It's like trying to use an archer as a swordsman. It doesn't work. It's like taking a man-at-arms and having him operate a trebuchet. It doesn't work. It's like taking a liege lord and having him guard the women and wagons. It doesn't work. Am I ok with this? At the moment, yes, because every ship has a role, every ship has a job. And right now, Cruisers are support craft, and they do that role VERY WELL.
Wrong analogy, I think. You choose the role you want to fullfil when you roll a certain class. So: you roll a tac and you expect to be DPSer. The main problem of STO is, that it does not allow you to choose between archer, warrior and knight. (sci, escort, cruiser). Same is with all other classes.
It should not be "cruisers are support". It should be "engineers are support". Whenever they choose to support the team with offensive abilities requiring fast ships with fast firing weapons: aceton/DEM in escorts, or with hull heal/buffs with ET or Extend for examplein cruisers or with some high aux sci abilities using their EPS and Nadion for power surplus - should be their decission.
Currently they have non. No way to differentiate your playstyle and they way you use your proffesion by choosing the ship and with it what abilities you use.
Think about it: aceton III would be perfect for high-eng support escort. Lowering the damage output of enemy team while maintaining the buff/heal effectively. DEM III would be perfect for the same escort. It should lack the cmdr tac BOFFs, but high-end aggresive eng cmdr setup would still make it a viable choice for eng. And still a support, just in different way and not only healing.
Think cruiser with effective beam weapons in hand of tac with BO III and FAW III - still lower DPV then esocrts, not many eng BOFF slots so rather squishu, but still a tank (like Abrams, not like "zombie cruiser") among DPSers.
It's not that eng are weak or people who plaing eng don't understand their roles. It's just that they don't have a way to choose the preffered (by them) way to play such role.
Cruisers are not UP. They do pretty well in the current setup. It's just that the setup sucks. And it wont change. Easies way would be to make all cmdr slots universal among all ships. Aor set up all ships with universal slots only (lt.cmdr and cmdr) - making the difference in low level BOFF slots and thus orientating the ships more for DPS/Support/CC role.
It will not happen. Unless Cryptic starts making all new C-Store ships this way. Adn I'm frankly not so sure it will be the best way to do this. But could be interesting.
I always though it was Cruisers are primarily Support = Engineers are Support = Cruisers are primarily Engineering BOff heavy by design = Cruisers are primarily Support?
Not for nothing, but why run two copies of ApB? You could run one copy of ApB1 and a copy of ApO1 and experience the same uptime on both I believe.
Granted it's been awhile since I've run multiple attack patterns on one ship, but I believe the shared CD on them is only 15 seconds. With APOs 60 sec cooldown time you're going to have a "buff hole" that I don't think you would have running back to back ApBs.
Not for nothing, but why run two copies of ApB? You could run one copy of ApB1 and a copy of ApO1 and experience the same uptime on both I believe.
By chaining two copies of APB, I am able to keep the enemy debuffed for 10 seconds out of 15; and it is done to benefit the whole team.
APO has a shared cooldown with APB, and its own 60 second cooldown prevents chaining it. And the buff would only benefit me.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
ApO has a much lower GCD that goes into effect when you use ApB, allowing the two to be chained very well.
My question was just a curiousity though.
That's good to know, and at the same time frustrating... now I have to try it out.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
I always though it was Cruisers are primarily Support = Engineers are Support = Cruisers are primarily Engineering BOff heavy by design = Cruisers are primarily Support?
Engineers aren't support. I don't know where people get this idea.
Engineering captain abilities:
1.) Miracle Worker. Can only be used on self.
2.) Nadion Inversion. Can only be used on self.
3.) Rotate Shield Frequency. Can only be used on self.
4.) EPS Power Transfer. Useless unless the target can stay alive to make use of the bonus power.
5.) Engineering Fleet. An incredibly minor buff to hull repair rates and power output.
Versus,
Science!
1.) Scattering Field. Greatly increases damage resistance of yourself and everybody near you.
2.) Photonic Fleet. Increases the size of your party.
3.) Sensor Scan. Extremely powerful, long-lived, AOE version of attack pattern beta that means all of your team does more damage.
4.) Science Fleet. A massive 30% bonus to shield hardness for your team.
5.) Subnucleonic Beam. PVP players hate it because it ruins their buff stacks, PVE players hate it because it's useless, but either way it's a "target: other" ability.
Science is the "Support" captain class. Engineer is the "Respawning bores me" captain class.
Engineers aren't support. I don't know where people get this idea.
I get the impression from here.
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 personal shields, while supporting their away team with power generators or by bottlenecking the enemies advance with defensive mine fields. The Engineer's own combat effectiveness is improved by modifications to their firearms or support fire from fabricated turrets and drones.
Engineers have advanced technical skills that are available in both space and ground combat. They are adept as using Starfleet technology to its best advantage. They can help in reducing the amount of damage done to your ship, repair systems quickly, and even do things not in the Starfleet Operations Manual.
On the ground, Engineers can disable enemy technology, build force field generators, and perform various sorts of technological feats.
Careers Engineers can choose from three different careers. Technicians (buffs and debuffs), Fabrication (turrets), and Combat (battlefield manipulation and explosives).
Technicians Focus on buffs and debuffs. Their buffs focus on the entire group, unlike a Scientist.
Fabrication Uses turrets. Most damage focused career for engineers.
Combat Manipulates the battlefield for the advantage of the engineer. Combat engineers use demolition and explosives to hold the enemy.
and becuase I never saw Geordi man the tactical console during combat in the series, but we saw him support the team (or in this case the ship) efforts on a continual basis with his skills.
Science is the "Support" captain class. Engineer is the "Respawning bores me" captain class.
I find the Science class to be a Crowd Control/Debuff support class from here;
Weakening or incapacitating the enemy over time, creating energy fields that damage or hinder and healing their away team from such affects. The Science officer has the greatest potential to quickly react to chaotic combat situation through direct enemy holds, weakening an enemy groups combat strength or resistance, or responding to enemy attack by quickly healing damage. The science officers combat effectiveness is their versatility.
Science officers are essential to Starfleet's missions of exploration and diplomacy. They research, heal and innovate, using their knowledge and creativity to assist captain and crew. They can utilize technology to control and evade enemies, ensnare an enemy ship with a tractor beam, find cloaked ships, and even use holoprojectors to confuse enemies.
