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Making engineers and cruisers useful again
ertihan
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
One of the things I always felt was lacking was the Engineer. I REALLY wanted this captain type to be viable, even necessary, the way that sci is necessary for its on-demand subnuke or how tacticals are necessary for their DPS potential. But the science captain can, if put in a Tholian Recluse or Odyssey, tank and heal just as well as an engineer. So an engi is NOT necessary or really even useful at all.
I think this really needs to change. While we're on the topic, most cruisers these days are just extends throwing machines. That's all they really do, and they can toss out bigger heals, but they're also some of the flimsier targets to shoot at. What is usually the toughest target to bring down? The Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, a tiny little escort. NOT the Odyssey, a huge honkin' cruiser.
I have a few suggestions that may or may not fly (in no particular order):
1) Engineer Ability: Nadion Inversion
This skill could be improved to provide an IMMUNITY to energy drain of all kinds, and be on a 2 minute cooldown and last 30 seconds. This will serve two purposes: suddenly engineers have an immunity to siphon drones and aceton assimilators, the bane of PvPers everywhere.
And also, it would serve as the engineer's Attack Pattern Alpha/Sensor Scan. With a full immunity to energy drain (including weapon drain), the engineer can push out quite a lot of dps during those 30 seconds if he's on an escort, without having to worry about any sorts of drains whatsoever. Suddenly engiscorts are viable again. (if you think this is OP, I would argue it's no more OP than Subnuke or Attack Pattern Alpha).
Even if he's on a cruiser it still helps, since energy drains can seriously impact your ability to heal. And before you say, "but Nadion gives a huge boost to energy drain resistance!" let me remind you that a full energy drain Kar'Fi carrying siphon drones and acetons will STILL drain you to zero, Nadion or not. In this instance, for at least 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes, you're immune, so you have a chance of doing something about it.
1) Cruiser Hull Buff
A cruiser is a massive starship, intended to be the core of any group of ships. It's hull is supposed to be the thickest and most impenetrable, and it's supposed to be able to take a hell of a beating even if shields are down. That's not the case today. So what about this instead.
Cruisers should get a native +40 energy weapon damage resistance. So in other words if an escort brings down a cruiser's shield facing, his energy weapons won't do very much damage to the hull; it would require a torpedo strike to finish the ship off.
This would serve two purposes. Firstly, I think it makes sense (and I think canon supports me) that a cruiser's hull would be highly resistant to energy weapon damage. Especially the later ablative hulls on the Sovereign class and later models, which were INTENDED to be able to take a few disruptor shots and keep on ticking.
See: DS9 - Defiant. When Sisko was rescuing Dukat from the Klingons, the shields went down and several shots from the Klingon disruptors impacted bare hull. The ship survived, and that was an escort. The Sovereign class is supposed to have a tougher hull than the Defiant.
The same could not be said of a torpedo strike, in almost every instance I've seen in the show, a torpedo hit on bare hull was a hull breach. Thus, the cruiser should NOT get any kinetic damage resistance. This leads to purpose number 2: it would give people a reason to bring torpedoes again.
I think this really needs to change. While we're on the topic, most cruisers these days are just extends throwing machines. That's all they really do, and they can toss out bigger heals, but they're also some of the flimsier targets to shoot at. What is usually the toughest target to bring down? The Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, a tiny little escort. NOT the Odyssey, a huge honkin' cruiser.
I have a few suggestions that may or may not fly (in no particular order):
1) Engineer Ability: Nadion Inversion
This skill could be improved to provide an IMMUNITY to energy drain of all kinds, and be on a 2 minute cooldown and last 30 seconds. This will serve two purposes: suddenly engineers have an immunity to siphon drones and aceton assimilators, the bane of PvPers everywhere.
And also, it would serve as the engineer's Attack Pattern Alpha/Sensor Scan. With a full immunity to energy drain (including weapon drain), the engineer can push out quite a lot of dps during those 30 seconds if he's on an escort, without having to worry about any sorts of drains whatsoever. Suddenly engiscorts are viable again. (if you think this is OP, I would argue it's no more OP than Subnuke or Attack Pattern Alpha).
