only at knife fighting ranges, so the playing field would be roughly even.
The 2nd possibility would be some sort of passive to buff cruisers. Maybe give them a slightly reduced refire rate on either Phaser arrays or torpedoes (probably not both).
Either could make cruisers more competitive, although I think both might be overkill.
My Tac Captain flys an all cannon excelsior in normal PUG STF's and it's a capable set up and useful. I can take out BOP/Probe spam in one pass, loiter in front of gates without fear, and when things get rough I can dump plamsa on spheres / Neg'vars and lay a beating on them with APA. At the same time I can heal up the Kang or people who are having troubles (for whatever reason). Overall I'm useful.
But I'm not as useful as my Engineer character in my Patrol Escort, who doesn't even use most of his higher engineering skills except for rotate shield frequencies. I can do everything my Tac/Cruiser can (except hull heal team mates) but faster.
So even an unbuffed escort is better than a DPS cruiser buffed by a Tac Captain in STF's.
I don't feel that cruisers in PVE need a huge overhaul (maybe a few tweaks here and there bitemePWE has some good ideas on that) but the STF's certainly do. Right now there's no reason to be a tank or a healer in STF's or pretty much any of the PVE. Even the new fleet stuff can be done easily in an escort. Laying a TT and TSS on a freighter gives you enough time to blast the attackers out of the sky ad you can zip around faster than anything else. Seige ships require escort DPS to kill fast enough.
I started to notice it when back in season 6 i'd regularly get 1st - 3rd in an STF, but something happened in S7. The rules of the match or something has changed, now i'm lucky to pull out 3rd place. But purchased a fleet escort today and did 9 STF's and placed 1st 5 times, 2nd 4 times and 1 time third. The difference to me is quite obvious, The cruiser is now a joke a big iconic joke that kind of offends a Star Trek fan. I could care less about PvP (since Ultima Online ruined MMO pvp for me) but from what i hear that if you aren't in an escort in pvp you're more than likely just gonna die A LOT.
Kind of silly for PW to just pardon the expression take a big dump on the cruiser like they have, cause I for one would love to fly around in my Odyessy cruiser but cause i actually want to have a chance to place in STF's there is no chance for me to do this. Sorry PW until you make Cruiser's viable again I will not buy them, nor waste my time with events to get a special Cruiser...just isn't worth the effort for a ship that is only 1/4th as good as an Escort.
1: Give beam arrays a 10% dmg buff, it's not much in the grand scheme of things and escorts will still easily outperform it in their current state.
2: It is logical to assume that people would have made beam arrays quite efficient, let's face it, for most ships in the trek universe they are the weapon of choice, so bring the drain down to 7/8 making it easier to hold up a broadside. Again, escorts wouldn't feel this much as the current system makes 3 DHCs = 6 Beams.
3: Change beam buffs around a little
- Make Beam Overload affect all beams for 50% extra damage on all beams for X seconds with 50% extra power drain per beam for the same duration, this would make a broadside dangerous for a few seconds and makes weapon batteries and EPS power transfer all the more useful on broadside cruisers, it would also be more sustainable tan the current version while likely putting out more damage than the current version if managed properly.
- Beam Fire At Will... Make it work with accuracy mods again otherwise I'd say it's fine.
4: Give some cruisers a movement buff, realistically a cruiser should get moving and stop in exactly the same time as an escort using the same equipment as cruiser engines and other related systems will be more powerful to compensate for size.
You are kidding... right?
Please... tell me you're kidding...
There are escorts out there tanking Elite Tactical Cubes and you're telling me that cruisers are fine?
Let's see...
Escorts get all the survivability the game needs (Dual EPtS/Single EPtS with 3 purple DCE doffs ans Aux2SIF) and more damage then the game needs...
Escort weapons do over 2x the base damage of cruiser weapons, with the same power requirements and their buffs don't use additional power...
Escorts also move faster then cruisers giving them a better defence rating...
Add a tactical captain to this and you'd say this is ok wouldn't you?
So Cruisers...
Cruisers get all the tanking the game needs at a higher level...
Cruisers do less than half of escort damage and their buffs use extra power (unless you run a cannon build which requires a high turn rate)
Cruisers don't move half as fast as escorts thus relying more on their tanking...