Careers Overview There are 3 science careers to choose from. Researcher (group buffs and debuffs), Scientist (single person buffs and debuffs), and Doctor (player heals).
Researcher Focuses on group debuffs, and buffs. Uses emitters to do this. A researcher is especially helpful in large fleet actions and other pvp opportunities. Their ability to buff a large group also allows them to buff your Bridge Officers.
Scientist Focuses on single person buffs, and debuffs.
Doctor Heals other players.
If one steps back all the classes are support classes to each other. The tac brings the most damage with little to no real heal or Debuff support capabilities, Engineers heal and support with less damage capabilities and Science Debuffs and heals with little damage capabilities as wel.
Played solo they have weaknesses in one or more areas, played on a team they compliment each other.
Of course that complimenting each other takes into account that STO should not be a game strictly of Pew-Pew to complete missions with such a weak need to be survivable.
So the concept that only 1/3rd of the ships are good picks for the majority of the content is acceptable to you?
You remind me of the people in EQ who thought if every class could solo it would mean the end of MMOs. Pretty sure WoW demonstrated quite well the error of that thinking.
Although on that note I do kind of miss the more ... optimized attitude of the players in that game.
You perpetuate the misconception that the content cannot be completed with anything other than an escort. Every class of ship can complete any of the solo content. But not all content can be completed with every mishmash setup of Boffs and skills. You must have some inkling of what you are doing to succeed. Whether or not you complete said content and live or die repeatedly rests solely upon the player at the keyboard.
This argument is no different than the WoW argument that healers or tanks can't do dailies. It boils down to human error. Healers can complete dailies. I leveled a Priest two whole expansions as Holy. I also complete dailies frequently with my Blood DK. I may not be able to kill mobs near as quickly as my Rogue but I can pull 3-4 times as many and kill an entire area at once. Sure you may not kill things quite as fast but you won't be dying and spend less time at minimal health. The decreased down time spent recovering health or respawning at the graveyard compensates for the perceived amount of time lost on the dps end.
I'd rather do an STF with all Cruisers than join one with all Escorts. Why? The Escort captains will zerg to their deaths and any heals an Escort has is spent on itself. Cruiser captains, at least the somewhat seasoned ones, will cross-heal and use all of the shield and hull utilities at their disposal for team benefit.
If you can't do content using any of the three classes of ships then you either: aren't proficient enough with said class to be successful and should get tips from more seasoned players; or you just plain stink.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
What ruins games and gaming communities is the notion that everything be as good at doing everything as everything else. As a result of this, tactics and teamwork get tossed out the airlock as people get used to facerolling everything. The moment they hit something that cannot be facerolled by loosely grouped five or ten one-man teams they start screaming and demanding that this be nerfed or that be buffed to compensate for their lack of attention and lack of coordination. You cannot win if you cannot fail.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
I'd rather do an STF with all Cruisers than join one with all Escorts. Why? The Escort captains will zerg to their deaths and any heals an Escort has is spent on itself. Cruiser captains, at least the somewhat seasoned ones, will cross-heal and use all of the shield and hull utilities at their disposal for team benefit.
If you can't do content using any of the three classes of ships then you either: aren't proficient enough with said class to be successful and should get tips from more seasoned players; or you just plain stink.
I've been playing this game for 4 days, I'm now level 32 in a Sao Paolo, I've never even once made those kinds of newbie mistakes. I've always played attrition in fleet action and rarely died.
You seem to think MMOs are hard. My science and engineering teams are rarely spent on only myself, and I use my cooldowns while speeding towards my target, drop my mines in dispersal delta and GTFO with evasive maneuvers.
I have also never seen anyone else make these dumb moves you say all us escort players do. So kindly get off your high horse, MMOs are not hard. While yes, newbies make mistakes, that go for both cruisers, science vessels and escorts. If you see an Escort struggling when the clusterfrag is on, try to help him with his ability use instead of whining.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] bloodpact.net
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
I've been playing this game for 4 days, I'm now level 32 in a Sao Paolo, I've never even once made those kinds of newbie mistakes. I've always played attrition in fleet action and rarely died.
You seem to think MMOs are hard. My science and engineering teams are rarely spent on only myself, and I use my cooldowns while speeding towards my target, drop my mines in dispersal delta and GTFO with evasive maneuvers.
I have also never seen anyone else make these dumb moves you say all us escort players do. So kindly get off your high horse, MMOs are not hard. While yes, newbies make mistakes, that go for both cruisers, science vessels and escorts. If you see an Escort struggling when the clusterfrag is on, try to help him with his ability use instead of whining.
Show me where I stated MMOs are hard. And since you claim to be privy on what type of ship I generally command, I command a Bird of Prey. I've also played this particular game since launch and countless other MMOs, RTS, and turned based games so I've seen just about every dumb mistake you can think of. You get off your pedestal.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
Whelp, got my Fleet Corsair pretty well tuned now.
Between the plasmonic leech and the adapted MACO shield bonus, I'm running +20 to all systems dring combat, Chained EPTW1 gives me about +40 to weapons. Which is what you need to broadside with a full complement of beams.
Firepower? 7 beam arrays (1 romulan experimental), with power above 100 at all times. Things are shredded when I pull up to them at short range. Which is easy.
Base turn rate is only 8 (the high end for Fed cruisers), but because my engine power easily goes over 60 in combat it flies great. High speed gives some defense value too.
Support my team mates? Aux power goes over 80, so my TSS, HE, and Aux2SIF pack a decent punch (and using engineering team every 15 seconds, because hey why not).
Oh, and it's got a hangar bay. The new uber-scorpion fighters are vicious TRIBBLE.
In short:
Why the hell would anybody want to fly a Federation cruiser with pathetic handling, no pets, and 2/3 the system power, when they could fly a KDF cruiser.
Though if the KDF BCs already have better enertia values ingame that work with thier higher turnrates, I do not see why the sudden change to the games mechanics are needed just to make the feds work better if thier are changed.. The system should already be in place.
You would have to reduce the inertial values of the ships, which makes them essentially "lighter", which would work against the point of cruisers being larger ships. The reason why the Excel can turn so well is that it is a smaller ship (cruiser-wise). The other cruisers are too heavy and pay the price. They require a different playstyle than light vessels.