Even if he's on a cruiser it still helps, since energy drains can seriously impact your ability to heal. And before you say, "but Nadion gives a huge boost to energy drain resistance!" let me remind you that a full energy drain Kar'Fi carrying siphon drones and acetons will STILL drain you to zero, Nadion or not. In this instance, for at least 30 seconds out of every 2 minutes, you're immune, so you have a chance of doing something about it.
1) Cruiser Hull Buff
A cruiser is a massive starship, intended to be the core of any group of ships. It's hull is supposed to be the thickest and most impenetrable, and it's supposed to be able to take a hell of a beating even if shields are down. That's not the case today. So what about this instead.
Cruisers should get a native +40 energy weapon damage resistance. So in other words if an escort brings down a cruiser's shield facing, his energy weapons won't do very much damage to the hull; it would require a torpedo strike to finish the ship off.
This would serve two purposes. Firstly, I think it makes sense (and I think canon supports me) that a cruiser's hull would be highly resistant to energy weapon damage. Especially the later ablative hulls on the Sovereign class and later models, which were INTENDED to be able to take a few disruptor shots and keep on ticking.
See: DS9 - Defiant. When Sisko was rescuing Dukat from the Klingons, the shields went down and several shots from the Klingon disruptors impacted bare hull. The ship survived, and that was an escort. The Sovereign class is supposed to have a tougher hull than the Defiant.
The same could not be said of a torpedo strike, in almost every instance I've seen in the show, a torpedo hit on bare hull was a hull breach. Thus, the cruiser should NOT get any kinetic damage resistance. This leads to purpose number 2: it would give people a reason to bring torpedoes again.
Post edited by ertihan on
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Comments
First I would just like to say that I think engineer/cruiser is very viable now. However you do need to go all out on being the healer.
Immunity to all energy drain would add more to damage in the game then healing. Just think about an alpha strike with no drop in damage output from energy drain. People could get 2 or 3 BO 3 in a very short time. I am not saying this is a bad idea but maybe just have the immunity for Shield, engine, and aux.
Cruiser hull buff I like it but I don?t think it?s a good idea. It will make good healers impossible to kill. With buffs I can already hit 60% resistance this might let me hit 75%.
What you could do is give cruisers their own boff power like sci ships have. Say every cruiser come with ES II , RSP II, and AtS II. So you could shield heal or hull heal anyone.
Power drain immunity? Any counter with 2 minutes downtime is basically useless, when the attack is more or less constant. This is also addressing a current imbalance in the game, that is more or less gamebreaking for any profession. Fixing these powers should be the priority.
Making the strongest ship clas even stronger? I'd be totally opposed to this!
If anything, engineer captains need the following:
Engineer Pattern Alpha: Giving it's weapons 10-15% more bleedthrough. This would give good synergy with cruiser abilities like EWP and DEM. In short, make engineers best at bypassing shields.
On the same note, give Sci captains:
Science Pattern Alpha: A +100 skill boost to particle and graviton generators.
(Both should have CD like APA has for tac captains.)
Power drain resistance??
NO. Normally I would agree, but while the Siphon Drone is slated for a nerf in the near future the dreaded Tractor Beam Danube got a buff.
So, NO. While the feds get thier wish for siphon drone changes we KDF get shafted by another buff to a fed toy that has been complained about just as much.
Nadion Inversion buff?? This doesn't bother me.
+40 Damage resistance?? LOL
NO. There has been no evidence ever that a Cruiser is a more durable vessel than any other vessel choice in the IP and besides with the numerous Engineer slots on Cruisers and proper skilling your resists should already be near topped out.
R.I.P
Step 2: Wait 6 months.
Step 3: Reevaluate the state of engineers, count how many are in the queues and how many pre-mades are running. Then see if something else needs a tweak.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
1) Synergy: the engie class has next to zero synergy with anything but a heal cruiser. Sci scorts fill a roll, even Tac/sci. But engie can't even fly a decent DPS cruiser.