Add an engineering captain to this and again it's fine?
its a matter of lay out
Cruisers do not need to be more powerful than escorts but over time actually are
Damage over time is worthless in a game where 1 class can wipe out almost anything within 30 seconds and if an escort can't wipe out anything (short of endgame bosses) single-handedly within 30 seconds they are doing something wrong.
I'm fine with my cruiser doing sustained damage over time but that needs a boost in the face of the above
But this thread was asking for a straight opinion NOT a blazing row
if anything the Escorts need tweaking
so that they can survive only if they act as escorts
I'll keep my Excelsior, thanks
True... *Offers peace treaty*
Exactly, which can be achieved easily by making heals percentage based, based upon maximum stat
I agree that i'd be great if escorts really could do strafing attacks but I find that most NPCs need me to slow down my strafing run and sometimes come to a standstill next to them if I want them to be destroyed. For a strafing style of playstyle to really work escorts would need to do considerably more damage and have much better turning abilities, basically a redesign off the ship class. I don't think we'll be seeing such from Cryptic.
I'm always amazed at how short sighted people can be. Making Escorts glass cannons would not only invalidate the whole concept of the non trinity Cryptic has made, it'd also necessitate making Cruisers toothless tanks.. neither would make sense at all!
At what point did I say that escorts should be "Glass cannons" in that post? (You quote me saying that and I will hold my hands up)
What I did say is that they should pay up for that damage, heals being percentage based would do this.
And even if they were it wouldn't make cruisers "toothless tanks" at all, it would simply serve to make their sustained damage and capacity to hang in a fight all the more needed.
Cryptic have made heals X amount boosted to some formula by aux power, fair enough, then they had to find a figure that gives cruisers enough heal without giving escorts too much which can't be done. So make them percentage based this would produce the following:
Aux2SIF
!00% Hull = X
Calculate Y% of X
Heal Y% + aux power formula
One heal that gives a fair heal to the same effect on all ships (Except maybe science due to inherently high aux power), this however in no way makes Escorts Glass cannons, it just forces them to play more like escorts in order to move and increasing the need for cruisers for larger fights
/Facepalm.
It is my sincerest hope you are being obtuse on purpose. If you make escorts heal less you are moving them towards the glass cannon side. If the intent is to make them spend less time on target that also amounts to a dps loss, which to balance things out would make it necessary for cruisers to do less damage. You can't decrease X without it affecting Y.
What you want makes it necessary to alter the entire way the space side of the game is set up to make work. But what you really want is to feel validated in your cruiser. Are you the one that's always bemoaning that their jack of all trades cruiser concept doesn't work anymore? I honestly question whether it ever did but you simply failed to notice until these latest changes to the Borg NPCs? Wait, are you the one also saying that the threat talent was useless on cruisers and a waste of points?
Is it not the intent that escorts should have to keep moving? We're not talking a drastic change to escort healing just that by going percentage based (using the example shown) would make all heals equally effective as oppose to equal on all ships which would in turn increase the need for science and for cruisers without a major loss to escort healing... I see a win win situation there...
It also would not require a change to cruiser damage output at all although a reduction in NPC health would be needed in order to keep things dying in good time as cruisers would be propping up the damage while the escorts come round for their next pass
No, it would just require a few build and tac tic changes, something I'm beginning to think you fear... the idea of not being able to turret/scort doesn't sit well with you does it?
Indeed but unlike most people wanting similar things I'm not suggesting (nor condoning) drastic changes that would lead to "Cruisers online"
Yes I am, Yes it did work and I could post it for you to try out
And finally, no that was not me, I run 3 points in it on my cruiser at the moment
I think you have it backwards there, its often cruiser pilots that don't want to improve their builds or their playstyle that refuse to change. You see, I was one of those people that had a terrible build and played BADLY. Fortunately I was able to see the problem and change it myself without having to have it hammered into me like others. But I did change and so can you and every other player if they would only stop a moment to understand the basic mechanics of the game. You don't need to become an expert in the math behind things to get a rough idea of why things work as they do. Then you realize why some of the things you're holding on to so hard are actually wrong and will always be so.
You are. Nerfing healing on escorts would mean at best they have less uptime on targets, which is a net buff for cruisers if all you care about is comparing the two.
Oh, I got you confussed with someone else then. I try to keep track of who said what in my mind but there's so many cruiser pilots complaining. Some have valid complaints, most do not. Personally I keep the threat skill at rank 6 on my engi cruiser but I like to feel I got a more secure lock in agro.