The lowest Shield modifier for a science vessel (feds) is 1.01 for the Science Vessel refit at VA. Every other Science vessel has a much higher Shield Modifier and are already excellent Shield Tankers.
Thats what I was trying to say, any improvement on cruisers would require a percentage equal change in science ships.
Thats what I was trying to say, any improvement on cruisers would require a percentage equal change in science ships.
No, what science ships need is a massive improvement in the performance of science *abilities*.
They shouldn't be winning via endurance like a cruiser, they should be winning via evasion and misdirection. Viral Matrix needs to shut enemies down completely, Jam Sensors needs to actually jam something usefully, Mask Energy Signature needs... well, it needs a total overhaul really. Grav well does some damage but only if shields are down, tractor repulse is about pushing enemies around so better-armed people can deal with them which is...kind of sad for science. TachBeam is feeble, CPB and PSW are both decent at what they do but the cooldowns are gratuitously long...
Basically, science ships needs to be able to use their science abilities as weapons. This means very short cooldowns, and global cooldowns reduced to the point where a science ship should be able to do something 100% of the time. Escorts can always shoot, cruisers can effectively always heal themself, yet we force science ships to work around cooldowns ranging from 45 seconds to 3 minutes for its abilities half of which have bugger-all impact in battle.
Science ships shouldn't need supreme tanking capability because they should hardy ever be taking fire from enemy ships on the verge of total system failure.
No, what science ships need is a massive improvement in the performance of science *abilities*.
They shouldn't be winning via endurance like a cruiser, they should be winning via evasion and misdirection. Viral Matrix needs to shut enemies down completely, Jam Sensors needs to actually jam something usefully, Mask Energy Signature needs... well, it needs a total overhaul really. Grav well does some damage but only if shields are down, tractor repulse is about pushing enemies around so better-armed people can deal with them which is...kind of sad for science. TachBeam is feeble, CPB and PSW are both decent at what they do but the cooldowns are gratuitously long...
Basically, science ships needs to be able to use their science abilities as weapons. This means very short cooldowns, and global cooldowns reduced to the point where a science ship should be able to do something 100% of the time. Escorts can always shoot, cruisers can effectively always heal themself, yet we force science ships to work around cooldowns ranging from 45 seconds to 3 minutes for its abilities half of which have bugger-all impact in battle.
Science ships shouldn't need supreme tanking capability because they should hardy ever be taking fire from enemy ships on the verge of total system failure.
In an ideal world....
You'd have to go back to my original post that Roach was talking baout to understand what I was talking about.
No, what science ships need is a massive improvement in the performance of science *abilities*.
They shouldn't be winning via endurance like a cruiser, they should be winning via evasion and misdirection. Viral Matrix needs to shut enemies down completely, Jam Sensors needs to actually jam something usefully, Mask Energy Signature needs... well, it needs a total overhaul really. Grav well does some damage but only if shields are down, tractor repulse is about pushing enemies around so better-armed people can deal with them which is...kind of sad for science. TachBeam is feeble, CPB and PSW are both decent at what they do but the cooldowns are gratuitously long...
Basically, science ships needs to be able to use their science abilities as weapons. This means very short cooldowns, and global cooldowns reduced to the point where a science ship should be able to do something 100% of the time. Escorts can always shoot, cruisers can effectively always heal themself, yet we force science ships to work around cooldowns ranging from 45 seconds to 3 minutes for its abilities half of which have bugger-all impact in battle.
Science ships shouldn't need supreme tanking capability because they should hardy ever be taking fire from enemy ships on the verge of total system failure.
In an ideal world....
I love how you completely ignored the one thing science ships are beautiful at. Drains. ES2, ES3, TR2, TR3, SST... those are all very strong points on a science ship. I can almost shut a tac cube down in ISE using just TR2 and ES2. Combine those with polaron weaponry, and you can essentially disable a target.
Science damage may have been reduced, but their mind-**** powers are still just as strong. Hell, I had my friend unable to move at all when I hit him with TSS:E, ES3, and TR2. His engines just shut down. As soon as that happened, I hit him with Chronitons to keep him slowed and then blew him away. The entire time, ES was pumping his energy back into me, so I was at 125/65/65/125.
And VM is also incredibly strong. Annoy a D'deridex enough on elite, and that sucker will tractor you, VM you, wait til your shields are down, and then pump a dozen HY plasma torps down your throat. Guess what, you can do the same thing to the Borg. I have done it. It's hilarious.
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.
You perpetuate the misconception that the content cannot be completed with anything other than an escort. Every class of ship can complete any of the solo content. But not all content can be completed with every mishmash setup of Boffs and skills. You must have some inkling of what you are doing to succeed. Whether or not you complete said content and live or die repeatedly rests solely upon the player at the keyboard.
This argument is no different than the WoW argument that healers or tanks can't do dailies. It boils down to human error. Healers can complete dailies. I leveled a Priest two whole expansions as Holy. I also complete dailies frequently with my Blood DK. I may not be able to kill mobs near as quickly as my Rogue but I can pull 3-4 times as many and kill an entire area at once. Sure you may not kill things quite as fast but you won't be dying and spend less time at minimal health. The decreased down time spent recovering health or respawning at the graveyard compensates for the perceived amount of time lost on the dps end.
I'd rather do an STF with all Cruisers than join one with all Escorts. Why? The Escort captains will zerg to their deaths and any heals an Escort has is spent on itself. Cruiser captains, at least the somewhat seasoned ones, will cross-heal and use all of the shield and hull utilities at their disposal for team benefit.
If you can't do content using any of the three classes of ships then you either: aren't proficient enough with said class to be successful and should get tips from more seasoned players; or you just plain stink.
My cat can complete most content in this game, completion is not the issue.
I could spend 15-20 minutes in a cruiser heavy ISE, or 5-7 in an escort heavy ISE.
I could spend 4 minutes in a Tau Whatever daily, or less than 2 with my escort.
I could spend 18 minutes in Battleship Royal with my cruiser, or 10 with my escort.
When your endgame design revolves around blowing stuff up to grind out a currency I for one am not going to use anything that takes nearly twice as long to get it. That just sounds silly to me. But hey I do appreciate all the others keeping Battleship Royal from becoming ineligible for the wrapper mission.