2) Gameplay: tanks are worthless in pvp, and thats what the eng class is by design if they were healers, they would be able to cast heals on others, which they don't. most cruisers tend to be tanks as well. From a gameplay perspective this is really boring. A tac gets to roll as many times as he wants until the tank blows up. While the tank has no chance of killing the dmg dealer. Imv, the crew mechanic was at some point designed to address this. if the dmg dealers fail to deliver the burst to kill a tank, the tank should be able to kill its target by a 1000 cuts method. This doesn't work, just like the crew mechanism. After tanking for prolonged time, the dmg dealers should become more vulnerable.
I'm not sure how the OPs suggestions would achieve anything like this.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
It think this whole Engineer/Cruiser complaint that has been in the forums is an overreaction to those powers and once they are tweaked the complaints will stop for the most part though some will still cry foul becuase thier Engineer/Cruiser pairing is not the damage dealer of the group and by defualt is the Tank/healer.
Engineer in a Cruiser = Tank/Healer/support fire/limited debuff and CC
Tactical in a Cruiser = Tank/ damage support dealer/limited debuff and CC
Science in a Cruiser = Tank/ Debuff and CC/ support fire.
R.I.P
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Things are going that route but I see a period of low healing for Escorts due to the changes mentioned before the Passive Heals from Reputation and Embassy heals become more commonplace.
Once those new passives are in place we will be back exactly where we are now. Unbalanced in some form or fashion becuase Cryptic keeps producing game dynamics designed for player PvE fun but not balanced in any fashion for PvP.
We may have to accept that STO will have a P2W based mechanic as far as PvP is concerned and other than attempting call for balance on those abilities and combo's that are beyond balance in use, we may have to learn to live with a system that is as much skill of the player as it is P2W of the player.
R.I.P
this sounds very familiar....
i fully support this
I'd like to see significantly different hull values between the ship types but for now, until they can balance out yo-yo healing, instagibbing, and reduce the drastic gap between a buffed and unbuffed ship it's not the right time.
Also, what is this about a buff to Danubes? I'm pretty sure they increased the cool down on their Tractor Beams which is a fix (and probably considered by many to be a nerf). Or did I miss something?
It's terrible but easy, and these Borg are way cooler than the mess STO and Voyager left us.
I have an Ody and Mirror Assault too...but the D'Kora is just more fun..... :cool:
Happy Friday folks!
Locutus
Delirium Tremens
Tier 4 Starbase, Tier 3 Embassy
http://dtfleet.com/
As it is, Engies don't bring anything to the table, certainly not for team support, enemy debuffing.
Problem is:
Tac in an escort = Burst burst burst
Sci in an escort = SNb and less burst, great for your team
eng in an escort = ....
tac in sci = TBR trolololol
sci in sci = Meh, but some cc
eng in sci = TRIBBLE cc, and less healing that in a cruiser, no use here
as much as I have hoped for the assim set changes, the amount of heals coming from the rep systems, have changed my mind. I just recently posted in here, let the changes come and then see, but i don't think we're getting anywhere. Eng need a rething in the Dmg over time department.
Borts laudable efforts are not enough, we need a proper balance pass of much more then a doff here, and chit chat there
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
more like, can turn your target into a bowling pin
There are only five innate abilities that differentiate the career choices and for some reason folks think that it is more than just that.
Tac -
Attack Pattern Alpha
Fire on My Mark
Tactical Initiative
Go Down Fighting
Tactical Fleet
Sci -
Sensor Scan
Subnucleonic Beam
Scattering Field
Photonic Fleet
Science Fleet
Eng -
Rotate Shield Frequency
EPS Power Transfer
Nadion Inversion
Miracle Worker
Engineering Fleet
That's it. That's all that differentiates the three career choices. BOFF layouts? That's ship dependent - that's not career dependent. Training some of those BOFF abilities that are captain only when you're not that captain type? Get somebody else to do it - run a second account - again, that's not really career dependent either.
So how about those five abilities for each career then?
Let's look at Tac first:
APA will increase the Tac's damage regardless of what ship they're in. A ship that initially does more damage to begin with, will benefit the most from it - but it boosts the Tac's damage regardless of what ship they're flying.