My cat can complete most content in this game, completion is not the issue.
I could spend 15-20 minutes in a cruiser heavy ISE, or 5-7 in an escort heavy ISE.
I could spend 4 minutes in a Tau Whatever daily, or less than 2 with my escort.
I could spend 18 minutes in Battleship Royal with my cruiser, or 10 with my escort.
When your endgame design revolves around blowing stuff up to grind out a currency I for one am not going to use anything that takes nearly twice as long to get it. That just sounds silly to me. But hey I do appreciate all the others keeping Battleship Royal from becoming ineligible for the wrapper mission.
So you just dislike escorts because every other vessel is too slow in completing content for you? Why the hurry?
I thought part of the complaint was only Escorts could kill stuff, not that everything but an Escort takes to long to do the same?
So you just dislike escorts because every other vessel is too slow in completing content for you? Why the hurry?
I thought part of the complaint was only Escorts could kill stuff, not that everything but an Escort takes to long to do the same?
There exists an inequity in PvE between the ships. To me, speed is the deciding factor although I am ok with a ship that takes a little bit longer when it starts getting near the double time point it annoys me.
Part of the issue with cruisers is that the hull itself adds nothing. The extra hull health does not help me in any way shape or form as 10% hull will not save you. Nor does the extra power help much with how spread out it is but that is minor. Finally the maneuverability and speed penalty does hurt sometimes but not always. The other issue is the boffs. Engineering boff abilities beyond the ensign level do very little comparatively speaking. An Epower to Shields 1 is all the tank I typically ever need from engineering and if you must choose between say DEM or CRF I think it is obvious which will add more damage in PvE. The final issue is the beam array under-performing by a long shot. Even at max range my DHCs will deal better damage especially when I'm in a tac boff heavy ship.
One of those issues is not a big deal. All three though is just too large of a penalty for me to live with. I mean I could fly around doing dailies in a shuttle if I wanted but what would be the point?
And I do fly a large variety of craft. I have an FPE with beam arrays, I have a D'kora sporting DHCs, even a Tac Oddy using beams. Said Tac Oddy is painful to fly partly because he isn't very geared but mainly because it is a tac oddy using beams that even with a Tac Captain it underperforms. And those are only a few of my toons but in the end when I grab the Tac Captain in the DHC Defiant stuff gets done quickly. I can live with the disparity when using a beam escort, or a DHC cruiser. But combine all 3 factors and it is like watching paint dry.
And no it is not that I do not know how to build the ships I have tried nearly every single setup out there although if you have one to suggest I will give it a try. I am working on a KDF flight deck fleet cruiser with plasma beams that I think might be acceptable for me but that is only one energy type and only because of a special weapon.
*edit addon*
It is not that I hate escorts either. Infact I love escorts. I love the vast majority of the ships. I just wish I could enjoy the larger variety of ships and styles in STO without feeling like I'm holding back the group, or flying a shuttle offensively speaking.
Even Hilbert and other PvP players, anyone really will tell you. If your going to PvE use an escort it is so much faster why wouldn't you?
Roach, if you need to do the same content over and over again you want to do it faster. If you are rewarded by killing stuff fast, you want to kill stuff fast. If you do not PvP and only PvE, then the difference between doing same content 10 times over in an hour, or in 3 hours IS an issue.
Any PvPer, I think including you will accept that the game is balanced around DPS. The more you have the better. Cruisers suck in such setup. There is no team play in the game to give the cruisers to use at least 1/3* of their potential as support ships, so cruiser suck in such setup.
For PvE cruisers suck in 100%, for PvP it is better but PvP is rather small and not quite important part of the game. And even in PvP cruisers are limited in their support role to one type of support: healing.
Klink battlecruisers at least have DHCs and ability to use them effectively. But Feds are screwed.
* 1/3 of support role because cruiser with their BOFF layout have the tools to do other types of support then healing: damage mitigation with Aceton or damage support with DEM. Problem is that no cruiser is able to use those tools effectively. Aceton has too limited arc for cruiser and DEM is not worth taking for beams.
Also, don't get me wrong I'm perfectly fine with a cruiser getting a paper thin tank like an escort if it goes offensive in the interest of the trinity balance because it doesn't matter at all.
If stacking Emergency power to Weapons 3 with Directed Energy Modulation 3 was nearly as effective as stacking CRF + AP:B for beams we wouldn't have this issue. If beams were not total garbage compared to DHCs we wouldn't have this issue. If cruisers had a built in energy drain resistance, then their would be no problem.
But no, instead all of the above is false. Tac boff abilities provide the highest amount of damage. DHCs have all the advantages for weapon choice right now, even DEM works better with them than it does beams. And beams even work better on an escort than a cruiser thanks to the fact of going from 7 to 8 beams not being much of a boon and letting half your guns going silent to bring a torp to bear while piloting a whale is not the brightest idea. Not to mention beams work better when you have an APB3 so their damage isn't complete garbage.
How long do you think it will be until nearly every ship you see in PvE is either an escort or one of these so called new destroyer classes? Or a lockbox style battlecruiser? If this game had a hardcore playerbase you would get blacklisted for groups if you didn't bring one of the above for everything aside from Hive, Starbase Blockade, and possibly No Win although I have little experience with that one.
I'd even put down good money many (not all) of those who thing the game is too grindy are not doing the grind efficiently with the proper ships.
I love how you completely ignored the one thing science ships are beautiful at.
So, energy siphon?
1.) Only works on one target at a time, so it's kind of useless in the massive encounters like mirror incursion or starbase defense.
2.) Requires large investments (max flow caps, max aux, two copies of ability) to be useful.
3.) Boss type enemies got buffed so that they can no longer be shut down completely even with a purpose-built drain boat.
4.) Doesn't kill anything. If you're running high aux to get the duration (better be), then all the drained energy is going to do for your damage output is bring your weapons up from "irrelevant" to "feeble".
And yes, I have first-hand ongoing experience with power draining. My Vo'quv is specialized in that. The difference between a Vo'quv and a typical science ship however, is that I have tremendous firepower launching out of my hangar bays so my carrier doesn't need to contribute much direct damage to be effective.
polaron weaponry
Polarized disruptor!