FoMM doesn't really matter what ship the Tac's flying. It's lowering the target's resists so the team can do more damage. Yes, if you're flying solo - it's going to be the typical it will do you the most good if you're in an already high damage ship.
Much like FoMM, neither Tactical Initiative nor Tactical Fleet really matter - unless you're flying solo. They're good team buffs.
GDF's like APA with a twist. It's that fun game of Russian Roulette - flying the ship that you're comfortable being at low hull - easy to get there without going pop, etc, etc, etc.
So how about Sci next:
None of them matter. They're all good for the team. It matters more if you're flying solo, but they're all team buffs or debuffs that help the team.
That leaves us with Eng:
And well... WTF?
Both RSF and MW are self defensive buffs/heals. One could say the counter of the two Tac self offensive buffs, eh? They lend themselves to "tanking" - which is pointless in PvP*.
NI's drain resistance...another "tanking" ability.
EPS and EF - well then, something for the allies, eh?
So what does all that mean?
Regardless of the ship the Tac or the Sci is flying, they've got goodies they bring for the team. The Eng on the other hand, well - they're just "tankier" in whatever ship they're flying.
The Tac has 3 team abilities and 2 self abilities.
The Sci has 5 team abilities.
The Eng has 3 self abilities and 2 team/ally abilities.
The Tac and Sci have so many options - because of what they bring with their 5 abilities. The Eng...just doesn't. So wham-bam, they're made the Healer. Not because they're the best Healers - no, not in the least. They're the tankiest Healers. Then again, they're the tankiest DPS as well. They're just too self-centered - they just don't have the team goodies.
If the Eng had team abilities - they'd fit in with the Tac and Sci. They don't though. So drop them in a Cruiser or a Recluse and call them a Healer...
...it's sad. It's really sad. It's just another example of the PvE focus of the game. Eng as "space tank" - even though it's ground abilities offer all sorts of support love for the team...without looking like the "ground tank"...
If the Eng in Space was more like they were on the Ground, then they wouldn't be the "Oh God, please no!" career they tend to be... look at the ground abilities: 1 self and 4 team.
* Tank...survivability is good. Tank... come, mindless NPCs and beat on me while my friends heal me and kill you - just doesn't work in PvP.
true, if you include broken sci stuff,
But I would say that in the grand scheme of things, building a sci/sci that isn't relying on broken stuff is a meh experience. ONe build and ship to rule them all, in light of all the sci abilities that there are.....meh
what happened to actual power drain..... sci/sci pales to siphon drones
what happend to movement debuff..... escorts or carrier danubes do it better
shield drain...laughable because of resists
zone denial....see danubes but ok i ll give you that one
What happened to GW3 actually hurting? FBP (sry tacs do it better)...know what I mean?
Still the point was sci/sci =hurts, tac /sci =hurts, eng/sci =should go into a cruiser
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
not even broken, just doff buffed. doffs fixed everything that was wrong with science, except the shield drain abilities.
EPS Power Transfer: Instead of adding just a crapton of typically useless energy allow it to increase energy level modifiers by say 20% just to see what happens. That means instead of 125 weapon energy giving you 250% damage it would instead grant 300%. This would be useful in all types of roles from tanking, healing, damage dealing, etc.
Nadion Inversion: Really just needs a higher up-time amount and it would be rock solid. Not necessary to change.
Engineering Fleet: Add on a +10% energy level effectiveness for the entire team. As is it is the weakest of the three.
Miracle Worker: Needs to add resists and/or be a true cleanse aka remove all debuffs. And useable on others. The name alone requires it to be amazing not a crappy engineering team + science team rolled into one.
Rotate Shield Frequency: No real reason this is self only that I can understand but it is a solid ability.
That would make engineers unique and who knows what type of builds players could come up with.
I'd like to see Eng fleet and Sci fleet merged as one fleet power for Engs, but at a lower magnitude. 33% added to SDR for free is silly.
Give the Scis a boost to their sci damage potential as a fleet power for a replacement.