And VM is also incredibly strong. Annoy a D'deridex enough on elite, and that sucker will tractor you, VM you, wait til your shields are down, and then pump a dozen HY plasma torps down your throat. Guess what, you can do the same thing to the Borg. I have done it. It's hilarious.
Yes, well, the AI cheats. The player version can't turn off the target's shields. This is, again, a single-target ability with no ability to cause damage and a very long cooldown.
No experience with PVP. So maybe it works great there. And I'll just refer you back to the fact that most people in this game don't play or care about PVP, so balancing mechanics to work there as the priority is a terrible idea.
Also, don't get me wrong I'm perfectly fine with a cruiser getting a paper thin tank like an escort if it goes offensive in the interest of the trinity balance because it doesn't matter at all.
You realize I'm sure that what you ask would also necessitate other tweaks to the ship class, essentially you want escorts with cruiser skins.
If stacking Emergency power to Weapons 3 with Directed Energy Modulation 3 was nearly as effective as stacking CRF + AP:B for beams we wouldn't have this issue. If beams were not total garbage compared to DHCs we wouldn't have this issue. If cruisers had a built in energy drain resistance, then their would be no problem.
Incredibly WE don't have a problem. YOU perceive you have one. For all your talk of former hardcore trinity MMO experience I'm honestly surprised at you missing the boat so badly about this. Cruiser's powers and abilities tend toward the defensive by design. They are not designed to work like or do the same job as escorts. A case could be made Fed cruisers are limited compared to their KDF counterparts, but that is a discrepancy ingrained many, many design choices removed from what the game is today.
But no, instead all of the above is false. Tac boff abilities provide the highest amount of damage. DHCs have all the advantages for weapon choice right now, even DEM works better with them than it does beams. And beams even work better on an escort than a cruiser thanks to the fact of going from 7 to 8 beams not being much of a boon and letting half your guns going silent to bring a torp to bear while piloting a whale is not the brightest idea. Not to mention beams work better when you have an APB3 so their damage isn't complete garbage.
7 to 8 beams?? 7 beams is only an option these days with the coming of the Rom Rep beam. Why would anyone run 7 much less 8 beams before is beyond me. It was well known to eat up too much energy, so much as to be counterproductive. As to move out of arc to fire a torp.... the 180 degree torp is available now, you keep forgetting that. No worries I'll keep reminding you.
How long do you think it will be until nearly every ship you see in PvE is either an escort or one of these so called new destroyer classes? Or a lockbox style battlecruiser? If this game had a hardcore playerbase you would get blacklisted for groups if you didn't bring one of the above for everything aside from Hive, Starbase Blockade, and possibly No Win although I have little experience with that one.
First off, STO is not a hardcore game. Asking hypothetical what ifs around that is silly and pointless. As to your other tiding of doom, that soon everyone will be seen flying around a tactical zippy uber death machine.... how long have you played? I've been around a long time and I STILL seem to see cruisers being used PvE. Heck, now and then I even see one that has bothered to learn to play and will hold agro for the group. Of course too often you end up seeying cruisers running away from spheres.... that's not a failure of the class.
I'd even put down good money many (not all) of those who thing the game is too grindy are not doing the grind efficiently with the proper ships.
As it turns out different types of ships are better for different grinds. While admittedly annoying its probably the way it should be.
After playing in Kerrat last night. I am again reminded that single cannons need a tad bit uppage in damage capability, a BOP almost fully soaked a buffed up and sustained crf1/crf2 assault on the same shield with my Fleet Excel.
Incredibly WE don't have a problem. YOU perceive you have one. For all your talk of former hardcore trinity MMO experience I'm honestly surprised at you missing the boat so badly about this. Cruiser's powers and abilities tend toward the defensive by design.
I think you are wrong. Cruisers, if you take a good look at BOFF powers cruisers have access to (and only cruisers) then it is obvious, that cruisers were not ment to be ont trick (healer) pony they are.
They were, obviously, not supposed to be passive support only. Hell, 3/4 of their support powers are highly offensive: Aceton III is aggressive damage mitigation (debuff), DEM III is obviously aggressive support damage, EWP III is relatively aggressive CC (sort of) and ES III is passive support/buff.
Cruisers can use half of those support powers and only one can be seen as aggressive: EWP III. ES is passive and Aceton with DEM are not usable for cruisers. DEM is usable if you give them weapons that are not suited for them (cannons) and even then only two of Fed cruisers can are able to use those with some success. Others lack the maneuverability.
You can place the blame on BOFF powers (limited arc for flying cows) and weapons (beams) and you would be right. But by far this does not mean that cruisers are supposed to be defensive/passive support ships. 3/4 of their high level support BOFF skills are meant for aggression, not passivity or defence.
Originally Posted by bareel View Post
Some thoughts added in RED.
Also, don't get me wrong I'm perfectly fine with a cruiser getting a paper thin tank like an escort if it goes offensive in the interest of the trinity balance because it doesn't matter at all.
You realize I'm sure that what you ask would also necessitate other tweaks to the ship class, essentially you want escorts with cruiser skins.
Incorrect as I've said a dozen times. Equal but different is my prefered style. Cruisers can be better at long range engagements, or ones that require accuracy or any large number of various ways to deferential the ships and their styles while still allowing them to perform at a similar level. Escorts can speed tank, escorts excel at close range burst. The issue is cruisers excel at nothing.
If stacking Emergency power to Weapons 3 with Directed Energy Modulation 3 was nearly as effective as stacking CRF + AP:B for beams we wouldn't have this issue. If beams were not total garbage compared to DHCs we wouldn't have this issue. If cruisers had a built in energy drain resistance, then their would be no problem.
Incredibly WE don't have a problem. YOU perceive you have one. For all your talk of former hardcore trinity MMO experience I'm honestly surprised at you missing the boat so badly about this. Cruiser's powers and abilities tend toward the defensive by design. They are not designed to work like or do the same job as escorts. A case could be made Fed cruisers are limited compared to their KDF counterparts, but that is a discrepancy ingrained many, many design choices removed from what the game is today.
I am sick and tired of the trinity MMO. It is stale, outdated, and shows a limited developer ability to creatively design characters and encounters. If I wanted trinity I'd play something that has it. And just because they are working as designed if that original design concept is not working it should be changed.
But no, instead all of the above is false. Tac boff abilities provide the highest amount of damage. DHCs have all the advantages for weapon choice right now, even DEM works better with them than it does beams. And beams even work better on an escort than a cruiser thanks to the fact of going from 7 to 8 beams not being much of a boon and letting half your guns going silent to bring a torp to bear while piloting a whale is not the brightest idea. Not to mention beams work better when you have an APB3 so their damage isn't complete garbage.
7 to 8 beams?? 7 beams is only an option these days with the coming of the Rom Rep beam. Why would anyone run 7 much less 8 beams before is beyond me. It was well known to eat up too much energy, so much as to be counterproductive. As to move out of arc to fire a torp.... the 180 degree torp is available now, you keep forgetting that. No worries I'll keep reminding you.
Wrong. Seven beams while over-capping energy is the only way to be even remotely competitive in the past your ignorance of the game mechanics astounds me. In addition having a ship style being viable only if I buy a 25USD torpedo and/or use plasma weapons exclusively is not acceptable at all. If the 180 degree torp was a standard variant, and if it wasn't garbage to begin with you might have a point.
How long do you think it will be until nearly every ship you see in PvE is either an escort or one of these so called new destroyer classes? Or a lockbox style battlecruiser? If this game had a hardcore playerbase you would get blacklisted for groups if you didn't bring one of the above for everything aside from Hive, Starbase Blockade, and possibly No Win although I have little experience with that one.
First off, STO is not a hardcore game. Asking hypothetical what ifs around that is silly and pointless. As to your other tiding of doom, that soon everyone will be seen flying around a tactical zippy uber death machine.... how long have you played? I've been around a long time and I STILL seem to see cruisers being used PvE. Heck, now and then I even see one that has bothered to learn to play and will hold agro for the group. Of course too often you end up seeying cruisers running away from spheres.... that's not a failure of the class.
The idea of a trinity game design necessitates a minor amount of 'hardcore' approach. And yes I do see players using cruisers a ton in PvE still. I also hear them complain the content is too difficult and the grind takes too long.
I'd even put down good money many (not all) of those who thing the game is too grindy are not doing the grind efficiently with the proper ships.
As it turns out different types of ships are better for different grinds. While admittedly annoying its probably the way it should be.
Name one single grind where anything other than high DPS works best? I dare you. Omega Marks are best to get by doing ISE and CSE with a solid group. By solid group I am referring to 5 high DPS ships that know how to crossheal and can do them in around 5 minutes each. Rommie daily is actually faster than rommie rabbit farming when you can bang out 75 marks in about 10-15 minutes baring lucky doff crits. Fleet Marks are best to earn by doing battleship royal in about ten minutes getting nearly 1k dil along with them and 300+ K EC.
Just as a reference it took me longer to type this post than to get 4k dil with my KDF Tac Fleet Vor'Cha. Sad isn't it.
Comments
Wrong analogy, I think. You choose the role you want to fullfil when you roll a certain class. So: you roll a tac and you expect to be DPSer. The main problem of STO is, that it does not allow you to choose between archer, warrior and knight. (sci, escort, cruiser). Same is with all other classes.
It should not be "cruisers are support". It should be "engineers are support". Whenever they choose to support the team with offensive abilities requiring fast ships with fast firing weapons: aceton/DEM in escorts, or with hull heal/buffs with ET or Extend for examplein cruisers or with some high aux sci abilities using their EPS and Nadion for power surplus - should be their decission.
Currently they have non. No way to differentiate your playstyle and they way you use your proffesion by choosing the ship and with it what abilities you use.
Think about it: aceton III would be perfect for high-eng support escort. Lowering the damage output of enemy team while maintaining the buff/heal effectively. DEM III would be perfect for the same escort. It should lack the cmdr tac BOFFs, but high-end aggresive eng cmdr setup would still make it a viable choice for eng. And still a support, just in different way and not only healing.
Think cruiser with effective beam weapons in hand of tac with BO III and FAW III - still lower DPV then esocrts, not many eng BOFF slots so rather squishu, but still a tank (like Abrams, not like "zombie cruiser") among DPSers.
It's not that eng are weak or people who plaing eng don't understand their roles. It's just that they don't have a way to choose the preffered (by them) way to play such role.
Cruisers are not UP. They do pretty well in the current setup. It's just that the setup sucks. And it wont change. Easies way would be to make all cmdr slots universal among all ships. Aor set up all ships with universal slots only (lt.cmdr and cmdr) - making the difference in low level BOFF slots and thus orientating the ships more for DPS/Support/CC role.
It will not happen. Unless Cryptic starts making all new C-Store ships this way. Adn I'm frankly not so sure it will be the best way to do this. But could be interesting.
R.I.P
ApO has a much lower GCD that goes into effect when you use ApB, allowing the two to be chained very well.
My question was just a curiousity though.
R.I.P
That's good to know, and at the same time frustrating... now I have to try it out.
Well, if it works to your playstyle then Hurrah! If not you are out nothing for the experience and can always continue doing what you enjoy.
R.I.P
Engineers aren't support. I don't know where people get this idea.
Engineering captain abilities:
1.) Miracle Worker. Can only be used on self.
2.) Nadion Inversion. Can only be used on self.
3.) Rotate Shield Frequency. Can only be used on self.
4.) EPS Power Transfer. Useless unless the target can stay alive to make use of the bonus power.
5.) Engineering Fleet. An incredibly minor buff to hull repair rates and power output.
Versus,
Science!
1.) Scattering Field. Greatly increases damage resistance of yourself and everybody near you.
2.) Photonic Fleet. Increases the size of your party.
3.) Sensor Scan. Extremely powerful, long-lived, AOE version of attack pattern beta that means all of your team does more damage.
4.) Science Fleet. A massive 30% bonus to shield hardness for your team.
5.) Subnucleonic Beam. PVP players hate it because it ruins their buff stacks, PVE players hate it because it's useless, but either way it's a "target: other" ability.
Science is the "Support" captain class. Engineer is the "Respawning bores me" captain class.