Help engineers out and I agree with most of it
But I think the main problem lays here
Character creation
You see a picture of two enterprise ships, there star
Trek there is kirks ship Picards ship they kicked butt
And chewed gum I'n the series and movies
Most casual players see those pics and BAM another
Cruiser skipper is born only to realize at level 50 his or
Her ship is a whimp compared to the Tiny ship beside
Them with 4X their firepower, they become digusted and
Quit the game shortly after.
It would be better for the Galaxy Galaxy X
Enterprise cruiser sovereign assault cruiser were
Moved to the Tac category and reworked as slow low turn rate
High defense hi firepower ships like they should be
There pictures I'n the engineer creation screen replaced
With the regent and oddessy .Fans of star trek would not
Be tricked into picking what they think are hi firepower ships
And those who pick engineer will really want to assume the
Role of healer and tank which would be good for
The game overall.
I think the pictures of those two ships I'n the Engineers
Creation screen and those cannon ships I'n the cruiser category
Costs this game many many players and money
Those ships do not fit that role I'n the series and movies
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Where?
KDF Engineer:
You are an Engineering Officer in the Klingon Defense Force. You support your ship and crew by increasing their survivability and controlling the paths of the enemy with fieldworks and force fields. You use technology to withstand damage, to improve the performance of your personal shield and to help the warriors at your side with power generators and minefields. In battle, you use modified weapons and support fire from turrets and drones to crush your enemies and gain honor for the Empire!
Starfleet Engineer:
Survivability, support generators, and controlling the paths of enemy advance with fieldworks. The Engineering Officer can withstand the most damage by improving the performance of their own personal shields, while supporting his away team with power generators or by bottlenecking the enemy's advance with defensive minefields. The Engineer's own combat effectiveness is improved by modifications to their firearms or support fire from fabricated turrets and drones.
Survivability != Trinity Tank
On the Ground - they have 1 self buff, 3 team buffs, and 1 DPS attack.
In Space - they have 3 self buffs and 2 team/ally buffs.
Ground BOFFs - nothing Trinity Tank there.
Space BOFFs - 4 of 14.
Kits - nothing Trinity Tank there either.
Ground/Space Threat - skills trainable by any career.
Is there a Threat Ability? Yep, a Tac Ground Boff or a Tac using the right kit can grab Draw Fire.
So where is the Engineer advertised as the Tanks?
The sad thing is... of the three careers (I have 1 toon in each) my engineer is the most fun...Sure they feel damn useless sometimes... ok, most of the time but they are the most fun of the three. I have been known to do 24000 damage in a volley and keep that up for 3 volleys in a row (By volley I'm counting the four attacks for every one attack order) with my cruiser, one time having maxed everything out I got 48k with my power falling no lower than 119 got 2 volleys at that level add FAW and I get lower DPV but more DPS and might get a few thousand more from that.
My tac can easily do 60k damage with one HYT from their escort... and if surviving wasn't something I cared about I could push my overall DPS far higher but even with cycling EPtS rather than EPtW I can max this out for at least twice the cruiser.
I should add that the eng/cruiser is specialized DPS/tank (Excelsior) The escort is a work in progress although when I re-spec the toon I'm going to take some wasted points and put them into survival skills. But the fact that a work in progress escort should be over twice as powerful as a specialized cruiser... and we wonder why engineers and science officers feel useless...
I've said this before but the cross-pollination of heals from Engies to Scis was a big mistake from my perspective... TSS and to a lesser extent HE are the main culprits here. That said, in fairness to the devs I've no idea how you'd begin to go about changing that. Lots of ships simply could not survive in PvP without those Sci heals and cleanses.
Perhaps the game's total damage output could be toned down to compensate while Ensign Sci powers are made much more offensive, as they always should've been.
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
I would also agree that EPS needs some kind of unique mega-buff, at the minute power is so ridiculously easy to come by that rolling an Engie just to get good power levels is completely unnecessary. What, with DOffs, MACO, leech, dual batteries/RMC, normal BO powers (A2B) and God knows what else, it's just not that special.
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
i'd go the other way. How about consumable team devices for SNB or ApA. grant the bonus to all members of your team, i mean since engs don't have a problem according to some this wouldn't be one either, or would it?
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
You really want to put ALL captains out of a job?