R.I.P
You perpetuate the misconception that the content cannot be completed with anything other than an escort. Every class of ship can complete any of the solo content. But not all content can be completed with every mishmash setup of Boffs and skills. You must have some inkling of what you are doing to succeed. Whether or not you complete said content and live or die repeatedly rests solely upon the player at the keyboard.
This argument is no different than the WoW argument that healers or tanks can't do dailies. It boils down to human error. Healers can complete dailies. I leveled a Priest two whole expansions as Holy. I also complete dailies frequently with my Blood DK. I may not be able to kill mobs near as quickly as my Rogue but I can pull 3-4 times as many and kill an entire area at once. Sure you may not kill things quite as fast but you won't be dying and spend less time at minimal health. The decreased down time spent recovering health or respawning at the graveyard compensates for the perceived amount of time lost on the dps end.
I'd rather do an STF with all Cruisers than join one with all Escorts. Why? The Escort captains will zerg to their deaths and any heals an Escort has is spent on itself. Cruiser captains, at least the somewhat seasoned ones, will cross-heal and use all of the shield and hull utilities at their disposal for team benefit.
If you can't do content using any of the three classes of ships then you either: aren't proficient enough with said class to be successful and should get tips from more seasoned players; or you just plain stink.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
I've been playing this game for 4 days, I'm now level 32 in a Sao Paolo, I've never even once made those kinds of newbie mistakes. I've always played attrition in fleet action and rarely died.
You seem to think MMOs are hard. My science and engineering teams are rarely spent on only myself, and I use my cooldowns while speeding towards my target, drop my mines in dispersal delta and GTFO with evasive maneuvers.
I have also never seen anyone else make these dumb moves you say all us escort players do. So kindly get off your high horse, MMOs are not hard. While yes, newbies make mistakes, that go for both cruisers, science vessels and escorts. If you see an Escort struggling when the clusterfrag is on, try to help him with his ability use instead of whining.
bloodpact.net
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
-Michelangelo
Show me where I stated MMOs are hard. And since you claim to be privy on what type of ship I generally command, I command a Bird of Prey. I've also played this particular game since launch and countless other MMOs, RTS, and turned based games so I've seen just about every dumb mistake you can think of. You get off your pedestal.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
They very quickly degenerate into "I'm right." "No, I'm right!" "No, you're wrong, and I am the one who is right!" "No U!" And so on and so forth.
Welcome to the online pissing contest.
Between the plasmonic leech and the adapted MACO shield bonus, I'm running +20 to all systems dring combat, Chained EPTW1 gives me about +40 to weapons. Which is what you need to broadside with a full complement of beams.
Firepower? 7 beam arrays (1 romulan experimental), with power above 100 at all times. Things are shredded when I pull up to them at short range. Which is easy.
Base turn rate is only 8 (the high end for Fed cruisers), but because my engine power easily goes over 60 in combat it flies great. High speed gives some defense value too.
Support my team mates? Aux power goes over 80, so my TSS, HE, and Aux2SIF pack a decent punch (and using engineering team every 15 seconds, because hey why not).
Oh, and it's got a hangar bay. The new uber-scorpion fighters are vicious TRIBBLE.
In short:
Why the hell would anybody want to fly a Federation cruiser with pathetic handling, no pets, and 2/3 the system power, when they could fly a KDF cruiser.
You would have to reduce the inertial values of the ships, which makes them essentially "lighter", which would work against the point of cruisers being larger ships. The reason why the Excel can turn so well is that it is a smaller ship (cruiser-wise). The other cruisers are too heavy and pay the price. They require a different playstyle than light vessels.
Thats what I was trying to say, any improvement on cruisers would require a percentage equal change in science ships.
No, what science ships need is a massive improvement in the performance of science *abilities*.
They shouldn't be winning via endurance like a cruiser, they should be winning via evasion and misdirection. Viral Matrix needs to shut enemies down completely, Jam Sensors needs to actually jam something usefully, Mask Energy Signature needs... well, it needs a total overhaul really. Grav well does some damage but only if shields are down, tractor repulse is about pushing enemies around so better-armed people can deal with them which is...kind of sad for science. TachBeam is feeble, CPB and PSW are both decent at what they do but the cooldowns are gratuitously long...
Basically, science ships needs to be able to use their science abilities as weapons. This means very short cooldowns, and global cooldowns reduced to the point where a science ship should be able to do something 100% of the time. Escorts can always shoot, cruisers can effectively always heal themself, yet we force science ships to work around cooldowns ranging from 45 seconds to 3 minutes for its abilities half of which have bugger-all impact in battle.
Science ships shouldn't need supreme tanking capability because they should hardy ever be taking fire from enemy ships on the verge of total system failure.
In an ideal world....
You'd have to go back to my original post that Roach was talking baout to understand what I was talking about.
I love how you completely ignored the one thing science ships are beautiful at. Drains. ES2, ES3, TR2, TR3, SST... those are all very strong points on a science ship. I can almost shut a tac cube down in ISE using just TR2 and ES2. Combine those with polaron weaponry, and you can essentially disable a target.
Science damage may have been reduced, but their mind-**** powers are still just as strong. Hell, I had my friend unable to move at all when I hit him with TSS:E, ES3, and TR2. His engines just shut down. As soon as that happened, I hit him with Chronitons to keep him slowed and then blew him away. The entire time, ES was pumping his energy back into me, so I was at 125/65/65/125.
And VM is also incredibly strong. Annoy a D'deridex enough on elite, and that sucker will tractor you, VM you, wait til your shields are down, and then pump a dozen HY plasma torps down your throat. Guess what, you can do the same thing to the Borg. I have done it. It's hilarious.
My cat can complete most content in this game, completion is not the issue.
I could spend 15-20 minutes in a cruiser heavy ISE, or 5-7 in an escort heavy ISE.
I could spend 4 minutes in a Tau Whatever daily, or less than 2 with my escort.
I could spend 18 minutes in Battleship Royal with my cruiser, or 10 with my escort.
When your endgame design revolves around blowing stuff up to grind out a currency I for one am not going to use anything that takes nearly twice as long to get it. That just sounds silly to me. But hey I do appreciate all the others keeping Battleship Royal from becoming ineligible for the wrapper mission.
So you just dislike escorts because every other vessel is too slow in completing content for you? Why the hurry?
I thought part of the complaint was only Escorts could kill stuff, not that everything but an Escort takes to long to do the same?
R.I.P
There exists an inequity in PvE between the ships. To me, speed is the deciding factor although I am ok with a ship that takes a little bit longer when it starts getting near the double time point it annoys me.
Part of the issue with cruisers is that the hull itself adds nothing. The extra hull health does not help me in any way shape or form as 10% hull will not save you. Nor does the extra power help much with how spread out it is but that is minor. Finally the maneuverability and speed penalty does hurt sometimes but not always. The other issue is the boffs. Engineering boff abilities beyond the ensign level do very little comparatively speaking. An Epower to Shields 1 is all the tank I typically ever need from engineering and if you must choose between say DEM or CRF I think it is obvious which will add more damage in PvE. The final issue is the beam array under-performing by a long shot. Even at max range my DHCs will deal better damage especially when I'm in a tac boff heavy ship.
One of those issues is not a big deal. All three though is just too large of a penalty for me to live with. I mean I could fly around doing dailies in a shuttle if I wanted but what would be the point?
And I do fly a large variety of craft. I have an FPE with beam arrays, I have a D'kora sporting DHCs, even a Tac Oddy using beams. Said Tac Oddy is painful to fly partly because he isn't very geared but mainly because it is a tac oddy using beams that even with a Tac Captain it underperforms. And those are only a few of my toons but in the end when I grab the Tac Captain in the DHC Defiant stuff gets done quickly. I can live with the disparity when using a beam escort, or a DHC cruiser. But combine all 3 factors and it is like watching paint dry.
And no it is not that I do not know how to build the ships I have tried nearly every single setup out there although if you have one to suggest I will give it a try. I am working on a KDF flight deck fleet cruiser with plasma beams that I think might be acceptable for me but that is only one energy type and only because of a special weapon.
*edit addon*
It is not that I hate escorts either. Infact I love escorts. I love the vast majority of the ships. I just wish I could enjoy the larger variety of ships and styles in STO without feeling like I'm holding back the group, or flying a shuttle offensively speaking.
Even Hilbert and other PvP players, anyone really will tell you. If your going to PvE use an escort it is so much faster why wouldn't you?
Any PvPer, I think including you will accept that the game is balanced around DPS. The more you have the better. Cruisers suck in such setup. There is no team play in the game to give the cruisers to use at least 1/3* of their potential as support ships, so cruiser suck in such setup.
For PvE cruisers suck in 100%, for PvP it is better but PvP is rather small and not quite important part of the game. And even in PvP cruisers are limited in their support role to one type of support: healing.
Klink battlecruisers at least have DHCs and ability to use them effectively. But Feds are screwed.
* 1/3 of support role because cruiser with their BOFF layout have the tools to do other types of support then healing: damage mitigation with Aceton or damage support with DEM. Problem is that no cruiser is able to use those tools effectively. Aceton has too limited arc for cruiser and DEM is not worth taking for beams.
So... cruisers suck.
If stacking Emergency power to Weapons 3 with Directed Energy Modulation 3 was nearly as effective as stacking CRF + AP:B for beams we wouldn't have this issue. If beams were not total garbage compared to DHCs we wouldn't have this issue. If cruisers had a built in energy drain resistance, then their would be no problem.
But no, instead all of the above is false. Tac boff abilities provide the highest amount of damage. DHCs have all the advantages for weapon choice right now, even DEM works better with them than it does beams. And beams even work better on an escort than a cruiser thanks to the fact of going from 7 to 8 beams not being much of a boon and letting half your guns going silent to bring a torp to bear while piloting a whale is not the brightest idea. Not to mention beams work better when you have an APB3 so their damage isn't complete garbage.
How long do you think it will be until nearly every ship you see in PvE is either an escort or one of these so called new destroyer classes? Or a lockbox style battlecruiser? If this game had a hardcore playerbase you would get blacklisted for groups if you didn't bring one of the above for everything aside from Hive, Starbase Blockade, and possibly No Win although I have little experience with that one.
I'd even put down good money many (not all) of those who thing the game is too grindy are not doing the grind efficiently with the proper ships.
So, energy siphon?
1.) Only works on one target at a time, so it's kind of useless in the massive encounters like mirror incursion or starbase defense.
2.) Requires large investments (max flow caps, max aux, two copies of ability) to be useful.
3.) Boss type enemies got buffed so that they can no longer be shut down completely even with a purpose-built drain boat.
4.) Doesn't kill anything. If you're running high aux to get the duration (better be), then all the drained energy is going to do for your damage output is bring your weapons up from "irrelevant" to "feeble".
And yes, I have first-hand ongoing experience with power draining. My Vo'quv is specialized in that. The difference between a Vo'quv and a typical science ship however, is that I have tremendous firepower launching out of my hangar bays so my carrier doesn't need to contribute much direct damage to be effective.
Polarized disruptor!
Yes, well, the AI cheats. The player version can't turn off the target's shields. This is, again, a single-target ability with no ability to cause damage and a very long cooldown.
No experience with PVP. So maybe it works great there. And I'll just refer you back to the fact that most people in this game don't play or care about PVP, so balancing mechanics to work there as the priority is a terrible idea.
Some thoughts added in RED.
I think you are wrong. Cruisers, if you take a good look at BOFF powers cruisers have access to (and only cruisers) then it is obvious, that cruisers were not ment to be ont trick (healer) pony they are.
They were, obviously, not supposed to be passive support only. Hell, 3/4 of their support powers are highly offensive: Aceton III is aggressive damage mitigation (debuff), DEM III is obviously aggressive support damage, EWP III is relatively aggressive CC (sort of) and ES III is passive support/buff.
Cruisers can use half of those support powers and only one can be seen as aggressive: EWP III. ES is passive and Aceton with DEM are not usable for cruisers. DEM is usable if you give them weapons that are not suited for them (cannons) and even then only two of Fed cruisers can are able to use those with some success. Others lack the maneuverability.
You can place the blame on BOFF powers (limited arc for flying cows) and weapons (beams) and you would be right. But by far this does not mean that cruisers are supposed to be defensive/passive support ships. 3/4 of their high level support BOFF skills are meant for aggression, not passivity or defence.
Just as a reference it took me longer to type this post than to get 4k dil with my KDF Tac Fleet Vor'Cha. Sad isn't it.